♪ anchor: tonight, the death toll rises in los angeles as firefighters scramble to contain the flames before dangerous santa ana winds intensified again. winter illnesses returned with a vengeance as cases of rsv, covid, and the flu surge across the country. >> there are a lot of sick

people, especially in the south and west with very high levels. soon the entire country will be in the red. anchor: what scientists hope to learn from ice that is more than a million years old. ♪ >> major funding has been provided by -- ♪ 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 by viewers like you. thank you. anchor: good evening. there has been some progress in containing the fires ravaging the los angeles area. the hearst fire is nearly 90% contained. the much larger palisades and eaton fires are being raised to be contained. this morning, the fire chief spoke to reporters. >> strong santa ana winds are expected to last through wednesday, with the strongest occurring on tuesday. every available firefighter is on hand and will remain in place through this event.

firefighters continue to pour into southern california to bolster our firefighting capabilities. anchor: 16 people are now reported to have died in the fires, with another 16 missing. officials say the numbers will undoubtedly go higher. aerial footage of the palisades fire today, still only 11% contained, shows widespread devastation. charred remains are all that is left of thousands of structures. the los angeles county sheriff says that is one reason residents are not being allowed back into the areas to check on their homes. >> in driving around some of these areas, they are literally looking like war zones. there are downed power poles, electric wires, there are still some smoldering fires. we want to get you back into your homes but we cannot allow that until it is safe for you to do so. anchor: safety is also a factor in deciding what schools may reopen.

the 500,000 student los angeles unified school district is the second largest in the nation. all of its campuses have been closed since thursday. the superintendent of the district, do you have any idea when you may be able to reopen? >> good afternoon. we are looking at all of the factors. key to us is containment of the fires. the most important element is the quality of air index across our jurisdiction. conditions have improved but we know they have been dynamic and unstable. we have inspected and assessed all 1000 campuses. we are engaged in indoor and outdoor cleaning, removal of dust, and replacement of air-conditioned filters based on need. that will all be completed by tonight to make sure that we are

ready to be open. the health and safety and protection of our workforce and students are our highest priority. anchor: how many of those campuses have been burned or damaged? >> at this point we have impacts to three schools. a couple of elementary schools that provide services to the palisades community. they have been either totally or nearly completely destroyed by the fires. i was on site as the fires were raging and unfortunately they will need a complete replacement. palisades high school, a school with over 2000 students, was partially damaged. it sustained heavy fire. we are talking about close to 3000 students impacted by the fires. in addition to those schools, we

have seven schools currently under mandatory evacuation orders. we do not anticipate that those schools will, online in the foreseeable future. anchor: you have students, staff, faculty, many of the displaced because of the fires and evacuations. how big a challenge does that present in getting students to school and staff and faculty being able to get to the schools? >> you are absolutely right. we are surveying the workforce to determine the actual impact to our workforce. specific to individuals who lost their homes and also those who were evacuated. we believe that number is around 700. it may be a little bit less. as evacuation orders continue to be lifted.

that is definitely a concern. that is why constant communication is important. we have made some arrangements to provide impacted members of our workforce for free days to resume normalcy in their lives. recognizing the challenges they are facing. we want to connect them to housing opportunities. considering the size of our workforce, the area of impact has really narrowed significantly those have been deeply impacted. anchor: schools are not just places of education. you have students who rely on them for meals. parents rely on afterschool activities for child care. since have you been dealing with that? >> through the first two days of closure, we had eight feeding centers for grab and go

nutrition. 85% of our students live at or below the poverty level and they depend on those meals. anchor: our thoughts are with all of you in the los angeles area. thank you very much. >> thank you, i appreciate it. ♪ anchor: there are signs of progress in talks to reach a cease-fire between israel and hamas. president biden and benjamin netanyahu spoke by phone today. the white house said biden underscore shifts in the areas balance of power, including a weekend iran -- weakend iran. efforts are underway for syria to engage with other nations.

top diplomats met today to talk out the next steps which could include easing western sanctions on syria. this was the first of its kind since the downfall of the assad regime. the suspended south korean president will not attend the first hearing of his impeachment trial. he has been under protection from bodyguard since he was impeached last month for declaring martial law. the trial will go on even in his absence. the constitutional court is deciding whether to remove him from office. a nobel peace prize winner is hoping to make a gender discrimination a crime under law. she spoke on a summit on girls education. she singled out the taliban, which bars women from going to secondary school. >> afghan women and girls must

be free to shape their own future. the very loudest champions of their cause must be leaders such as yourselves. anchor: the taliban tried to kill her because of the teenager because of her advocacy for children's education. leaders signed a declaration for their commitment to empower girls through education. still to come, why this year's sick season is hitting people hard. and what a core of ice in antarctica can tell scientists. >> this is pbs news weekend from our studio in washington, home of the pbs news hour. anchor: the cdc says that nationwide, the number of people going to doctors with things like the flu, rsv, and covid, is

surging. what better time to check in with an epidemiologist. it is what we are seeing now the standard respiratory virus season or is there something unusual going on? >> like you said, it is no doubt ugly out there. there are a lot of sick people with coughs, fever, sore throat. especially in the south and hi west. these levels are not unusual. we have seen the same level of sickness before the pandemic. what is unusual is that covid is not necessarily dominating. the main culprit right now is flu. it accounts for many more hospitalizations. this is definitely a shift from the past four years. anchor: what do we know about

booster shots and flu shots and what effect that is having? >> unfortunately vaccination rates are sub optimal. only one in four u.s. adults has the covid vaccine. lesson 50 cent -- 50% of americans has the flu vaccine. this is far lower than our goal of 70%. fewer and fewer children are getting these vaccines every year. with a lower vaccination rates, that means more strained hospital systems and more pediatric death. last year was one of the worst for flu deaths among kids. more vaccinations would certainly help. anchor: one other ingredient of this is the norovirus. is that is what commonly called

us stomach flu? >> think nausea, diarrhea, throwing up. it is not fun. it is unusually high right now. we don't know why this is the case. typically this means the virus has mutated. to infect more people. it is spread through surfaces and it is incredibly contagious. it is really hard to kill. hand sanitizer does not work against it. using bleach will do the trick. anchor: there are a couple of other viruses in the headlines. what is on the rise in china. that has raised unhappy comparisons with covid. and the bird flu. just last week we have the first bird flu death.

how concerned should people be about those? >> the new virus has made headlines in china and india. it has been around for a while. it causes less severe disease than flu or covid. thank the common cold. this fire should take up very little headspace for the average american. bird flu, we are not seeing human to human transmission. the highest risk is for agriculture workers working for poultry or dairy farms. as well as americans who drink raw milk because their high levels of blurred -- bird flu virus and those. anchor: is the government doing

enough? >> they certainly could be doing a lot more. we are still flying blind. we don't know how many infections there are out there. because it is running reacted among animals, it is spilling over to humans. it has the ability to mutate. the time to prevent a pandemic is now. there is certainly more government could be doing. anchor: always very helpful to talk to you. thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. ♪ anchor: the graying of america is being reflected in the nation's drug crisis. even as overdose deaths drop,

millions of drug users are living with longtime -- long-term health problems. reporter: a generation of addicts who grew up in the 1960's and 1970's is aging. whether they have gotten clean or they are continuing to use, many are living with compromised health. more than 2 million americans over the age of 65 has substance abuse disorders. that is more than a tenfold increase in a decade. many are seeking support from a health care system grappling with us for the first time. we spoke to a number of people in recovery about health challenges they have faced getting older related to substance abuse. >> i am 70 years old. >> i am 58 years old. >> i am 62 years old. >> i am 72 years old. >> i will be 62 years old this

year. >> i do have liver issues from alcohol abuse. >> i have hepatitis c. which is probably from my intravenous drug use. >> i have issues with irregular heart. , fatigue, digestive issues. nosebleeds. >> because of my drug use i lost 40 pounds. >> i have neuropathy in my toes. that has gotten better. right now my eyes are getting blurry. might years, i have tinnitus. arthritis. and then from the intravenous drug use, my leg is so messed up. >> i don't use any kind of

opiates for the pain. i just deal with ibuprofen and handle it. >> just being an addict in general, there is stigma. >> they seem to have a different attitude. we are not bad people trying to get good. we are sick people trying to get well. we can go on and thrive and have beautiful lives if we take it seriously. and make recovery a real commitment in our lives. reporter: she is the author of a recent article about a generation of drug addiction survivors. thank you for joining us.

we heard a second to go from a woman who said we are not bad people trying to get good. we are sick people trying to get better. is that a perception that the people you've talked to have encountered when they try to enter the health care system and get medical care for issues related to their advancing age? >> the stigma attached to this generation of drug use survivors is particularly strong. they will possibly be going to the same hospital they have been to 20 times before and they are often treated as if they are people who cannot get better and they are a drain on the system. often when you will see is a lot of delayed care because folks decide they are not going to show up anymore. when you get to be 72 years old

and you have used serious illicit drugs for your life, those issues build up. reporter: what problems do people tend to have? i wonder if there any commonalities you have come to understand. >> this is a group that by virtue that they exist are really survivors. one of the things that complicates their health is they were using fentanyl on the street. they have been homeless for an extended time. often those situations have worn on their health in general. they have the kind of diseases that come about from intravenous drug use. they are dealing with what has happened to their livers. they have lost their teeth. you lose years of your life to

drug use. there's a lot you might have missed. reporter: is this health care system equipped to help these people in the ways they need help? >> the health care system right now is overburdened as it is. we have not really recovered from the pandemic. they might just now be deciding to truly enter recovery. reporter: because a lot of those people are dealing with a landscape that is very different from a lot of baby >> >> boomer era folks. that is right.

they come from a completely different generation. i have seen some of that play out as well. reporter: that is so interesting. thank you so much. >> thank you. ♪ anchor: finally tonight, scientists say they have tapped into an extraordinary archive of the earth's climate. they hope it will help them understand how the climate changed in the past and how it is changing now and how it may change in the future. each of the last four summers

has been devoted to drilling here. >> working here, as you can imagine, is not easy. we work every day in extreme conditions. the temperature is never higher than -14 fahrenheit. anchor: they got the results they hoped for. they extracted a time capsule roughly 1.2 million years old. it is svitolina the empire state building. it represents a record of the climate. he coordinates the project. >> i will now be able to assess when this started. we will understand when antarctica was completely covered by ice. there is another important

aspect. there is sediment and microorganisms and bacteria that can tell us how life developed in those faraway times. anchor: the same team of researchers and support personnel had drilled an ice core dating back about 800,000 years. it told scientists that greenhouse gas concentrations over that time, even at the warmest times, never exceeded the levels seen since the dawn of the industrial age. he was recently awarded the national medal of science for his career study of ice sheets. he was not involved in this project. he says this new sample is more than just a history lesson. >> the models that stimulate -- simulate the climate, we want them to be as good as possible.

we can see what they do well. it is already really good. this will make it better. ♪ anchor: now on our instagram account, a reporter breaks down what some of trump's campaign rhetoric could mean for his supporters. all of that is more on our instagram account. that is it for this sunday. on monday, the final week of the biden administration before trump moves back into the white house. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

have a good week. >> major funding has been provided by -- >> france set out to make wild -- wireless coverage accessible for all. consumer cellular, freedom calls. ♪ >> the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

>> you are

♪ ♪ how is the patient this morning? your future's at scotland yard. i don't think that's ever been in question. i'm not talking about work. ♪ ♪ bonjour, eliza. there's really no need for you to be here. i'm staying in london until this ship is back on course. william: i'm going to new york. for a year? william: this isn't goodbye. it's goodbye for now. ♪ ♪