♪ john: tonight on "pbs news weekend"... as the supreme court preserves access to the drug used in most u.s. abortions, we look at the online misinformation and disinformation about abortion. then... glitches plague a cellphone app that helps migrants apply for asylum as pandemic era immigration policy is set to expire. and... what scientists are doing to rescue disappearing plant life across the globe. >> plants are the keystone species in pretty much every habitat. and by saving the plants, saving the habitats that they're in, we're also saving all the other biodiversity. ♪ >> 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 offer a variety of no contract plans and our u.s.-based customer service team can find one the fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. ♪ >> 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. with the bloody battle for control of the african nation of sudan entering its second week, the sudanese army says it's helping evacuate foreign diplomats and civilians aboard military aircraft. but the american embas there says it's too dangerous for the estimated 16,000 private u.s. citizens trapped in sudan to travel, and urged them to shelter indoors. explosions and gunfire rang out across the capital khartoum today, even as the warring sides said they'd agreed to a ceasefire for the three-day muslim holiday marking the end of ramadan. the world health organization says more than 400 people have died, including one american. interior secretary deb haaland defended the biden administration's approval of the willow oil drilling project in alaska. speakingefore a group of environmental journalists in idaho, haaland rejected criticisms from environmental advocates that president biden broke a campaign pledge to end new drilling on federal lands.

sec. haaland: we are not going to turn a ucet off and say, "we're not drilling anymore. nobody's going to use gas and oil." that is not reality. so, we are doing the beswe absolutely can. john: the $8 billion willow project is projected to bring in 180,000 barrels of oil a day. haaland opposed willow when she was in congress, before joining the administration. and, australian actor barry humphries has died. he was better known to his fans worldwide as his alter ego, the outrageous dame edna -- a sharp-tongued, quick-witted diva who punctured pomposity and the culture of celebrity. more than a character, dame edna became a cultural phenomenon. a 1999 broadway show won a special tony award. barry humphries was 89 years old. still to come "pbs news weekend"... will a customs and border protection app helor further complicate applications for

asylum at the southern border? and... scientists race to save disappearing plant life. ♪ >> this is "the pbs news weekend" from weta studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour weeknights on pbs. john: the supreme court said last night that the abortion medication mifepristone will remain available while the challenge to a lower court order that it be taken off the market works its way through the legal system. this latest chapter in the legal fight over abortion access comes as researchers are examining the vast amount of online misinformation and disinformation about abortion. jenna sherman is with meedan digital health lab, a technology nonprofit that works to strengthen journalism and digital literacy. she's also a researcher at the harvard t.h. chan school of public health. i know that you recently looked

at what happened with online misinformation and disinformation around last year's leak of both the leak of the draft supreme court opinion and then when the actual opinion came out overturning roe. what did you find? jenna: thank you. we wanted to understand how actual volume of mis and disinformation changed about abortion online. so we went through hundreds of tweets from before the leak and the decision and then after the leak and decision, and what we found is that the percentage of tweets containing misinformation stayed the same. and you might be thinking well, stayed the same, that's not very significant. but what's important to keep in mind here is the noise around abortion online was extraordinarily high. so the percentage saying the same actually indicated that the volume of misinformation skyrocketed following both the leak and the decision and then

quickly fell within a few days , already making an impact and already causing harm most likely. john: mifepristone has been in the headlines for the last two weeks since that ruling in texas, have you seen the same thing? jenna: absolutely john. we have been seeing the same thing. we predicted that mis and disinformation around medication abortion would increase after originally the leak and then the decision because it really has become the new battlefront for antiabortion activists in their fight against abortion to end all forms of abortion, and we have seen their tactics become really successful online. we've seen claims circulating that exaggerate the harms of medication abortion, that use very shoddy and in many cases, non-rigorous science. and that do a lot of fearmongering and stigmatizing around people who are considering using medication abortion in a manner that is

unjustified, based on the scientific literature. what's really concerning to me, we are seeing many of those same claims in the actual legal appeals themselves. the ruling that the texas judge put forth that i looked at had at least 20 unique, false or misleading claims that were misaligned with scientific consensus. and that's just an example of this cycle that we're in where mis and disinformation online gets baked into our legal and policy decisions and then bolsters the mis and disinformation online and the cycle continues. john: what you are talking about seems to have been coming from the antiabortion forces. do you see any misinformation or disinformation coming from abortion-rights supporters? jenna: that's a great question. so while we have found observationally that most disinformation which is intentnally spread, false and

misleading content comes from , more conservative leaning anti abortion groups and individuals. misinformation is really spread across the ideological spectrum, so some examples of claims that have been put across on social media by folks who are really on the side for abortion rights have been, for instance, claims around being able to use herbs or natural remedies to safely induce abortion, which is not scientifically evidence. also downplaying really legitimate risks of abortion. this just goes to show how politicized and subjectively perceived this abortion debate is and how it really confounds the public debate. john: what can people do about this? and does the burden fall on the social media platforms or does it fall on the social media users to be careful about what they read? jenna: we're of the opinion that the onus should really first and foremost be on the tech companies and the social media platforms. there is a role for individual

users to play. but what platforms should really be focusing on is using a both reactive approach and proactive approach in parallel. a lot of the arguments around monitoring and moderating abortion content or any content online is that it's limiting free speech. in that argument, we're mostly talking about takedowns and shadow bans, and that's one really small tool in a really large toolbox. what we really need to be focusing on is a parallel approach where we do some takedowns and at the same time are proactively giving people medically sound context for the type of information that they're consuming. you know, we should really be empowering users to be, you know, be more ethical, conscious and informed consumers of content online. and especially now, given what we found in this report to pay extra attention to potential misleading content in the wake of really large public debates,

news events and legal decisions. john: how do you combat the fact that i think people are prone to accept and believe arguments that bolster what they already believe? jenna: it's a challenge. i think that the tricky part of it is that the online space is not a space that's very adept to being critical and consuming content in a nuanced way. i think you know what people need to do, including myself, including all of us, is approached, especially medical claims with a really objective , viewpoint. no matter what your belief is, whether you're for abortion or against abortion, we all have the responsibility to be conscious consumers when it comes to health information. john: jenna sherman, thank you jenna: thank you, john. ♪

john: the biden administration is using a cellphone app as the main portal for migrants seeking asylum at the u.s./mexico border. the app was first rolled out in january, but has been plagued by glitches. as ali rogin tells us, that's forcing tens of thousands of people to compete daily for a limited number of appointments. ali: since march 2020, a pubc health policy called title 42 has allowed border agents to expel migrants, even those who are seeking asylum. but that policy ends on may 11, and the customs anborder patrol app could become even more essential. here to discuss is wall street journal immigration reporter michelle hackman. michelle, thank you so much for joining us. let's remind everybody first, how does title 42 work and how does this app fit in with the title 42 pross? michelle: so title 42 is a policy that because of public health reasons, allows the government to sort of, they call it expelling migrants back to

mexico or their home countries on the risk that they might spread covid. but the really key point here is that it prevents migrants, the asylum seekers from even asking for asylum. under normal circumstaes, if you ask for asylum, they cannot kick you out of the country. i mean, that's how asylum law works. ali: and then this new system that is replacing title 42, how does it work? and then how does this app fit into that? michelle: yeah, so this app, it is called cbp one. it's actually been introduced already even while title 42 is still in place. and the way it works is that if you're an asylum seeker, you essentially can't ask for asylum if you cross the border illegally, which is the way that mosteople try. and so instead the government is saying, use this app, book an appointment. you can come to a legal port of entrand ask for asylum and we'll take you. the only issue is there are just way fewer appointments than there are people who want them. ali: and let's talk about what problem exactly this app is trying to fix. michelle: the biden

administration is taking i would say a slightly different approach from the trump administration where like the trump administration, they're saying we really don't want you to cross illegally. you know, it's unsafe for everyone involved. it creates chaos. it doesn't allow us to screen who's entering our country. but unlike trump, they're saying, to try to convince people to not come illegally, you have to give them another option. so this is that other option at ports of entry. ali: and there are a couple other things that the biden administration is trying. they've opened up some additional legal pathways. can you talk about those? michelle: so they're trying this totally new idea that is sort of a novel legal theory where they're saying, you know, even if you don't qualify for a visa and you're from a certain set of countries where you're fleeing from authoritarianism, say, you know, venezuela or cuba, you can apply to come to the u.s. as long as you have a sponsor who will take you, we'll actually let you fly here legally to the city of your choice, let's say

chicago and we'll give you a , legal permit to be here for two years at work. so it's sort of an incentive because it's a way better situation than crossing the border and immediately being put in immigration court. ali: you were recently at the borderhere people are using this app to apply for these appointments. how is it working? what are some of the problems that folks are facing? and also, what is life like for people on that side of the rder? michelle: it's interesting. we haven't actually tried using a mobile app to do border management before. and like any other app that you download on your phone, it's not perfect. people every day in the morning, they log on to try to get an appointment. there are new appointments made available every day, let's say at about 9:00 a.m. but there's so many people trying at the same time that the app stalls, you know, it goes gray or it gives you a 504 error. sometimes -- this is a big issue that the government's been trying to solve. there are a lot of migrants, let's say, from haiti, who have darker facial complexions, and you have to take a picture to prove it's you before you get your appointment. and it struggles. i mean, with those darker complexions, it sometimes doesn't recognize people's faces.

and what it's doing is it's sort of creating this tense sort of atmosphere where people don't know if they're going to get an appointment, when they're going to get an appointment, how long they're going to be in mexico. you know, mexico can be really dangerous. and so it's leading people to sort of stay put and i think get increasingly desperate. ali: there seems to be bipartisan opposition, too, to this app and these polies. liberals are saying that this makes immigration too much like ticketmaster, and conservatives say that these efforts are expanding legal immigration too much. so what constituency is the biden administration trying to please with these efforts? michelle: i don't think that they're trying to please anyone. they want to bring down illegal border crossings. and their theory is that you can't do that through deterrence alone, because that is sort of ignoring the level of desperation among migrants in the region. and desperation always we have seen in the past sort of overcomes however much deterrence you're trying to put in someone's way. and so they're trying to see if we are successful with this model where people come legally

and you don't have those images on tv of like thousands of people streaming across the border, that they might actually change some of the politics around immigration. ali: lastly, title 42 is ending, but it seems with this new policy that we're certainly not going back to the way asylum was treated before the pandemic. so does this indicate that there is just a fundamental shift happening in how the united states views asylum? michelle: yeah. i think so. i think forever republicans in particular, their frustration has been that the asylum system works in such a way where if you walk across the border, even if you're a foot across the border, you're in u.s. territory and you can ask for asylum. and so many people do that, that it now takes years for us to get through those cases. and in the meantime, people become settled into american society. and i think what title 42 taught us is that people kind of like this idea that you can deny people the chance to do that. and i think even some democrats feel like, you know, we should have the ability to screen who's coming into our country.

and sort of choose how many people we are able to help you that we can't help infinite numbers of people. ali: immigration reporter michelle hackman with the wall street journal, thank you so much for joining us. michelle: thank you. ♪ john: scientists say that 80 percent of the earth's species are unknown. and even as more are identified, more are disappearing. sometimes, we don't know what's being lost until it's too late. on this earth day, we begin our series looking at what it takes to save plants and animals. we call it "saving species," and our first installment looks at the world of plants. >> i am pulling off the fruits of this cactus. john: seed by tony seed, meticulous and for some monday work. this is how you save a species.

kenneth is one of the dozens of horticulturalists in washington, d.c. working to give some of the world's most endangered and rare plant species a better chance at survival. the botanic garden, which is part of congress, is a living plant museum with 44,000 fascinating plants with intriguing stories spread across a conservatory and production facility. >> these are from all over the world? >> they are. john: the executive director led us through the humidity, stopping to talk under the leaf of an endangered plant. >> 44% of plants in the u.s. are at risk of being endangered and we see similar numbers globally, about 40% of global flora at risk of extinction. john: scientists say the planet is at the beginning of its sixth mass extinction, when a high

percentage of biodiversity -- animals, plants, trees -- die off. what is driving this? is a climate change? >> certainly climate change is a huge factor in the risks we see to the world's flora. there are other factors. the development from wild lands into agricultural use or buildings. another factor is the introduction of invasive species. the transportation of species around the globe and introducing them to areas. most of the driver of extension -- extinction is human activity. john: scientists believe we are losing species of all time -- kinds at a rate up to 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate. for conservationists, it is a race against time to do whatever they can to save species and ecosystems. >> plants are the keystone species in pretty much every habitat. by saving the plots and the

habitats they are in, we are saving the other biodiversity. biodiversity has a lot of benefits to global climate, certainly to us as individual people. john: in australia, lawmakers set aside 30% of the entire continent to protect endangered plants and animal species and their habitats. in south africa, scientists working to get rid of an invasive species clogging waterways -- the water hyacinth. in albania, protesters are trying to stop development projects in an important migratory bird sanctuary. and at the united nations in december, a landmark agreement to halt and reverse the destruction of nature by the end of the decade. >> this is our hawaii room. john: an ambitious goal that institutions like the u.s. botanic garden are trying to help achieve. >> this plant is extinct in the

wild in hawaii. originally the seeds were collected. botanists had to rappel down and collect the seeds. there are many stories about imperiled plants that were down to one population or a few individuals and botanists or horticulturalist's collected seeds or cuttings from the plants to save them. john: part of saving these plants is understanding them better. she showed us one plant she had never seen bloom before. >> if you look in here, you will see little polkadots, and further, bigger polkadots. each dot is a flower. john: you said you never seen these -- >> i've never seen this species in bloom. we've been propagating it for a couple of years. we received it, not everything was identified, and prior to the bloom we didn't know what species it was. john: scientists estimate only

20% of the earth species have been identified, which has them on the lookout for unknown plants with untapped potential. >> this is a very common garden plant, people love it for the pink flowers, sometimes white flowers. but this is one of the most important medicinal plants we have in our collection. compounds from this plant have saved thousands and thousands of lives making the survival rate of child leukemia go from 10% to 90%. john: is this plant under threat? >> it is in its native habitat because of flash and burn agriculture. it's a story about learning as much as we can about species. john: species also rely on each other. this plant has a special animal partner. >> it has beautiful purple flowers. what do you see? john: read dots. >> that's the nectar.

most flowers you don't see the nectar because it is clear but this is pollinated by a native gecko. the gecko can see the nectar, and it will retrieve it for a and pollinate the flower. john: pollinators are vital and if they disappear, it leaves in peril. >> this trunk like structure -- john: the corpse plant is known for its rare and stinky bloom. >> they don't self pollinate, but you can't save the pollen and pollinate your own blooms. gardens around the world will share pollen, they will fedex the pollen overnight. john: it's like reading programs at zoos where they will have males and females traded around

for endangered species. >> exactly right. the idea is to create intentional breeding programs so we can understand the diversity already in cultivation and use that knowledge to inform how we would share pollen with other gardens. john: we are going from climate zone to climate zone. >> absolutely. john: from the tropics to the desert, she showed us a rare cactus from the florida keys that illustrates the collaboration among horticulturalist's at institutions around the country. >> when we have a rare plant, we like to make sure it is represented in other collections elsewhere so that if something happened to our collection, it was still survive. john: the purpose is to make sure these survive even if not in the wild, in a collection. >> exactly right. the primary goal is always to have them survive in the wild but if that is not possible, we want to make sure the species survives in cultivation. john: as kenneth toils to keep another rare cactus in cultivation one seed at a time,

he says there's nothing else he would rather be doing. >> all the species in every thing else, such a wide range of things to work with, i am never bored. it keeps me always busy. i can't picture doing anything else. john: and even the cactus splinters are worth it. ♪ and that is "pbs news weekend" for this saturday. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. see you tomorrow. >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- >> 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 find one the fits you. to learn more, 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 station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

♪ [band playing "moonlight serenade"] ♪ hi, my name is peter marshall, and we're here to take a sentimental journey, a journey back to the thirties, forties, and fifties. you see, it was called the big band era. we are at the beautiful avalon casino ballroom on the catalina island off the coast of los angeles. it was host to all the big band greats from a to z. now, the announcer might say, "from the beautiful casino ballroom overlooking avalon bay at catalina island, we bring you the music of..." just about everyone. announcer: next, take a sentimentalourney back in time. it's the greatest music from the big band years.