wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. john: tonight on pbs news weekend, death and destruction in the middle east as hamas launches a surprise assault on israel, drawing swift retaliation. and why medication to treat alcoholism with has been underutilized for years. then, a lo inside the aftermath of a chemical disaster in north carolina, and how the government decides which chemicals to regulate. >> i could smell the smoke as i got closer.

and when i had to take a detour, that's when i saw it was the weaver fertilizer plant. you could see the blaze. ♪ >> major funding for pbsews weekend has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, how may i help you? >> this is pocket dial. somebody's pocket. >> with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. ♪ >> 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, months of escalating tensions between israelis and palestinians have erupted into a firestorm. in an unprecedented surprise attack, the militant hamas rulers of gaza sent dozens of fighters into israel by land, sea and air. gun battles raged for hours in communities across southern israel. and officials on both sides say israeli soldiers and civilians are now captives in gaza. israel responded with airstrikes on gaza cities, flattening hamas offices and residential buildings. at this hour, at least 200

israelis are reported dead and 1100 wounded. palestinian officials say at least 198 palestinians are dead and 1600 wounded, most from fighting in israel. tonight, special correspondent nurit ben is in tel aviv, and we should warn you that some of the images in her report are disturbing. [sirens] nurit: terror and carnage on israel's streets as rockets from hamas filled the sky. >> at around six clock in the morning a rocket fell here through the house. everything got burned. the house was destroyed. we live in a reality that is not real. nurit: israelis sheltered in place as dozens of hamas gunmen entered the israeli border towns. civilians are sharing videos on social media of unprecedented scenes. heavily armed militants going house to house, firing machine

guns underhe cover of heavy rocket fire. these videos have been reported in israeli media, but are unconfirmed by pbs. this video from hamas shows how militant paraglider's were also able to circumvent hi real's hadley -- israel's heavily fortified border. gazans broke through the fence separating the narrow strip from israel. the israel defense force said hamas kidnapped israeli soldiers and civilians. hamas says it was holding scores of hostages in gaza. there are unverified videos of gazans stomping on an israeli soldier's body and hamas militants capturing women and children. israel responded with airstrikes on gaza. >> since this morning, the state of israel has been at war. our first objective is to clear out enemy forces, the second is to exact an immense price from

the enemy. nurit: prime minister benjamin netanyahu spoke with president joe biden. pres. biden: thousands of rockets in a space of hours raining down on israeli cities. when i spoke to prime ministers and and yahoo! this morning i told him the u.s. stands with the people of israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop. nurit: as israel declared war, list any and civilians sought -- palestinian civilians sought shelter. >> they might wipe us off the face of the earth. nurit: the attacks came one day after the 50th anniversary of what israel calls the yom kippur war. in 1973, syrian and egyptian forces launched a surprise attack on israel. tonight many israelis are likening the intelligence failure to that war. today, hamas supporters

celebrated the attacks as a commander urged palestinians everywhere to fight. >> this day is the great revolution day to put an end to the last occupation and last apartheid regime in the world. >> all of this is happening amid deep division inside israel with 10 months of mass protests against this government's judicial reforms. but in a statement this evening, opposition leader yair lapid announced an offer to form an emergency unity government with benjamin netanyahu. lapid saying the prime minister knows that with the current extreme and dysfunctional government, he says heannot manage a war. men yahoo! indicated he is open to an emergency government, but not without those far-right ministers. and that is likely a no-go. john: i know you told us that you are still hearing sirens,

still hearing explosions. you are in tel aviv. what is it like in israel tonight? nurit: it is hard to overstate the shock and terror that this coordinated surprise attack has caused, shaping up to be clearly the worst ever terror attack on israeli civilians and the bigges intelligence failure since the yom kippur war a half a century ago. the rocket fire, we have been hearing that late into this evening. rockets landing in four different locations in central israel, including in tel aviv with injuries reported. one of the surreal parts of this day has been listening to israeli television and radio news. that is a good baromet of how israeli citizens have been feeling. it has sort of turned into a helpline with desperate people calling in, sharing stories and asking for information about people they could not track down.

even now some 18 hours after hamas launched those attacks, there is an incredibly thick fog of war. may be the only thing is we are far away from the end of this war. john: nurit, thank you very much and please stay safe. ♪ john: elsewhere, two 6.3 magnitude earthquakes shook western afghanistan today, killing more than 300 people and injuring scores of others. a 5.5 magnitude aftershock followed. people fled crumbling buildings and took refuge in the street. last year, a massive earthquake killed more than a thousand people in the eastern part of that quake-prone country.

and, senate majority leader chuck schumer and a bipartisan delegation of five other senators were in shanghai today, the first stop in a trip that will also take them to south korea and japan. they are the first american lawmakers to visit china in four years. they met with chinese communist party officials and discussed how to stop the flow of fentanyl into mexico, and how american businesses could better compete in china. still to come on "pbs news weekend." treating alcoholism with medication. what happens to a community in the aftermath of a chemical disaster. >> this is pbs news weekend from weta studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour, weeknights on pbs. john: if you have diabetes or depression, medication might be part of yourreatment. but for people suffering from alcohol abuse disorder, medication is rarely prescribed. ali rogin reports on the potential that medication holds

for treating this disease and why it is underused. ali: nearly 30 million americans struggle with alcohoaddiction, and the problem has steadily gotten worse, accelerating since the pandemic began. yet less than 5% of people reported getting treatment of any kind. but drugs used to treat alcohol use disorder have been on the market for deces, and more are currently being studied. dr. sarah wakeman runs the substance use disorder initiative at massachusetts general hospital. brigham. thank you so much, dr. wakeman, for joining us. first of all, let's talk about how the medical community defines alcohol use disorder and what have the trend lines been ? has the problem gotten more prevalent since the pandemic began? dr. wakeman: the definition of alcohol use disorder is compulsively using alcohol despite problems. and so those can be problems in your life, like in your relationships or your ability to work or carry out your functions or in your health. so continuing to use alcohol despite known health, either mental or physical health problems that are exacerbated by use. so like many health conditions and many areas of substance use

disorder, we've seen worsening trends since the onset of the pandemic. and this is true both for heavy drinking and also alcohol use disorder and health conditions related to alcohol use. one of the most scary trends we've seen actually, soon after the pandemic hit, we saw an increase in alcohol related mortality, which is largely driven by liver disease or liver failure from heavy alcohol use. ali: and people might not be so aware that medication is available to address alcohol use disorder. how s medication been used historically in the united states? dr. wakeman: it's vastly underutilized. so you talked about in your opening, we have millions of people who meet criteria for alcohol use disorder. fewer than 8% really access treatment in a given year. and of those, less than 2% of people access treatment with medications. and there's lots oreasons for that. but it is one area of medicine that really doesn't make its way to people who need it most. ali: can you tell us about the drugs that are already available to treat alcohol use disorder and why aren't they prescribed more readily here? dr. wakeman: so there are three

fda approved medications available in the u.s. for treatment of alcohol use disorder. there's also other medications that are off label or are not officially approved for that indication, but are very effective. and these medicines, for the most part, work by reducing the urge to want to drink and the pleasurable feedback that you get from drinking. and so they can be really powerful and have been shown to help reduce heavy drinking days and also to improve the likelihood that someone can achieve abstinence, meaning not drinking at all. i think many people aren't even aware that there are medications they can ask their doctor for or that could be a part of their treatment and you have to remember as a society, for more than 100 years, we've really carved addiction out as something separate from the rest of our health care system or somehow different than the rest of medical care or medical conditions that we treat. and so there's been this idea that addiction, although we sometimes say it's an illness, many of our policies and our clinical procedures really approach it like it's an issue of morality or willpower, and so really undoing that ideology, those general stigmatizing notions, is really important to bring addiction

back into the medical system, back into medical training, so that doctors and nurses and other health care professionals feel comfortable addressing this and offer medication treatment just like they would for depression or diabetes or heart disease. ali: what about elsewhere in the developed world? how is medication used in other parts of the world? dr. wakeman: medication is much more commonly used in europe, where there is even a method of using medication as needed to reduce heavy drinking. so if you know that when you go to a cocktail party or around holidays or during times of stress, you're more likely to drink heavily or at a level above what you want to be drinking for your health or life goals. you can actually take a medicine before that, and it's been shown to help reduce heavy drinking. ali: there's been increased attention on diabetes drugs like ozempic that they have been shown to reduce symptoms of alcohol use disorder. what is the potential there? and also what are some concerns around the use of these drugs for that purpose? dr. wakeman: it's really exciting. we obviously need to utilize medications we have in existence, but we always need

more innovation and better medication and more options for patients. the early studies, both sort of anecdotes about people who've taken these medications and found that their craving or urge to want to drink have diminished are really promising. there's also some animal studies in mice showing reduction in alcohol use and alcohol seeking behaviors. obviously, there need to be clinical trials that show that this is effective and that it gets to the right clinical endpoints and that would require funding and research. and so usually that takes on the order of years for those kind of approvals to happen. i think that can sound like a long time but in the meantime we have effective medications that exist that are easy to prescribe that any doctor can prescribe. and so really encouraging people who are listening. if you are struggling or a family member is struggling, you could talk to your doctor. this could be one component of lots of different types of treatments that are available for alcohol use disorder. ali: and lastly, let's talk about when shod someone reach out for help seeking treatment or otherwise addressing an alcohol use disorder? dr. wakeman: think if you're worried about your alcohol use. if someone in your life is

worried about it. those are probably the two best predictors. if you're having health related consequences from your alcohol use like liver problems, even feeling hung over, having any times like a blackout, you don't remember what happened. those are all really worrisome symptoms that alcohol is playing a role in your life that could begin causing problems. i think many people don't know about the lower level drinking limits that we think of when we talk about lower risk drinking. it's really no more than seven drinks a week for a woman or anyone over 65 and no more than 14 drinks a week for a man who's under 65. i think if you try to make changes to your alcohol use to get it to a healthier level and you find it's hard to cut back or hard to make changes, that sometimes can be an indication that things may have gotten out of your control. and it's never a wrong thing to talk to someone or ask for help because e earlier we can provide support, the earlier we can intervene, the better someone will do. ali: dr. sarah wakeman, thank you so much for talking about this important issue. dr. wakeman: thanks for having me. ♪

john: earlier this year, a train derailment in east palestine, ohio spilled toxic chemicals on the ground and into the air. now, 8 mths later, people living there are still waiting for answers about the long term health and environmental consequences. what happened in ohio isn't uncommon. on average there is a chemical incident in this country every two days. we went to north carolina for a look at how one city is trying to move forward after a chemical disaster. >> the plant was literally across the way here? >> yes. john: sabrina webster was born and raised in this winston-salem neighborhood. >> growing up in piney grove, you had your grandparents, your aunties, your cousins, family and friends. john: a tight-knit community where she felt safe and secure.

but that all changed one night in early 2022. what was that night like? what do you remember? sabrina: i got a call from my daughter and she said, mom, you're going to have to take a detour. she said it is a fire on indiana avenue. i could smell the smoke as i got closer. and when i had to take a detour, that's when i saw it was the weaver fertilizer plant. you could see the blaze and you could see the firemen, you know, up on a high ladder just spraying water down. john: the fire at the winston weaver fertilizer plant was fueled by what was stored inside, 600 tons of ammonium nitrate, a chemical commonly used in fertilizer that can accelerate fires and even explode at high temperatures. sabrina: i was stopped by a policeman and he told me i couldn't go no further.

and i said, "well, i need to come home to check on my daughter and check on my pet." and he radioed ahead i could hear his sergeant telling him , tell her to get her items and move out, leave as soon as possible. john: at home, webster grabbed what she could, clothes, family portraits, her dog, and fled. >> you could not even come through there. john: webster then called her cousin, vanda thomas, who lives nearby. vanda: i grabbed my pocketbook, my child, my fiance, and we got in the car with our pajamas on and we left. john: no one died in winston-salem that night, but other communities have not been so lucky. in 2013, a fertilizer plant explosion leveled the farming community of west in north-central texas. >> at first, we just saw a little bit of smoke. next thing i know, shrapnel was falling down everywhere, burning

all of us, and we just got out and ran. john: the blast left 15 people dead. 12 of them first responders. and as many as 200 others injured. since 2021, there have been 614 accidents in the united states involving chemicals. and between 2016 and 2020, 133 chemical accidents required more than 64,000 people to be evacuated from their homes and at least 85,000 to shelter-in-place. >> chemical disasters occur about once every other day in the united states. and so this is this is a massive problem. john: maya nye is the federal policy director at "coming clean ," a nonprofit group that advocates for greater safety in the chemical industry. she says the environmental protection agency's risk management program regulates facilities that use these dangerous chemicals. maya: it is really intended to prevent chemical disasters and it also requires the facilities develop plans for how they're going to respond to an emergency

when a disaster occurs and to look at what is the worst possible case scenario that could happen should all of the chemicals at our plant release at one time or there's a huge explosion. john: last year, the epa proposed changes to the program, which covers about 12,000 u.s. locations. while the chemical industry largely supports the current epa risk management program, they worry that some of the proposed changes go too far. kimberly wise white is head of regulatory affairs at the american chemistry council. kimberly: they need to be very targeted on where there are accidents, where those accidents are driving risk and identifying those areas and really focusing on enhancements in the rmp program in that area. john: but nye says the revisns don't go far enough. maya: they have around 140 chemicals that are on this list that they implemented back in the 90's. and it hasn't really been updated since. john: currently, the program

covers more than 250 substances that the epa says pose a significant hazard. not on the list: the ammonium nitrate that was stored at the winston weaver plant. [sirens] the same substance used in the 1995 oklahoma city federal building bombing, the deadliest homegrown terror attack in u.s. history. according to a north carolina regulators report, the ammonium nitrate at the weaver plant was improperly stored. water was allowed to seep into the wooden bins holding the comical -- the chemical, which could trigger an explosion. the report also revealed a leaky roof might have contributed to an electrical short and potential fire. in statement to pbs news weekend, the epa said preventing chemical releases is a shared response ability and the prime responsibility is on the owners and operators handling chemicals. the winston weaver company did not respond to our request for comment. five lawsuits have been filed

against winston weaver, alleging neigence, saying they failed to follow industry safety protocols. but nye says any regulatory gaps are putting communities in danger, especially populations that are already vulnerable. maya:he communities around chemical facilities are predominantly black, latino and low income communities and oftentimes these communities have the least resources to respond to and to be able to recover from disasters after they happen. john: this vacant lot is all that is left of the winston weaver fertilizer plant, at least all that is visible. residents of this neighborhood worry what hazardous chemicals may have been left behind in the soil and in the water. >> that will tell us about the sanitation of the water. john: dr. callie brown is an assistant professor of pediatrics at wake forest university school of medicine. dr. brown: in the immediate aftermath of the fire, there were community meetings that were held in that neighborhood.

they wanted this to be studied and they didn't want to be forgotten. john: she is leading a 5 year study looking at the long term health effects from the weaver plant fire. what sorts of medical events would you expect to see after an incident like this? dr. brown: in the first year, we're going to be looking at things like emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and there we do think maybe respiratory illnesses. in the longer term, we don't really have any hypotheses for what we're going to find. so we're looking at lots of different types of diagnoses, things like diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, dementia, a wide variety of things that could be associated with living in this neighborhood around the plant. john: brown's team will look for lingering contamination in soil, water, and air samples in a two mile radius of the plant site. it sounds like part of the goal of this is to empower people in the community. dr. brown: absolutely. they had very clear questions and things that they wanted us to look at. they're good questions and important questions.

and so we're able to use the data and the resources that we have to get that data back to the community. sabrina: if it was an explosion, i wouldn't be sitting here with you today. a whole lot of the families in this neighborhood, generations would have been wiped off the face of this earth. john: for sabrina webster and vanda thomas, the chemical fire could have gone much worse. but it's hard for them not to worry about what's in the air they breathe and in the soil in which they once grew vegetables. vanda: i had bell peppers. i would grow onions. just right here in this little patch. john: and she hopes her community will be one of the last to live in fear of the next disaster. ♪

online right now, how oklahoma farmers and soldier sticks are working together to bring down costs for school lunches -- part of a program sponsored by the u.s. agriculture department. all of that is on our website pbs.org/newshour. that is pbs news weekend for this very busy saturday. on sunday, the role racism has played in keeping some americans from learning how to swim, putting them at risk of drowning. 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 -- >> consumer cellular, how may i help you? >> this is pocket dial. >> somebody's pocket. with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. ♪ >> band 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.] ♪

♪ ♪ stan: shell shock. sir, what are you thinking? ♪ ♪ rossler: she was going to tell the authorities where hilda was. she's a dead nazi. that's good enough for me. we'll stay in touch, then. will we? is that the protocol? lois: no news is good news, eh? eddie will come back. vernon hunter, i'm a pilot of sorts. lois bennett, singer of sorts. vernon: i was wondering if you'd mind awfully if i wrote to you. i can't promise poetry. write to me, vernon. i'd like that.