♪ john: tonight on pbs news weekend, as life expectancy for americans continues to drop. we look the reasons why. then, how students and schools are copinger last year's expiration of the federal free lunch program. and my conversation with the screenwriter of "tetris," which tells the story of the race to get the iconic video game out of the soviet union. >> this guy risked his house and home and life to get the rights to this video game, so that it could be on our gameboys. it is kind of a crazier than true story. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news

weekend has been provided by -- >> for 25 years consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offered no contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can find one that fits you. ♪ >> 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.

john: good evening. i'm john yang. the battle for control of suda is ending its second day with no signs that either side is willing to end hostilities. fighting between two forces led by rival generals, the sudanese army and paramilitary forces, raged on in the capital of khartoum and at other flashpoints around the country. a doctors' group says at least 61 people are dead and nearly 700 injured. the u.n.'s world food program suspended operations, saying that three of its humanitarian workers had been killed. in khartoum, news reports show tanks rolling through the streets, and thick plumes of smoke engulfing the city. aerial footage shows the airport smoldering in ruins. leaders agreed to a 3-hour pause in fighting today. although witnesses said shooting seemed at first to subside, heavy bombardments quickly resumed. the african union and ar league held emergency meetings today, as leaders urged a return to dialogue. in december, sudan's political

parties agreed to move the -- move toward democracy. the military has controlled the country since a 2021 coup. there's been another mass shooting in america. this one, at a 16-year-old's birthday parate last night at a dance studio in dadeville, alabama, outside montgomery. four people were killed, most of them teenagers, and a number of others were injured. the shooting remains under investigation. according to the gun violence archive, so far this year, there have been 163 shootings involving four or more people. at a gathering of top republican donors in nashville last night, former president donald trump predicted he would be the party's nominee in 2024. the event was closed to reporters, but t washington post obtained audio of the speech. at the same event, georgia governor brian kemp, who resisted trump's pressures to overturn the 2020 election results, said, "not a single swing voter will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk

about the 2020 election being stolen." this morning, kemp elaborateon cnn's "state othe union." >> i was just laying out the blue-blueprint for, i think, any candidate to be able to win, is to talk about what we're for, focus on the future, not look in the rearview mirror. john: kemp also said trump's current legal battles in new york and georgia are distractions that will help democrats. russia and ukraine marked orthodox easter today with an exchange of prisoners of war. more than 100 ukrainian prisoners were released. there was no immediate word on how many russian prisoners are involved. it is the second prisoner swap in just the last week. in ukraine, some people gathered today in the ruins of churches to celebrate the second orthodox easter under the shadow of war. and, the curtain falls for the final time tonight for the critically beloved musical "the phantom of the opera," the longest running show in broadway history. it took in more than $1 billion at the box office during its record run, but ticket sales

never recovered after broadway went dark during the pandemic. based on a 1910 pulp novel, "phantom" tells the story of a mysterious, disfigured composer who haunts the paris opera house and pines for an opera singer. it opened on broadway in january 1988. the final show will be its 13,981 performan. still to come on "pbs news weekend." a look at the state of school lunches in america. and the story of the men who fought to get the video game tetris out of the soviet union and onto gameboys. ♪ >> this is pbs news weekend from weta studios in washington, a of the pbs newshour weeknights on pbs. john: life expectancy for the average american has dropped for the second year in a row. it is now 76 years.

while life expectancy fell around the world in 2020 because of covid, other countries have rebounded in 2021. but the united states continued its decline, hitting the lowest point in nearly two decades. dr. steven woolf is director emeritus of the virginia commonwealth university center on society and health. i know we're focusing on just the last two years, but this is a longer trend, is it not? >> absolutely, our problems really began back in the 1990s. life expectancy has been increasing in all industrialized countries, but starting then, the pace of increase in the united states began to fall off. and then after 2010, it just stopped increasing altogether and plateaued. john: what are the factors in that? why is that happening? >> well, it's being driven by an increase in death rates in young and middle aged adults 25 to 64. and most of those relate to the problems of drug overdoses, suicides, alcohol related causes. these are sometimes called deaths of despair, but also

cardiometabolic diseases like diabetes and other conditions caused by obesity. john: and i know that you've taken a closer look at that younger age range. what were you finding -- finding? >> well, we found that death rates increased in that young adult and middle aged group. but there was something disturbing in the new data for 2021. yes, it showed thimassive decrease in life expectancy, but it also showed an increase in death rates in children and teenagers. and an increase of that size has not been seen in my entire career. john: what are the factors that ay into that? >> well, keep in mind that death rates have been falling dramatically in young people due to progress in pediatric medicine and curing cancer and deaths from birth defects. we've also markedly reduced the risk of deaths from car accidents. but this upward trend is the result of four causes, suicides, homicides, drug overdoses and car accidents, mainly in young people 10 to 19 years old.

john: these are not organic problems. they seem preventable. >> yeah this is not a cancer , cell. this is not a microorganism. these are man made pathogens. and that's what's tragic about this. these deaths are preventable. john: you talked about drug overdoses and gun violence, obviously. is that, how big of a factor are they? >> well, the firearm issue is a prominent reason for this increase in mortality in young people. it accounts for about half of the suicides committed by young people and the majority of homicides. so firearms play a large role in contributing to this, but not the only one. clearly, there's a mental health crisis that's fueling it. and lately, drug overdose death rates have begun increasing. john: so it sounds like this is not a question about healthcare in the traditional sense. the thinking about going to the doctor, going to a hospital. >> well, health is about more than health care. and as a doctor, i often have to emphasize that.

but portions of thisroblem are related to healthcare in terms of people's ability to access services that they need, particularly in the area of mental health. this mental health crisis began years ago. suicide rates started increasing in young people in 2007, but access to mental health services and substance abuse counseling is just not wh it needs to be in this country. john: why is this particular to the united states? why do other industrialized nations are not seeing the same thing? is it societal? >> well, we can look at some obvious explanations, like the fact that we don't have universal health care systems. but frankly, it has a lot to do with how we approach public policy in this country around social and economic issues. those are the major drivers of health, and other countries have been much more successful in pursuing policies thnvest in children, education, and provide economic support for families that are going through tough times. we don't have that kind of safety net in the united states, and we've paid the price for it. other countries have outperformed the united states as much as 50 years, a 50 year

period in which other countries have achieved higher life expectancy than the u.s.. john: you mentioned universal health care. are there other things that other industrialized nations are doing that the united states is not doing? >> yes, for many years, other countries have outperformed the united states in terms of their investments in their education. so their children are getting better education. they've also established programs for many years that provide economic support for families that are dealing with unemployment or other problems. investments in parental leave, minimum wage policies of the sort that often run into political hurdles in the united states are widely adopted in other countries, and their populations are living longer. john: what other public policy and public health implications are there from this? >> well, i tnk we're, we're really destined to see life expectancy continuing to fall, or at least not increase unless we take this seriously and make some changes in public policy.

the concerning problem i mentioned with children and teenagers means that the death rate is increasing for children 1 to 19, and put simply, that means our our young people are less likely to reach age 20 in adulthood. so we need to do something to try to save our children if they're going to have a future that's as healthy as ours. john: dr. steven woolf from virginia commonwealth university, thank you very much. >> thank you. ♪ john: last september marked the end of a federal pandemic-era program that provided free meals for all public school students nationwide. and now with inflation making trips to the grocery story more expensive, families are feeling the pinch. but it is not just parents shouldering the burden. a recent survey by a group that advocas for universal free school lunch found that 847 school districts have racked up

more than $19 million in debt from unpaid lunch fees. the result can be tough questions for parents and schools. ali ron has more. >> joining me now is crystal fitzsimmons from the food research and action center. she leads the center's work on nutrition programs that serve school age children. crystal, thank you so much for joining us. when this program ended, many school districts switched back to having kids apply to receive reduced or free school lunches. what were some of the challeng in implementing those changes? >> yeah, so after a couple of years of schools being able to offer free meals to all students, schools had to go back to collecting school meal applications and individually qualifying kids for free or reduced price school meals. so what we saw was that a lot of kids were falling through the cracks. a lot of families didn't know they had to fill out school meal applications. and the other challenge really is that the threshold to receive free school meals is too low. so for like a family of three, you would have to earn just under $30,000 a year in order to qualify for free school meals.

so we actually heard from a lot school districts that families were applying for free school meals and they weren't meeting the cutoff. and what about those people who perhaps their applications just never got to the school or they had trouble submitting the applications, things like that, or in some cases they just don't know to apply. >> now, that is exactly right. the school meal application process can be challenging for families and for schools. and so some kids are under ceified, which means they're eligible for free meals. but there was maybe a miste with their application or they did not submit an application. some kids struggle to pay the reduced price co-pay because theyon't quite qualify for free school meals and other families who don't qualify for free or reduced price school meals can sometimes struggle to even pay the cost of the meal. john: -- >> and then what do we know about how students are affected when they get denied a meal because they can't pay for it? >> well, so there's a couple of things.

the school breakfast and school lunch program really do make sure that kids have access to the nutrition that they need to grow and thrive and doell in school. and so when they show up in the school cafeteria and they don't access that meal, it can be really difficult because the kids don't get access to the food that they need. and then for schools, if a child shows up in the school cafeteria and they don't have money in their school lunch account or cash in hand, then the school is left with a tough decision too. they need to figure out whether or not they can cover the cost of that meal. and what ends up happening is if a child goes through the school lunch line and the school isn't going to let them charge the meal, then they end up having to take the lunch away from the child, which is pretty traumatic. and nobody wants that to happen. and schools don't want that to happen and parents don't want that to happen. and kids definitely do not understand when that happens to them. >> and how ds it affect their ademic performance? what do we know about that? >> well, we know that kids do

better when ey're well nourished. we know that kids need a tritious breakfast to start the school day ready to learn. they need a nutritious lunch to continue to learn throughout the school day. and so if kids are missing out on lunch during the school day, they're going to return to class in the afternoon, unable to focus and unable to concentrate. >> and then in some communities, advocates have been finding ways to pay for these meals without state or federal help. what are those efforts look like? >> well, so there's a couple of things that are going on. some school districts will actually participate in an option. these are high poverty districts and still offer free meals to all studentshrough what they call the community eligibility provision. other districts will maybe raise money to help pay the cost of the unpaid school meal debt, which is actually not the best idea because it just makes it diffict for -- it's just not a great policy. it's much better to be able to just offer free meals to all of the students. >> so there are a few states that have gone ahead and passed their own free breakfast and lunch programs. other states are pursuing those routes. how are other states approaching

this crisis? >> well, that's absolutely right. five states actually have created permanent, healthy school meals for all programs where kids across their state are able to access free meals no matter what. and that's been incredible. they didn't want to go back to the way the programs operated before the pandemic. and then we have four more states that have actually passed extended free school meals for all for at least one more year. and advocates in those states are working very hard to try and get those extended. and then other states, we have about 20 states that are working on campans to try and get healthy school meals for all. so nobody really wants to go back to where the school nutrition programs operated before the pandemic. >> and in the past, on the federal level, there have been efforts to pass some sort of more broad for free lunch and breakfast programs. but what's the prospect for anything happening on the federal level these days. >> well hope springs eternal, so we continue to ask congress to do what we need them to do, whic to offer free meals to all students and to find it.

there's national school lunch and school breakfast programs. that was our national program. and we want to make sure that kids in mississippi have the same access to school meals as kids in california and kids in maine and kids in texas, so we're really calling on congress to do the right thing and create a healthy school meals for all program. >> and the usda is actually proposing a program that would provide free meals to schools that have predominantly low income students. what do those efforts look like? >> yeah, so we do ve a program like that, and what usda is talking about doing is extending it so that more schools would qualify for it. and we are also hoping that congress would actually invest in that program more to make it more financially viable for the schools to do it. so usda has been a great partner in trying to ensure that kids have access to nutritious school breakfast and lunches. >> now, there have been some critics of broad school breakfast and lunch for all programs saying that they are wasteful, that they have in the past shown that they can't account for millions of dollars

in improper payments. how do you respond to that criticism? >> well, so first, i would say that kids are in school for about 7 hours a day and they all need access school breakfast and school lunch. and second, i would say the process that schools have to go through to certify kids for free and reduced price school meals is a very challenging process. and so kids get missed. kids get under certified, are over certified. and a lot of times when people are talking about what yo're talking about, it's actually you're talking about a child receiving a lunch. and so i don't really think about that as fraud. i think that all the kids should be able to access that nutritious lunch. >> crystal fitzsimons with the food reseah and action center, thank you so much for your tim >> thank you for having me. ♪ john: there is an addictive

quity to building those walls with cascading blocks. so addictive that in the soviet union where tetris was creat the government blocked it from state computers because it was running productivity. itas made available outside of the iron curtain a few years later, and is now one of the most popular video games of all time. in the beginning, it waslayed in arcades and on handheld devices. today it is on ce phones. in brazil they put it on the side of a building. at the burning man festival there was a version using flaming blocks, andeople have even dressed up like tetris pieces. >> it is so simple. simple to play but impossible to master kind of games. >> its creator is to be born computer engineers says he was looking for a way to use computers to make people happy. >> every time people come to me and say you may tetris.

i spent so many hrs on this game. was it a good or bad hour? of course it was gre hour. i never think this is a benediction. -- bad addtion. john: a slightly embellished version of how the game escape is portrayed in a new film now on apple tv+ called tetris. >> it is about 90% factual. it is a crazy story. >> i play tetris for five minutes, yet. i still see falling blocks in my dreams. >> karen anderson starts -- john: the film has been describeas part spy thriller part where in the world is carmen san diego.

know what the screenwrit of tetris. you described this is a passion project. are you a tetris player. >> i lost a lot of my childhood to tetris on game boy. when you grow up in nova scotia and you want to go anywhere, is at least four to eight hours in a car. john: how did you come to be aware of the story of how tetris came out? >> the moment i heard about it i knew this could be a great movie, and the more i researched it and looked into it, realized the heart of this story was actually a movie beyond the high-stakes of getting the rights to the game. it was a story of friendship. if you are pitching a movie today, the last thing you want to say is i want to make a movie about intellectual property battles, because peoples's eyes were glazed over right away.

this movie is about so much more than that. what i found and it was the story of these two guys who were from different parts of the world who found of friendship through their shared love of giving. john: you say the key to shaping the story it was getting the two characters you just talked about , the computer engineer who designed tetris and hank rogers, the american videogame publisher who struggled to get the rights to the game to get them on board to work with you. the engineer acknowledged that there was some artistic license in the movie. how did you decide what to keep factual, true to the story and what to dramatize? >> my main goal telling the story it was get down to the emotional truth of everything. some of the external antagonism introduced in the movie is a bit of a fabrication on top of the reality, but at its core i

wanted to make sure that everything for the chacters and especially felt true, and that is where hank and alexi came in handy. john: you created a series for national geographic called genius to looked at the life stories of albert einstein and pablo picasso. you seem to be drawn to fact-based story centering around real people. why do you tnk that is? >> i really love telling stories about things that we thought we knew, but in fact had no idea. we all know what tetris is, we all grew up playing it or hearing about it, but none of us had an idea that this guy risk his house and home and life to go across into a place and lie his way into a soviet union so he could get the rest of the videogame. john: you detail a kafkaesque

bureaucracy of the soviet union and the beginning of the end, the fraying of soviet communism. >> the initial name for this script was falling blocs, and i felt that was the story behind the story. the really interesting part about that time was nobody had any idea that the soviet union would end in two years, so there was a lot of existential questions being asked at all levels. john: the movie is tetris and is streaming on apple tv+. thanks so much. >> really appreciate it. ♪ john: now onle, this colorful instagram story explores the

silver-lining of california's stormy winter. a sringtime wildflower "superbloom" so radiant it can be seen from space. all that and more is on our web site, and that is in for pbs news weekend this sunday. on monday, the story of a black man in florida who is to return torison for a murder he says he did not commit. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. >> major funding provided by. >> 420 five years consumer cellular as been providing no contract plans designed to do what were people like. our customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. visit consumercellular.tv. >> 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 statiofrom viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪ >>

this program was made possible in part by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thk you. ■ - [female narrator] the u.s. and the holocaust premiered on pbs in september of 2022. the three-part series from filmmakers ken burns, lynn novick, and sarah botstein explores the role of the u.s. before, during, and after one of the greatest humanitarian crises in history. - [ken] i have not been prepared for the response to the film, and yet this hit the spot. people struggled with it, people, you know, liked it, people have showed it to their kids.