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narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc world news". jane: i am general brian in washington, and this is bbc world news america.ahead of tu'e a special report on the christian right, a growing source in u.s. politics. twitter's new boss, elon musk, fires thousands of staff by email in a bid to cut costs. and pakistan's put -- former prime minister was shot during a protest march. and 100 years on from its

discovery, tutankhamen's tomb continues to fascinate. ♪ welcome to world as america on pbs and around the globe. it is the last weekend before the u.s. midterm elections, and a campaign blitz is underway. control of the sun and the house of representatives hangs in the balance. president joe biden has warned donald trump refusal to recognize his 2020 election defeat is threatening america's democracy. a growing number of pro-trump protesters on the christian right are urging the country to take back america for god, challenging america's commitment to separation of church and state. >> in ts divided nation, the christian right has found a new voice.

>> belongs to god almighty. >> this is not a church service. hundreds of people are being baptized after a rally. thousands have turned out because they believe the christian values are under attack and that god belongs in government. >> you cannot separate god from politics. you cannot take him out of our government. these >> events into people's anger about covid lockdown and donald trump's elecon lost. the man himself dialed in while his son was on stage. mr. trump: we love you all we are going to bring our country back, because our country has never been in such bad shape. >> they are reframing it as spiritual warfare against the radical left. chris and bobby have traveled here from north carolina. >> they took away the bible,

they took away jesus and everything, so now we are being run by devils, we are being run by satan into this spiritual war. >> some people call this rise of the religious right christian nationalism, the belief that america was founded as a christian nation and should remain one. it has taken on a new intensity in this fractured political world. during the u.s. capitol riot, christian symbols and prayer were underway. greg was one of many pasto at the capitol that day. he has millions of followers online and preaches to hundreds every week. >> you ain't seen an insurrection yet. >> he managed to have an apocalyptic worldview laced with political conspiracies -- >> you god hating communists will find out what an insurrection is. >> you are calling fellow americans people and putting it an apocalyptic concept of the battle of good and evil.

>> there is a battle of good and evil. >> that if the type of language that could incite violence -- >> that is not my responsibility -- >> you don't see that is your responsibility to stay away from possibly inciting violence? >> i'm preaching the bible. >> many christians are fighting back against his interpretation of the bible. pastor kevin briggs is a community activist who believes god cares most about social justice. >> my concern with the religious right has been they are damaging the reputation of the church. i've had friends who are pastors of churches, and because they spoke out against the religious right or against president trump, then they are against the church. >> next week will be the first test of this vocal minority against the polls -- at the polls. if republicans win big, it could be a powerful force pushing the party farther to the right. jane: barbara joins me in the

studio with more. how much impact could be groups have on midterm elections? >> they are mostly white, mostly evangelical christians, although not all. the stat is about 40% white evangelicals in the country, but about one in five voters are white evangelicals, and i think they are highly motivated, at least that is what i found when i was traveling, because they feel like they are losing the culture wars. in the country have shifted ins the past couple of years, gender identity, race, sexuality, and so on. those are things that are very important to christians, because they feel like this is related to life and death and salvation and so on. i felt a very strong feeling of people who felt they were under seizure and they will putback -- pushback. jane: how much support are they

getting from outside groups, non-christians, perhaps? >> well, there is a kind of political and religious factions that are merging. a lot of that comes from the right and from the republican party. a lot of republicans identify as christian, so there's a lot of political weight and political money involved for you have public action committees putting money behind christian causes, which essentially are conservative value causes. you have, separately, if you are talking about support, a movement that has grown up, i guess you could call it apocalyptic supporters, like prophets and apostles. there are a lot of those people we saw at the event in the report, whose around the candidates and advocate for the candidates. jane: briefly, barbara, given that america has a separation between church and state, is this constitutionally what you are seeing? barbara: the constitution does not mention church and state it what it says is the government shall not establish a religion

or prevent the free expression of religion, so there is a distance, but it is widely assumed there's a separation of church and state. i would say it is assumed, preachers from the pulpit advocating candidates and some candidates actually using quite extreme rhetoric in this case, like there should be a separation. jane: barbara plett usher, fascinating stuff. thank you very much. the bbc will be broadcasting a midterm election special hosted by kevin k and christian fraser. they are out on e campaign trail, and iaught up with them in a field in virginia. kathy, christian, you both look happy and healthy. why are you there? kathy: partly because it looks so stunning, but actually we are here because this is the district that could let us know on election night whether it is going to be a good night for the

democrats or whether it is going to be a good night for the republicans. it is one of the very few bellwether or swing districts in the country. it really is that competitive. jane: christian, you are obviously not from around there. what are you learning? christian: she has driven me from prince rule -- prince george's, which is very urban, to culpeper, which is very rural. this is a race that is urban versus rural, but it is also, what i learned today, very national versus hyper local, so you have a moderate democrat really in the sense of trying to stay away, talking about hyper local issues, federal employees who commute to washington, d.c., who live in these suburban districts, but at the same time, she has to talk to these people here. and that is quite a difficult challenge.

the advantages she might have is she has a very strong brand, so she is trying to stay above the national issues and talk about issues that relate to her voters could we will see on tuesday night whether it works, because we know across the country the national issues are playing well for the republicans. jane: the national issues as well as the partisan vote. many people say they will vote republican because they do not like the democrats. is that a sense you are getting? katty: yeah, i think the idea that the country is very split, people in their camps, you are exactly right, there are very few people left to persuade. but this district which has millions of dollars pumped into it, christian and i spoke to abigail spanberger, the democrat, she says she has been hit by a slew of negative advertising, and the same is true on the republican se as well could we will in the day tomorrow with the republican candidate, but both sides

pouring money in negative ads come into district like this one, because they know there are just so few districts of for grabs, so when there is one that is competitive, you will see literally millions of dollars being spent here. christian: the other thing that is really interesting ishe was only with a gaggle of people today, and there's no one, and surrogate terms, that can really campaign with abigail spanberger, because she is trying to stay a part of congress may be a handful of people at a small press conference outside a polling station. tomorrow, when we go to see the republican candidate, yesli vega, we will probably see a lot more, and of course she is campaigning with the governor, governor rankin, who did quite well here in 2021, so she will have a bit of an advantage in that respect, but very low-key for a candidate. jane: christian, katty, thank you very much for have fun in the countryside. go toss some hay avails --

bails. good luck with the rest of the coverage. katty: yeah, pitchforks. [laughter] jane: ok, to san francisco now, where thousands of twitter employees have been finding out by email whether they have lost their job, as the new owner, elon musk, begins his push to cut costs. this are muska mother world's richest man, took over twitter paying $44 million. reports are about half of the workforce will lose their jobs. reports are tre will be compensations and benefits uil february. james clayton joins me from outside twitter headquarters for what has been the reaction to all the layoffs? james: certainly in twitter, the reaction has been mixed. i mean, some people saw this coming. there were reports elon musk was going to do this, but you can read about in the media, and it is slightly different to when emailed drops in your inbox saying you are almost certainly going to get fired, and suddenly

you are logged out of your macbook, your slack account. a lot of the employees have been kind of chill when you speak to them, however, i did speak with to one person last night it was really anxious, really tense. they said they did not want to go to sleep until they received in email, telling them whether they were sacked or not. i ve spoken to a lot of people today, and they still have not gotten that email or confirmation email. they are still waing, you know, by phones or, you know, checking their emails all the time. so it really speaks to a really chaotic process that is happening. elon musk only bought twitter seven days ago, and suddenly he has managed to find perha as many as 3500 jobs that have to go. that is a very short piod of time, and i think that is really reflected by the kind of chaos that we have seen over how this has been managed. jane: james, social media in

general, and twitter is included in that, has been notorious on which this information can be disseminated. in the run-up to the midterms, just a few days away, are there going to be enough people left in twitter to catch any disinformation that could affect the election? james: that is such a good question, because if you listen to elon musk and what he says, he says moderation policies have not changed and will not change before the midterms, however, if you sack people that are involved in moderation, they are involved in supporting moderators, what do you think is going to happen you know, it is going to be much more difficult to moderate the platform, to work out what disinformation to take do, to work out what hate speech should take down, and you may get a situation that week whereeople can pay to get verified. if you want to impersonate an election official, whatever you want to do, twitter is going to have to try and verify you. how is a going to do thatith

significantly fewer staff? there are lots of questions here about how twitter can moderate, with perhaps half as many staff than they did last week. jane: a challenging situation all around. james clayton in san francisco, thank you so much for joining us. let's have a quick look at some of the day's other news now. king charles has hosted a reception to discuss tackling climate change, as global leaders prepare for the global u.n. climate summit c.o.p. 27. it included britain's prime minister rishi sunak and u.s. envoy john kerry. it begins sunday in egypt. a group of tourists has been taken hostagen the peruvian amazon by an indigenous community. around 70 people are currently being held on a riverboat. the community is demanding mo government aid following an issue in the area. the leader says he will be keeping the tourists overnight before considering the release.

now to another story in our series "the other side," this time we look at student debt. joe biden has promised to cancel up to $20,000 of student loans for low and middle income borrowers. the bbc talked to two voters who owe thousands, but adam and angela disagree on a solution. have a listen. adam: as someone who still hasn't some student loan debt left to pay, i recognize that dealing with the student loan crisis in this country is an urgent matter. angela: it should be accessible. adam: that said, joe biden's decision to cancel student loan debt is not just bad policy, everyone will pay for the cancellation of student loan debt. angela: we need to look at programs being better and to provide free education for everyone in america. ♪

here is a picre of my six-year-old daughter watching me at 20 years old get my associates degree. i took out $38,000 of student loans to get bachelors degree. adam: i took out about $90,000 in student loans. angela: i took out what i needed to live. adam: i began college at 18 years old. during that time, i worked at everyday jobs, ice cream parlors, pizza places. angela: you know, i had tuition, books, student fees. i had a child. i was not getting child support. adam: i did not have enough income from my work alone to pay my rent and other things, so i had to borrow some additional moy for that. angela: it was literally the only way i would have been able to go to school and be able to pay rent and just to get through a degree program. adam: i really did not think too much before i took out the loans, although i had the understanding that they would

eventually have to be repaid. angela: people who say, hey, you took out this loan. you need to pay it back. this is your responsility. i did pay about a couple of times, including interest, i have paid back easily twice the amount i took out. pres. biden: when i campaign for president, i made a commitment that we would provide student debt relief. ♪ angela: i was happy, because what i have left on my loans was precisely going to be what i could have forgiven, so it was just kind of a relief. adam: in a lot of ways, for people who sacrificed a lot to pay out of pocket, this is an insult. angela: what this is going to do for these lower income, middle income families is knock down a percentage of their loan. it is going to make it easi for them to pay back and possible, so it does not become lifelong debt. adam: perhaps the biggest problem with biden's decision is

that it does absolutely nothing to reform the drivers of tuition costs. hi tuition is the reason for the student loan crisis in america. what ourpponents don't understand is that we want reform as much as you do, but this is not reform, what this is is a bailout. angela: why is it so hard for people to get an education? why is that such a hard choice? jane: the debate on student loan forgiveness there, the latest in our online series "the other side." pakistan's former prime minister imran khan has accused his successor and other senior figures of being involved in a plot to assassinate him. speaking in a hospital, he said he knew that response would be -- attempt would be made on his life. our correspondent samira hussain

has more. samira: i am just outside the hospital, and you can see on one side, there are flowers and people have been leaving get well cards. at the same time, there's actually quite a bit of security, which is understandable. remember the conflict -- context in which this was happening. mr. khan was for dissipating in a demonstration when he came under attack. his political parties that this was an assassination attempt. mr. khan has been holding demonstrations since he was pushed out of office in april of this year, trying to call for a special election. the government has repeatedly said it will not bow to the pressure, and many are expecting quite a lot of people to take to the streets not just here where i am but in cities across the country to protest what had happened and to keep campaigning.

samira hussain, bbc news. jane: 100 years ago today, archaeologists made one of the greatest discoveries. robert explains why that created such a situation. >> once stood on the floor on which we stood. robert: legends that it was spotted by a young egyptian, the buried staircase leading to what archaeologists still call the greatest find ever made. howard carter has spent over a decade looking for it. howard: in a tiny tomb, we have everything from the royal court. we've got flowers, lunchboxes, underwear, clothes, sandals, a variety of material that survived from agent egypt. rubber: news of the find was

rushed here, to the castle. the story of tutankhamen is always linked with one name, howard carter, the man who burst through that wall 100 years ago. it would not have been there at all without the passion and perhaps more importantly the finance of another egyptologist, this man. the story sparked what became known as tut-mania, from a few curious visitors to the millions who viewed the wonders of the tomb and traveling exhibitions. >> i am sorry, there will be no more admission for the exhibition tonight. robert: the feeling in the air, the legend of a pharaoh's on those who dared to enter the tomb. the newspapers named five men as its victims, among them lord can often himself. there are many layers to this story. howard cardi's successors are still finding new pieces of the jigsaw, still solving

the mysteries which remain hidden in the valley of the kings. jane: robert hall reporting. a novel by james joyce has a reputation for being a challenging read. a combination of poetry and prose, to celebrate ulysses" being released, there is a company producing a stage play. to find out how it translates to the stage, the bbc sat down with the producer. >> i wanted to make something new kid i wanted to look at what it meant, you know, today, so definitely not to make an adaptation of "ulysses". i am a choreographer working in dublin, ireland.

we have been commissioned to create a new work that marks the 100-year anniversary of james joyce's "ulysses." if i said to, you know, colleagues or friends that i am a little bit worried, you know, because i was just firing through ideas, and anything i didn't like, somebody told me of the book, if you don't like something or if you get lost, just skip ahead. so i said i would do that when making the place -- the piece. i would skip ahead. it was almost like if anything was going to stay in the piece, it had to fight to be there. i'm always quite amazed by the energy in "ulysses" and how it feels very modern. yeah, a level of experimentation that we deal with in contemporary dance hall in time.

it is a feeling of abandon in "ulysses," and something like that is infectious, i think. there are so many possibilities, so many that you can see, and lots of people talk about, you know, it is so different for everybody, and nobody owns one interpretation of it. so it is quite a nice space to be in. i think a lot of the time, ideal in this little bit of unclear space, not so black and white. that is how i live my life, and that is kind of how i feel like life really is, and i try to reflect that in the work. there aren't really clear answers. it is, you know, it's complicated. ♪

art is more of a question. jane: a gracel way to end the program. that piece produced by bill mckenna. i'm jane o'brien. thank you for narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. man: bdo. accountants and advisors. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪ narrator: you're watching pbs.

>> good evening, i'm judy woodruff. tens campaigns as voters prepare to cast their ballots. the threat of political violence looms over several tight races in michigan. before the court. the u.s. supreme court considers the constitutionality of the indian child welfare act as many native americans anxiously await the outcomes. >> if the indian acts overturned, we will be devastat. this law protects that voice for tribes, because we have been silenced for so long. >> it is friday. david brooks and jonathan capehart weigh in on the factors that could determine the outcome of the midterm election. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.