Name: PBS NewsHour full episode, Feb. 20, 2024
Uploaded: 2024-03-03T20:10:17.000Z
Duration: 56 min 46 s
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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Good evening. I'm William  Brangham. Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz are away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: WikiLeaks  founder Julian Assange makes a  

last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition  to the United States on spying charges.

Then: Taiwan's top diplomat in  Washington discusses the island's  

relations with the U.S., as both confront China.

ALEXANDER TAH-RAY YUI, Taiwanese Representative to  the United States: We trust that we will continue  

working closely with the U.S. administration,  as well as Congress, so that Taiwan can get,  

under circumstances, the  best defense capabilities.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And a look  at the presidential race,  

as President Biden breaks a fund-raising record,  

and Nikki Haley tries to gain ground on Donald  Trump ahead of the primary in her home state.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

President Biden says the United States will impose  major new sanctions on Russia after the death of  

opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Officials gave  no details today, but the president said the  

formal announcement will come on Friday. Navalny  reportedly died in an Arctic prison last week.

His mother appeared in a video  today outside the prison still  

seeking answers and access to his body and  pressing Russia's president for action.

LYUDMILA NAVALNAYA, Mother of Alexei  Navalny (through translator): Behind me  

is the IK-3 Polar Wolf penal colony, where  my son Alexei Navalny died on 16 February.

I am turning to you, Vladimir Putin. The solution  to the issue depends only on you. Let me finally  

see my son. I require that Alexei's body be  immediately given so that I can bury him humanely.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The Kremlin today  denied any involvement in Navalny's  

death or that he was poisoned with a nerve  agent. In turn, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya,  

urged European nations to reject the results  of Putin's expected reelection next month.

For his part, Putin insisted today that  Russia will not deploy nuclear weapons in  

space. He spoke as he met with his defense  minister and urged all nations to honor an  

international ban on deploying nuclear arms  in orbit. U.S. officials say Russia has a  

new anti-satellite capability, but they  have not said if it's nuclear-capable.

Also in Russia, a Moscow court refused  to release Wall Street Journal reporter  

Evan Gershkovich from jail. That's  pending his trial on espionage charges,  

which he denies. Russian authorities  also detained a dual Russian-U.S.  

citizen on treason charges. She's accused  of fund-raising to support Ukraine's army.

The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council  resolution today that called for an immediate  

humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. The vote was  13-1 on the measure, which was backed by Arab  

states. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield  said passing it would sabotage negotiations.

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, U.S. Ambassador to  the United Nations: Demanding an immediate,  

unconditional cease-fire without an agreement  requiring Hamas to release the hostages will not  

bring about a durable peace. Instead, it could  extend the fighting between Hamas and Israel.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In Northern Gaza, the  U.N.'s World Food Program suspended food and  

aid deliveries, saying drivers faced violence  from people swarming the trucks. Hamas called  

the decision a death sentence, and it comes amid  reports of people reduced to eating animal feed.  

A U.N. study found that one in six children under  2 years of age in Gaza, are acutely malnourished.

Back in this country, two men were  charged with murder in the Super  

Bowl parade shootings in Kansas City. A  crowd of fans ran for their lives when  

an argument turned into gunfire  last week. One person was killed,  

and 22 were injured. Two juveniles were charged  earlier with gun violations and resisting arrest.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined a  case on diversity in education. Parents  

and students argued that a special Northern  Virginia high school discriminated against  

Asian Americans in favor of other  minorities. A lower court upheld  

the admissions policy. The justices also  deciding against hearing a religion case  

on whether potential jurors may  be excluded over their beliefs.

A first-of-its-kind federal trial opened today  in South Carolina for a hate crime based on  

gender identity. The defendant is accused of  killing a Black transgender woman in 2019.  

Prosecutors say he'd been ridiculed  for having an affair with the victim.

In economic news, there could be a new team in  the credit card industry. Capital One Financial  

says it will buy Discover Financial Services  for $35 billion. If it wins federal approval,  

the merger would challenge the dominance of  Visa and Mastercard in the credit card industry.

And on Wall Street, tech stocks dropped,  

pulling the broader market lower. The Dow  Jones industrial average lost 64 points,  

to close at 38564. The Nasdaq fell 144 points,  or about 1 percent. And the S&P 500 was down 30.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": low demand for  commercial office space fuels economic fears;  

a domestic violence call in Minnesota that turned  deadly sheds light on a growing problem in the  

U.S.; a new exhibit chronicles the rich history  of independent Black cinema; plus much more.

A two-day hearing in a London courtroom  began today over the fate of Julian Assange,  

the founder of WikiLeaks. At stake  is whether he will be extradited  

to the United States on espionage charges.

His case has reopened debate over whether Assange  is a journalist and publisher or something more  

sinister, and many defending him say free speech  and an independent press is also at stake.

This will likely be Julian Assange's last chance  to avoid facing prosecutors in the United States.  

His two-day hearing got under way today at  London's Royal Courts of Justice. Assange's  

lawyers are battling to block extradition,  which they insist is politically motivated.

American prosecutors want the WikiLeaks  founder to stand trial on 17 charges of  

espionage and one charge for  computer misuse for releasing  

huge troves of classified U.S. military  and diplomatic documents back in 2010.

JULIAN ASSANGE, Founder, WikiLeaks: It is  clear that it will shape an understanding  

of what the past six years of war has been  like, and that the course of the war needs  

to change. The manner in which it  needs to change is not yet clear.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: They say the Australian  citizen conspired with U.S. army intelligence  

analyst Chelsea Manning to steal military files  and diplomatic cables. The Justice Department  

is also separately investigating whether  Assange has ties to the Russian government,  

especially after WikiLeaks published  internal e-mails from the Democratic  

Party that were stolen by the  Russians during the 2016 election.

Today, Assange's wife, Stella, compared  his case to that of Russian opposition  

leader Alexei Navalny, who died  in a Russian prison last week.

STELLA ASSANGE, Wife of Julian Assange: It's  an attack on all journalists all over the  

world. It's an attack on the truth. And it's an  attack on the publics right to know. Julian is  

a political prisoner, and his life is at risk.  What happened to Navalny can happen to Julian.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Assange's legal troubles also  include his arrest by British authorities in  

2010 after two women in Sweden accused him  of rape and sexual assault. Two years later,  

he jumped bail and sequestered himself  at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,  

where he stayed around the clock for seven years.

JULIAN ASSANGE: As WikiLeaks stands under threat,  

so does the freedom of expression  and the health of all our societies.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The tiny Ecuadorian  Mission eventually evicted him in 2019.  

And British police immediately arrested  him for his bail violation years before.

He's been held in a maximum security prison  in London ever since. Assange's supporters  

rallied outside the court today, demanding his  release, and hailing him as a whistle-blower  

who exposed U.S. military wrongdoings  in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SADIA KOKNI, Julian Assange Supporter:  Assange, for us and for me, he is a hero.  

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PBS NewsHour full episode, Feb. 20, 2024

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