john: tonight on pbs news weekend, how keeping an eye on your front door this gift-giving season may pay off, as package thieves strike around the country. then, while the holidays usually bring families together, we explore how they can be hard for those who are estranged from

their families. and, the seasonal migration of christmas tree vendors to new york city. where they create communities of their own. >> you see a lit tree in your home that smells wonderful, you feel better. i promise you. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news week and been provided by. >> in 1990 52 friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible with no long-term contracts, nationwide coverage and 100% u.s.-based customers. consumer cellular, free from calls. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪

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 john:. thank you. john: good evening. i'm john yang. the risks facing u.s. forces targeting iran-backed houthi rebels in yemen came into sharp focus this morning, when, according to central command, a u.s. navy guided-missile cruiser mistakenly shot down an american fighter jet over the red sea. both pilots of the fa-18 ejected, and were recovered alive. one suffered minor injuries. u.s. central command said warships and aircraft had earlier shot down houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile.

the friendly-fire incident is being investigated. in gaza, airstrikes overnight killed nearly two dozen people, including five children. one strike hit a school that housed displaced people. the israeli military said it targeted the area because hamas militants were also sheltered there. the other strike hit a home in deir al-balah, where relatives scrambled to find several children, who were all sleeping in the living room. despite the violence, israeli authorities allowed a catholic cardinal into gaza today to celebrate mass with the small catholic community there. it came one day after pope francis criticized israel's actions in gaza. the christmas market in magdegurg, germany re-opened today, two days after a vehicle intentionally plowed into a crowd of people there. the market closed after friday's crash killed 5 people, and injured about 200 others. today, visitors tried to return to some semblance of normalcy amid increased security. german authorities acknowledged they got a tip in november 2023 from saudi arabia about the

driver of the car. they investigated it, but took no action, saying it was unspecific. for only the fourth time since 1900, this year, christmas and the first night of hannukah fall on the same day. and for many, that means a rush to get home for the holidays. a tsa spokesperson tells pbs news that on saturday, they screened 2.7 million at airport security checkpoints. an estimated 107 million people are expected to take to the highways to get to their holiday destinations. if you're planning to get out of town tomorrow, triple-a says the best time for travel will be before 11:00 a.m. up next on "pbs news weekend", the painful toll of family estrangement, especially at this time of year. and, selling christmas trees on the sidewalks of new york ♪ >> this is pbs news week on from

the david m rubenstein studio at w eta in washington, home of the pbs news hour we get -- weeknights on pbs. john: with christmas and the beginning of hanukkah just days away, a lot of us are shopping online to have last-minute gifts delivered to our homes. while it can be more convenient than going to a brick-and-mortar store, it also offers an easy target for thieves. ali rogin reports on a growing crime, and how you can protect the items on your wish list. ali: they're known as porch pirates or package thieves, and they're targeting neighborhoods across the country. they surveil homes, watch for delivery trucks, and then steal what gets left outside your front door. in 2023, they swiped nearly $16 billion worth of goods this way. we spoke to people who've experienced these porch pirates firsthand. jennifer: my first encounter with porch pirates was when i just moved into this neighborhood. it's an urban neighborhood, and we all have stoops, and we don't

have front yards. so when delivery drivers come and just throw the packages on the stoop, it's very easy for thieves to sort of follow behind them and just pick things up as they go. augustine: i've had ten packages in the last year tampered with, or stolen completely, including my nephew's 18th birthday present. holly: i get a text friday morning from a neighbor, and he said, holly, we found a package just on the side of the road, and it's addressed to you, but there's nothing in it. they take things that could not possibly be of use to them. and they just make life difficult for others. and i don't know how much they gain from it. ali: rebecca edwards is a reporter at safewise.com, a research website that focuses on home and community security. rebecca, thank you so much for joining us. stealing is not a new

phenomenon, but these particular types of theft have grown in recent years in popularity. why is that? rebecca: yeah, we saw a huge boom in package theft around the time of the lockdowns with the pandemic, because the main way that we can all get things was by having them delivered. and package theft is a crime of opportunity. so the more opportunity that's out there, the more chances there are that some bad actor is going to go ahead and swipe your stuff. ali: and they seem to be also particularly brazen. i mean, they steal things at all times of day, as we heard. and also regardless of whether or not there's a security camera outside the home, as there often is. why do they seem so reckless? rebecca: one of the biggest reasons is that it's a low risk crime. it's not even classified in its own category in most states. and there are only 11 states that have laws on the books that specifically address package theft. so i think that people are brazen because they have been getting away with it, and they think they're going to be able to continue getting away with it.

ali: you mentioned states that have laws. do these types of thefts tend to happen in certain parts of the country, or in certain types of neighborhoods and communities? what's the geographical breakdown? rebecca: there's really nowhere that it's not possible that it's going to happen. however, there are certain neighborhoods and setups that are kind of custom made for package thefts. planned neighborhoods, neighborhoods with cul de sacs, places where houses are within 25 feet of the street and it's an easy grab and getaway, are places that are most targeted. ali: and what motivates them to steal things when they don't even know what's inside? there's a high likelihood that it's going to be something that's completely useless and meaningless to them. rebecca: yeah, that's one of the biggest mysteries about this crime, because you don't know what you're getting unless you see a certain brand on the outside or maybe, you know, a sticker that says there's a lithium battery or something. you know, you might be getting something good that way. but unfortunately, in the past few years, organized package theft has risen. and so we are seeing people that

are working together and they're actually using the ill gotten gains for resale online. they're setting up stores on temu and even at amazon, reselling stuff that they've stolen. ali: wow. tell me a little bit more about that. i mean, how did that start and how long did it take for those kinds of operations to get set up? rebecca: we really saw this starting to emerge within the past two years. and we've been putting out warnings, and giving people guidance for how to validate if a website seems legitimate, a store on any of these, you know, quick shopping websites where you get really super great deals and really fast delivery. read reviews, see if you can validate them in some way, because the less you can find about these places, the more odds you have that they're not going to be legit. ali: so that's consumer vigilance in terms of purchasing products that might have been stolen. what can consumers, what can homeowners or renters do to protect the packages that they're ordering? rebecca: yeah, the best thing you can do is anything that will keep those packages from being

noticed and seen by package thieves that might be going by. so the best thing is to sign for deliveries if you can. that means that it's going to go into your hands, or somebody's hands. it's not just going to get dropped on your porch and have them delivered to a different location. use a package locker, either a hub in your town, or you can have your own private one right on your porch. and again, you would have to have the delivery people willing to do the code and drop your stuff in that package. unfortunately, these porch pirates make us have to go out of our way to avoid them, and it just doesn't seem fair. but that seems to be the way it goes when criminals are out there doing their business. yeah. ali: and then what about on the side of the companies doing these deliveries? what about amazon, ups, fedex, the post office? is there anything that they can do to help protect packages against theft? rebecca: amazon and ups have been the most proactive, trying to come up with ways to help protect the packages. one of the biggest things that amazon has done is you can give them a coach, your garage can

have a delivery put right into your garage. they've done an amazon key in the past. they also have a program where you can have packages delivered to the trunk of your car. and ups has also upped their vigilance with photographing where they're leaving packages and willing to take directions from customers about better, more hidden places to drop packages, and also using gps tracking. ali: really interesting stuff. rebecca edwards, reporter at safewise.com. thank you so much for your expertise on this. rebecca: thank you. ♪ john: the picture-perfect image of holiday gatherings as happy families gathered around dinner tables isn't everyone's reality. according to a harris poll conducted last month, about 18% of those surveyed said they had only limited interactions with their immediate family. when we asked viewers if they'd be willing to share their

stories of alienation from family, we got more than 1600 responses. here are some of them. camilla: my name is camilla hudson. i live in chicago, and i'm estranged from my son. angela: my name is angela reed. i am from fall river, massachusetts, and i am estranged from my mother. camilla: i don't have a phone number for my son. i don't have an address for my son. angela: there are so many reasons for initiating the estrangement. some of them even go back to childhood. and as a mother myself, things i would never do to my kids. jonathan: my name is jonathan simcosky and i live in san francisco. i grew up in kansas city, missouri, and i no longer speak with my parents or my brother. frances: my name is frances scott and i live in missoula, montana, and i am estranged from my adult daughter as of about eight years ago. jonathan: i'm the gay son of a southern baptist preacher. so the relationship was always

pretty difficult. but i would say sort of, their ongoing support of donald trump became really untenable for me. the conversation has just been about like the extent to which his moral failings matter. they're giving donald trump a pass when i don't get one. >> my name is center leslie. i live in richmond, virginia. i'm estranged from my mother and my brother. frances: the first 2 or 3 years, i didn't cope very well at all. >> with my mother, it just felt like i could never do anything right. frances: i would sometimes be in a store and i might see this lovely interaction going on with a grand child and their grandparents. and i would, i basically had to leave the store because it just made me so sad. >> i sent a text that just said, you know, until you can pretend

like you like me, i'm not doing this anymore. and i haven't heard from her since. >> my son sent my therapist three separate emails. he outlined a lot of very specific things in these emails. and literally, for over a year and a half, going on two years, my therapist and i literally went through his email, these emails, point by point by point. angela: the biggest hurdle to our relationship is her not taking accountability and recognizing the things that she may have done wrong. frances: i would say to her, certainly, that i am sorry for any trauma that i may have caused her. i certainly feel like my alcoholism caused some of that for her, and i am deeply sorry. jonathan: i don't miss the fighting, and the same fights

going on and on. so i'm so -- sort of grateful to be liberated from that. but i regret the brokenness. camilla: i occasionally hear people tell me, well, i would never do that. i could never dream of cutting off a family member. and for those people, i just, i'm glad that they could never dream of it. frances: if it is best for her for us to not be in contact, i respect that. angela: it's a little heartachy, that i don't have a mom for some of these, like, big events and holidays and whatnot. but it's not like i want her there. it's like i want who i wanted as a mom there. >> i've made my peace with the fact that i may not, it may not ever change, but i remain hopeful that it can and it will. john: there's still a taboo about breaking family ties, but a growing number of groups are raising awareness about it and helping people deal with it. family therapist whitney goodman's online community

calling home is one of them. she's the author of "toxic positivity: keeping it real in a world obsessed being happy." whitney, just because of what we've just been through with the election, there are a lot of focuses on political divisions as being a reason for families being divided and not speaking to one another. but are there other causes or what are some of the most common causes of this? whitney: i've actually been surprised how little people have said that politics are the reasons that they're not speaking to their family. the most common reasons that i've been given are things like emotional abuse that's still happening in adulthood, emotional neglect in both childhood and adulthood, and also emotional immaturity on the part of the parent or the other family member. john: you know, i think the common thought is, or at least the societal thought, is that this is something that needs to be fixed if a family members are speaking to each other. but can this also be a rational step? whitney: absolutely. you know, of course, resolving this is the

ideal outcome, but that requires everyone involved to want to participate in that and to be able to participate in that. and unfortunately, we find that in a lot of families, there are not always two people who want to learn the skills to compromise and fix the problem, and that's when we're going to see estrangement happening. john: what is advice do you have for perhaps both sides of this, for the person who decides to walk away and the person who's left when the other one walks away? what advice do you have? whitney: i think there's an immense amount of pain on both sides, and there's still certainly a stigma that i want people to know that this is actually far more common than you realize. and i think it's very important for both sides to take the space and time to look at what went wrong in the relationship and what can i own on my end, what can i improve? especially if someone has decided to become estranged from you. that's very important to look at your role and also just listen to the boundaries that the other person is setting and

try to respect those boundaries. john: but also just removing the stigma. do people feel like this is a horrible thing that they've done or a horrible thing that's happened to them and you want to remove that sense? whitney: you know, i think that any time a family relationship falls apart, it's very sad and it's not the ideal outcome. but we do also have to realize that the people in the world that are hurtful and even dangerous or abusive can also have family members. and sometimes their family members are the ones being hurt by them. and so i think when we say, you know, you shouldn't be in abusive relationships, whether that's with a partner or a friend, we also have to extend that to family and tell people that they deserve to feel safe and respected within those relationships as well. john: what advice would you have for someone who feels the need to step away or to break ties with their family? whitney: i think that it should be taken as a very big decision, and i find that most people

spend years, if not decades, making that decision. i would want them to know that they deserve to feel safe and respected and loved in their relationships and that sometimes our families can be a source of great pain and hold us back from really being able to be the best versions of ourselves. and so if you find yourself in a position where you've tried everything to make this work and you just keep hitting a wall, it might be time to walk away. john: what about the family members who are in touch with each side trying to bridge the gap, as it were? what's advice for them? whitney: yeah, i work with a lot of people in that very impossible and difficult situation. and i think for those people, it's kind of important to get out of the middle and to encourage those people to work on this themselves and to come back together when they're ready, because sometimes that person in the middle can actually do more harm than good by playing telephone and trying to be a mediator when they may not actually have all the

information or they're trying to play both sides and then they intensify the rift. john: so they shouldn't try to play peacemaker and try to bring them together. whitney: i have not seen that really work successfully except in a case where they say, you know what, let's try to get the two of you into therapy together or maybe set up a time for the two of them to speak. but when information starts passing through a third party and they're inserting their opinion, i find that it tends to just get even crazier. john: we cited the results of a survey in the introduction, but from your experience, from your practice, how common is this? whitney: i am a firm believer that this has actually been happening for a very long time. we're just hearing a lot more about it, and i don't have a good handle on what is the actual percentage here, because as you've said, we've heard a lot of different stats thrown out there, but i see a strange -- estrangement following a similar pattern to divorce where people are talking about it a lot more. they're seeing it as

an option. and so it appears to be rising when i think it just might be that the discourse about it is increasing. john: family therapist whitney goodman, thank you very much. whitney: thank you. ♪ john: every year, the smell of spruce around new york city announces the arrival of as many as 200,000 christmas trees. the seasonal workers who sell trees often live on-site in trailers, vans, and even plywood shacks. we talked with one group of christmas tree sellers at their sidewalk market in brooklyn. >> i want this one -- the sun for christmas. >> the sun out of the sky? ok. can you share with the rest of us? my name is gregory. i'm called big greg. i grew up in new york and we

sell christmas trees. we have been doing it for about 40 years. it is a lot of fun. i'm also santa claus. as i was leaving, they were saying, he's the real one. not a fake one. he is the real santa. it is a hard business, a risky business. you get bad trees, bad lots, bad workers. people can be in the spirit of christmas, you can buy more trees. nine foot trip -- tree. the big trees are scarce. you have to follow, how will this year be? when people feel their lives are in jeopardy or scary or things like that, they want to feel better about their home. you see a lit tree that smells wonderful in your home, you feel better. i promise you. >> i sold the balsam the other day. >> she loved it. she is excited. >> i'm charles, 56 from north

carolina and i grew christmas trees. if you count from the seed, it takes about 13 years to get a christmas tree off to market. in an average year we sell about 80-100,000 christmas trees. >> there is not one trade -- tree that i don't know who grew it. we have trees that were cut two days ago. >> i brought up a load of trees. to my good friend greg. i was amazed when i got here. everybody is so friendly and nice. >> staffing is a huge problem. how do you find quality people? they only want to work online. and, never stops working. >> my name is eric and i'm 51. i live in quebec, canada and i come down once a year to sell christmas trees with big greg. the rest of my time in canada i'm planting trees and doing

watershed rehabilitation and environmental work. >> we are a nomadic family. have been working here with my dad for three years on this christmas tree stand which is pretty fun, for real. >> this is where we eat and sleep every day and night. this is greg's bed and my bed. all of our little stuff, we have some food over here. >> this will be my 11th year on the sidewalk so i have seen kids grow up and leave the college and come back with their parents and continue the tradition. >> oh yeah. it's snowing! it's a christmas miracle. >> i do like it. since i've have been working with my father, it is a difficult situation sometimes, but i love working with him at the same time. you can't get better than that. i'm learning a lot. my dad has taught me a lot about trees and the selling business

of this. is this too big? how do you like it? >> ask greg if he can cut us a deal. >> sure. >> big greg has been nice to us. just working with him and seeing how he does things, all of the christmas tree stands, it is amazing. >> i about we do the big one next year? there is so much stress this year. but it is like, this is my last year doing it. i can't keep doing it so this is it. i have carcinoma in my lungs. the chemo has been working but it can only work for so long. my son will run the business. i'm sure i'll be involved but i'm not doing the daily, running around and hiring and firing.

it was eye-opening to me. life is short, it is really short for all of us. so go out and enjoy it. >> ho ho ho! goodbye. ♪ john: and that is pbs news week and for this sunday. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. happy holidays. >> major funding has been provided by. ♪ 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.] ♪ >>

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