♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. tonight on “pbs news weekend”... as the siege of mariupol continues, the kremlin calls for “full control” of southern ukraine, as ukrainians and president zelenskyy remain defiant. then... rising sea levels on virginia's eastern shore are hurting a major industry there -- farming. and... mashup artist gregg gillis, known as girl talk, tries a new spin on music sampling. gregg: i never thought i could make anything that like more than 10 people enjoyed. but it's almost like this worked out, it'll most feels like i did it. let's see what else we can do. geoff: all that and more on tonight's "pbs news weekend.” ♪

>> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been offering no contract wireless plans 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 our website. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions -- and friends of the newshour. ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: russian forces continued to batter the port city of mariupoloday, focusing their attention on a steel plant housing both soldiers and civilians. but in a rare press conference today, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy said ukrainian forces are still holding on. he also broke some news about what would be the highest-level american delegation to ukraine since the war began. correspondent ali rogin has our report. ali: live from a subway station platform in kyiv, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy held a rare, two-hour press conference. he announced a sunday visit by the secretaries of state and defense, antony blinken and lloyd austin. u.s. officials would not confirm

it. zelenskyy said they should not come empty-handed. pres. zelenskyy: we are waiting not for just presents or cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons. ali: zelenskyy said that in besieged mariupol, russia quickly reversed its decision not to storm a steel plant where fighters and civilians sheltered. pres. zelenskyy: when the president of the russian federation was talking, and he said there is a citadel there, that we will not be advancing. and, two hours later after that, the air strikes happened. ali: zelenskyy said ukraine is still fighting back. but russia insists they have control, falsely claiming they've “liberated” mariupol's residents. mr. konashenkov: the situation in mariupol is normal. city residents can freely move on the streets without hiding from shelling of ukrainian nazis. ali: beyond the mariupol standoff, russian attacks

continue throughout the country. today, they struck the southern port city of odessa. firefighters saved who they could, but ukrainian officials say at least six people were killed, including a 3-month-old baby. in the southern donbas region, where moscow has concentrated its onslaught, a hospital caught fire following russian shelling. but fire crews were able to extinguish the flames. inortheastern kharkiv, ukrainian officials said a russian barrage on friday pounded a civilian neighborhood. police mounted rescue missions and paramedics treated the wounded. resident nadezhda says she is desperate to leave, but there are good options. nadezhda: terrible life. i need to leave, but where? i have animals here. i was hoping it will be ok. hope dies last. ali: so too does ingenuity. seamstresses in kharkiv have

traded fashion for flak jackets. natalia: today we equipped 44 soldiers, and tomorrow we will equip 44 soldiers. and let god keep them all safe and sound. ali: a prayer that these volunteers hope make it from the sewing table, to the battlefield. for "pbs news weekend," i'm ali rogin. ♪ geoff: in today's headlines... house gop leader kevin mccarthy and his allies are maneuvering to contain the fallout from newly-released audio tapes in which he can be heard saying donald trump should have resigned after the january 6 attack on the capitol. mccarthy: the only discussion i would have with him is that i think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign. geoff: mccarthy flatly denied making those remarks just hours before "the new york times" released the audio late this week. he later tried to explain his

comments by saying he'd simply been exploring potential scenarios about the former president's fate and characterized the phone call as "overblown.” the controversy could jeardize mccarthy's path to the speakership if republicans win the house come november, but multiple sources tell us mccarthy has so far managed to calm nerves within the house gop caucus. and in a new interview published in "the wall street journal," donald trump said his relationship with mccarthy remained good. meantime, new evidence from the congressional committee investigating the capitol insurrection shows former trump white house chief of staff mark meadows was directly warned of a potential r violence on january 6. one of meadows's former top aides told the committee that meadows was advised of intelligence reports but she wasn't sure "what he did with that information internally.” meadows has not commented publicly on the testimony. republican governor ron desantis has officially revoked disney's

special self-governing status in florida. the bill signed into law friday reverses a decades-old arrangement that effectively allows the walt disney company to operate as its own municipal government around its parks in the orlando area. the change follows a weeks-long feud over disney's opposition to the state's bill limiting classroom instruction on gender and sexuality. v. desantis: i don't think walt would appreciate what's going on in this company right now. i'm sorry. and i think it's appropriate to sign that here today. geoff: disney has t said whether they will challenge the new law in court. still to come on "pbs news weekend"... how rising sea levels are having a significant impact on virginia's coastal farms. and... mashup artist girl talk is finding new ways to mix his music. ♪ >> this is pbs news weekend from weta studios in washington, home

of the pbs newshour, weeknights on pbs. geoff: after the federal court ruling this past week striking down the federal mask mandates on planes and public transit, very few indoor masking requirements remain in the u.s. that's as public health experts brace for the next covid surge and parents of kids under 5 anxiously await for an approved vaccine for them. for more on this, i spoke with dr. peter hotez. he is a profsor of pediatrics and molecular virology at ylor college of medicine and co-director of the texas children's center for vaccine development. thank you for being with us. given where we are in this pandemic, what is the effect of indoor masking becoming optional in most places? and now on planes, buses and trains in most cases, given the federal ruling? dr. hotez: clearly we will not have trequire masks in perpetuity. i don't think that was anybody's

intention. my recommendation was to keep mask mandates in place at least until we get over this ba.2 hump, because this subvariant is the most transmissible we have seen, up there with the level of measles. this only works well if both the recipient of the virus and the deliverer of the virus are masked and then it greatly reduces risk. to have it one-sided is not nearly as efficient. geoff: from a public health perspective, does the shift away from masking make it harder for local governments to reinstate mask mandates if there is another wave? dr. hotez: that's exactly right. this is what i worry about. we only have a limited toolbox in terms of our ability to control this virus. vaccines and boosting being one of them but the other is wearing masks. we are at a low point in terms

of virus transmission, we can get away without wearing masks, but when virus transmission goes up, especially with these highly transmissible variants, it is really important everybody has a mask on and public health officials have at your disposal the ability to implement mask mandates for that period of time when transmission is going up. it is really unfortunate what happened with that federal judge in florida to undermine the cdc's efforts. geoff: let's talk about variants. what happens with the pandemic after the ba.2 wave? dr. hotez: after this wave, i think we will get a reprieve, maybe for a few weeks or a few months, we don't really know. here is what i am worried about next. we have had a pretty serious wave of covid-19 in southern states and in texas of the

summer of 2020 and summer of 2021, soy have to believe we are at risk from another variant to be determined coming from abroad hitting the southern states in texas starting in july again. -- of the southern states and texas starting in july again. we have to have the need to ask people to put masks on again in addition to keeping up with boosters. there are models that say we could be in for regular winter waves of covid-19 just as we've been experiencing with upper respiratory coronavirus is pre-pandemic. this pandemic it could last a few years. being able to adjust our requirements to manage it during these periods when transmission is going up will be the key to saving lives. geoff: let's talk about vaccinations for ages zero to five. health officials once hoped to authorize shots for young children at the beginning of this year and now they are seeing june most likely.

what is the latest and what accounts for the delay? dr. hotez: i think the delay is the fact that they went down to a much lower dose of vaccine for the under five and they got less of a robust immune response from these really young kids and now it looks like they will need a third dose in order to give adequate levels of protective immunity. most likely what they are doing is waiting to see the data from the third dose before they greeight it. geoff: when we've talked in the past, you made the point that if we end the pandemic, we've got to make a covid vaccine available to underserved nations across the globe to prevent f uture variants from performing. you and your colleagues have formed a vaccination. tell us about that. dr. hotez: delta rose out of an unvaccinated population in india

last year, and omicron out of an unvaccinated population in southern africa. until we vaccinate low end middle income countries, mother nature will continue to hurl significant variants of concern at us. we developed a vaccine using an older technology that is already in place in many low and middle income countries. we used that same approach for covid-19 vaccine that looks really promising in terms of levels of protective antibody and t-cell responses. we licensed it in indonesia, bangladeshnd botswana. it is great we can make that kind of contribution to addressing vaccine inequality. geoff: certainly encouraging. great to see you as always. thank you for your time. and next week on "the newshour," john yang reports on the "vaccine for the world" developed by dr. hotez and his team to fight covid vaccine

inequity. ♪ farming has always been a major part of the economy along virginia's coastline. but now the region is experiencing the fastest average rate of sea level rise on the atlantic coast. sam turken of local station whro reports on how this shift is creating significa problems for the area's farmers. sam: water levels around southeast virginia have risen nearly 20 inches over the past century, and it's estimated they could go up about seven feet by 2100. so what does all this mean for coastal farmers around here? lynn gayle is still figuring that out. lynn: thiss a seaside farm in an area called fox grove, and the baier islands are about a mile to the east of us.

my son farms with me and we tend ab2,500 acres. farming is a lifestyle. sam: gayle has fard out here for more than three decades. he grows commodities -- corn, soybean and something called rapeseed, which produces an oil used for engines and plastics. gayle shows me around a 75 acre field bordering the ocean. lush soybean crops are everywhere except for one small patch close to the water. lynn: they were planted here, and you can actually see the salt residue on the soil. most of those that came up died. occasional high tides or flood tides or if there's a nor'easter this would be underwater right here. sam: gayle says he's watched the seawater encroach farther and farther up this field over the past decade. about an acre is no longer farmable. it's even worse at another field he used to plant. 20 acres completely failed.

this is all worrying gayle's 32-year-old son, sands. he grew up playing with tractor toys. now he's taking over the business and says hundreds of thousands of future dollars are at stake. sands: a third of the acreage that i farm could be right on the water and directly affected by sea level rise. and as it takes more area, then, of course, i'm going to have to figure something out. sam: nationwide, only the gulf coast around texas and louisiana is experiencing a faster rate of rising seas. as oceans heat up from climate change, water molecules expand, contributing to sea level rise. another part of the problem, scientists say the land around virginia is sinking. cora baird studies sea level rise for the university of virginia's coastal research center. she says during the last ice age thousand of years ago, alaci covered the northeast, pushing down on the earth's crust. virgia was at the edge of the glacier and actually lifted,

kind of like when you sit on a mattress, the part beneath you sinks but the area around you bulges up. baird says those glaciers melted away long ago but the earth's crust in this part of virginia is still reacting. cora: now we are still doing the process of settling down as if whoever was sitting on the mattress just stood up. sam: on top of this, as glaciers continue to melt all over the world, they're sending more water into the oceans. add all of it up and it's not a question of if some areas will go under water, but when. baird says the water isn't just coming in from the ocean, rivers, and creeks. it's rising from beneath the land, mixing with groundwater and making the soil wetter and saltier. an invisible killer. it's a threat all the way down the atlantic coast to florida. cora: if you feel like it's important to continue farming, and it's important to keep agriculture a part of our, our sort of landscape and identity where we're in such a confined geographical area, if it keeps

pushing in from the edges, there's only so many places we can shift to. sam: now, there are ways that farmers could hold on for some time. salt can dehydrate plants to death or even poison them. so researchers are testing salt-tolerant crops like barley and quinoa. farmers also can dig ditches and build berms to keep water away or accepthe inevitable. thelonius: they love wet soils. and they can actually help to soak up some of that water. sa thelonius cook runs a sustainable produce farm. no fertilizer or pesticides. problem is, the farmland is increasingly soggy as groundwater seeps up from below. so when it rains, water flows off the road onto cook's fields and has nowhere to go. this has killed enough crops the past few years to translate into a $30,000 loss. cook, w's 42, hopes to adapt to the rising water, but he says there's a good chance farming here could become impossible.

thelonius: it makes you feel deflated because, you know, you're building something, you know, for the next generation, and you want to make sure that this is here for the next geneon. sam: for "pbs news weekend," i'm sam turken on virginia's eastern shore. ♪ geoff: well before spotify or pandora, there was napster. it's been more than twenty years since the creation of that file sharing program. the arrival of peer-to-peer music sharing not only kicked off the streaming revolution, but opened a world of possibilities for music producers to rework or remix digitized music. special correspondent christopher booker reports on how one of the pioneers of this musical mashup genre is taking his music in a new direction. ♪ christopher: the musicalorld

created by gregg gilli better known as girl talk, is a world of compliments and contradictions. his tracks, often called mashups, are musical reimaginations of contemporary and classic songs. gregg: doing remixes and mash ups, you're taking pieces that shouldn't go together and making them seem like they have always isted there. christopher: using a disparate collection of samples and compiling them together into one cohesive track, his work can be a hyper marriage of the most unlike pairings. rapper jay z rhyming over modern english's "i melt with you" or biggie smalls backed by elton john's "tiny dancer." gregg: i want people to hear the remix and when they hear the original, have the original not sound like the original version. that's the goal. it's an impossible thing to get to, but thats kind of where you want to get to, you want your version to sound more natural than the original. christopher: gillis' musical journey started in high school. loving hip-hop and nirvana, he spent his teen years playing in

experimental bands. in college, he studied biomedical engineering and spent his nights starting to mash up samples on his laptop. gregg: when i started doing girl talk, it wasn't like, this is going to be my career, this is going to be a 20 year thing. i was really like, oh,t'd be cool to do experimental electronic music based on pop music and have this very pop oriented name called girl talk. christopher: after college he returned to his native pittsburgh, working full time as an engineer and playing mashups in small, empty clubs, but slowly his mixes started gaining more and more attention online and by the end of the decade, girl talk had become a huge draw at music festivals, recurring fixture at lollapalooza in chicago antennessee's bonnaroo. from the beginning, the samples used on his mixes were used without permission from the original artists. gillis arguing his work was covered by fair use copyright law. but earlier this month, the 40-year-old did something he

hasn't done before, release an album with fully licensed samps. working in collaboration rappers -- with rappers wiz khalifa, big k.r.i.t. and smoke dza, full court press is, for all intents and purposes, girl talk's first full-length legally cleared offering. how much of a departure is this from your previous work? gregg: in certain ways it's totally different than the old albums. just the pacing of it and kind of overall just kind of energy of it, but in a lot of ways, it's very similar in that the idea with the older albums is finding music and finding vocals that fit on top of that and i make those decisions in terms of these vocals sound interesting to me on this music and i like that and that's exactly what the new album is. ♪ christopher: glis had recorded with each of the rappers individually through years and was inspired by the work, so he slowly started assembling verses, taking the vocal tracks back to his office in pittsburgh. gregg: i tooall of it home,

made decisions, what to keep, what to cut, what the chord change speeds did, all that which i would normally do on my albums. and i think that those old albums to me, i always had this vision of wanting it to be this very colorful thing where it's constantly changing and each moment has a unique vibe and like everything is very distinct while still being cohesive and i think that's still the goal with this, too. it's just more nuanced. christopher: did you find yourself fighting some of your instincts? gregg: yeah, yeah. i think, you know, i think too what people know me for is a certain breakneck pace with the music and i was like, oh, maybe on this song, i should have 10 beat changes or, maybe i should cut this up and to do all these crazy things, but also just a good song is a good song. christopher: did you need this creatily? gregg: yeah. i mean, this for me is it feels like, you know, i don't want to say i'm starting over or anything, but it is all under the same umbrella. i never stopped doing remixes and mash-ups and kind of the

sound i am known for on those albums. i have continued to work on stuff like that over the years and fine tune that. this is kind of the beginning of the set. christopher: gillis spent three months prepping for his current tour. in addition to his daily duties as a father, he spent each day meticulously working over his 90 minute set, reworking transitions, beats, hand claps, every single second. gregg: here is the organ sample, then the bass sample and i am going to turn off the organ. i love people liking it on different levels. i love people liking it on a very superficial level, that's awesome. like i never thought i'd be able to make anything that, especially coming from the experimental underground, i never thought i could make something that like more than 10 people enjoy. and i think with doing remix and mash ups, i think once you have some success and it's working out, it isn't like i grew tired of it because i've continued to make stuff like that and continue to tour. but it's almost like this work now and all this feels like i did it. let's see what else we can do. christopher: for "pbs news

weekend," i'm christopher booker. ♪ geoff: that is pbs news weekend for tonight. on sunday, we get the latest on the ground in ance, as voters decide the future of their country in the psidential election. i'm geoff bennett. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at "pbs news weekend," thanks for spending part of your saturday with us. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- ♪ and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions -- ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

announcer: this program was made possible in part by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: ladies and gentlen, patti page! ♪ i was dancing with my darling ♪ ♪ to the tennessee waltz ♪ ♪ when an old friend i happened to see ♪ ♪ introduced her to my loved one ♪ ♪ and while they were dancing ♪ ♪ my friend stole my sweetheart from me ♪ ♪ i remember the night and the tennessee waltz ♪