the photos of the what do you need for us to get stuck into the in the phrase go in a little bit when you look up. first the good news in 1965 more than 40 percent of americans smoked cigarettes and now it's down around 14 percent the bad news many particularly young adults have swapped their marlboros and newport's for joy pods and vapor pens and the no window in journal of medicine has estimated that a 5th of all 10th graders and a quarter of 12th graders use electronic cigarettes even middle school kids are vague thing unbeknownst to many parents and the national institute of drug abuse

reports that nearly a 3rd of teens who start using e's cigarettes begin smoking traditional tobacco products within 6 months they ping is a story we've been covering ever since i came to our to america almost 4 years ago we've reported on lawsuits against manufacturers of electronic cigarettes that have exploded and more recently the u.s. house of representatives passed the reversing the youth tobacco epidemic act which seeks to ban sales of all flavored vapor and tobacco products in a statement the food and drug administration predicts that banning menthol the last allowable flavor in cigarettes and banning all flavors and cigars will help save lives particularly among those disproportionately affected by these deadly products who are those disproportionately affected and with menthol. accounting for

one 3rd of all cigarette sales how will big tobacco fight back let's ask attorney sara papen tonio of the 11 papen tonio rafferty law firm sara right off the bat this looks contentious proponents of this ban point to those disproportionately affected as the 85 to 90 percent of african american smokers and vapors prefer an menthol products while oh ponens civil rights groups fear over policing of black communities lots to unpack here sarah where do you see all this headed. well to start holland this ban has the potential to encourage 1000000 people to quit smoking has the potential to save a lot of lives just by banning a flavor of tobacco so this shouldn't respond as a racial injustice issue should be viewed as a great step forward to promoting public health and preventing unnecessary deaths among minority communities but the real reason that minorities are being dispersed

and only affected by this menthol ban is because minority communities are being print disproportionately targeted by the tobacco industry the travel industry aggressively marketed to these communities because they're one of the last strongholds of this industry relies on to make their money so honestly on i want to be surprised if there are actually tobacco industry that was pushing this racial narrative these cut because these companies are going to do whatever they can to keep cigarettes on the market but we've got to break down exactly how this man felt and works because like you said many fear that the result of this will be over policing of the black community but that's not really going to be the case based on my evaluation of that and that's because this ban isn't forcible only against manufacturers and distributors and whole cell sellers of cigarettes it's not going to be enforceable against the individual holders of cigarettes so what we're really going to see is over policing of the tobacco industry which is good rather than over policing of individuals which is going to be a huge step in the right direction right now i'm glad you said spawn because back in olden times when there were billboards by the side of the road for cigarettes

you saw the newport billboards in the hood and the marlboro billboards elsewhere so i think you put your finger on it when you said spawn several years ago responding to public outcry the food and drug administration banned cartridge based fruit or mint flavored e's cigarettes after waffling on the issue for several months then president trump f. bomb to his health and human services secretary in the oval office and after meeting with representatives of the ease cigarette industry who were. cerned about their industry and cautioned by his campaign that vaporing was popular in certain key states trump went swab speak proclaiming we're going to protect our families our children and we're going to protect the industry just this past march allegheny county became the 2nd county in pennsylvania to ban east cigarette use in

public spaces to applause from the university of pittsburgh medical center health experts there and elsewhere dispute manufacturers claims that they being as they say for alternative to tobacco cigarettes and that vaporing help smokers quit and that exhaled vapor does not contain the same dangerous toxic gases as secondhand tobacco smoke sarah an appeals court in indiana struck down part of a similar law there with all the big money that big tobacco can spend on lawyers are bands like these just inherently fragile. well 1st i got to point out exactly how this industry is spending the narrative like we said they've been is not a safer alternative to cigarettes in fact what we found is that there can be up to 8 times the amount of nicotine in a single puff of that you cigarette versus

a out of a regular cigarette and that's not even to mention all of the carcinogens that are found in this baby in liquid so it's not a safe will say for our alternative to the traditional cigarette is just a narrative that this industry is spinning and they contend you to spin this narrative because they're so desperate to create this new generation of addicts right that's the classic tobacco business model that we've seen over the years let's get people addicted but specifically let's get children infected that's getting addicted without flavored nicotine so easy i mean if you are pushing hundreds of thousands of dollars into schools in an effort to promote pain they're telling people it's safe and it's become a serious issue among teens we see we see the increase in babying rise substantially so luckily states are pushing this legislation because they recognize that the cigarette manufacturers are targeting our children they're targeting young kids middle school kids so we're going to continue to see cities fighting back and states fighting back and that's good but not all of them are going to be successful

because you know it really is going to just depend on the nature of the legislation that's proposed and it's going to depend on the jurisdiction that it sends and of course that's going to depend on whether or not we can overcome the thousands of dollars hundreds of thousands of dollars that these industries fund and their legal team to try to overcome these hurdles. you know that brings to mind something else because recreational cannabis is now legal in what 17 states i speak to you from providence rhode island where up and down interstate 95 there is a billboard war going on between the just over the state line and massachusetts we need stores and no government seems to be resisting this because everyone needs the tax money do you foresee a backlash against legal weed. it's all going to depend on what the federal government does like we say when you're traveling over interstate borders that it does become sort of an issue because you know if it's

legal in one state not legal another then you run into interstate commerce the issue but it's really going to have to come down to uniformity across the states when we find a solution and i think like you said states are so willing to accept it because because they're seeing huge profit rises in medical marijuana so it's really going to be interesting to see what the federal government decides and how this issue develops over time and at the moment these weed retailers have a real problem because the banks don't want to do business with them sarah papen tonio levon papen tonio rafferty thank you as always for stepping into the big picture throughout the pandemic we've spotted silver linings and here's a big one centers for disease control and prevention reports only about 2000 not a misprint or only about 2000 influenza cases in the usa since september this is a rounding error compared to the recent years 200000 plus average as flu season

was looming various doctors we interviewed warned of twin demick just because the cove it is here doesn't mean that flu is taking a year off that guess what flu did pretty much take a year off when businesses and schools closed and we were staying home and social distancing and were washing our hands like crazy and we had to hand sanitizer in the masts and eager for a coronas vaccine many who didn't usually get a flu shot got one this year back in november as the flu season was looming we asked vanderbilt 'd university dr william schaffner if like flu cove it could become endemic meaning that it's with us for a keeps. it's. heart of our life influenza is endemic even though it's seasonal it's it lives with us this virus it

becomes more active in the late fall and through the winter then it baits during the spring and the summer but it comes back so it's just part of the life we live you know we do live in a very very germy world so that's what that means the question regarding cove it is is this now a virus that we're going to have to live with henceforth at the moment it looks that way. so you got your jab this year you're probably going to need one next year as the usa reopens influenza outbreaks could be more widespread than usual or they could happen out of the usual flu season or the opposite because flu didn't get a chance to spread much this year it didn't get a chance to evolve and mutate and fool us so stay

tuned coming up after settling for staycation last year you deserve one this year but the wise guys are already plotting how to rip you off we have a scale model alert from stephen j. j. wiseman right after the break this is the big picture on our key american. major questions birth new questions. numbers as stars and lists as the sea and bring all in so just.

lift your. remains in question. 'd 'd i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories there are critics can't tell you know why because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change you have to. be honest you have to tell the truth artie's able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there so the american public what's happening when a corporation makes a pharmaceutical chills people when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river that causes chancer and other illnesses they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week

and you know what they're working on. it's called the field we don't believe. everything the world should experience. and you get it on the old the old. the old according to gesture. welcome our moral come along for the rock. we earthlings have managed to litter mother earth into a huge heap of plastic and the sky's the limit.

not trust. us. don't worry that's not nasa video but hollywood warned us it's a mess up there what if anything can we do to clean up all this celestial old junk and how bad is it up there let's ask the co-author with j.l. pickering of the hansom picturing apollo 11 rare views and undiscovered moments and the space age presidency of john f. kennedy a rare photographic history and coming in august picturing the space shuttle the early years rare views of the beginnings of an historic space program that are in

space journalist john business if you keep writing these books i'm going to have to buy more coffee tables welcome back to the big picture thanks so much home great to be here. october for 1957 was the starting gun the u.s.s.r. launched sputnik the 1st artificial satellite in the 1st manmade object to orbit earth and the space race was underway since then more than 40 countries have launched nearly 9000 satellites and most of them are still up there john can any of the stuff that's up there come crashing down here. well some of it can fall into depends on probably how big it is smaller objects simply burn up in the earth's atmosphere because of the reentry the friction with the atmosphere so a lot of small things eventually don't cause problems at all we know a limited lifetime but

a larger object obviously can cause some problems and there been a few cases of this now very few of them on land or 3 fifths of the earth's surface is covered by water so that's where most of the stuff that does make it through the atmosphere comes down there was about 5 you have these sailors who are injured believe it or not in a boat in 169 by some space debris there was a woman in oklahoma who had her shoulder injured she got hit by something but this is really really super rare there's been no appreciable property damage that's been reported the concern really holland is more about what's going on with the space junk in space as opposed to coming down here bothering us well what up there is imperiled up there could the international space station suffer what was depicted in that movie clip or what about the g.p.s. and the communication satellites we depend on. yeah i know the movie is a movie is

a little bit over the top we can talk about gravity sometime when you have a couple of hours but as far as the actual space stations up there it like a lot of us satellites is covered by something protected by something called a whipple she'll without going into too much detail it's a very thin layer of material that won't essentially protect the eye assess but it slows down and dissipates the impact of objects and that's really for smaller pieces of space junk invisibility piece of space junk then they have some time to prepare because nora head and nasa tracked a lot as much of this stuff as they can and they will tell the space station crew something's going to happen you know and 3 days move just your your jets and move just a little bit out of the way and you'll avoid it you'll be fine now son and that's happened about once

a year in the 15 times i assess has been in orbit but sometimes something comes up unexpectedly they don't have as quite as much time to prepare and they have told the astronauts and cosmonauts get into the soyuz spacecraft is attached to the station and shelter in there in case there's a problem you'll be able to go home but that's never been a real serious ringback problem no satellites are a different story because they're unmanned the women have been over ability and yes they are definitely some of them in some real danger we've only had one big known collision between 2 satellites if the pieces of junk from other watches that can affect them and the real problem on the might happen is something called the castle or syndrome where you get a cascading effect things bump into each other they break up they break up they break up and now you've got an unbelievable debris layer. in certain

altitudes so that's very much. a plate of scientists and engineers there were a bit and they're starting to think about what to do about now who put the car up there was it a one mosque that set up a test lower the astronaut damiana yes yes absolutely talk about intentional space junk is that a safer elevation or altitude that's probably not the right word but did they know where to park the car so it wouldn't be a menace. well i believe that car is headed in the escape velocity to earth orbit so it's sailing out to get toward the mars somewhere and doesn't present any real risk to us but. there are a lot of ideas floating around as to how we can deal with this problem everything from harpoons maybe a small satellite fly up next to one with

a magnet or off a grab onto it and then either pull it down into a lower orbit where it would decay and burn up or maybe push it up into what's called a graveyard orbit where it's a high enough above and separated from the satellites that it won't because of the problems but if you might expect i mean think of this very much as like. you mentioned the plastic in the sea everybody thinks out the sea is big throw junk in there who cares with space the even bigger problem because they have a space that you care well we do care you know we talked about orbital problems but now try to imagine that legal and political problems involved in this who owns it who is responsible who pays for it what happens to this top what if you you know nudge somebody else's satellite accidentally there's a whole myriad of thing sort of like a lot to see with this pal if we're going to have this tell if moral laws say to

cover all the uncertainties that will happen once a good method developed to try to clean up some of this junk and we're still a long way from having an effect a way to do that. we are speaking with author and lifelong space journalist john business who is with us as the perseverance rover set down on mars and as the helicopter drone ingenuity 1st flew and in a subsequent flight it grabbed a photo of the rover down below and we could see the rovers tracks on the martian surface john i got a couple of minutes left but i saved them for an update on the mars mission what's going on up there now yeah well that little helicopter has proven so successful that nasa has now extended its mission is not just a technology demonstrator anymore it's going to be called operational the most recent flight you mention it went up to 16 feet and then headed south for about 450

feet then it came back and landed near perseverant so they have a lot of confidence now in its abilities to move around a little bit the next flight. be the 1st flight would be decided on a one way trip out to a new landing spot spot sat down and then wait for the rover to catch up on this ok and the one who will the procedure of your days and find out where the helicopter is meet up with the eventually check this out the goal is to have them operate in and move around mars and have the helicopter the room service sort of a scout for for the perseverance for over so it's all terrific technology and people are just thrilled because we're so well. that it's so cool because you remember the suspense about with the atmosphere so thick and those blades spinning so fast could it even get up and the fact that it's moved beyond concept and that are now going to do these maneuvers i think we're going to end up learning

a lot more than we might have correct. oh i think that's right now they know it can be declared operational for example they can send it to a certain spot and say it has to still cameras no t.v. camera but it can use the cameras to take stereo images of the living cibolo and then on the earth we can put it together and form a will 3 d. image and get a much better eye view of the. future landing sites or more probes sure and the drone of course can go places that there would be tricky to arrange for the rover john you are not the only space buff who has scoffed at the movie gravity i appreciate your time thank you for stepping into the big picture i remember a tale of woe from several summers ago about a vacation rental property nearby here in provincetown out on cape cod the scam stor was apparently collecting deposits on a handsome rental property that he or she did not own and people kept showing up

with all their beach stuff so often that the real occupants of the property had to stick a sign on the front door that says you've been ripped off can you imagine the heartbreak in high season with nothing else of vailable getting stranded out there this is happening everywhere year around now here's a sign posted on a home in florida. magine just imagine that that happened to you attorney. professor author and ace scam buster stephen jay jay wiseman give us some do's and don'ts for booking vacation rentals on line. again my motto trust me you can't trust anyone and this is something where i actually followed my own advice and found a scam when i was looking for a vacation rental the key thing here is people book everything online and it's very

very easy for a scammer to just copy a legitimate vacation site and the thing is even if you're going on one of the wheel regular big cation websites are below and others you can't be sure that it's legitimate because they get fooled as well here is the one tip that you want when they 1st of all you don't wire money because if you wire money and they get it it's gone if it's a scam but the big thing is you go online to the tax assessor's office for the city or town where that property is supposed to be if that does not match the person who is asking you to send money either to that person or to that address you know it's a scam so easy to do all of the tax assessor's their offices are online you just match him up if they match your ok use a credit card don't use

a debit card don't wire don't use a gift card but if you do that you should be in good shape. smart stuff steve's website is scam aside dot com and his scam of the day alert can save you a lot of heartache and that is the big picture we're going to be back next time same time next week if you watch us live and if you want to set the d.v.r. it's direct t.v. channel 321 on the dish dish where 2 ages 0 our lives stream feed is youtube dot com slash r t america and all of my shows are archived youtube dot com slash the big picture our team and our our team cast of thousands is on the super cool portable t.v. app you can download free a google player at the app store or a portable dot t.v. m holland cook question more.

everyone i'm joined by my old friend mr ellis williams can't miss the big you call me and you tell me he said man i got cards you know and it works when they ain't you're getting just old issues and i know demanding fresh warrants for years both run out i don't want to do stuff with expensive car right so i could have cost him a cool cover of a very affordable and there was no more time contra a few months after that transmission went on one of the through my mechanic call cautious to save my family $2400.00 car shield is america's number one auto protection company there administrators have paid out over a $1000000000.00 in claims and cover most vehicles from 500-215-0000 miles you'll receive 247 roadside assistance courtesy towing rental reimbursement and know what

dish will charge give car show the. call today before it's too late remember cost rule calls go fall to protect yourself now against expensive auto repair bills 805893761. guys i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how archie america fits into the greater media landscape our team is not laughter i'm all right we are a solid alternative to the. liberal or conservative and as you can see his bar graph wheel it skewed the facts either the talking head lefties talking at righties oh there you go above it all to look at world r.t. america is in the spotlight now every really i have no idea how to classify it as when it actually took me way more time than i care to admit.

just. want to make. sure. the world according the which airs. today we discuss why congress is exacerbated the series that the corona virus may have accidentally leaked from a research lab in china we also talk about escalating violence between israel and palestine sit tight the show starts around. the war. machine high ambrosia to santos for our top story today several members of congress are investigating the possibility that the virus that

causes the disease coated 19 may have accidentally leaks from the ruhani institute of allergy in china where coronavirus research is conducted now as a reminder the 1st cases of covert 1000 were reported in late in december of 2019 well it's been over one years since the pandemic began the specific origins of the pandemic remain a mystery so let's take a look at the 2 leading theories the 1st theory is that the virus naturally jumped from an animal host to humans be a mutation that's what caused these sars one pandemic in 2002 and the mers pandemic of 2012 the 2nd theory is that the virus escapes naturally through some sort of lab accident yet people are often called conspiracy theorists for entertaining the very real possibility that these sars kovi to a virus may have accidentally leaks from the one lad.