on this edition for a sunday september 6th a new stimulus bill is expected by week's end in our signature segment the practice of gleaning to help feed those in need and the extraordinary week that harry belafonte hosted the tonight show next on pbs newshour weekend pbs newshour weekend is made possible by sue and edgar wachenheim iii the anderson family fund bernard and denise schwartz the cheryl and philip milstein family barbara hope zuckerberg charles rosenblum we try to live in the moment to not miss what's right in front of us at mutual of america we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today mutual of america financial group retirement services and investments for 25 years consumer cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like our us-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you to learn more visit consumercellular.tv support has been provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting a private corporation funded by the american people and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you thank you good evening and thank you for joining us treasury secretary steven mnuchin said the trump administration will try again to introduce a covet 19 stimulus bill when congress returns to work on tuesday mnuchin also said today that there is agreement with democratic leaders on a plan to fund the government through early december to avoid a shutdown the talks between the white house and house speaker nancy pelosi over a stimulus bill have stalled mnuchin and president trump favor more limited funding dubbed a skinny bill while democratic leaders are pushing for additional stimulus funding for state and local governments and for food and rental assistance the president i believe we should do more stimulus we have about seven and a half million jobs that we need to get back until we're back to where we were and we want to help small businesses we want to help businesses that are particularly impacted by this and we'll continue to work on proposed new legislation as congress returns the race for president will see the candidates from both parties out on the campaign trail in person starting tomorrow this morning democratic vice presidential nominee kamala harris said she would not trust a covet-19 vaccine endorsed only by the president who has said a vaccine could be ready by election day i would not trust donald trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the um the efficacy and the and the reliability of whatever he's talking about i will not take his word for it he wants us to inject bleach no i will not take his word summer is coming to its unofficial end but not racial justice demonstrations the police killing of george floyd on memorial day ignited protests that continue in many places around the country this labor day weekend in rochester new york calls for justice continued last night for the fourth day over the death of daniel prude who died in police custody in march new york state attorney general letitia james said yesterday she's convening a grand jury as part of a quote exhaustive investigation into the death of prude in wisconsin jacob blake is speaking out publicly a kenosha police officer shot blake seven times in the back two weeks ago leading to several days of demands for answers in action some of those demands which were violent every 24 hours is pain this number pain it hurts to breathe it hurts to sleep it hurts to move from side to side it hurts to eat please i'm telling you change our lives out there and in portland oregon police declared a protest overnight a riot and fired tear gas after activists reportedly threw rocks and fire bombs at police at one point a man's legs caught on fire police described the protesters as quote engaging in tumultuous and violent conduct and they arrested more than 50 people in hong kong today police arrested nearly 300 people at protests over the decision to delay local elections today was supposed to be election day for the hong kong legislature but chief executive carrie lamb postponed it for one year citing the pandemic opponents said she was afraid opposition lawmakers would make electoral gains mass protests erupted in this former british colony last year over a proposed extradition law but the coronavirus and a new national security law imposed by china have tamped down on street demonstrations new cases of the coronavirus continue to be reported around the world today with the u.s india and brazil still having the highest numbers as of this morning johns hopkins university reports close to 27 million coronavirus infections worldwide and more than 880 000 deaths from covet 19. in the united states the new york times tracking project shows an average of almost 41 000 new cases per day over the past week that's a seven percent decrease over the past two weeks and a significant drop since late july when the times database found well more than 60 000 new cases being reported every day health officials continue to warn that holiday weekend gatherings and the return of students to college campuses could mean new spikes in infections they are urging communities to keep social distancing mask wearing and hand washing protocols in place a federal judge has ordered the u.s commerce department to temporarily stop winding down its operations to complete the u.s census by the end of this month in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of cities counties and civil rights groups u.s district judge lucy coe put a hold on a plan to expedite the census count until a hearing can take place on september 17th the plaintiffs in this lawsuit which is one of several across the country they argue the sped up timeline would lead to an undercount of minority communities in a press release the census bureau said it and the commerce department are quote obligated to comply with the court's order and are taking immediate steps to do so californians are sweltering through a heat wave again today as firefighters battle multiple wildfires across the state beaches and campgrounds were full with people seeking relief from the heat military helicopters airlifted hundreds of people trapped by a wildfire at a california campground near shaver lake in the sierra national forest late yesterday and again today two people were severely injured and the fire quickly spread to more than 56 square miles officials have said nearly 12 500 firefighters are battling 22 major fires in the state just this weekend the heat wave is expected to continue through tomorrow and california's utility companies are asking residents once again to reduce energy use to help avoid rolling blackouts for more national and international news visit pbs.org newshour food insecurity in the united states skyrocketed when the covet 19 pandemic began almost six months ago it's left emergency food distributors stretched to provide enough to those in need to help fill this gap organizations around the country have doubled down on an age-old practice of getting excess crops from farms to families in need on the third friday of every month st mary's outreach in newburgh new york opens its doors after a quick covet symptom screen and mask check people wind their way around the outside of this gym following tape on the floor to try to remain six feet apart they find canned food and staples like rice but the highlight for many is the more than a dozen different types of fresh produce i'm so amazed that they have an abundance of vegetables like this look at the size of this thing yeah it's a great privilege to come here and get this here and i'm not ashamed of it because i'm going to go home and i'm going to eat very good marietta allen is the director of saint mary's outreach we have a community it's very very poor and i try to include fresh stuff every every month makes a big big difference and the families are very appreciative too so it's a good thing even before the pandemic this part of newberg a city 70 miles north of new york city was categorized as a food desert according to federal data meaning there's reduced access to fresh affordable fruits and vegetables but at this food bank much of this produce could just as easily be found at upscale farmers markets in wealthy enclaves of places like new york city in fact less than 48 hours earlier much of it was i know getting this produce from here to emergency food distributors is the job of a complex regional distribution network that gleans or takes excess food from farmers and gets it to the needy gleaning is a custom that dates back thousands of years even described in the book of ruth in the bible but it's become more challenging during the pandemic just as demand for emergency food is surging berkeley tie-dye kevin smith is the owner of sycamore farms and he brings produce to this new york city green market in union square twice a week it never closed during the covet 19 shutdown so this farmers market especially this year has been a great sense of community for myself the people that shop here and for product it's been really a saving grace for me and my family at the end of the day anything that's not sold is carefully reloaded onto his refrigerated truck and brought back to his 237-acre farm about 70 miles northwest of new york city early the next morning a team from cornell cooperative extension orange county is sifting through what's left i'll take some stuff and go into newburgh styles najec runs cornell extension's gleaning program we move close to 400 000 pounds of food fresh from the farm directly to soup kitchens and food pantries so that they don't have to store it every year and yeah we move food we move food as quickly as we need to to make sure that it is eaten well fresh gleaning sycamore's market truck means going through produce carefully to make sure only fruits and vegetables that are still good are taken in the middle of tomato season it's a time consuming process when gleaning you wind up getting a wide variety of quality this is amazing this this is what you want you want food that has been grown and cared for and just didn't find a market a home from the market we'll give it a good home all told nearly six thousand pounds of produce including tomatoes corn peppers beans and eggplants are taken from sycamore's truck and loaded onto cornell extension's refrigerator truck ready to be taken to distribution points across the region this program which is funded by state and local grants as well as donations is one of nearly 200 gleaning programs in north america according to the association of gleaning organizations the growth of gleaning programs like cornell extensions has partly been driven by adding financial incentives for farmers since 2018 new york state farms can receive a tax credit of up to five thousand dollars that's in addition to getting a break on their federal taxes for donating crops to nonprofits this could be the difference between whether or not you know they have a big bill to pay or a small bill to pay at the end of the year in addition to the tax incentives kevin smith says having a place to donate actually helps him maintain the value of his produce at the green market we used to do it about three o'clock four o'clock in the afternoon we started having discount sales we created a culture of late in the day shoppers who were looking only for deals so when i started working with stiles i no longer felt the pressure of taking home this extra produce as a burden i would much rather donate than discount my rates here where i have an established market for the last decade sycamore has donated on average about 65 000 pounds of produce each year and it's not alone as the pandemic increases food insecurity cornell extension's gleaning program has been busier than ever everybody is growing fresh produce for us to donate it's been i would say we've easily doubled the amount of food that we're moving in a weekly basis but even as donations increase the pandemic adds new challenges to help styles and her team operate in other years excess crops like these tomatoes which were passed over by pickers for not being perfect might have been collected by volunteers for a donation but not this year i would like to get volunteers into the field however we do have to take into consideration social distancing masks this year covid has kind of slowed us down in that in that matter back in newburgh about 20 miles from sycamore farm gleamed tomatoes corn beans eggplant nectarines and peaches are delivered to saint mary's outreach the next morning volunteers put the produce into grabable plastic bags before they are distributed to those in need this food pantry has been here for almost a decade but this will be its last time operating in this 3 500 square foot gym because of covet 19 a head start program for kids needs the space for social distancing with increased demand for emergency food marietta allen says she's looking for a new space i'm hoping we can find something but wherever we are we give away as much as we can in 1968 america was embroiled in protests over civil rights of the vietnam war in that tumultuous time tonight show host johnny carson turned over his hosting duties for an entire week to actor and activist harry belafonte belafonte's guests mostly african-american included martin luther king jr lena horn and bobby kennedy it was a week though almost lost in history but now revisited in a documentary called the sit-in airing thursday on nbc's streaming platform peacock i recently spoke with the sit-ins director yoruba richard and producer john walsh thank you so much for talking to us about this documentary i'm just curious how did this all come to pass in 1968 with harry belafonte actually sitting in for johnny carson well from what we know michael he johnny carson really cared about these issues uh we don't think of him as a political person but he had a lot of concern about race relations he was a little bit ahead of his time partly because he was in the entertainment business uh you know he was close to harry uh and he wanted to turn the show over so that harry could showcase his view of the world for a full week uh and he got back up from from nbc executives also which was pretty amazing as you said given the time i also think harry was such a huge star uh at that time and it's it's we sometimes don't remember uh you know he was multi-platform tv film uh movies and i think that johnny thought he was the guy literally he was the guy who could do it who could speak to a national audience um about these these issues and be entertaining because of what harry was already doing i mean some of the film goes into what harry was doing in the 1950s and and on stage with uh diverse uh cast members and so forth so i i guess to a certain extent that made it quote more acceptable to uh uh america's audience yeah i mean i think harry was a huge super a superstar for everyone black white uh you know we say in the film it's pretty amazing for him to be appealing to white audiences during these times of segregation there are only a few very few who did that i think of sammy davis jr and and harry i would imagine that the network executives still though were nervous about the content of what he was going to talk about because after all belafonte was not a comedian part of his negotiation he was very very uh he's very humble in the in in our in our documentary as well he says i wasn't really i didn't think i was ready to take johnny carson's chair and i don't tell jokes and you know i'm just not that guy uh so he also negotiated that he would sing a song each night instead of doing a stand-up kind of monologue and that was the accommodation they made with his type of stardom it was astounding to see uh the caliber of people who were on this show just the two that were recorded as far as we can tell and it was astounding i mean you had uh dr king sitting next to paul newman sitting next to leon bid sitting next to nipsey russell i mean it's just it's amazing to see you never see it anywhere else i think it shows his uh reach right his reach into the political world and into the entertainment world you know it's one of those people it's like you know the one for the ages where people are want to be around him people uh his intelligence his his talent um his commitment his uh his um loyalty is i think is what got all those people together to have that kind of lineup uh that week when you started on this on this journey with this documentary i'm just curious for both of you what astounded you about about this week of hosting the johnny carson tonight show for harry belafonte what is what astounded you the diversity of his guests the quality of his guests the way that he uh the way that he handled himself as an interviewer which is you know it's not it's not that easy you know it can it could if it looks easy you're doing a good job because it's really not easy uh and so he stepped into that role so seamlessly and also brought both humor and and and commitment so those were those were some of the main things yeah i mean the fact that uh i didn't know about it i mean when joan and the producers approached approached me about directing the film i was immediately interested because i didn't know about it but also the fact that it wasn't until many years later until arsenio hall that we have not had another host um i mean harry was host for just that week he was the first african-american host of that week and then you know a long dry period until we had another african-american host of uh of late night and and we still have a problem there around around diversity in late night so that's also astounding right i want to play a clip and the clip has to do with harry belafonte going back to the tonight show within a month or so of of him hosting the show did you have a ball with it i caught you a couple of nights look like you're having a great time i had a marvelous time the grooviest time in the world here the week that i spent here we ended with ratings that were larger than the ones we opened with and we opened with the largest numbers in the history of the show and he also talks about i think the the documentary shows the list of guests that he had on and phenomenal and then he talks about thank you for the sit-in which is just i mean unless you know history there's so many people who who may not catch that i mean this was harry belafonte then now whenever awfully clever entertainment very very clever i mean we we found out about that that he called it the sit-in uh semi-late in the process someone reached out to me who happened to be uh johnny carson's secretary up in that time period uh and she was so excited that you know that the week was being written about and she sent me a copy he he took out a full-page ad and variety uh thanking not only all of his guests uh but also the staffers um on the tonight show who who helped but at the top he says you know thanks to all of you who join me at this sit-in you know and a sit-in is not a neutral term and at that point you know the civil rights movement the modern civil rights movement in some ways it started with well rosa parks sitting in but also the students sitting in it at lunch counters you know uh college students sitting in around the vietnam war so it wasn't just a you know like a funny throw off line it just show it showed that he saw what he did in a in a friendly way as a as a political act not just a you know whoa we had a great week and we got great ratings yeah it's a brilliant uh uh move to call to call it a sit-in uh which of course is our title of our film um and uh you know not that we were the brilliant ones harry was a brilliant one to do it and to bring that kind of politics again to a mainstream in variety in uh on the tonight show um you know and that's sort of the history you know so much of his of his work that he was doing bringing those uh politics for some radical into the mainstream it's a it's a terrific film i hope a lot of people get a chance to see it it's called the sit-in just as harry belafonte penned it way back in 1968 and we're talking to the director you reuben and we're talking to the producer of course joan walsh thank you very much for joining us thank you very much for having us finally tonight it's over before the finals for novak djokovic the number one men's tennis player and number one seed in the u.s open djokovic was disqualified from the tournament this afternoon after inadvertently striking a lines woman with the ball he hid in frustration after losing the first set djokovic pulled the ball from his pocket and smacked it with his racket toward the back of the court it hit the lines woman in the throat she fell to the ground but was able to walk away shortly thereafter after discussion the referee defaulted djokovic making the winner 20th seed pablo correna busta from spain who now advances to the quarterfinals that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend for the latest news updates visit pbs.org newshour i'm michael hill thanks for watching stay healthy and have a good night so pbs newshour weekend is made possible by sue and edgar wachenheim iii the anderson family fund bernard and denise schwartz the cheryl and philip milstein family barbara hope zuckerberg charles rosenbloom we try to live in the moment to not miss what's right in front of us at mutual of america we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today mutual of america financial group retirement services and investments additional support has been provided by consumer cellular and by and by the corporation for public broadcasting a private corporation funded by the american people and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you thank you