GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Mass firings begin at government health agencies, including people in key leadership positions.

GEOFF BENNETT: As the window narrows to find survivors of the Myanmar quake, aid groups warn of the next threat, the overwhelming need for food, water and health care.

AMNA NAWAZ: And how a decades old effort to provide cheap rice to Haiti has made it difficult for the nation to produce its own.

THOMAS DEVILLE, World Food Program: We can't ignore the more than five million Haitian people, so half of the country, that is facing high levels of food insecurity.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."

The Trump administration began terminating thousands of staff and purging some of the top leaders today at the Department of Health and Human Services.

That included several key agencies, including the FDA, the CDC and the National Institutes of Health.

GEOFF BENNETT: Hundreds of HHS employees waited in line this morning, some for as long as an hour, to get into the building and find out if they still had a job.

Between layoffs and buyouts, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he plans to fire about 20,000 workers.

Matthew Herper is following all of this for STAT News and joins us now.

So, Matt, fill in the picture about the scope of what's happening here, the range of staffers who are being cut.

MATTHEW HERPER, STAT News: Oh, it's very, very broad.

I mean, in the CDC, we're talking tobacco control, injury prevention, workplace safety, birth defects, reproductive health, basically everything that is not infectious disease.

And at the FDA, the cuts are, I think, a lot deeper than a lot of people expected.

People who review new medical products, the people who actually look at a new drug or device, mostly seem to have been safe, but a lot of expertise.

Late last week before the layoffs, the top vaccine official, also in charge of gene therapy and the blood supply was removed.

Today, a director of the Office of New Drugs and the head of the Tobacco Center were removed.

The former -- several former FDA commissioners expressed concern, including Scott Gottlieb, who was FDA commissioner under the Trump administration, worrying about a return to delays in drug approvals.

And Robert Califf saying that the FDA as we know it is finished with most of the leaders, with institutional knowledge and deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, the HHS secretary said in a statement that the firings were intended to reduce what he called bureaucratic sprawl.

HHS is among the largest federal agencies in terms of spending, given the kind of work that it does.

Prior to this, had bloat or bureaucratic inefficiencies been an issue that people were focused on?

MATTHEW HERPER: Oh, well, it's certainly a problem and something that anyone who's worked in the agency will tell you that there is a lot of bloat and efficiency and that it can be maddening with all the different fiefdoms in such a large and sometimes bureaucratic agency.

But, I mean, some of the same people, I mean, another former FDA commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, said it was horrifying, thoughtless and very shortsighted, but also pointed out that she had seen similar problems in terms of bloat.

I think a big question here is going to be whether these changes actually do increase efficiency or whether there were some back office or procedural functions that were important to the smooth running of the agency that may be hard to replace.

GEOFF BENNETT: To what extent do these cuts reflect RFK Jr.s' desire to change the government's approach to public health?

MATTHEW HERPER: Well, I think they certainly reflect that.

I mean, the CDC is being refocused very much on infectious disease.

A lot of -- already before this, through the cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency, a lot of those cuts were -- we did see cuts focused on things, including vaccines.

So I think we are starting to see a picture emerging, particularly at the FDA, which people had kind of thought might be insulated from Secretary Kennedy's ideas, that a lot of those are in play, and also a lot of the idea is that this whole agency is not efficient, that it's really beholden to industry, and changes in focus.

I think what Secretary Kennedy means when he talks about food safety, where he's talking about additives, and whereas the FDA is often focused on things like whether you're going to catch diseases from your food, right.

GEOFF BENNETT: Matthew Herper, senior writer with STAT News, thanks for being with us.

MATTHEW HERPER: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, President Trump is set to reveal a new set of tariffs tomorrow, which has the American public and U.S. trading partners anxiously waiting to see which countries and which industries will be taxed the hardest.

President Trump is set to begin the biggest gamble of his second term so far, a sweeping round of reciprocal tariffs on imports, a move he's branding as liberation day.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I always say tariffs is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.

GEOFF BENNETT: Tariffs have long been central to the president's economic vision.

Now, by taxing imports from some of the country's biggest trading partners, he's hoping Americans will favor American-made goods to revitalize U.S. manufacturing.

DONALD TRUMP: The automakers are going to make a lot of money, the American automakers.

GEOFF BENNETT: Despite economists' warnings about the president's tariff plan triggering higher prices, a possible recession and a global trade war, the White House press secretary today reiterated Mr. Trump's confidence.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, White House Press Secretary: They're not going to be wrong.

It is going to work.

And the president has a brilliant team of advisers who have been studying these issues for decades.

And we are focused on restoring the golden age of America.

GEOFF BENNETT: A similar message from House Republicans.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): You have to trust the president's instincts on the economy.

It may be rocky in the beginning, but I think that this will make sense for Americans and it will help all Americans.

GEOFF BENNETT: But across the aisle, Democrats in both chambers are unconvinced, accusing the Trump administration of playing fast and loose with Americans' finances.

REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): Hardworking Americans just want a little breathing room and some stability in their busy lives.

But what they have received from Donald Trump is chaos, confusion and corruption.

GEOFF BENNETT: Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia even introduced a resolution to end the emergency tariffs on Canada that the president signed earlier this year, arguing tariffs on Canada have a damaging ripple effect through the U.S. economy.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): We need to stand strong against a tax increase, the largest tax increase in American history on our consumers.

We need to stand strong for a strong relationship with a good ally, Canada.

And that's why I'm really, really excited we have this vote coming up.

GEOFF BENNETT: Kaine's effort has picked up support from some GOP lawmakers, like Maine Senator Susan Collins, who worries her constituents will bear the burden of higher prices.

Meantime, America's allies are preparing for the worst.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen today said the E.U.

is ready to act.

URSULA VON DER LEYEN, President, European Commission: We do not necessarily want to retaliate, but if it is necessary, we have a strong plan to retaliate and we will use it.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the day's other headlines: Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed federal prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the accused shooter of UnitedHealthcare's CEO.

That is in line with President Trump's day one executive order compelling DOJ to seek capital punishment whenever possible.

Mangione faces both state and federal murder charges.

His state trial is expected to go first and would carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.

President Trump's first term saw more federal executions than under any president in modern history.

His predecessor, Joe Biden, prohibited federal executions.

In Lithuania, the fourth and final U.S. Army soldier who went missing in Lithuania last week along with three others has been found dead.

Their armored vehicles submerged in a swamp during a training exercise near the Belarus border, spurring a difficult weeklong recovery operation.

The U.S. army is notifying next of kin and investigating what caused the incident jointly with Lithuanian authorities.

In the Middle East, Israel struck the Lebanese capital of Beirut today for the second time since a cease-fire with Hezbollah took effect last November.

It hit a building in the city's southern suburbs, killing four people.

Israel says its target was a Hezbollah member who was helping to plan an attack against Israeli civilians.

Residents of the area say the strike came without warning.

MOHAMMAD NASSERDDINE, Beirut Resident (through translator): We were sleeping.

We hear a sound and a powerful strike hit.

My daughters asked me what was going on.

I told them, "Don't be afraid."

You can't tell a child these are strikes.

They have lived through them.

We asked around what had happened.

They said the strike hit our neighbor next to us.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the meantime, in Gaza, as Israel cut off all imports to Gaza in recent weeks, today, a U.N. food agency says that has led to the closure of all of its bakeries in the territory.

The World Food Program says hundreds of thousands of Palestinians relied on their bread and warned of dire food insecurity.

Severe storms brought torrential rain and gale-force winds to several Greek islands.

Roads resembled rivers in Mykonos and Crete, while floods swept cars into the sea on the island of Paros.

Schools were closed and all traffic has been banned, except for emergency vehicles.

Meantime, in Iceland, a volcano began erupting in the country's Southwest this morning.

It happened just hours after the remaining residents in the nearby village of Grindavik were successfully evacuated.

The volcano became active again in 2023, after lying dormant for 800 years.

Back here at home on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to use a rare parliamentary maneuver to squash a proposal for proxy voting by two new mothers in Congress.

The move failed.

Nine Republicans joined all House Democrats to sink Johnson's effort.

The bipartisan proxy voting plan by Florida Republican Anna Paulina Luna and Colorado Democrat Brittany Pettersen means new parents in Congress wouldn't need to vote in person.

Pettersen, with her newborn in her arms, spoke on the House floor today.

REP. BRITTANY PETTERSEN (D-CO): It is unfathomable that, in 2025, we have not modernized Congress to address these very unique challenges that members face, these life events.

AMNA NAWAZ: Speaker Johnson is very much against proxy voting, calling it unconstitutional.

President Trump has pushed for more people to return to in-person work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To the other chamber now, Senator Cory Booker has been speaking on the Senate floor in a marathon speech that's lasted all night and continues to this hour.

The New Jersey Democrat said he's responding to the -- quote -- "grave and urgent threat" the Trump administration poses.

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans' safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy.

These are not normal times in America.

AMNA NAWAZ: It's not a filibuster.

It's a floor speech.

And Booker approaches the record of 24 hours for that kind of speech, held for nearly 70 years by Strom Thurmond, who was arguing against the Civil Rights Act.

Booker has yielded questions from fellow Democrats, but he's stayed standing the entire time to comply with Senate rules.

On Wall Street today, stocks finished mixed ahead of President Trump's anticipated tariff action tomorrow.

The Dow Jones industrial average barely budged, while the Nasdaq posted a gain of more than 150 points, or nearly 1 percent.

The S&P 500 also notched a slight increase on the day.

And while we're on the topic of money, the United States has added a few household names to "Forbes" magazine's annual billionaire list.

Music legend Bruce Springsteen made the cut at $1.2 billion.

Movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger and comedian Jerry Seinfeld each tallied $1.1 billion; 103 Americans became new billionaires this year, and that is the most of any country on the list.

It should be noted too that just 15 percent of this year's class are women.

Still to come on the "News Hour": the nominee to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff goes before Congress; the impact of private equity's expansion into health care; the Trump administration slashes an agency that supports libraries and museums; plus much more.

GEOFF BENNETT: Recovery efforts from the earthquake last week in Myanmar are slow-moving.

The country is grappling with a natural disaster, plus an ongoing humanitarian crisis amid a civil war that started four years ago.

AMNA NAWAZ: The death toll has now risen past 2,700, with more than 4,500 people injured and at least 440 still missing.

Stephanie Sy has this report.

STEPHANIE SY: As sirens wailed, rescue workers in Mandalay stood still, a one-minute pause to honor the thousands of victims of Friday's earthquake, and then back to work.Teams are still sifting through the rubble for survivors.

Officials said a 63-year-old woman was found alive today in a collapsed building in Naypyidaw.

She'd been trapped for almost four days.

But hopes for finding more survivors dim with each hour, said the head of Myanmar's military.

SENIOR GEN. MIN AUNG HLAING, Myanmar Military Leader (through translator): Among the missing, most are assumed to be dead.

There is a narrow chance for them to remain alive, as it has been over 72 hours.

STEPHANIE SY: The army took control of the country in a 2021 coup, sparking a civil war and humanitarian crisis.

MELISSA HEIN, Head of Communications, World Food Program Myanmar: Before the earthquake, people had been dealing with four years of conflict in Myanmar.

STEPHANIE SY: Melissa Hein works for the World Food Program in the Southeast Asian nation.

MELISSA HEIN: So there were some 20 million people already needing humanitarian assistance and 3.5 million people displaced.

And that was before Friday.

STEPHANIE SY: The epicenter of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake was near Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city.

The impact area is widespread, including rural areas with scarce communication infrastructure.

The cities are overwhelmed.

Patients wait to be seen in overcrowded hospitals and makeshift wars have been set up outside.

International organizations are surging resources into the country.

But the supply of basic necessities like food and water is scarce, handed out in single portions.

Recent cuts to American aid may leave a gap, says Hein.

MELISSA HEIN: I think about 40 percent of humanitarian assistance for Myanmar was thanks to the U.S. government.

STEPHANIE SY: Under the Trump administration, which has gutted USAID, the umbrella organization for American aid abroad, the U.S. response to the disaster has been limited.

Yesterday, the State Department said it was sending a handful of humanitarian workers and $2 million.

MELISSA HEIN: We expect that this earthquake response will cost around $20 million at least.

STEPHANIE SY: Other countries have stepped in to fill the vacuum.

Russia sent rescue teams and established a mobile hospital.

SERGEI VORONTSOV, Leader, Russian Rescue Team (through translator): Today, we launched operations.

We have the first patients already.

STEPHANIE SY: And China, which shares a border with Myanmar, was the first to send rescue teams, trumpeting its efforts on state TV.

This interview was first broadcast by China News Service.

WOMAN (through translator): I wish all the rescue team members a safe and healthy life, and I appreciate you all.

STEPHANIE SY: At least 10,000 buildings have collapsed.

Residents are encamped along the streets, in fear of aftershocks that continue to convulse their already fragile nation.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump's pick to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president's most senior military adviser, told senators during his confirmation hearing today that he would give the president candid guidance and stay out of politics.

GEOFF BENNETT: But he also said he was willing to push back if ever asked to do something unconstitutional.

And he signaled concern about recent messages sent by senior national security leaders over an unclassified messaging app.

Here's Nick Schifrin.

MAN: Committee will come to order.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee President Trump's chairman of the Joint Chiefs nominee promised to keep himself and the military apolitical.

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Are you willing to get fired from this job for doing the right thing and following the Constitution?

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET.

), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Nominee: I am.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But, immediately, retired Lieutenant General Dan Caine, nicknamed Razin', was dragged into a partisan fight.

Democratic senators raised messages sent by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on the unclassified app Signal the two weeks ago revealed the exact timing in weapon systems before U.S. strikes on Yemen.

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET): We should always preserve the element of surprise.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): Is discussing the kinds of matters that were discussed on Signal preserving the element of surprise?

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET): Given the fact that the chairman and ranking member have asked for an investigation, I don't want to comment on the particulars.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: I would say that, if you're truly speaking truth to power, that the answer would obviously be, no, it does not preserve the element of surprise.

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): If you see classified information or war plans information or tactical information an unclassified chain, what would you do to stop the conversation?

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET): Well, I think I would weigh in and stop it if I was a part of it, but in this case I wasn't.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Caine, like his father, was a decorated fighter pilot, whose last position was the senior military liaison to the CIA.

He spent much of his career in special operations forces, including in the counter-ISIS campaign in Iraq, where in 2018 he briefed President Trump, as the president recounted last year.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: So I walked down and this is where I met general Razin' Caine.

And what's your name?

General, what's your name?

And he gave me his name.

What's your name?

Sir.

Yes, sir.

And I love you, sir.

I think you're great, sir.

I will kill for you, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Then he puts on a "Make America Great Again" hat.

You're not allowed to do that, but they did it.

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): General Caine, did you wear a MAGA hat in front of the president?

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET): No, sir.

SEN. ROGER WICKER: Did you wear a MAGA hat at any time?

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET): No, sir.

I think - - I went back and listened to those tapes, and I think the president was actually talking about somebody else, and I have never worn any political merchandise or said anything to that effect.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: If you did wear a MAGA hat, would that constitute partisan political activity by a uniformed officer?

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET): I think it probably would, yes, senator.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Caine's two predecessors have both run a fowl of President Trump.

Air Force General C.Q.

Brown, chosen by President Biden, was fired.

And General Mark Milley, chosen by President Trump, but later deeply critical of him, now faces post-retirement investigations and his portraits at the Pentagon have been removed.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: General Brown's dismissal reveals, once again, President Trump's intention to install yes-men and women with fealty to him and not to the Constitution or the American people.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But Republican senators praised Caine's experience, which does not include commands of a military service or regional headquarters.

That will require Caine to receive presidential exemptions.

SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): While I agree that the dismissal of your predecessor was unfortunate, it's behind us.

And I think -- I cannot think of a better person to replace General Brown than you.

SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): We are in very challenging times.

We all recognize this.

We need a change.

You are that change.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And even some Democrats said at the end of the day, they wanted Caine to give the president his best military advice.

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): Will you push to be in that room?

LT. GEN. DAN CAINE (RET): Yes, ma'am.

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: Good.

We want you there.

NICK SCHIFRIN: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Nick Schifrin.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's a small federal agency few have heard of, but with a large impact across the country.

That's the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, yesterday, the Trump administration placed roughly 80 percent of its staff on administrative leave.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown has this report for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: Libraries are for checking out books, of course, but these days they serve a variety of other functions as well, providing residents with access to computers and the Internet, refuge during extreme weather, a place to vote, and a variety of classes, including language and fitness.

For their part, major museums with blockbuster exhibitions may get the most attention, but, around the country, museums come in all sizes and themes, many focused on aspects of local life.

The main source of federal funding for libraries and museums, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS, established in 1996.

Its 2024 budget of over $290 million was larger than two other better-known culturally-focused agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities.

But a recent executive order by President Trump named the IMLS as one of seven small federal agencies to be -- quote -- "eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law."

In a statement provided to the "News Hour," an administration official said yesterday's action is "part of a mandate to reduce bureaucracy and is a necessary step to fulfill that order and ensure hard-earned tax dollars are not diverted to discriminatory DEI initiatives or divisive anti-American programming in our cultural institutions."

And for a response to all this, I'm joined by Cindy Hohl.

She's a Kansas City librarian and current president of the American Library Association.

So thanks for joining us.

So this is an agency few of us know about, but important to you and your members.

How important?

What kind of role does it play?

CINDY HOHL, President, American Library Association: Absolutely.

The Institute for Museum and Library Services is a federal agency that was created by Congress to improve and support the nation's public libraries and museums.

And so this funding has been critical to especially small and rural libraries all across the country.

We have seen IMLS monies going towards research and policymaking and grants.

And this funding has been critical to Americans.

JEFFREY BROWN: In the statement we received from the administration about yesterday's action, it referred to DEI or anti-American programming.

Do you know what that might be referring to?

What's your response to that?

CINDY HOHL: Well, libraries are here to connect all people to information and ideas.

We believe that all Americans should have equal rights to access accurate information from credible sources.

And so it's so important that Americans continue to be able to have access to programs that enrich their lives, educational programs.

And, of course, if we're talking about libraries, it's going to be literacy-based.

And so the focus of programming in any public sector is to always be able to provide information to people that is credible and trusted.

JEFFREY BROWN: I understand it's different with different libraries in different states, but is it possible to say how much of the funding would be impacted by the loss of this agency?

CINDY HOHL: It's so important that everyone has access to IMLS funding.

So, the current IMLS funding is funneled down through the state library agencies.

And these state library agencies provide funding allocated across their state for libraries to be able to offer programs such as summer learning and reading.

And that's something that has been so important to Americans.

JEFFREY BROWN: One argument you could imagine against the IMLS right now, there has to be budget cuts.

This agency's only been around since 1996.

Why not go to a time before that?

What's the need for the agency now?

What would be your response to that?

CINDY HOHL: We have never needed information accessible and accurate in a more greater time period.

When you look at libraries providing essential services to the public, they should be open, and everyone should have unfettered access to those library spaces, and museums as well.

When we look at the history of this country, it's important that Americans are able to read about the history of the people who help founded this nation and those who continue to work in these public spaces in present day.

When we look to the strength of libraries, it's always important that we look at all of the different ways that libraries provide services to people.

There are many people who cannot afford Internet access in their homes.

And they rely upon their local public library to be able to access Internet services, so that they can apply for jobs and benefits, so that they can even have access to telehealth appointments with their health care provider.

When you look at all of the things that libraries offer, we always need more service, and we need to invest in our communities, so that everyone has access to information.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, very briefly, how much are you able to push back with -- along with the museums to fight this?

Do you anticipate that this agency will soon be gone?

CINDY HOHL: We encourage every American to reach out to the representatives and to let them know how important libraries are in their community.

With 125,000 libraries in this country, we have many opportunities here to help our representatives know that Americans love their libraries and that we expect to have access to information.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Cindy Hohl is the president of the American Library Association.

Thank you very much.

CINDY HOHL: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Steward Health Care was at one point the largest private hospital system in the country.

When the private equity-backed network filed for bankruptcy last year, it devastated providers and patients.

GEOFF BENNETT: In Massachusetts, five of the eight Steward-owned hospitals were salvaged by the state, but two were shuttered.

Economics correspondent Paul Solman went to see what and how it happened.

PAUL SOLMAN: At first, hope.

AUDRA SPRAGUE, Former Nurse at Nashoba Valley Medical Center: We thought when they came in, great, we're going to have a bigger company.

They're going to put money into it.

PAUL SOLMAN: Money from a rich and supposedly savvy private equity firm, Cerberus, and the new hospital network, Steward Health Care, would be run by a noted heart surgeon, Ralph de la Torre, for struggling hospitals, an injection of cash, plus medically-minded leadership.

A good match, right?

ELAINE GRAVES, Former Nurse at Carney Hospital: It was just run so poorly and so mismanaged.

PAUL SOLMAN: Elaine Graves was a nurse at Carney hospital in Boston's relatively poor Dorchester for nearly 50 years before its being shuttered last summer, because, says Graves, after Cerberus bought the hospital in 2010: ELAINE GRAVES: Things were being broken, elevators.

They weren't working.

We're down to one elevator.

PAUL SOLMAN: Audra Sprague was a nurse at another Cerberus Steward hospital.

AUDRA SPRAGUE, Former Nurse at Nashoba Valley Medical Center: Over the years, it was one cut after the other and staffing cut.

We were on credit holds because we weren't paying our bills.

PAUL SOLMAN: The M.O.

of private equity, leverage buyouts, the buyer, in this case, Cerberus Steward, goes to a lender for a many-million-dollar loan, gets the money, that's the leverage, which just means debt, which it then uses to buy properties like a hospital.

The property then has to pay off the debt.

One way to do that, cut costs, ignore bills.

ELAINE GRAVES: People will come in for surgery.

They couldn't get the equipment.

So they had to send them home.

Sorry.

It happened all the time.

They owed so much money to creditors for equipment That they wouldn't give them anymore.

PAUL SOLMAN: We heard it time and again, unpaid bills, cuts in resources.

And yet a Boston Globe investigation found that CEO de la Torre traveled by private jet and managed to buy a $40 million yacht.

Steward's bankruptcy made national headlines.

Private equity Cerberus which sold Steward for an $800 million profit, was blamed.

Cerberus wouldn't go on the record to us, but provided additional background last fall, claiming complaints and lawsuits -- quote -- "appear to be overwhelmingly related to the post-Cerberus ownership period, and portray a stark contrast to Cerberus' ownership period, during which Steward was delivering high-quality care to millions of patients and employing thousands of hardworking professionals."

But nurse Elaine Graves, who does seem like a hardworking professional, began to notice cuts soon after the buyout, years before the private jet.

And then?

ELAINE GRAVES: They just kept chopping and chopping, and until there was nothing left.

PAUL SOLMAN: Does she blame private equity ownership?

ELAINE GRAVES: Yes, because that's the one that took everything away from these patients and from the community.

PAUL SOLMAN: So where do patients go since the hospital closure in Dorchester?

ELAINE GRAVES: They're going into the Boston hospitals and overwhelming those hospital emergency loans.

Infants are waiting out in the parking lot for an hour, hour-and-a-half just to get into the hospital.

PAUL SOLMAN: No surprise, as, 40 miles northwest of Boston, in Ayer, same story.

Nashoba Valley Medical Center, also part of the takeover, also shut its doors.

ROBERT PONTBRIAND, Ayer Town Manager, Massachusetts: We have had a hospital in Ayer for over 120 years, in the current site for 60 years.

PAUL SOLMAN: Town manager Robert Pontbriand.

ROBERT PONTBRIAND: We lost the health care not only for Ayer, but for the Nashoba Valley region; 600 jobs are gone, and we're still feeling the pain.

The impact to the emergency management system has put it into a crisis threshold.

PAUL SOLMAN: That would be the town fire department.

JEREMY JANUSKIEWICZ, Ayer Fire Department: Most of our calls are EMS.

The vast majority of time we spend on a day is prepping for EMS.

PAUL SOLMAN: How long for an emergency when Nashoba was open, call to delivery at the hospital?

JEREMY JANUSKIEWICZ: We could do that all in about 30, 30 to 40 minutes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now?

JEREMY JANUSKIEWICZ: Anywhere from an hour to two, depending on where we're going.

PAUL SOLMAN: And when the ambulance does get to nearby hospitals, they're now swamped.

AUDRA SPRAGUE: It's been chaos here.

PAUL SOLMAN: Nashoba nurse Audra Sprague.

AUDRA SPRAGUE: There's another hospital that's a community hospital as well about 15 miles from where Nashoba was, but it's already overwhelmed.

And they have seen a 20 percent increase in their emergency room visits since we closed.

PAUL SOLMAN: And it's not just a loss of the E.R.

CHRIS MARTIN, Professional Tree Trimmer: Ended up getting pulled up into the air.

PAUL SOLMAN: Professional tree trimmer Chris Martin.

CHRIS MARTIN: And then when I let go, the limb came down, crushed my ankle and broke my leg, and then fell sideways, breaking two ribs on this side, all my ribs on this side, punctured the lung, gave me a brain bleed, destroyed my ear, fixed my ankle with pins.

And then trying to get into rehab because Nashobah closed, and it's taken me nine weeks just to get into a slot, because they're also inundated with all the people coming from Nashobah.

PAUL SOLMAN: And while he had to wait, he got worse.

CHRIS MARTIN: I'm getting more and more headaches and that's why I ended up going to the emergency room last week because my headaches.

They usually only lasted about an hour, and they have been lasting longer and longer and longer.

We had to drive all the way out to Worcester because the hospital's closed.

So we got there in the afternoon, 2:30, 3:00, and then we didn't get home until 2:30... ALLIE MARTIN, Wife of Chris Martin: One-thirty.

CHRIS MARTIN: ... 1:30 in the morning.

PAUL SOLMAN: And that's just for neurology, says his wife, Allie, who was a receptionist at Nashobah.

ALLIE MARTIN: If you have one injury, you get discharged, you have one doctor you're following up with.

Well, he's got seven different doctors he's following up with.

PAUL SOLMAN: Scattered all across the region.

ALLIE MARTIN: All of his follow-up, we probably could have done at Nashobah.

So the chaos of trying to do everything at a hospital where our primary care isn't affiliated is one difficulty, and spending nine hours at an E.R.

just to get a CAT scan to make sure his head bleed didn't start again or there was something acute that was happening.

It just shouldn't take that long.

PAUL SOLMAN: Meanwhile, a sudden call to deliver another man who fell from a tree to a medevac helicopter to get him to the nearest hospital quickly.

But the copter was grounded.

A seven-minute ride became a 45-minute ordeal.

So is what happened in Ayer and Dorchester a one-off, one company with an unscrupulous CEO, or is it not that unusual when private equity gets into health care?

Stay tuned for our next report.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman in Dorchester and Ayer, Massachusetts.

AMNA NAWAZ: The Trump administration said yesterday it's reviewing about $9 billion in federal grants to Harvard, citing the school's response to antisemitism.

And, today, Princeton said several dozen of its federal grants had been halted.

They are just the latest moves targeting colleges.

Last week, Columbia agreed to policy changes after the administration pulled $400 million in federal funding.

Partly in response, Yale University philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced he's leaving not only his school, but the country, to teach at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Stanley said he's making the move so he can -- quote -- "raise his kids in a country that's not tilting towards a fascist dictatorship."

For more on his decision, Jason Stanley joins me now.

Professor Stanley, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

JASON STANLEY, Yale University: Thank you for having me on.

AMNA NAWAZ: So you have authored two books on fascism.

It's a topic you spend a lot of time studying.

Your decision to leave has been framed as you fleeing the U.S. That's the word people are using.

Is that how you see it?

JASON STANLEY: No, but that has resonance with Jewish intellectuals fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s, so it's kind of interesting to see the use of that word.

I made my decision for both political reasons and personal reasons.

It's clear to me that it's time to go for an academic and a critic of the Trump administration who has the privilege to have an opportunity to leave.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have seen universities come under attack of this administration.

Is this just -- your decision, is it just about what you have seen happening at universities and colleges?

JASON STANLEY: Well, that was what sealed it.

I had an offer from the University of Toronto and had gone back and forth about the offer.

I had thought -- I'd assigned like 50 percent probability to taking it.

But when Columbia folded, that's when I thought, OK, I'm just going to look at the probabilities of our institutions folding, of our democratic institutions folding.

And by that, I mean not just the universities, but the media and our legal system.

And I thought, well, maybe they can hold the line, but this is an opportunity.

It's a great opportunity.

And I think the probabilities are not in the favor of U.S. democracy.

AMNA NAWAZ: If Columbia had responded differently, what do you think would be different now?

In other words, what would you have wanted Columbia to do?

JASON STANLEY: I would have wanted all of our universities to collectively band together and loudly call B.S.

on the charge that somehow intellectuals and universities by allowing free speech and protest are threatening Jewish students.

AMNA NAWAZ: And why do you think they didn't do that and universities aren't doing that now.

JASON STANLEY: I mean, I think one reason is that they don't see the situation for what it is.

They don't see the antisemitism charge as just an excuse.

And I would like universities to see that this is a war, that the Trump administration is going to take -- try to take them down come what may.

It just doesn't matter what excuse they use.

So to watch these universities sit there and go, oh, this is such a -- $9 billion for antisemitism, when there were many, many Jewish students in the anti-war protests who are somehow being erased both by the media, the Trump administration, and the universities.

So they're kind of acting like hostages who are sort of repeating the lines that they're told.

So I would like to see them band together collectively and recognize what they're facing, which is a war.

AMNA NAWAZ: Universities also argue that the threat of these funding cuts are really existential in some cases.

They wouldn't be allowed to continue to do the work if those cuts came through.

Isn't there something to that, they have an obligation to survive?

JASON STANLEY: No, there's no survival.

A university is a democratic institution.

And if you give up the democratic nature of a university, then there's no university there.

There's a name and some buildings.

And that's what we risk.

Sure, you could leave some names and a building, but that's not the survival of a university.

AMNA NAWAZ: At the same time, Professor Stanley, this is the country you were born in.

It's the country you call home.

It's a university you have worked at for more than a decade.

If you believe in this democratic system and this country, why not stay?

Why not do all you can to defend it?

JASON STANLEY: Well, believe me, I will be doing a lot to defend it in Toronto, where we're going to be organizing to defend democracies.

But this administration wants me to love my country like the National Socialists wanted Germans to love Germany, because it's a powerful nation that can punch other nations in the nose.

That's not why I love my country.

I love my country because we don't have kings.

And if my country decides to adopt a king, then it's no longer really my country.

Like, if universities decide that they're no longer going to allow protest, free speech, critical inquiry into history, they're no longer universities.

AMNA NAWAZ: You also have two young children.

So I wonder what you're telling them about why you're moving to a different country?

JASON STANLEY: Well, my kids are Black and Jewish.

So there's a lot of issues for facing.

But I'm telling them, you're American.

We love our country.

Our -- you have lots of family here.

But these are risky conditions.

My parents are Holocaust survivors.

This is something that my family has discussed.

My kids are not politically ignorant.

They can recognize what's going on.

AMNA NAWAZ: Do you expect that you will come back?

JASON STANLEY: It's very hard to move as an academic.

But this is my home.

I hope our universities fight back.

But I'm going to do whatever I can to help American democracy wherever I am.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's Professor Jason Stanley, currently with Yale University, soon to be of the University of Toronto, joining us tonight.

Professor Stanley, thank you.

Good to speak with you.

JASON STANLEY: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: As we discuss new tariffs here in the U.S., a look now at how tariffs can make or break an economy, in this case, Haiti, where U.S. trade policies forced the government to bring down tariffs on foreign goods, which allowed American farmers to export their crops cheaply.

But that made it too expensive for Haitians to eat the food grown domestically.

Special correspondent Marcia Biggs and videographer Eric O'Connor have a look now at how this helped lead to decades of dependence on foreign aid.

MARCIA BIGGS: It seems like a world away from the typical scenes of violence that have ravaged Haiti's capital.

The northeast region of the country is home to some of Haiti's safest and most fertile lands.

But rice farmers here are fighting their own battle, struggling to compete with cheap imports.

EXCELLENT TASSIS, Haiti Rice Farmer (through translator): Miami rice has lowered our prices, which means we don't have any advantage.

MARCIA BIGGS: Miami rice is what the Haitians call imported American rice that has flooded their market since the 1980s, selling at a fraction of the price of rice grown in-country.

It all began in 1986, when the International Monetary Fund agreed to provide Haiti with huge loans in exchange for slashing tariffs on imported goods.

At the same time, the U.S. government began subsidizing American rice farmers, allowing them to export very cheap rice overseas.

Albert Pierre Joseph is the son of a rice farmer.

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH, Rice Farmer (through translator): I grew up in a family that lived off the land.

My father had 15 children, and it is with this land that he educated all 15 of us.

Since I was a child, my father produced a lot of rice and many traders used to come and buy rice from him.

The customs tariff that was reduced on rice throughout my childhood affected me a lot.

It meant that the amount of money my father used to make to meet our needs, well, he couldn't bring that in anymore.

MARCIA BIGGS: Like Albert's father, many farmers were unable to keep up and abandon the land.

BILL CLINTON, Former President of the United States: Today, we come together as friends.

MARCIA BIGGS: Under President Bill Clinton, another deal was made to lower tariffs on imports to Haiti from 35 percent to just 3 percent as part of a plan to help the country industrialize; 15 years later, Clinton famously apologized.

BILL CLINTON: Since 1981, the United States has followed a policy that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food, so thank goodness they can leap directly into the industrial era.

It has not worked.

It's may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked.

It was a mistake.

I did that.

I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did, nobody else.

MARCIA BIGGS: Efforts to change the tariff policy failed, and cheap American rice continues to flow into the country to this day.

It's even changed the dietary habits of Haitians, who used to eat rice two to three times a week, but now consume it every day, an important detail when you consider a recent study by the University of Michigan found that there are levels of arsenic in American rice which may not affect health in small doses, but could lead to cancer and learning disabilities when consumed at high amounts.

How does it feel to know that you're consuming arsenic?

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): I personally think today there must be a big effort made at the national and international levels, because we can't produce enough food to give to people.

And this food is making people sick.

MARCIA BIGGS: International aid groups try to support local farmers.

USAID helped Albert Pierre to build this mill for a collective of almost 1,000 farmers that wouldn't otherwise have the resources to mill and sell their crop.

And the collective sells much of its rice to the World Food Program, also recipient of USAID funds.

It's part of the World Food Program's overall strategy to source as much of its food locally as possible, and it relies significantly on cash-based assistance and development projects, but it also receives what is called in-kind assistance, bags of food grown in the U.S. and shipped overseas.

Thomas Deville is the head of WFP's School Feeding Program in Haiti, which receives much of its funding from USAID.

THOMAS DEVILLE, World Food Program: We would prefer to rely 100 percent of local production, for sure, but Haiti is not self-sufficient yet.

It takes time to get to a 100 percent local procurement.

It takes programs such as our resilience, the capacity-building programs.

It takes training with the local farmers and it takes intervention to improve irrigation systems.

And it takes a lot of work with the Ministry of Agriculture to make sure that we have ambitious policies to promote local production.

MARCIA BIGGS: Would it be more helpful to receive aid in that arena, rather than rice grown abroad?

THOMAS DEVILLE: We need both.

We can't ignore the more than five million Haitian people, so half of the country, that is facing high levels of food insecurity.

This is staggering levels.

MARCIA BIGGS: But even if they didn't need it, they are also required to bring in some food from the U.S.

The United States provides international food aid through two main programs, the first, the Emergency Food Security Program, allows more flexibility.

Implementers like the WFP can buy local food or provide, direct cash assistance to those in need.

But the other, Food for Peace, requires that 100 percent of aid be commodities produced in the United States, a caveat originally meant to help American farmers.

STEPHANIE MERCIER, Agricultural Policy Consultant: There were some years in the 1950s and '60s where food aid was the main outlet for which U.S. commodities were shipped for things like wheat, for example.

MARCIA BIGGS: Stephanie Mercier is a former chief economist for the Democratic staff of the Senate Agriculture Committee in charge of food aid legislation.

STEPHANIE MERCIER: But, today, U.S. food aid accounts for a little bit less than 2 percent of all total U.S. exports.

So it's a much smaller share of what's going on than it was at the beginning.

MARCIA BIGGS: So who's the biggest winner in the food aid industry?

STEPHANIE MERCIER: The biggest winner are the companies that own U.S.-flagships that carry U.S. commodities for food aid programs overseas.

MARCIA BIGGS: Mercier and her colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, studied the effect of a 1950s law that requires half of all food aid be shipped on American-flagged vessels, which she says typically charge at least 60 percent more than foreign carriers.

STEPHANIE MERCIER: But our estimate overall was that that's at least $50 million a year that goes to these shipping companies that otherwise could be used for buying food to feed hungry people.

And that means that we feed one to two million fewer hungry people around the world every year.

MARCIA BIGGS: So where do you think that money is going?

STEPHANIE MERCIER: Into the company coffers of those U.S. shipping companies that we talked about.

MARCIA BIGGS: If you look again at Haiti, last year, USAID spent over $35 million food aid.

Of that, Mercier says $10.6 million was spent on shipping food to a country that has the ability to produce its own food.

Would you like to see the imports stop?

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): If we block imports and this rice can't enter the country, Haitians will not be able to get enough to eat.

And, don't forget, we have an extremely poor population; 78 percent of Haitians are living on less than one U.S. dollar per day, which was why many of them buy imported rice, even though they know imported rice is not the best rice for them to eat.

MARCIA BIGGS: Just after his inauguration, President Trump paused all foreign aid for 90 days.

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Oversight shut down USAID shortly thereafter, writing on the X platform that he spent the weekend feeding it into the wood chipper.

In-kind food shipments to organizations like the WFP are supposed to be protected by the emergency food assistance waiver.

But the abrupt dismantling of USAID has created chaos, putting at risk shipments of food not already in the pipeline.

Development projects like Albert Pierre's aren't covered by the waiver.

He says he was supposed to receive a transfer in funds from USAID by the end of January, but the money never came and the project was canceled.

He hasn't had to shut his mill just yet, but he's slowed down operations, and he's looking to other organizations for help.

He still believes that the way to make Haiti food independent is a delicate balance between increasing tariffs slowly so that American rice isn't dirt-cheap, while also investing in infrastructure and providing loans to local farmers.

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): I believe we can solve this, but in order to solve it, we need to have a visionary state.

We need to have a private sector that is committed, a private sector that is productive and believes in national development.

MARCIA BIGGS: But with 85 percent of the capital controlled by gangs, the state is more concerned with daily survival than a vision for the future.

To fill that void, a grassroots effort to increase production came from local farmers.

They needed irrigation, so they dug a canal.

WIDELINE PIERRE, Spokesperson, Ouanaminthe Canal Management Committee (through translator): They got together, they took their destiny in hand, they came with shovels, pickaxes, with whatever they had, and they dug it by hand.

This was entirely the work of the Haitian population, a work that brought hope, that still brings hope for the Haitian people.

MARCIA BIGGS: The hope in the dignity, against all odds, of providing for themselves.

I have picked up that there's a real sense of pride among Haitians for their rice.

Is that true?

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): Oh, yes, Oh, yes.

We have a sense of pride for the local rice.

Even if you hear people eating imported rice, they buy imported rice to eat during the week, but they buy the local rice to eat with the family on Sundays.

I think it's that sense of pride that should motivate us to invest a lot more in the rice industry, so we can produce more rice for the country and also to sell abroad.

MARCIA BIGGS: But in a state mostly overrun with violence, corruption and poverty, it's a vision reaching far into the future.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Marcia Biggs in Fort Liberte, Northeast Haiti.

AMNA NAWAZ: Remember, there's always a lot more online, including where you can sign up for our "Here's the Deal" weekly politics newsletter that takes a look at three things to watch for this week.

Subscribe at PBS.org/NewsHour.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "News Hour" team, thank you for joining us.