captioning sponsored by wnet on this edition for sunday, may 21: president trump addresses the threat of terrorism and calls on arab leaders to confront extremism. and in our signature segment. the issue of teenage pregnancy. do candid conversations about sex lower the rate more than teaching abstinence-only? next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust-- supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg.

corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, alison stewart. >> stewart: good evening and thanks for joining us. president trump is calling on the arab world to show unity and partner with the united states to combat extremism and terrorism. today, in the capital of saudi arabia, the president addressed a summit of leaders from 50 arab and muslim-majority countries, completing his two-day visit to the kingdom. in his 35-minute speech, mr. trump said the u.s. will seek gradual reforms over intervention and middle east leaders must decide for themselves what kind of future they want.

>> it is a choice between two futures, and it is a choice that america cannot make for you. a better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and drive out the extremists. drive them out. drive them out of your places of worship. drive them out of your communities. drive them out of your holy land. and drive them out of this earth. >> stewart: he called on the leaders to deny territory to extremists like the islamic state group, or isis, whose roots are al qaeda in iraq. the president announced the formation of a new "terrorist financing targeting center" to be chaired by the u.s. and saudi arabia and joined by persian gulf states. >> as we deny terrorist organizations control of territory and populations, we must also strip them of access

to funds. we must cut off financial channels that let isis sell oil, let extremists pay their fighters, and help terrorists smuggle their reinforcements. >> stewart: mister trump also called on those present to help bring syria's six year civil war to an end, and saved his sharpest words for iran. he said iran has helped syrian president bashar al-assad commit, "unspeakable crimes," and he called iran a" destabilizing" force in the middle east. >> from lebanon to iraq to yemen, iran funds arms and trains terrorists, militias and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. for decades, iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.

it is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of israel, death to america and ruin for many nations and leaders in this very room. >> stewart: for some perspective on president trump's speech, i am joined here in the studio by gary sick, a senior research scholar from columbia university's school of international and public affairs. he served on the national ins us.il of foreign relationss she serves on the secretary of homeland security's advisory council and previously served in the obama and bush administrations. preeivelt-g gary, there seem to be a couple of recurring themes in this speech. one the leaders in this room

must stand up against terrorism and 2, iran is a common enemy. what do you think about the president focusing in on those two themes? got into office.d a lot sincehe he met with a lot of islamic leaders and come to a conclusion that they are not all that bad and you can work with them. in fact i think he's discovering he needs to work with them. with regard to the other side of that and the way you do it is to adopt the position that all of those airbus are takin -- arabse taking. i don't believe there were any other represents of say kurds or shie that wershia were there. we share your view completely that iran is the bad guy that everything that goes wrong in the middle east is because of iran and we share your view with that without equivocation. 1 he says i'm not going to preach to you, in fact changing the tone from where president obama was, saying we think that the way you treat your own

people is important. e-set we're not going to bother temg you that, we're not going to preach to you at all. but then he did go ahead and when he decided to preach it was to iran. and basically here was a country across the water who had an election, 57% of them voted for moderate guy who was not supported necessarily by the supreme leader and that went unmentioned. >> i want to bring farah into the conversation. the president spoke about gradual reforms and intervention, having tolerance for one another but that one period driving them out forceful lank language that he used. how was that received by those leaders and how was it received by the average muz lim very strongly was to talk about the ideology that underpins

extremism yet he didn't go into specifics about where that ideology came from. i think it's important to understand that here he is in ryad, a country that really has a lot to do with the spread of violent ideology around the world. i.s.i.s. uses the textbooks from saudi arabia, you know, in their so-called caliphate. so there is a connection there. so he distanced around some of the themes that were very important but he didn't get into specifics. the second piece, certainly, is that who was he speaking to? yes he was speaking to the 50-plus leaders and muslim majority countries and it was very clear that this speech was to them. it was not to muslim communities around the world. he did not do the kind of extension to communities that you would have expected if that's what the audience really was. for example while he talked about the dem graphic of youth in the middle east -- dem

graphic of youth in the middle east, let's remember, over a billion muslims around the world that are under the age of 30, he did not talk about the future that they can have, if they work together, and he didn't offer any deliverables in this speech for those young muslims. which is a direct contrast obviously to president obama's speech in cairo which did both the thematic piece and also the deliverable side. >> stewart: what do you think of the new terrorism targeting center, i don't think it was lost on anyone that this was announced in saudi arabia which has a history we know of financing certain groups. >> it is interesting and striking that in that room we are looking at other gulf states who have invested in both the messaging piece the ideologic piece, how do you push back

against extremists, and they have been partners with us in pushing back the extremists. i applaud the president for talking about muslim states, and the authentickivity of authent, muslim states, what those muslim majority states are doing. there are centers in the uaes that are doing work around the messaging. saudi arabia is a very important player in all of this because here the president is talking about a $fowrd billion economic -- $400 billion deal that he was delivering to saudi arabia and offering americans the opportunity to say that we are going to get jobs from that. but what i would like the president to also do is offer a deal to america and that means using his influence to make sure that saudi arabia doesn't insight hate around the world.

and he could have offered that in a way that was more clear in this speech. so these centers that talk about financing, these centers that talk about messaging, are hollow, if there's no -- there are no teeth behind what is actually being said. >> we didn't hear a lot about human rights. there was a brief nod to women. why do you think these ideas were absent? >> i think that the audience in america is probably very shocked to see so little about democracy and freedom and human rights from this president. and i think for muslim communities around the world, it's what they want to hear from america, that we stand up for those minorities, that we work hard to advocate for things that are just and true. and it is an uncommon thing for an american president not to do that. >> stewart: gary, what do you think about this absence of the discussion of human rights or women's rights? >> they actually complained very much about president obama

talking over the heads of their leaders to the people as if this was a bad thing. i never saw that as a bad thing. i thought talking over the heads of these leaders if you looked around the room with the people who were there and talking to their people directly wasn't a bad thing at all and that is something as farah said he just didn't do that. if you want a reset of u.s. policy in the middle east he said we're going to reset it, we're going to deal with leaders when are there regardless what their backgrounds are and whether we share their values or not, we're not going to worry too much about their people, we're not going to worry about their youth movement, we're going to do deals with them, we're going to give them something and they're going to gif us something in return and that is our new policy. >> stewart: farah your thought about this? >> the u.s. took the first step to go to the middle east.

the premise that they're going to the heart of where muslims are and there's a problematic symbolism with that. saudi arabia wants you to believe that they speak or the all of islam. while most muslims live as i mentioned outside the middle east, and in fact i don't seize saudi arabia's form of islam as the right kind of islam and for americans we cannot determine which is the right sect or the wrong sect of islam but we can say to a country like saudi arabia that you don't have the opportunity to speak for 1.6 billion people and what we did here is we legitimized their viewpoint that they are the ones that are the center of slawms. and i think -- islam. that is going to be an interesting thing to watch as the weeks and months go ahead. amazon farah pandith and gary sick, thank you very much for your analysis. >> stewart: secretary of state rex tillerson is calling today's missile test by north korea" disappointing" and" disturbing." the medium-range missile was launched from the country's east

coast and traveled 310-miles before crashing into the sea of japan, according to south korea's military and u.s. pacific command. trump administration officials say the missile's range was shorter than three previous tests this year. south korea's foreign ministry called the test "reckless and irresponsible," while japan's prime minister said it was a" snub" to efforts to achieve peace on the korean peninsula. the c.i.a. is working to rebuild its china spy network, according to the "new york times," following china's killing of a dozen c.i.a. informants and its jailing half-a-dozen more between 2010 and 2012." the times" says the network had helped reveal "inner workings of the chinese government," but u.s. intelligence officials are divided over how it was unmasked, whether it was a betrayal by a mole inside the c.i.a. or carelessness by the informants, or even hacking of agency communications. the c.i.a. did not comment in the story, which was based on interviews with current and former government officials.

>> stewart: the united states ranks first among developed nations in teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. numerous studies show one contributing factor may be what schools are teaching, or not teaching, young people about sex. the research shows a correlation between high teen pregnancy rates and the "abstinence only until marriage" curriculum that has shaped sex-ed in much of the country during the past two decades. in tonight's signature segment"" newshour weekend" special correspondent yasmeen qureshi went to west virginia, a state with one of the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates. it's also a state where some schools are pushing more candid and comprehensive "sex ed". >> usually when i talk about sex education i'm with teachers, nurses, and counselors. >> reporter: these teachers and administrators in beckley, west virginia, are learning how to

teach students comprehensive sex education. part of their day is spent role playing how to answer students' tough questions. >> how do you know if you're ready to maybe have sex? >> reporter: local education officials, frustrated by the state's teen pregnancy rate, started this initiative three years ago. nora gelperin, from the non- profit advocates for youth, leads sessions like this all over the country. >> it's more than just condoms and abstinence. it's talking about relationships and dating violence and talking about communication. how do you break up with someone? how do you say no if someone's pushing you to do something you're not comfortable doing? all those skills that both young people need, and adults need as well. >> reporter: west virginia requires middle and high school health classes to cover sex education, but it's up to the discretion of the individual principals and teachers how in depth they teach it. the only mandatory topic by law is hiv, the virus that causes aids.

gelperin says there's no consistency to the way sex ed is taught within the state or across the country. >> it's a real patchwork of policies. about half of the states currently have a policy at the state level and half the states don't. a lot of students will tell you it's too little too late, it comes too late in their education if they get it at all. >> reporter: since the 1990s, teen pregnancy rates have decreased across the united states. but in the mid-2000s, west virginia's rate spiked in the opposite direction. today, it has the sixth highest teen birth rate of the 50 states. kierstin edwards is one of those teen mothers, raising her two- year-old daughter, aubrey, while staying in high school. edwards got pregnant at 14. >> i was still a freshman, and i was just like there's no possible way i could have done that. and it was a big surprise to me. >> reporter: a surprise even though she says she didn't use

contraception properly. >> we were young. he was my first. we didn't use as much protection as we should have, and we didn't try to prevent it, but we also didn't think that it could happen. >> reporter: before her pregnancy, edwards had one sex ed class a year in her middle school. >> it was like one, basically an hour, and they told us everything, and then in eighth grade they told us everything again, but it was like, it was once a year when they did this. >> reporter: kierstin's mother, brandy surratt, is helping raise her granddaughter and babysits while kiersten attends school. she says she taught her daughter about sex. >> if they teach it a lot more in school and not only at home too, you know, i think things could have been prevented. >> reporter: and so you're in favor of having a more comprehensive sex education? >> oh yes. don't just teach them, "hey, abstinence is the best, here's a condom."

no, don't hand them out condoms, teach them about all sorts of different birth controls. you're not going to change a teenager's hormones no matter how much you preach. it's not going to work, because teenagers are hormonal, and things happen. >> of every eight babies that were born in west virginia, one was born to a teen mother. i mean, i think that's, that's crazy. >> reporter: selina vickers is a state health coordinator who is trying to improve the sex ed curriculum. >> west virginia is a very high poverty state anyway. teen pregnancy is just part of the cycle of poverty, and if we want our kids to break the poverty cycle, we have to stop them from becoming mothers and fathers before they're ready. >> reporter: motivated by studies showing that teenage girls who are taught comprehensive sex ed are less likely to become pregnant, vickers started training teachers in a curriculum that's been adopted across the u.s. called flash.

it covers not only abstinence, but also consent, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual orientation, and sexual abuse. so far, schools in only 20 of the state's 55 counties use flash. the federal government funds a similar program, but also still promotes abstinence-only through department of health grants that started in the 1980s. west virginia is one of 35 states still getting the funds, despite studies showing that abstinence-only has "no overall impact on teen sexual activity" and, "can cause an increase in teen birth rates." >> we've put millions and millions and millions of dollars into abstinence only programs, and what every bit of research has shown is that it does not work. kids that go through abstinence only often have much higher rates of stds and pregnancy, because they didn't have another

option, they didn't know what, how to protect themselves. >> reporter: in rural mcdowell county, as recently as 2012, one in ten teenage girls became pregnant, which was the highest rate in west virginia. that's why nelson spencer became one of the first school superintendents in the state to adopt the flash curriculum, in 2014. >> we always give the parents the choice to opt out of any class that we have that they would think would be controversial, so it's not forced upon any student that does not want to have that education. whether it's sex education, whether it's english, we want our kids to be prepared to go in the future and be knowledgeable about any topic that comes along that we teach in mcdowell county. >> reporter: in addition to the new flash curriculum, mcdowell county schools offer an after school elective sex ed program called "teen talk." 15-year-old montana dye and 17- year-old rachel hendrickson attended. both say they barely had any sex ed in middle school. >> we had health, and that was about it. and they went over like the bone structure and dieting and

exercising. >> reporter: how much knowledge did you have before you took the after school program? >> i didn't know that much about teen pregnancy and stuff and how much it-- it actually matters. because i didn't believe that it matters that much and how much it cost to, like, keep care of a kid. >> reporter: so what were some of the gaps in your knowledge about sex education? >> the different types of birth control. i thought it was just the pill and a condom, but there's much more to it. that you can get an injection in your arm to prevent it. >> reporter: did you find that information helpful? >> yeah, yeah, it really did help. >> reporter: dave perry, a teacher and principal for 35 years who sits on the state board of education says he prefers a simple sex ed curriculum that stresses abstinence only. >> well, it's fundamental, because it's biblical. and i think abstinence is foolproof, 100%. anything apart from that, as far as contraceptives and so forth, has a margin of error, but abstinence doesn't.

>> reporter: perry says his religious objections to teaching more than the minimum about sex are shared by many people in this state. >> i think it's more responsibility of parents, and parents have a right to do that, and i think as education, we've become more social institutions than we have educational institutions. and we're dealing quite a bit with social problems and issues that i don't think our educators are that qualified or certified to address. >> reporter: perry worries comprehensive sex ed could make teenagers want to have sex. >> with contraceptives and condoms and so forth, i think it's an encouragement. you know, it's a green light that this is possible without bearing children. so, i think to what extent and to what extent you teach, what you teach you get. >> if you start talking about sex, it doesn't make, you know, teenagers run down the street and be sexually active. >> reporter: jennie yoost, an obgyn affiliated with marshall university in nearby huntington, teaches teen talk.

>> abstinence only works if you're abstinent, and what we know about teenagers is that in ninth grade about 30%, this is nationwide data, 30% in ninth grade are sexually active. that number goes up to close to 60% by twelfth grade. when we look at actually comprehensive sex education and covering all of these topics, you know, data has shown that, you know, those students that participate in those programs have, you know, less, they delay sexual activity, they have less sexual partners or more compliant with things like condoms and contraception. >> reporter: eighteen-year-old high school senior isom bailey also attended teen talk. >> i wanted to learn about a healthy relationship and the stds and how to prevent like having a child and stuff, because i'm not financial stable. i would like to learn the mistakes that can happen. >> reporter: isom's older sister had her first baby at 16. isom says he and his girlfriend

plan to delay sex. >> i promised her that i would wait until after marriage, because it's special to me, because kids all the time talk about having sex and just being with someone in the bed, and i don't think like that. i think that you should be more respectful to them and not just think about yourself and your own needs and wants. >> reporter: beyond the new curriculum and after school program, mcdowell county medical clinics that operate inside the high schools offer teens free contraception, including condoms, and the pill, without parental consent. while these controversial changes are in the early stages, school superintendent nelson spencer believes they are having an impact. >> we want them to be educated about all facets of life and to be able to make the right choice for them and make the choice that's going to benefit them in the future. >> stewart: there is a surge of unaccompanied children around the world fleeing poverty and violence.

visit pbs.org/newshour to learn more. >> stewart: finally, the ringling brothers and barnum and bailey circus ends tonight, forever. after 146 years, the circus is staging its final show on new york's long island. the show's elephants have already gone to a nature preserve in florida, and the rest of its animals are getting new homes. the circus was done in by rising operating costs and falling attendance. tomorrow on "the newshour," president trump is in israel as our coverage of his first foreign trip continues. that's all for this edition of" pbs newshour weekend." thanks for watching. i'm alison stewart. good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made

possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust-- supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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