laura: tonight on pbs news weekend, how a student protest in bangladesh has spiraled into a national movement against the country's leadership. then, what time you go to bed and wake up could play a big role in how well your brain functions. and the hidden history of blk

sailors unjustly punished after the 1944 port chicago explosion. steve: they had a second or two to decide. do i go back to work? do i go back to these conditions that i know are unfair, or do i take a stand? >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by. >> consumer cellular, this is sam. how can i help you? with consumer cellular, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.

and friends of the news hour. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. laura: good evening. i'm laura barron-lopez. john yang is away. israel's security minister is urging people in the country to carry weapons to defend themselves -- following a stabbing attack in the west bank. police say a palestinian militant stabbed four people in a suburb of tel aviv -- killing an elderly man and woman. the suspect was later killed by police. and in gaza today, israel conducted at least two separate airstrikes, killing dozens.

overnight, a strikhit a tent area in the courtyard of a hospital. another airstrike hit two schools in gaza city. in both cases -- israel said it was targeting hamas militants. english police today are struggling to contain violent crowds after a right-wing mob tried to break into a hotel suspected of housing asylum seekers. rioters broke down barriers and smashed windows, as they clashed with law enforcement. u.k. prime minister keir starmer condemned the riots, calling it organized, violent thuggery. it's the latest episode in a series of far-right protests, following a deadly stabbing attack at a children's dance class last week. false reports spread on social media that the suspect was an immigrant. police later said the teen was born in wales. georgia's brian kemp is firing back after former president donald trump repeatedly attacked the republican governor at a campaign rally last night. mp said trump should focus on

winning e presidential election, not on petty personal attacks. at saturday's rally, trump ranted about kemp's refusal to help him overturn the 2020 election, and trump accused kemp without evidence of actively working against him this election. >> your governor kemp and raffensberger are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for republicans to win. what are they doing? i don't know. they got something in mind, you know, they got a little something in mind, kemp is very bad for the republican party. he wouldn't do anything. laura: trump also congratulated russian president vladimir putin for the prisoner exchange that freed three americans this past week, but trump did not mention -- did not name any of the americans who were released. ukraine got a boost today in their war with putin's russian forces, when newly arrived f-16 fighter jets took to the skies. 29 months after the full scale

invasion, president volodymyr zelenskyy unveiled the jets, given to his country by western allies. while this steps up ukraine's air defenses, zelenskyy said more pilots need to be trained. until now, ukraine only had soviet-era warplanes to fight russia. florida's west coast is bracing for impact from the latest named storm this hurricane season. tropical storm debby is rapidly intensifying thanks to the warm waters in the gulf of mexico. the storm is now expected to become a category 1 hurricane before it makes landfall over florida's panhandle. forecasters anticipate heavy rain and flooding, before the storm moves up the east coast. and it was a golden day for american athletes in paris. on the track, sprinter noah lyles is again the world's fastest man, winning gold in the men's 100 meter. in the pool, team usa broke records and took home two more gold medals. the american team set a new world record in the women's 4-by-100 medley relay, and bobby

finke clocked a world record swim in the 1500 freestyle. scottie scheffler took the top spot in men's golf and women's -- and christian faulk won the gold in women's road cycling. and the water quality of the river seine is coming back into question, after athletes from belgium and switzerland withdrew from upcoming events. they fell ill after racing in the river last week. still to come on pbs news weekend, anti-government protests in bangladesh turn deadly, and what being a night owl versus an early bird can do for your brain. ♪ >> this is pbs news weekend, from w eta studios in washington, home of the pbs news hour, weeknights on pbs. laura: bangladesh is under a nationwide curfew and internet blackout after a weekend of violent clashes between security forces and protesters, who have

-- and protesters. almost 300 people have died, with thousands more injured. the protests began with them, but have spiraled into a national movement against prime minier sheikh hasina and her increasingly autocratic rule. ali rogin has more. ali: in bangladesh, protests over a government jobs policy ignited a broader movement against the country's longtime leader. >> yes, i want her step down, sheikh hasina! ali: protesters say sheikh hasina's violent crackdown is destroying her image and legacy tied to the birth of the nation itself. >> we want the government to resign. we want to go back to the golden times we had in the past. ali: student protests began in mid-july, against a government workforce quota system, which reserves some jobs for veterans of the country's 1971 war for independence, and their families. hasina responded with violence, imposi an internet blackout and curfew, with security forces given an order to shoot on sight.

the government reduced the quota after demonstrations began, but the protests had already expanded, to calls for justice for those killed in the crackdown, a toll now exceeding 200. >> they are killing people indiscriminately, people are being jailed, people are being tortured. at the same time, you are seeing the courage of the people of bangladesh, who have decided they will not sit down, and they will not go down without a fight. ali: hasina and the quota system are part of bangladesh's founding story. her father was sheikh mujibir rahman, who led the fight for an independent bengali state after the partition of british-ruled india in 1947. the muslim-majority areas became east and west pakist, but the bengali-speaking east pakistanis faced exploitation and marginalization from the west. mujib helped found the bengali nationalist awami league, which fought for independence at the

polls and eventually in a bloody war against west pakistan. in the war's nine months, about three million people were killed, and millions more displaced. mujib became independent bangladesh's first prime minister, and put the quota system in place as a reward for bangladesh's freedom fighters. he was assassinated in 1975, and hasina positioned herself as his political and ideological successor. >> people see her as a harbinger of democracy, the daughter of the father of the revolution. anin 1991 actually gets elected to be the prime minister. and then she loses in 1996. and from 1996 to 2008, she continues to fight for democracy and gets a lot of support, a lot of goodwill. ali: salil tripathi is a writer and the author of a book on the bangladesh war. he says after hasina regained power, her commitment to democracy waned, as she won three disputed elections in a row. >> and all of that have been accompanied by a period of serious human rights violation and economic downturn, and this

perception of nepotism and corruption. ali: he says most of the beneficiaries of the quota system were from the founding awami league, excluding supporters of opposition parties. the quo became the symptom, and now it has become a full scale opposition to her rule. ali: since protests began, police have arrested at least 11,000 people. >> many were punished. after getting out from the jail they're showing the same face. they will not be spared easily. ali: one student protest leader said police abducted, sedated and detained him for days. >> i think they took us away to refrain us from making decisions about the movement while they massacred all these people. they made some of us disappear, some were beaten. we were pressured to stop the movement. ali: hasina stoked tensions when she referred to the protesters as razakars, a wartime slur for supporters of the pakistani military who fought the bangladeshi freedom fighters.

>> razakar is the word she used on the 14th of july. and so the students started protesting that, we are razakar, you are razakar, everyone is razakar. and kind of you know, and campaigned against it. and the protest just snowballed. ali: now, international pressure is mounting. the united nations and european union are calling on the government to halt its attacks. the u.n. human rights chief wants the government to disclose details about the crackdown, but tripathi says the number of crises spiraling elsewhere in the world is fracturing the world's attention. >> on one hand you have the conflict in ukraine, then you have the conflict in, in the middle east, in, in gaza. the u.s. is in the middle of its own election. the venezuelan election has thrown, you know, rabbit out of the hat now. so i think there are lots of other priorities which are which are also distracting the international community. >> we want justice! ali: inside bangladesh, the national reckoning persists.

>> people make mistakes. if you would have apologized, everything would be back to normal. if she cannot control it, things will keep getting heated. ali: as protesters continue to defy police in the streets, it's clear that for some, an apology is no longer enough. for pbs news weekend, i'm ali rogin. laura: sleep is vital for our health. but according to the cdc, more than one in three adults say they are not getting sufficient sleep. now, new research suggests it's not ju how much sleep you get, but when you are going to sleep and waking up that matters. a recent study from the imperial llege london found night owls -- those people who stay up late and wake up later -- appear to have superior cognitive function, while early risers had lower scores on the cognitive tests. azizi seixas is the associate director at the center for

translational sleep and circadian sciences at the university of miami. professor, thank you for joining . researchers found that people who stay up late had quote, superior cognitive function while early birds had lower scores. how did they reach these conclusions? prof. seixas: this was a study done in the united kingdom and essentially what they were trying to do was look at different what they called kroner types -- chronotypes. they wanted to look at the relationships with -- between individuals who were up in the morning and those in between and those at night. they found that individuals who said that they were intermediate, in between morning and evening, and those who were night owls, they had better cognition in this study.

this is a very large study and it provides a unique opportunity for us to understand the type of sleep are you are, when you will optimally do well in your day. laura: how does this study compare to other research done on this topic? prof. seixas: it raises many different points. previously we have always known that morningness is equal to better performance but this study shows those who are night owls actually got better cognition, and that is where it is very unique and different. this has been shown, where in adolescence, adolescents will have their best optimal performance during the afternoon and those individuals who are older, 50's and above, they will perform better in the mornings. that is where this -- the

findings of the studies are unique. laura: i consider myself a night out but more recently i have been waking up early. what impact these different sleep styles have on the body? prof. seixas: very different, because typically people who are oftentimes seen as morning individuals, these are people who go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. they actually have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. those individuals who are night owls tend to have greater risk for heart disease. what this study is showing is that your brain health and for cognition, the reverse may be true. this is where it provides a unique opportunity for us to dig deeper as to what might be going on. laura: are there benefits to both sleep styles? you talked about the negative impacts on both but are there benefits to being a night out versus a morning person?

prof. seixas: there are benefits, but it depends on who you are. individus who are naturally morning people and there are needs -- there are individuals who are night owl's. the important thing is to find out who you are and then revolve your entire day around that. if you are a night person, you may want to do most of your cognitive tasks later in the day. if you are a morning person, you may want to do those earlier in the day. laura: and at the end of the day, is the amount of sleep more important than the time that you sleep? prof. seixas: both are true. the timing of your sleep is important, but it is also important that you do so consistently. studies have shown that if you are a morning person, stick with that routine. if you are a night person, stick with that routine. you want to get seven to nine hours of sleep daily, to get the best health benefits, whether it is physically or brain health.

laura: we all know that sleep is incredibly important. how can people maximize the rest they are getting? prof. seixas: how you can maximize your rest is pretty much you want to make sure that your sleep schedule is consistent. you want to ensure that you reduce the amount of stress you get before you go to bed. you want to reduce the amount of food you eat right before bed. you want to remove all the different blue light from your phones or mobile devices because that can significantly impact the quality and time of sleep you get. most importantly, ensure your bedroom environment is conducive to good sleep. laura: it sounds like i need to stop doom scrolling through my phone right before bed. prof. seixas: i would suggest that you do that, certainly. laura: thank you so much for your time, we appreciate it. prof. seixas: thanks for having .

♪ laura: 80 years ago, three hundred 20 people were killed in a massive explosion at a navy munitions depot in port chicago, california. about two thirds of the people killed were black sailors who looted bombs and ammunition onto ships. 50 survivors refused to resume handling the explosives and were convicted of mutiny. last month, the navy secretary posthumously exonerated the men. ali rogon has more. ali: the port chicago explosion was world war ii's deadliest stateside disaster. it's also a blistering example of racism, negligence and injustice in america. steve sheinken wrote about all of it in his young adult book, "the port chicago 50: the disaster, mutiny, and the fight for civil rights" and he joins me now. steve, thank you so much.

the death toll at port chicago represented one fifth of all african american world war ii naval casualties. take us back to that day. what was it like for black sailors at port chicago? steve: this was a loading, a base, a naval base in the bay area, san francisco bay, and all they did was load ammunition and it was totally segregated, like all of the navy was during world war ii. so black sailors, many of them teenagers, were assigned to this base and loaded ammunition in three shifts, 24 hours a day. they understood about the racism in the in the country at the time, of course, but they also knew that it was unnecessarily dangerous. that they hadn't been given the proper training and that something horrible was eventually going to happen. and sure enoh, there was this huge explosion, two huge full ships, thousands of tons of ammunition exploded, killing over 300 people. ali: and when these, these men were charged after they refused to return to loading ammunition, they were charged with mutiny, which carries the possibility of execution. why did they receive that charge?

steve: well, it happened over the course of a couple weeks. first, they were given the gruesome task of cleaning up the base, finding bodies, but mostly parts of bodies. then they were taken to another base in the bay area, not told anything about what they were going to be doing. and sure enough, a couple weeks later, they were marched down toward the loading dock to begin loading again. and at first about 250 of them refused to go, and they were taken to a prison barge. then after three days on the barge, they were taken in a very dramatic scene, taken to a baseball field, and an admiral came out yelling at them and telling them they were all going to be charged with mutiny if they didn't go back to work right away. half of them were teenagers. they had a second or two to decide. do i go back to work? do i go back to these conditions that i know or unfair, or do i take a stand? and understandably, most of them went back. 50. th is where the term port chicago 50 came from.

50 of them refused and they were indeed charged with mutiny and told point blank told that they were going to be executed by firing squad. ali: there was also a court of inquiry into this explosion. did this court treat black soldiers differently than it treated the white officers who were overseeing them in these roles? steve: for instance, the white officers got leave after this horrible disaster and the black sailors did not, but also the navy didn't really know. and to this day we don't know exactly what happened, what went wrong, some sort of accint or malfunction. but it was clearly implied that it was, quote, rough handling by these sailors who had told their officers, hey, we're not being trained. this is the kind of work that takes years of training. there's not even a training manual. can you give us better equipment? and they were always denied th at every turn. ali: and after the trial, what penalties did these 50 men experience? steve: these 50 men were all

convicted of mutiny. they were not given the death penalty, though that was legally possible. they were all sent to a military prison for -- sentenced to 15 years. they didn't end up serving all of that time, but that was the sentence that they were given. ali: in 1999, president clinton pardoned freddie meeks. the family of others said that they weren't interested in pardons. why is that? steve: several of the of the 50 men were still alive at that time. and they knew what freddie meeks was doing, and they supported his effort. but they said, that's not for us. we're not asking for a pardon. a pardon is when you did something wrong, and you're asking to be forgiven for it or not punished for it. and they said, no, that's not -- that's not it at all. that's almost exactly the opposite of what we're saying. we're saying it was the government, the country in a sense that was wrong. we want to be exonerated so that the government admits we didn't do anything wrong. and in fact, the injustice was on t other side. ali: the military was desegregated not long after.

how did this incident help lead to that? steve: i think the most famous part of that story is truman signing an executive order desegregating the whole military. but in fact, it was the navy, to their credit, that desegregated first, largely in response to what happened at port chicago and some other, as they would call them, racial incidents where they said, this just isn't working, the segregation isn't working. let's just try integrating ships. and for the most part, that went well. and so the rest of the military saw that and essentially gave truman the okay to sign that executive order. but it largely came out of this stand that these young black sailors took at port chicago. ali: this is such a sordid and significant chapter in american history. why do we not know more about this? steve: this is the summer of 1944, so you have to account for d-day and all the things that are happening in europe, in the pacific. but also i think there's a bigger issue, which is that it doesn't fit our american

narrative of world war ii, which we like to think of as a really simple story in terms of good and evil, in terms of the sides. and now we're not as good at at understanding that, yes, that can be true. we were fighting for good. we were fighting very evil, fascist and communist dictators. that is absolutely true. and yet we were not at the same time living up to our ideals at home. and these black sailors were, of course, a living embodiment of that. they were telling everyone who would listen. and that doesn't exactly fit or at least complicates ourorld war ii story. and i think, therefore it doesn't make it into the mainstream version of, of our history. ali: steve sheinkin, author of "the port chicago 50: the disaster, mutiny, and the fight for civil rights." thank you so much. steve: thank you. thank you for covering this important story.

♪ laura: finally tonight, we leave you with scenes from some of the world's newest protected sites , courtesy of unesco's world heritage committee. >> this fast landscape in the north of scotland is helping fight climate change by storing more than 400 million tons of carbon in its dense peat. >> it is a really great example of what a bog can look like and what kind of species you can find here. a representative -- >> now it has been dedicated as one of the best examples of a crucial yet frightened ecosystem that is helping the planet keep reading. within its 1500 square miles is a diverse range of wildlife and plants, including moss that stores large qntity of water.

another site in china is a stopover for millions of migrating water birds on the yellow sea. >> on our right-hand side is the boundary of our protected area. among the breeding bird species recorded here are the black wings tilt little ringed clover and the black headed gull. >> the site supports crucial habitats for birds migrating between the arctic and southeast asia and australasia. laura: and that is our program for tonight. i'm laura barron-lopez. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by. and witthe ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.

this program was made possible either 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.] >>

- it's an iconic u.s. national park and one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and when you see it for the first time standing in a place like this, (inspirational music) it will leave you speechless. the grand canyon is one of the most visited and photographed places on earth, but only about 10% of the people that come here each year see it like this. that is pretty awesome, boys.