john: tonight on "pbs news weekend," the worsening humanitarian crisis facing children in gaza, as israel's war with hamas enters its fourth month. >> there's a lack of food, this lack of water. there's absolutely no primary healthcare, no health facilities are working. this is the situation that children in gaza are facing right now. and every single day it gets worse and worse. john: then, how some children around the country born during the pandemic are struggling with speech delays, and what one

state is doing to help them catch up. and, a look inde an investigation into lingering concerns about a widely used breathing machine. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, how can i help you? this is a pocket dial. consumer cellular gives you nationwide coverage with no contract. it's kind of our thing. have a nice day. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour.

♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ john: good evening. i'm john yang. secretary of state antony blinken's urgent mission to the middle east is pressing ahead on multiple fronts today, as israel's war against hamas in gaza enters its fourth month. in qatar, he sought to revitalize talks aimed at winning the release of the more than 100 hostages still held by hamas, including some americans. but the qatari prime minister acknowledged that this past week's targeted killing of a hamas leader in beirut had affected the talks, which qatar

is mediating. ahead of blinken's stop in israel that begins tomorrow, military officials there said they've now dismantled hamas in northern gaza. in southern gaza, an airstrike killed two journalists, one the son of al-jazeera correspondent, wael dahdouh. an october strike killed dahdouh's wife, two other children, and a grandson. secretary of defense lloyd austin says he takes full responsibility for the delay in informing the white house and top pentagon colleagues of his hospitalization. in a statement, he said, "i recognize i could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. i commit to doing better." pentagon officials told the white house that austin had been in the hospital since monday only after they themselves learned about it on thursday. president biden has spoken with austin, who remains in the hospital, and expressed his confidence in him. major winter storms are dropping the first major snowfall of the season in the east, and packing heavy snow from the rockies to

the sierras and the cascades in the west. parts of massachusetts and maine already had nearly a foot of snow by this morning, and more is expected to fall through the night. in the south, severe storms. in fort lauderdale last night, a tornado damaged structures but didn't appear to cause any injuries. and, a rocket launch scheduled for early tomorrow morning will try for the first moon landing of a u.s. craft in more than a half century. nasa hopes the private effort will kickstart more commercial deliveries to the moon and, eventually a crude mission. -- crewed mission. in a nod to "star trek" the booster rocket is called vulcan, and will carry the dna of star trek creator gene roddenberry, along with the dna of george washington, dwight eisenhower, and john f. kennedy. still to come on pbs news weekend, what's behind the spike in chihood speech development delays in the united states. and, a follow-up investigation asks new questions about widely used breathing machines.

♪ >> this is the "pbs newshour weekend" from weta studios in washington, weeknights on pbs. john: three months ago today, hamas attacked southern israel, killing some 1200 people and kidnapping about 240 more. ever since, israel has bombarded gaza with the goal of eliminating hamas. the hamas-run gaza health ministry puts the gaza death toll at nearly 23,000, and the united nations says that as many as 40% of the casualties are children. about half the gaza strip's population is younger than 18. and as a new year begins, many of them have a simple wish. >> in 2024, i wish not to die. there is no bathroom, no food, and no drinking water. our childhood is gone. this year is a nightmare for every child in gaza, for every man and woman, for every elderly and woman in gaza. john: earlier, i spoke with jason lee, country director in the occupied territories for

save the children. he was recently in gaza. jason: the situation in gaza keeps deteriorating. 1.9 one million people, 85% of the population that has basically become homeless. in three days i saw the sheer number of civilians who fled the south, putting up tents wherever they could on the side of the roads next to the hospitals. again, there's a lack of food, this lack of water. there's absolutely no primary healthcare, no health facilities are working. this is the situation that children in gaza are facing right now. and every single day it gets worse and worse. john: you say no primary health care facilities. what happens to children or to any guardian who may be injured in the fighting or injured in the effort to get away from the fighting?

jason: seven out of ten of the civilians that have been killed and injured has been a woman or a child. and these chdren have nowhere to go. the hospitals are completely full. they don't have enough supplies. there's not enough healthcare workers. so the doctors, the nurses, they're performing examinations in corridors. the rooms are completely filled, overcrowded beyond belief. patients are sleeping on the floor. floors that are covered with blood. and the damage that is all around in these hospitals do not have the fuel to keep running. they don't have bandages. they don't have medicines. it is now unthinkable where the majority of hospits in gaza are no longer functioning . patients and children cannot go anywhere to get treatment for the injuries that they are sustaining. john: what is the situation? how dire is the situation about getting food into gaza? jason: the latest report on the food security indicates, again, the high levels of food insecurity throughout all of

gaza. half, 50% of the population in gaza, that's 1.1 million people, are at risk of starvation. starvation cannot be used as a weapon of war. and we see this right now throughout all of the gaza strip. food availability is decreasing. families are coping or resorting to negative coping mechanisms. my team report that in the north of gaza, in jabalia, civilians have started taking to hunting animals in the street just to find a meal. john: i want to make sure i understand what you're saying. earlier you said that starvation cannot be used as a weapon of war. are you saying that you think israel is deliberately doing this? jason: what i can say, and what i saw in gaza is that there is not enough supplies coming in. we do not have free access throughout all of gaza. when i was in gaza for three successive days, all of our movement to the north was denied.

we were not allowed to take any convoy of aid to the north of gaza. and of course, the increased fighting does not allow for humanitarians to work. jo: the israeli military says they do work to try to minimize civilian casualties and they blame hamas for the civilian casualties, saying that they operate in these very densely packed civilian areas. what do you say to that? jason: gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. it has 2.3 million people living in an area that is three hundred 65 square kilometers. -- 365 square kilometers. half of the population of gaza are children. now the forcible transfer or concentration of civilians into areas that cannot host them to satisfy military objectives is not trying to minimize civilian deaths. it is not protecting civilians, forcing civilians to move when there is still active fighting. those areas cannot sustain life.

it is not trying to protect civilians when you're forcing them to move into areas that cannot keep them alive. john: israel with the support and backing of the united states is reluctant or is resistant to the idea of humanitarian ceasefire. they do talk about brief pauses to allow humanitarian aid in. is that enough? jason: the ceasefire, a definitive and immediate ceasefire is the only way to protect civilians, first and foremost, because it actually stops civilians from being continually killed and injured. it allows humanitarians to work. pauses do not allow us to stematically bring the supplies and distribute them throughout all of gaza strip. we do not have enough personnel in gaza to actually mount an effective and principal humanitarian action. humanitarian pauses do not do enough. they do not protect civilians. they do not allow humanitarians

to deliver assistance wherever civilians are throughout all of the gaza strip. john: jason, are there any firsthand experiences you had while you were in gaza that you could tell us about? jason: when i was in gaza there was this horrific and horrible instance of a four-year-old girl that turned up to gaza alone. we have no idea who she is, how she got to wadi gaza or where she came from. thankfully, we were able to find this four-year-old girl, take her to medical care, and this child was in such a state of catatonic shock, her skin was cold and clammy, we had no idea when she let state, and she was not speaking. she was non-responsive. we managed to give her some food, juice, high-protein biscuits and have a doctor check her out but i still do not know if she has regained speech. we have no idea who she is, if

she's got any family left. the united nations have estimated just in their shelters alone, and this is a rough indication, that there are 2000 children without parents, without family. we have not been able to look into in the shelters, the government shelters. we've not been able to look into the camps and the tents that are springing up all around rafah right now. we need to find these children. we need to keep them safe. john: i understand you also visited a training center in khan younis? jason: i met this young family that were desperately trying to find milk for this baby. i don't know how old the baby was, probably about six months to one year and unfortunately, the mother had died. buried under the rubble. and this family were trying to find milk for this baby that hadn't eaten for a day. this is just one story of the thousands and thousands of children that have been impacted by what is happening in gaza right now. john: jason lee of save the

children. thank you very much. jason: thank you. ♪ john: since the covid-19 pandemic, there's been a dramatic increase in the number of young children who have been slow to develop language skills. pediatric speech delays more than doubled for children aged 12 and younger. pbs wisconsin repoer zac schultz spent time with students and teachers to find out what is behind the increase and whether schools have the resources to help children speak up. reporter: the children in this early head start classroom are your typical two-year-olds to three-year-olds. but they were born during the covid-19 pdemic, and some are at risk of developing a speech delay. >> i believe we are definitely in a dire state right now.

reporter: nichole spooner is the director of comprehensive services at next door foundation, a head start program in milwaukee. she says young children were severely impacted by the lockdown. >> they were facing isolation, stress with their families, trauma, things of that nature, and so they're coming in now with really some challenging behaviors, speech delays, things of that nature. i think we're up about 10% right now in children who have speech delays diagnosed. reporter: across the state, it's the same story. >> there's just too many kids for me to fit in. reporter: megan bohlken is one of four full-time speech language pathologists at platteville school district in southern wisconsin. each of their caseloads is maxed out. and once a student is diagnosed with a speech delay, federal and state law mandates the district provide the services, whether they have the funding or not. >> there are definitely kids who will just hand you stuff and expect that you know what they want you to do with it and not say anything to you. >> early language skills are one of the best predictors of

academic, social, vocational outcomes. reporter: rebecca alper is an assistant professor and researcher at the university of wisconsin at madison, studying early language and literacy intervention. >> we're really just trying to get a sense for where the child's language levels are. reporter: she says the covid-19 pandemic highlighted a lot of existing health disparities along the lines of race, income, or even where someone lives, and young children were no different. >> it's very hard to focus on early language intervention when you're experiencing housing insecurity, food insecurity, all those sorts of things. reporter: alper's team is studying how best to support caregivers of young children, since language development starts at birth. >> what would be the most supportive long-term is to really help support early identification, early intervention. because the earlier we can intervene, the better the long-term prognoses are. >> i have one for erybody.

peyton, would you like to put a vest on? reporter: back at next door in milwaukee, they use a system called lena to help identify kids with possible speech delays. >> these vests are going to record the amount of interactions that we're having with each other. it's going to tell us how often we talk to each other because talking is very important. >> it's like a superhero this time. >> yes. reporter: shakeda caldwell is the lead teacher in this classroom and convinces the kids to wear vests that contain a small device that monitors and counts interactions between kids and teachers. >> but guess what it's going to do? it's going to help you to talk more and it's going to help your teachers talk to you more and we're going to build lots of vocabulary together. >> they are actually recording the frequency of the interactions between the teachers and the children. reporter: tonya hameister is the director of education services at next door. she says from the lena device, they download the data, which creates a chart to show the number of times a student and teacher talk to eachther.

that lets the teachers know which students need more attention. >> so if i have that child who scored lower who wasn't having many interactions, then i will plan to, ok, i'm going to have a one-on-one with this child. maybe i'm going to read more books with him. i want him to name. i'm going to ask him what does he see in the book so i can get those words out of him. reporter: hameister says lena started a research program but now next door has adopted it for all early head start classrooms. >> we saw an increase, especially in the children that were not as verbal, not as expressive. we saw a pretty significant increase in the amount of interactions. so the teachers were doing very targeted interactions with children and trying to increase that opportunity for them to be expressive. reporter: hameister says next door is fortunate enough to have a lot of community support, but she worries about schools that are dealing with a budget crunch and a surge in speech referrals. in the last state budget, governor tony evers proposed

using the budget surplus to put an extra $1 billion into special education funding. republicans in the legislature only allotted an extra $107 million statewide over the next two years, just a 2% increase. >> it's a challenge. it is a huge challenge. we know a lot of our systems are resource depleted, and they're tired. reporter: megan bohlken says burn-out in her industry is a real concern, and while they're doing ok right now, next february, they start screenings for the 4k students, where the next wave of speech delays is waiting to be identified. >> those referrals keep coming as those kids are evaluated and if they qualify, getting them added onto my schedule. that's when it's going to start to be, ok, now i feel like i'm drowning. now what are we going to do? reporter: for pbs news weekend, i'm zac schultz in platteville, wisconsin. ♪

john: and now an update to a story we brought you last year, -- last year. in 2021, a widely used breathing device was the subject of a safety recall. but as ali rogin reports, it turns out the replacement devices might also pose dangerous problems. reporter: for millions of americans with breathing conditions like sleep apnea, cpap machines have proven to be lifesaving devices. but when these devices become potentially life-threatening, consequences can be deadly.

back in october, we brought you the story of a joint investigation published by the pittsburgh post-gazette d propublica, detailing serious issues with some models of philips breathing machines, including cpap and respirators. the machines were recalled in 2021, but not before aumber of users of the machines reported developing new illnesses, including cancer and asthma. now, new reporting on the replacement machines that philips sent out to those customers found that the new machines are emitting elevated levels of dangerous chemicals, including formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. joining us now is debbie cenziper, one of the leaders of the propublica pittsburgh post-gazette investigation. debbie, thank you so much for joining us. >> so propublica and the pittsburgh post-gazette has been working more than a year on this investigation, and we've developed a number of sources who shared with us test results that had not been made public, as well as internal records that showed that scientists working for the company were growing increasingly alarmed about the results on these new machines.

-- new machines that showed that the machines were releasing chemicals like formaldehyde. reporter: were the new problems similar to the ones that the old machines were experiencing, or was this just a new set of problems that that developed, independent of the first model? >> yes. great question. so the recalled machines had an industrial foam fitted inside the machines that was found to break down in heat and humidity and release rticles as well as fumes into the lungs of patients who strapped these machines onto their noses and mouths. and so after the recall, philips changed out that foam with a different kind of foam, this one made of silicone. the new foam is not found to break down, but the test results show that it is releasing chemicals and that is causing concerns not just by scientists, but also in the fda. reporter: how widespread is the problem?

>> is essentially every replacement machine and refurbished machine set out by phillips after the recall. they all have the new foam in it and it is pretty widespread. millions of machines have been replaced not only in the united states, but around the world. reporter: what does phillips say about these new machines? >> they say the machines are safe and that the testing shows that the machines do not emit excessive levels of dangerous chemicals. the fda is asking for more testing and will not weigh in on whether or not these machines pose a rk until then. the machines are lifesaving, they are important. so i think what the fda did is they weighed the benefits and the risks, and they said, continue to use these machines until we get more test results. the issue is it's been more than two years, which leaves people kind of caught in the middle

unsure what to do about this. that is the crux of the problem. reporter: why has there been such a variation in the chemical levels that were found in independent testing versus phillips testing? >> right. so phillips solicited the help of independent testing labs to figure out if this foam was emitting high levels of chemicals like formaldehyde. and some of those reports, and we have copies, show that there were elevated levels and some show not not elevated levels. and so when we speak with toxicologists, their fear is that if there are millions of machines out there with this foam and some tests show high levels and some tests don't, we don't know what people are being exposed to. reporter: what should people do ifhey six -- suspect that the replacement sheen is faulty? >> we can't say the machines are unsafe, nobody can at this point. what we can say is what we know, which is that these machines are emitting chemicals in some cases that are concerning levels to toxicologists. but people do not know that. so we felt as journalists, it was our job to give people the facts so that they could go to their doctors and ask what to

do. we are not medical experts but , at least let people have all the facts because people didn't know, you know, originally about the problems with the original machines until that recall. and so that same pattern kind of happen again and we wanted to put e word out. reporter: we know there is already litigation underway that pertains to the original defective machines. what is the status on that? and is there litigation ongoing in any other places besides pennsylvania, where much of this has taken place? >> yes. all of the lawsuits have been consolidated into one big, um, ongoing case out of federal federal court in western pa. one of the cases was settled by philips and the plaintiffs. um, but there are several large ongoing cases that are still playing out, including a personal injury case. and there are hundreds of plaintiffs involved in that in that ongoing litigation. reporter: thank you so much for your time. john: in a statement to pbs news weekend, a philips spokesperson

said independent lab tests of the silicone foam in repaired and replacement machines found no safety issues. the spokesperson also said the levels of formaldede found in all philips machines with silicone foam were far below safety limits set by the world health organization and the fda. ♪ that is pbs news weekend for this sunday. on tomorrow's pbs newshour, as the 2024 presidential race gets underway, president biden's pitch to voters on the future of freedom and democracy. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television.

a world of british style awaits with our star service. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions. ♪ >> this program was made possib by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

♪ 76 trombones led the big parade -- ♪ michael feinstein: meredith willson is underestimated for who he was. if he had never written for broadway, he still made a tremendous cultural impact on the arts and on music. and it was all almost forgotten after the music man because of the enormity of its success. narrator: meredith willson was a music man. ♪♪ narrator: he toured with sousa,

performed with gershwin and toscanini, became a