♪ john: tonight on "pbs news weekend." how some cities are testing no-strings attached payment programs as a way to help lower income residents get a leg up. then, the promise held by the transatlantic flight with first completely sustainable fuel, as airlines work toward lower emissions air travel. and a new series looks at why people in some parts of the world are living longer than

average. >> they're socializing, because they know their purpose and they live their purpose. they live near nature. they keep their families close by. and we can map all these to higher life expectancy ♪ >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by. >> consumer cellular, this is sam. how can i help you? >> this is a pocket dial. >> 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 with 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. almost two months into the ground invasion, israeli military officials say they're close to having what they call "full operational control" of northern gaza and will soon shift their focus to southern gaza. israeli authorities have ordered more territory evacuated in central and southern gaza, as residents seek refuge in ever-shrinking slivers of territory. today, the idf released footage of fighting in gaza city's issa neighborhood. in another part of gaza city, palestinian officials say more

than 90 people were killed when israeli airstrikes flattened two buildings. gazans said they don't understand why the buildings were hit. >> was there resistance in this house? what resistance? you wo't find anything but children's dolls and a floor for them to eat on. the children, you will find nothing more. peaceful people you dropped about a hundred tons of explosives on. john: israel offered rare details of its controversial practice of rounding up large numbers of palestinian men, saying its forces had arrested hundreds of alleged militants, sending 200 of them to israel for interrogation. in colorado, two denver-area paramedics were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of 23 year old elijah mcclain. mcclain died after the emt's administered a fatal overdose of the powerful sedative, ketamine. police forcibly arrested mcclain following a suspicious person complaint. after officers pinned him down, the paramedics gave him the ketamine.

he died days later in the hospital. outside the courthouse following the verdict, mcclain's mother raised a fist in the air and wept. some experts say the verdict could have a chilling effect on emergency medical personnel. and, the czech republic came to a virtual standstill at noon today in mourning for the 14 victims of the nation's worst mass killing ever. bells tolled and people across the country observed a minute of silence on a national day of mourning. the shooting occured thursday at charles university in prague. 25 other people were wounded before the shooter, a student, took his own life. still to comon "pbs news weekend." the promise of the first transatlantic flight powered with 100% sustainable fuel. and a new documentary series looks at why people in some parts of the world are living longer. >> this is "pbs news weekend," from weta studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour,

weeknights on pbs. john: it's not a new idea: no-strings-attached payments to provide people with a financial floor, what is called a guaranteed basic income. it actually dates back to 16th century england. today, it is being tested in dozens of pilot programs across the country, in cities as big as baltimore and as small as yellow springs, ohio, population about 3700. some of them use taxpayer funds, others use private contributions or foundation grants. stockton, california, was among the first to launch a pilot program in 2019. earlier, i spoke with stockton's mayor at the time, michael tubbs, who is the founder of a group called mayors for guaranteed income. i asked him about the genesis of stockton's program. michael: at the crux of all the issues from homelessness to crime to education was this persistent poverty and economic insecurity. so in my first 100 days, i gathered my team in the office and i said, 'you guys, i want

our legacy to be an anti-poverty, a pro-economic security administration, so let's come up with all the ideas for how can we as a government ensure that people have enough to live in and survive and eventually thrive. and through that, my team came back with this idea of a guaranteed income, citing work that was happening in places like kenya, and in mexico and in brazil. i had heard the guaranteed incomerom studying dr. king in college, so i was familiar with the idea, so i said, "well, let's do it." john: and as i understand it, the program ran for two years. you had 125 participants from neighborhoods where the median income was at or below the city's median, which i think was about $46,000. they got $500 a month for two years. what did you find? michael: so many people said the money would be spent on drugs or alcohol or people would stop working or use the money to commit crimes, etc.

what we saw was people spend money the way you and i and the viewers do. we saw them spend the money on things like utilities, on necessities, on food and on their children. but we also saw health impacts. those with a guaranteed income saw their stress decrease. just a small amount of money was not enough for people to become millionaires but to not get evicted for people to take care , of their children, for people to be able to pay to get their car fixed, for people to live and contribute to their communities. john: so everything you just said, it sort of contradicts or counters what the critics say, because the critics say that this takes away the incentive to work. that this will foster bad spending decisions. but it sounds like that that's not what you found in stockton. michael: that is not what we found in stockton, and increasingly from any of the dozens of pilots happening across this country and this world. it suggests to me, john, that

part of the issue is not just a data issue, but a storytelling issue that we have to get people to see the myths, the lies, the prejudices, the stereotypes and the biases we have against people who may have less money. john: what happened when the program ended? these people in the pilot program had this income floor. what happened when that was taken away? michael: what we saw was people were able to use the money and do things to set them up to be better off than where they started. so what i mean is several people went from part time to full time work. so although they're not receiving the guaranteed income, they're receiving the income that comes with a better paying job with benefits. or some people use the money to save up to pay for the deposit necessary for for rent in a better apartment, or some people paid off credit card debts. so folks were able to to use the money to to to pay off the little things that were holding them back so now they're in a much better position than they were a couple of years ago before they were part of the

program. john: do you see guaranteed income payments supplementing government assistance programs or do you see it replacing government assistance systems? michael: i see it as supplemental. i e it really as an extension of the social safety net. i see this as our 21st century social security. in the great depression, we decided that folks who are older deserve to have a little bit of cushion post 65 because they've done so much for our communities. and i also think our current government programs should take note about what makes guaranteed income work. because a.) it's the money, but b.) it's also the trust that maybe people don't need to do a bunch of paperwork. maybe folks don't need someone to sit down and makehem come in and set goals. maybe a lot of folks just need cash and maybe that will make some of the investments we're making as a government that much more efficient. john: sort of along those same lines, why is it so important that these these payments have no strings, that they can spend it on whatever they want?

michael: because folks, finances are so volatile, that month to month needs change. and for example, for folks in current government programs, if you need money for food, that's probably not the only place where you need money. we know that 1 in 2 americans already cannot afford one $500 emergency, so it's really about providing people the contingency and the ability use their mental acuity to make decisions, because month to month, those needs may change. john: these programs the pilot , programs, some of them use government money. some of them use private donations. some of them use grant money from foundations. if you were able to make this permanent across the country, how do you think it should be funded? michael: we are able to make this permanent across the country. and again, i think the child tax credit is a huge start which is , a guaranteed income, albeit for families with children. so state governments, county

governments, local governments, we're doing pilots there because those governments can't deficit spend. they have to have a balanced budget every year. our federal government can, and we do. we can legalize cannabis nationwide and use a tax revenue for that to pay for guaranteed income. we could close that 17 trump tax cuts, which gave $2 trillion away to the richest among us, and we could close other tax loopholes and create a guaranteed income. there is no shortage of ways to pay for it. i really believe the question is, how do we build the wheel? how do we make it a necessity? we need to organize and demand from public officials that this is what we need and let them know this is not scary. it is not an extreme position. this is not a utopia position. this is a position that republicans and democrats alike are suffering. all this anger we see, it comes

from economic anxiety in some ways. it is not a partisan issue. a long answer to say it is a political question. continue pushing until we get there. john: michael tubbs, founder of mayors for a guaranteed income, thank you very much. michael: thank you so much for having me. ♪ john: studies estimate that air travel alone accounts for about 4% of human-induced climate change, and the united nations warns that airplane emissions will triple by 2050. last month, the aviation industry's search for ways to cut emissions took a step forward with the world's first airliner flight using competely sustainable fuel. ali rogin tell us what it means for aviation and climate change. ali: a plane running on fat and sugar. it sounds fanciful, but it's what powered virgin flight 100

last month. the flight was just a one-time demonstration, and there were no passengers, but it was meant to show the potential of what's known as sustainable aviation fuel. on average, s.a.f. emits 70% less carbon dioxide than standard fuel. that could make a big difference for airlines, which emit more carbon than any other form of transportation -- all told, about 800 million tons of it across the industry last year. but decarbonizing these high-speed jets is slow going. nicolas rivero has been reporting on the issue for the washington post. nicolas, thank you so much for joining us. what exactly was fueling this flight? nicolas: in this case, it was a mixture of sustainable fuels that was made from waste fats and kind of plant sugars. and, all told, they made it about 70% less carbon than standard jet fuel would. ali: how does this type of fuel get made? nicolas: so sustainable aviation fuels are really broad category of fuels that can be made from a

lot of different sources. the main thing is they're not made from petroleum, but they might be made fr crops like corn and soybean. they might be made from used cooking oil. they could be made from sewage or municipal waste. the key part of their definition is no matter what they are, they're not made for petroleum and they emit at least 50% less carbon than standard jet fuel. ali: and what is needed to get this fuel made in addition to, i would imagine, a lot of money? nicolas: one of the issues with this right now is there is very little sustainable aviation fuel in the market. part of the reason for that is there's just not that many facilities that produce these fuels because traditionally they've been more expensive than standard petroleum-based fuels. not that many incentives for airlines to use them. airlines operate on very small margins, and so differences in fuel costs can make a really big difference to their bottom line. ali: to what extent are airlines

using sustainable aviation fuel already? is it already part of the mix of energy that that planes are using? nicolas: it is part of the mix. it is a tiny part of the mix. so last year, airlines used 15 million gallons of sustainable fuel, which is less than a fifth of a percent of the overall consumption of jet fuel in the u.s. ali: what is keeping commercial airlines from using more of it? why isn't it used more widely? what are some of the barriers to that? nicolas: i mean, cost is the biggest thing. and the way that you bring down costs is you scale up production. and so there are some efforts to make that happen right now. but it has been slow going so far. but governments and businesses are trying different tactics to try to ramp up some of this production. for instance, in the u.s., the inflation reduction act gives tax credits to airlines that buy sustainable fuels to try to offset a little biof that cost premium. in europe, regulators are just mandating that airlines use these fuels. so by 2025, all airlines must use 2% s.a.f., sustainable fuel.

and by 2050, that ramps up to 70%. and then on the market side, the world economic forum is leading an effort to create tax credits based on sustainable fuel purchases so airlines know how much carbon they're saving based on using these fuels. and they can sell emissions credits to business travelers who might want to offset some of the carbon emissions that come from flying. ali: what about the airlines themselves? what is the appetite for them to adopt this sustainable fuel more broadly? nicolas: airlines certainly want to use these fuels, the obstacle is cost. so they have to be able to justify spending double, triple or quadruple the amount on fuel , that they are used to. but they certainly see this as part of their route to getting to zero emissions. now, for them to get all the way down to zero, they're going to have to use new technologies that allow planes to run on things like electric batteries or green hydrogen or some other form of fuel that hasn't been invented yet. but those technologies are going to take years to develop and decades more for airlines to replace their existing fleets

with planes that use these new technologies. so in the meantime, the best route that airlines have to reduce the carbon emissions from their fuel is through these sustainable fuels that will emit something between 50% and 80% less carbon than the petroleum based fuels that they typically use today. ali: the trade organization for the airlines wants to reduce net zero emissions among its members by 2050. is that feasible? and can sustainable aviation fuel get these airlines there? nicolas: based on my reporting, the experts that i've talked to think that that is an achievable goal, but one that will be very difficult for airlines to reach. so they really have to rely on some of these new technologies panning out, whether that's electric planes or hydrogen fuel planes for them to reach net zero by 2050. in the intermediate time, the only route they really have to reduce their emissions in a significant way is scaling up their use of these sustainable fuels. ali: nicolas rivero with the washington post, thank you so much for breaking this down for

us. nicolas: thank you so much for having me. ♪ john: a lot of people do a lot of things in search of a long and healthy life. complicated diet plans, gym memberships. but in a four-part netflix series called "live to 100: secrets of the blue zone," best selling author dan buettner says a lot of that is misguided. he traveled the world to places he calls "blue zones" -- where more people live significantly longer than average. he tried to figure out how they're doing it. recently, i spoke with buettner and asked him why he chose to start a series on longevity in a cemetary. >> it is facing the inevitable. we will all get frail and we will all die. how long we want to be on this earth, we have a lot of say in that matter.

john: when you found these blue zones, what are some themes running through? >> if you want to know what a 100-year-old eats to be 100, you have to know what she was eating when she was a child and retired. we found 155 dietary surveys done in all five blue zones. with the help of harvard, we found that 90% to 95% were eating a plant-based diet. contrary to a lot of keto diet advice, it is mostly carbohydrates. complex carbohydrates, which i think shocks a lot of people. when i first started writing about this, i did a cover story for national geographic in 2005, nobody was pairing loneliness with longevity. it turns out that is worth about

seven years of extra life expectancy. the big revelation, yo never hear about it because it is not sexy and marketers cannot sell you things, an expert 10 years of life expectancy is the sum of a lot of small improvements we make in our lives, mostly in our environment, applied for decades. john: are these blue zones in danger? okinawa now has an obesity problem. the family in costa rica where the young boy just want cereal. are these indentured locations? >> as soon as the american food culture come to the front door, longevity goes out the door. i am getting most of these blue zones a half generation before they adopt our way of life and our obesity rates and diabetes and heart disease rates. it is aragedy. john: you also try to create some blue zones. minnesota, fort worth, texas. >> the big lesson is to not try to change your behavior. you will fail.

almost all the people all the time in the long run, you change the environment. you designed for health. our blues on projects unleashed a swarm of healthy nudges and defaults and are put in place for years. they are mostly environmental. making cities walkable, policies that favor healthy food over junk food. setting americans up for success as opposed to the failure of our food environment right now. every city we work in we have seen major improvements in people's health. we have seen obesity drop and we have seen health care cost savings in the hundreds of billions of dollars. john: it sounds like it is not just personal behavior. but also policies, making cities more walkable, designing streets and neighborhoods. >> i have no faith -- i do not know of any research where you can change of population's health by trying to change individuals' behavior or give

them responsibility. we are genetically hardwired to create fat, salt and sugar intake rest whenever we bought. unless we set up an environment where it is easy for us to eat plant-based, easier for us to walk to and it is to drive, we will see health care costsn the trillions like we see today in america. john: you talked in the series about something we have talked about on this broadcast. life expectancy is becoming shorter and a lot of it is because younger people are dying from suicides, homicides, drug overdoses and car accidents, all preventable. none of this is an organic problem. did you learn anything in your work that would relate to that? >> the number one killern america is our diet. we lose about 660 thousand americans prematurely to the way we eat. if we do not take aim at that, these other things are more -- in singapore, individuals cannot own guns.

in america, we lost 55,000 people to gun deaths last year. that brings down the life expectancy. in singapore, they lost two. they are tough on drugs in singapore. you can be put to death for selling drugs in singapore. the other side of that equation, only 15 people died of drug overdoses. we lost almost 110,000 americans to drug overdoses last year. there are a lot of things on the fringes but the big thing we need to take aim at is our diet. until we get that squared away the rest of this thing -- john: you say the same things that help us live a long, healthy life are the things that make life worth living. are you saying if we concentrate on the quality of life, that the quantity of life will come? >> concentrating on quality of life helps but these silicon multimillionaires shooting

themselves up with young people's blood and working out six hours a day and taking these weird pills, people in blue zones are living a long time because they are socializing. they know their purpose and they live their purpose. they live near disher. they keep their families close by. you can add all these to longer life expectancy. if you adopt the blue zone's way of life, you stack the deck in favor of longevity but you can ensure the journey will be pleasurable. john: did you change anything in your life based on what you learned? >> i became mostly plant-based. i do not eat meat anymore. i play pickle ball and take walks because i know that favors my longevity more than hard-core physical activity. i got very clear on my purpose. it is hard to get me to do things that are not down the strike lane of my values and what i'm good at and what i like to do and how i can give back.

i have also prioritized family. keeping your family nearby ads life expectancy over being single and alone. john: the series is live to 100: secrets of the blue zones. thank you very much. >> we will see you when you are 100, john. john: [laughter] it is a deal. >> all right. ♪ john: before we go, we have just gotten word that the founding member of the iconic country music band the dixie chicks has died in a head-on car crash in west texas. recorded three albums for leaving the group in 1993. that is "pbs news weekend." on sunday, a look at why a record number of people across america are experiencing homelessness this holiday season.

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, this is sam. how can i help you? >> a pocket dial. >> i thought it would let you know that 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 institutns. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to yr 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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(elegant music) - [presenter] funding for this program habeen provided by the fs foundation, bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperity, and purpose, linda and alvaro pascotto, the carol franc buck foundation. additional support provided by these funders.