>> tonight on pbs news weekend, families forced to pay transaction fees to fund their children's school lunch accounts. then why extreme weather events mean an increased risk of kachin mocks decide poisoning a par

life champion on her goal to become the most decorated athlete in history. >> sports for me brought healing so that's what i want to bring to the other generations as well as equality and equity for people with disabilities. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends in of the newshour.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by critics to your pbs station from few viewers like you. thank you. john: evening, i'm john yang. eight workers began the first phase of their drive to vaccinate children against polio in gaza where doctors diagnosed the first case in 25 years. a small number of children got oral vaccine today and the health agency the try to dramatically increase those vaccinations tomorrow. in the past 24 hours, israeli air strikes killed 89 pipe and injured hundreds more. the dead ilude at least six children and a doctor shelters with his family. as strikes come in gaza, israeli defense forces movedded into the jeannine refugee camp on the

west bank. russia is blaming ukraine for the deaths of five people in the southwestern russian city of belgrade. selling the late friday also injured at least 37 others in what russia's foreign ministry called a terrorist attack. belgrade is about 100 miles from kursk. today russia responded with missiles that killed two in the kharkiv region. some of japan's biggest cities are unblood warnings as typhoon -- are under flood warnings as typhoon shanshan makes its way across the country. forecasters warn of land slides before the storm weak and moves to open waters later this weekend. in mississippi, national transportation safety board investigators are heading to the

site of a deadly bus crash. seven are dead and 37 injured after a bus overturned following a tire failure on interstate 20 about 50 miles west of jackson. among those killed, two siblings ages 6 and 16. many passengers were trapped when the bus ended up on its side. former president donald trump is launching a new wave o attacks on vice president kamala harris. in a fox news interview he called harris anti-democratic and vicious. >> i call her comrade kamala because she's a radical left maxxist and she'll destroy our country. there's not going to be any fracking in pennsylvania and for her whole life there was none. she fought people like, i've never seen anything like it. john: a new fox news poll shows mares gaining ground in three of

four battleground stakes. team u.s.a. has two gold medals in the pool, olivia chambers in the women's 400-meter freestyle and mallory begman in the women's 200 individual medley. at 1-2 finish in the men's 100 meter with jaden barack well setting a world record. right now team u.s.a. is in sixth place overall in the medal count. china is leading the pack with the most gold medals and most overall. still to come, why power outages can mean a greatered risk of carbon monoxide poisoning and our weekend spotlight with gold medalist tatiana mcfadden. >> this is pbs news weekend from weta studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour weeknights on pbs. john: with the average cost of school lunches national liquor between $455 and $60 a month

schools are turning to online payment stems, run by payment companies which typically charge transaction fees. the consumer protection bureau estimates that the fees can amount to as much as $42 in a school year and families qualifying for reduced price meals may be paying 60 cents in fees for every dollar spent. tell us how do tse fees work? >> they typically take place when parents are transferring money into their students' school lunch accounts. so it's when parents are loading up their kids for the week or school year and the transaction fees can be as high as $3:25 a transaction or 4% or 5%, those add up over the course of a year. john: we spoke with the mother

of a sixth-grader. >> $2.50 doesn't seem like a big deal but if you're struggling, thatas school lunch or tuition in a week, that's $5. a quarter of a tank of gas. it's a big deal and unless you're looking for it you don't really notice it. john: is that typically what you've heard? >> that's exactly right. the way the system works, parents who fewer resources end up paying more fees more frequently because they can't necessarily afford to load up their kids' accounts with hundreds of dollars once. john: what happens to parents perhaps disproportionally affected by this? >> people who pay for reduced lunch end up paying a disproportionate amount on fees. there are ways in which you're

penalized for not having enough money to work the system. john: so a parent who can afford to pay a month or week at a time won' have to pay as much as whereas a parent paying more frequently gets hit every time? >> that's exactly right. john: officials say they have to have a free method for putting money into these accounts. are they there and are they used? >> technically the fee-free version should be available at every public school but these don't have a captive audience because it's really inconvenient to have to go to the school and write a check or pay by cash. especially when you don't have the time or money to take on

another logistical challenge. john: are lawmakers looking into this? >> yes, the u.s. department of agriculture has publicly committed to take further action. in 2017 they put out guidance stating that school districts are mandated to be more transparent and to actively inform parents that there should always be a fee-free option option, they should always be able to pay by cash or check. but i think this report says that they're taking this seriously and are scrutinizing these companies for their practices. john: what would you say to parents who have to deal with this? >> definitely be aware that federal polic states that you should always be able to pay by cash or check to avoid these fees and then there have been examples of school districts where the districts themselves have successfully dealt with lowering the fees in their

processing companies. so talk to administrators about other possibilities, even if the district itself is covering those fees rather than the cost being passed on to parents. those are some options. john: thank you so much. >> thank you. ♪ john: claimant change is making extreme weather events like wildfires, floods and hurricanes more frequent and severe. and there can be deadly secondary effect. we explore one that became especially evident after some of this season's worse storms. >> it's a gas with no odor, taste or color but if not detected, it can be deadly. carbon monoxide is released after burning fuels. c.o. poisonings are on the rise amid widespread power outages

following widespread weather events. the devastation this summer's hurricane beryl had on increasing the number of carbon monoxide poisonings texas. lexie, what is the link between the use of generators and the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning? >> thanks so much for having me. this link is something that the consumer product safety commission has been studying for decades so we know a lot about what we know now. in the time they've been studying this connection they've found that generators actually lead to about 70 deaths every year, which makes portable generators one of the most dangerous de vices that consumers can buy on the market today. in fact, the commission haas found that no other de vice has killed as many people from carbon monoxide poisoning as portable generators have.

the reason why they're so dangerous is because these sometimes very small de vices, just one can emit as much carbon monoxide gas as hundredings of cars can combined. so many of them also do not have a sort of automated switch to turn off once levels become dangerous. >> why are we seeing this increase in poisoning if we've known about the risks for many decades? >> we know from climate scientist that is these extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, leading to widespread power outages that can last weeks and leave millions of people in the heat. trying to stave off heat deaths and in the winter, trying to stave off hypothey werea deaths. the purchase of portable generators after these extreme weather events continue to

spike, which only further the cycle >> your story alludes to some people who put these portable generators very close to their house. why are people doing that and are the risks well spelled out? >> this family has been using a portable generator for years. they live close to houston so they've lived through several hurricanes, the winters storm in 2021 that caused huge widespread outages and they're used to using the generator safely. they've had no issues before. this is a family that knows the risks, knows they need to keep a generator 20 feet from their home and in this one instance made the mistake of moving it slightly closer and put it under their porch in anticipation of rain from the hurricane to keep it safe so their power could continue to run. unfortunately that led to all three family members being hospitalized and having to be

treated at the most extreme level. doctors told them they were minutes away from dying. we see santa anas like this of families who do knee the risk but maybe make a simple mistake but we also see a lot of families that don't understand the dangerous of these portable generators or other things like running a car in your enclosed garage. >> the families you profiled on your story were in texas, which has relatively lax requirements when it comes to carbon monoxide poisonings. is there a correlation between an increase in poise option and states that don't have strong detector regulations? >> when we first started reporting on this in 2021 after the winter storm i mentioned before. at that point texas did not have any statewide requirement, which was only a handful of states at the time that had none.

since then they've passed an updated code that requires co detectors in some new buildings and renovated buildings as well which is only a fraction of buildings in the state. it leaves millions and millions of homes unprotected. so this isn't something i've seen has been directly studied but certainly public health officials tell us that carbon monoxide detectors are the only sure-fire way to prevent these poisonings. as you mentioned at the beginning, you cannot smell this gas or see it. there is no way to sense it other than a carbon monoxide detector. so certainly advocates say the common sense exclusion is to pass further requirements to require these in every home. the correlation hasn't totally been studied but that's what public health experts tell us. >> what are policymakers saying

who are arguing against carbon monoxide detectors? these are cheap things that could save your life. >> it's phone because you don't really see a lot of argument against these requirements but you don't really see anyone carrying this issue so that it has become law. it's not something that's captured state lawmakers' attention as far as we can tell. instead texas state lawmakers focused on the underlying issue, which, of course, is the power grid and making sure that that continues running well so that there aren't these major po poweroutages but we haven't seen one law maker, at least in public, champion the issue and therefore put forth solutions. we haven't seen many lawmakers come out against the solution necessarily but we haven't seen any that have brought it forward. >> lexie, thank you so much. >> thank you.

♪ john: the 2024 paralympics for athletes with disabilities is underway at the same paris venues that hosted olympic events earlier in august. one of the more than 4,000 competitors is closing in on a remarkable achievement. the most track and field medals for either the olympics or paralympics for men or women. meet teen wheelchair racer, at thiana mcfadden. amid a suburban maryland high school track on a humid summer morning is one of the most ho honored par limp athletes in history. at thiana mcfadden. >> sports allowed me to say, hey, i can become a professional athlete. >> every week she covers about 100 miles as she train for the

this year's paralympics games in paris. when you're going around the track. what's in your head? >> i'm really thinking about what i need to do during that race. who my competitors are, what lane am i in, how's the wind. john: finishing training on the track isn't the end of her day. she loads up her racing wheelchair and heads to a gym to work out with weights. >> people with disabilities are people of every culture and sub culture. when you see someone with disability, you don't from to stare or assume what they can't do. john: she's faced challenges all her life. she was born in the soviet union with spinea bifida. a birth defect that left her paralyzed from the waist down. she got no specialized medical attention. >> i got around by scooting

inches above the floor or walking on my hands. that's all i knew at the time until the sixth year and my life completely changed >> when deborah mcfadden came into her life. she visited the orphanage as u.s. commission of disabilities. afterwards she said she couldn't stop thinking about tatiana and went back several times to see her. eventually she adopted her, bringing up possibilities that year-old tatiana had never imagined. >> i could dream for the first time. john: arriving in america, she got her first wheelchair. >> that was the start of everything. i loved it. i was trying to push as fast as i could. it felt like freedom. john: to build up her poor health, deborah and her now wife got at thiana into sports.

sledding, jim anywaysics but it was wheelchair racing that appealedo her and she began racing when she was 7. up against older, machine experienced athletes in athence, the 15-year-old won silver and bronze medals. she came home a decorated athlete, only to be turned away by her high school track team. >> when you go into high school, ey tell to you get involved, right? and i didn't want to do anything else besides track. i was getting in line for the uniforms and then they wouldn't give me one. going to the track meets, they wanted totop the entire track meet, have me go around and they continued the track meet and it felt humiliated. john: deborah sch sued the school system for discrimination and won. >> i have a younger sister,

hannah, also a wheel claire racer. i thought if they're denying me, they're absolutely going to deny her and the generations after me so i need to be the voice, the game changer in this. john: that gives at thiana a goal beyond just personal achievement. >> i'm competing for every single person that's been discriminated against and is being discriminated against. sports for me brought healing. that's what i want to bring to the other generations. john: she pushed for the passage of maryland's tatiana's law which guaranteed students with disabilities equal access to all ports sports. that expanded to all schools across the country. does each one have a specific memory? >> it does. john: ? six paralympic games, she's won 20 medals. eight gold but only 19 are for wheelchair racing.

when the 2024 winter games were awarded to sochi in her native richa, she took you want cross-country skiing and won a silver medal. that she did it on russian soil had a special meaning. >> it made a statement that i survived through the conditions when i never should have. john: adding to her medal count in the paris games could bring a big career milestone. three more and she'll be the most decorated athlete in the olympics or paralympics, male or female. is that on your minds? >> it is and a really big motivator for paris. it's going to be really cool being part of the history books. john: it adds to her determination to be on the track every morning training for her seventh paralympics. is it still as exciting? >> it is because every games is

getting more exciting, more competitive but the media and the sponsorships and the equality in the sport is really growing so it's really fun and exciting. i-feel like i'm in my 20's again. i love it. [laughter] john: tatiana's first opportunity for a medal comes tomorrow in the 800 meter race. ♪ john: 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 has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular. how may i help you? >> this is a pocket dial. >> at consumer cellular, you get

nationwide coverage with no contract. that's kind of our thing. have a nice thing. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by cri continue bruisings to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

this program was made possible in part by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [gentle country guitar music] - [announcer] for nearly 50 years, ken burns has been creating films known for a signature style that has come to define excellence in documentary filmmaking,