♪ john: tonight on "pbs news weekend"... john: why some of the top colleges and universities in america are opting out of a decades-old rankings list. then... with infections on the rise, what you need to know about ticks and the spread of lyme disease is summer. and... how anonymity on social media influences the way people act online, including harassment. tionna: it was just really disheartening knowing that the bubble, that people felt that it was safe, that this is not that type of place is actually not true. ♪ >> 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.ased 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. former president donald trump was on t campaign trail today, stumping for votes a day after an indictment was unsealed, detailing 37 felony counts against him, all stemming from his handling of classified documents after he left the white house. at the georgia republican convention in columbus this afternoon, trump lashed out at the justice department and the special federal prosecutor who led the investigation. mr. trump: the ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the biden administration's weaponized department of injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country. we have a thug who's in charge. this is a political hit job. republicans are treated far differently at the justice department than democrats. john: earlier at the north carolina republican convention in greensboro, rival candidate mike pence, who has been cleared by an investigation of his handling of classified documents, defended his former boss.

mr. pence: a former president, like every other american, is entitled to the presumption of innocence. attorney general merrick garland, stop hiding behind the special counsel and stand before the american people and explain why this indictment went forward. john: trump is to make his initial appearance in federal court on tuesday in miami. between this week's indictment in florida and a march indictment in new york, the former president is facing a total of 71 felony counts. theodore kaczynski -- the man known as the unabomber -- has died. between 1978 and 1995, he used homemade bombs in a one-man effort to to bring down modern society. he was one of america's most notorious domestic terrorists. for nearly 20 years, the harvard-trained mathematician made untraceable bombs in a shack he built in rural montana. he mailed or hand-delivered them to unsuspecting targets.

the fbi branded him the unabomber. in 1995, he sent a 1000 word manifesto. he said his deadly crusade would continue if outlets refused to publish it. in the end, it led to his arrest. after reading it, kaczynski's brother tipped off authorities. in april 1996, the fbi captured kaczynski in his shack, which was filled with journals, explosive materials, and completed bombs. kaczynski pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and was given 4 life sentences plus 30 years in prison. kaczynski was 81 when he died today in a federal medical facility in north carolina. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy says his long-awaited military counteroffensive against russia has begun.

at a news conference in kyiv with canadian prime minister justin trudeau, zelenskyy would not elaborate on ukraine's progress so far. trudeau pledged 500 million dollars in new military aid to support the war effort. on the frontlines, fighting has intensified in the south and east. the ukrainian army claims they've made progress in the fight to reclaim the eastern city of bakhmut. this after russian video appeared to show recent air strikes on ukrainian armored vehicles. the fighting has forced the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to shut down its last reactor. much of the surrounding area is still reeling from a major dam rupture and massive flooding earlier this week. shifting weather patterns are helping clear the skies over the east coast that had been fouled by smoke from canada's worst wildfire season on record. a cold front ipected to push the smoke out to sea early next week. skies over manhattan -- which had been a hazy orange for much of the week -- were clear today. at the white house, crowds gathered this afternoon for a pride month celebration. poor air quality forced a

postponement earlier in the week. and, in the amazon jungle, a miraculous rescue -- four indigenous children, ranging in age from 13 years old to 11 months, were found alive after being stranded for 40 days after surviving a plane crash. the colombian military airlifted the siblings out of the wilderness friday, and they are now getting medical treatment in bogota. the crash of the light aircraft killed their mother and two pilots. president gustavo petro says the children were found by a rescue dog. still to come on "pbs news weekend"... as the summer tick season gets started, what you need to know to stay safe. and... how anonymity on social media influences the way people act online. >> this is "pbs news weekend" from weta studios in washington, home of "the pbs newshour," weeknights on pbs. john: for decades, u.s. news and

world report has been ranking colleges and universities, and, for decades, colleges and universities have complained about the guide's outsized influence and the criteria it uses. this week, columbia university said it would no longer provide information for the rankings, the highest-profile drop out from the undergraduate ratings. this follows a parade of prestigious law schools and medical schools that said they'd no longer participate in the graduate school rankings. francie diep is a senior reporter for "the chronicle of higher education," covering money in higher education. when columbia announced the step they were taking, they said they had concerns about how the rankings distill a university profile into a composite of data categories. "numbers alone could never nvey the broader experience of undergraduate life at columbia." is that the gist of their arguments against the rankings? francie: yeah, it's a big ideal

for both colombia and other colleges that have complained about the rankings. i would say another big thing for colleges as they feel that their rankings create sort of perverse incentives. so, for example, the law schools you mentioned, they dropped out, a number of them decided to not cooperate with u.s. news. one of the complaints was that the rankings formula depends a lock on the employment rates of graduates, what you can understand why you would want that in your rankings. you go to law school and you hope that you're employed afterwards. but some of the law schools that left u.s. news complained that fellowships do not count as employment. they were saying a lot of these fellowships funded by the schools themselves prepared students to go into public interest law. so you can see how not counting fellowships as employment than -- then might encourage law

skills -- law schools to offer fewer of these scholarships, maybe encourage just not to go to public interest law good john: how does u.s. news respond to those complaints? francie: they've always said that they provide portant data to students. that there are a source of independent third party breaking -- ranking or evaluation of colleges. that they don't encourage students to use the ranking number only, that it needs to be one of a lot of things you look at you they've also said they will continue ranking those colleges that have totally dropped out. they can still create a ranking, even without the colleges cooperating. john: columbia is e highest profile school and member of the ivy league to drop out of these rankings. do you think we're going to see a parade like we did with the law schools and medical schools? francie: yeah, you know, it's

really hard to know. i haven't heard of anything. but that said, if any schools are planning to do this, they probably will keep it tightlipped. that said the data survey that , colleges turn into u.s. news, that's due in like weeks. so if colleges have plans to boycott, we will see that come out pretty soon. john: i know you talked to high school students and guidance counselors to get a sense of how influential these rankings are. what did they tell you? francie: one thing you worry about is a prospective student is only going to look at the ranking and not other factors that might be important to them. like price or programs. when i talked to students, at least, you know, they all seem pretty savvy. they understood that rankings had flaws. they understood that they weren't supposed to look at only that.

one kind of interesting thing i found was that the students that tended to rely the most on the rankings were actually sort of students who were ambitious, they could get into several good schools, but they weren't using counselors or their parents very much for guidance, kind of going it on their own. maybe their parents didn't go to college at all. you can see why the rankings might be appealing to a student like that. going into the story, i kind of expected that it might be sort of private school students, prep school student. might be sort of especially concerned with prestige. but in fact what i found was that those students go to schools where they have been told by counselors for years you have to think about more than ranking. it's really the students with less guidance who rely more on the rankings. john: how did u.s. news & world

report sort of a general , interest magazine, which also rates i believe cars, riots and nursing homes become so , influential in higher education? francie: that's a great question. they started ranking colleges pretty early. i don't think they were the absolute first, but they have been doing it since the late 1980's, came out with the best colleges list. so you know, i think being one of the first probably helps them with the influence a lot. another thing is that at the time that the rankings came out, it was a time whenore young americans are going to college than ever, over the past few decades the number of young americans going to higher ed has like tripled. so you're having a lot of students who like the students that i talked to maybe the first in their families to go to college. just looking for a way to evaluate and decide where to go. this product fulfilled that

need. its influence is only grow until today, although perhaps waning now that there's been more of a public boycott. john: thank you very much. francie: thank you for having me. ♪ john: summertime means more time outdoors and that means more chances for tick bites and the risk of lyme disease. according to the centers for disease control, as many as 476,000 ople in the united states contract lyme disease every year. and climate change and our encroachment into wilderness areas means ticks and the lyme disease causing bacteria they can carry are more common in more places. my guest is an immunology professor at tufts university medical school, is also

co-director of the tufts lyme disease initiative. doctor hu, what does lyme disease do to us? what are the symptoms and how serious can it be? dr. hu: lyme disease typically enters into your body after the bite of a tick, and the bacteria the spot of the bite and then spread rapidly from there to other skin sites, but can also get to the brain, can get to the heart and can get to the joints, causing more severe disease. john: how easily is it eated? dr. hu: for most people, antibiotics are pretty effective, especially if you get eated early. there are a number of different antibiotics that work very well against lyme disease. there are small percentage of people, probably somewhere in the range of 10 to 15% who will continue to have symptoms after treatment for lyme disease. john: and have ticks been spreading into more areas of the untry, and why is that? dr. hu: i think it's a combination of things. the ticks have spread a little bit, but they've always been there. the disease has spread into the ticks so that more ticks in more

areas going up further north along the northeast shore and further south again along the atlantic seaboard are carrying lyme disease now. and i think that's just the natural spread as more and more ticks get infected in the area and then continue to move outwards. john: any idea of why more ticks would become infected? dr. hu: i think it has to do with the numbers of infected animals. so the ticks pick up the infection from mice and other small rodents as well as birds and as they spread -- and they don't move very fast or very far geographically -- as that gradually spreads and more infected mice spread down, you get more infected ticks in those areas. john: it used to be you thought of this as something you got when you went hiking in the deep woods. but now, is it prevalent in suburban areas as well? dr. hu: yeah. i think, you know, both the er that are very important for the ticks but don't carry lyme disease as well as the mice have become suburban creatures. and so they're living amongst us in the suburbs all the time.

so there's more and more interaction between people and the ticks that are infected. john: does climate change play or play a role in any of this? dr. hu: it's interesting. it's hard to predict exactly what climate change does. you know, the warmer weather certainly can mean that more mice and more deer survive the winter, which can mean more ticks and more infection. but it can also mean that when there are periods of drought, these ticks need moisture to survive during the summers. and if there's a long drought, you can actually see decrease. so it's variable. what climate change could do to lyme disease year-to-year. john: earlier you said it's important that lyme disease be treated early. should anyone who gets a tick bite go to the doctor or is there some warning sign that would trigger someone to go to the doctor? dr. hu: yeah, i think, you know, the funny thing with lyme disease is that most people don't even know that they've been bitten by a tick. so certainly if you've been bitten by a tick, it's probably worth giving your doctor a call because there are preventative medicines you can take. if you take it within the first couple of days after you've been bitten. i think the key thing to loo out for, if you know that you've

been bitten by a tick for lyme disease is to watch for that erythema migrans rash. john: and there are other tick borne diseases. it's not just lyme disease. there are other reasons why you should be wary of a tick bite. dr. hu: absolutely. and these ticks that carry lyme disease alsoarry five other diseases. most of those don't have anything as characteristic as the rash of lyme disease. so what you have to be watching out for our -- for are fevers, chills, muscle aches, things like that, that happened in the summer. john: and talk about the research that's going on now. what are there are there potential new developments in in prevention treatment? , is a vaccine possible? dr. hu: yeah, i think there have been advances, especially on the vaccine front, even in the last couple of years. so there is a human vaccine that is now in phase three trials, which is the final phase of trials before approval that i , think we're probably a couple of years off from. it's very similar to a previous vaccine that was approved and used in the u.s. maybe 20 years

ago. but this is a new variation on that and we're very hopeful that it'll have very similar effects without side effects. the other thing that just got approved last week is a vaccine for mice actually. and there if you can treat the mice and vaccinate them and prevent them from carrying the disease, then the ticks don't get it. and then if you don't have infected ticks, you have less infected humans. john: how do you vaccinate mice in the wild? dr. hu: so, yeah, you're right. mice do not line up for vaccines. so what you need to do is you need to put it in food and they put it in baits that the the mice will eat and they become vaccinated that way. john: dr. linden hu of tufts university, thank you very much. dr. hu: thank you so much. ♪ john: finally tonight, our student reporting labs team

brings us another edition of "moments of truth," a series examining the spread of misinformation. tionna haynes was a college student when she was harassed on an anonymous messaging platform, after organizing racial justice protests on campus. she spoke with student reporter bridgette adu wadier about how the design of social media platforms can influence online behavior. tionna: it was challenging just knowing that i really could be standing in front of the person who put a cop emoji, a gun emoji, and a monkey emoji and posted it to yikyak. ♪ bridgette: yikyak launched a decade ago. it allows people to post anonymous messages within a five-mile radius and it became popular on college campuses. in 2015, tionna haynes was a student at colby college in maine, when she was sent hateful

and racist messages on yikyak. tionna: before i became a student at colby, there was an incident where black and brown students were actually physically assaulted by security. and we commemorate to say, this cannot happen anymore. so i thought, let's try something new by bringing to light some of the injustices that are happening right now in the country. we did a silent protest. we did active protests during the school day in academic buildings, which people didn't like, and that actually started the yikyak posts that happened. bridgette: on yikyak, users could post anything from mundane jokes and random comments to racist, sexist rants. it first appeared in 2013 but was taken down due to diminishing popularity and increased cyberbullying. the app relaunched in 2021 and has recently been acquired by sidechat, another anonymous posting platform. what was your impression of

yikyak before everything escalated? tionna: so i didn't really know yikyak like that until the incident. i think my friends, they started sharing. look at how they're responding to it on yikyak. and for me, i got really sad. it was just really dishearning knowing that the bubble that people felt that it was safe, that this is not that type of place is actually not true. i think the most nerve-wracking part of everything that happened on yikyak was you didn't know who was making those posts. so you might think you're cool with somebody of a different race, right? if a different background, of a different socioeconomic status. but you see a post and you're wondering, is that somebody i just ate food with? is that someone that i just studied with? is this directed at me?

i was in that protest. do you feel that same way about me? you don't really know, am i psychologically and physically safe anymore? bridgette: what would you say to your younger self back then in regards to this whole situation with yikyak and how you handled it? tionna: i would say to m younger self, tionna, keep going. keep going. no regrets. you'll stand up for your students. you'll stand up for their families and your future job. you'll start seeing how you can still be true to yourself and get what you can out of this life. john: to watch all the episodes in our “moments of truth” series, visit our website. also online, how some families are losing their food stamp benefits taken away because of prior drug convictions. all of that is on pbs.org/newshour. 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 a plan that 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.]

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