♪ amna: good evening. i am on them in a vase. -- amna nawaz. geoff: i am geoff bennett. -- amna: the u.s. releases new details about the chinese balloons flying's capabilities while china accuses the u.s. of information warfare. geoff: financially strapped health care facilities work to stave off a projected spike in heart disease among americans. >> you do your best, you keep doing it one life at a time, one patient at a time. ♪

>> major funding for the pbs newshour been provided by -- ♪ >> the kendeda fund committing to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at candidafund.org. encouraging -- carnegie corporation of new york supporting the advancement of international peace and security at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing suppo of these individuals and institutions. ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions from your pbs station -- contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. geoff: good evening and welcome to the newshour. the death toll from the catastrophic earthquake in turkey and syria has risen to nearly 21,000 with no end in sight. amna: aid is starting to trickle in, but for many it is too little, too late. jane ferguson reports from the capital of hog-tie -- hatay province. correspondent: bodies gathered from the rubble are everywhere collected and labeled and stored industry. no buildingsre trusted anymore. fresh running water is too scarce for the religious rights of the dead, and older tradition

of clean soil is now used to dignify the bodies. the heartbroken come to the cemetery to claim their loved ones. if here held out hope they would find their missing family members any other place, but still the grief comes it waves. gonah has seen 10 members of her extended family arrived in body bags. more are missing. >> i live in a separate building from some of the rest of my family. i went to look for my mother, my sister-in-law, cousins, aunts. we kw they did not make it outside. correspondent: her cousin lost a horrifying list of people. >> my mother, brother, wife, son, daughter. correspondent: he says he remembers a little of the day since monday's earthquake destroyed his home andis life. since then hundreds of thousands have had to grieve while homeless, destitute and a city that has no more safe housing. >> i was with my daughter last

night and had no roof over our heads. the last couple of days have been a mystery. it is only today we received help. we built a tent for ourselves with pieces of cloth we found here in their industry. correspondent: turkiye was one of the hardest hit areas that one of the last to get any outside help. help has finally arrived in the very south of turkey, but it is today that you sought rescue crews like this and equipment like this making its way in here. much of the city has had to cope by itself for several days. the turkish government as work to clamp down on criticism of its response to the crises. people complain off-camera they were left to fend for themselves for too long. in a nearby city of fire that broke out among shipping containers at a port continues to rage as rescue team search among what is left of the city. president everyone visited a

city close to the quake's epicenter. he joined survivors now living in a tent city to pray for the dead. erdogan's reelection in may could hinge on his response to this disaster. today he assured displaced families help is on the way. >> while the damage assessment is underway in this transition moment, we will provide $530 into financial aid to our citizens, and with this financial aid we want to alleviate their problems a little bit. correspondent: meanwhile the first convoy of humanitarian assistance finally reached northwest syria from turkey after being stalled when the only aid crossing was damaged in the earthquake. it is bringing much needed medicine, blankets, tents and other supplies to the rebel controlled area. >> we need the assistance to continue in these early days, because as we do not every day,

every moment we are losing more and more people. correspondent: the white helmets organizations as the u.n. assistance is part of regularly scheduled aid deliveries to syria organize before the quake and not specific aid and equipment for the disaster relief effort. angela kearney works for unicef and says the humanitarian situation in war-torn syria is especially dire. >> they need water, sanitation, places they can go to the bathroom, and in many places they need mental health support and psychosocial support especially for the children. it is a bewildering time to be woken up in the middle of the night and now not have a home. some of them of lost family members, so they need to grieve for that. life is very difficult. correspondent: many syrians are growing more frustrated that international aid still has not reached them yet three ds after the quake struck. samer lived with his relatives

in the quake hit city of messina. he lost six members of his family. >> i am still looking for one of my cousins. she is 19. we have been looking for her for four days and have not found her anywhere. not in the hospitals nor anywhere else. correspondent: further compounding the misery, one northwestern village became inundated with water today after a dam damage days earlier in the quake collapsed. >> we just want people to help us, to shelter these women and children. our homes are flooded and destroyed. correspondent: in a city a 10-year-old one of the three lucky ones. he holds onto his father, and his mother and brother were rescued with few injuries after being trapped under debris for several hours. >> we were here under th rubble. i was sleeping in the bedroom

and the building started falling on us. i was next to my mom, and my brother was strapped onto the ceiling. we all got out, thank god. correspondent: hader struggles to find all that he is lost. his family is only one of two that survived in the village of 500 people. what is left of his village is a pile of rubble and a faint memory of what once was. >> the building here [indiscernible] these were our friends who we used to play with. they all died. used to play ball with them down there. they all died. every day we played together, they all died. correspondent: time is running out for any remaining survivors, but he and his cousins have a message. no aid has reached northwest syria. i am jane ferguson. ♪

geoff: in the day's other headlines ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy made an emotional appearance before the european parliament appealing for support. you drew a standing ovation and said later several european leaders are ready to supply fighter jets. he gave no details but said leaving empty-handed was not an option. >> i just do not have the right to go back home without results, and even if it sounds bold no it is not cynicism on my part. it is pragmatism. believe me, there are no emotions anymore. we left emotions a year ago, so there are none of them. just pragmatism. geoff: zelenskyy push for ukraine to be admitted to t european union. it is two day trip to the western union comes as russian forces step up their and eastern ukraine. north korea's leader kim jong-un has been showing off his country's largest nuclear capable missiles overnight

during a parade in pyongyang. around a dozen intercontinental ballistic missiles rolled through the streets jeered by thousands of troops. kim's young daughter stood and clapped by his side. there is speculation she may be his eventual successor. the nicaraguan government today released more than 200 people from presence, many of whom were flung to the u.s. they were considered to be political prisoners. u.s. officials said they were given humanitarian parole and allowed to fly to washington. secretary of state tony blinken said there release opens the door to further dialogue with nicaragua. the biden administration sanctions on the government of president ortega as the country slid into autocratic rule and targeted opponents. pennsylvania senator john fetterman remains hospitalized in washington after feeling lightheaded last night. the freshman democrat suffered a stroke during his campaign last year, but his office said initial tests showed no evidence of a new stroke. staffers said federman was in

good spirits. he is under observation as doctors run more tests. southwest airlines has apologized again for canceling nearly 17,000 flights during a december storm. fiasco left cruising the wrong places and stranded more than 2 million customers over the holidays. at a senate hearing today, an airline executive faced accusations that for years southwest ignored warnings to upgrade its crew scheduling system. >> there were technology issues during the disruption, and we do not dispute that end we will make the necessary investments there. the problem or the root cause was how we handle our own operations, and that is where we will put focus over a multiyear period. >> because you did not listen to those warnings catastrophic additions were created by passengers for hundreds of thousands all across our country , so that is absolutely unacceptable. you were warned. that risk management absolutely

led to real pain, no harm for families. geoff: last year southwest canceled a total of 40,000 flights out of 210,000 for all u.s. airlines. house republicans investigating the biden family have made their first official request for documents from the president's son hunter and brother james. the house oversight committee chair james comer sent letters today seeking material on foreign business pursuits went to the chinese communist party. republicans have accused the biden family of influence peddling would have so far failed to produce supporting evidence. hunter biden's lawyer accused -- geoff: the dow jones industrial average lost -- the nasdaq fell 2100 points. the s&p 500 slid 36 points.

still to come on the pbs newshour a tense moment during the state of the union reignite the debate over socl security and medicare. how new weight loss drugs are changing the conversation around treating obesity. a court ruling allows people under domestic violence restraining orders to possess guns. we remember the life and career of legendary composer bert bacharach. >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> today the biden administration released new details on how it's is a chinese balloon spied on the united states last week, but administration officials faced bipartisan questions from senators about why they let it fly across the country instead of shooting it down earlier. nick schifrin is here to discuss all of that.

what did we learn today? what new details? correspondent: u.s. officials say this was part of an international program, that the chinese have launched of spy balloon's that they say flew across 40 countries across five continents. the bloom that we are talking about here was 200 feet tall and had a jetliner size payload. according to a senior state department official it was capable of conducting intelligence collection operations. it means it can pick up communications from u.s. military base is as it flew over them. the official said it had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of correcting -- collecting and geo-locating communications and solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence sensors. officials say they are making this public, something the intelligence community as

historically resisted because they are trying to pull back the curtain on chinese spying and ying to refute what beijing today said that they are trying to engage in information warfare. bouncer representative pastor something unanimously that calls out a violation of reason sovereignty and effort to deceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns. that shows on a geral level. washington's anger. amna: bipartisan support for that resolution but not how the administration handled this. when they shut it down? correspondent: especially on that last point. the balloon arrived in u.s. airspace on january 28, traversed through candida and reenter the continenl united states. it was 10 days, february 4 that an f-22 shut it down. today we heard from the senate and the appropriations defense

subcommittee that the anger that those 10 days, what the blinged was doing, the anger was bipartisan both from montana democrat jon tester and main democrat susan collins -- maine democrat susan collins. >> i have a problem with attorneys balloon flying over my state. >> it defies belief that there was not a single opportunity to safely shoot out the spy balloon prior to the coast of south carolina. correspondent: publicly administration officials have said they did not shoot it down earlier because of the risk to people on the ground. given the size, and also balloon -- also the military limited communications, shut down to medications in the spaces as the balloon flew over the spaces. the military said the same today , but officials made two additional points of this hearing. they pointed out that atlantic

waters were actually ideal to salvage the balloon so they could collect parts of the balloon to understand what it did as opposed to waters in alaska, which were deeper, colder and covered with ice. take a listen to melissa dalton. >> if we had taken it down over the state of alaska, which is part of the united states, it would have been a very different recovery operation. a key part of the calculus for this operation was the ability to salvage, understand, and exploit the capabilities of a high-altitude balloon. correspondent: the military make an additional point, which it does not often talk about. the u.s. espys on china, it flies headlights over china, it applies aircraft off the coast. the u.s. does not want beijing to start instinctively shooting at u.s. assets near china or above china just like it did not want or did not fire instinctively at this bloom. nicholas into lieutenant general

douglas since. -- sims. >> if we establish the president we may meet the same precision -- precedent. we may create something in which it is to our detriment. correspondent: with the balloon flying so low over u.s. airspace and the size of this program are unprecedented as are the bipartisan questions of how the administration has operated in the last week. amna: where does this leave relations between u.s. and china? correspondent: relations have been getting better since president biden met with xi jinping. since the balloon incident present -- secretary blinken capital district. secretarausten picked up his phone, no answer from beijing. it does seem like things are getting worse. president biden last night said to judy woodruff this is not changing u.s.-china relations and officials explained that thinking. they want dialogue with beijing,

and they did not learn anything that did not already know from this balloon as deputy secretary of state said today, china has become more aggressive at home, more aggressive a broad the balloon is evidence. amna: thank you very much. ♪ geoff: democrats and republicans have been spurring for months over the federal government's two main social safety net programs, social security and medicare. in tuesday's state of the union address president biden said some but not all republicans want to target the programs were cuts. his remarks drawing jeers from some members of the gop, all of it leading to unusual moment of life policy negotiation and apparent agreement. pres. biden: social security and medicare is off the books now, right? [cheering]

all right. let's all agree, and apparently we are. let stand up for seniors. [cheering] stand up and show them, you will not cut social security. we will not cut medicare. geoff: well republicans have accused president biden of misrepresenting their proposals, a handful of gop lawmakers have floated making changes to the programs. >> if we want to talk about the debt and spending it is the entitlements program. >> we are done to eight small fraction of the federal pie, so entitlement reform is a must for us not to become grease. >> we talk every year about how we are going to fix medicare and social security. here is what is happening, no one that i know of wants to sunset medicare or social

security, but we do not even lk about it. medicare goes bankrupt in four years, social security goes bankrupt in 12 years. geoff: the president took us a to florida today are missing to protect the programs crucial to seniors. pres. biden: focus on fixed income rely on social security and medicare to get by. they deserve a greater sense of security and dignity. i know a lot of republicans, their dream is to cut social security and medicare. let me say this. if that is her dream, i am your nightmare. geoff: following this is our congressional correspondent. let's dispense with the politics just for a second and talk about the underlying issue. medicare and social security face the same basic problem in that people are living a lot longer than they did when these programs were created. where are we with the solvency of these programs? correspondent: this is according to the trustees for these programs. let's start with medicare. right now if congress does nothing to get will be insolvent

in 2028. that used to be a date that was far away. if nothing happens, the payments to medical providers would be cut about 10%, social security a little bit longer but still a major consideration here is that the retiree fund would be insolvent in 2034, and that would mean cuts of about 20% to benefits. another way to think about that is anyone in this country it was 56 years old or younger would see their social security benefits cut by at least 20% if congss does nothing. geoff: you have got more than 60 million americans enrolled in these programs. what are the possible solutions? corresponden let's go over that because it is not easy. these are not easy decisions, someone will have to make sacrifices. they could increase payroll taxes for some or all americans, maybe richer americans pay more. they could raise the eligibility age even more or the criteria for qualifying f these

programs. they could also reform how medicare pays medical providers, specifically there could be a lot of savings there, and the bottom one is lower benefitsor some or all americans. that is what you often hear refer to ms. cuts. that means fewer benefits were fewer people. timing matters, the longer congress and the president wait to make these decisions the deeper those kinds of cuts can be in the future. geoff: this all ties into the country's debt problem. what would it mean for the bottom line if congress does nothing to address the solvency issue? correspondent: think about medicare and social security as almost the equal of the regular agency budget for all of government. if you do not address the red think in those programs you have a major problem, fewer options for what to cut. we talked to larry of the kaiser family foundation about what would happen if they continue to bleed this red ink. >> if you want to balance the

budget and you take two big programs off the table, probably defense spending is largely off the table as well, the next big junk of the federal budget is medicaid. if you were going to balance the budget and take all of these tools off the table you were probably looking at big cuts in a program like medicaid. correspondent: medicaid, the program for lower income americans. republicans say they want a balanced budget, but if you do not change medicare and social security or affect the defense department, medicaid is the next big target left. no one is proposing targets but he is saying this is what is left. geoff: what are republicans and democrats proposing to do about this? correspondent: we will be talking about this more down the road. that's about florida senator rick scott. he is proposing something very specific.

he is using the word sunsetted, and he says he wants to sunset every federal program every five years, look at every federal program every five years. as part of that social security and medicare. he has not proposed specific cuts of those programs, but i have talked to them a lot about the national debt, and he is out forefront on the national debt. he does think government needs to shrink, and i am waiting to see what his proposals will be specifically for how he would deal with medicare and social security. other than that there is no plan. there is not a full proposal from democrats or republicans. senator joe manchin said he wants to try to propose a commission come up with the white house initially said we are not going to talk about that, at least not as part of the national debt proposal. we have a major problem looming that is coming fast. there is no plan yet or discussion either. geoff: i learned so much whenever i talk to you. it is go to see you. ♪

amna: in two pas to not, heart disease and the obesity epidemic. no disease kills more americans annually than heart disease. at least half of all americans are at risk because of factors such as obesity, elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, or smoking, and that is projected to get worse in the coming decades. stephanie sy reports were mississippi, the state with the highest rate of heart disease on how access to care is affecting debt -- residents in the world delta. -- rural delta. correspondent: in a small room tucked away in a physical rehab center, nurse lee roach is putting her patients through their paces. >> stand close to the front, it is easier. if you start dragging behind you will be ck over here in this chair. correspondent: each patient is

recovering from a serious cardiac event like a heart attack or heart surgery, and as they go through their circuit of exercises each patient's heart rate and blood pressure are closely monitored. >> exercise will make it go down, and then you have got to watch the sugars that you eat. correspondent: while they are here roach and counseling. >> small changes make very big differences. we can change a little bit. correspondent: 66-year-old leslie travels here from a small rural town almost one hour away. she recently had a stent put in her heart. >> it helped me a whole lot. correspondent: 75-year-old james wellborn is recovering from open-heart surgery in november. >> you cannot do this three days a week without feeling different. >> education is a big part of it

and we tried to make sure that while they are here we get everything that they need to know to decrease the likelihood of having to come back after another cardiac event. it is very rewarding for me to see people actually change. correspondent: it is change that is desperately needed in the mississippi dta, a swath of fertile farmlandound by two rivers northwest of jackson. the region has amonth poverty and heart disease rates in the country. >> the mississippi delta is the canary in the coal mine. correspondt: this doctor is mississippi's top health officer and practicing physician for more than 30 years in the state. >> you have to understand and mississippi poverty drives most everything, and with poverty comes obesity, because there are fewer choices for healthy food and fewer opportunities for exercise and increased activity. obesity drives diabetes, which

drives heart disease and stroke. overlaying all of that is access to care. correspondent: access to that edny says is more limited by the fact that mississippi is one of the 11 states that is not expended medicaid, change resisted by republican leaders in the state. >> i point out where the resources are, and in 2023 part of federal funding and health care is the affordable care act, it just is. we have hospitals closing and downgrading services. correspondent: this hospitalist been open for more than a century but it is on borrowed time. all hospital officials say they only have enough money to stay solvent through june. >> visit doctor is that the only cardiologist, the hospital has closed its maternity ward and

intensive care unit and has 40% fewer employees than it had in 2021. >> you are eating good, not bad stuff, right? >> no. correspondent: in his own unit dr. takur had a nurse practitioner laid off as well. >> people can get sick and die from this disease. we can help if we catch it early. correspondent: it is preventable. >> that is right. correspondent: 50-year-old hope cooper has an elevated heart rate and leaky heart valve. she has been seeing this doctor or almost three years. >> if i had to drive myself, i doot think i would have been able to make that drive. we need him re at the hospal. it is not just i want to go here. we need him here. correspondent: the crisis in a

rural health care access comes as rates of heaea are expected to search across the country. a study released last august projected that heart disease and risk factors like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity would rise steeply over the next 35 years especially among black and hispanic americans. even as they decrease for whites. how do you begin to prepare for that given that you are already so busy now? >> you do your best. you fight the war with the army you have. you do your best, you keep doing it. one life at a time, one patient at a time. correspondent: and those patients come from all over the region. about 25 miles south is a small town surrounded by farmland. it's population of 1652 is more than 97% black. >> is like a graveyard where

they put all the people who cannot work anymore. correspondent: queenie and aaron denton have lived around here their whole lives. both were born to sharecroppers who lived on the same plantation where their great-grandparents were once enslaved. >> growing up if you went to the doctor you were in bad shape. you were bleeding and hurting. there were not checkups. correspondent: you did not have any preventative care? >> no, my mama would go in the kitchen and do some homebrewing and kept you goin correspondent: erin was hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat in 2021, and queenie was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2020. >> the hospital is very important because not many people can make it to jackson. not in this area. because they do not have the transportation, so if they close the closest thing to us down,

th it is going to be back to whereas living on the plantation, cannot get any health care. >> mississippi has a history of chattel slavery. this is a result of racial and economic injustices. correspondent: julia miller is a professor of college at a historically black college. he is also a fifth-generation deltan with a history of heart disease. he is leading a national institutes of health study examining how access to healthy food can improve health disparities. >> we plan to recruit 300 patients, do actually provide them access to local grown fresh produce and study their health outcomes. additionally, this product has the benefit of also building a sustainable food system in the delta with the investment it is making on production on the ground. so our health will drive our

economic security. correspondent: miller hopes this is the first step in making food as important as medicine. >> we want to be able to have a system where medicare and medicaid dollars are used purchase locally grown fresh food the sam way it is used to purchase prescription drugs. correspondent: the reality today for patients in the delta is very different. at the hospital administrators are taking action to get more funding, but it is not clear it will save the hospital. what is the worst case scenario if this place has to close? have you thought about your plans? >> one patient told me that we will collect money and open a clinic for you. correspondent: a patient told you they would open a clinic for you so they can keep you in this community? that is how much you mean to them? >> yeah, and i do not think she has $100 to spare. correspondent: would you stay?

>> i will try. correspondent: over at the cardiac rehab center nurse lee roach also cleaves trying -- keeps trying. >> it is disheartening. my parents to live here. if the hospital closed would not be good. people will die. people need care. correspondent: in fact they needed more than ever. -- need it more than ever. ♪ geoff: there are no quick solutions or pills that easily solve the problems of obesity. a new crop of anti-obesity drugs are proving remarkably effective cutting body weight by an average 15% to 22 percent. these medicines could trigger a shift in how doctors treat this, but the drugs, the hefty price

tag, some costing over $1000 a month, and many insurance companies will not cover them. in a moment william brangham talks with a specialist about this, but first let's hear from some people taking these drugs. >> my name is nancy, i live in new iberia, louisiana, and in 1.5 years i have lost 107 poun ds. >> i'm a nurse practitioner and i am based out of california. >> i am janet from chicago, illinois, and i have been a weight loss medicine for a couple of months, and recently found out that my insurance no longer covers that. >> people say if y would just quit eating, you would be fine. and i try believe that the stigma associated with being overweight is so wrong, and compared to celebrities, they are losing 30 pounds to get into

address. the rest of us just want to feel better. we want our needs to quit hurting, inflammation to be gone. >> a side effect has been losing weight, but that is not necessarily what my aim was. my aim was to stop the thought patterns and the bench -- binge eating cycles i was going through. i shut off switch is the best way to describe it. >> i started taking it and instantly felt so much better. i had energy, had no cravings for any kind of suites, and then went again to get my second month refill at the beginning of january, and again it was $25. just recently i had to get my next month, and the pharmacy told me it would be $2000. she goes you realize it is

$2000, and i am light, no. >> i think making these medications more accessible is important, because not only is it super expensive, but even when your insurance does cover it, i have had to spend hours and hours on the phone with my insurance company. that is me as a medical provider understanding of to navigate the system, and i have had to spend so much time just to access my medication every month. >> at this point it is up in the air. i am not sure what is going to happen, and to me it is kind of scary, because it is something that is working for me finally, and for it to be taken away is very heartbreaking. >> i just feel better. the whole point to me, my blood pressure is not 205over 140. >> those are some of the many people taking these drugs and seeing real benefits, but

soaring demand for these medications is also led to shortages, which can leave diabetic patients stuck. from a medical perspective i am joined by dr. stanford, and obesity medicine decision at massachusetts general hospital ana professor at harvard medical school. she is a consultant to several pharmaceutical companies, including the one that makes the drug. so good to have you on the newshour. what is your take on these medications? do you see them as this remarkable new evolution entry, and if they are working, why are they working this way? >> first of all, thanks for having me. i am so happy to finally hear a conversation where we are beginning to address this chronic disease that is obesity. these medications really spend their time acting primarily on the brain to regulate one of the pathways that tells us you eat less and store less well down

regulating a pathway that tells us to eat more and store more. that is the primary way in which these medications were. when we listen to individuals that have had a chance to experience benefits of these medications, you will hear about how it influences their daily life, and that is how these medications work area there are several medications in addition to the ones we are talking about today that also influence how the brain sees weight, so it is important for us to recognize that all things do not work for all people. even people with obesity have differences in how their bodies navigate different agents to help them treat obesity, including the medications we are talking about today. geoff: people who do have the disease of obesity, if they are taking these medications, they take them for life? is that correct? >> yes, that is, and i have thought about this, and to explain this to people. no one expectso eat one healthy meal and expect that to

last indefinitely. no one does one great workout and expect them to last indefinitely. these medications are acting on different portions of the brain, and while they are being used they are effective. as soon as you pull them back they are no longer acting on the body, much like you are no longer eating a healthy diet, exercising, those things are not working on the body. if we think about the need for chronic healthy diet, chronic exercise, that for those people that these medications are effective for, we need to use them chronically. geoff: we heard in the voices prior to this that some patients were having trouble paying for it because their insurance had run out. do you believe from your expertise that on balance these provide enough benefit that they ought to be covered by insurance? >> i really am a strong advocate for coverage of the strong chronic disease affecting over 42% of the population based on 2018 numbers. as you know we are in 2023, so

those numbers are much likely higher. we know that obesity leads to over 230 other diseases, so why not treat the one that is unfortunately leading to many others? the cost-benefit ratio is when we have toe aware of, and we also know from a lot of data that these medicines improve cardiovascular health and non-cardiovascular health. we know it reduces the rate of stroke, heart attack, admission for heart failure. these are things we cannot discount. if we know this, that the data shows that end we have robust data showing that why not utilize these medications and individuals that could benefit. geoff: as you all know there is this ongoing discussion about the disease of obesity and how we treated, there is something to be cured or not. there is so much shame and stigma attached to it as well. where do you come down on that and how do these medications fit into that discussion >> i do know that shane and

stigma are very pervasive the two most common forms bias are raised by us followed very closely by weight bias. we judge and devalue human beings that struggled with this disease and we do not feel like they deserve forms of therapy. we believe they have done this to themselves. after treating over 10,000 patients with obesity, i can tell you that is not the case. they have tried to, they have struggled and we have not been able to offer them any benefits from it and things we would do for chronic diseases, which are medications, surgical interventions that sometimes people often need. this is a chronic disease, and so there is no magic pill, there is no magic injection, no magic surgery. we can treat that person over the long-term for their disease and help improve their overall health and ability to navigate the earth. one of the things we heard in one of the outtakes was a woman talked about i justant to be

able to walk my dog. that is not something a lot of us have to think about. we are able to do that with ease , without stress or strain. why shouldn't every human have that ability? geoff: thank you so much for being here. >> thank you so much for having me. ♪ amna: one of the nation's most conservative appeal courts instruct on a federal law that banned people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning guns. the decision, which only applies in the fifth district of texas, the louisiana, and mississippi, is just part of the massive legal follow-up from u.s. supreme court ruling on the second limit last year, and it could signal how courts will decide on a firearms cases for years to come. joining me now is chip brownlee, a reporter with a nonprot news organization that covers growing -- gun violence.

let's start with the immediate impact. does this mean anyone in texas or louisiana or mississippi who has a domestic violence restraining order can now legally own a gun? >> this ruling found that the federal law that covers these issues as unconstitutional, but there are still state laws and most of the states where there are people subject to restraining orders that cannot owns guns. with regards to the federal law in those states it does find it unconstitutional. in this case they vacated a person's sentence or vacated the conviction of a person who had been convicted under this law. amna: the reason those laws were in place in diverse ways, there is a well-established connection between domestic violen and gun violence. tell us about that. >> probably about a fourth of homicides de in the united states are in some way related to domestic violence or family violence. half of the women in the u.s.

shot and killed every year are shot and killed in domestic violence incidents. note from the research that having a gun in the situation raises a risk of a domestic violence murder by about 400%, so these laws, these were trying to prevent those by having in place a prohibition on a person having a gun if they are under these restraining orders. you can imagine if someone goes to get a restraining order they feel like they are under an emergency situation. those are probably the most dangerous situations anyone can be in. correspondent: it is notable in their decision to make clear the question was not about whether keeping a gun away from someone who has a domestic violence restraining order is what they call a loadable goal. -- laudable goal. they say they are working under a new standard known as the brewing decision. what did that change? >> previously courts could weigh the benefits of a law against

the constitutional questions are rounded. they could look at something and sa this law is designed to prevent gun violence, and balances that with constitutional protections. after last year the supreme court told lower federal courts that the only thing they can take into account is history and tradition. basically what they said is if the law was not around at the time of the founding, around the colonial period, earlier days of the u.s., that it cannot exist today. they told the lower courts they cannot consider these other things like public safety. amna: i found this line it really striking, in applying the new standard they say the law is an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted. they are essentially saying because domestic violence was not a crime in the 18th and 19th century that this law is unconstitutional? >> pretty much, that is what the supreme court told the lower courts to do. they had to look and see

historical analogies back in the earlier history of america to support a law existing now, and in the case of domestic violence most states did not start criminalizing domestic violence until the 1900s in this specific case, this law was not around until the 1990's. this is not an unreasonable or crazy interpretation of brewin, considering there is not a historical precedent going back for this type of law. amna: what does this new standard mean for all gun restrictions in america? >> we do not know yet but i can imagine any gun law you can think of will be challenged. this is the biggest decision since haller -- heller. right now we are seeing challenges over things like assault weapons bans, challenges and rulings already

in cases like whether someone who uses illel drugs can possess a gun. there is a split industry courts over that decision. there are also challenges going on right now over whether someone under felony indictment is allowed to possess a gun, because under current federal law if you are under felony indictment you are not allowed to possess guns. so there were already district court ruling saying that is unconstitutional. i think we will see pretty much any federal gun law, estate gun lot you can think of challenge under the framework, and if it did not exist back in the 1700s, it probably could likely be ruled unconstitutional. amna: what about in this specific case? is this likely to be appealed by the department of justice? >> yes, department of justice said they will challenge this. how that works out mains to be seen. this was heard by a panel of judges in the fifth circuit, s it is possible they could try to

get the full fifth circuit to rehear this case or they could directly ability of the supreme court. there are still so many questions about how to apply the test, and frankly what judges are supposed to consider history and what they can consider tradition that this is going to have to end up back at the supreme court. amna: that is chip brownlee, thank you for joining us. >> thank you so much for having me. ♪ geoff: popular composer bert bacharach who won six grammys and three oscars has died of natural causes. jeffrey brown has a look at the hit maker known for melodies known as walk on a bike, i sailed on a prayer, and dozens of others. ♪ >> ♪ what the world needs now

his love,weet love ♪ ♪ correspondent: bert bacharach was best known for a string of hit songs composed in the 1960's. ♪ it was a signature romantic sound mixing orchestration with pop hooks. and his music was everywhere. future in the 1967 james bond film casino royale. ♪ a number one hit in 1968, the sky is in love with you. the score from the hit song but scarcity and the sundance kid.

♪ bert bacharach himself became a celebrity, including there is marriage to angie dickinson, one of his four marriages. ♪ years later he even played himself in the austin power spoof films. she continued turning up music while also gaining a new following among the younger generation of rock and pop musicians. ♪ notably including a long song writing and performing collaboration with all this cost. a boxed set of their recordings over three decades is due out next month. in 2012 bert bacharach and hal

david were honored by the library of congress with the gershwin prize for popular song. legends like stevie wonder performed some of their biggest hits. ♪ >> ♪ a chair is still a chair even when there was no one sitting there. correspondent: bert bacharach continued to live into his 90's. she died yesterday at 94 -- he died yesterday at 94. ♪ geoff: remember, there is a lot more online at pbs.org/newshour

including a story about the hibernation process for some animals during winter. amna: join us again tomorrow night when we have a look at the efforts to crack down on sex trafficking ahead of the super bowl. that is the newshour for tonight. i am amna nawaz. geoff: and i am geoff bennett. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been prided by -- >> for 25 euros consumer cellular has been providing plans to what people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that helps -- fits you. >> it was like an aha moment. this is what i love doing. companies have this, energy that energizes to me. these are people trying to change the world. when i volunteer with women entrepreneurs it is the same thing. i am helping people reach their

dreams. i am driving by helping others every day. people who know know bdo. >> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. ♪ and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the newshour. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. ♪ and friends of the newshour. this program was made possible by the corporation for public

broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs stat ion from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption cont

. hello, everyone and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what is coming up. >> ladies and gentlemen, i thank you for your bravery. >> the ukrainian president surprise visit to the u.k. comes also with an urgent request for fighter jets. and the death toll fm the devastating earthquake in turkey and syria has now surpassed 11,000. with me to disss all of it former british foreign secretary david now president of the international rescue committee. plus. >> as somebody who is born a muslim, i am really ashamed of what is going on in my country and the discrimination.

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