JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, U.S. retaliatory strikes on Iran backed militias in the Middle East.
How much more will there be?
After deep fake 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 preserve the remaining underwater beauties.
WOMAN: 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 have to be there or they die.
(BREAK) JOHN YANG: 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.
The two-day assault is in response to last weekend's drone strike in Jordan that killed three U.S. troops and injured dozens more.
Last night's air assault struck sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran backed militias.
Pentagon officials said it took just 30 minutes Friday night for B1 bombers and other U.S. aircraft to hit more than 85 targets.
Iraq and serious of 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 Central Command.
Joe, talk about how you design 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 anything too strong.
COL. JOE BUCCINO (RET.
), U.S. Army: So John, there's basically a range of options from low level of violence to high level of violence, you know, the high level you're talking about strikes inside of Iran, low level you're talking about the kind of little precision strikes we've done we've been doing since November.
This is about what we've done, you know, just tonight, and then last night is in the low to medium range.
Okay, so you present these options to the White House.
The Pentagon makes a recommendation, ultimately the National Security Council in the White House renders a decision.
JOHN YANG: What is the response from Iran and from these militant groups?
What does it tell you?
JOE BUCCINO: I'm cautiously optimistic right now.
Iran has denounced the strikes.
But they haven't said anything about a retaliation.
And there's signals here that Iran wants to pull back on some of these Shia proxy groups that maybe they've gotten a little bit out of control or out of the control of Esmail Qaani, he is the senior commander of the Quds Force in Iran and Tehran.
And so maybe he wants to pull them back.
So I'm optimistic about that.
JOHN YANG: Does he have that control?
When is he able to pull them back?
JOE BUCCINO: What we're hearing is that, you know, you think about Qasem Soleimani.
You know, this powerful figure shadowy figure who really control these forces so tightly for so long.
When he was struck, that really degraded Iran, it really took away their capability, but it also took away their ability to control these loose groups in Iraq, in Syria, in Jordan, in Yemen.
And they've gotten a little bit out of control.
And now he's trying to pull them back.
So there's concern in Tehran, there's concern in DC, nobody wants to escalate.
So I'm optimistic about that.
JOHN YANG: Some Republicans in Congress have criticized the Biden administration for what they say waiting too long.
The strike was last weekend, that took a full week.
What do you make of that?
What do you say to that?
JOE BUCCINO: I agree.
I agree.
Look, if there is an intellectual thrust of the Biden foreign policy, it's conflict avoidance, and, you know, avoidance of escalation.
And that's generally a good impulse for an American president.
Here it doesn't serve us well.
And if you look at the history of Iran, it doesn't serve us well here.
You know, for five days, we've been talking about this.
For five days, we've been talking about what we're not going to do.
And I think it signals to Iran that they can continue to kind of push us around.
They can continue to strike at our bases.
And we're not going to make them feel pain.
Because what we do to the Houthis, here in Yemen, what we do to these Shia groups in Iraq and Syria, it doesn't really manifest in pain in Iran, JOHN YANG: Flying bombers halfway around the world to do this.
Obviously, there are operational reasons for this.
They carry a tremendous amount of payload, they can fly supersonically.
But was there also a message being sent?
JOE BUCCINO: This is all about a message.
So the message here is more important than anything you've hit anything you destroyed any of these Shia groups that you killed.
The B1 bombers are important because, you know, they can fly under radar coverage.
And if you're going to hit inside Iran, you're going to -- you're going to hit or inside of run with a B1 Lancer.
JOHN YANG: What comes next?
JOE BUCCINO: Well, I think what comes next is you're going to see more passes in Iraq and Syria, like we did last night.
You're going to see maybe more strikes on the coast of Yemen.
Here tonight, we hit the Capitol.
I don't think we'll do that again.
I think we'll hit coastal battery sites.
I think this will go into next week for a few days into next week.
And then we'll see then we kind of wait, did Iran get the message?
How is Iran going to respond?
How are these Shia groups going to respond?
That's what's next.
JOHN YANBG: It'll be the same sort of targets or the targeting change?
JOE BUCCINO: No, you're going to see the same kinds of targets the same level of violence.
And really, you're going to see these bump -- there's a lot more bunkers.
So these complexes that, you know, if you think about Deir Zurr in the East there in Syria, in Abu Kamal, these are complexes that have hundreds of bunkers within them.
And so you know, you there's a lot more targets you can hit there.
We hit 85.
That's really not very much.
There's a lot more we can do here.
JOHN YANG: Joe Pacino, retired US Army colonel, thank you very much.
JOE BUCCINO: Thanks so much for having me.
JOHN YANG: 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 1,100 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 Imran Khan, he and his wife were sentenced to seven years in prison today after a court ruled that is -- the marriage was illegal because his wife remarried too soon after getting a divorce.
It was 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 as head of the government of Northern Ireland.
Today the country's legislature named Michelle O'Neill as First Minister.
She's a member of Sinn Fein the political party that favors unification of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.
Sinn Fein was affiliated with the militant Irish Republican Army during the decades of violent conflict with Unionists who want to stay in the United Kingdom.
Today it 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.
(BREAK) Deepfake pornography uses technology to make explicit photographs that appear to be of someone they're not.
Images using Taylor Swift's face that surface 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 could lead to thoughts of suicide.
Tech journalist Laurie Segall is the founder and CEO of Mostly Human Media, an entertainment company focusing on the intersection of technology and humanity.
Laurie, who is behind these things?
Who does it?
And what are their motivations?
LAURIE SEGALL, CEO, Mostly Human Media: Well, it's such a good question.
I think it's a hard answer.
Because there are all sorts of people who are doing this type of thing.
And it's harder and harder to detect.
I think one of the things I worry about is, you know, it's going to be very difficult for let's say Taylor Swift once to go track down the perpetrators behind the folks who posted those images on X.
But the problem with this is now we're creating a completely new arena for abuse, because you have the democratization of these apps that now enable 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 YANG: What's been a phenomenon for a while, but has AI made it easier?
LAURIE SEGALL: I remember covering non-consensual 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 X 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 like 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 you it's hard to decipher whether it is or not.
And most importantly, the harm is real.
JOHN YANG: 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 SEGALL: There are a handful of laws at the state level that deal with deep fake 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 does.
But most people do not have an a difference with deep fake 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.
But it's harder to do with deep fake pornography.
People could say they wanted to make money or gain notoriety.
And so those laws that vary in scope aren't real.
They aren't similar to the ones with non-consensual pornography.
And there are a lot of nuances that we have to talk about.
JOHN YANG: What sort of changes in the laws would you like to see happen?
LAURIE SEGALL: 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 deep fake pornography and the threat for the last couple of years.
And that conversation is even more pressing today.
Marian Franks, who helps a lot of these victims said that there's a bipartisan federal bill, right.
This is a federal bill that's been introduced called preventing deep fakes for intimate images that would actually give recourse in the right way to victims from both criminal standpoint and civil standpoint, laws like that, I think, you know, separately.
I also think, you know, tech companies need to be instituting a lot of technology at a quicker rate to be able to fight the fight technology, almost say it's like AI needs to fight AI.
JOHN YANG: 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 SEGALL: I mean, I hope so.
I mean, 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 her represents a threat for all young women and an all girls when it comes to the future of our consent online.
JOHN YANG: Laurie Segall of Mostly Human Media.
Thank you very much.
LAURIE SEGALL: Thank you.
JOHN YANG: 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's part of our ongoing series Saving Species.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Just off the Florida Keys and urgent Rescue Mission Continues.
These scientists are carefully returning pieces of coral back into the ocean and reattaching them to this tree like coral nurseries.
For the last few months, these corals have had to live here in tanks on land, because their ocean home was too hot.
BAILEY THOMASSON, Coral Restoration Foundation: It looked like it was just melting away.
And that's something that we had never ever really observed before on the reefs.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Bailey Thomasson works with the Coral Restoration Foundation.
Last summer amid a record ocean heatwave, she and her colleagues visited Florida's Sombrero Reef and were stunned by what they saw.
BAILEY THOMASSON: It was almost 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 the coral skeleton, and we were too late.
Without really even saying anything to each other.
We gave each other since personal space just to grieve these corals grieve what at that moment we knew was probably going to be a really hard summer.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): 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 coast 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.
CINDY LEWIS, Director, Keys Marine Lab: We had ocean temperatures and like down in 30 feet to 60 feet and water that were 92 degrees.
That's like hot tub weather.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Cindy Lewis runs the Keys Marine Lab and Long Key, Florida.
It's typically a research facility.
But last summer, it became a triage center.
CINDY LEWIS: What it looked like here in a matter of the first two to three 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 BRANGHAM (voice-over): 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.
CINDY LEWIS: They're like these submerged rain forests with incredible biodiversity.
as much if not more so than Amazon rainforest.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): 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 percent over the last 50 years.
BAILEY THOMASSON: 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 have to be there or they die.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): 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.
BAILEY THOMASSON: 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 BRANGHAM: Apart from those efforts to keep corals alive in the ocean here in the stretch of rural Virginia, another effort is underway.
They're trying to preserve the biodiversity of corals, but using a very different technique.
MIKE HENLEY, Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute: So we've got our coral in our chamber with our (inaudible) protection solution, and what we're going to do now put it in our rack and get ready for the plunge into the liquid nitrogen.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Mike Henley is with the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.
What is this temperature here?
MIKE HENLEY: Is minus 196 degrees Celsius and we just go really quick.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Wow.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): He's demonstrating a process known as isochoric vitrification at the Institute's Bio Repository in Front Royal Virginia.
It's taking a small fragment of coral, a little colony of polyps each dot individual animal and suspending them in animation at incredibly cold temperatures.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So what's happening inside there right now?
MIKE HENLEY: So that as that temperature is dropping, that solution is actually turning into a glass like state so that the coral is suspended.
It's frozen with that ice but still alive and can remain that way for in theory, hundreds if not thousands of years.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Up until now, this technique has only been used for coral sperm and larvae, not entire living animals.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Were you convinced at the beginning that this was going to work as a technique?
MARY HAGEDORN, Research Scientist, Smithsonian Institution: No, not at all.
Really.
It's very much this this stuff of science fiction, we're working at the very edge of biology, engineering, and thermodynamics.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): 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.
MARY HAGEDORN: I sort of think of it as a, you know, sort of a open heart patient that's gone through this rigorous operation is very stressed and then needs special care to get back home to its you know, to their family.
WILIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): But while reanimating a preserved coral remains challenging, Hagedorn emphasized that cryopreservation 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 this coral preservation technique to become grassroots.
MARY HAGEDORN: 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.
WILLAM BRANGHAM: So you really do envision like 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.
MARY HAGEDORN: Yes.
You saw the beginnings of that Front Royal, that is the beginning of that army.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): All of it.
Hagedorn says is for the critical goal of keeping these species alive, well into the future.
MARY HAGEDORN: This is what drives me it really is the threat of extinction and the worry of extinction.
I very much want the children, you know, 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 is 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 BRANGHAM (voice-over): Securing one of the most fundamental ecosystems on the planet through an uncertain future.
For PBS News Weekend, I'm William Brangham.
JOHN YANG: 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 the United Kingdom with support for Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, 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 their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels.
And now online, Oklahoma is the latest school system to opt out of the federal summer food program that provides meals for children with 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 the Saturday.
On Sunday, Pakistan votes, one of a series of consequential elections across the southern Asia this year.
I'm John Yang.
For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.
See you tomorrow.
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