PBS News Hour

JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, after a chaotic week in Congress, President Biden signs a spending bill that prevents a government shutdown.

Then, it's been a year ravaged by war, leaving millions of children in urgent need of help, and how climate change is pushing a rare species of deer to the brink of extinction.

WOMAN: They are very gentle, Very gentle.

And the longer you live here, the more you want to protect.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening.

I'm John Yang.

President Biden signed the short-term spending bill this morning that prevents a government shutdown.

The stroke of a pen ended chaotic days that saw President-elect Trump clashing with House members of his own party.

Final congressional approval of the bipartisan deal came just past the midnight deadline.

The measure extends current government funding through mid-March, provides $100 billion in disaster relief to hurricane survivors, and $10 billion in aid to farmers.

But lawmakers refused Mr. Trump's core demand to raise the nation's debt limit.

Lisa Desjardins, our congressional correspondent, followed every step of this process on Capitol Hill this week.

Lisa, why did this take so long?

Why was this so hard?

LISA DESJARDINS: Such a good question, John.

In the end, I think that this was a result of having an inexperienced speaker who went way too far in making commitments to Democrats that he didn't even know he had the votes for, either among his own Republican conference or the vote of approval from President-Elect Trump, which we know is critical for Republicans in Congress.

What happened here was Speaker Johnson spent days negotiating with Democrats, and that bill was much maligned because of its size.

But in truth, a lot of the things added to that bill were bipartisan policies generally in nature.

But there were a few things in there that many Republicans simply couldn't stomach.

And my reporting is talking to, in fact, committee chairs who are Republicans, is that Johnson just didn't keep them informed on what was going on.

He was talking to Democrats when he didn't have the votes to do it.

This way oversimplifies things, John, but it's a little bit like one member of a family agreeing to buy a house on a handshake, not telling their spouse that they're doing it, and also not having the money to do it.

JOHN YANG: You know, Lisa, we're just a few weeks away from the Republicans claiming the White House, the House and the Senate.

What does this past week tell us about the Republicans?

LISA DESJARDINS: To me, it tells me that this is a group that has within it core constituencies that are not going to compromise.

And in particular, that has to do with the debt and the deficit.

We saw that being the largest group of people that objected to that large bill.

And also in the end, we saw Republicans voting against even that sort of pared down last bill.

And it's important to note that this is a group that is saying they don't want to compromise, overspending.

They potentially may be willing to risk a shutdown even under President-elect Trump.

And they stood up to President Trump because they believe these things, but at the same time, by not compromising, this is a group that again and again risks sort of this turbulence and this turmoil.

The other thing that we learned was that President-elect Trump has enormous sway, but not all of the sway necessary to push dozens of Republicans away from their core values.

We saw these House Republicans, especially those fiscal conservatives, vote with their principles versus voting with President elect Trump.

He wanted a debt ceiling increase and he did not get it.

JOHN YANG: Lisa, you know, one of the voices that helped sink that first big deal you spoke of was Elon Musk.

What does his role say about all this?

LISA DESJARDINS: Such a fascinating conversation.

And you know, in the halls of Congress, this was the conversation that senators were bringing up, asking me, in fact, in times what I thought Elon Musk's role was, because they know I've covered the Trump campaign.

How influential is he really?

In the end, Elon Musk was really the first rock in the avalanche that toppled that initial bill that Speaker Johnson negotiated with Democrats.

So he had a very powerful role in that.

However, we also saw a limitation in his influence that's important.

He was calling for things as the week went on and his rapid fire tweeting that no one really listened to.

So while he is taken seriously from lawmakers, they tell me that only goes so far, that they're not taking him seriously on everything he says.

JOHN YANG: What should people be taking away from this past week?

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

We've had an exhausting political year.

But at the same time, voters still want Washington to act in a different way.

That's in part why President-elect Trump was elected.

So I think people need to be ready for that disruption to continue and we could potentially have chaos soon.

January 3rd.

Speaker Johnson will attempt to be reelected.

He cannot, at this point, lose any more Republicans.

He's already lost one vote.

He can't lose another.

Or he could lose a speakership.

And John, consider this, three days later.

January 6th is the day Congress is supposed to certify the presidential election.

It's possible that could happen for the first time in history without a speaker if Johnson's not able to secure the votes.

JOHN YANG: Lisa Desjardins, thank you very much.

As always.

LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.

JOHN YANG: In tonight's other news, Germans are mourning the victims of an apparent attack at a Christmas market.

Church bells tolled in Magdeburg, Germany, at the exact time a man intentionally drove his car into a crowd of people last night, killing five and injuring more than 200.

A nine-year-old child is among the dead.

The suspect surrendered to police at the scene.

Officials say he's from Saudi Arabia and has lived in Germany for nearly 20 years.

A review of his social media accounts show he shared anti-Islamic statements and expressed support for Germany's far right anti-immigrant political party.

CHANCELLOR OLAF SCHOLZ, Germany (through translator): It is now important that we clarify the situation and that this is done with the utmost precision and accuracy.

Nothing must remain uninvestigated.

And of course, we must understand the perpetrator, his actions, his motives, so that we can respond with the necessary criminal and other consequences.

And we will.

JOHN YANG: Investigators say the attack may have been motivated by anger over Germany's treatment of Saudi refugees.

A missile fired from Yemen made it past Israel's anti-missile defense systems and landed in Tel Aviv overnight.

The Israeli military blamed Houthi rebels for the attack that injured 16 people.

The Houthis say they were aiming for a military target.

The IDF said it hit a playground and a school.

World champion skier Lindsey Vonn is back on the slopes, ending more than five years of retirement.

The 40-year-old finished 14th in a super G race in Switzerland, just a little more than a second behind the winner.

Vonn retired in 2019 but had knee replacement surgery this year and started competing again.

And baseball legend Rickey Henderson has died.

The hall of Famer is Major League Baseball's all-time stolen bases leader.

He played on nine teams over 25 years, 14 of them with the Oakland Athletics.

Rickey Henderson would have turned 66 on Christmas Day.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, the surge in cases of walking pneumonia in young children and how a warming planet is threatening a tiny deer in the Florida Keys.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: The Israeli army says it delivered food, flour and water from the UN World Food Program to Gaza today after overnight Israeli airstrikes killed 19 people, 12 of them children.

The crisis affecting the youngest in Gaza continues to deepen.

And it's not just Gaza.

UNICEF says there's also great need in Lebanon and in Syria.

Earlier, I spoke with UNICEF spokesman James Elder about what he saw on a recent trip to the region.

JAMES ELDER, UNICEF Spokesman: Gaza, unfortunately, stands out, John, in the most graphic manner.

We have reached a point now, after more than a year where suffering has stretched beyond what anyone could possibly not only are the thousands and thousands of children being killed, you have hospitals that Simply can't cope.

70 percent of buildings have been damaged.

Disease is now rife.

So every step people take in Gaza almost gets them one step closer to debt.

JOHN YANG: You talk about the dire situation in Gaza, where, as you say, the war has been going on for more than a year now.

Is there more than just helping things at the margin that UNICEF can do now?

JAMES ELDER: So there's an enormous amount that we do.

But as you rightly point out, John, how much are we able to do in that context?

Everyone has been told for the space of a year that around 500 trucks a day are required into Gaza to enable people to make sure that they've got the food, water, medicine, shelter that they require.

500 is the number.

November we saw 65, an average of 65 trucks a day.

For people who are on their knees.

When there is an occupying power, there is a legal responsibility on that occupying power as Israel, to facilitate aid.

We see anything but that.

But when there is political will, we saw 600,000 children vaccinated against polio in a very short space of time.

So it shows what can be done.

JOHN YANG: The children who do survive in Gaza, you talk about the horrendous death toll.

You talk about children needing care but not getting it.

Those who survive, will they have permanent effects, do you think so?

JAMES ELDER: Medical evacuations of children have become less than one a day.

There are thousands of children who require medical evacuation.

That is, they somehow survive the mortar, the bombing, the fire, the shrapnel.

Shrapnel is designed to rip through concrete.

What it does to a child's body is unbearable.

Now when these children get to hospital, they're getting the most incredible care available, but they're often getting it without the anesthetics, without the antibiotics.

They need medical evacuation.

So, I mean, just a single story.

There was a little girl, Elia, who I met, John, when I was most recently there.

She was four.

When the house that they were in was struck, there was a terrible fire.

Her and her mother both endured 4th degree burns.

Now I met them both.

Her mother was mostly unconscious.

This little girl had already had an arm amputated.

They had medical evacuation denied multiple times.

Finally, finally, after about six weeks, she received medical evacuation, but it was too late.

She died in Jordan after just being there for a matter of days.

I tell that story because as heartbreaking as it is, it's not unique.

It is a story told hundreds of times across Gaza.

And it's so utterly unnecessary that these children who have somehow miraculously survived are not able to leave.

It's not a logistical problem, it's not a technical problem.

It's simply a problem of political will.

JOHN YANG: Problem of political will.

Have you talked to the Israelis or is it possible to talk to the Israelis about this to see if you could somehow alleviate this suffering?

JAMES ELDER: Yeah, there have been discussions at the highest level from governments in the United States, of course, and in Europe.

But no, no answers.

And as a result we see children, as I say, who somehow survived horrendous attacks, dying in hospitals.

JOHN YANG: And the situation in Lebanon, are you able, are you facing the same restrictions or fewer restrictions on ability to help in Lebanon?

JAMES ELDER: No, much less so in Lebanon.

Our response there, again with partners, again with government, was enormous.

We're not restricted by security.

We're not restricted by roads being bombed.

So no Lebanon as a place to enable UNICEF to reach children with that life-saving support, we were able to do it very quickly from day one.

JOHN YANG: And I know you did not go to Syria on this trip, but UNICEF does have teams there.

What do you hear from them about the situation on the ground there?

JAMES ELDER: John, it's, I mean you've got millions of children who've gone through 13, 14, 15 years of war, who've been born into this.

So whoever takes power there, they have to prioritize Syria's 10 million children.

And that simply hasn't happened for many years.

So I think again with the Syrians, with Gazans, there is a willing population there ready to rebuild despite the horrors that the Syrians have endured, despite the horrors of Gaza.

JOHN YANG: James, what other situations, what other individuals from what you saw in Gaza stand out in your mind?

JAMES ELDER: Oh, John, I mean so many.

If I just think of my most recent trip there, I met a little girl, a seven year old girl, Kamar.

I met her in her tent.

Kamar's home was destroyed in an air raid and her foot was badly injured.

Now her foot had to be amputated.

In any other normal scenario, this seven year old girl foot could have been saved.

It wasn't.

And I could physically watch Kamar coil when she would hear planes or when she would hear drones.

And she is still living that hell as you and I speak.

And those cases are thousands and thousands.

There are so few moments in Gaza that bring anything like joy.

I met a little boy in a hospital, Muhammad.

And because I'd seen so many horrendous wounds, I got a sense of which children were going to be okay and who wasn't.

And Muhammad had this spark in his eyes and I could see whilst he had some burns from the fire, he wasn't too badly injured.

And then I saw the adult with him, he was a neighbor.

He explained to me that Muhammad's entire family had been killed.

That's mom and dad, that's brothers and sisters, that's cousins, that's aunts, that's grandparents, everyone.

I never thought I would hear a story like that, John, where the entire family.

The entire family apart from child, has been killed.

I have now heard that more than a dozen times in Gaza.

Every one of them break your heart.

But they are no longer remarkable in Gaza.

JOHN YANG: Is it possible to say there's a single greatest need, a single thing that has to be done or should be done first?

JAMES ELDER: It's a ceasefire.

It all starts with that because as you and I speak, there is still bombing.

It's been an average of 35 girls and boys killed in Gaza every single day for 13 or 14 months.

Not for a week, not for a month.

35 girls and boys killed every day for 30 months.

So, John, it's a ceasefire.

JOHN YANG: James Elder of UNICEF, thank you very much.

JAMES ELDER: Thanks, John.

JOHN YANG: We asked the Israeli Embassy to comment on this story.

We haven't heard back.

Just in time for the holidays.

A rise in cases of a contagious lung infection across the country is causing alarm, especially for parents of young children.

Ali Rogin talks with an infectious disease specialist about what's behind the spike.

ALI ROGIN: The colder months usually mean more time indoors and higher rates of respiratory illnesses like the flu and COVID.

But now the CDC is tracking an uptick in cases of so called walking pneumonia.

The respiratory illness usually sickens school aged children and teens.

But this year, toddlers are being hit the hardest.

Dr. Donald Dumford is the infectious disease specialist at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Dumford, thank you so much for being here.

What is walking pneumonia and how does it differ from other types of pneumonia?

DR. DONALD DUMFORD, Infectious Disease Specialist, Cleveland Clinic: When we talk about walking pneumonia versus a more classic case of pneumonia, essentially it's typically causing a more mild course of illness.

If you think about a typical case of pneumonia, you're going to see abrupt onset of symptoms.

Whereas with walking pneumonia, which is typically caused by a bacteria called mycoplasma, you're going to see kind of a gradual onset over a few days leading to the illness.

So it's going to be a few days where you start to feel poorly, you start to get a cough, you start to get a fever, and really over about three to five days, you get a fever, headache, muscle aches and then start to get a pretty bad cough with it.

ALI ROGIN: What do we know at this point about why toddlers and other young children are being affected so much this year as compared to previous years?

DONALD DUMFORD: When you think about mycoplasma, typically we see that about every three to five years there's a cyclical increase in cases.

So normally, no matter what happens, every three to five years you see a rise.

We really didn't see that rise that we expected during the COVID pandemic.

So I think right now, because we have probably a higher number of susceptible people, you tend to that there is a lot of higher cases of severe illness, which is why we're seeing it a lot in the toddler population, along with the classical school age population, which is usually the population is most severely affected.

ALI ROGIN: How contagious is this?

DONALD DUMFORD: It is pretty contagious.

So, you know, the best way we look at this as far as the contagiousness is when you look at how it affects families and if it enters a family, you actually expect that about 80 percent of the other kids in the family are going to get sick, about 40 percent of the adults are going to get sick.

And probably, you know, all of us classically will get this probably three times in our lifetime.

One time during our childhood, one time when we're adults, whether our 20s, 30s, 40s, and then probably one time when we're elderly.

ALI ROGIN: Given that we're talking about a post-COVID spike here, are we seeing similar increases in other respiratory illnesses as well, or is it mainly confined to this one?

DONALD DUMFORD: Yes, definitely.

The other thing we've seen this year that has had a rather high spike in cases has been whooping cough, which is caused by a bacteria called Bordetella pertussis.

And it's actually something we, most of us or all of us get vaccinated for when we get vaccinated for tetanus and diphtheria.

Typically that similarly will have an increase in the number of cases about every four to five years.

But we've really seen a really high increase in the number of cases, probably about three or four times what we would otherwise expect, probably because of that having the lack of that increase in the number of cases.

And I guess the challenge to the population during the COVID years.

ALI ROGIN: And what should parents be looking for to spot whether this is walking pneumonia or something more similar to the common cold?

DONALD DUMFORD: Well, I think what you're going to see in your kids typically the common cold, you're really not going to have a fever with it.

A kid's going to have a runny nose, they're going to have a cough, but they're going to seem otherwise.

Well, your kid with mycoplasma, they're more likely to be complaining of feeling achy and they're going to seem a little more run down.

And typically it's going to be associated with a fever.

And when that fever sort of persists a little bit longer than you would otherwise expect with a virus, that's when you might start to worry about mycoplasma.

I think, really, whenever you see a child that's starting to act a little bit punky, starting to act a little bit run down, has a fever, it's time to call your pediatrician to check and see if they should get tested and if they would need antibiotics at that point.

We know that some of the measures applied during the height of COVID can help reduce illness, like washing your hands.

But do those measures still apply for other respiratory.

Respiratory illnesses, and are they things that people can employ to help mitigate these cases?

DONALD DUMFORD: Yes, definitely.

You know, really, as we enter respiratory season, you know, whether you're talking about COVID you're talking the flu, you're talking about this ongoing mycoplasma outbreak, you're talking about the other viruses that we tend to get.

You know, really all of those common sense measures are things that you should be employing.

Washing your hands is going to be imperative.

So you're not taking, you know, a virus you pick up on a table and take it up to your face, which is how you might get it off of a surface.

Making sure that you're covering your cough if you're sick is definitely a big thing.

It's really those common sense measures, they're going to protect your viewers from really all of these illnesses, whether it's mycoplasma or Covid or the flu or the other viruses we tend to see around this time of year.

ALI ROGIN: Dr. Donald Dumford, medical director for infection prevention at Cleveland Clinic, Akron, thank you so much for explaining all this to us.

DONALD DUMFORD: Thanks for having me, Ali.

JOHN YANG: There's a type of white tailed deer that's unique to the Florida Keys.

It's been on the endangered species list for nearly 60 years and only about 800 of them remain.

And its habitat is under growing threat from rising sea levels.

William Brangham has the latest in our series, Saving Species.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): These tiny deer roam freely across front yards and graze on the side of the road on some of the many islands of the lower Florida Keys.

CONNIE RITCHIE, Local Resident: They are very gentle, very gentle.

And the longer you live here, the more you want to protect them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): The key deer is the smallest subspecies of the North American white tailed deer.

They're about the size of a golden retriever.

KATY HOSOKAWA, Ranger, National Key Deer Refugee: They only come to about 24 to 30 inches at shoulder height.

So they are substantially smaller, and they're only found here in the Florida Keys.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): The first written record of the key deer came from a 16th century Spanish shipwreck survivor.

They currently live only about two dozen of the Keys 1700 islands, swimming or wading between them and living in the mangroves, pine rocklands and freshwater wetlands.

CHRIS BERGH, The Nature Conservancy: Climate change is the thing that's going to get them, but it's those very.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): Habitats that are under threat from rising sea levels.

Chris Bergh is with The Nature Conservancy.

CHRIS BERGH: This is a success story.

Until now, these animals have been doing very well.

They've been coming back.

Population is not only stable, but growing.

But it's only a matter of time as the sea continues to rise, that their habitat availability is the thing that undoes the key deer.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): The key deer was in danger of disappearing in the 20th century when their population dwindled down to just an estimated 25 animals.

The construction of Highway 1 in the 1920s cut their habitat in two.

Booming residential and commercial development didn't help matters, and overhunting and poachers from Cuba were a further threat.

But that changed with the creation of a national refuge for them in 1957.

But now a warming planet threatens that progress.

The sparkling waters that surround the Florida Keys may be a major tourist draw.

But the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that in 75 years-time, sea levels around parts of the Keys could rise anywhere from one and a half to seven feet.

And rising sea temperatures will increase the severity of storms and hurricanes, both of which damage the deer's habitat.

CHRIS BERGH: We're not getting our arms around the climate change challenges nearly fast enough.

I expect by 2050 to be standing in a foot of water and then by the middle of the, by 2100 to be waist deep in seawater here.

At that point, there won't be viable key deer populations here in the Florida Keys.

But I think they will probably be rescued, so to speak, by bringing them into zoos.

But I think that's a very sad outcome for a very interesting iconic Florida key species.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Even with rising seas all around, for locals like Jan Svejkovsky and his group Save Our Key Deer, it's still a species worth saving.

JAN SVEJKOVSKY, Save Our Key Deer: You know, some estimates are that the Earth is losing thousands of species a year.

So is one little deer that's already very limited in its habitat range going to really make a difference?

Biologically, probably not.

But physically and personally living, you know, living among them, I think, yeah, it makes a difference.

I think we should try to preserve them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (voice-over): For PBS News Weekend, I'm William Brangham.

JOHN YANG: And that is PBS News Weekend for this Saturday.

I'm John Yang.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

See you tomorrow.