stephanie: tonight on pbs news weekend, why rates of cancer among millennials and gen-x are on the rise in america. then, as american women dominate in paris, we explore the history of equity the olympics and where things stand today.

and, why debris left behind in outer space is a growing problem down on earth. >> if this is not tackled, it just means that the expected lifetime of anything that we put up there is going to get shorter and shorter. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, this is sam. how can i help you? >> this is pocket dial. somebody's pocket, you can get nationwide coverage with no contract, that is our thing. have a nice day. ♪ >> and with e ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the news hour.

♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. stephanie: good evening, i'm stephanie sy. john yang is away. the trump campaign says it was hacked by "foreign sources hostile to the u.s." and pointed toward iran. politico was the first to report the hack, saying they began receiving emails in late july from an anonymous account with documents from inside the trump campaign. they appeared to be from a senior campaign official and were related to trump's running mate, jd vance. now fellow republicans are blaminthe biden administration, which they say

has failed to hold iran accountable. >> they tried to hack is -- his campaign -- or did hack his campaign this week. they are trying to kill him and we know from the intelligence community iran doesn't want trump back. why? because he helped them -- held them accountable. stephanie: microsoft reported on friday it was aware a presidential campaign had been targeted in an attack by iranian hackers, but did not specify which campaign. the israeli military says it is searching for multiple "terrorists" after a deadly shooting in the occupied west bank. defense forces say palestinian gunmen opened fire, from inside a car, hitting two israelis. one was killed, another was wounded. settler violence is on the rise in the area as the war between israel and hamas stretches into its tenth month. brazilian officials say the remains of all 62 people inside a plane that went down last week in sao paulo state, have been recovered from the crash site.

families of those killed in plane crash gathered in sao paulo identify loved ones. >> the news was heartbreaking for everyone, for his aunts, for his mother. his mother is torn apart. losing a child is already very difficult in any situation let , alone this one. stephanie: now, medical examiners will collect dna samples in order to match those remains to families. investigators are analyzing flight recorder data, and preliminary results are expected within 30 days. the search is on for the bodies of those killed in a landfill collapse in uganda. the red cross says at least 18 people were killed -- including two children -- after the massive site caved from heavy rain. those same storms are also slowing rescue teams. the landfill is in an impoverished area where women and children often dig through the piles toind scrap materials they can get paid for. american gymnast jordan chiles is in the center of a storm

surrounding one olympic bronze medal. the international olympic committee stripped chiles of the medal today, but the u.s. olympic committee says it will appeal the decision. she won bronze last week for her floor routine, but only after her coach questioned the scoring and submitted an inquiry -- an inquiry olympic officials now say came 4 seconds after the 1 minute time limit for challenging scores. romanian gymnast ana barbosu was elevated back to third place in the competition. the u.s. picked up its final two gold medals of the paris olympics to close out the games on a high note. -- at the top of the medal table. valente cruised to a victory in a multitrack cycling event. and in an adrenaline-filled women's basketball game -- team usa got the victory by one point in the final seconds against against france. the eighth consecutive win and tied the u.s. with china for the most gold medals at 40.

paris celebrated the closing ceremony with the official handover to los angeles for the 2028 summer games. still to come on "pbs news weekend," the push for gender equity at the olympics. and what is being done to tackle the growing problem of debris left behind in space. >> this is pbs news weekend from weta studios in washington and -- home of the pbs news hour weeknights on pbs. stephanie: while cancer deaths in the u.s. have decreased in recent years, experts say one age group has seen an overall rise in cancer rates -- younger americans. william brangham has the latest on these shifting demographics and what can be done to address it. william: they're called early onset cancers, which means cancer among adults under 50, and they are on the rise. a groundbreaking report from the american cancesociety looked

at rates of 34 different kinds of cancer over several decades, and found that 17 of them were more prevalent in millennials and gen-xers. so what is going on here? dr. karen knudsen is the ceo of the american cancer society. dr. knudsen, thank you so much for being here. i think the findings in this caught a lot of people by surprise. when you look at the overall study, what stands out most to you? dr. knudsen: well, you know, there are some surprises here, but in fact, we've been seeing some early indicators about this rise in cancers at an earlier age over the last several years. early onset colorectal cancer, i think, was the canary in the coal mine here, where we saw declining incidence in populations the 65 and above, but rising in those that are 50 and younger. these are ages for which we've previously not thought about someone being at risk for colorectal cancer. so clearly something is changing. and this new study highlights

that with 50%, as you said of the studies, that of the cancers that we looked at on the rise in gen-xers and millennials as compared to baby boomers. william: do we know why this is happening? because, again, the traditional -- i'm no oncologist, but the traditional understanding is older people tend to get more cancers. you get cancer as you get older. why is this happening with younger people? dr. knudsen: that is true not for all, but for most cancers, age is a risk factor, that is without question true. but when we look at these cancer rates, they were sometimes 2 to 3 times higher in incidence for the gen-x and millennial population as compared to baby boomers. so we look at those data. we think that the typical risks are still at play. obesity. ten of those 17 cancers are linked to obesity. a sedentary lifestyle of course increases cancer risk alongside an unhealthy diet and lack of

fruits, vegetables, grains, fiber, etc. so we know that those typical cancer risks are at play. but there must be something else because these rates are so different as compared to the previous generation of baby boomers. william: one of the things we also are concerned about is if you get cancer, whether or not it and's up ending your life, what do we know about cancer death rates? dr. knudsen: that's right. so when we actually looked in these three different age populations, we could follow cancer mortality as well in a subset of them. and we saw five actually, that were of increased mortality rates in gen-x andillennial populations. it was liver cancer specifically for women. uterine cancer, gallbladder cancer, testicular cancer which is not a cancer of aging, and colorectal cancer, which we talked about. so these leave then open questions for which more cancer research will be needed in order to address.

and we can speculate as to what are some of these additional exposures that someone may have been subject to. or could it be a compendium exposures, diet and lifestyle? what i would say is that whawe know right now is of all the cancers that we track every year, our own research estimates that up to 40% of them are preventable due to behavior modification. things like having that healthy diet, staying active, maintaining a healthy body weight. of course don't smoke, limit alcohol and get screened. so we know that early detection saves lives and that in that increased survivorship is of course, something that is well within means for screening cancers. william: on that issue of screening, given what this study reflects, do you think we ought to be changing the guidance that we give to not just to doctors, but to individuals, just as far as when you get checked, how often you get checked. dr. knudsen: such an important

question. so it's important to remember that screening is not just about your age. that's one portion, but it's also about your genetics. if you know it, your family history, your own medical history, and your risk of exposures. never too early, when you are at your physician, ask and take ownership of it on your own. what is the right screening plan for me so that all of those different criteria can be taken into account. now, as it relates to cancer screening guidelines, we of course look at this regularly. we are in the process right now of rewriting our prostate cancer screening guideline. but we were the first at the american cancer society to drop the first colonoscopy from age 50 for people of average risk to age 45 because of these trends of early on. -- early onset. we will continue to monitor and determine whether or not the screening guidelines require additional modification. the science will lead us. william: do you think younger people are getting the news

about this? do you feel like this message is percolating out into society? dr. knudsen: i think that they are. and hearing reports like this can help them take agency over their own health, those prevention behaviors we talked about. how the discussion about screening, but also don't ignore symptoms. if you're 44 years old and you're experiencing something that seems like it could be associated with colorectal cancer risk, don't wait, be seen and have that discussion with your physician. even if you're too young to technically have had your first colonoscopy, don't ignore symptoms. but it's also important to note that, on balance, there's good news as well for cancers overall since 1991, which was the high watermark for cancer in this country, we have reduced the overall cancer mortality rate by 33%. so there is more hope than ever before, which is altogether more reason to not ignore symptoms

take agency over your own health , for prevention, but also having symptoms addressed. william: i like that there's at least a little bit of good news in that. dr. karen knudsen, ceo of the american cancer society, thank you so much for joining us. dr. knudsen: my pleasure. thank you for having me. ♪ stephanie: we turn to the skies were it is not just the moon orbiting the earth. laura barrón lópez reports on the growing problem of human-made debris in space. laura mankind's trash litters : our planet from local parks to the depths of the ocean. but not just on earth. debris from everything we have launched into space since the 1950's is clogging earth's orbit. space junk is threatening our technology down here and up there. for more on what's at stake and how we can manage space junk going forward, we turn to marcus holsinger, professor of aerospace engineering at the

university of colorado, border -- boulder. professor, thank you for joining me. what are we talking about and how much is in earth's orbit? >> great question. so when we're talking about space debris, we're talking about mostly anthropogenic or human made pieces of debris. these are defunct satellites, rocket bodies that have been expended and left up in orbit, as well as parts of spacecraft or parts of rocket bodies that have been up there now, for an excess of 50 years and even all the way up to the current time. there are about 40,000 objects that we're tracking right now on orbit but there are a lot of , objects that are much too small for us to track and some numbers -- estimates put that number between a half a million and a million objects up there, some almost the size of a softball. and, of course, others isetting down to the size of flecks of paint. laura: how much of our technology a infrastructurto sas and how does the space debris

impact them? prof. holsinger: there are important things to remember. number one is that our lives, as they exist right now, cannot exist without continued access to space and low-earth orbit. most of our weather prediction activities come from satellites taking pictures from low-earth orbit. a lot of our infrastructure, in terms of timing or gps, also directly comes from spacecraft up on orbit. if you can imagine a day without space, imagine a day where none of your credit cards work, or you have no idea when to actually harvest foodstuffs to avoid, for example, a great big thunderstorm or hailstorm. it's no exaggeration to say that it is absolutely true that the modern way of life depends greatly upon continued access to space. laura: essentially, all of this junk up there could eventually harm our day-to-day lives. as the size of that space junk up there matter? prof. holsinger: it does. there are a couple ways to think

about it read in some orbits the density of space debris is high enough to where the rate of close approaches, or potential collisions, is such that continued collisions would actually cause cascading creation of debris and further collisions. that's mously known as the kessler syndrome. in most orbits that is not the problem, though to be clear a , wide variety of spacecraft that are crewed, actively engage in avoance maneuvers. for example, the international space station engages in a wide variety of avoidance maneuvers each and every year. laura private space companies : now are launching satellites bigger than we've seen before, and many countries are looking to space to expand military capabilities. so that means more launches and more debris up there. what needs to be done to ensure that earth's orbit is not continuously cluttered? prof. holsinger: the are a combination of things that we can do. so number one, when we launch

spacecraft, it behooves us to enable those spacecraft or to build those spacecraft so that they have the capability to de-orbit themselves or to put themselves into retirement or graveyard orbits. another thing that is really beneficial is when we have open communication between commercial, and national operators in terms of what their current orbits are, so that more acrate collision avoidance maneuvers can be made. it would be a really terrible thing to execute a collision avoidance maneuver, only to increase your risk from colliding with another object. now, the other things that we can do are more political in nature. this is one of those problems where you have a number of commercial and national actors who all get benefit from placing objects up in orbit, in space. this is one of those shared commons problems where you have, a resource or a capacity, to put things up on orbit and marginal use by one actor, can potentially degrade the

environment. so it's something where we have to have a lot of open communications and hopefully consensus amongst international actors and corporations. laura: you're saying that this is political as well as a diplomatic issue. ultimately, whose problem is it to solve? prof. holsinger: that is a great question. it is something that the united states government takes very seriously and there are active efforts to be good citizens on the portion that the u.s. engages in in space. for example, the fcc recently put out guidance to have spacecraft de-orbit in five years, whereas previously the requirement had been 25 years. so there are active things that we're doing, here in the united states to be good international citizens and to keep space as free as possible of debris so that we can continue to enjoy the benefits that we currently get from space. prof. holsinger: professor, what happens if this ultimately is not tackled? prof. holsinger: if this is not

tackled if ultimately we end up , having run away levels of densities in space objects in orbit it means that the expected lifetime of anything that we put up there is going to get shorter and shorter, and at some point, it may not be economically viable to put things up on orbit just because they're not going to last long enough to provide any real benefit. laura: professor marcus holzinger, thank you for your time. prof. holsinger: my pleasure, laura. ♪ stephanie: this year's olympic games were a tour de force for american women, bringing home gold medals and racking up 17 26 more medals than the men. when paris last hosted the games in 1924, just over 4% of the 3,000 total competitors were women. a century later, the international olympic committee dubbed the 2024 games the “gender equal olympics,” saying

they'd have a 50-50 allocation of male and female athletes competing. but that doesn't tell the whole story. for a deeper look, let's bring in cheryl cooky, a professor of american studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at purdue university. remind us how far the olympics have come. for many decades female athletes were marginalized and treated as subpar in comparison to the men. cheryl: when we look at the history of the modern olympic games, the first game was held in 1896, and the founder espoused very sexist and misogynist beliefs about women and women's capabilities to engage in physicality and athletic participation. the u.s. not alone in those beliefs. the struggle for equality, equal opportunity and inclusion have

not necessarily been a linear one, but certainly i think we have come a long way in terms of expanding opportunities across the globe with respect to participation for athletes. stephanie: i want to put up this graph to give viewers a sense of the improvement as measured as the proportion of participation between male and female athletes. in this graph you can see steadily over time there has been an increase leading up to this olympics, which was billed as being 50-50 athlete participation. we have to wait for final numbers to see where that lands, but i want to dive into other metrics in which we measure equityithin the lipid's. -- olympics. do you what needs further improvemt? prof. cooky: i think the international olympic committee is invested inxpanding opportunities for women not just

at the athlete level but also in terms of coaching. if we look at the percentage of coaches coming into the lump ask, i believe the last data i was able to find was from the tokyo olympic. about 13% of the coaches at the games were women. we have not had a woman president of the international olympic committee. media coverage in the u.s., this is one time of the year where we tend to see equitable coverage of men's and women's events, male and female athletes. i think a lot of that has been due to the investment by the nbc networks and various entities. stephanie: i want to take this global perspective further. one of the great virtues of the olympics is, it brings different peoples together, united under

sport. but that also underscores the challenges for gender equity because some of these countries, the women do not have basic rights much less investment in female athletes. how do you see that? and you think the ioc plays a role in addressing those issues? prof. cooky: i think the ioc has played a role in addressing those issues in terms of partnerships with the united nations. i also want to make sure we are conscious some of the struggles we see around culture and gender and disparities around resources and investmen is not just necessarily a problem in the global south, but there are challenges we experience here in the u.s. stephanie: but within the u.s. a lot of metrics show great enthusiasm right now for women's sports, whether it is female athletes like katie ledecky and

simone biles who have become legends, but also the level of women's sports popularity in tv ratings and coverage. i don't think anyone would argue this is not a moments, but the question is, have we seen this moment before and does the momentum continue? by the way, i see your own enthusiasm with your soccer jersey under that blazer. [laughter] prof. cooky: one thing that is so exciting about the olympics, we get to see women highlighted at the same level as the men. we have seen moments like this before. i think those of us old enough to remember the 1999 u.s. women's cup tournament where the u.s. team filled up a rose bowl, 90,000 fans turned out, and there was a lot of conversation about whether that was a turning point in women's sports, whether we would see an explosion in

growth and investment and resources. 25 years later, we are seeing those hopes and dreams coming to fruition in very real and tangible ways. i am not typically an optimist, but this is one moment in my career where i feel hopeful for the future. i think this moment is different in keyways with respect to businesses and companies and corporations investing in women's sports. the other thing that is different about this moment, we have a generation ofomen athletes invested in and taking their own time, money and knowledge and directing it towards advancing women's sports. we have this critical mass of not only fans clamoring for women's sports, but folks across the sports industry and sports

spaces investing important resources into women's sports. i am hopeful this is just the start of the beginning of a new era for women's sports. stephanie: that is cheryl cooky of purdue university joining us. prof. cooky: thank you for having me. ♪ stephanie: that is our program for tonight read i'm stephanie sy. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has 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.] ♪ >>

(light acoustic music) - [jeff] sometimes the contrast we find in the places we travel define the destination. this is a full-blown gator haul out right here, i'm not kiddin' ya. (dave laughs) when the glow of big city lights can be seen just minutes away from wild spaces like this, you know you're somewhere unique. dave's gonna get his camera out.