PBS Data Weekend fleshy episode, Feb. 3, 2024

♪♪ John: Tonight on pbs news weekend, U.S. Retaliatory strikes on Iran backed militias in the Middle East arid how much more will there be? After deepfake explicit images of Taylor Swift surfaced on social media last week, pressure.

Grows on congress to take action against the phenomenon. And as coral reefs around the world disappear, the drastic measures conservationists are taking to — >> It was an emotional feeling to see these corals we worked with for the past years that are.

Supposed to be in the ocean, that is their home, sitting in these raceways for no other reason than the fact that they have to be there or they would die. ♪♪ major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by –.

>> Cunard is a proud supporter of public television. On a voyage with Cunard, the world awaits. A world of flavor, diverse destinations, and immersive experiences. A world of leisure. And British style.

All with Cunard's white star service. ♪♪ >> And with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. And friends of the newshour. 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. As we come on the air tonight, the United States is carrying out a second wave of airstrikes.

Against dozens of Iran backed houthi targets in Yemen. It is in response to last weekend's drone strike in Jordan that killed three U.S. Troops and injured dozens more. Last night's assaults str uck sites used by Iran backed militias.

Pentagon officials say it took just 30 minutes for b-1 bombers and other U.S. Aircraft to hit more than 85 targets. Iraq and Syria said the attacks killed at least 34 people, both members of Iranian backed militant groups and civilians. Joe Buccino is a retired U.S.

Army colonel. He was the top spokesman at U.S. Central command. Joe, talk about how you designed an event like this, a retaliatory strike like this. On the one hand you want to do something strong enough to get their attention, but on the.

Other hand you don't want to do something to strong. Mr. Buccino: There is a range of options from a low level of violence a high level of violence. At the high level you are talking about strikes inside of Iran.

Low level you are talking about the kind of little precision strikes we have been doing since November. This is — what we have done tonight and last night is in the low to medium range. You present these options to the white house, the Pentagon makes.

A recommendation. Ultimately the national secured counsel renders a decision. John: What does the response from these militant groups tell you? Mr. Buccino: I'm cautiously optimistic. Iran has denounced the strikes.

But have not said anything about a retaliation. There are signals here that Iran wants to pull back on some of these shia proxy groups, that may be they have gotten a little bit out of control or out of control of the senior commander of the quds force in Tehran.

Maybe he wants to pull them back. John: Does he have that control? Is he able to pull them back? Mr. Buccino: You think about because some soleimani — about soleimani, this shadowy figure that controlled these forces for so long.

When he was struck, that really degraded Iran, but it also took away their ability to control these loose groups in Syria, Jordan, Yemen. They have gotten a bit out of control and now he's trying to pull them back. There is concern in Tehran,.

There is concern in D.C., no one wants to escalate, so I'm — John: Some criticized the Biden administration for waiting too long. What do you say to that? Mr. Buccino: I agree. If there is an intellectual thrust of the Biden foreign.

Policy, it's conflict avoidance. And avoidance of escalation, and that is generally a good impulse for an American president. Here, it does not serve us well. For five days we have been talking about this, what we are not going to do. I think it signals to Iran that.

They can continue to push us around, they can continue to strike at our bases, and we will not make them feel pain, because what we do to the houthis in Yemen, what we do to these shia groups in Iraq and Syria, it doesn't really manifest in pain in Iran.

John: Flying bombers halfway around the world, obviously there are operational reasons for this, they carry a tremendous amount of payload, but was there also a message being sent? Mr. Buccino: This is all about a message.

The message is more important than anything you hit many of these groups that you kill — anything you hit, any of these groups that you kill. These b1 bombers can fly under coverage. If you fly inside Iran, you will do that with a b1 lancer.

I think what comes next is you will see more passes in Iraq and Syria, like we did last night. You will see more strikes on the coast of Yemen. Here tonight, we get the capital. I don't think we will do that again.

I think we will hit coastal battery sites. I think this will go for a few days into next week, and then we will see. Then we kind of weight. Did Iran get the message? How will these shia groups respond?.

John: Will it be the same sort of targets? Mr. Buccino: You will see the same targets, the same level of violence. There is a lot more bonkers. These complexes, you think about the east in Syria, these are complexes that have hundreds of.

Bunkers within them. And so there is a lot more targets you could hit there. We hit 85. That is not very much. John: Retired U.S. Army colonel Joe Buccino, thank you very much. Mr. Buccino: Thanks so much for.

Having me. ♪♪ John: The first votes in the democratic race for president were cast today in the south Carolina primary. Polls are still open, but president Biden is expected to win easily.

Mr. Biden wasn't in the state today. He visited his campaign headquarters in Delaware, and is heading to campaign stops in California and Nevada. The Republican primary in south Carolina is later this month. Senate negotiators are closing.

In on a final text of border security legislation. They are now working on the final spending figures for the plan. Senate leaders would like to see votes on the measure next week. No details have been made public.

It will also include money for both Ukraine and Israel. If the measure passes the senate, it would face an uncertain future in the house. Intense forest fires are burning through a densely populated area of central Chile. At least 19 people have died and.

About 1100 homes have been destroyed. There are nearly 100 forest fires burning in central and southern Chile, where it's been unusually hot this week. More troubles for former Pakistani prime minister iran khan.

He and his wife were sentenced to seven years in prison today, after a court ruled that their marriage was illegal because she , his wife, remarried too soon after getting divorced. It's khan's third prison sentence in less than a week. He's also been convicted of.

Leaking classified documents and of keeping state gifts he received while in office. All this means that khan can't run in next week's election. He was ousted from power in 2022, but remains popular. And, for the first time, an Irish nationalist is head of the.

Northern Ireland government. Today, the country's legislature named Michelle o'neill as first minister. She's a member of sinn Fein, the political party that favors the unification of Ireland and northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

Sinn Fein was affiliated with the militant Irish Republican army during decades of violent conflict with unionists, who want to stay in the united Kingdom. Today was the legislature's first meeting after a two-year boycott by unionists.

Still to come on “Pbs news weekend.” The push for congress to take action against ai-generated deep fake images. And, a dive into the drastic measures scientists are taking to save coral reefs from climate change.

♪♪ >> This is pbs news weekend from weta studios in Washington, home of the pbs newshour, weeknights on pbs. John: Deep fake pornography uses technology to make explicit photographs appear to be of someone they're not.

Images using Taylor Swift's face that surfaced recently have brought the problem front and center. Those images were viewed 45 million times before they were removed from the social media platform X. And victims aren't just.

High-profile celebrities. The problem seems to get worse every year as technology becomes more sophisticated and more widespread. The targets can suffer trauma so severe that it can lead to thoughts of suicide. Tech journalist Laurie Segall is.

Founder and CEO of mostly human media, an entertainment company focusing on the intersection of technology and humanity. Who is behind these things? Who does it and what are their motivations? Laurie: It's such a good question.

I think it is a hard answer because there are also boards of people doing this kind of thing, and it is harder to detect. One of the things I worry about, it will be difficult for Taylor Swift to track down the perpetrators who posted those images on X.

The problem with this is now we are creating a completely new arena for abuse, because you have the democratization of these apps that allow you with a couple clicks to create an ai generated pornography of your crush. There's an app that allows you.

To, in a couple seconds, just digitally undress someone. And so we're seeing these apps come out that are not only going to make a whole new generation of victims, but also perpetuate a whole new generation of abusers and of young men who might just think this is a game,.

But it actually has very real harm. John: It's been a phenomenon for a while, but has ai made it easier? Laurie: I remember covering nonconsensual pornography back in 2015, and the state laws had yet to catch up, and I was I.

Just remember thinking, god, this is such a horrific type of harm where, you know, perpetrators go and they post a photo, of an ex on some of these online forums popping up. And it was really difficult for women to fight against this because the laws hadn't caught.

Up. Now, I think one of the reasons I am so concerned about this type of technologically advanced harm is now, you didn't even have to take the photo, right? You could say this isn't real, but it looks very real and it's hard to decipher whether it is.

Or not. And most importantly, the harm is real. John: And you say that there are laws against non-consensual pornography, but are there laws against this, against doing it to somebody you don't know? Laurie: There are a handful of.

Laws at the state level that deal with deepfake pornography. They vary in scope. And I'll give Taylor Swift as an example. She has jurisdiction here in new York. And so she might be able to file criminal or civil charges.

But in order for Taylor to actually go do that, they would have to track down the criminals behind this, which would mean a lot of time and resources that maybe someone like Taylor Swift has, but most people do not have. And a difference with deepfake.

Pornography and the laws that exist here in New York is you have to prove intent to harm. So then Taylor Swift would actually have to go and say, you know, they wanted to harm me, which is harder to do with deepfake pornography. People could say they wanted to.

Make money or gain notoriety. And so those laws that vary in scope aren't similar to the ones with nonconsensual pornography. And there are a lot of nuances that we have to talk about. John: What sort of changes in the laws would you like to see happen?.

Laurie: When this happened, I immediately got on the phone with so many of the women and the lawyers who have been at the forefront of non-consensual pornography and they've been talking about deepfake pornography and the threat for the last couple of years.

And that conversation is even more pressing today. Mary Anne franks, who helps a lot of these victims, said that there's a bipartisan federal bill. This is a federal bill that's been introduced called preventing deepfakes for.

Intimate images, that would actually give recourse, in the right way to victims from both a criminal standpoint, a civil standpoint, laws like that. Separately, I also think tech companies need to be instituting a lot of technology at a quicker rate to be able to fight.

Technology. I almost say it's like ai needs to fight ai. John: The fact that this has now happened to someone as high profile as Taylor Swift — is that going to drive changes in the law? Laurie: I mean, I hope so.

She's created micro economies. People pay attention. She's helped shift, fundamentally shift the music industry because she fought for ownership over her songs. I mean, imagine if someone like Taylor Swift could take on this problem and fight for the future.

Ownership of our bodies online as women? I think I would put my eggs in Taylor Swift's basket. I mean, I hate that this happened to her, but Taylor Swift is just the tip of the iceberg, and I think what happened to her represents a.

Threat for all young women and all girls when it comes to future of our consent online. John: Laurie Siegel of mostly human media, thank you very much. Laurie: Thank you. ♪♪ John: Coral reef ecosystems.

Support a quarter of all the Earth's marine life. But around the world, they are slowly dying under the relentless stress of overfishing, pollution, disease, and climate change. William brangham dives into the steps scientists are taking to.

Try to save corals. It is part of our ongoing series, “Saving species.” William: Just off the Florida keys, an urgent rescue mission continues. These scientists are carefully returning pieces of coral back into the ocean and reattaching.

Them to these tree-like coral nurseries. For the last few months, these corals had to live here — in tanks, on land — because their ocean home was too hot. >> It looked like it was just melting away, and that's something that we had never,.

Ever really observed before on the reefs. William: Bailey Thomasson works with the coral restoration foundation. Last summer, amid a record ocean heat wave machine and — heat wave, she and her colleagues visited Florida's sombrero reef.

And were stunned by what they saw. >> It was like the coral had gotten so stressed from the 90 degree plus fahrenheit waters that had come that week that the tissue just died and it just started sloughing off of of the coral skeleton and we were too.

Late. Without really even saying anything to each other, we gave each other some personal space just to grieve these corals. Grieve what, at that moment, we knew was probably going to be a really hard summer. William: Last year brought on.

What's called a ´mass bleaching event,' when corals lose their vibrant colors because they've expelled the algae that typically lives in its tissue and provides it with food. They're ailing, but not dead. They can bounce back if the water cools.

But, last summer, that relief never came. Marine temperatures off the coasts of Florida were the warmest ever recorded. Manatee bay in late July exceeded 101 degrees fahrenheit, possibly the hottest ocean temperature ever recorded on.

Earth. >> We had ocean temperatures, down in 30 feet to 60 feet of water, that were 92 degrees. That's like hot tub weather. William: Cindy Lewis runs the keys marine lab in long key, Florida. It's typically a research.

Facility, but last summer, it became a triage center. >> What it looked like here in a matter of the first 2 to 3 weeks when they were bringing 5,000 corals and more that were transported through here. It looked like a giant coral mash unit with people running in.

And out with coolers of water and getting corals into their tanks and everything else. William: Keys marine lab and other sites throughout Florida stored thousands of coral specimens in these tanks, known as raceways. They did so not simply to save.

An animal, but to save an entire ecosystem. Coral reefs cover a mere fraction of a percent of the ocean floor, but they are teeming with life, a quarter of all marine life on the planet. >> They are like these submerged rainforests with incredible.

Biodiversity, as much, if not more so, than the Amazon rainforest. William: When corals die, that habitat is lost, often leaving behind only oxygen-choking algae, and making coastlines vulnerable to storms and erosion.

Crf and others felt there was no other choice to save critical corals, whose populations had already plunged by 90% over the last 50 years. >> It was definitely an emotional feeling to see these corals that we've worked with for the past years that are.

Supposed to be in the ocean, that's their home, sitting in these raceways for no other reason than the fact that they had to be there or they'd die. William: The drastic decision to pull these corals out of their habitat and store them on land which had never been done on.

This scale, saved them. And, since October, thousands of corals have been returned to the ocean. But, with the potential of another hotter-than-normal summer this year, it's led scientists to redouble their efforts towards worst-case.

Scenarios. Collecting genetic samples of corals, and storing them permanently in tanks on land as a long-term insurance policy. Even selectively breeding corals to be more heat-tolerant. >> Even though this was something we had never done.

Before, having gone through it, we feel very prepared to sort of pull this sort of rescue and triage mission out again if and when needed. The idea is to not do this again. William: Apart from those efforts to keep corals alive in.

The ocean, here in this stretch of rural Virginia, another effort is underway. They're trying to preserve the biodiversity of corals, but using a very different technique. >> So, we've got our coral in our chamber with our.

Cryo-protectant solution, and what we're going to do now is put it in our rack, and get ready for the plunge into the liquid nitrogen. William: Mike Henley is with the smithsonian's national zoo and conservation biology institute. What is this temperature here?.

>> This is minus 196 degrees celsius, and we just go really quick. William: Wow. He's demonstrating a process known as “Isochoric vitrification” at the institute's bio-repository in front royal, Virginia.

It's taking a fragment of coral, a small colony of polyps, each dot an individual animal, and suspending them in animation at incredibly cold temperatures. So what's happening inside there right now? >> So, as that temperature is dropping, that solution is.

Actually turning into a glass-like state, so that the coral is suspended, and it's frozen without ice, but still alive and can remain that way for, in theory, hundreds if not thousands of years. William: Up until now, this technique has only been used for.

Coral sperm and larvae, not entire, living animals. Were you convinced at the beginning that this was going to work as a technique? >> No, not at all, really. >> It is very much the stuff of science fiction. We're working at the very edge.

Of biology, engineering, and thermodynamics. William: The smithsonian's Mary Hagedorn spearheads this effort to cryo-preserve coral. She spoke to us from coconut island off the coast of oahu, where she lives and works. She said that once a preserved.

Coral is thawed, before it can be reintroduced to the ocean, it has a long road to get back to health. >> I sort of think of it as an open-heart patient that's gone through this rigorous operation, is very stressed and then needs special care to get back home to.

Their family. William: But, while reanimating a preserved coral remains challenging, Hagedorn emphasized that cryo-preservation can do what other conservation methods can't. A single cryo-tank could hold thousands of coral species – far.

More than any “Raceway” tank, and it could theoretically preserve them for years at a stretch. And, the hope is for coral preservation technique to become grassroots. >> For this type of technology, we are going to make it.

Inexpensive and very easy to do. And so, the average professional will be able to do this. We will train them, and they will be able to do it and secure their own reef material. William: So you really do envision an army of people on reefs all over the world taking.

These samples, freezing them locally, and keeping them stored away for this, sort of, worst case scenario. >> Yes. You saw the beginnings of that at front royal. That is the beginning of that army.

William: All of it, Hagedorn says, is for the critical goal of keeping these species alive, well into the future. >> This is what drives me, really, is the threat of extinction and the worry of extinction. I very much want the children.

100 years from now to be able to see a coral reef, if at all possible. You know, it's one of the most extraordinary places on Earth, and it's so critical to our life on Earth. And, I want it to continue. And, if I can play even a small.

Role in that, I am happy to do that. William: Securing one of the most fundamental ecosystems on the planet through an uncertain future. For pbs news weekend, I'm William brangham. ♪♪.

John: We have an update to the breaking news we had at the top of the show about the U.S. Retaliatory strikes against Iran backed houthi militants in Yemen. Tonight defense secretary Lloyd Austin says these strikes were conducted by the militaries of.

The United States and united Kingdom with support from us trillion, Bahrain, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand. He concluded by saying the strikes are meant to send a clear message to the Iran backed houthis that they will continue to bear consequences if they do.

Not end there are legal attacks on international shipping and — their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels. Online, Oklahoma is the latest school system to opt out of the federal summer food program, that provides meals for children.

From low income families while school is out. All that and more is on our website, pbs.org/newshour. And that is pbs news weekend for this Saturday. On Sunday coming Pakistan votes. One of series of consequential elections this year across.

Southern Asia. I'm John yang. For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. See you tomorrow. >> Consumer cellular, this is Sam, how may I help you? This is a pocket dial. Well, somebody's pocket, thought.

I'd let you know with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. That is kind of our thing. Have a nice day. ♪♪ John: 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. ♪♪ ♪♪.

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