February 26, 2023 - PBS News Weekend full episode

JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, as the war in Ukraine enters its second year, Nick Schifrin reports from the battle weary nation on efforts to not just fight but rebuild.

MAN (through translator): We are hopeful, we're confident that we will win this war that our lives will be good.

JOHN YANG: Then the pandemic has seen a big increase in sleep loss and the use of medications to tackle it.

We learn about the best practices when you have trouble sleeping, and a Missouri law barring police from enforcing some federal gun laws is creating confusion.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening, I'm John Yang.

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its second year, Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country cannot ignore the nuclear capabilities of both the United States and NATO countries.

In an interview he repeated his claim that NATO and others want to see Russia suffer a strategic defeat.

His comments came as Russian state news released drone footage showing devastation to the city of Bakhmut, where frontline fighting has been fierce.

The Ukrainian military says battles there are going on and Russia has been unsuccessful in its offensives.

Meanwhile, in a weekend marked with war commemorations, Ukrainians gathered in Odesa to remember volunteer soldiers who have lost their lives over the past year.

TETYANA VDOVICHENKO, Mother of Fallen Soldier (through translator): He decided on his own to join the Territorial Defense Battalion.

He worked for eight years as a sailor, but he then told me his nerves couldn't take it any longer.

I said, Son, we're at war who told you to join the battalion.

He told me who else would defend you mother if not me.

JOHN YANG: Later in the program, a look at Ukraine's efforts to rebuild in the midst of war.

There was fresh violence in the West Bank today even Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Jordan to try to de-escalate growing tensions.

Earlier today a Palestinian shot and killed two Israeli brothers.

And then by tonight, Israeli settlers want a violent rampage through the West Bank, setting cars and homes on fire.

It's the worst outbreak of settler violence in decades.

It comes after the Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs meeting and Jordan agreed on steps intended to calm the surging violence ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and a statement issued by the host country.

Jordan said Israel agreed to put a four to six-month freeze on authorizing new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

President Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan welcomed the meeting call it -- calling it a starting point.

In Nigeria voting extended into a second day in the nation's closely contested presidential race.

In some places where the polls had already closed ballot counting was underway.

In other places where technical glitches and logistical challenges caused delays, voters were still lining up.

The country's election commission says they expect to have a final vote tally within five days.

Up the coast of Southern Italy, at least 59 people aboard a migrant boat died this morning when their wooden craft smashed against rocky reefs in stormy weather.

Debris from the boat littered the shoreline as Italian coast guard and police searched for bodies.

Searches were also underway at sea and from the air for survivors.

The boat left Turkey several days ago.

Many of its passengers were from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.

The Italian coast guard said at least 80 people survived.

The long running comic strip Dilbert is disappearing from a number of the nation's major newspapers.

The cancellations come after Dilbert creator Scott Adams publicly referred to black people as members of a hate group and urged white people to get away from them.

The Los Angeles Times, the San Antonio Express News and the USA Today network are among those calling the remarks racist, hateful and discriminatory and are dropping the script.

And an update, the Howard University men's swimming and diving team that we told you about last week has won its first conference championship in 34 years.

Howard's the only historically black university with a swim team.

Still to come on "PBS News Weekend," why the use of sleeping pills is on the rise and a Missouri gun law creating confusion for police.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Over the last week, we've marked the one year anniversary of the full scale invasion of Ukraine by visiting the front lines investigating Russian war crimes and examining a new United Ukrainian identity.

Tonight with the help of the Pulitzer Center, we look at the country's efforts to build a new.

Nick Schifrin and videographer Eric O'Connor report on the challenges of reconstructing a country and fighting historic corruption as it fights a war.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Across Ukraine the scars are staggering.

Entire neighborhoods destroyed.

Hundreds of thousands of homes burned out.

Ukraine says reconstruction could cost more than a trillion dollars, but in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, where the Russians left behind horror and destruction.

Construction is beginning in earnest in the town is laying a new foundation to build a new future.

61-year-old Volodymyr Perekhrestenko shows me the Russian armored vehicle door that flew into his house.

They're upgrading the insulation, and fixing the walls in a home that he's lived in all his life.

And before him, his father and grandfather.

VOLODYMYR PEREKHRESTENKO, Bucha Resident (through translator): This is our nest.

We grew up here, and we wanted to keep living here.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Why have you chosen to rebuild even though the war continues?

VOLODYMYR PEREKHRESTENKO (through translator): We are hopeful, we are confident that we will win this war, that our lives will be good.

ANDREW NEGRYCH, Director of Operations, Ukrainian Global Empowerment Mission: It's important to show people the hope.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Andrew Negrych is the Director of Operations for the Global Empowerment Mission Ukraine.

A year ago, he was an entrepreneur about to open a new business in Western Europe.

On the day of the invasion, he drove straight back home and joined an organization that delivers aid to people living near the front lines, that is now rebuilding Bucha.

The government pays to fix the roads.

But it can't afford to rebuild homes.

Most of that cost has been covered by the Howard Buffett Foundation.

And the only reason this is possible is that the Russians left their cities across hundreds of miles with the front line where no one is even considering rebuilding.

How long do you think it will take for Ukraine to rebuild?

ANDREW NEGRYCH: Years, maybe up to 10 years, just to come back, where to the point where we was before the war.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But Ukraine doesn't want to go back to February 2022.

It wants to build a new version of itself technologic and economic reforms.

MYKHAILO FEDOROV, Vice Prime Minister, Ukraine (through translator): We will need to finish these economic transformations to move away from the Soviet Union and to move away from socialism to a full-fledged market economy.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Mykhailo Fedorov is the Vice Prime Minister and the Minister of Digital Transformation.

He invited us into his millennial hipster office.

Fedorov was born in 1991, the same year that post-Soviet independent Ukraine was born.

Before the full scale invasion, Fedorov led the government's efforts to modernize with technology.

WOMAN: Ukraine is the first country in the world to equate a digital passport with a physical one.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Especially using an app called Dia that stores all Ukrainians documents.

Today, the app is a wartime tool.

How victims of Russian bombing document damage and receive direct government assistance.

Fedorov says digitization can also help fight Ukraine's domestic enemy corruption.

MYKHAILO FEDOROV (through translator): It's a different approach to governance.

And right now everybody is reacting very quickly to any problems we have in the government.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Earlier this month, Ukraine's equivalent of the FBI launched its largest wartime corruption crackdown.

He accused the head of Kyiv's tax service of embezzling millions.

And they arrested the Deputy Minister of Defense accused of overcharging soldiers for food.

DARIA KALENIUK, Executive Director, Anti-Corruption Action Center: I can't say that we are absolutely eradicated corruption.

That is not true.

There are still problems.

But I'm saying that now, after the war, once we expose problems, there is a reaction.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Daria Kaleniuk is the Executive Director of the Anti-corruption Action Center.

DARIA KALENIUK: We will push away Russians.

But if it will have weak institutions, Russians could simply destroy us from inside through their hybrid operations and through corruption.

NICK SCHIFRIN: She says the war has changed Ukraine and Ukrainians, their lawmakers and international donors will demand a clean government requirement to join NATO in the European Union.

DARIA KALENIUK: We understand that you is not just to have a flag.

You means change the rules where dignity and justice and fairness is in the core of values of the EU.

And this is what we are fighting for.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The task ahead will take a generation.

But Ukraine says it must start now.

Cleaning up the country is wages the war.

For PBS News Weekend, I'm Nick Schifrin in Kyiv.

JOHN YANG: You can watch all of Nick's reporting on the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion on our website pbs.org/newshour.

New CDC data says the number of Americans taking medicine to get a good night's sleep is on the rise.

The latest study surveyed more than 30,000 American adults about their sleep medication use in 2020 both prescription and over the counter.

Nearly one in five said they had taken sleep medication during the previous 30 days.

8 percent of adults reported taking sleep medication every or most days in that period double what the CDC had found a decade earlier.

The report also found that women older adults and people with lower incomes were all more likely to use sleep medication.

Earlier I spoke with Dr. Karen Lee of Mass Eye and Ear.

She's a neurologist and a sleep specialist.

I asked her how the CDC is findings compare with what she sees in her practice.

DR. KAREN LEE, Mass Eye and Ear: How that survey is pretty much in line with what I've been seeing through the years and in my practice, unfortunately, there's been larger and larger amounts of materials coming, complaining about issues with sleep, difficulty falling asleep and difficulty staying asleep for the year.

So that's gotten there along with the trend of what we're seeing clinically.

JOHN YANG: The survey also found that women, older adults, and those with lower incomes were more likely to use sleeping medication.

Do you see that as well in your practice?

KAREN LEE: Yes, so that was not at all surprising to see.

Very commonly see that woman come in with insomnia issues.

And I think there's a couple of reasons for that can happen.

Through the years, the survey also looks at a difference between 2010 and 2020.

And women these days are going to the workforce a lot more but a lot of the duties that they have in their home or if they have with children have not been reduced, and a lot of their sleep schedule, especially when they have younger children become fragmented.

And so very commonly when I have women that have children, I will ask them right from the beginning did your issues with sleep start when you had children but with your first child and that's usually the scenario because sleep becomes fragmented, their circadian rhythm is abnormal.

And then that issue just continues throughout time.

Other individuals that I have seen that that are in a lower socioeconomic status will come in at their wit's end.

Not usually what I want to talk about other treatments that are longer term that take to get benefit.

They want pills, immediately.

They're asking I need medication I have you know, children, I'm taking care of her I have this many jobs and I just need a quicker fix.

JOHN YANG: Are Americans overusing sleep medication?

KAREN LEE: I would say the issue is that they are jumping faster maybe than they have in the past for sleep aids.

There's a lot of sleep aids out there are FDA approved and non-FDA approved.

And the issue is the way they are indicated to be used is not being used appropriately.

It's supposed to be a quick ban in a situation until we can get to the point for longer term solutions to fix the underlying sleep issues.

And what we see that's happening is they start on these pills, which really should be for a short period, like two weeks.

And they're just getting them refilled for years and years and years, right.

It's difficult for a variety of reasons, especially for an individual but struggled with sleep for years.

And suddenly, they're sleeping great, and it's completely impacts their life in a positive way.

And they're not seeing the negative impacts.

Now, we have several individuals that are dependent on these medications that keep wanting to use them moving forward.

JOHN YANG: What are some of the negative impacts of using sleep medication?

KAREN LEE: There can be a lot of side effects on your daytime functioning, you can be sleepy and be in a fog, you can have a lot of morning hangover from these medications.

Some of them have anticholinergic side effects where you can have like blurred vision, or dry mouth or urinary retention.

The concern also is at nighttime, especially with elderly patients, we have different recommendations for dosing, for example, for several medications, because there are a lot of accidents that happen with falls, people need to get up and use the restroom.

And it's all these side effects that can happen during wait time.

And nighttime and individuals that are already predisposed to cognitive issues.

Patients with dementia, or mild cognitive impairment are even impacted more often from these medications.

JOHN YANG: What would be your advice for viewers who may be having trouble sleeping?

What would you tell them if they were a patient coming into your office for a first visit and saying, Doctor, I'm having trouble sleeping.

KAREN LEE: So the first thing I would say is, it's great that they recognize that that's an important issue, us having a good quality and quantity of sleep is really critical.

But I need to start with a full sleep evaluation to see if there's any sleep disorders that you have, such as obstructive sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, certain things or sleep diseases that are contributing to or exacerbating insomnia, right.

And then once they break down, what's the root cause of the insomnia, and I address it, if what's left is what we call psychophysiological insomnia, which is, there is no specific sleep disorder or specific other medical condition that's contributing to your sleep.

Your sleep is poor just because you are under stress, or you have poor relationship with your mind, body and sleep.

The gold standard for treating that is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, called CBTI.

And that has been very effective in the short and long term to fix insomnia issues, whether falling asleep or staying asleep.

Now in certain individuals, they may need sleep aids in conjunction with that, or if the effects aren't happening fast enough, but are at a rate that it needs to happen for an individual we can use sleep aids, in addition to this with a goal of always taper down the sleep phase after and that is the issue is when you start the base.

The first one always isn't the one that you would stick with.

We have to see if you can tolerate it.

Number one, there's not side effects that are too bothersome, and that you're getting benefit from it.

And then we have to figure out how we're going to take it away in the future.

JOHN YANG: OK, then what is it sleep medications should be a band aid is a short term.

KAREN LEE: Yes, and the appropriate individuals, right.

And we have to make sure there's not something else that's going on.

Right.

And another concern is that sleep aids can make underlying sleep disorders worse.

So for example, a lot of sleep aids are muscle relaxes, and can collapse the airway more cause more difficulty breathing with sleeping.

So if someone has an underlying disease, such as sleep apnea, which very commonly causes insomnia, we want to be safe and make sure we're not actually making the issue worse and more unsafe by giving them a sleep aid for the wrong reason instead of treating another issue that's causing their insomnia.

JOHN YANG: Dr. Karen Lee of Mass Eye and Ear, thank you very much.

KAREN LEE: Thank you.

Good luck everybody.

JOHN YANG: Missouri has some of the most permissive gun laws in the nation.

The state doesn't require background checks and doesn't require a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A state law passed in 2021 even makes it hard for police to enforce federal gun laws.

Gabrielle Hays is the NewsHour Communities correspondent.

She's based in St. Louis.

Gabby, what is this law and how does it work?

GABRIELLE HAYS: Well, John, essentially, as you know that this law was passed in June of 2021, Governor Mike Parson signed it.

And essentially what it does is it prohibits state and local agencies from helping the federal government enforce federal gun laws that if by Missouri standards are an infringement on a person's right to bear arms, their Second Amendment right.

This was a law that was challenged almost immediately and it does come with some penalties.

JOHN YANG: What are the penalties?

GABRIELLE HAYS: The one that you will see most often is that a violation of this law could come with a $50,000 penalty on law enforcement.

And so that is something that is noted in some of the pushback against this legislation and also in feedback from law enforcement across the state.

JOHN YANG: And you mentioned that it has been challenged.

Who's challenging it?

And where do those challenges stand?

GABRIELLE HAYS: Those challenges are ongoing.

So on a state level, we know the St. Louis City County, Jackson County, and other counties across the state of their cities across the state have joined in on a lawsuit pushing back on the act.

Also, last year, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Second Amendment Preservation Act, calling it invalid.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said that it impedes on law enforcement operations in Missouri, and their ability to do their jobs.

JOHN YANG: You mentioned hampering law enforcement ability to do their jobs.

How does this work in practice?

GABRIELLE HAYS: Well, I think the answer to that is kind of twofold.

Because I think if you were to Google this law and law enforcement, you would see stories from across state of Missouri, from different counties and cities where law enforcement officers are talking to their local journalist or seeking clarification from the court and explaining what this law means to them and the ways in which it makes it difficult for them to do their jobs or deciding whether or not they should be cooperating with law enforcement, because law enforcement agencies have partnerships with federal agencies, right.

And so when this law came down, we have stories of not only law enforcement officers, but also prosecutors having the conversation of OK, would we do now?

And so, I think that that has been a big part of it, and also violating this law could come with a $50,000 fine.

So, we've had law enforcement officials in our states asking for clarity on what it means specifically and how exactly it translates to their day to day work.

JOHN YANG: Is the sticking point, that it's not every federal gun law, it's federal gun laws that in their view, infringe on second amendment rights, and it's interpreting that?

GABRIELLE HAYS: Yes, so essentially, it's any law rule or regulation that Missouri considers an infringement on a person's right to bear arms.

JOHN YANG: Very good.

Gabrielle Hays, NewsHour Communities correspondent in St. Louis, thank you very much.

GABRIELLE HAYS: Thank you.

JOHN YANG: For Gabrielle's full report on Missouri's gun law in the community and law enforcement in response to it, visit our website pbs.org/newshour.

And that is "PBS NewsHour Weekend" for this Sunday.

On Monday, my Report on why crime has become the top issue in Tuesday's Chicago mayoral race.

For all of us a PBS News Weekend, thanks for joining us.

Have a good week.