PBS News Weekend full episode, May 7, 2023

PBS News Weekend full episode, May 7, 2023

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JOHN YANG: Tonight on "PBS News Weekend," another   deadly mass shooting in America. This  time at a mall outside Dallas, Texas. COLE KORCHEK, Mall Shooting Witness:  There's this guy dressed in all black,   wearing a vest, has an assault rifle,  and he's just shooting at people. JOHN YANG: Then, a new survey sheds light on the  troubling state of LGBTQ youth mental health.   And using language translation technology   is jeopardizing Afghan asylum seekers  claims and even putting lives at risk. (BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening. I'm John Yang. Tonight,  another American community is grappling with the  

aftermath of another mass shooting. This time,  it was at an outlet mall and outside Dallas,   Texas. A gunman identified as 33-year  -old Mauricio Garcia killed eight people   and wounded seven others before a police  officer killed him. Three of the wounded   are in critical condition. None of the  victims has been publicly identified  

yet. The oldest is said to be 61 years  old, the youngest just five years old. Shoppers scurried for safety as the  gunman opened fire during a busy   shopping day in the middle of Texas's  high school prom and graduation season. COLE KORCHEK: Out of nowhere heard about like  ten pops go off and we see the guy there's this   guy dressing all black, wearing a vest, has an  assault rifle, and he's just shooting at people. JOHN YANG: Witnesses said they  heard dozens of rounds fired.

EBER ROMERO, Mall Shooting Witness: Soon I  get out of the store, the Gulf City like,   I don't see nobody. I keep walking.  Everybody like all doors were locked. JOHN YANG: A police officer was at the mall for  an unrelated incident. He heard the gunfire and   rushed to the scene where he shot and killed  the gunman. Then in an all too familiar picture  

bystanders their hands up were led away  as police secured the area store by store. According to the gun safety group, Everytown  more people have been killed in mass shootings   in Texas than in any other state. Barely a week  ago, five people were killed after asking a   neighbor to stop firing a gun because a baby  was sleeping. And just weeks away is the one   year anniversary of the Uvalde School shooting  that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

Texas officials reject suggestions it  has anything to do with the state's   relatively lenient gun laws. Governor  Greg Abbott today on Fox news Sunday. GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R) Texas: We need to recognize  a reality, what we've seen across the United   States over the past year or two, and that is an  increased number of shootings in both red states   and blue states, in states with easy gun laws,  as well as states with very strict gun laws. JOHN YANG: As the tragic cycle of gun  violence touches yet another U. S. Community. According to the Gun Violence Archive,   this was this year's 20th U.S. mass murder  in which four or more people were killed. In Brownsville, Texas, on the Mexican border,   police say an SUV plowed through a  crowd waiting at a city bus stop,   killing seven people and injuring at least 10  others. The bus stop is outside a migrant center,  

and the center's director says most of the  victims were Venezuelan men. The driver was   arrested, and police are trying to figure out  whether it was intentional or an accident. Hot, dry, and windy conditions in western Canada  are fueling more than 100 wildfires, forcing tens   of thousands of people to evacuate from their  homes. The province of Alberta is under a state   of emergency. Fires there have destroyed 20 homes.  Canada's wildfire agency says dozens of fires are   still out of control. Evacuations have also been  ordered in parts of neighboring British Columbia.

Last night's Kentucky Derby, which was  won by Mage, ended an agonizing week at   Louisville's Churchill Downs. Seven horses  died in the days leading up to the Derby,   including two that suffered life  ending injuries in races yesterday.   It's more bad news for the  embattled racing industry. Animal rights advocates are pressing  to do away with it all together,   and online sports betting is  eating into racetrack's revenues.

And California is one step closer to being the  first state to pay reparations to the descendants   of African Americans who are enslaved. A  special task force voted to recommend that   the state legislature approve the plan, which  would include a formal apology for slavery. Payments would also compensate  eligible African American California   residents for health disparities, mass  incarceration, and housing discrimination. Still to come on "PBS News Weekend," how  language translation technology is causing   problems for Afghan asylum, refuge seekers,   and the native Hawaiian who blazed  a trail in surfing and swimming.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: As conservative lawmakers around the  country push anti-LGBT legislation,   some of it aimed specifically at young people,  there's new data underscoring the mental   health and psychological challenges  LGBT youth are trying to cope with. The Trevor Project, which works to end  suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual,   and transgender youth surveyed more  than 28,000 LGBT people aged 13 to 24.   41 percent of them said they had seriously  considered suicide in the previous twelve months.   56 percent said that in the past year they  wanted mental health care but couldn't get it.

And nearly two out of three said that  hearing people talk about proposed   laws banning discussion of LGBT people in  school made their mental health much worse.   We spoke with LGBT young people around  the country to hear their perspectives. AVA SMITH, LGBT Youth: My name is Ava Smith. I'm  18. My pronouns are she, her, and I live in Texas. JAVIER GOMEZ, LGBT Youth: My name is  Javier Gomez. My pronouns are he, him, his.   I'm 19 years old and I am based in Miami, Florida.

ORION BOONE, LGBT Youth: My  name is Orion Boone. I am   17 and I live in Florida. My pronouns are hebay. AYDIN TARIQ, LGBT Youth: I'm Aidan Tariq.  I'm 15 years old. I am a bisexual teenager   living in southern rural Illinois.  I see these attacks. I see these   language used by legislators,  and it makes me very scared.

ORION BOONE: I really do worry introducing myself  as. a trans man nowadays, just because there's so   much animosity towards who I am. I live in a  pretty purple area when it comes to politics,   and I have both been openly supported  and openly called slurs at my school. AYDIN TARIQ: I don't know who's on my  side and who's not. I don't know who's  

going to tell me that I need to fix myself.  I don't know who's going to actually help me. JAVIER GOMEZ: I struggled a lot with  mental health, and a lot of it stems   from me not embracing my queerness and  having a very unaffirming household. AVA SMITH: I haven't been able  to find someone who's queer,   who's a therapist and who I could  feel comfortable listening to. ORION BOONE: I think a lot of people, me  included, have worried about, you know,   mental health professionals and just older  people than us not believing what we tell them. JAVIER GOMEZ: It was just very, very, very   hard for me to get a proper diagnosis,  especially with my socioeconomic background. AYDIN TARIQ: People will leave me in comments  or leave threats of violence in my messages on   social media and those kinds of things. While I  try not to let them get to me, it does affect you.

JAVIER GOMEZ: Knowing that my identity  is something so special that is being   under attack makes me even more  energized to continue fighting. AYDIN TARIQ: A world where LGBTQ plus people  are accepted to me really just looks like love. ORION BOONE: We wouldn't have  to worry walking down the street   holding the hands of our partner or wearing what  we want or proudly presenting as who we are. AVA SMITH: If everyone was  accepted for who they are,   there's nothing wrong that could happen. Like,  I feel like that could only produce good.

JAVIER GOMEZ: I know that a world that  is accepting of LGBTQ plus people is a   world that is realistic. It is our  world, and we need to make it up. JOHN YANG: LGBT youth describing the challenges  they're facing and their hopes. Dr. Jack Turbin   is one of the practitioners who listens closely  to voices like that. He's assistant professor  

of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the  University of California, San Francisco. Among the surveyed population, suicide  ideation, or thinking about suicide,   was twice as high as the general  high school population. Why is that? DR. JACK TURBAN, Assistant Professor, Child  and Adolescent Psychiatry: It seems that the   greatest driver of those mental health  disparities come from stigma. These kids   are constantly being told that who they are is  wrong or that they're less than for being LGBT,   and those things take a dramatic  mental health toll over time. On top of that, a lot of these trans kids are  dealing with physical gender dysphoria, which   is something that we have effective treatments  for but have been harder and harder to access.

JOHN YANG: You know, I think  it's worth pausing for right   here and ask you to explain gender  dysphoria, what gender dysphoria is. JACK TURBAN: Yes, gender dysphoria  refers to somebody having a gender   identity. So their psychological sense of  their gender, that's different from their   sex assigned at birth. So what was written  on their birth certificate? Essentially. Not all trans people have the same experience.  So there are people who have a different   gender identity than their sex assigned at  birth, and they're OK with their bodies,   and they don't need medical interventions.  There are other kids who need different medical   interventions, like puberty blockers,  gender firming hormones, et cetera.

JOHN YANG: Given the political  environment we're in now,   where this has become a pawn in political  fights, what does that do to the young people? JACK TURBAN: There was a time when there wasn't  a lot of political attention on trans youth,   but it's been new the past few years that it's  become really a dominant media political messaging   machine attacking LGBT youth, right. They're  hearing things, especially the trans youth,   like, your identity is a mental  illness. You are dangerous to other   kids on your elementary school sports  teams, or you're a sexual predator. There's tons of data that none of that stuff is  true, obviously, but the kids hear it constantly,   and it seeps into their subconscious. What  if I am just mentally ill? What if I am   dangerous? And you can see how that kind of  gaslighting can really worsen mental health,   especially if they don't have anyone to talk  to about it, because there are so few pediatric   mental health providers available, let alone ones  that are comfortable talking about LGBTQ issues.

JOHN YANG: The survey did find  that transgender and nonbinary   youth in particular are at higher risk for  attempting suicide than their peers. What can   people what can schools, what  can communities do to help them? JACK TURBAN: So, at the macro level, talking  to politicians, if you see a bill introduced   that's attacking LGBT youth, reach out to  your representatives and tell them you oppose   it. Also at the micro level, we know some  of the greatest predictors of good mental   health for trans youth are things like parent  support from peers and support from school. So if you as a parent can just create an  environment in your home where it's clear   that LGBT speople are loved and accepted.  Let's say you see something on the news  

that a bill is introduced that would attack  trans youth. Say out loud to your family,   wow, that's really awful. I can't imagine  how hard that is for those kids. That's   unfair. They deserve to be loved and  supported. And it can even be just  

one small comment like that might stick  in your child's mind. A big part of my   work is working with schools to make sure  they're addressing things like bullying. So the Trevor Project study found that 53 percent  of these kids were harassed in school. Making   sure schools are dealing with that, making sure  kids have bathrooms they're comfortable using,   that they can change for gym, all these  really basic things can help a lot.

JOHN YANG: You mentioned schools. Obviously,  there are a lot of places or Florida leading   the way on the so called don't  say gay laws. Are there things   teachers and administrators can do in their  particular school, their particular classroom? JACK TURBAN: It's really dangerous to not have  kids have access to accurate information about   gender identity and sexual orientation, at  least in their adolescent years. When we   know that a lot of exploring happens, which  is developmentally normal. Right. Kids in   their teenage years explore romance, explore  intimacy, and you don't want them doing that   in secret because then they can do things  that get them into dangerous situations.

So in the same way that you want to create  environment in your home to know that LGBT people   are accepted, you want there to be an environment  where you can talk about gender and sexuality,   and there's not going to be shame, you're not  going to get in trouble. We're just going to talk   about how to keep you safe and make sure that  you're exploring in a way that's appropriate. JOHN YANG: In the voices we just heard, some  of them talk about the reluctance they may   have felt to seek mental health care. Why do  you think that's such a hard step to take? JACK TURBAN: For a lot of reasons. We  even before the COVID-19 pandemic had   a huge shortage of mental health providers.  These LGBT kids also have to deal with this  

double stigma. They have to deal with the  stigma of struggling with a mental health   condition and the stigma of being LGBT. They  have to tell their parents most of the time,   if they want to access that therapy,  they're going to have to tell therapist.

And if you're in a state where all you're  hearing is that LGBT people are less than,   it's going to be really scary to  tell therapist that because you   don't necessarily know what  their views are going to be. And a lot of child psychiatrists don't  take insurance, so it's only the families   that really can pay a few hundred dollars  a session often to be able to access care. JOHN YANG: Dr. Jack Turban from the University of  California, San Francisco. Thank you very much. JACK TURBAN: Thanks for having me. JOHN YANG: Since U. S. forces left Afghanistan  in 2021, the humanitarian situation there has  

gotten worse by the day. This past week, the  Biden administration took steps to allow some   Afghans who fled after the Taliban takeover  to extend their temporary stays in the United   States. But for those still applying  for asylum, it's proving increasingly   difficult. Ali Rogin has more on how some  claims are getting lost in translation.

ALI ROGIN: In Afghanistan today, over 28  million people, two-thirds of the population,   require humanitarian assistance. Six  million people are living in near   famine conditions. Women and girls remain  incredibly vulnerable under Taliban rule,   all of these factors leading many  Afghans to seek asylum here in the US. Now, machine learning technology is  being used to translate the dozens   of languages spoken in Afghanistan.  But a new investigation by the news   organization Rest of World details how  various forms of language translation   technology are creating computer errors  that put asylum seekers lives in danger.

We recently spoke with a translator who  works with Afghan asylum seekers. We've   concealed her identity for her safety  and the well-being of her family. WOMAN: The raise in machine translation and apps  are not only costing translators their jobs,   but quite literally jeopardizing  asylum cases. Like a recent example   of this is a Dari translation done by a machine  mistranslated actually, I as we. This created  

an inconsistency between the asylum seeker  initial interview and what was written in   their asylum application. This consequently  was enough for the judge to reject the case. ALI ROGIN: Joining me to discuss  how translation technology is   putting asylum seekers at risk is Andrew  Deck, who wrote the investigative story,   and Leila Lorenzo, policy director at Respond  Crisis Translation, which provides translation   services for migrants and refugees.  Thank you both so much for joining me. Andrew, I'm going to start with you. Why does the  U.S. government say it's using this technology,   and what do we know about how widespread its uses. ANDREW DECK, Reporter, Rest of World: You  know, in the U.S. as of December 2022,   there was a backlog of 1.6 million  asylum applications. And, you know,  

one way that this technology is framed is a way  to speed up the processing of these applications. But what our reporting bore out is that  it's also a way of kind of cutting corners   in terms of cost, especially, that has long  tail impact on the quality of translations,   and that becomes concerning quickly  when we're dealing with the safety and   security of incredibly vulnerable  communities like Afghan refugees. ALI ROGIN: And Leila, you are indeed  part of this translation community.  

So what are you seeing? What are some  of the problems that the people you're   working with are experiencing  in using this AI technology? LEILA LORENZO, Policy Director, Respond  Crisis Translation: I think that we've   seen a variety of problems with the  translation technology. For example,   with the CBP One app that's used at the border,  there's only a few number of languages that can   be used English, Spanish, and in some cases  Haitian Creole. And we have received reports   here at Respond Crisis Translation  that the Haitian Creole programming,   for example, is mistranslated because  they only use machine translation. And we've seen several instances here at Respond   Crisis Translation of mistranslations  in critical asylum documents that can   result in seriously jeopardizing the  case or completely invalidating them. ALI ROGIN: Andrew, what are some  of the most common problems that   happen when these programs are used to  help with the Afghan asylum process? ANDREW DECK: Machine translation really  struggles with idioms, cultural nuances,   different dialects and slang. And those problems  are only exacerbated with Pashto and Dari.

You know, one translator I spoke with at  Respond Crisis Translation told me that   machine translation tools he'd tested really  struggled with things like military rank in   Pashto and Dari. That's concerning because so many  refugees entering the asylum review process in   the US. You know, they worked closely with U.S.  military and U.S. allied forces in Afghanistan,   which is essential to their claim of  a, say, credible fear of persecution So these kinds of mistakes, they may seem  trivial when we're talking about something   like Google Translate, but we know that  asylum review is a rigorous process where   some of these small inconsistencies,  they can properly jeopardize a claim. ALI ROGIN: Leila, as it happens, many of the  people that were trying to flee the Taliban in   the summer of 2021 were people who were providing  translation and interpretation services for the   United States. Can you tell me about what your  organization is doing to help those people? And also, is it a missed opportunity  for the United States government to   not try to take advantage of  this brain power and at least   help them help us in translating  some of these Afghan languages? LEILA LORENZO: I would shy away from  framing it as a missed opportunity. Rather,  

I think it's actually a failure on the part  of the United States government. This is a   missed opportunity to provide paid work to  families in Afghanistan where translators   may have multiple members, like up to 11  family members that they are supporting   one income and that's what we've directly  observed at Respond Crisis Translation. So our organization is working very hard to  provide paid work, and not only paid work,   but finding ways to circumvent what can only  be described as a collapsed economic system.   And if that's something that Respond Crisis  Translation can do on a very limited budget, that   is something that bigger companies and the United  States government can figure out a way to do.

ALI ROGIN: And to both of you've clearly  laid out some of the problems with using   this technology. Are there any solutions here,   or is the overarching response simply not  to use these automated translation services? ANDREW DECK: I mean, AI is largely an unregulated  sector of the tech industry right now,   and that includes machine translation. As  a result, we're often relying and expecting   right now for private companies to monitor harm  and self-regulate the use of their own products. But ultimately, I think we need to put  the onus on agencies and aid organizations   to more closely investigate and interrogate  the use of this technology and not necessarily   private companies that may be competing  over lucrative government contracts. LEILA LORENZO: Our position at Respond Crisis  Translation is that we do not use machine   translation, and especially in the case of Daddy  (ph) which is an underresourced language, you'll   notice. On Google Translate, it is subsumed under  Persian, and Persian is a language with a dialect   continuum. There is the Persian that is spoken  in Iran, there is the Persian that is spoken  

in Afghanistan, and therefore I find it completely  inappropriate. And that would be the position that   translators who are working in context crisis,  such as Respond Crisis Translation, would hold. ALI ROGIN: Andrew Deck with Rest  of World and Leila Lorenzo with   Respond Crisis Translation. Thank  you both so much for joining us.

ANDREW DECK: Thank you, Ali. LEILA LORENZO: Thank you. JOHN YANG: Finally tonight, as part of Asian  American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,   we're highlighting people whose contributions  have often been overlooked. Tonight,   we spotlight an Olympic swimming champion and the  father of modern surfing Duke Kahanamoku although   his legacy can be seen around the world,  his name is unknown to many outside Hawaii. Duke Kahanamoko was a true son of Hawaii,  completely at home on the waves. He first  

gained national attention as a swimmer,  overcoming both competitors and racism. In 1911,   at Hawaii's first official amateur swim meet,  the 20 year old Kahanamoko shattered the world   record for the 100 yard freestyle by a full  4.6 seconds. But mainland officials refused   to acknowledge his feat. Locals raised money for  Kahanamoko to prove his talent as an Olympian. At the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, he  won a gold medal and a silver. He qualified   for two more U.S. Olympic teams and  won two more gold medals and another  

silver. His achievement in the pool brought  more attention to his surfing exhibitions. On beaches from Los Angeles to Sydney,   he used his longboards made of Hawaiian  koa wood to introduce the world to a sport   little known outside of Hawaii. He also  showed that surfboards could save lives. In 1925, while surfing in Southern California,   he paddled into a stormy ocean and rescued  eight people whose boat was capsized. The   incident was the inspiration for the  rescue boards lifeguards use today.

Kahanamoko also had something of a  movie career. Between 1925 and 1955,   he had small roles in more than a  dozen films. He later returned to   live full time in Hawaii and began a  26-year-career as sheriff of Honolulu.

Kahanamoku is in three sports halls of  fame surfing, international swimming   and U. S. Olympic. Kahanamoku died  in January 1968 at the age of 77,   but he still has a presence on Waikiki  Beach. A nine foot bronze statue erected   to mark the centennial of his birth  invites visitors to ride his waves. Now online, an Instagram story on the  steep decline in 8th grade civics and   history test scores. All that and more  is on our website, pbs.org/NewsHour.

And that is "PBS News Weekend"  for this Sunday. I'm John Yang.   For all of my colleagues, thanks  for joining us. Have a good week.

2023-05-12 12:07

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