♪ john: tonight on "pbs news weekend"... john: a look at the push to raise the age limits to buy a firearm in an attempt to fight the epidemic of gun deaths in america. then... the devastating decline in florida's citrus harvest that threatens a way of life. >> some trees take a little longer than others to die, but we're basically fighting a losing battle. john: and... a new film documents the devastating effects of the war in ukraine and the ukrainian people's fight for survival. ♪ >> 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. tonight, a massive pacific tropical cyclone is barreling toward myanmar and bangladesh.

with winds as strong as a category 3 hurricane, the storm is expected to bring heavy rains and landslides. aid workers walked along the coast, and used loudspeakers to urge residents of refugee camps to seek shelter. the storm threatens the world's largest refugee camp in bangladesh, home to nearly one million rohingya, with only flimsy, makeshift structures for shelter. the united nations, world food program, and world health organization have all sent resources ahead of the storm. tonight, egypt says it has brokered a ceasefire between israel and palestinian militants in hopes of ending five straight days of violence. earlier, israeli jets pummeled targets in gaza, leveling buildings. palestinians fired a barrage of rockets into israel. in the occupied west bank, three palestinians were killed in two separate incidents today. at least 33 palestinians and two israelis have died since tuesday. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is in rome today.

italian officials are pledging continued military aid, despite some members of italy's coalition government supporting russia. the centerpiece of the visit was an audience with pope francis, who has tried to play peacemaker in a way some ukrainian officials describe as counterproductive. zelenskyy's next stop is expected to be berlin. germany today pledged its biggest miliary aid package of the war: more than 3 billion dollars worth of weapons, including tanks and anti-aircraft systems. north carolina democratic governor roy cooper vetoed a ban on nearly all abortions in the state after 12 weeks. he signed the veto message at a rally at the state capitol. republicans hold veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, and are likely to try to override the veto soon. and, last night wnba star brittney griner played in her she played 17 minutes for the phoenix mercury in the preseason

contest, scored 10 points and had three rebounds. she missed the entire 2022 season while she was in russian detention. after the game, griner told reporters that hearing the pre-game star spangled banner "definitely hit different." still to come on "pbs news weekend"... a decline in florida's citrus harvest threatens the growers' way of life. and... a new documentary captures the spirit and fortitude of ukrainians fighting for their country. >> this is "pbs news weekend" from weta studios in washington, home of "the pbs newshour" weeknights on pbs. john: it's been an up-and-down week for both advocates and opponents of laws restricting gun buyers by age. on monday in texas -- where there were two mass murders this month in the space of a week -- a house committee unexpectedly passed a bill to raise the age for buying a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21.

but the legislation has stalled and is now unlikely to get a vote in the full house. and on wednesday, a judge in virginia struck down federal laws barring gun dealers from selling handguns to anyone younger than 21. the justice department is likely to appeal the ruling, which does not affect either state laws or private gun sales. lisa geller is the director of state affairs at the johns hopkins center for gun violence solutions. there are eight states that have age restrictions, fairly tight age restrictions for buying any kind of firearm -- any firearm at all. do we have any sense of what was -- of whether it helps or not? lisa: we do. as you mentioned, there are several states that haveaised the age to 21 to buy certain firearms. some cases, all firearms and what we know is stepping back,

the 18 to 20 year old period is a extremely high risk time for teenagers. we know that arrests for murders are highest among this age group. we also know that policies in states to restrict gun purchases to those 18 to 20 have lower rates of gun suicide. so we do know that protecting those under 21 from buying guns is backed by evidence and keeps youth safe. john: the shootings last year, the uvalde shooting the shooting at the buffalo supermarket. both cases the shooters were , teenagers who bought their weapons legally. do you believe that an age limit would have helped in those cases? lisa: i do believe that. i think there are a number of other situations we can point to, notably the sandy hook shooter and the parkland shooter who also bought their guns legally, shortly after turning 18, and we know that if there were a law in place to restrict that purchase until they were 21, they wouldn't have been able to buy guns just at the time period that they did and carry out the mass harm that they did. john: what is the significance

of the ruling in virginia striking down the federal law that restricted handgun sales to people 21 and over? lisa: well, as you noted, this is federal law. federal law states that you have to be 21 years old to buy a handgun from a licensed dealer. so the department of justice has already indicated that they're going to appeal this. i don't want to be an alarmist here because this is just one district court judge, one federal judge ruling that this law is unconstitutional. it does not apply yet to residents of virginia, so i don't want to state that thiis going to go into effect immediately, even if the higher court does agree with the lower court. but we know that this is dangerous. this goes against the will of the people. in fact, even a fox news poll from just a couple of weeks ago found that 81% of people are in favor of raising the age to 21 to buy all guns. and we also know that guns are the leading cause of death for teenagers. so doing this and and issuing this kind of dangerous decision at a time when guns are killing

teenagers more than any other means is extremely dangerous and not consistent with what we see in the data. john: but this ruling also doesn't apply to private gun sales. so someone 18 to 20 could buy a gun from a private dealer in the parking lot of a licensed dealer, but he couldn't go inside. i mean, is that sort of a problem that you'd like to see closed in the law? lisa: there are too many loopholes in our gun laws. just as you indicated. this does not apply to private sales. at johns hopkins at the center for gun violence solutions, we believe that there should be universal background checks on all gun sales. we believe that the age to buy guns should be raised for all gun sales because it really doesn't make sense that someone can't go into a federally licensed firearms dealer at 18 and buy a gun, but as you indicated they can have a gun given to them as a gift in some states, or they can buy it through arivate transaction. absolutely this law should be amended and loopholes should be closed to keep people safe.johne

link gunshot deaths is i think , the leading cause of death among children now. is there any evidence of a link between states where it's easier to get a gun and higher rates of suicide? lisa: the biggest predictor of a suicide is access to a firearm. we know that 90% of suicide attempts with a firearm are fatal, whereas only 2 to 3% of suicide attempts with non firearm means are lethal. so if there's anything you take away from this conversation, it is that guns are the reason why suicides are so high in this country. we know that putting time and space between someone and a firearm purchase is the best way to save their life. and that goes for children but also adults. and we also know that many mass shooters, particularly these young mass shooters, maybe suicidal. when they are carrying out this mass shootings, they are also at the end taking their own life, so i do believe that mass

shooting prevention also has to include suicide prevention. john: after the mass shooting in texas last week, we heard the governor of texas come out and when asked about tougher gun laws, talked about more mental health services. is that -- they make it sound like it's one or the other. is that a false dichotomy? lisa: we absolutely need more mental health care in this country. but there's no way to address gun violence in this country without addressing the gun. data shows that only about 4% of violence in this country can be directly linked to mental illness. so even if we were able to prevent every single individual living with mental illness from buying a gun, we would not see meaningful reductions in violence and even more specifically in gun violence. i would never say that a shooter is mentally well but that doesn't mean they are mentally ill. john: lisa geller of the john hopkins center for gun violence solutions. thank you very much. lisa: thank you for having me. ♪

john: to many people, florida means oranges. this year florida projects the , worst citrus harvest since the great depression. william brangham examines what's driving this decline, which threatens a way of life for many floridians. william: in central florida, orange groves stretch for as far as the eye can see. what is not so visible is the disease that's slowly killing one of this state's biggest industries. so, if i didn't know better, i would look at this and think, like, this looks like you've got a lot of fruit. the tree looks pretty decent to me. [laughter] >> it looks like a lot of fruit because you don't know how much fruit should be on the tree. these trees are, are suffering. they are not generating an economic crop. william: frank hunt is a third generation citrus grow. his grandfather, deeley, started the hunt brothers' family business in lake wales, florida a century ago. all that fruit that's dropped, that's waste. frank: yea that's waste.

you can't do anything with it. probably 50-60% of the crop that was set ultimately dropped on the ground before it's harvested. william: an insect-borne bacteria has infected virtually every orange tree in his groves. frank: you know, some trees take a little longer than others to die, but we're basically fighting a losing battle, trying to sustain the tree. william: for the hunt brothers' business, it's had a devastating impact. so this would've been loaded with oranges. frank: full conveyor. william: millions of oranges were processed, sorted and shipped from this packing house. so, if i had been here at its peak, like, what would this have sounded like or looked like? frank: we wouldn't have been talking right here, because the machinery is such that you would have rumbling and conveyors running and all that. where we're standing actually was the packing area. william: but last year the conveyor belts were turned off, doors shuttered, and 50 workers lost their jobs. you've got a couple of cobwebs here. i mean, this has got to feel like -- frank: well, this is the first

time i've walked back here in a while. so, if we start crying, ya'll forgive me. wiiam: this year, florida projects its orange harvest will be the lowest since the 1930s. michael: i look back to when i first started working in citrus in 2004. florida produced over 220 million boxes of oranges. william: michael rogers is the director of the university of florida's citrus research and education center. michael: fast forwar20 years and we can't produce enough oranges. we're down to 16 million box crop from 220 million down to 16 millio william: while several factors are to blame for this crisis -- hurricanes ian and nicole damaged a lot of trees when they tore through for the last year -- rogers says the main issue is this blight, which is known as citrus greening disease. it's spread by tiny insects, known as psyllids. while nearly impossible to see with the neck it i their impact , has been catastrophic. michael: pretty much all the

trees and commercial groves now in florida are infected with this disease. william: all of them? michael: the ones that aren't were planted yesterday is what i tell people. because it doesn't take long for them to become infected. william: the disease slowly kills the roots, which starves the tree of nutrients. and, it often changes the color and ruins the taste of the fruit. that is, if the fruit doesn't fall from the limb first, far too early to be harvested. michael: before you see any symptoms of this disease in the plant, we'll lose 30 or 40% of the root system. the leaves start to get these mottled appearances. they don't look nice, dark green, they look weak and stunted. >> a day without orange truce is like a day without sunshine. william: since the vast majority of florida's oranges are squeezed into juice, this disease has also squeezed wallets. orange juice is just the latest staple to slam inflation-weary consumers. whether it is fresh-squeezed or concentrated, retail prices have hit record highs for both. citrus greening has also hit smaller growers especially ha

archie: most all of your mom and pop, i would s farmers that had 10, 20, 40, 80 acres, they're very few and far between. william: archie ritch runs this general store in haines city, florida, selling his fruit -- and his freshly squeezed juice -- directly to customers. on top of citrus greening, last year's hurricanes left him with his worst orange harvest since he started here in 1992. five years from now. ten years from now. are you still growing citrus in florida? archie: it's hard for me to imagine florida without having citrus. i don't think it'll ever get back to where it was. brenda: this threat, we've never dealt with anything this severe of this capacity where it has just brought our industry basically to its knees. william: brenda eubanks-burnette runs the florida citrus hall of fame. she's been involved in the industry since 1981, when she was named florida's citrus

queen. brenda: once a queen, always a queen, i guess! (laughs) wb: i don't think i've ever interviewed a queen before. eubanks-burnette says citrus has always been a part of the state dna and she remains optimistic about the future. brenda: we're seeing people investing back into the industry. so hopefully it's not something that's going to be completely going away. but there were some sometimes and we did not think that we were going to have an industry here in florida. william: back at the university of florida's citrus research facility several solutions are , being tested. one is growing trees under these gigantic protective canopies -- they're covered with a mesh that's fine enough to block the insects, but still allow rain and sunshine in. another is developing new, blight-resistant varieties of citrus trees. michael: there's a lot of things that we can do that are short term fixes to try to keep these trees healthy. but ultimately, the solution is going to come in the form of a new variety, a new citrus plant variety that's resistant to disease, whether it be through conventional breeding or genetic

modification. william: but today, there's still no cure. and, many of these solutions aren't affordable for growers like frank hunt. but, he's not giving up. hunt says he's passing his four thousand acres on to his son. frank: the question would be, is there anything for the generation after that? and i don't know. i don't know what that will look like. william: it's a question many here in florida are now asking. for pbs news weekend, i'm william brangham in lake wales, florida. ♪ john: as russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine enters its second year, more than 100,000 ukrainian troops have died, and at least 8 million people are living as refugees elsewhere in europe.

french philosopher, writer and filmmaker bernard-henri levy has made numerous trips to ukraine, and spoke with aliogin about his latest documentary, slava ukraini. ali: this is bernard-henri levy's second documentary on ukraine since the full scale invasion began in february of last year. it takes place over four months at the end of 2022 and spans 15 cities from the capital city kyiv, to kharkiv in the northeast to the then newly liberated port city of kherson. in slava ukraini, levy takes viewers to the front lines and barren city centers to bear witness to the spirit of ukraine's defenders and its people. he joins me now from new york. bernard-henri levy, thank you so much again for joining us. in the last few years, you've told stories from all sorts of conflict zones, from nigeria to somalia to bangladesh and this is your second now documentary on ukraine. why return to ukraine? bernard-henri: because it's the most important, crucial, tragic war of our times.

our destiny is really at stake here. when i when i made some documentaries about other wars, it was often forgotten wars. i mean that this time i made the film because i thought that nobody was talking about it and that it was unfair. but the outcome of the war would not change a lot to the order of the world. this time it is the opposite. the outcome of the of the war will have huge consequences on the whole world, on our whole destiny in ukraine, but also in the west, in europe, but also in america. this is the world war, ali, a sort of world war which could become a real hot world war if

we are not able to stop the one who created it. with vladimir putin and his entourage. ali: and what do you want people who watch this film to take away from it? bernard-henri: what i want is, first of all, to see scenes , moments which they did not see elsewhere. hundred percent of those images which will be seen in various theaters in america, were not seen anywhere else. we did it. we made them with the help, of course, of the ukrainian forces who gave us, my team and myself exclusive accesses and so on. , so this is the first thing. and second, i want people to to take out of that, to take away a

sense of this incredible spirit, bravery, courage, which we thought could have disappeared from our mental landscape. but here in ukraine, embedded in the minds and in the bodies and the flesh and blood of these ladies, of these boys and gentlemen who fight for ukraine in the front on the frontline in the trenches. when i had the privilege to be admitted at the site ali: you've had incredible access, you've been on the front lines with many of these commanders and leaders multiple times, you've really gotten to know them. and this film takes us inside their units, including -- my favorite was the mozart group, which is a response to russia's mercenary wagner group. but i want to know, in the time

that you've gotten to know these people, how has this war changed them? how are they different from when you first met them? and on a basic human level, how are they doing? bernard-henri: at the the end of the film, there is a song whose title is we will never be the same again. this is what happens to all the ukrainians whom i met since 14 months. they are different persons. they have ossed this tragedy. some of them not dead, wounded, crippled. some of them ok. but deeply changed. with a sense of of trady, which they did not have before with maybe the death in themselves, often a sort of lightness, of frivolity, maybe

of happiness. it's a different people. and myself. after that, after bahkmut, i wouldn't say i'm completely the same. ali: at the end of this film, you conclude by asking, how will this end? do you think we're any closer to knowing the answer to that question? bernard-henri: i think the beginning that ukraine will win. ukraine will win for one simple reason because she knows ukraine, why they combat. this is a key. when you know why you combat, you combat for your fami, for your fatherland, and for some values, values of europe. when you fight like a mafioso, like a gangster with putin, and when you fight as a citizenship behind zelenskyy, it is night and day.

so i always thought that the only question mark is when? when will the victory happen? when will the russian army and people will admit that they have to capitulate? this is a question mark, but it depends on us. you, american people, us european people, if we decide to provide the necessary weapons and if we stop to do it in this crazy incremental way, which we got since the beginning, the drop after drop, if you decide to deliver the weapons massively, then the nightmare will end quickly. the war will stop soon and we will spare a lot of hun lives. this is in our hands. ali: powerful words to end with.

the film is slava ukraine, and the filmmaker is bernard-henri levy. thank you so much for joining us. bernard-henri: thank you, ali. thanks. thanks so much. ♪ john: now online... how the video game industry is increasing accessibility for players with his abilities. all that and more is on our website, pbs.org/newshour. 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. 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.]

>> these are my strongest childhood memories -- not of playing with friends, birthday parties, or family vacations, but of answering the phone for delivery orders, greeting customers, and a hot, steamy kitchen. but i treasure these memories. ♪♪ i'm the daughter of a restaurant owner, the youngest of three children. in the chinese community, instead of introducing me by my name, people would just say "her father owns lee's garden." my sister nona and i made egg rolls with our ther every sunday while my brother paul waited on tables. when i was older, i answered the phone and handled the cash register. my family's life revolved around the restaurant. it was open 365 days a year.