john: tonight on "pbs news weekend," hothe holiday shopping season is unfolding with consumers still feeling the squeeze of inflation. then, one woman's fight to end hunger for tens of millions of

malnourished children around the world. >> the first time that i saw a two-year-old that looked like my newborn at home, i realized that this is an incredibly urgent situation. that is something that i could never unsee or forget about. john: and, why black women are more likely to have unnecessary c-sections, putting them at risk for surgical complications. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- 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. john: good evening. i'm john yang. rebel forces are spreading further into aleppo today, taking control of landmarks in syria's second-largest city and encountering little resistance from government forces. a war monitoring group said airstrikes late friday killed 20 insurgent fighters. syria's army says dozens of its soldiers have been killed since the surprise offensive was launched on wednesday. rebels celebrated outside the city's historic citadel. >> it is an indescribable feeling. my older brother was martyred here in aleppo 13 years ago.

praise to god. praise to god. john: opposition forces hadn't attacked the city since 2016 when president bashar al-assad regained full control. an israeli airstrike on a car in gaza today has killed five people, including charity workers. the world central kitchen, which provides food relief, says they are pausing operations in gaza for the second time this year. in april, seven of its workers were killed in an israeli strike. israel says one of the charity's employees killed today was involved in the october 7 hamas attack on israel. in khan younis, another airstrike hit a vehicle next to a food distribution site, killing 13, including children. and in gaza city, seven died when an israeli strike hit a house. >> there is no safe place. residents are being bombarded, explosive barrels are thrown down at them, at their houses, markets, streets, shelters, schools. there is no safe place. where should these people go? john: overnight and into today,

more than 30 people have been killed in gaza. the ceasefire agreement between israel and hezbollah appears to be holding, despite sporadic incidents. in southern lebanon, an israeli drone strike killed two and wounded two others. another strike hit a vehicle, wounding three, including a seven-year-old. and, the idf says it hit a weapons smuggling site near the syrian border. the georgian capital of tbilisi has been rocked by a third straight night of protests against the government's decision to suspend talks to join the european union. thousands rallied outside parliament, some launching fireworks. there have been major demonstrations since the ruling party's disputed victory in last month's parliamentary elections. georgia's interior ministry says police arrested 107 people friday. still to come on pbs news weekend, how one woman is rethinking the way hungry children are fed around the world. and, why black women are more likely to get unnecessary c-sections, risking surgical complications.

>> this is pbs news weekend from the david m. rubenstein studio at weta in washington, home of the pbs news hour, weeknights on pbs. john: this weekend is the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, beginning with black friday. by one estimate, online spending yesterday was more than 14% higher than last year and in-store purchases were up a modest .7%. some retailers have been offering discounts since shortly before halloween in hopes of encouraging shoppers squeezed by inflation to open their wallets. we asked people to tell us about their shopping pns this year. >> my name is john ferber and i live in sacramento, california. >> my name is sherry, and i'm in centreville, virginia. >> i am susan pope and i live at waupaca, wisconsin. >> my main shopping usually starts in july. >> i started my holiday shopping for this year last year.

>> september and october, i'll always be thinking about what i shouldn't be spending then so i can spend a little more around the holidays. >> i don't really budget for my gifts. it just works out in the end. >> i usually have kind of a budget in mind. i can't say i stick to it because if i find something, i think it's really great for someone and it exceeds the budget i planned, i go ahead and get it because i want them to have it. >> whatever i need to get for the holidays, i'll look online a little bit more to make sure i'm stretching my budget. >> i used to love black friday. i would be the one getting up at 5:00 in the morning to go buy toys. but in the past few years, i haven't done it because there aren't a lot of things on those sales that i'm really looking for as gifts. >> i don't think pre matters. i can give a bit of joy for $12 as easily as i can give something for $100. >> i found my friend's love if i make something for them or if we just catch up and have time to hang out and relax.

we don't tend to do that enough during the year, and so it's nice to make that a part of the holidays. >> i'm hoping that there'll be more time to get together this holiday and spend time together because to me, that's more important than the presents or anything else, is the presence of the people, not the presents from the people. john: the national retail federation forecasts sales in november and december will be as much as 3.5% higher than last year. that would be the slowest growth since 2018. dana telsey is ceo of telsey advisory group, which tracks both consumer and retailer behavior. this year, barron's named her one of the 100 most influential women in finance. i know you and your team get out every black friday and walk the stores. what did you see yesterday and what does it tell you about this year shopping season? dana: thank you for having me. i was in the stores yesterday and what i saw was traffic built

as time went on. no longer do we have the 6:00 a.m. starting points with the rush into the stores. as the afternoon comes, it gets busier. what's different this year than last year, more promotionsi n order to bring the consumer in. the consumer of almost all different income levels are being more choice for, selective in their goods and promotions are a way to drive the sale. i think it will be a 3% to 3.5% increase this year, and i think this black friday weekend so far is matching those types of increases. john: the stores have promotions to get people into stores and get people spending. do you expect those promotions to continue as the season goes on and prices to be cut more? dana: i think we will have promotions as the season goes on. we have a shorter holiday season this year than last year given that thanksgiving is later with five fewer days between thanksgiving and christmas. the deal started earlier. they will continue, but retailer

inventories are weaning so i think the level of promotions seems to be around 30% off for black friday we can on average, they may step up, but everyone one want to hold those discounts to maybe the 30% to 40% off. i don't see it like years past where it was 60%, 70% off. john: the consumer is looking for deals. is this because of inflation and high interest rates? dana: it is because of inflation. we know that pricing is elevated this year compared to what it had been in years past partially because of the inflationary headwinds. but also, consumers want to spend on experiences that create memories. the bifrcation between spending on goods and spending on services is there. in order to attract consumers to buy goods, you have to have new. what is new this year where the closed toe shoe of birkenstock or the sneakers. those are some of the new things

and footwear that is driving appeal. john: can people be shopping for themselves as well as others right now because they are worried about the effect of president-elect trump's tariffs? dana: let's just say black friday weekend is always about shopping for others and shopping for yourself, because some of those deals that are out there, consumers are purchasing for themselves. definitely with a lower interest rate environment, that is something that consumers will benefit from. but with this expectation for tariffs that could be coming, overall, that could be a headwind particularly to apparel prices that should show a double-digit increase, which is concerning. but when would that show up? later rather than sooner but it is something that is being watched very carefully because retailers and brands cannot diversify their sourcing fast enough. john: you mentioned that the sales are expected around 3.5% growth. that is not much more than inflation. what does that tell you about

the retail economy, the situation? dana: when you think about the retail economy and the situation overall, we have a time period right now where essentials is what is driving a lot of the gains. we have prices higher than it was a few years ago. we have luxury sales moderating. beauty sales moderating. and you are looking at innovation and apparel that could drive some increases. whether it is the wide legged denim jeans. we are having categories like the home moderate as well because the higher interest rates for homebuyers not driving increased sales of new homes. that will be a wait and see. if anything, what we've been seeing out there is the expectation, whether it is collaborations or influencers, marketing is necessary to drive interest. i think the consumer overall is being very choice for and what they spent. john: could that mean winners and losers among the retailers? dana: of course. when you think about some of the

winners, it could be the off-pricers that offer value like t.j. maxx and ross. it could be brands that are showing product that consumers don't already have. whether it is birkenstock, ralph lauren, or abercrombie and fitch. and then there are concerns. you look at companies like kohl's overall who has been weaker given the increased competition, even from some of the off-pricers. you have some of the brands where you need to see acceleration like guess. they get a lot of their sales from europe. we are watching what they do carefully. overall, you always have winners, you always have those that need to show improvement. this year, luxury does not he the same growth it had in the past. john: dana, thank you very much. dana: thank you for having me. john: armed conflicts and climate change are fueling a global hunger crisis. tens of millions of children

under the age of five are malnourished. pamela watts of "rhode island pbs weekly" introduces us to a woman on a mission to change that. >> our most basic need in life is food and nutrition. so without that, we really aren't setting children up for their best chance that they would have in life. pamela: giving a child a chance in life serves as the compass for navyn salem. she's on a quest to end malnutrition for children around the globe under the age of five. her company, edesia, named after the roman goddess of food, manufacturers these squeeze-packets of a fortified peanut butter called plumpy nut. the nutrient-enriched paste doesn't need water or refrigeration and is easy for kids to feed themselves. it has been proven to take a

child from the brink of starvation to salvation in just six to eight weeks. salem has traveled the world witnessing the results of plumpy nut firsthand. >> they have to eat one packet in the clinic in order just to prove that they can eat it and they don't have complications. these children don't look anything like the ones that you just saw in the severe acute malnutrition space. they're already being interactive, they're laughing, they're playing with you. pamela: what's the magic in it? it's fortified. it has nutrients and calories. >> it tastes good. i mean, even if you're a very hungry child, the food needs to taste good because children, no matter where they are, they can all be picky. pamela: salem says volunteering for a clinic like this one in chad is where her nutrition mission was born. >> the first time that i saw a two-year-old that looked like my newborn at home, i realized that this is an incredibly urgent situation. that is something that i could never unsee or forget about.

it stayed with me all the time. pamela: the united nations children's fund found that 155 million children under age five are malnourished. and the world health organization estimates that almost half of the deaths in children of the same age are linked to malnutrition. it's a crisis salem says is being fueled by two things. >> climate change is causing droughts, years-long droughts and floods that are catastrophic. they're biblical, like we've never seen before. so, this is forcing huge amounts of people to migrate. pamela: andrew kamara, vice president of operations at edesia, was once one of those affected by conflict. his family had to flee sierra leone during its long civil war. >> my two sisters and i ended up in guinea, west rica as refugees. so, we had to learn how to survive, how to stay resilient, how to fight to really make it another day.

i think that experience prepared me for the work that i'm doing today. i felt like during my many, many years of living in a refugee setting and seeing suffering, human suffering, hunger and starvation and malnutrition and all kinds of difficulties. pamela: and kamara is not the only one working here who has lived that experience. >> many, many of my colleagues have been through the same path as me. they've lived in refugecamps. they were once hopeless. and today, they're in a position of giving back to those same refugee camps. they take that job very, very seriously. >> there's a life saved for every time you produce a box. pamela: kamara sees each package as a box of hope.

the plumpy nut inside provides meals for two months, enough to rescue a severely-malnourished child. >> these could be your children, these are the world's children, and we all have to be part of the fight to give them a life that is full. pamela: salem is now developing a product for pregnant women. she says it's not about treating malnutrition. prevention is the priority. >> we don't have the luxury of saying, oh, this isn't working so well today. because yes, we're going to get interrupted everywhere on a government level, a policy, a war zone that a truck's trying to get through, pirates in somalia. you name it, we've had it right. but, how do you get around that and how do you make sure? because every minute counts. pamela: for "pbs news weekend," i'm pamela watts in north kingstown, rhode island.

john: cesarean section surgeries or c-sections to deliver babies are the most common surgical procedures in u.s. hospitals. now, a new study of nearly one million births from 2008 to 2017 finds that black women are almost 25% more likely than white women to have unnecessary c-sections, needlessly putting them at risk of surgical complications. the studies from the national bureau of economic research and was done by three economists. sarah kliff is an investigative health care reporter for "the new york times." sarah, in your story writing about this, you got a wonderful way of describing it. you had an example of -- or a hypothetical -- a black mother and a white mother, the same medical history, same doctor, same hospital. sarah: yeah. so, they walk into the same hospital, they have the same doctor. on paper, their medical records look basically identical, but the black woman has a 20% higher chance of delivering by c-section, which really begs the question, why is this happening?

john: d was there an answer to that in this study? sarah: there's not one answer. there are some theories. and we can't exactly get inside the doctors' heads. it could be that they are aware that black women have higher rates of maternal mortality. so, they're thinking, i'm going to get this person into surgery faster. i don't want to risk complications. it could be that they aren't listening to black mothers as much if they're pushing back against the idea of a c-section. it's difficult to tell, but we definitely know that something different is happening for these black women. john: and we should say that there are reasons why, medical reasons why a doctor would schedule a c-section, that the benefits outweigh the risks. but, what are the risks of an unscheduled, an emergency c-section on a woman who has no complications? sarah: yeah, i mean, it's pretty much the risk of adding a major surgery on to the delivery. a c-section is a major abdominal surgery. there's the risk of an infection, of a hemorrhage. these are rare risks, but they are added on when you do a c-section. there is the increased recovery, which is happening when you have a newborn, which as any parent knows, is a really challenging time already to have a major

surgery you're recovering from. there's also financial risk. c-sections are more expensive, so the patient could end up with higher bills from their delivery if that is how they end up delivering. john: now, the researchers looked for correlations. they couldn't find any correlations with medical risk factors, with the gender of the doctors or the economic status of the mothers. but, they did find one interesting correlation. sarah: yeah, the fascinating thing they were able to look at is what was going on in the rest the hospital and if the operating room was empty. and i think this was probably the most interesting finding to me was that when the operating room was empty, black women, that's when black women were significantly more likely to have c-sections than white women. when the hospital was busy, people are rushing around. but if someone really needs that c-section, black and white women end up getting c-sections at near identical rates. it's when the hospital is less busy, when the o.r. sitting there empty, that's really when you see these unnecessary c-sections happening on these black mothers. john: knowing what you know

about it from a reporter covering this, how the hospitals work, the implication is they want to keep that operating room busy. sarah: look, most of the american health care system, it's paid on what we call a fee for service system. every time you do an mri, every time you do an operation, you are getting paid for that spitals.e doctors ore to this is an academic study. and i will say the rates of c-section are higher for both black moms and white moms when the o.r. is empty, which suggests maybe conscious, maybe unconscious, but there is more of a propensity to send women to c-section when the capacity is there for them. john: black women have long talked about different treatment in their pregnancies of feeling like their doctors aren't listening to them, not taking their pain into into considation. is this part of that? sarah: yeah, certainly. ren'listened to, that theythey ked for an epidural and it ok a long time to get it. that they said, i want to try tural labor longer and they re really told, no, you need to go to a c-section.

and i think it's, again, difficult to untangle the role of race in all of this, but it certainly is an experience of a lot of black women that they feel like their providers aren't necessarily listening to what they want and they might be listening better if their skin was another color. john: is there some thought or an indication that this could be a contributor to the fact that black women have higher rates of maternal mortality and childhood infant mortality? sarah: certainly. i mean, c-section, again, is a procedure that's generally safe, but it comes with its risk. so, if you're going to add on a major abdominal surgery, that's essentially increasing your risk for something to go wrong during childbirth. and there are many stories out there. you can hear of black woman who tried to raise concerns during their delivery. they weren't listened to and ended up having a bad outcome. so, that certainly could be a part of this story. john: all these factors put together, the hospitals wanting to keep the o.r.'s busy, black women disproportionately being sent there. what does this say or suggest about the state of health care in america right now? sarah: it suggests that a lot of the things that determine the

health care you get, they aren't about your medical records. they aren't about what you actually need. they're about all these other factors, the color of your skin, whether the operating room is available, if it's sitting empty. that the health care that we're all receiving, it's not just about what we need, but all these other factors that are completely out of our control are contributing to the re that we get. john: sarah kliff of "the new york times," thank you very much. sarah: thank you. 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 for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> in 1995, two friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible to all. with no long-term contract, nationwide coverage, and 100% u.s.-based customer support. consumer cellular.

♪ >> 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.] >> you a

>> lidia bastianich: as the food landscape evolves rapidly around the world, i'm setting out to meet americans who are changing the way we think about food. (laughter) >> being able to grow some more of our culturally relevant foods