♪ john: tonight on "pbs news weekend," hours before a ceasefire and hostage release deal between isreal and hamas is to go into effect, the isreali prime minister says a last-minute snag could delay the pause in the deadly 15 month war. then, nearly 75 years after ethel rosenberg was executed for espionage, a recently declassified document has her sons pressing president biden for an apology.

in a once popular therapy to treat menopause got a bad name decades ago and still has not recovered. >> they've been miserable for so long, for no good reason. we have some great therapies for them so that people can lead totally normal lives. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. >> in 1995, 2 friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible to all. with no long-term contracts, nationwide coverage in 100% u.s.-based customer support, consumer cellular for your calls. ♪ >> 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. just 12 hours before the ceasefire between hamas and israel is to go into effect, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said it would not go forward until hamas made good on its agreement to provide a list of the hostages they're going to release. netanyahu also said that israel could resume fighting if negotiations over future steps faltered, a position he said had the support of president-elect trump.

>> as soon as he was elected, president trump engaged in the mission of freeing the hostages. he spoke with me on wednesday evening and welcomed the agreement and rightly emphasized that the first step of the agreement is a temporary ceasefire. we reserve the right to return to war if necessary with the backing of the united states. john: even as netanyahu spoke, the israeli military prepared to receive hostages and to deliver much-needed aid to gaza, devastated by 15 months of war. anshel pfeffer is israel correspondent for the economist. mr. netanyahu said he could not move forward without a list from hamas, is this a hiccup or something more serious? mr. pfeffer: based on what we saw when we had the previous large lease of hostages, this is the kind of perhaps technical glitch or last-minute attempt by hamas to exert some kind of

psychological warfare on the israeli public, but, usually, lists are handed in on time, and as we saw, it varies. i think was the deal is signed, we will see hostages released in the cease-fire, at least the first stage of the cease-fire, taking place. john: walk us through. it is supposed to have several phases, what is supposed to happen in the first that is supposed to begin tomorrow? mr. pfeffer: this is a phase in which every week there will be a number of israeli hostages released, and israel will release hundreds from their jails, and on the ground in gaza, the israeli will stop attacking hamas targets, and there will be a gradual withdrawal of hostages and

palestinians displaced will be allowed to return from their homes or what is left from their homes, and they are supposed to be talks between israel and hamas over the next stage, which is a full cease-fire, and further third stage, which is reconstruction of gaza. john: what are the challenges about this, which sounds tougher than a complete withdrawal from gaza. mr. pfeffer: there is a question of what kind of security guarantees and security agents will be in place. from hamas' perspective, does it assume full control of gaza? will there be an alternative force coming in to work on security? egypt has a border with gaza, what is the status going to be on the crossing between gaza which israel controls. if israel is not there, does hamas control it to somewhere else?

all of these things that continue to be the subject of talks, and there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong, and that move from the first and second stage is what everybody is looking for and it is fraught with difficulty. john: what are the israeli pledges on aid for gaza? mr. pfeffer: according to the deal, 600 trucks a day, so that is basically returning to the pre-october 7 levels and a bit higher because gaza is not there anymore, and for that, there's a higher need of aid. we are talking 42 days in which there is a guarantee of aid going in, the question is what happens next. john: thank you very much. in other news, popular social media app tik tok says it will

go dark for its 170 million u.s. users tomorrow -- but it may only be for a day. president elect trump said he will "most likely" give the app a 90-day reprieve from a law banning it once he takes office on monday. that came in a phone interview with nbc news. despite that, tiktok said it still wants further assurances from the biden administration since it will be in charge tomorrow when the ban is to take effect. work is underway to move president-elect trump's inauguration into the capitol rotunda because of sub-freezing temperatures. it's the first time the ceremony will be held indoors since 1985. as crews prepare the capitol, mr. trump left his mar-a-lago resort headed for washington. he's set to watch a fireworks show at trump national golf club in sterling, virginia. he'll spend tonight and tomorrow night at blair house, across from the white house. meanwhile, thousands braved cold and wet conditions in downtown d.c. to express their anger and disappointment about the incoming administration. russian drones and missiles attacked the ukrainian capital kyiv overnight, as the future of u.s. aid to the country under the new admininstration remains

uncertain. at least three people were killed and three more injured. a metro station and a water pipeline were among the targets hit. other regions of the country were also targeted with missiles and drones, some of which the ukrainian army said it shot down. the deadly fires in los angeles are far from over, despite improving conditions. the larger of the remaining two blazes, the palisades fire, is only 43% contained. this as new reporting shows evacuation orders didn't reach palisades residents until 40 minutes after homes were already on fire. that's according to an associated press analysis of emergency communications. and artists in the city known for creativity and entertainment say they've lost their livelihoods, too. >> our primary goal is getting people like triage money for just whatever the most emergent need is. i don't have any clothes anymore . i left with two pairs of socks.

my credit card needs to be replaced and i need to set up a p.o. box to receive mail while i'm kind of bopping around temporary housing. john: the palisades and eaton fires have burned more than 40,000 acres in all. they're blamed for at least 27 deaths, a number that's expected to go up. still to come on "pbs news weekend," the new reason why the family of ethel rosenberg is pushing the white house to exonerate her more than 70 years after her execution. and, how a decades old study continues to cast a shadow on hormone therapy treatment for women experiencing menopause. ♪ >> this is "pbs news weekend," from weta studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour, weeknights on pbs.

john: as president biden leaves office, he's been exercising his presidential clemency powers. just this week, he commuted nearly 2500 non-violent drug offenders' sentences. it was, he said, “an important step toward righting historic wrongs.” he's also being asked to right what some see as another historic wrong and exonerate ethel rosenberg. she and her husband, julius, were executed in 1953 after being convicted as soviet spies in a sensational atomic espionage case at the height of the cold war red scare. while historians regard julius rosenberg as a soviet spy, his wife's role has been debated for years. and a document declassified last year is seen as the strongest evidence yet of her innocence. robert meeropol is the younger son of julius and ethel rosenberg. he and his brother michael have worked for decades to clear their mother's name. first, can you tell us about this document, what is it and what does it say? mr. meeropol: what is remarkable

about this document is first of all who wrote it. that is meredith gardner, who was the chief descriptor can be considered to be the heroic spy catcher who broke the soviet codes and which led to the arrest of certain people. now, what he said in this memo about my mother, she knew about her husband's work, but due to ill health, did not engage in the work itself. and earlier in the memo, he described her husband's work that my father, julius rosenberg, as is fine. so what we have here is a definitive pronouncement by the chief decrypter at the time of my mother's arrest that she was not a spy. and what's remarkable about this document is it dovetails with earlier work that merideth gardner did in decrypting what are called the venona transcriptions of soviet spy

cables, in which it was noted that the kgb gave all of its agents codenames. but ethel had no codename. john: armed with this new evidence, what do you want the president to president biden to do, and where does that process stand as he is about to leave office? mr. meeropol: well, ideally, we would like president biden to apologize for the wrongful conviction and execution of my mother. but the reality is is whether you're going to call it an exoneration or a pardon or an apology, any step major step that he takes to show that my mother was wrongfully executed would be a remarkable step in the right direction. and we know that the pardon office has our material, that it

is under consideration, so we're kind of sitting on edge in the last few days of biden's administration knowing that we might not hear anything until almost the last minute, but we remain hopeful. john: i should note that there are been historians who read that document in other ways. mark kramer directs harvard's cold war studies project. he told pbs news the declassified soviet and u.s. documents make clear that the august 1951 document that's the document we're talking about, change nothing. the rosenbergs were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage, and both of them were indeed guilty of that crime. the punishment was unjust, but the guilty verdict was fully justified. what do you say that? mr. meeropol: well, this is a historian who's made his career claiming that ethel and julius rosenberg were both guilty spies. and when you have a definitive statement that comes out like this from the chief decryptor

that says, no, she was not a spy, it is very difficult for them to admit like it's difficult for a lot of people that they were wrong, particularly when it's based on their careers. in fact, it's kind of embarrassing because the reality is what this historian is saying is that he knows better than the kgb, who was a kgb agent. john: now, this is not the first time or first evidence to suggest your mother's innocence. within the past decade, there have been others. what else has come up? mr. meeropol: well, that's this is, you know, this particular memo is kind of like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle that my brother and i have been putting together for 50 years. we filed our first freedom of information act lawsuit in the mid-1970's.

and the one of the first set of documents we got were justice department and fbi documents saying the case against ethel rosenberg was weak, but we should arrest her so we can use her as a to -- as a "lever," to force her husband to cooperate. so that's the first needle in the haystack. then we find out that at the trial, the people the only people who testified against my mother uh, david and ruth greenglass uh, gave oral testimony. there's no physical evidence, and it turns out that they swore the opposite before the grand jury. david greenglass said he never even talked to my mother about spying we know that the only , so we know that the only evidence presented against her was by proven perjurers. now, that said, judge kaufman in sentencing her to death, said she was a full fledged participant in this crime. and yet a mother of two young children ends up executed for something that she did not do. john: mother of two young children. you and your brother were quite young when when your parents were arrested.

what are your memories? mr. meeropol: well, you know, i was three at the time of my parents arrest, so i don't really have many specific memories of that. most of my memories come from visiting them in prison, and they were kind of calm affairs. they weren't hysterical. they wanted me to think things were normal and i wanted them to be normal, so they fooled me and i was easy to fool. john: what would a presidential apology mean to you and your brother? mr. meeropol: it would mean a tremendous amount. it's not only a personal thing for us. people could understand why the children of people convicted of this kind of crime would try to clear their names for personal reasons. but this is more than personal. the reason this travesty occurred and my mother was wrongfully executed was because of the politicization of the justice department and the american judicial system during the great red scare of the early

1950's. we now face a very similar situation where the justice department and the rule of law are under threat. so this could not be more timely to show how the judicial process can be abused. it will help to prevent it from happening in the future. john: robert meeropol, one of the sons of ethel rosenberg, thank you very much. mr. meeropol: thank you. ♪ john: menopause is a chapter in women's lives that brings a myriad of what can be debilitating medical issues that can last for more than a decade. it's an area of medicine that for years has been overlooked and underfunded. isabella jibilian of rhode

island pbs weekly has our story, which is part of our ongoing series, "unequal treatment". >> it was for no reason. the only one i was not mad at was the dog. >> artist tonya glover was 45 when she noticed symptoms she cannot explain. >> the anxiety big time was the worst, the night sweats, the irregular periods, the heavy periods. i just felt like i was losing it a little bit, and a friend of mine said something about premenopausal and i was like, what is that? >> it is a familiar story for dr. mary jane, a gynecologist with d.l. school of medicine. >> perimenopausal symptoms can be extraordinary destructive to women. >> go symptoms can include increased anxiety, hot flashes, migraines, badging dryness, insomnia, and changes in sexual desire -- vaginal dryness,

insomnia, and changes in sexual desire and cannot be taken seriously -- and could not be taken seriously. >> they have been miserable for so long for no good reason. we have great therapies for them. they can lead totally normal lives. >> but those therapies are underused because the traditional treatment, hormone replacement therapy, developed a bad reputation in 2002, when doctors at whi, the women's health initiative, changed everything. >> i remember where i was when jfk was shot and 9/11 and on july 9, 2002. >> it raised questions on therapies using estrogen, which had been used as an effective treatment since the 1940's. researchers divided about 27,000 women into two groups. women who had hysterectomies or given estrogen or a placebo.

women who still had their uterus's were given estrogen and a synthetic version of progesterone or a placebo. >> it was supposed to go on for over 10 years. >> dr. renee is the director of the menopause program at women and infants hospital in rhode island. she explained a worrisome finding that stopped the study dead in its tracks. >> after five years, there was noted to be a statistically increased risk of breast cancer in the women who took the estrogen plus the synthetic progesterone. that study made it onto the front page of the new york times. it was the topic of talk shows. the number of prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy decreased by 85%. those numbers have not rebounded. >> today, instead of estrogen, tonya glover relies on antianxiety medication for her depression and anxiety. >> it has taken the edge off.

that is it though. [laughter] it is still there. i probably could not do a regular job. i don't think i could handle it, and that is not an option for a lot of people. >> do you ever consider hormone therapy? >> i consider it. my doctor told me most insurances don't cover it, and it is pretty expensive. and, you know, you hear about the cancer risks. i don't know who to believe. >> what to believe about the whi study has been the question for the last 20 plus years. >> the actual increased numbers of breast cancer was only eight women out of every 10,000, so from a clinical standpoint, it was questionable from what was actually significant. >> and the findings were skewed because the study included women in their 70's.

>> women who enrolled, the average a was 63. the average age of menopause is 51. so you had women who were postmenopausal. >> it has taken decades for hormone therapy's reputation to rebound. last may, study published in the journal of the american medical association found that hormones were safe for many women under 60. >> for women who are at low risk of propria candidates for hormone therapy, hormone therapy is very safe when you look at the risks versus the potential benefits associated with it. we no longer tell women that they absolutely are or are not candidates for hormone therapy, but rather have individualized discussions with patients and take a look at their past medical history. >> but the doctor says many doctors are not prepared to give this kind of guidance after being trained under the flawed findings of the whi study.

>> because women stop using estrogen, most programs training residents and other specialties basically stopped teaching how to manage it. >> so they did not think they had any treatment options and therefore they stopped teaching about menopause altogether? >> exactly. last year, 70% of the ob/gyn programs were not teaching menopause management. >> even with safer treatments, two decades after the whi study, many patients don't believe their symptoms can be treated safely. but there are signs that changes happening. >> why is such a critical part of women's health being ignored? >> it is getting increased attention on social media. >> good morning. >> to your periods just stop in menopause? >> and the highest levels of government.

last march, president biden signed an executive order to expand women's health research, noting menopause as a particular area of interest. ♪ >> this is a hot flash. >> now, a non-hormonal drug is available, even advertise during last year's super bowl. as for tonya glover, it has been a long, turbulent phase of life. how many years has it been now? >> at least 10 of perimenopause. i have not had a period since last march, so i'm like a week or two away from full-blown menopause. >> how does that feel? >> i do not want to jinx it. but it feels like relief is around the corner. i need that. >> for pbs news week and, isabella jibilian in providence,

rhode island. ♪ john: a look at the presidential transition from biden pick trump, and the legacy that president biden leaves behind. all that and more is on this week's edition of "pbs news weekly." and that is pbs news weekend for this saturday. tomorrow, he look at the history of outgoing presidents leaving personal notes for their successors. 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 -- ♪ >> 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. ♪ ♪

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gates: i'm henry lewis gates jr. welcome to "finding your roots." in this episode, we'll meet talk show host, joy behar and actor michael imperioli, two americans who are about to learn the secrets of their italian ancestors. behar: i mean it's almost incestuous what we're talking about here.