john: tonight on pbs news weekend. the ways the executive branch can shape reproductive rights and access to abortion in post-roe america. then, as a ceasefire remains elusive, what the israel-hamas war is doing to education in gaza. >> no child has been to school in any formal sense since the 7th of october. that's nearly an academic year of schooling.

that's been that's been lost. it's not good being a child in gaza at the moment. john: and as crisis and fighting both a humanitarian crisis and fighting between the army and rebel forces in the congo get worse, fears of a wider regional conflict. ♪ >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by. >> consumer cellular, this is sam. how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. well, somebody's pocket, i thought i would let you know that with consumer cellular, you get nation wide contracts with no cuts. that's it. 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 eveng, i'm john yang. across russia today, tv entertainment shows and commercials were suspended, cultural events were canceled, and flags lowered to half staff. this is all to mark a national day of mourning for the 137 victims of the concert hall massacre in surban moscow. russian president vladimir putin lit candles. a makeshift memorial near the burned-out concert hall has become a huge mound of flowers. some of the 11 detained suspects were taken to the headquarters

of russia's criminal investigation agency for questioning. russian media says several have been charged with acts of terrorism in court. all the while, family and friends are desperate for word about loved ones still missing. >> at the hotline, they don't give any information. even now, i was driving from the hospital, but i couldn't go home, i couldn be alone anymore. it's very difficult, so i drove to my friends. now at least i'll be with someone. john: the moscow health department said it's begun identifying the dead using dna and that the process will take at least two weeks. as putin blames ukraine for the attack without offering any evidence, a barrage of russian missiles hit targets in kyiv and farther west. it was the third missile attack on ukraine in the past four days. a russian cruise missile briefly strayed about a mile into polish airspace, triggering the activation of nato and polish f-16 fighter jets. and, nigeria's military says 137 of nearly 300 school children kidnapped more than two weeks ago have been released.

pictures show them looking tired, covered in dust and still wearing the school uniforms they had on when they were abducted. two days ago, 17 children taken from another school were rescued. recent abductions have been concentrated in northwestern and central nigeria carried out by groups eking ransom money. since 2014, at least 1400 nigerian school children have been kidnapped. still to come on pbs news weekend. the effect the israel-hamas war is having on education in gaza. and fighting between rebels and the congolese army sparks fears of regional war. >> this is pbs news weekend, from weta studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour weeknights on pbs. john: abortion will be back at the supreme court on tuesday, when justices hear oral arguments in a case challenging fda rules making it easier to get mifepristone, the medication that accounts for more than half

of all u.s. abortions. it's an election year reminder of the role executive branch agencies can play in the post-roe world -- just one of the ways the future of reproductive rights could be shaped by who wins the white house this fall. university of california, davis, law professor mary ziegler is an expert on the law, history, and politics of reproductive rights. mary, you have written recently that this is the most consequential election for reproductive rights in a half-century. why do you say that? >> i think before this election, what presidential candidates really meant was an opportunity to put justices on the supreme court, and that hasn't changed. what has changed is now without roe v. wade, a republican president could do quite a bit to limit access to abortion nationally, including in states that voted to protect abortion rights through ballot initiatives or that put protections for reproductive rights in place through their legislatures. so this is the first opportunity

we've really had to see what that could look like if we did have a second trump presidency. conversely, i think if you have a joe biden presidency, joe biden in some ways is a sort of firewall against whatever is going to come out of the u.s. supreme court. so if conservatives are able to engineer victories in the supreme court in cases like the one that's being argued this week, a lot of enforcement discretion is vested in the executive branch. and so in one way or another, there's a lot on the line. john: let's talk about the ways that a president could it could influence this, reproductive rights, the sort of the administrative role. for instance, let's take mifepristone. they're fighting about fda rules. >> yeah. i mean, so obviously if the supreme court, for example, was to say that, the fda didn't have the authority to allow telehealth abortions in 2021 or didn't have the authority to lift other restrictions on mifepristone in 2016, the enforcement authority, the fda would be the one to say if

someone was violating the new rules, we're going to impose a civil penalty or we're going to impose a criminal penalty, but the discretion about what to do that, when to do that, or whether to do that at all, would depend on who's in the white house. who is in that executive branch agency? it's reasonable to assume that enforcing mifepristone rules that the biden administration doesn't agree with wouldn't be a priority for biden in the same way it might be if trump is in the white house and someone is in hhs who feels differently about mifepristone, potentially even though some f itself feel very differently about mifepristone. john: the heritage foundation actually has a whole project of, of things they want done if if president trump were to win a second term and one of them is a law governing the u.s. mails . tell us about that. >> so this law icalled the comstock act. it was passed really as kind of an obscenity law in 1873, and it made it a crime to mail a variety of items that its framers believed encouraged people to have illicit sex, including, originally, items for procuring abortion.

now there's language in the statute that says items designed, intended or adapted for producing abortion. so conservative groups are arguing that the comstock act makes it a crime to mail any abortion related item. and they argue, as a result, number one, that the fda doesn't have the authority to allow telehealth abortion. but number two, that no one really has the authority to perform a legal abortion because every abortion in the united states takes place using some item in the us mails, whether it's a surgical procedure or a medication procedure. so that that question is front and center froin project 2025's mandate for leadership that you mentioned. and the argument is essentially that, president trump in his second term, could start enforcing this statute against blue states on day one, against abortion doctors, against drug manufacturers, andotentially down the line, even against patients, because the comstock act notably makes it a crime not just to mail items, but to receive items as well.

john: that law is still on the books. why is it is it not being enforced in that way? >> for a long time, it has not been meaningfully enforced based on the best evidence we have. in cases of abortion or contraception, really since the 1930s, it's been enforced in cases involving pornography, in the interim years, but not in cases involving abortion and contraception. and it's hard to say exactly why that is. i think in part, we have a lot of federal court precedents saying that it's wrong to enforce the comstock act in all cases involving abortion, particularly in cases where a patient's health may be implicated or where a use is lawful. there also just for many years was roe v wade. so it would arguably probably been unconstitutional to enforce the comstock act in those ways. so now we have this kind of zombie law that most americans don't even know is on the books that the supreme court, in theory, could transform into an abortion ban that americans would never vote to enact. john: donald trump has begun

talking about a nationwide 15 week ban, a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy on abortion. can do that by himself, or does he need congress to do that? >> he would need a congress to do that. so a lot of the proposals you actually hear president biden or former president trump making on where they would actually need congress's approval. so in the case of president biden, you know, codifying roe v wade. in the case of president, former president trump, potentially codifying some kind of 15 week restriction on abortion, in either of those cases, you would need congress, which is why conservative groups are so mh more interested in what the executive branch can do on its own. john: are there things that an executive or president can do with executive power to either protect abortion rights or expand them? >> i think it's a little harder for the biden administration if there were to be a second biden administration, because biden, also would have his actions challenged in court. those actions would ultimately

land before the u.s. supreme court. and the u.s. supreme court, as we know, is very conservative and has been pretty skeptical of the idea of abortion access in the past. john: mary ziegler of university of california, davis, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. john: the world health organization says the future of an entire generation in gaza is at risk. children are dying of the effects of malnutrition and disease and from a lack of adequate water and sanitation. there's another casualty from five months of war between israel and thomas -- and hamas gaza's school system. ,>> my dreams have been voided, my ambition has been broken, my dreams have been lost, they're nothing. myself, i used to want to do well and get grades and make my family happy, and go to university and study and do well, but my ambitions have been

voided, everything has been broken. john: by some estimates, at least half of all gaza structures have been damaged or destroyed -- many of them schools. william brangham has more. william the education system in : gaza was facing serious challenges before the war began. but today, more than 800 lower schools and 17 higher education institutions lay in ruins, having been either partially bombed or entirely destroyed. making matters worse, gaza's population is disproportionately young and of school age. arnd 65% are 24 years old or younger. david skinner works for save the children, where he's the senior education cluster coordinator in the occupied palestinian territory. he joins us from ramallah in the occupied west bank. david skinner, thank you so much for joining us today. on some level, i think many of our viewers will be surprised to learn that there is any education that is able to go on in gaza, given the ongoing war

there. can you just tell us a little bit about what kind of instruction and education children can get today? >> i don't think people should be thinking of it as a full-scale education. it's very hesitant, it is very trivial. if you imagine you are in a shelter in ramallah, or actually in gaza, there is a very, immediate desire for education to take place. so what we are seeing in the shelrs is organic education activities taking place. parents are coming together. there are teachers in the shelters and education is happening. it's not people sitting in rows with a whiteboard in front of them and teachers, teaching the times table or the alphabet. it's a place for, for structure and for and for some kind of escape, if you like, from the from the immediacy of the of the issues in front of you. william: i mean, just as you're

describing it, i imagine that it on some level, it does provide some small trace of normalcy, of what life used to be like before the bombs started to fall. >> those people who are experts in mental health are telling us education is one of the most important things for the mental health of children is to give them a rhythm, is to give them security, is to give them some kind of predictability. and school plays an enormous part in that. and i don't wa to exaggerate this, william, i don't want you to to feel that there's a sort of a fully fledged or anything like a fully fledged system in gaza. i think it's more accurate to to think of the shoots of education coming up within the sheers as communities are trying to care for their children. william: i know it ha to be difficult to encapsulate all the experiences of all the children you are in contact with, but can

you give us a sense of what you are hearing from your colleagues about how those children in shelters are doing? >> i have children. i think you've got children, william. and imagine your children in a shelter where you as a parent are concerned. they, as a child, are concerned that a missile is going to hit the shelter, that they're going to be harmed if they go into the streets, they don't have enough food to eat. many of them are sick as well, diarrhea, chest infections, many facing food poverty and in the north, they are facing malnutrition. and no child has been to school in any formal sense since the seventh of october. that is nearly an academic year of schooling that has been lost. so if you had academic dreams, hopes, aspirations, those have taken a hit. it's not good being a child in gaza at the moment. william: you were talking about the schools and the israelis argue they only target structures where hamas was operating. have you or any of your staff seen any evidence that is the case? >> i have not seen evidence that

hamas have been in the schools. but it's not my, area of authority. what i can say is over 70% of schools have been either destroyed or damaged. so one of the big challenges we will be facing after there is a definitive cease-fire is the physical reconstruction of hools which will be expensive, difficult, more difficult than after an earthquake because you have unexpected ordinance scattered through the rubble. it is simple comparatively compared to some of the issues that will be faced. the biggest issue children are going to be facing in terms of catching up is thermental health. frankly it's going to be really tough to try to support children who have been so much going through that. so you've got physical, you've got educational, and a mental

health set of issues. i d't think i can think of anything i've seen, i've been doing this for 20 years now where you've seen such a , degradation over such a short period of time of an education system. william: all right. david skinner of save the children, thank you so much for spending time with us. >> thank you. john: this past week, the world health organization warned that violent conflict in eastern democratic republic of the congo is making the humanitarian crisis there even worse. fighting is intensified as armed rebels close in on goma, the provincial capital of one of the drc most mineral rich regions. hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties and hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians are crowding camps. >> i fled the attacks from sake, where bombs and gunshots were resounding with my six children.

since we arrived here, we haven't received any assistance and we are hungry and do not know what to do. john: now there are fears of a wider regional conflict. jason stearns is the founder of the congo research group at nyu's center for international cooperation and an professor assistant professor of international studies at simon fraser university in vancouver. who are these rebels, what are their goals and aims and why are they making this push now? >> the m 23 is one of 100 different armed troops in the eastern drc, although probably the most notorious and most important one, they're responsible for around 1.8 million displaced people out of the 7 million total displaced people. there's been various rounds of rebel groups backed by their own and governments often drawing , from one ethnic community in the eastern drc that have been launching attacks on the congolese government going back to 1996. so they have a very long, heritage. but this particular round of escalation started in 2021.

the real reason it started was geopolitical conflict between the governments in the reeve -- region, particularly the ugandan government. but that played out so often on congolese soil. it is difficult to talk about the m 23 rebellion without talking about the rwandan government itself. like other governments in the region, they are trying to protect and get a foothold in eastern drc and protect their interests that include security interests but also economic interests in a mineral rich area of the continent. john: are there american interests at stake here? >> the united states has been increasingly involved in the congo due to the transition towards green energies. the congo produces around 70% of kobolds around the world that you need for electric car batteries and the largest producer of copper in all of africa, pretty much in any piece

of electronics you have, and a large producer of variety of other minerals, tungsten, tin and gold. it's also important to highlight, foreigners have always been part of the creation of troubles, it may be difficult for listeners to find congo on the map. but any congolese has a feeling that they are the victims of international interference, and they have reason to do so. i think so because the congo's history has been embroiled in international intrigue since its founding in 1885. john: you mentioned the role of rwanda and uganda. what is the spark or what could be the spark that would that could expand this into a regional conflict? and what would be the risks of concerns about a regional conflict? >> that's a very good question. increasingly it is a regional conflict. you now have peacekeeping troops or intervention troops from south africa, tanzania and malawi, fighting pretty much against rwandan troops in the eastern congo. you have burunans, a country just to the south of rwanda

fighting against probably rwandan troops in the eastern congo. and so even though nobody is talking in terms of a regional war, none of these countries is really accusing or saying that they're killing each other in the eastern drc. that is pretty much what is started happening. so i think the risks are very, very much, there, if, if diplomacy and cooler minds don't prevail. john: is the congolese military up for this challenge? are they well-equipped and well trained enough to fight against these rebels who are backed by other governments? >> the congo is deployed by a much larger military budget than ever before. they have about they spent about $1 billion upwards a year on defense now. they've hired a variety of private security contractors, especially from eastern europe, to help them, both train troops and fight on the front lines. and so the congolese government is trying to throw the kitchen sink at this problem. i think, unfortunately, they have not fared very well on the battlefield. they've been plagued by corruption, by confuse chains of command.

i mentioned before there's about 100 different armed groups in the eastern drc and the one common denominator is the congolese state. the congolese state is either too weak or very often actually in complicity with those armed groups selling them weapons through corrupt networks. so it is difficult to imagine a long-standing solution to this problem without a reform of the congolese army, and a reform of the congolese state that almost has a vested interest in continuing the conflict given the corruption in the military. john: you mentioned peacekeepers from other african countries. the u.n. pulled out its peacekeepers starting at the beginning of the month. why are they leaving? >> the u.n. is in a phase withdrawal. they're on their way out. the congolese government has asked them to leave. i think there's a widespread perception, not just by the congolese government, but by the congolese people, that the un has this vast budget. it's over $1 billion a year. it's larger than the congolese government's health or education

budget. and yet they've been there for 25 years now, and they've not been able to bring an end to the conflict. and so there's a lot of resentment of seeing un officials getting big salaries, driving around in air conditioned cars and not being able to finish off this, this conflict. in their place to a certain extent, the congolese government has invited other countries to help fight against various insurgencies but it has not yet been effective. john: jason stearns at the congo research group at nyu thank you , very much. >> thank you. john: finally tonight, and annual celebrated event took place in washington this past week that has nothing to do with politics. it is known as peak bloom. the day 70% of the blossoms are opened on washington's iconic

cherry trees around the tidal basin. this year's was two weeks earlier than average after the warmest washington january on record. cherry blossom season in the nation's capital draws a million and a half people from the united states and abroad. lorna phillip and her sister came from trinidad and tobago. >> one of our main reasons for coming, she wanted to see the cherry blossoms in bloom. it is nature at its best. john: but for 158 of the trees, this will be their last bloom. the national park service is cutting them down as part of a project to rebuild tidal basin seawalls which has sunk over the years in some places as much as five feet. as a result, it floods twice a day at high tide driven by rising waters due to climate change. >> it inundates the roots of the cherry trees, resulting in the deaths of many trees, threatens infrastructure like sidewalks. it's even forced us to close the jefferson memorial from time to time as the water overflows the walkways leading to the site. john: that twice-a-day diet of

brackish water has hollowed out the trunk of a beloved tree known as stumpy. it stubbornly continues to bloom despite being in what botanists call a mortality spiral. it's getting even more attention this year since it's one of those on the chopping block. >> our partners at the national arboretum will take clippings of stumpy and create genetic matching's, essentially clones with the same genetic material and plant those around the tidal basin when the work is finished. >> while i'm glad they are waiting until after the blossoms are out. it will be interesting. i will be here every year like i always am. john: and as this year's display of beauty fades, a reminder of the cycles of life, both human and botanical.

and that is pbs news week and for this i'm john yang. sunday. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. >> major funding for the pbs news weekend h been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible 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.] ♪

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