Editors’ Picks – PBS NewsHour

In “We Were Eight Years in Power,” Ta-Nehisi Coates calls President Trump the “first white president” for the ways Trump has made the racial identity of former President Obama so central to his politics. Coates joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss how the nation is shifting since Trump’s election, and his collection of essays on the Obama years and the political and social divisions it sparked.

With addictions and overdoses surging over the past two decades, recent CDC guidelines urge doctors to avoid or dramatically limit the use of legal painkillers. In Southern California, a group of Kaiser Permanente doctors has been helping chronic pain patients "step down" from high-dose opioids with the help of alternative therapies that work well for many. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports.

In northeastern Ohio, employers say they see jobseekers all the time who look like "the walking dead," would-be workers struggling with opioid addiction. The problem is so great, reports economics correspondent Paul Solman, that it's had a noticeable effect on the nation's labor force.

Inside the search for new drugs and techniques to replace habit-forming opioids, science correspondent Miles O’Brien discovers future pain treatments may rely on virtual reality.

How was the Las Vegas killer able to shoot so many rounds so quickly? Stephen Paddock, the 64-year-old retired accountant who went on a shooting rampage, had stockpiled in his hotel room at least 23 firearms, as well as two bump stocks, which are used to modify weapons and make them fully automatic. William Brangham explains how these modifications work and how they get around the law.

Will the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history move the needle on the debate over access to guns? Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report and Tamra Keith of NPR join Lisa Desjardins to discuss the politics of gun control, the impact of President Trump’s Twitter reactions in moments of crisis, plus what pressing problems have been overshadowed in the wake of other news.

In the 2012 elections, Republicans in Wisconsin won 60 of the 99 Assembly seats, despite Democrats having a majority of the statewide vote. The disparity lead to the federal lawsuit Gill v. Whitford, in which plaintiffs alleged that voting districts were gerrymandered unconstitutionally. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case. NewsHour Special Correspondent Jeff Greenfield reports.

As Puerto Ricans face a growing humanitarian crisis following damage from Hurricane Maria, their friends and families in the continental U.S. are desperate to get in contact. And if they have, many are booking flights to bring their loved ones onto the mainland, adding to a growing diaspora from the U.S. territory. NewsHour Weekend’s Ivette Feliciano spoke with members of the community in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.

Riley Temple was walking his dog around his Washington, D.C., neighborhood where he has lived for the past 25 years when a confrontation with the police made him break the rule that all black people are told to obey in order to survive. Riley Temple shares his humble opinion on being made to feel like a trespasser and the legacy of slavery.

Ellen Pao sent Silicon Valley a wake-up call about sexism in tech and finance when she filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against her employer, a powerful venture capital firm. She lost her case and her personal reputation was damaged along the way, but she is still fighting for change. Pao sits down with economics correspondent Paul Solman to discuss her experience and book, "Reset.”