captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, june 17: immigrant children separated from their parents at the border draw the attention of lawmakers and protestors. in our signature segmee surprising source of medical marijuana in italy. and, the unlikely love story of black nurse and a german p.o.w. next on "pbs newshour weend." >> "pbs newshour weekend" is enade possible by: bernard and schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the sue and edr wachenheim foundation. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos.e p.b. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter. 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 supportovas been ed by: d 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, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening ann thank you for g us. today on the u.s. side of the border with mexico, protesters and politicians demanded tppknow what is ing to thousands of immigrant children being held in shelters, many of them separated from the parents who were seeking asylum or illegally crossing the border. the trumadministration calls this new policy "zero- tolerance." it also contins to falsely blame the family separations on democrats. in texas, members of congress marched with protestors in the city of tornillo, site of a new detention facility wheregr imt boys are housed in tents.

in mcallen, texas, a group of democratic legistors visited several facilities that hold children. >> there is no way that family separation policy is good for anyone. >> sreenivasan: in washington, fallout surrounding president trump's policy conti criticism coming from both democrats and republicans. >> what the administration is doing is, they are using the grf, the tears, the pain o these kids as mortar to build their wall. >> what the administration has decided to do is to separate children from their parents to try to send a message that if you cross the border with children, your children are going to be ripped away from you.ra that'satizing to the children who are innocents victims and itntrary to

our values in this cou >> sreenivasan: meanwhile, current and former members of the trump administration continued to defend the president's policy of separating children from their parents. >> we ran on a policy, very simply, stop mass illegal immigration and limit legal immigration, get our sovereignty back, okay? and so he went to a zero lerance policy. zero tolerance it is a crime to come across illegally and children get separated. 'si hate to say it, but thhe law and he is enforcing the law. >> but the decision to start separating families is not mandated as part of the trump administration's decision was a change in policy. >> there is no seemingns uence to the president and, lid if we accept that as a society it is going to have incredibly harmful consequences in the way that we operate going forward. >> sreenivasan: the zero- tolerance policy is not yet decreasing migration across the southwest border. according to u.s. customs and tborder patrol, last montre were four times as many families

and three times as many unaccompanied children who attempted to cross the border compared to may of last year.tr president ump is scheduled to meet with republican house members tuesday to discuss twoaf immigration bills. a pair of bombings in afghanistan this weekend... a bombing in the city of jalalabad today killed at least eighteen people and wounded arly 50 more. the attack came as the governor of the eastern nangarhar province met with taliban members during the mus holiday of eid-al-fitr, and as a ceasefire between the taliban and the government was coming to an end. yesterday, the islamic state claimed responsibility for a car bombing that killed 36 people and wounded siy-five others. islamic state did not agree to the ceasefire. seventeen people were kill last night at a caracas club after a tear gas device was set off during a fight. authorities say that eight of the victims were under the age of eighteen.

more than 500 peop were packed to the club at the time. some good news in colorado today, where rainfall is helping to slow down the massive 416 fire near durango. the fire which has burned more than 34,000 acres, is now 25% contained. despite forecasts for more rain, the san juan national forest, a popular tourist attraction, which was closed tuesday for the first time in its 113 year history, remains off limits due to continued high fire risk. >> do your prescriptions cost less if you don't use insurance? tell us your story. sit pbs.org/newshour. reenivasan: antarctica, continent of snow and ice, is now losing ice three times faster than it was in 20dy. in a new sublished last week in the journal "nature," more than 80 scientists from multiple countries used satellite data to examine the i antarctic's va sheets. and their prediction is that if the current rate of ice melt continues, sea levels could rise

six inches by the year 2100. joining us now for more on this study and the consequences of sea level rise ibenjamin strauss, the president and c.e.o. of climate central, an independent organizationf scientists and journalists that research and report on the changing climate. how consequential, how significant is this particular study? e first thing i'd like to point out is antarcca is just one part of the story. so we have six inches from antkarkta, if it continues to shedicshedice ice at the ratit s measured but there are other sources as well so that altogether we would be loong at three feet. >> sreenivasan: three feet of sea level rise by the year 2100. that is consequential to hundreds of millionof people live on costa cities -- coastal cities all over thean pl? >> yes, it is. we're already seeing floods increase. yesterday, for example, there were floods atas at eight tie gauges around the united states.

almost all of which wouldn't haveappened without the sea level rise that we've already seen. >> sreenivasan: what is it that is convincing these scientists that the rates are changing? what are they studying? what are they looking at? how can thetell? >> yeah, they have a lot of direct measurements from satellites of ghe heiof the surface of the ice sheets so they're able to see how that height changes ov time. there are also amazing satellites which, in fact, measure the graphtational pull of the ice sheet and, h therefor much ice is there. so those are the two main forms of measurement. >> sreenasan: there are imate science deniers who say look at the east side, that there's actually more ice coming in, doesn't this all balance itself out? >> we do anticipate that in the future, snowfall will increase in east actorca and i hope so but this study shows in rect decades it hasn't. in fact, we've seen a drop in snowfall. >> sreenivasan: if you take a look at some of the maps and look at a city like miami and oou ratchet up the scale t

three feetmore walter. you see huge parts of what we consider to be the city of miami under water. >> yeah. that's right. south floridais severely at risk, particularly because their bedrock is powerous is even if you melt levies, water wou push underneath and many koup through the ground. so there are really high stakes here. >> sreenivasan: even up here in the northeast, much closer toit new york newark, the areas around on the coastal waterway are severely impacted. >> yeah. at lot of airports nationwide in coastal cities are built o marsh land, very -- a place that's low and flat and unobstructed and away from other builds. a lot of the them already have vies around the edges d three feet is difficult but manageable in most places. may not be manageable in south florida. if on the other hand we continue to see the iceeding up, we don't cut back on our cmate pollution emissions, then we're pointed more towards six feet

possibly and that will be unmanageable in very many places. >> sreenivasan: also, the effects that we're seeing of sea level rise of climate change in a global capacity, this is because of the carbon that we've already put into them atosphere, not just exactly what we're doing today. so even if everyone stopped driving, all the factories shut down and somehow we didn't produce co2, we're still going to seat effects of climate change. >> yes, we are. unfortunately, once the carbon is in the atmosphere, most of it rsays for hundreds and thousands of yea i think for most people, you tmagine we have this problem. if it ever ges really bad that it's hurting us, drastically, we'll simply stop. we'll fix it in a few years. t the carbon keeps on insulating the earng, hea the earth more for hundreds and thousands of years. i'd say tt, at a minimum, we have five more feet of sea level rise baked in and probably a good deal more if we control our pollution noea we canlly slow it down a lot and make it more manageable. and that's the name ofhe game.

slower change will be much more manageable than the fast change. that is possible. >> sreenivasan: all right, ben strauss of climate central. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivas: 220 pounds of rijuana. it might not be surprising to learn that that's not enough to meet the medical needs of a country of 60 million people, a country like italy, wher medical weed was first allowed more than a decade ago. what might surprise you about italy's legal marijuana crop is who's doing the growing. newshour weekend special correspondent chris livesty has ouory. reporter: meet this colonel from the italian army. his mission might surprise you. do grow up marijuana for all of italy's medical needs, he gronss ite this heavily guarded military facility in florence.al he admit these officers andie

sold wearing lab coats kind of makes it feel like area 51. >> area 51. okay. okay. >> reporter: but nothing like that going on. >> no. reporter: okay. i'll trust you on that one. no little green men.n just little grplants. to see up close, we have to suik up surgeons so as not to contaminate this artisanal product. >> the air is thick with t smell of marijuana. despite the mask. >> reporter: then we have to pass through two airtight doorways. on the other side -- all the marijuana legally grown and prescribed in italy. >> medical marijuana must be grown with extremely highda sts, indoors with no pesticides and under strict sanitary conditions. that's why theilitary is producing marijuana. the army was already responsible for producing orphan drugs that treat rare diseases, because we can guarantee a margin of afety that will be difficult elsewhere. >> reporter: medical and his

team do everything in-house from growing and drying to harvesting and packaging for pharmacies and hospitals. the patients who are required to have a prescription pay about 2 per gram. >> one of our main objectives is to fight the black market. in fcet, the final pri of our cannabis is lower than the black prmarkets, precisely to event patientpatients from buying it e streets. e reporter: but italy's d only medical marijuana facility has a problem. the colonel says it just can't meet italy's growing demand froi pats. the italian government has no data on how many people havenn is prescriptions. pharmacists we spoke to estimate tens of thousands and they're each fighting for a espooh of what tharmy grows. last year that was only 200 twnt pounds. -- 220 pounds. >> the health ministry and the defense ministry have trying to fix the shortfall because there's been a huge increase in ions, and thecri number of patients who need them. >> reporter: do you have cancer? yeah, i have cancer in lungs,

and this is a good method to keep my pain low. >> reporter: this woman is one of thousands of patients who have run out of medical orijuana. caught up with heside a marijuana conference in rome. she chased down this pharmacistn to see if h where to find any. he tells her, most pharmacies have run out too. for now, she'lhave to wait. >> here's the pro demand is constantly increasing. last year, italy responded to the shortfall by importing 440 pounds from the netherlands and patients have gone months without being able to fill their prescriptions. this year, italy will import an additional 220 pounds from canada. but it's likely will run out t again bee end of the year. >> reporter: and how long has it been since you've had any cannabis? >> one month. reporter: so one month you've been suffering through the pain. >> yeah. yeah. >> reporter: she says her only alternative to turn to the black market. so far, the risk of being cauort etting a bad product have

kept her away. for those willing to te th risk, there's john deo. he -- doe. he grows and sls marijuana illegally. he says despite the army producing medical marijuana, black market weed is here to stay and, in his opinion, it's often a better product. >> the military is doing horrible job . their pot is low quality and full of seeds. it's garbage. plus, they're not producing enough for the people that ed. that epiosup the door for the mafia. people have no choice but to turn to the maffoia medicinal marijuana. that's one reason i produce my own because i don want to éupport organized crime. >> reporter: cafeewner monaco uses marijuana to treat his anrecords ya. he says there's another goo reason to find an alternate source of pot. pothe government's isn'ent enough for some patients including him. he no longer uses the militar weed.

instead, his local hospital has to order a more powerful strain from abroad. >> this what you get from holland, right? >> yes. reporter: why don't you get etitalian product? >> because itian army doesn't product these kind oweed. >> reporter: and he's right. according to data from the italian health ministry, dutch medical marijuana i three times as potent when it domes to thc. that's theompound in pot that gets you high. >> i spend 500 to 1,000 euros a month since i was diagnosed with these pathologies. if i grew my own plants, i wouldn't have to. >> reporter: growing your own plants is something neither italy nor any other e.u. country allows. they sympathize with patients but think it's a dangerous idea. >> this plant absorbs heavy metals from the ground. if it's t med in proper conditions, you run the risk of obtaining a final product pollut with heavy metals that

the patient will absouthern it's very bad for your health. . >> reporter: but patients say so is a shortage of medical marijuana. colonel medica insists they are narrowing the gap. >> ewould okaying on it an over the next two years, we should reach an annual yield o 660 pounds. . >> reporter: that's triple the current output. marijuana users owe the preg predicted increase ta new health bill that will give $2 billion in public funding and make medicinal pot free nationwide. >> so the cannabis p is now moving to the next phase. right behind me there's another ntains almost three times as mu thc. of corse, we predict demand is only going to increase. we're nowhere near the celing. this is just the ding. -- beginning.

>> sreenivasan: during world war ii, the u.s. army faced an ongoing nursing shortage. yet the army was still racially segregated andinesisted enliblack medical professionals. though thousands applied, less >> reporter: when you think of than 600 black nurses were allowed in by the d of the war. many were given assignments considered "less desir faced racism from fellow white officers. but for one african american nurse assigned to a german prisoner of war camp in jim crow-era arizona, that experience was just the beginning of the discrimination she would face. it's all detailed in the new book, "enemies in love," by author and journalist clark. newshour weekend's ivette feliciano has more. >> reporter: german soldier frederick albert was captured in italy in 1944 and taken to a prisoner of war camp in arizona where he met african americane, nulinor powell. how did they meet?

and what's the story of their courtship? >> frederick, who was a great cook, and a baker, worked in a mess hall. and, apparently, he saw elinor for the first time and he shared ith family members, walk right up to her and said, "you should know my name. i'm the man who's going to marro " >> reporter: and it was all smooth sailing from there? >> well, she was shocked, of course. i mean, here's this german prisoner of war, you know, hitting on her. broad daylight. and it was obvious that he was, you know, trying to court her. >> reporter: is there anything about their respectivebr gings that you feel made them more open to an interracial romance?as >> sherom a prominent black family in the boston suburbs. it was actually very progressive; it was calledac milton, masetts. went to white schools, had white friends, and she was from an educated family. so although she ew about discrimination, but she was largely secluded from that.

denow on the other hand, fck was from nazi germany, and he was from a very wealthy family, a prominent family, and they were german nationalists. now althoughhey didn't join the nazi party, they were believers in hitler, and the german empire. but frederick was an artist. and was incredibly into jazz. and so that had been outlawed in germany by hitler, but he snuck around and would listen to it. so he had this impression of e rican americans: they were artistic, they wrm. all the things that he never felt growing up in his family, because he had a very dysfunctional relationship with his father, in particular, becaushe wasn't a military guy. he wasn't into the war. he really was this artistic, ee spirit. so he saw elinor, and attached all these feelings and ideas, and fell madly in love with her. so they started to see each other in secret. he volunteered at the hospital and they were able to go on these secret rendezvs, and started a full-blown romance. when you think about two people who would've-- never should'veng

been faln love with each other, they found each other. and that's what makes this story, to me, even all the more unbelievable. i mean, he was a soldier. she was although discriminated against, she still was an ameran officer in the army. so they were committing a crime, really. if caught dating an enemy eno.w., elinor could have court martialed and imprisoned. but that wasn't the on crime. frederick was white and elinor was black, and they wanted to marry. in arizona in 1944, that too was agnst the law. how were they able to get married? >> after the war ended, all of .o.w.s were deported. and so elinor and frederick t mean, calluthful rebellion. i don't know-- insanity. they knew that the best way that they could reunite is if they conceived a child. so they did. so, he is deported, she returns

home, pregnant with the german p.o.w.'s baby. d their plan worked, because he was allowed to get a sponsorship and he returned in 1947, and they married in new york. interracial marriage wasrm ted in new york state. but that didn't mean their lives were going to be easy. >> they started moving around, having a lot of difficulty getting, even, leases, because no one wanted to live next to them. he couldn't really get a job. so they ma the decision that they should move to germany, because he was groomed to takes over his fathempany. it was terrible. elinor was treated bad his mother was not excited about having a black daughter-in-law, and made that very clear. they left germy after a year and a half. and then they moved back to the united states. they first seted in some suburbs outside of philadelphia. they couldn't enroll their son in school that they wanted to. they were told to to a black school. so here they were, dealing witho

raciboth sides of the atlantic, right? and they end up settling iti connt, where he gets a job muth pepperidge farm. and there's this cty called village creek, which is in south norwalk. it's actually in their covenants, it's advertised as "a prejudice-free zone." so they settle there, because it was a community that welcomed mixed-race couples. >> reporter: frederick and elinor had two sons and spent the rest of their lives in that village creek community. he passed away in 2001, and she in 2005. so what do you think we canhi learn fromslice of american history that you've documented?an why is this story important today?y >> tdn't let racism win. and i think you can always learn from that.ar and partic now. i think we're in such partisan times. we already know that there's an increase in hate groups. i think racism is a lot more

overt, in your face, now. i like stories like these, when ow that that's not gonna win. and i think we need to be reminded of these stories of perseverance, of courage, of hardship. but, at the end, there's a happy ending. >> this is "pbs newshour weekend," sunday. >> sreenivasan: could virtual reality offer an alternative to painkillers in certain situations?r e last year, a french start-up company has quietly been developing software that might do just that. newshour weekend's christopher booker has more. >> reporte if your mind is cused elsewhere, could a burn be a little less painful? for the past year, the emergency room of . joseph hospital in france has been experimentation with a -- experimenting with a high tech alternative to pain. >> virtual reality allows us to b use a technique to cuain and

anxiety when being treated in the emergency room. >> reporter: hospital staff say putting the virtual reali headset on before procedure is similar to hynosis. it put the patients into an alternative world and takes their mind off the hospital. when wearing the goggles, patiena are immersed into three-dimensional world like a japanese zen garden or a snowy hillside. ♪ the developers say patients become more tolerant of minor procedures like having a dislocated shoulder put back into place or a cut stitched up. the hope, says start-up developer healthy mind, is will imminish anxiety and reduce the need for pain medication or anesthesia. >> it is beneficial fo patients . there are almost no side ten years ago, hynosis was some kind of a hidden practice inos someitals considered as alternative medicine performed by today more and more hospitals

are developing it inducing it in the operating room. and the emergency room or elsewhere for painful operations. i think in ten years, virtual reality won'tven be a question anymore and will be used as routine in hospitals. >> reporter: the company is scheduled bring their software to the u.s. and prenting their project to microsoft late ther year. -- later this year. >> sreenivasan: tomorrow on the newshour: poland, oregon tries to make amends for gentrification, giving residents once pushed out of their neighborhoods the right to return home. that's all for this edition of" ass newshour weekend." i'm hari sreeniv, thanks for watching. have a good night. or captioning spo by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz.

the cheryl and philip milstein family. the sue and edgar wachenheim foundation. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. at'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. be more. pbs.

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