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tv   PBS News Weekend  PBS  August 17, 2024 5:30pm-6:01pm PDT

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♪ geoff: tonight on pbs news weekend, preparing for the next big earthquake two centuries after the last one in a part of the country not normally known for them. >> why is the ground moving?
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why are objects in my house swinging back and forth? geoff: then, why an app intended to make it easier for mike rants to seem asylum isn't achieving its goal for everyone and how a new federal rule mandating nursing home requirements is shaking up the industry. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour. ♪ this program was made possible
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by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> good evening. i'm john yang. late today israel signaled am answer of key components of the cease-fire proposal and said only hamas stands in the way of stopping the proposal. israel carried out air strikes in gaza and lebanon. in southern lebanon at least 10 syrian nationals were killed. in gaza 18 members of the same family died in a strike on a house and a neighboring warehouse and gazans are now facing a new threat -- polo. -- polio.
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one case has been confirmed and one sub suspected. it was eradicated there 20 years ago but vaccinations have plunged since the war began. >> clean, safe water, resources, solving the problem of the sewage flooding our streets and homes. >> groups hope to vaccinate more than 600,000 children in coming weeks but say at least a sen-day pause in fighting is needed to cache out a mass vaccination plan. russia is pressing its assault on ukraine. a russian missile strike damaged cars and a shopping is mall in northeastern ukraine. in russia, emergency services issued a new wave of evacuations in the kirk region. ukraine claims toehold nearly 500 square miles of russian
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territory. republicannesto, a tropical storm is slowly moving into opening waters after battering bermuda as a hurricane. more than 3,000 resident dent are without power. it's not forecast to have much affect on the united states besides rough surf on eastern beaches. the app for migrants seeking asylum and the shakeup in the nursing industry as rules about minimum staffing levels take hold. >> this is pbs news weekend from weta news studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour weeknights on pbs. john: this week's 4.4 magnitude tremor in los angeles didn't do
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much damage but it was along a fault that rungs through a very populated area and has the potential of a devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake. but it's not just the west coast that ought to be thinking about that. >> october 17, 189, a 6.9 magnitude quake in the san francisco bay area collapsed elevated highways and a section of the bay bridge. candlestick park is evacuated as the world series is postponed. broken gas mains fuel fires that destroy buildings. 63 peace of mind die. damages total more than $6 billion. february 9, 1971. >> a state of emergency in california following the earthquake which disrupted the entire state. >> a 6.6 magnitude earthquake in california's anderson other
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valley leaves 65 dead. damage is estimated at $500 million. john: quakes many still vividly remember but a less known seismic event reshaped the middle of the country. for two months in the middle of 111 and the start of 1812, a series of quakes around the tiny town in missouri. the initial shock is estimated to of been about magnitude 7 . 5. some said the mims river ran backwards for a short time. trices snapped and geysers of water and sands shot up from deep underground. >> the effects were catastrophe frock. you had landslides, liquefaction. >> kent moran at the you
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university studies the event. >> people screaming this panic, the ground opening up. it was apocalyptic. >> it was felt as far away as louisville, kentucky, and cincinnati. it range church bells in charleston, california. >> they were all puzzled by it. why is the grounds moving? why are objects swinging back and forth? why is the water sloshing back and forth in the seam or pond by my house? >> about 3.5 million acres of the mississippi and ohio river valleys were reshaped. hills and lakes appeared on previously flat, dryer the rain. two centuries later the effects are still visible. stretches of sand as the pressure of the shifting earth forced to the service. a phenomenon known as sand blows. >> it de populated and depressed that area of the population for years afterwards. >> but now the area is home to
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millions and at least five states including memphis, tennessee, little rock, arkansas and st. louis. in the next 50 years there's a 25% to 40% chance of an earthquake of at least magnitude 6.0 in the area and a 10% probability of a repeat of the 1811461812 earthquakes. chair of the university of missouri's public health and director of the school's crisis center. this was the frontier in the 1810's but what would the results be now in that area? >> that's one of the big issues that you bring up. the last time this happened almost 200 years ago, there are many more millions of people that live in the area. a lot of transportation infrastructure. highways that cross the mississippi river and other rivers so impact of an event as strong as what was experienced in the
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early 18 hundreds would impact a lot of homes and businesses and transportation so it would have a significant human toll and economic impact in the area. >> you talk about spans across the mississippi but the mississippi now has bece an important economic pipeline. bringing coal andi agricultural projects to the world. what would be the effect of having that disrupted? >> we know that some of the rivers were redirected because of some of the large earthquakes. that that were to happen now, passage in those rivers might not even be possible. at least in that region, t that could be dramatic. >> the estimates of this possibility are relative li low, 25% to 40%.
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but in the midwest every year you have flooding, severe weather, tornadoes. how do you prioritize taking care and preparing for things you know are going to come versus preparing for smog like this? >> that's the big challenge. we've conducted focus groups and collected survey data throughout the region and that's what we hear from people. that there are all sorts of other day-to-day risks. flooding, for sure, severe storms so when you put something like an earthquake risk on top of that when there doesn't seem to be a huge chance that it's going to happen tomorrow, say, even if it could be quite severe. that and the people we've talked to falls to the bottom of the list in terms of risk they're thinking about or planning for or concerned about overall. >> those people who are concerned about that risk, what would they be doing or thinking about? >> $a range of activities that
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individuals and families can take to prepare for an event like this. the most basic, things like prepare a disaster can i want and have some water and some food and some important medications and documents in a place that if an event like this happens and there's damage to your home or you're displaced. you have the emergency supplies you need. it can help with an earthquake but also if there's flooding or severe storm. and there are more complex ways to specifically prepare for earthquakes. make sure heavy objects are bolted to the wall like water heaters and heavy shelves and things like that. and then maybe the highest end of preparation is something we talk a lot about with people, which is getting earthquake insurance. so homeowners i said does not cover damage to a home from an every time quake and so for people living in this region,
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even though it may be a small percentage chance that it's going to happen tomorrow. when you imagine a major event that could significantly damage or even destroy your home, having something like earthquake insurance might be something you want to consider. >> what about state and local energy preparedness officials are they worried about this? >> definitely. they want to make sure people know that this risk exists because you don't get a lot of big earthquakes in the area. you think about california and whatever. you don't usually think about mover so they're very active in getting the wordout that this is a risk and then doing things like community drills so people know what to do to stay safe. again, people have a lot of their minds and plates, so this doesn't always seem like the most obvious and likely to occur risk this week. >> on the web in california, a lot of attention to building
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codes for new construction and trying to retrofit existing buildings. is anything like that going on in that area? >> knot nearly as much as you see on the west coast for sure. because not as many people are aware of this risk. i don't think there's as much emphasis and support on building codes. ther are definitely some efforts in some areas but you don't see a lot of statewide policy in place is like missouri and tennessee in this area. there's definitely room for a lot of improvement in terms of building codes but not a lot has been done so far. >> ryan houston, university of missouri. thank you so much. >> thank you, john. ♪ john: u.s. customs and border protection says that in july a
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list of people illegally crossing the border were the lowest in four years. after the biden administration imposed new rules encouraging migrants to use apps. >> may grants will be restricted from receiving asylum at our southern border unless they seek it after an established legal process. >> he said asylum seekers should use existing legal pathways >> those to seek to come to the united states legally, for example, by making an appointment and coming through a port of entry, asylum will still be available to them. >> sounds easy, at least in theory. all you have to do is download the app on your smart phone,
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fill out an application and schedule an appointment. but in practice -- >> the app is famously glitchy. in preparing for this interview, i tried to use the a.m. and it glitched out. >> that is jeremy young. he's an attorney with a nonfederal government law firm that represents migrants with asylum claims and young ced that it has bigger problems than that. >> knot everyone has a smart phone. >> agree ever may grants without smart phones cannot get appointments. also, the app only comes in three languages. english, spanish or haitian creole. and it's practically impossible for may grants with certain disabilities, for example, people who are blind. the app's biggest problem might be that demand heavily outweighs supply. there are only 1,450cp1 appoints every day but tens of thousands
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of may grants trying to get one. >> you're funneling everyone into one line and the line is already longer than any line you've ever seen in your life. >> president biden's executive actions do not increase the number of appoints. already the average wait time in tee wan air is seven months and local officials worry that shelters will overflow with people waiting for appointments. >> jasmine, an asylum seeker from mexico says that the long wait license are taking a toll on everyone's mental health. >> there's a lot of anxiety and depression here in the shelters, especially among the women and shelter. >> she says a lot of the women and children in the shelter are depressed and anxious. some of the women are experiencing hair loss. >> it's frustrating. several mothers here are going bard, the ones who've waited
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here five or six months. >> maria, a woman traveling with her two teenage sons started to cry when asked how long she's been waiting. >> it's been such a long time to wait. we're fleeing because of organized crime bang holm. >> she decided to three her home after a local drug cartel burned his business to the ground a tried to recruit her sons. maria has trial to request asylum in person at the legal border crossing but every time border patrol agents keep turning her back telling her to use the app. >> they say that we have to cross legally but what do we do if there are no legal options available? >> maria says she wants to follow the legal process but she's starting to lose hope and zest shall not alone. officials in tijuana say the app's lg wait times actually
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contribute to illegal crossings. 1/3 of mike grants to who cross the border illegally only do so after they try to schedule appointments. >> they come in with a lot of post-traumatic stress. they want to come in as quickly as possible because they believe that whatever they're fleeing will across after them. >> he said may g migrants are losing hope. >> if you're going to impose these new rules then you should increase the number of aappointment, right? >> in june, several immigrant advocacy groups filed a lawsuit to block the new rules. ♪
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john: this week, texas sued the biden administration to try to block new federal minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes. the new rules could eventually require facilities that get money from medicare to hire tens of thousands of nurses and aides. >> the nursing home rule announced in april phases in staffing requirements, including that a registered nurse be on site 24 hours a day and that each resident get a minimum number of hours of direct care each day with you these facilities are grappling with staffing shortages. one nursing homeworr has been on the front lines of care for 24 years. >> not everybody's teeth get brushed every day. people's nails don't get cut like they used to.
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beds aren't being made. stastaff has to make short cuts because there's not enough help. the system is so broken and shorthanded and difficult to manage with the difficult combinations of patients that you're not able to care for everyone at the moment they need it. >> the new rule pushes back for being unrealist unrealistic and for patient advocates that says the law doesn't go far enough. jordan, why did the biden administration want to put this rule in place? >> the pandemic exposed the dire straits of nursing homes. over 200,000 people died just from covid alone and that put a lot of pressure on it. there's been pressure really for decades to improve the core issues, which were some of those mentioned before but also people
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falling a lot because of low staffing. bed sores are regular problems. people not getting their medication, not getting food on time and such and they saw this as an opportunity to really pushing hard and make some fundamental changes on staffing. >> it has been getting some backlash from various stakeholders, what i? >> it's very expensive. it's going to cost billions of dollars to staff up for the industry as a whole. some of these facility already have enough staffing but most don't and it's going to be extremely expensive to hire these people and a lot of people don't want to take these jocks. if you're a nursing aide, the average pay is about $19. an hour. in some cases they'll have to increase the wages. so the industry claims they can't afford it. they've gone to congress and they're looking to block and
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overturn the rule and also legally in the courts. >> so what is going on behind these staffing shortages? industry insiders will say there are 99% of nursing homes that have open jobs but can't find the people to fill the jocks. why? >> a lot of it is the money but a lot of it is these people got burned out during the pandemic. it was brutal work and watching your patients die was really, really difficult. the fact that these places are understaffed becomes a well bad cycle because if you're in a nursing home that is understaffed your job becomes so much harder. and it becomes harder to recruit people. the average turnover is about 50% every year. if you go in at the lower level you're not really working towards something. a lot of people are like i can make the same or even more money
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working at target or everyone mcdonald's and it's a much easier job. >> the labor unions that represent a lot of these nurses do support this. caregivers have been demanding safer staffing for years and finally feel heard. what are nurses currently in the industry feeling? >> for a long time they felt underpaid, jurisdiction valued and really resentful. while there are a lot of nursing homes in dire straits and closing up. there are also companies that have been making a lot of money off of them and they feel there's a lot of money out there that should be spent on the quality of staffing and that is one of the major issues that didn't being addressed in this rule, which is how much money do some of these nursing homes need to staff up at this level?
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and there's no money attached to the rule. it's just you have to hit this level or else you're in trouble. >> are these nursing homes equipped to comply? >> it's hard to generalize. about 20% are doing it. abt 20% are going to get a waiver from it because they can't get enough qualified workers in their area and the other it depends on what the administration does in terms of penalties. if you're going to cite them with a small financial, penalty, forget the patients and just look at the books, it's still cheaper to pay the penalty than it is to staff up. that's the problem the administration has when they decide how they're going to penalize oren force this. if they people them too much, you can drive a struggling nursing home out of issue.
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>> is this a band-aid or a bigger issue or is this getting to the heart of an industry that has been problematic for decades? >> it's both. it's a floor. this is minimum staffing. no one is saying all your nursing homes are staffed at this level that care is going to be fantastic. it's considered a good first step to bring bring up some of the worst nursing homes in the country to levels that are selfable. there are some really good nursing homes out there, really good owners but overall the quality of scare not at the same level that you get in a hospital or in private pay at your home and there's still a long way to go to get a high quality of care for some of the frailest americans. >> right, at the heart of all of this is the patients who are very vulnerable people. jordan rove with kff health news. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. ♪
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john: and that is pbs news weekend for this saturday. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. see you tomorrow. >> 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. somebody's pocket? >> you get nationwide coverage with no contract with consumer cellular. have a nice day. ♪ >> with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by critics to
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your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪
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>>maddie: we are going through indiana, sitting down south and working our way up north. >>daniel: interviewing various leaders from various career industries, >>saddie: to explore what indiana has to offer, whether it's careers or just leaders, to help us figure out where we want to go in life. >>jade: i feel like the opportunities are endless, especially for stories in indiana.

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