JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: wiped out.

Hurricane Michael leaves a deadly path of destruction along the U.S. Gulf Coast and inland through the Southeast.

Then: With less than a month until votes are counted in the midterms, we take a look at election security in the United States.

Plus: the plastic problem -- Making Sense of recycling's uncertain future.

RANDI MAIL, Former Cambridge Recycling Director: In order to change the system, we need to make a commitment to buy our own recyclables and use our own recyclables in American manufacturing and make sure that we're not reliant on exports.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: The governor of Florida calls it unimaginable destruction.

He is referring to the Florida Panhandle 24 hours after Hurricane Michael smashed ashore.

The hurricane left at least six dead and hundreds unaccounted for.

Today, it is moving across Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia as a tropical storm.

William Brangham spent part of this day in the Florida Panhandle and reports from Quincy, Florida.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: As Hurricane Michael came ashore, roofs went flying.

SABRINA MARSHALL, Hurricane Victim: He said, move, move, move.

And the door flew open, and the roof flew off.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Trees toppled over.

The full force of the storm with its 155 mile-an-hour winds bore down on the coastal towns of Panama City and Mexico Beach along Florida's Panhandle.

Many of Mexico Beach's buildings appeared to be pulverized by the storm, bearing the full brunt of Michael's impact.

As the winds finally relented and day broke, an army of utility workers mobilized.

They're fanning out to restore electricity for the nearly one million customers without power across the Southeast.

Florida Governor Rick Scott: GOV.

RICK SCOTT (R), Florida: We are deploying a massive wave of response, and those efforts are already under way.

Help is coming by air, land and sea.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Some of the hardest-hit areas here in the Florida Panhandle are still too difficult to reach.

And as you drive around, you just see miles and miles that look like this, big pine trees that have come down.

They have brought power lines with them.

And it's left entire communities stranded.

Local officials described widespread overwhelming damage.

BARRY WILCOX, Leon County, Florida: We got a lot of downed trees.

We got a lot of downed limbs.

We have got blocked roads, power outages almost ubiquitous at this point.

But we're getting everybody up online as quickly as possible.

It's not our first rodeo.

We have done in the last two years, so we're - - we're getting pretty darn good at it and making a lot of headway by the minute.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The storm surge crashed past trees and onto roads near Apalachicola National Forest.

Many of the pine trees that the Panhandle is famous for were decimated.

ANDREW LAMONICA, ®MD-BHurricane Victim: Snapped trees like they were toothpicks.

There was nothing to it.

So I'm glad I'm still here.

I'm glad I survived.

I'm glad the car made it.

KAREN HASKETT, Hurricane Victim: I prayed a lot.

I was in a bunker, almost a bunker.

And just prayers.

And how half of this missed us, I have no godly idea.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Last night, sheets of rain when buffeted the coastline for hours on end.

Scientists say increasingly strong hurricanes have been intensified by the effects of climate change, as warmer water provides more energy and moisture that feeds the storm.

President Trump praised the response.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Everybody has gotten rave reviews.

I just spoke with Governor Scott.

They're very happy.

Food is being now -- following the hurricane being brought in.

And we have unbelievable, large amounts of water and food and everything that people can want.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This morning, Vice President Mike Pence said that the government was actively engaged.

MIKE PENCE, Vice President of the United States: The president and I have been focused on our response efforts.

We have taken decisive action.

And, as we speak, we are focused on the lifesaving mission, search-and-rescue, and beginning to assess the catastrophic impacts of this hurricane.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The storm made its way up the Southeast Coast and dumped more rain on already saturated North Carolina.

Governor Roy Cooper said the state was on high alert for more flooding.

GOV.

ROY COOPER (D), North Carolina: The rain, over six inches now in parts of Western North Carolina.

North Carolina was spared the vicious beating Michael brought to Florida and parts of Georgia.

But this storm will not go down without a fight.

It is still a threat and should be taken seriously, particularly with storm surge,high winds, flooding and the threat of tornadoes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For the "PBS NewsHour" in the Panhandle of Florida, I'm William Brangham.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I spoke with William a short time ago from Quincy, Florida.

William, I understand you are about 70 miles from the coast where the storm came ashore.

Tell us what it is like where you are.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Well, Judy, in the stretch that we have seen so far, it is a story of tree after tree after tree after tree being knocked over by Hurricane Michael.

I mean, this stretch of the Florida Panhandle is known for its lush canopy.

And now the high winds of that storm have turned all those trees into -- into this community's nightmare.

Power lines have been knocked down.

It's part of why there's over a million people who have no power.

Those high winds that came in late last night also have knocked out all the cell phone towers around here.

So communication is very difficult.

We heard on the radio today one local public official who was using the radio, a radio interview, to try to communicate with one of their own emergency managers somewhere, that they couldn't find them, simply because they couldn't pick up a phone that would actually work.

So restoring power has been a huge issue here.

You might hear trucks behind me.

That's really the armada utility trucks that are coming through this entire area, trying to restore power.

But just from what we saw, the amount of power lines we saw down on the ground, it's going to be a long time for these communities to get their power back.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Seeing those images from the coast in Mexico Beach and Panama City, the destruction seems so severe.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Judy.

The devastation along the coastline is just - - there really are no words to describe how bad that damage is.

And I think that's simply a function of, if you have a Category 4 storm that was very nearly a Category 5 coming in, 155-mile-an-hour winds,there's only so much you can do.

I mean, if you remember, Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, and building codes across the state were strengthened.

But in the face of a Category 4, with already high tides and that wall of water and that amount of wind, there's only so much you can reengineer against that kind of a force.

And so that's really going to be one of the ongoing challenges here, is, how do they rebuild knowing that this storm, this kind of a storm could come again next week, next month, next year?

JUDY WOODRUFF: And I understand some medical facilities were damaged and officials have had to evacuate patients?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Judy.

It's our understanding that at least two hospitals in Panama City, Florida, right along the coast had to evacuate wait their patients.

They have lost power.

They have no fresh water coming in there.

We believe it's around 300 patients that had to be evacuated.

Bay Medical apparently was one of the bigger hospitals there.

They had an intense damage to their intensive care unit.

There were windows knocked out.

Apparently, there's some flooding inside the building.

And so if a hospital can't keep the power on regularly, can't get fresh water to run the toilets and to simply have drinking water, it's simply safer.

So they are moving patients out of there to nearby hospitals to the east and the west that might have some power.

So we will be watching that closely.

JUDY WOODRUFF: William, thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Thanks, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now we explore the storm's damage further with Florida's U.S.

Senator Bill Nelson.

He joins us from Panama City Beach.

Senator, thank you for talking with us.

I know you have seen hurricanes before.

How does this one compare?

SEN. BILL NELSON (D), Florida: This is the largest one, the most difficult one that -- and certainly in my lifetime -- to hit the Panhandle of Florida.

I think you would have to compare the destructive force to that of Hurricane Andrew that hit South Miami Dade County back in '92.

But this one, fortunately, didn't hit a populated part of its most destructive forces, which were east of Panama City.

And I think the little town of Mexico Beach, when we can get in there -- and it's only accessible by helicopter now -- we're going to see the direct result of the water and Category 4 winds coming directly off of the Gulf, without a barrier island out there to break it up.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you think you might see?

And, Senator, what are you understanding people need right now there?

SEN. BILL NELSON: Well, now's the time for the federal government to come to everybody's assistance.

The hurricane is past.

You can see, the weather is great, because the hurricane is moving so fast.

All of the junk around it is long gone.

But they're going to need a lot of help around here for a long, long time.

And you said, what do I expect in Mexico Beach?

I fear the worst.

If people hunkered down, I hope we find them alive.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we certainly hope that is -- we hope as many survived as possible.

Senator, so when you say the need is going to be great for some time to come, what do you mean?

Are you talking about power?

Are you talking about essential things, food, housing?

What else?

SEN. BILL NELSON: On the way here, I came through pine forests that were just sticks, and, otherwise, they were all snapped in two.

When you have that kind of destructive force, and you apply it to buildings like this one behind me, and we are on the west side of the storm -- so this wasn't where the worst winds were -- people are going to need housing.

They're going to need food.

It's going to take some time to get electricity up, because electricity, all the lines are down.

This place will be completely dark once the sun goes down.

And that's what we're facing, what typically you would find in a hurricane after the hurricane has passed.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, are you confident, Senator, that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the federal government is going to be able to do what is necessary?

SEN. BILL NELSON: Well, it has to.

Certainly, I hope it doesn't do for the Panhandle of Florida what it did in Puerto Rico, because they were treated as second-class citizens.

But FEMA, if it's on the ball, it won't do the second-class job.

And they have got people prepositioned here, supplies prepositioned.

So they should be in a good shape to get folks what they need.

But it's going to be a slow rebuilding process.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Senator, what about inland in Florida?

We know the storm moved quickly up through the Panhandle and on into Georgia.

Are you hearing -- what are you understanding about the rest of the state?

SEN. BILL NELSON: Well, I can tell you, in -- since the interstate was shut down, I had diverted to go into Georgia and go around the destruction.

And even up into Georgia, as far as Bainbridge, the trees were all over the road, that, finally, we had to give up and turn around and come back to the interstate.

And, finally, the interstate opened up.

And then I was able to get south into Panama City.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, Senator, we -- of course, all of us are hoping for the very best.

Your opponent in the Senate race, Governor Rick Scott, says he's going to be suspending his campaigning for the next few weeks.

Are you doing the same thing?

SEN. BILL NELSON: Yes, ma'am.

We have suspended our commercials in this area.

By the way, in other parts of Florida, he has not.

But now's not the time to talk about politics.

Now is the time to talk about getting people made whole again and getting them where they can live their normal lives.

And they're going to be hurting for some period of time.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator Bill Nelson, thank you very much.

And wishing everybody there the very best with this recovery.

SEN. BILL NELSON: Thanks, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: A stock market sell-off rippled around the globe.

And Wall Street took heavy losses again.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 546 points to close at 25052.

It is down more than 1,000 points in the last two days, the biggest percentage drop since February.

The Nasdaq fell 93, and the S&P 500 last 57 to its lowest close in three months.

Rising interest rates are helping to drive the sell-off today.

President Trump charged again that the Federal Reserve is raising rates too quickly.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I think the Fed is out of control.

I think what they're doing is wrong.

I think the Fed is far too stringent, and they're making a mistake.

And it's not right.

And it's -- despite that, we're doing very well, but it's not necessary, in my opinion.

And I think I know about it better than they do.

JUDY WOODRUFF: When asked, however, Mr. Trump said he doesn't intend to fire Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman.

In Indonesia, the search for earthquake and tsunami victims has now been extended through tomorrow.

Rescue crews on Sulawesi are still looking for bodies, with thousands of people missing.

The confirmed death toll has reached 2,073.

The National Disaster Agency said today that it could take two years for the area to recover.

A U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut are safe after their booster rocket failed during a lunch today.

They blasted off from Kazakstan bound for the International Space station.

But minutes later, they wrenched free of the malfunctioning rocket.

Officials with NASA said the Russian spacecraft help the men survive the harrowing fall.

REID WISEMAN, NASA: They Soyuz is a robust, redundant, reliable machine.

It has a lot of flights under its belt.

And in this case, where it had an ascent anomaly, it has a great aboard system that brought our crew home safely.

So it just underscores to me that it's a good system, it's a reliable system.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In response, the Russians suspended all manned flights while an investigation proceeds.

Since the U.S. retired the space shuttles, Russian rockets are the only way humans can reach the space station.

An American graduate student detained in Israel appeared in court today.

Lara Alqasem has been held since arriving Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv last week.

She faces deportation for allegedly supporting a boycott of Israel.

The Israelis say she's free to leave the country.

There's no indication when the court will rule on her appeal.

Back in this country, the Washington State Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state death penalty law.

The court ruled that the law has been used arbitrarily and in a way that discriminates against minorities.

Washington has had a moratorium on executions since 2014.

It is now the 20th state to eliminate the death penalty.

Prosecutors in New York today dropped part of the sexual assault case against former movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Lucia Evans was one of the first to accuse Weinstein the year ago.

Prosecutors say that a police detective may have suppressed information that undercut her claim.

Weinstein heard the announcement today in a Manhattan court.

Afterwards, lawyers had decidedly different takes.

BENJAMIN BRAFMAN, Attorney for Harvey Weinstein: We're pleased with this development.

The case is not over, but I think it is permanently and irreparably damaged.

We will seek to dismiss the indictment, all of the counts.

CARRIE GOLDBERG, Attorney for Lucia Evans: The prosecution's decision to abandon my client's claim doesn't invalidate the truth of her claim.

The case against Harvey Weinstein is far from over, and we expect the DA to move forward with the other cases.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Weinstein still faces criminal charges involving two women.

Nearly 70 others have come forward to make similar accusations.

The case helped spark the MeToo movement.

Social Security beneficiaries will see a boost in their annual cost of living adjustment, or COLA, next year.

The program announced today an increase of 2.8 percent to help keep pace with inflation.

That works out to about $39 a month for the average retired worker.

And President Trump welcomed rapper Kanye West and former pro football great Jim Brown to the White House today to discuss everything from prison reform to welfare.

In an Oval Office session, West heaped praise on the president and launched into freeform commentary.

KANYE WEST, Musician: People expect that, if you're black, you have to be Democrat.

I have a -- I have had conversations that basically say that welfare is the reason why a lot of black people end up being a Democrat.

They say, first of all, it's a limit to an amount of jobs, so that the fathers lose the jobs.

Then they say, we will give you more money for having more kids in your home.

It was something about, when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman.

You made a Superman.

That was -- that's my favorite superhero.

And you made a Superman cape for me.

We can empower our factories.

We can bring not only Adidas onshore.

We can bring Foxconn to set up a factory in, I think, Minnesota, 53,000... DONALD TRUMP: Wisconsin, yes.

Wisconsin.

KANYE WEST: Yes, in Wisconsin.

They have 4,000 jobs, people making $53,000 a year.

But when we make everything in China and not in America, then we're cheating on our country.

And we're putting people in positions that have to do illegal things to end up in the cheapest factory ever, the prison system.

DONALD TRUMP: I'll tell you what that.

That was really impressive.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: That was quite something.

That was quite something.

KANYE WEST: It was from the soul.

DONALD TRUMP: Yes.

Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For more on this, our White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor joins me now.

So, Yamiche, you were telling me after Kanye West's comments, there was a strong reaction, most of it negative.

What's behind that?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, it was really a truly bizarre moment at the White House.

And that's mainly because this was -- it showed really the extreme change in Kanye West's politics.

Kanye West was a rapper known for his social activism.

He was a rapper also known for calling out President Trump.

He famously said that President Bush didn't care about black people.

So he was calling up President George W. Bush in that instance.

And he was talking about Katrina and the fact that there were African-Americans who didn't feel as though they -- the government cared about them after the response to the hurricane.

Instead, now you have Kanye West saying that he's not only an outspoken supporter of President Trump, which, of course, would be in some ways normal.

It's the fact that he said stuff like slavery is a choice.

And he's also today in what would be almost a 10-minute monologue, he talked about really stereotypes that have been used against African-Americans throughout history.

He said that at some point African-Americans like welfare,and the fact that there are not fathers in the homes of African-Americans.

These are things that are, again, stereotypes, that are not true.

So, a lot of people were looking at Kanye West and saying, who is this person, the rapper that we know as someone who was uplifting the African-American community?

So now people are really, really questioning kind of where we go from here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We mentioned this was a meeting with Jim Brown.

Why was Kanye West there?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Kanye West was there to advocate for criminal justice reform.

Him, along with his wife, Kim Kardashian West, have both taken up this issue of criminal justice reform.

His wife, Kim Kardashian, actually directly appealed to the president and got a prisoner released through that appeal.

So he was talking about Larry Hoover today.

And he was saying that there is -- he was talking about the fact that Larry Hoover, who is a -- really a founder or a co-founder of the Gangster Disciples, which is a street gang in Chicago, should be released.

This is someone who's facing more than 100 years in prison because of murder.

So Kanye West was basically supposed to be talking about that, but then went off on a tirade about his mental health issues and all sorts of other things.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Speculation, Yamiche, the president was welcoming this in part because it's an outreach to African-American voters to support him.

What effect do we think this could have on the president's support?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: We don't have any polling yet, of course.

But, essentially, this is likely not going to help President Trump or Kanye West really appeal to African-American Democrats or African-American Republicans.

On the one hand, African-American Republicans want to have an audience with the president.

They want to be talking about the economy, about wages, maybe about small business loans for the African-American communities across this country, but they're not getting the audience that Kanye West is getting.

So that's angering black Republicans.

And then on the black -- for black Democrats, they see somebody who's really lashing out and using stereotypes.

And that also isn't going to appeal to African-American voters.

So, on both instances, this was really just, I think, a weird moment of the Trump presidency.

And it was really about to celebrity reality TV stars chatting it up for 10 minutes, but not really much substance came out of this discussion.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it was certainly one that got everybody's attention today.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And unusual, at the very least.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Yamiche Alcindor, thank you.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Thanks.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And still to come on the "NewsHour": the state of U.S. election security ahead of the coming midterms; Saudi Arabia comes under increased scrutiny in the disappearance of a dissident writer; potential solutions for the uncertain future of recycling in the United States; and a Brief But Spectacular take on writing about other people's lives.

With the 2018 midterm elections less than a month away and early voting already under way in some states, officials in the Trump administration are sounding the alarm about foreign attempts to influence the outcome of next month's vote.

I spoke -- spoke a short time ago with Christopher Krebs -- he's undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security's National Protection and Programs Directorate -- about these concerns.

And I started by asking him how he sees the threat.

CHRISTOPHER KREBS, U.S.

Undersecretary, Department of Homeland Security National Protection and Programs Directorate: Given our experiences of 2016 and what we saw the Russians attempt to do across the nation's election equipment, the election infrastructure, we certainly have a degree of concern of what their capability and -- their capability is.

And the prior intent is demonstrated.

So that's kind of been the planning factor that we have been working against, the fact - - whether they come back or not.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They being?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: They being the Russians, for sure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

Right.

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: We haven't seen demonstrated Russian activity in a repeat of 2016.

But I mentioned the planning aspect, how we're planning.

We're ready.

We're planning for them to come back.

And I think in terms of where we are for '16 - - I mentioned this before, but I think this is probably going to be the most secure election in the modern era because of the amount of work we have done with state and local election officials, who are, by the Constitution, by law, responsible for administering elections, federal elections.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, as you know, the president, the vice president have gone out of their way in the last few days to talk about China, to say that China has been trying to meddle in our elections.

The vice president went so far as to say what the Russians have done pales in comparison to what the Chinese are doing.

Can you explain what that means, spell it out?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: Yes, I think we need to keep in mind that, given the way that we're connected, and given the way we consume and use and share information, there's a broad range of opportunities for any nation state, whether it's Russia or China, to try to influence the way Americans think and they act.

And so the Russians, I think, have been historically - - or at least most recently -- much noisier, much more out in front.

They have attempted to get into election equipment and manipulate there.

They have also used social media to sow discord and divisiveness.

The Chinese are much more strategic, much more under the radar perhaps, with a longer, more strategic game in play.

And their attempts here are to influence the way the Americans think about policy issues.

And down the road, whether it's the '18, but also more for the midterm -- or -- I'm sorry - - the 2020 presidential, trying to influence how voters, when they go to the polls, what - - what bubble they're going to fill in and what button they're going to push.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it's interesting you should mention that, because we have seen, I guess, newspaper inserts, one in particular in Iowa.

The president tweeted about that.

But we saw that the editor of The Des Moines Register, the newspaper where this insert was, she was quoted as saying, this kind of insert meets our standard criteria for advertising, unlike the kind of hidden thing that, as you just mentioned, the Russians were doing.

So is it really that underhanded, I guess, is my question?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: Well, it's not that it's underhanded.

It's that it's, in fact, a foreign influence operation.

So we think back to 2016 and what the Russians attempted to do.

They used their state-sponsored media outlets of Sputnik and R.T. to amplify message and drive false narratives.

China's doing the same thing with China Daily and other instruments of state media.

And they're carrying a message on behalf of Beijing in this case.

So, while it may meet some journalistic standard, they're still trying to accomplish an outcome and achieve their own policy objectives through these -- through these efforts.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Is it -- is it -- but we think of the Russians as just spreading disinformation.

The Chinese are basically giving their point of view.

Is there a difference there?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: Well, absolutely.

And I think, again, when you kind of lay it all out on the table of what the independent - - or the various objectives of a nation may be, the Russians are much more tactical and operational and here and today.

For them, a strong U.S. doesn't really benefit them in the long run.

The Chinese, however, we have a relationship.

And it is important that they -- well, they think strategically.

And so, for them, they want our outcomes, our policy objectives to align with their - - with their longer-term goals.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So how are you countering that in your job, worrying about security of the elections?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: So, I think about things in two different ways.

One is defending today.

And that's working with state and local election officials to ensure that, for the midterm 2018 elections, that they have as much information to secure their own systems, that they have the technical support and resources that they need to defend their systems and protect the vote.

But, also, we're securing the future.

And what I mean by that is, there's still equipment that is old that needs to be replaced.

And so when they go through a procurement process, do they have the right information to make secure decisions for tomorrow's deployments?

JUDY WOODRUFF: I want to -- I want to quote something the director of national intelligence said.

I guess it was in June.

Dan Coats said in 2018 -- "It's 2018, and we continue to see Russian targeting of American society in ways that could affect our midterm election."

We have heard other officials say there was just no way to completely protect against this in 2018.

What should voters still be worried about?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: So, I think voters need to be thinking about a few things, but, first and foremost, make sure that you know what to do on Election Day.

Verify your registration.

Ensure that you know where to go, what precinct you're registered at, but also understand your rights as a voter.

If you get there and something goes wrong, because let's be clear, something goes wrong, whether it's a cyber-attack or something, on Election Day, every single time.

It's -- there are technical glitches.

So just know your rights as a voter.

Provisional ballots are always the fallback if something goes wrong.

Ask for that provisional ballot.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We know -- we saw, I think it was Secretary Nielsen and others have testified or said recently that, so far, you don't see any successful attempts to interfere with the infrastructure of our elections.

Is that still the case?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: That's right.

I tend to break things up into two buckets.

One is the preparation bucket and what -- and then the second is what we're actually seeing.

We're -- again, we're planning as if the Russians are coming back just like they did in '16.

And then we're also trying to think through, what more could they do?

Because if we know anything about the Russians, they get better, they learn.

When they come back, they're a little bit trickier than they were the time before.

So what do we need to be thinking about in terms of enhanced capabilities?

But, again, in terms of activity right now, we're just not seeing what we saw in '16.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In terms of infrastructure.

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But in terms of influence, you're saying they're active?

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: In terms of influence, they have never gone away.

They have continued to find those meaty social issues that drive Americans apart.

And they really get on both sides and they amplify the message.

And so it's important that we -- that we remind folks that, look, when you see something on social media, think about what you're seeing, who might be presenting it to you.

Try to find a validator, a third-party news source that validates that, before retweeting or liking.

But also keep in mind that there are state-sponsored media outlets, like Sputnik, like R.T., that are pushing a message on behalf of the Kremlin.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A warning just, what is it, less than four weeks before Election Day.

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: Yes, ma'am.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Undersecretary Christopher Krebs, the Department of Homeland Security, thank you.

CHRISTOPHER KREBS: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We return now to a story that has been in the headlines all week, the disappearance of a Saudi Arabian journalist in Istanbul, Turkey.

According to reports, it is suspected that he was murdered, literally cut in pieces, and smuggled out of Turkey by Saudi security forces.

Nick Schifrin has the story.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Nine days after Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, U.S. and Turkish officials are increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia.

CCTV images on state-owned media show how Turkey is piecing together the steps taken by what Turkish officials call a Saudi hit squad, the team arriving at their hotel, riding the elevator, walking out and driving away in a black car.

Then, fewer than two hours after Khashoggi arrived, that same black car and a black van leave the consulate for the consul general's house.

Investigators are asking whether he was in that van and whether he was alive.

Saudi officials promise to open their consulate to investigators and have agreed to a joint investigation with Turkey.

In the White House today, President Trump called the Saudis out.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: A thing like that shouldn't happen.

It is a reporter with The Washington Post.

And it's -- something like that shouldn't be allowed to happen.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Mr. Trump made his first foreign visit to Saudi Arabia to announce a massive arms deal.

He strongly supported Saudi policy and put Saudi Arabia at the center of his Middle East policy.

But despite today's criticism, he rejected calls to block the arms deal.

DONALD TRUMP: We don't like it, and we don't like it even a little bit.

But as to whether or not we should stop $110 billion from being spent in this country, knowing they have four or five alternatives, two very good alternatives, that wouldn't be acceptable to me.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But on Capitol Hill, senators are skeptical.

Today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker urged President Trump to get more aggressive.

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), Tennessee: As time goes on, and we're real clear as to what's happened, hopefully, that -- that type of tone and tenor will change.

NICK SCHIFRIN: According to The Washington Post, the U.S. intelligence community does know what happened and believes Saudi Crown Mohammed bin Salman wanted to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia to detain him, and that the Istanbul operation might have been a rendition gone wrong.

Either way, Khashoggi didn't want to go back.

The BBC released audio of Khashoggi saying just two weeks ago it wouldn't be safe for him to return to a country that tolerated no dissent.

JAMAL KHASHOGGI, The Washington Post: A Saudi columnist, an economist who was close to the royal court got arrested.

And that scared many people, because here we are talking about somebody who's close to the government.

The people who are arrested are not even being dissidents.

They just have an independent mind.

NICK SCHIFRIN: That independent mind might be shared by the business community.

Slick promotional videos advertise a Saudi conference scheduled for next week.

It's supposed to feature Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and a long list of business leaders.

But The New York Times removed its sponsorship, and others are considering the same.

And former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz suspended his work as a consultant to the kingdom, citing deep concerns over Khashoggi nine days after he was last seen.

We take a deeper look now at U.S. and Saudi relations with Robert Jordan.

He served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the George W. Bush administration.

He's now diplomat in residence at Southern Methodist university, and joins me from Dallas.

Ambassador, thank you very much.

ROBERT JORDAN, Former U.S.

Ambassador to Saudi Arabia: Thank you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You have been an advocate for close U.S.-Saudi relations in the past, as is this administration, and the government has been in the past as well.

But do you think this moment is different?

Are you supporting calls for withdrawal from this summit that Saudi Arabia is hosting next week, and some of the businesses that are pulling out of Saudi today?

ROBERT JORDAN: Yes, I am.

I have advocated a number of times today on other media that I think Americans especially who plan to go to this future investment initiative should put that on hold.

This is the wrong time to be glorifying Saudi Arabia.

It's the wrong time to be giving them the benefit of this kind of publicity.

I think we have to take this very seriously.

And I'm not sure that we have seen a sufficiently serious response from this administration yet either.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Do you think Secretary Mnuchin should cancel his trip and his speech?

ROBERT JORDAN: He should cancel his trip.

There are rumors that Dina Powell was considering going.

I think it would be the exact wrong optic for her to show up at this event if she's being considered for United Nations ambassador.

Certainly, a number of media figures have canceled, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Arianna Huffington, and others.

I think these sponsors need to give some serious thought to whether they want to put their name next to this event.

And some of these speakers, like David Petraeus, Stephen Schwarzman, Jamie Dimon, and others, need to set an example, not just for their companies, but also for our country.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You said that this administration is not being strong enough.

President Trump said today that he would decline or at least stop efforts to cancel arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Do you think that that sends the wrong message?

ROBERT JORDAN: I think it sends the wrong message.

And I think, certainly, the sale, if it really exists -- and, by the way, there's some question as to how real that sale is.

But if it truly does exist, I think it needs to be put on hold until we get more answers, better information and more transparency from the Saudis.

NICK SCHIFRIN: There are a lot of officials who would push back on what you're saying, especially in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community.

Those people say, look, we have priorities, the U.S. has priorities in the Middle East, countering Iran, countering violent extremism, trying to figure out a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, and all of those priorities need Saudi assistance.

So, doesn't the U.S. need Saudi Arabia's assistance in the Middle East today?

ROBERT JORDAN: We do.

We have a national interest in having their assistance.

I faced something very similar when I arrived in Saudi Arabia a month after 9/11.

I needed to deal with extremism in Saudi Arabia, but we also needed the Saudis' assistance in dealing with terrorism and dealing without Al-Qaida.

You find a way to do both.

You make it clear that there are red lines that cannot be crossed, and there are consequences.

But there's also a relationship that has to be preserved the best it can.

And, in some cases, it's an uncomfortable relationship.

But you have to be able to do both.

You cannot take this sitting down.

You cannot turn another -- turn a blind eye to this.

You have to find a way to make consequences real for this kind of rogue behavior.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So I asked you U.S. officials today how to make those consequences real.

And short of stopping arms deals, some of them cited kicking diplomats out, closing diplomatic posts, perhaps changing military cooperation in Yemen, imposing sanctions.

Would any of those send a strong enough signal?

ROBERT JORDAN: Well, I think some of them would, as a package, be useful.

Certainly, backing off from our support of this costly and devastating war in Yemen is something that we should have been doing all along anyway.

I think we certainly have a list of 15 of this hit squad that apparently came to Istanbul.

Those people ought to be immediately sanctioned, as we have done with Iranian and Russian individuals in the past.

I think other economic sanctions might follow.

I don't think we need to suspend all relations or pull our diplomats.

We need to continue diplomacy.

This is a time for diplomacy.

But it's also a time to impose consequences.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Let's zoom out a little bit and talk about the man at the center of this, at least in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, widely known as MBS.

He has his critics.

And you specifically mentioned the Yemen war.

There have been a lot of civilian casualties, a lot of criticism of Saudi Arabia in how it has conducted that war.

This incident as well, he's been really center at that criticism.

Do you believe that this criticism of him could reduce his chances of becoming king?

ROBERT JORDAN: I think there's a chance of that.

Let's bear in mind that, about a year ago, he incarcerated a number of the senior royals in the Ritz-Carlton, along with a number of Russian -- of Saudi oligarchs.

And so I think there is an entire cadre of the family that is viewing him with great skepticism, if not outright resentment.

He owns many of the policies that have been pursued over the last two years.

And most of them have been colossal failures, the war in Yemen, the abduction of the Lebanese prime minister, the boycott of Qatar.

And so you can go down the list, and you don't really see many successes, the failure of the Aramco IPO, the failure of their solar project.

So I think, at some point, the responsible people in Saudi Arabia are going to be asking questions.

They're going to be asking King Salman whether he really does stand behind this crown prince, at a time when he appears to be thuggish and reckless.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And, quickly, in the time we have left, you knew Jamal Khashoggi.

He worked for the Saudi government.

He wasn't in any way a dissident.

At least, he didn't identify himself as such.

He criticized the methods that Mohammed bin Salman is using.

What does it say that he, of all people, he could have been targeted?

ROBERT JORDAN: Well, I think it's really outlandish.

He was a true Saudi patriot who had some differing views.

He was also complimentary occasionally of the reform agenda of the crown prince.

So he called it as he saw it, which is the same Jamal Khashoggi I knew 15, 18 years ago.

Back in those days, he was fired a couple of times from Saudi newspapers and then rehired by Prince Turki, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K., working for him.

So he's actually had some real admirers within the Saudi royal family.

And I suspect that continues, and they are devastated by what has happened.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Robert Jordan, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, thank you very much.

ROBERT JORDAN: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to our series of reports on the plastic problem.

Last week, economics correspondent Paul Solman looked at the recycling crunch the United States now faces, as China has stopped accepting much of our waste.

This week, he tries to answer the question, so, what do we do now?

The story is part of our weekly series Making Sense, which runs every Thursday.

MEERA SINGH, Cambridge Resident: We can't put these in our recycling, chips bags, cookie wrappers.

PAUL SOLMAN: You can't?

MEERA SINGH: We can't put it in the regular recycling.

But there's another organization.

They recycle all kinds of things.

PAUL SOLMAN: Ah, you might think, if only each of us did as Cambridge, Massachusetts, recycling fanatic Meera Singh does.

MEERA SINGH: Oftentimes, when I go to heaven, which is what I call our recycling center... PAUL SOLMAN: You call -- you call it what?

MEERA SINGH: I call it heaven.

PAUL SOLMAN: Heaven.

MEERA SINGH: Everyone should go there.

PAUL SOLMAN: To Meera Singh, heaven.

To most Americans, not even on the radar.

MEERA SINGH: Good karma.

You recycle, you go to heaven.

(LAUGHTER) PAUL SOLMAN: So, you can't be serious.

This is heaven?

MICHAEL ORR, Cambridge Recycling Director: Yes, to some of our residents, this is heaven.

Michael Orr runs recycling for Cambridge,where more than a few highly motivated recyclers like Singh reside, classy book exchange club, classy somewhat bigger-ticket items.

MICHAEL ORR: Such as the chair I'm sitting on right now.

This is something that a resident dropped off and said, I no longer need, and later today someone will be taking this chair home.

PAUL SOLMAN: With China and other countries suddenly rejecting our recyclables and trash prices rising as landfills close down, one response might be to emulate Cambridge's recycling cadre, while disciplining the rest of us.

Bubble wrap.

It would be nice to know exactly what to put in the bins.

This shouldn't go in recycling?

MICHAEL ORR: Bubble wrap and plastic bags, plastic film in general shouldn't be going in the recycling.

PAUL SOLMAN: Because?

MICHAEL ORR: Because it jams up the machinery.

It's the number one contaminant and the number one most damaging contaminant in the recycling facilities.

PAUL SOLMAN: You can't recycle this?

MICHAEL ORR: Paper plates are tricky ones.

What we're looking for are clean paper products.

Often, paper plates have food product on it.

Or maybe it's coated in wax.

PAUL SOLMAN: And pizza boxes?

MICHAEL ORR: As long as there's no food in it, the grease is OK, and they can recycle it.

PAUL SOLMAN: The grease is OK?

MICHAEL ORR: Yes, we can recycle pizza boxes.

PAUL SOLMAN: You're making me feel better.

But so much that's put into the bins is not OK.

So, Cambridge tries to teach people with a little tough love.

MICHAEL ORR: Our driver will go, put a rejection sticker on it, note to them what they did wrong.

PAUL SOLMAN: Ooh.

MICHAEL ORR: And they will have to call us, and clean it up, and then we will come back and pick it up the next day.

But every once in a while, we have to kind of nudge people in the right direction.

PAUL SOLMAN: I would say that's more like a shove than a nudge.

(LAUGHTER) PAUL SOLMAN: The city also has an instructional sorting game in their Cambridge recycles app and videos posted on their Web site, including one for kids, as does the state of Massachusetts, with nearly 250 communities taking part in an effort to educate consumers.

But the problem with single-stream recycling, where you don't sort out plastics, paper or metal, it means lots of work at the plant.

There is, however, a major garbage stream that can be isolated for recycling, food waste, which makes up a quarter of all trash.

Most of it ends up rotting in landfills, where it generates methane, a greenhouse gas way more potent than carbon dioxide.

So why not compost organic matter, thought Mike Orr's predecessor, Randi Mail, back in 2002.

RANDI MAIL, Former Cambridge Recycling Director: It's something that makes it possible for people not to really have to do anything other than just drop their banana peels in a different container.

PAUL SOLMAN: And 16 years after she had the idea, Cambridge is turning food waste into clean energy, with pickup citywide, at a new plant in nearby Charlestown.

ERIC MYERS, Director of Organic Recycling, Waste Management: Some of this, I believe, came from a grocery store.

Perhaps it's expired product.

PAUL SOLMAN: Eric Myers runs the food waste operation.

ERIC MYERS: And that material, they want to recycle it, but it's not suitable for human consumption.

PAUL SOLMAN: But it's been a lot easier to just dump outdated orange juice and yesterday's wieners, dead heads of lettuce and bummer hummus, even no-good Necco Wafers, named for the recently shuttered New England candy company just a few miles away.

Instead, they're all now turned into what's called an engineered bioslurry.

ERIC MYERS: We have a blending process to make what we like to think of as kind of an energy super shake that has an incredible amount of energy.

We just think of it as food waste, but it's really fats and sugars and carbohydrates and proteins.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, every day, some 10,000 gallons of super shake is piped into tankers and trucked 30 miles north, where it's transformed into fuel, the same way wastewater recovery facilities treat dirty water.

Right now at this plant, the energy is being used to power the wastewater plant itself.

But in the future?

ERIC MYERS: Every time we receive here, we can generate enough power to power about nine homes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Meaning that when this plant hits its handling capacity of 250 tons a day, it can power 2,400 homes.

The U.S. generate something like 100,000 tons of food waste a day, but barely 5 percent of it is being recycled.

Use it all, and we'd be able to power more than a million homes a day.

And that's not all.

ERIC MYERS: In addition to extracting energy from the food waste, they also take the solids that are left over, they put them through another testing process.

And they create a product that in this case is a pellet product.

PAUL SOLMAN: So they're just like little grains here.

ERIC MYERS: That's right.

That's used for fertilization of fields and farms, turf applications.

PAUL SOLMAN: It's also about 30 to 40 percent cheaper to dispose of per ton in trash, which saves Cambridge money, says Mike Orr.

MICHAEL ORR: Since the launch of curbside compost, we have seen a 10 percent decrease in our trash.

PAUL SOLMAN: So Randi Mail's early vision is reality, at least for Cambridge.

RANDI MAIL: In order to change the system, we need to make a commitment to buy our own recyclables and use our own recyclables in American manufacturing and make sure that we're not reliant on exports.

PAUL SOLMAN: So you mean stimulate recycling industry or industries which used recycled products here in America.

RANDI MAIL: Yes.

Reopen paper mills that have closed.

Require paper products to be made with higher percentages of recycled content.

And make a commitment from an institution standpoint to buy these materials.

PAUL SOLMAN: And here's where our story takes a surprisingly, or perhaps just wishfully, positive turn.

The state's Greg Cooper things the China clampdown might actually prompt such changes.

GREG COOPER, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection: These recyclable materials are commodities, like soybeans or oranges or coal or anything else.

And they have a value.

And new investments are being made domestically to try to manage that material.

What we always see in the markets is, the markets adjust.

PAUL SOLMAN: The market for recycled plastics in the Northeast is one example.

Many recycling firms, including the one servicing Cambridge, funnel their plastics to carpet manufacturers.

This plant in Virginia turns about six billion plastic bottles into rugs every year.

And closer to home, a new firm, Preserve, just outside Boston has begun to turn local plastics into kids' toothbrushes and heavy-duty cutlery, among many other items.

In the end, though, this might not be so bad for the Chinese economy either.

Some Chinese firms have now announced deals to buy American paper mills.

For the "PBS NewsHour," this is economics correspondent Paul Solman, reporting from in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, we turn to another episode of our weekly series Brief But Spectacular.

Tonight, we hear from journalist, professor and author Walter Isaacson.

His biographies of influential figures range from Leonardo da Vinci to Ada Lovelace.

Isaacson believes that those who thrive at the intersection of arts and sciences are the ones who will become a part of history.

WALTER ISAACSON, Author: You know, I had a mentor in New Orleans, sort of a family friend, great novelist, Walker Percy.

And he said, there were two types of people who come out of Louisiana, preachers and storytellers.

He said, for heaven's sake, be a storyteller.

The world has too many preachers.

I like to take on subjects for my biography that stand in the intersection between the arts and the sciences, because, whether it was Benjamin Franklin or Steve jobs or Leonardo da Vinci, I think that's what gives creativity.

Steve Jobs, whenever he did a product launch, would show street signs showing that intersection of the arts and sciences.

That's what Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is all about.

And when Einstein was looking for the theories of relativity, he pulled out his violin to play Mozart.

And, of course, Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in the rain, those electricity experiments helped him understand the notion of checks, balances, pluses, minuses that we see in our Constitution.

When I was working on Leonardo da Vinci, the biggest insights I had was going page by page through the 7,200 pages of notebooks that he had left behind.

And I realized, since I couldn't get Steve Jobs' notes from the 1990s, because they were all on some computer where the operating system no longer worked, how wonderful of a technology for the storage of information paper is.

Its battery never runs down.

Its operating system never goes out of style.

And, 500 years later, we can just sit there and marvel at Leonardo's notebooks.

Leonardo da Vinci never outgrew his wonder years.

He even had a question that I loved, which is, describe the tongue of a woodpecker.

Who wakes up one morning and puts that on their to-do list?

Whether I was at The Aspen Institute or "TIME" magazine or CNN, I know a lot of smart people.

But it soon occurred to me that smart people are a dime a dozen.

And they often don't amount to much.

What matters is being innovative, creative and imaginative.

And that requires that type of out-of-the-box thinking and curiosity you see in everybody from Leonardo da Vinci to Steve Jobs.

I like being a storyteller, and when I was a young writer at "TIME," and I could do cover stories and talk about a person who had changed history, like Jeff Bezos in the 1990s.

We made him person of the year.

And you think, wow, that's interesting.

That's satisfying, to show how somebody is changing the course of history.

And so, to be a writer, where I can look at other people's lives and realize it's part of something larger than myself or ourselves, but how people become a part of history.

I'm Walter Isaacson, and this is my brief and perhaps spectacular take and what it's like to write about people.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And Walter has written some remarkable biographies.

And you can watch additional Brief But Spectacular episodes on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.

On the "NewsHour" online right now: Vaccine exemption rates among infants and school-aged children have been quietly rising, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We explain what that means for the threat of disease outbreaks and more on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Join us online and again here tomorrow evening, when Mark Shields and David Brooks dissect this week's full political news.

For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and we will see you soon.