
February 15, 2025 - PBS News Weekend full episode
2/15/2025 | 26m 45sVideo has Closed Captions
February 15, 2025 - PBS News Weekend full episode
February 15, 2025 - PBS News Weekend full episode
Major corporate funding for the PBS News Hour is provided by BDO, BNSF, Consumer Cellular, American Cruise Lines, and Raymond James. Funding for the PBS NewsHour Weekend is provided by...

February 15, 2025 - PBS News Weekend full episode
2/15/2025 | 26m 45sVideo has Closed Captions
February 15, 2025 - PBS News Weekend full episode
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipALI ROGIN: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, the war in Ukraine dominates the Munich Security Conference as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country likely won't survive its war with Russia without U.S. support.
Then, the untold stories of millions of Africans lost at sea on the journey to the Americas and one woman's epic quest to document those lost slave ships.
And we explore the benefits of an icy plunge as outdoor swimming in the middle of winter gains a following around the world.
MAN: It's really refreshing.
I think it's an experience that every single person has to have once in their lifetime.
MAN: Here in winter.
MAN: Yes, in winter.
And I love it.
It's really cold.
But we love.
(BREAK) ALI ROGIN: Good evening.
I'm Ali Rogin.
John Yang is away.
The war in Ukraine has taken center stage at the Munich Security Conference as the Trump administration's lead Ukraine envoy said today, there are no plans for Europeans to be included in any talks to end the war.
On the sidelines of the conference, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said that national security adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Saudi Arabia in the coming days to begin the negotiations with Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Earlier, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested in Munich that the days of the U.S.
Defending Europe may be over.
Our foreign affairs and defense correspondent Nick Schifrin spoke with Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and asked him what message he has for Europe and the United States.
ANDRIY YERMAK, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Chief of Staff: First of all, I think that President Zelenskyy bring the hope that just a new reality European have to be united, Europe have to be strong.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Is that because the U.S. isn't a reliable partner?
ANDRIY YERMAK: In the life it's necessary to be ready for everything.
And if you ask my opinion, I think that new administration, President Trump, he want to be strong leaders and be with the European, Ukraine it's a part of the Europe, Ukraine as a future member of European Union.
And we need to be ready for any challenges.
NICK SCHIFRIN: What message did you receive from Vice President Vance?
Did he commit to providing you security guarantees and negotiating with you rather than over you?
ANDRIY YERMAK: First of all, we received this message directly from President Trump and we received from Vice President and other American officials, commitment to continue to support Ukraine, understanding what is this war and political will to end this war by just and lasting peace.
President was very clear.
Any plans which will be not prepared with Ukraine, we can't accept.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But did Vice President Vance commit to providing security guarantees and negotiating with you?
ANDRIY YERMAK: Look, he's understand it and nobody can say yes exactly.
These security guarantees we definitely know that this security guarantee have to be effective, strong and real.
NICK SCHIFRIN: And it has to include the United States.
ANDRIY YERMAK: Absolutely.
And the people are recognized that these presidents.
It's impossible that he's accepted something which will be against Ukrainian interests, which will be against the principles of the our independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth this week suggested that Ukraine could not recapture all occupied territory.
We've heard different messages from different U.S. officials.
What's the impact on Ukraine on those mixed messages?
ANDRIY YERMAK: Of course, sometimes as many people you have the questions when you listen some not clear understanding messages.
But our president a very smart person and very honest person and there his relation with President Trump it's personal relations.
Very good.
Very honest.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Officials tell me that the U.S. has offered a deal to Ukraine in which the U.S. would own 50 percent of Ukraine's rare earths and that Kyiv has rejected that offer.
Why?
ANDRIY YERMAK: I can say that for this moment we have not signed any documents in the United States.
It's our biggest strategic partners.
We want to be in strategic partners for long period of time.
We want that in Ukraine will be a lot of American investments including of development of our strategic mineral, strategics area of our industry like energy and others.
Our partners and friends understand our positions.
We will continue, it's not be some any pause.
NICK SCHIFRIN: So it sounds like you're saying you haven't rejected anything.
And negotiations continue.
ANDRIY YERMAK: Negotiations continue.
NICK SCHIFRIN: President Zelenskyy today confirmed I think for the first time that Ukraine had lost more than 4,000 square kilometers.
That's more than 1,500 square miles this year.
How difficult is the front line and is Ukraine continuing to lose territory?
ANDRIY YERMAK: Of course the difficult situation war is continue.
I think it's time to be together, to be strong.
And as I said President yesterday to Vice President, we don't need and we want that United States will between us and Russia.
We want that United States will be in our side.
And this is not because just our, it's sight of international law.
It's side of true and its sight of good.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Andriy Yermak.
Thank you very much.
ANDRIY YERMAK: Thank you.
ALI ROGIN: In the day's other news, three Israeli hostages are back with their families after Hamas released them as part of an ongoing cease fire deal.
All three men were taken hostage during the October 7 attack nearly 500 days ago.
Among the released hostages, American Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen.
During the reunion, the 36-year-old finally learned the name of his baby girl.
She was born while Dekel-Chen was held in captivity.
It's believed 73 hostages remain in Gaza and possibly half of them are not alive.
Following the release of the hostages, Israel sent busloads of freed prisoners and detainees to the Gaza Strip.
Nearly 400 Palestinians were allowed to return to the territory, but there is uncertainty in the region.
The first phase of the ceasefire ends in two weeks and there has been little progress in negotiations about what happens next.
The Internal Revenue Service could soon be the latest agency to see a slash in its employee headcount.
It is now being widely reported that the IRS will lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season.
It's not known exactly how many will be affected, but the cuts could happen as soon as next week.
Elon Musk and his so called Department of Government Efficiency have called for the U.S. to quote, delete entire agencies as part of its cost cutting measures.
Five people in upstate New York are charged with torturing and killing a transgender man.
Police say 24 year old Sam Nordquist moved to the area near Syracuse in September, but lost contact with family members.
After they reported him missing this month, an investigation led police to the suspects and the motel where Nordquist was last seen.
Police later found Nordquist's body in a field where they say he was left in an attempt to cover up the crime after he endured months of torture.
While the investigation continues, police have not ruled out labeling this a hate crime.
State health officials in Texas are warning of a growing number of measles cases that have led to the worst outbreak in the state in decades.
The Texas Department of Health said there are now 48 cases of the infection, with most of those in children and teens who are unvaccinated.
As of now, the outbreak is mostly contained to a tight knit religious community.
Still to come on PBS News Weekend, the untold stories of captive Africans lost at sea during their forced journey to the Americas and how work life has changed post-pandemic as more employers tell workers they must return to the office.
(BREAK) ALI ROGIN: Between the 16th and 19th centuries, millions of captive Africans were forced onto slave ships and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean.
As many as 1,000 of these ships sank on the journey, and fewer than 20 of them have been found and properly documented.
For our series Race Matters, I recently sat down with National Geographic explorer and writer Tara Roberts, who has been traveling the world documenting these underwater wrecks and the intrepid group of primarily black divers working to uncover them.
She tells these untold stories in her new memoir, "Written in the Waters."
Tara, thank you so much for joining us.
Your journey that you relay in this book took you across four continents, but you got the idea for the project that became the book here in Washington, DC.
Tell us about that.
TARA ROBERTS, Author, "Written in the Waters": This was in 2016, and I got offered tickets to go and visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
And it was there that my life completely changed.
I saw a picture of a group of primarily black women in wetsuits on a boat.
I'd never seen a picture of black women in wetsuits on a boat before.
So it really struck something in me.
I discovered that they were a part of this group called Diving with a Purpose, and that they spent their time searching for and documenting slave shipwrecks around the world.
And that just it floored me.
It made me want to be a part of that work some kind of way.
ALI ROGIN: When did you realize that your story and the histories that you were telling were all intertwined and could be part of this narrative?
TARA ROBERTS: It wasn't until I started to meet descendants of people who were on the ships that I started to think about my own ancestry, which is something that I didn't think about from the start, which maybe is a little surprising.
I mean, I am a black woman, and it is the slave trade, but I just didn't think about it personally.
And then traveling around the world and encountering so many different people from the African diaspora who had different understandings and perspectives of this history, it just had me question a lot of things.
ALI ROGIN: You began your journey talking about how you were kind of trepidatious about going down this road, but you end it in this place of empowerment.
Writing on the bottom of the ocean, I feel agency instead of sorrow.
How has this work empowered you?
TARA ROBERTS: I think that there's something about actually encountering real pieces of the past that makes the past clear and undeniable.
But then there's something about the fact that I'm taking on this work.
These other divers are taking on this work.
Historians, archaeologists, like all of these people are saying that we're not going to wait for anyone else to prioritize this history, that we are raising our hands and we're volunteering our time to bring this history back into memory.
Like, that is not sad work.
That is powerful work.
I can say to the ancestors that I see you, I honor you, I remember you.
I haven't forgotten.
And that is really something for me to feel empowered around.
ALI ROGIN: What were some of the most surprising facts that you learned about this history?
TARA ROBERTS: There were about 12,000 ships that participated in the slave trade.
What I realized is that when I was growing up, I couldn't tell you the name of a single one of them, but yet I could tell you the name of the Mayflower, I could tell you all about the Titanic, but I couldn't tell you the name of a single one of these 12,000 ships.
That didn't feel right to me.
The other stats on my heart is the fact that approximately 1.8 million Africans died in the crossing from Africa to the Americas.
I thought to myself, who's mourning that loss?
It's an enormous amount of loss.
Who even knows that?
I didn't know that many people had died in the crossing.
It helps me see that there's a whole chapter of history that we just don't know.
ALI ROGIN: We learn in the book that fewer than 1 percent of archaeologists are black.
That seems to have informed what parts of history get covered.
Was that something that you learned more about on this journey?
TARA ROBERTS: Yes, absolutely.
As I talked to and met more and more archaeologists, I actually asked them the same question.
I was like, what difference does it make if there are more black archaeologists or not?
And what they said was really interesting.
They said, we ask different questions.
We see different things.
We're interested in different parts of the story.
So to really get a complex full story, you need all of these pieces.
The other parts are just as important, but.
But this part has really been missing.
So I think it's just really important to have representation from a variety of people that are involved with this.
ALI ROGIN: The book is "Written in the Waters, A Memoir of History, Home and Belonging."
Tara Roberts, thank you so much for being here.
TARA ROBERTS: Thank you for having me, Ali.
ALI ROGIN: The era of the remote worker is winding down.
Before a mandate for federal workers to return to the office made national headlines, dozens of major private sector companies across the U.S. like Amazon, Starbucks, even Zoom asked their workers to return to the office at least half of the week.
It's a big shift for millions across the country, many of whom have come to prefer the flexibility of working from home.
I recently sat down with Pamela Eyring, President of the Protocol School of Washington, to learn why back to the office may not immediately mean back to normal.
Pamela, thank you so much for joining us.
Private sector leaders have said that it's important to go back to work in the office because it increases productivity.
What do you make of that?
PAMELA EYRING, President, The Protocol School of Washington: Well, Ali, I believe that there are some merits of going back to work in person.
I mean, think about the benefits of collaborating with your teammates and colleagues for the leaders and your supervisor to see you working, actually working, and being able to go to that supervisor and say, hey, I have this great idea, or brainstorming with colleagues.
ALI ROGIN: What's your advice to employers?
It's been almost five years since we started dealing with remote work, and now workers are, in some cases, going back to an entirely unfamiliar working environment.
How do you advise employers to navigate this phase?
PAMELA EYRING: Well, I think they need to be encouraging, you know, and be not so firm and hardcore about it.
Get them excited.
Use the psychology of, you know, understanding what they've been through.
So psychologically, how do we make it easier for them?
And I think one way is to have a good working environment.
Make sure that they have their desk or a desk or somewhere to work that's theirs.
Make sure all the computers are updated and they have their monitors and they have a setup.
So it's just like when you're onboarding a new employee that you're ready for them, you're welcoming them, maybe even have some fun, you know, maybe some lunch and learns, or even having some team time to make it more fun to be back.
ALI ROGIN: What are some of the challenges that employers are telling you that they're having when welcoming employees back?
PAMELA EYRING: Well, first one that I've been getting a lot of because we've had an increase of need for training is business attire.
Because they've been behind the screen for now five years, and, you know, they don't really know how to dress appropriately in that workspace.
And we want to showcase our professionalism, whether we're on a zoom call or in person.
They can't wear their jammies.
They have to wear shoes.
You know, not that it's that bad, but I think, you know, it's been a long time.
And so they need to refresh.
What is business casual today, for instance?
ALI ROGIN: And to that end, we're navigating a number of generations here.
I mean, space from Gen Z all the way back to baby boomers and everything in between.
So how do you navigate that when people have different generational approaches to these things, different cultural touch points?
How does that all work?
PAMELA EYRING: Well, first I would say is, you know, especially boomer biases.
You know, don't have any biases.
It's a -- it really comes down to communicating expectations and in sharing what is professionalism.
So I think with the generations, I think the young generation should listen and observe and watch the behaviors of their, you know, maybe older generation of colleagues.
And then also they should be listening to them and understand, like have dialogue.
What's the best way to communicate with you?
I'm not a slack person.
I know you slack.
So is there another way we can communicate professionally?
Perhaps I like emails or maybe I like text messages and then collaborate on that and have that discussion what works for you and then come to a compromise.
ALI ROGIN: There was a recent Pew Research center survey that showed nearly half of hybrid workers said that they wouldn't want to work where they work anymore if they had to come into the office again.
What do you think employers and managers can do to help their employees better adjust to coming back to the workplace?
PAMELA EYRING: Ask them.
We think that we know what they want and we don't.
I think by going to them and maybe doing a quick survey, having some discussion about it and say, what can we do to make it more comfortable for you?
Perhaps they're concerned about, you know, the drive, the commute now, you know, I can't get to the office on time and, you know, maybe flex hours are needed now.
They have a child in school and they need to drop them off, sort of compromise a little bit and help those individuals that, you know, now have different needs and ask them.
ALI ROGIN: Pamela Eyring, president of the Protocol School of Washington, thank you so much for joining us.
PAMELA EYRING: Thank you, Ali.
ALI ROGIN: It's the middle of winter in the Northern hemisphere and it might not feel like the season for jumping in the water, but more and more people are finding an icy plunge is invigorating.
William Brangham takes a look at the world of winter swimming and its potential benefits and risks.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Even though the temperatures are plunging, so are these swimmers, a brave group in the northern Chinese city of Harbin.
Taking a subzero jump one by one into the icy water.
CHEN XIA (through translator): I felt prickling all over my body.
The water here is about 10 degrees Celsius lower than it is in my hometown, but it still made me feel blissful.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): These hardy souls are part of the city's winter swimming team, which boasts hundreds of members.
They say they train throughout the year to develop the physical strength and mental fortitude needed to dive into pools carved from ice during the city's annual winter festival.
YU XIAOFENG (through translator): Once these challenges are overcome, you will feel the endless joy brought by winter swimming.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Endless joy or crazy obsession?
In the Czech Republic, locals there take to the cold waters of the Vltava River in early January to mark the end of the Christmas season.
SASA SELCAN (through translator): Well, I've stuck with it.
It's a bit of an addiction now.
KAMIL NEMECEK (through translator): Once you've tried it, you have to keep doing it.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): In the Danish capital, Copenhagen, it's a tourist draw to brave the icy water.
ORLANDO: It's crazy.
It's really refreshing.
I think it's an experience that every single person has to have once in their lifetimes.
EMILIANO: Here in winter.
ORLANDO: Yes, in winter.
And I love it.
It's really cold, but we love it.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Devotees of winter swimming are convinced these bone chilling dips boost their health and happiness.
LIU SHURONG (through translator): Back in the day, I used to get leg cramps and ever since I started winter swimming, it has stopped.
YOU DECANG (through translator): I'm 76 years old, but I've never got a cold because I swim in winter and I feel very well.
It brings me good health.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Online advocates say the benefits are many, helping with everything from migraines to arthritis and even weight loss.
WOMAN: It boosts the immune system.
MAN: It really improves your mental health.
WOMAN: Great blood circulation helps you sleep better.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): But not everyone is convinced.
HEATHER MASSEY, University of Portsmouth: Some of the claims that you'll see that splashed over the web, we don't actually have good, robust evidence to be able to support those claims at the moment.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Heather Massey studies cold water immersion and swimming at the University of Portsmouth in England.
HEATHER MASSEY: The level of science is far more powerful from the side of it having negative effects.
WILILAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Massey says the initial plunge into icy water is shocking and the body reacts instantly.
Shortness of breath, higher blood pressure, even impaired cognitive function.
HEATHER MASSEY: Definitely make sure you're well fit and healthy before you go in.
If you've got any underlying health problems or you're not feeling great going in cold water is not going to help.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): She says even healthy people should proceed with caution.
There can be very real risks of hypothermia and heart attacks.
But Massey is quick to add there could be health benefits, and she and other scientists are looking into what they might be.
HEATHER MASSEY: It may be that it's a placebo effect.
But if it's a placebo effect and it works well, it's still in effect.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Evidence or not, these swimmers can't seem to stay away from their icy plunges and the thrills that come with it.
RITA EGG: It's so cold.
I was freezing.
I'm saying if I can do this, I can do anything in the whole world.
That's my feeling.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): For PBS News Weekend, I'm William Brangham.
ALI ROGIN: And there's more online.
This week's edition of PBS News Weekly takes a look at President Trump's government shakeup and what the implications are on a wide range of policies.
That's available on the PBS News YouTube page.
And that's our program for tonight.
I'm Ali Rogin.
For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.
See you tomorrow.
(BREAK)
The benefits and risks of swimming outdoors in the winter
Video has Closed Captions
As winter swimming gains popularity, the benefits and risks of taking an icy plunge (4m 12s)
Explorer Tara Roberts on her memoir ‘Written in the Waters’
Video has Closed Captions
‘Written in the Waters’ surfaces the untold stories of captive Africans lost at sea (5m 47s)
How work life has changed as more workers return to offices
Video has Closed Captions
How work life has changed as more employers mandate a return to the office (4m 40s)
News Wrap: Israel, Hamas complete another ceasefire exchange
Video has Closed Captions
News Wrap: Israel, Hamas complete another ceasefire exchange (2m 45s)
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff on ‘new reality’ for security
Video has Closed Captions
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff discusses ‘new reality’ for security in Ukraine and Europe (5m 53s)
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