captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, april 11: coronavirus vaccinations in america hit a record high, but surges in cases persist.“ exploring hate,” an inside look at anti-extremism training in the military. and independent artists and work-arounds in a covid-19 world. next on “pbs newshour weekend.” >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz.

the cheryl and philip milstein family. the sylvia a. and simon b. poyta programming endowment to fight antisemitism. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. the peter g. peterson and joan ganz cooney fund. the estate of worthington mayo- smith. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans, designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been provided by:

and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us. confirmed cases of the coronavirus are continuing to rise in many states, but the surge comes as the u.s. sets new daily vaccination records. yesterday, 4.6 million doses of the vaccine were administered, beating last saturday's record by nearly half a million shots according to white house officials. more than 117 million people have now received one dose of the vaccine, and more than 70 million people are fully vaccinated according to the centers for disease control and prevention. the record number of shots comes as states are bracing for an 85% drop in supplies of the one-shot johnson and hnson vaccine this week, after problems at one of the vaccine's manufacturing plants. there were more than 64,000 new coronavirus cases recorded yesterday, an 11% increase on

average compared to two weeks ago according to "the new york times." but cases are not distributed evenly, with the so-called u.k. variant making michigan a national hotspot. confirmed cases there are up nearly 60% compared to two weeks ago. as the pandemic continues worldwide, secretary of state antony blinken was critical of china's initial response to the outbreak today. >> i think china knows that in the early stages of covid, it didn't do what it needed to do, which was to, in real time, give access to international experts, in real time to share information, in real time to provide real transparency. >> sreenivasan: in china this weekend, there was a rare admission that the country's coronavirus vaccines may be less effective than reported. the head of china's centers for disease control conceded that chinese covid vaccines have low protection rates. he said researchers are considering mixing them with new vaccines to give them a boost. chinese vaccines are being used in dozens of countries around the world, including bzil, mexico, turkey, and indonesia.

an independent study by brazilian researchers found a 50.4% efficacy rate for one of the chinese vaccines. that's far below the pfizer and moderna vaccines developed using m.r.n.a. technology, which have each been found to be more than 94% effective. u.s. secretary of defense lloyd austin arrived in israel today, marking the first visit to the country by a biden administration cabinet member. austin met with israel's defense minister benny gantzm and is scheduled to meet with prime minister benjamin netanyahu. netanyahu has criticized the biden administration's efforts to rejoin the iran nuclear deal. he warned last week that israel will not abide by a new nuclear deal with iran that allows the country to develop nuclear weapons. in iran today, the head of the civilian nuclear program said there was a blackout at an underground atomic facility and he called it “nuclear terrorism.” iran did not directly blame a specific country or countries for the power failure. yesterday, president hassan rouhani announced new centrifuges at the natanz plant

were beginning uranium enchment and said iran is testing new and faster centrifuges. the plant was the target of a cyber attack in 2007. that attack is believed to have been orchestrated by the u.s. and israel, and destroyed hundreds of centrifuges. last summer there was an explosion at the plant which iran claimed was sabotage. there was no official comment from israel or the united states. two south korean electric vehicle battery makers reached a settlement today, ending a trade dispute that will allow one of them to move ahead with plans to make batteries in georgia. s.k. innovation makes batteries for ford and volkswagen electric vehicles, l.g. energy accused s.k. of stealing information on how to make batteries. s.k. innovation agreed to pay $1.8 billion in the settlement. in a statement this morning, president biden called the agreement “a win for american workers and the american auto industry.”

including de segregation and fair housing laws and ordered a moratorium on federal executions during his two years in office from 1967 to 1968. he left office when richard nixon was elected president and returned to private practice as a lawyer. he became an outspoken antiwar activist andarsh critic of u.s. foreign policy. clark helped represent many unpopular figures including terrorists and war criminals. he traveled to iraq to help defend saddam hussein after the gulf war and descended shaik rack man who was convict of the bombing of the world trade center. he died friday at his home in new york city, ramsey clark was 93 years old. for more national and international news, visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: last week, the defense department released a memorandum outlining new initiatives to counter extremism in the department, including vetting new recruits for extremist associations.

nearly 1/6 people charged in the january 6 attack on the capitol were military veterans. secretary of defense lloyd austin implemented a stand down for all active duty military to make time for active duty troops to undergo training to identify and reduce extremism in the ranks. special correspondent mike cerre met with one marine infantry unit at camp pendleton in california after their training. this segment is part of our ongoing initiative "exploring hate: antisemitism, racism and extremism." >> they broke through, it's on! >> reporter: nearly half of the veterans charged in the capitol siege were former marines, despite their having served in the country's smallest military branch. >> it's not new to our country and, sadly, it's not new to our military. what is new is the speed and the pervasiveness with which extremist ideology can spread today. >> the stand down you're executing today is the navy

swarming against this threat. >> reporter: in response to the capitol riot, secretary of defense lloyd austin ordered all u.s. military units around the world to stand down from their normal operations to address the domestic extremism threat. >> the reason we're doing this training is first to define it, why we're doing it, what's the cause of it and how to prevent it. >> so, if you see someone putting something that's extremist out there, as a fellow marine, it's now your duty to report it. >> reporter: marine company commander captain alex newham and 1st sgt. joey cruz, the company's senior enlisted man, were tasked with conducting the extremism training and reviewing the marine corps' regulations with their unit,ox company 2nd battalion, 5th marines at camp pendleton, california. i first connected with fox 2/5, also known as "the blackhearts,"

while embedded with their unit during the iraq war, when the focus was more on defending against foreign, rather than domestic threats to the constitution, as part of their enlistment oath. >> support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. i mean, you already took the oath. i think the problem is not fully understanding what you signed up for. >> reporter: sgt. radcliffe humphrey and three of his fox 2/5 colleagues agreed to share their understandings of the domestic extremism threat within the military and their rights and responsibilities as marines after their stand down training session. it includ running through various scenarios and identifying possible extremist intrusions within their ranks. how many of you know what pepe the frog stands for, or "88?" >> i do. pepe the fog was just the internet meme that they utilized. you know, i think like the proud boys utilized pepe the frog memes to make dog whistle jokes

towards the left and "88" would stand for "h.h." heil hitler and other right-wing connotations. >> reporter: most of the training was based on the pentagon's prepared outline of do's and don'ts, as they apply to service members' political activities and sharing extremist posts on social media. >> you could report it and/or just not respond to it. >> then whoever's posting that, obviously you can just be like, all right, i want to distance myself frothis. get rid of whoever's profile that is, delete them as a friend, delete them as a follower or whatever you have them as, get rid of them from your social media. >> reporter: generally speaking, service members are allowed to have political opinions, but they're restricted from promoting them while serving. >> i'd be defacing the marine corps as a whole if i said my political beliefs because it's not everyone's. my political beliefs aren't the same as these gentleman's political beliefs. they're going to be different. just like anyone else's would be. >> reporter: is it clear in your mind what extremism is?

i mean, you know, one man's extremist could be another man's patriot. >> i mean, in this day and age, yeah, i would say that it could be hard for some. but again, it goes back to the training that we're receiving now. >> reporter: the new directives on extremism prohibit identifying with extremist organizations, displaying their symbols like tattoos and bumper stickers, demonstrating on their behalf in or out of uniform, promoting any illegal activity or messaging, especially on social media. given the sensitivity today and the training you went through, if a confederate flag was spotted in your barracks or in your group, what would be done? >> oh, yeah, they're going to be held fully accountable for their actions. they know, they know what it stands for. they understand why they're putting it up. there's not going to be any question about that. and so, they're going to-- they're going to face "the man" and answer for it. >> reporter: there is always going to be a lot of grey in this. it's not going to be totally black and white. , what's the "commander's intent" here, if in doubt how do

you think they'll make the right call? >> so, the commander's intent is that they are all informed of the training and everyone has the knowledge that they have. they have the skill sets now. but honestly, the meat and potatoes is going to be from the squad leaders and the team leaders doing the small group discussions, because we can't be everywhere all at once. >> push him back into center. >> reporter: given the intensity of their profession and interpersonal relationships, there is very little room in the marine corps for doubts over someone's loyalty and allegiance. >> you're now onboard marine corps recruit depot parris island, south carolina! >> reporter: from day one of getting off the bus at marine boot camp, standing on the yellow footprints, giving up their personal items and getting heads shaved, marines knew they were giving up much of their personal identities to become part of something larger than themselves. >> what it means to me is that you're being shaved from, like, your civilian life, and you're joining this institution and

you're going to uphold these standards. >> reporter: and on that same day when you were on the yellow footprints and they were saying, there's no black, there's no white, there's only green. >> oo-rah. >> reporter: does it stick? >> it does. >> absolutely. >> reporter: can it stand this test? >> you're getting a whole new set of core values: honor, courage and commitment. so, it's pretty easy, you know, just as long as you follow those rules and you uphold the life value and you take care of your brother on your left and right and you uphold the constitution of the united states, like you promised you would, there's not going to be any issues. >> reporter: semper fidelis: always faithful. that's how marines address each other. it's also key to the marines corps strategy foreeping extremism out of its ranks by keeping the focus on the bonds and allegiance that drew men and women to the marine corps in the first place. >> i would say that there's extremism, but with the training

that we're getting today and with the training that will be pushed out. i think it could be mitited. >> the marine corps isn't harboring or taking in extremists left and right out of america. i would say it's pretty on par with the rest of the country. there's-- we're people too, you know, we're going to have onesies and twosies outliers from the baseline who are extremists. >> everything that goes on out in society can definitely impact our service members. the difference is, is that if we continue to equip them and train them and educate them, they'll understand it a litt better. >> the reason why that's so important is because, especially in our profession as infantrymen, we have to be able to look to our guys left and right and say, i know if we go to combat, this guy's gonna have my back no matter what happens.

>> sreenivasan: a year of covid-19 shutdowns continues to be particularly hard for performers who rely on live shows and events to help boost their sales. while streaming services are at all time highs, many independent performers have to find workarounds to get their music to new fans. for some, it's bringing new success they might have never found in pre-pandemic times. newshour weekend's christopher book has the story. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> reporter: at this point, it would be impossible to quantify just how many people todd rundgren has performed in front of. for over 50 years, on tour after tour, his life has been spent on the road in front of people. til, of course, this year. is this the longest stretch that you've gone throughout your career as a professional musician? >> pretty much, except for one year in the late '70s, i think, when i took a year off to learn computer programming. >> reporter: like the rest of

us, rundgren spent much of 2020 in suspended animation. >> i was supposed to go out last may with a tour, you know, with a serious national tour. that got moved to the summer, and then it got moved to the fall, and then it got moved to now to february, and when i got moved from february to october, i said, that's enough. you know, i can't do nothing. i don't want to be this long disconnected from my fans. >> reporter: but tonight, rather unbelievably, he is back on the road. on stage, performing live, with a full band, back-up singers and all, in front of a crowd, during covid. while being "on the road" is a relative term in this case, rundgren is playing for an audience in a city. having set up in a warehouse space in chicago, each show is broadcast live to audience members in a specific city only. local fans from that zip code are able to buy access to the stream. >> we have quite a number of video screens set up as if they're in the audience, and so, you can buy a ticket to the

front rows for the first couple of rows, and we will see you. and we will also kind of sprinkles for that actual live bodies to the degree that we are allowed to and that we can keep them safe and healthy, and we can localize the show so that it feels more like we're doing it specifically for them. >> reporter: tonight's show is actually a home town show, if you will-- playing from chicago, for chicago. and even though the crowd may look just a bit different, rundgren is connecting. >> we're just so desperate for some music, for some entertainment, for something, you know, that will make us feel a little bit normal. >> there is so much room to eate new experiences around music. >> reporter: nick dangerfield is the co-founder of oda, a live music company that broadcasts performances from the homes of artists through a dedicated speaker system. while rundgren is working to bring the stage into your home, oda turns the artist's home into the stage. >> it is essentially every

weekend a new artist takes ownership of the network and transmits over the three days of the weekend. we provide all the engineering support and we set them up and then the artist has a little box with a single button. every time they press the button they're live on the network. >> reporter: similar to a concert series, owners of the speakers can subscribe to asonal oda programming. >> our focus a lot is on the on elderly, our artists that, on the e hand might not be able to tour or have less ability to tour, and on the other, they a not able to participate in digital networks >> reporter: how does this differ from a radio transmissi or a streaming performance on youtube? >> our program will always be live and it's not archived. the recordings belong to the artists and they can release them later, but we will not play back recordings. if you know that you have that one chance to listen to that you

will possibly pay more attention. >> reporter: but even before covid pushed such experimentation into the forefront, connecting to an audience as a musician was never easy. a process made all the more complicated with the rise of music streaming platforms like spotify. >> we have 345 million users on our platform. and then, on the artist side there's millions, and we are we're receiving 60,000 new tracks a day. >> reporter: jeremy erlich is the global co-head of music at spotify. while the company is based in sweden, erlich works from los angeles with a team of 100 editors sprinkled all over the world. his team curates the musical experience on the platform, from developing high profile playlists to the selection and placement of songs. >> in 2020, we managed to playlist 76,000 artists for the very first time, and the carry onffect from that is through our, through all of our properties, every month there's 16 billion discoveries.

>> reporter: when you say there are 16 billion discoveries, what, does that mean someone's heard a song for the first time? >> exactly, yeah. >> reporter: it's astonishing thinking, though, that when you're getting 60,000 song submissions. i probably have not listened to 60,000 songs in my whole life. >> yeah, it's one of the interesting things that's happening in the world, it's, it's easier to break than ever because so many of the barriers that existed before aren't there, but with all those barriers going away there has also been an influx of content. creating that moment, that spark and that connection between an artist and his fan bases is easier and more difficult than it ever has been at the same time. >> reporter: now, there has been criticism from artists that spoty does not pay enough. you know, you have the large artists of the world, who i'm sure are doing quite well in the streaming realm, but you have the smaller artists who maybe their income was largely subsidized through touring. how do you respond to the

criticism of spotify and how much it pays its artists? >> i think the criticism is, is slightly misdirected and, and sometimes unfair whenou look at how much of our revenue we do pay out in royalties. you know, last year we paid $5 billion in royalties out, and that number is growing every single year. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> reporter: for younger artists coming up in this streaming world who are able to find an audience, building and maintaining connections to their fans a different endeavor, where the old rules don't really apply. >> touring was never, like, the biggest moneymaker. it was always streams and music royalties, mainly because i own my music and i produce a lot of my music. >> reporter: brooklyn rapper kota the friend's career has been developed almost entirely online. in five years his spotify audience has grown from 250 monthly listeners to over three million. >> coronavirus and covid, like,

it affected me mentally and emotionally, but not financially. >> reporter: do you think of yourself kind of as a new type of artists existing in a kind of new business realm? >> definitely. i think artists like myself, and there are other people like me, we make music and we put it out and we get paid from our music. i'm able to grow my career as fast as i can. i'm able to, kind of, figure out where i'm going to be in a year. >> reporter: even after a year like this? >> even after a year like this. like, i can still figure out where i'm going to be. i can't think about the 60,000 other people putting out songs. i'll never make it, you know, if i'm, you know, constantly anxious about who else is, oh, there's so many people releasing music. you know, i just got to think about me and think about what am i doing for my music. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> reporter: kota's focus seems to be working just fine. his latest album, "to kill a sunrise," released three weeks ago, debuted at #5 on spotify's u.s. album charts.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> this is pbs newshour weekend, sunday. >> sreenivasan: finally tonight, the holy month of ramadan begins this week. for muslims who celebrate, the holiday means fasting from dawn to dusk along with prayer and reflection. preparations usually include celebratory evening feasts. but this year in pakistan, a predominantly muslim country, covid-19 is making preparations look quite different. there are customers in pakistan's markets, but far fewer than usual. covid-19 restrictions, continued outbreaks of the virus, and skyrocketing prices are all keeping sales slow. >> ( translated ): inflation is so high that it has reached beyond the range of common people. i have bought this stuff out of compulsion, because of ramadan. it's too costly, but i had to buy it. all markets are almost deserted because of this, and because of the coronavirus. >> sreenivasan: shop owners are

facing steep declines, some losing as much as 70% of the business and profits over previous years. >> ( translated ): the level of business is not like before. you can say that it has come down from 100% to just 30%. in other words, if 100 customers were coming to us in the past, only 30 are doing so now. >> sreenivasan: ramadan is about far more than fasting and feasting. it is a holy month and there are concerns about new coronavirus infections spreading at mosques. but the restrictions on people over 50 attending prayers are not popular with some pakistanis in that age group. >> ( translated ): mosques need to be open for everyone, and they should be open 24 hours, morning and evening. when people turn to allah, at the time of some catastrophe or distress, he lifts the hardships from them. if mosques are closed, who will we turn to in our distress? >> sreenivasan: pakistan is experiencing a third wave of coronavirus infections and has

reported more than 623,000 cases and more than 14,000 deaths. >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of “pbs newshour weekend.” for the latest news updates visit pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. stay healthy and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the sylvia a. and simon b. poyta programming endowment to fight antisemitism. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. the peter g. peterson and joan

ganz cooney fund. the estate of worthington mayo- smith. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. you're watching pbs.

[ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause continue ] [ "blossom" playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ >> ♪ blossom, smile some sunshine down my way ♪ ♪ lately i've been lonesome ♪ ♪ blossom, it's been mu too long a day ♪ ♪ seems my dreams have frozen ♪