PBS News Hour

JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, as the gambling capital of the world prepares to host tonight's Super Bowl, the growing ties between pro sports and sports betting companies, then what's behind the nationwide surge in syphilis cases, and what can be done to reverse the trend.

And writer and filmmaker Curtis Chin on what he learned growing up at his family's Chinese restaurant.

CURTIS CHIN, Filmmaker and Writer: It just really taught me this idea of being able to talk to people that are different from you, not being afraid to ask for help, not being afraid of asking questions in life.

So many fundamental things about the way I look at the world and how I deal with people came because of working in that restaurant.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening.

I'm John Yang.

Once again, former President Donald Trump's remarks at a campaign speech are drawing fire from both allies around the world and rivals in the United States.

Yesterday in South Carolina, Trump said he told NATO countries that as President, he would encourage Russian aggression if they don't pay what they owe the alliance.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And they said you got to pay up.

They asked me that question.

One of the presidents of a big country stood up said, well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?

I said you didn't pay your delinquent.

He said yes.

Let's say that happened.

No, I would not protect you.

In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.

You got to pay.

You got to pay your bills.

JOHN YANG: The head of NATO said Trump's comments put U.S. and European forces risk.

The White House called his words appalling and unhinged.

Nikki Haley Trump's top remaining Republican rival fired back on CBS Face the Nation.

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Don't take the side of a thug who kills his opponents, don't take the side of someone who has gone in and invaded a country and half a million people have died or been wounded because of Putin.

Now, we do want NATO allies to pull their weight.

But there are ways you can do that without sitting there and telling Russia have your way with these countries.

That's not what we want.

JOHN YANG: Trump also mocked Haley's husband for not campaigning with her.

Michael Haley is actually serving in the Horn of Africa with the South Carolina Army National Guard.

Today Nikki Haley said it's part of Trump's pattern of disparaging U.S. troops and their families.

And we are just learning that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is back at Walter Reed Medical Center for the Pentagon says our symptoms suggesting an emergent bladder issue.

Austin had been in Walter Reed last month for treatment of prostate cancer.

As a bill with money for Ukraine cleared a key hurdle in the Senate today, Kyiv said it shot down more than 40 Russian drones that had been launched across the country in a barrage that lasted nearly six hours, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy named a new commander of ground forces in hopes of spurring frontline progress.

It's Oleksandr Pavliuk, who had been first deputy defense minister.

President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah should not go ahead without a credible plan to protect the more than 1 million civilians trapped there.

It came to leaders first call since Mr. Biden called Israel's campaign in Gaza over the top.

On ABC's this week before the two leaders spoke, Netanyahu defended Israel's efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We've brought down the civilian to terrorists casualties, the ratio down below one to one which is considerably less than in any other theater of similar warfare and we're going to do more.

We're going to provide -- MAN: Wait a minute.

You're saying it's only been one civilian that's been killed for one Hamas terrorist in Gaza?

NETANYAHU: Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

JOHN YANG: Netanyahu also said that enough of the remaining Israeli hostages are still alive to justify the war despite the high cost in human lives.

In the Philippines, the death toll in a landslide last week now stands at 54.

More bodies were recovered from the mud and the hard hit Southern Village of Masara.

Rescue efforts have been hampered by heavy rain and the threat of more landslides.

More than 1100 families have been evacuated.

63 people are still missing.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, how cases of a sexually transmitted infection that was nearly eradicated decades ago are hitting record numbers.

And what one writer learned working in his family's Chinese restaurant.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Not so long ago, a Super Bowl in Las Vegas would have been unthinkable.

Pro sports avoided anything to do with gambling.

As recently as 2015, the NFL made a fantasy sports convention off limits for players because it was held next to a Las Vegas casino.

But tonight The Super Bowl is being played with inside of the Vegas Strip.

Not only that pro sports leagues and individual teams rake in millions of dollars a year in partnership and ad revenue from sports betting companies like DraftKings and FanDuel.

Andrew Brandt is director of Villanova University's Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law.

He's also a former Green Bay Packers executive and the host of a podcast called the Business of Sports which we should note is sponsored by DraftKings.

Andrew, when you were helping one of the Packers in the early 2000s, could you ever imagine that the NFL would be embracing gambling the way it is now?

ANDREW BRANDT, Villanova University: John, I could not there is no area of sports business in sports law that has undergone a sea change like sports betting.

We could not get near any kind of bet back in the day, even before it worked for the Packers.

Everything about sports betting and sports from leagues, from the NCAA, from teams, from commissioners from owners taboo, it's taboo.

You cannot go near there.

And it's mind boggling to me that today we're playing a Super Bowl in the mecca of gambling of this country, Las Vegas, it just shows you how things have changed over the last few years.

Something I would have never thought while working for the Packers in the early 2000s.

JOHN YANG: What's the brief version of how we got here from there?

ANDREW BRANDT: State of New Jersey was trying to implement sports betting over a period of time and they were blocked because of some law that was in the books in 1992 that didn't allow states to implement it.

Chris Christie in New Jersey went to court it lasted seven years and all the leagues including the NFL fought it in court spent tens of millions of dollars of legal fees.

And lo and behold on May 14 2018, the league's lost, New Jersey won.

The decision from the Supreme Court didn't legalize sports betting John but what it did was allow states to implement sports betting and as of today, there are 38 states and the District of Columbia that are now legalized sports betting.

The other part of it is the lore of Vegas.

Vegas is a town that had everything.

It had fun.

It had shows, it had concerts, but it didn't have sports.

And then the NHL went there.

Then the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA went there.

And then of course, the Oakland Raiders became the Las Vegas Raiders.

The NFL to me lost all their moral high ground when they place a franchise in Las Vegas.

JOHN YANG: You say they've lost the moral high ground but this week, Commissioner Goodell talked about the integrity of the game working to maintain the integrity of the game.

This season they've suspended a number of players for violating gambling rules.

And yet they're making money from this revenue from gambling sports betting companies.

What do you think of that?

ANDREW BRANDT: Yeah, well, you mentioned the word integrity that has been the mantra of the NFL since I was working in it.

Every time they thought sports betting it's the integrity, integrity, integrity, we've come to a point where monetization has outdueled integrity.

Leagues, teams, owners can embrace sports betting.

Their investors in sports betting.

FanDuel, DraftKings, they sponsor every team.

Some of the NFL owners are early investors with equity portions in those companies, but players can't.

And that's really the dichotomy we have here.

Do as I say, not as I do.

JOHN YANG: This past week leading up to the Super Bowl, you have this sort of dichotomy of the obviously the players in the Super Bowl can't even go into casinos.

But NFL players who are just visiting for the game can gamble in casinos.

ANDREW BRANDT: Yeah, of course the players on the teams are way away from the strip but come the end of the game on Sunday night, they can do whatever they want.

They can be in casinos, they can do appearances in casinos, of course, they have to walk through casinos to get anywhere.

But they can't do sports betting in the casinos.

It's a delicate dance.

It's a paradoxical situation.

It doesn't seem to make sense to the average person.

But that's the way the NFL is trying to sort of thread the needle later.

JOHN YANG: It used to be the broadcaster's would talk about point spreads in code with a wink and a nod.

But now they're talking about it openly on broadcasts on pregame shows, and that sort of thing.

Has this changed the way we consume sports?

ANDREW BRANDT: It absolutely has.

I mean, listen, what sports leagues are always trying to do is attract a younger, more technical audience.

What brings in a younger, more technical audience, it's gambling, its bets.

The average number of NFL games watched by a non-better is 15.

Pretty much your home team's games.

The average games watched for a better is 50 games, the NFL knows that set.

So it is putting it out there and all the programming you can't watch or listen to a sports program without having that.

So it's all around us.

It's embedded in our sports consciousness right now.

JOHN YANG: To what extent is the NFL or can the NFL be seen as encouraging sports betting?

And could people get in over their heads?

ANDREW BRANDT: They rely on this 2018 Supreme Court decision and they're jumping in just like everyone else is because hey, it's legal, and there's monetization from it.

And we can't be behind anymore.

The problem is, where is the line as you talked about.

We're not allowing players to gamble.

We've had players suspended throughout the season for betting.

So it is still this, as I keep saying this, do as I say don't do as I do, because then fellas embrace it.

They're embedded in, but players cannot steal.

JOHN YANG: As you point out, we got a couple of NFL owners who are hold stakes in these betting companies in the NBA, you've got the owner of a casino operator about to buy the Dallas Mavericks.

What are the dangers and pitfalls in this?

ANDREW BRANDT: This is something that is fraught with potential problems.

I've always said these leagues need to hire gambling czars that really can cut through all of the potential difficulties in dealing with this.

But as I said, once these leaks place teams in Las Vegas, now we have a Super Bowl in Las Vegas.

They have embraced the potential for lack of integrity after promoting integrity in everything they do.

So this is a dichotomy we have to really assess.

JOHN YANG: Andrew Brandt of Villanova University.

Thank you very much.

ANDREW BRANDT: Thank you.

JOHN YANG: According to the CDC, the number of syphilis cases in the United States is the highest it's been since the 1950s.

Ali Rogin looks at what's behind this surge of this sexually transmitted infection or STI and what public health officials are doing about it.

ALI ROGIN: Syphilis was close to being eradicated in the U.S. in the 1990s.

But in the decades since funding for prevention and treatment has stagnated, and the number of cases has risen steadily.

According to the latest report from the CDC cases of syphilis shot up 80 percent from 2018 to 2022 alone.

Dr. Philip Chan is the Chief Medical Officer for Open Door health, a center for LGBTQ plus patients in Rhode Island, and an associate professor at Brown University.

Dr. Chan, thank you so much for joining us.

Why are syphilis cases on the rise?

And should we be concerned about this?

DR. PHILIP CHAN, Brown University: Syphilis, unfortunately, has been increasing for a couple of decades here in the U.S. as largely gone unnoticed.

It's increasing now and circulating among the cisgender heterosexual population.

And we just aren't testing enough.

And we don't have the infrastructure needed to address this increase not only in syphilis, but also other STIs.

ALI ROGIN: As you mentioned, cases arising among cisgender people, particularly cisgender women and heterosexual people.

Why are we seeing the increases in those populations in particular?

PHILIP CHAN: I think the simplest has gotten a foothold in that population, and especially among populations that have been marginalized, a little bit more African American, black, Hispanic, Latinx communities, and we're just seeing spread because we aren't testing enough.

Congenital syphilis especially is a huge concern.

It can cause really significant complications for the unborn baby up to and including death.

A lot of women from especially underserved communities aren't getting prenatal care.

It is recommended and required in many states that pregnant women do undergo syphilis testing.

So the fact that we're missing these cases the fact that we're seeing congenital syphilis I think shows us that a lot of folks aren't getting the prenatal care that they need.

ALI ROGIN: How did the COVID 19 pandemic disrupt STI treatment and detection of syphilis cases?

PHILIP CHAN: What we saw during the pandemic with a lot of clinics closed, while the staff were reassigned to deal with COVID-19, in a lot of cases went undiagnosed.

I think on the other hand, a lot of folks had less sex potentially.

So we may not have been seeing a lot of transmission.

But there was definitely some transmission that was going on that was unrecognized.

ALI ROGIN: The rising cases in the last decade has coincided with a drop in funding for STI screening and prevention, Congress cut $400 billion for disease investigators as part of the debt ceiling negotiation last year, how is this going to affect the existing resources for testing and detection?

PHILIP CHAN: I think the health departments in all states are really critical centers for addressing the STI epidemic.

They're responsible for communicating with partners for disseminating funding for contact tration, and partner notification services.

So this reduction in funding has really been harmful to the health departments.

We definitely need more infrastructure.

We need more funding.

We need more resources to address this increase in STIs.

ALI ROGIN: And since last year, there's also been a shortage of penicillin, which is the most effective drug used to treat syphilis in adults and the only drug that can treat pregnant women to prevent congenital syphilis.

How are people dealing with that shortage?

And and will the shortages make the existing problem even worse?

PHILIP CHAN: So the good news is that syphilis remains highly sensitive to penicillin, which is a generally a common antibiotic.

Unfortunately, you do need a little bit of a long acting formulation.

At this time, we are having a shortage of benzathine penicillin, the formulation that we use to treat syphilis, and specifically in pregnant women.

What we're doing is really prioritizing people who are pregnant for the benzathine penicillin.

We're using alternative antibiotics for other people.

It's not great, but it's what we're doing while there's a shortage.

ALI ROGIN: Yeah, we're aware that there are efforts to use a drug called doxycycline as post exposure prophylaxis, how effective is that?

PHILIP CHAN: This is one of the most exciting things in the field of STIs.

A lot of us are really hopeful that it's going to be a game changer as we talk about addressing STIs.

So doxycycline is a pretty common antibiotic.

And there's studies now that show that it's really effective in preventing syphilis, Chlamydia, and gonorrhea.

So we expect some CDC recommendations in the near future, but it's going to be recommended to prevent STIs, the data is strongest in gay bisexual other men go sex with men and transgender women.

We're hoping it's really going to be a game changer in preventing and addressing the STI epidemic.

ALI ROGIN: He mentioned a few other STI is gonorrhea and chlamydia.

Interestingly, gonorrhea is down slightly for the first time in a decade and Chlamydia cases have remained stable.

If these infections are resulting from those same sexual practices and health issues that we've already discussed.

Why are those other two rates stabilizing while Syphilis is on the rise?

PHILIP CHAN: Well, I think it's good news.

I think it also remains to be seen.

This is a single data point from last year the data that we have, but reassuringly these STIs have remained stable.

But I think it remains to be seen whether or not this trend continues.

I do think all these STIs are transmitted slightly differently, slightly different attack rates in terms of being transmitted to other people.

And I think for things like gonorrhea especially we see slightly less attack rates and potential for transmission compared to a committee of specialists.

ALI ROGIN: Dr. Philip Chan, Chief Medical Officer for Open Door Health and associate professor at Brown University.

Thank you so much for your time.

PHILIP CHAN: Thank you for having me.

JOHN YANG: Curtis Chin spent a lot of his childhood at Chung's his family's Chinese restaurant in Detroit.

He was a waiter, the host and then as the neighborhood got grittier, he was security watching the door.

At one point he assumed that he like his father and grandparents would spend his life there.

Instead, he became a writer and filmmaker, a founder of the Asian American Writers Workshop.

Chung's closed in 2000 after six decades of serving customers.

It also provided Chin life lessons and shaped his worldview.

He's written about it in his memoir, everything I learned I learned in a Chinese restaurant.

Curtis Chen, welcome.

What did you learn?

CURTIS CHIN: I learned everything in that Chinese restaurant, not just how to cook, but how to deal with people.

But I also learned about family history.

The City of Detroit, it was just a really, really great place.

JOHN YANG: Are there lessons you still live today or you use today?

CURTIS CHIN: Oh, yeah, constantly.

I mean, I always say that the very first lesson was something my dad taught me.

When you're a kid, oftentimes people say don't talk to strangers.

My parents gave me the exact opposite advice.

They said talk to strangers and who they were talking about were the people sitting in our dining room because my mom didn't have a chance to graduate high school.

My dad went to community college for two semesters before he had to quit and work in the business again.

And so they didn't know what opportunities existed outside of those four walls, but they knew they had a dining room full of people that did.

And so anytime my dad met somebody who thought he had a cool job, or just seemed really happy, he called all six of his kids to run over there and barrage them with questions of what do you do for a living?

How did you get your job?

How much money do you make?

And it just really taught me this idea of being able to talk to people that are different from you, not being afraid to ask for help.

Not being afraid of asking questions in life.

And so yeah, I -- so many fundamental things about the way I look at the world and how I deal with people came because of working in that restaurant.

JOHN YANG: Detroit also was sort of a major character in the book.

CURTIS CHIN: Yeah.

JOHN YANG: How did it affect you?

How did Detroit affect you?

And what do you carry with you from Detroit as you go through life?

CURTIS CHIN: Well, I think it's like the sweatshirt says Detroit vs. Everybody.

I think that when you grew up in a city that is constantly picked on, you're like, you feel like the rest of the country was bullying us in a lot of ways.

And so we're very proud of who we are.

And we stick to our guns about Detroit.

I know there were a lot of challenges growing up in Detroit, particularly in the 80s.

The car companies were struggling, there was crack cocaine, there was AIDS.

You know, I knew five people murdered by the time I was 18 years old.

But I always say I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything.

I was a really great experience.

JOHN YANG: Talking about the auto industry, the 80s and 1982, of course, there was a well-known case, a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was killed, beaten to death by to laid off auto workers who were blaming him for what happened to their jobs.

How did that affect you?

CURTIS CHIN: That case probably changed my life in the sense of before that I was going to be a Chinese waiter for the rest of my life.

I mean, it was a great restaurant, my family was out there, I got all the free food I wanted.

But then that night that he was killed our families or friends, you know, my uncle was his best man.

And so you know, when we found out that Vincent had been attacked, and he was in the hospital, I immediately checked the newspapers, right, I didn't see anything reported then.

I didn't see anything the next day, the next day after that, after that, it took the media 12 days before they actually covered it.

Meanwhile, everybody's coming to our restaurant asking for details about the case, what we heard had happened, that disparity between what the Chinese American or Asian American community wants to know versus what the mainstream media was covering, really made me think about, well, who gets to tell the stories, you know, and I think that when the judge only find these guys $3,000, and they never had to serve a single day in jail.

I really thought that if the media had done a better job of telling the stories of Asian Americans, that he probably would not have given that sentence.

And so in that sense, I thought, like, I, maybe I could be one of those people to go out and tell the stories of our community.

JOHN YANG: There was also the not just the media ignoring it.

But there was also this wave of anti-Asian feeling in Detroit at the time.

And I'm wondering if you found echoes of that during the pandemic, with sort of Asian Americans being villainized.

PHILIP CHAN: So my family has been in this country since the 1800s.

And I think that in a lot of ways, the discrimination that my great, great grandfather felt when he first came to this country parallels the discrimination that I sometimes face, right, this perception that was Asian Americans, were not really loyal to this country, you know, with COVID, this idea that we were dirty, you know, that we had diseases.

If you look back at history, those are the same things they were saying about the first Asians that were coming to this country.

And so yeah, I feel like there's a parallel.

I think the main difference, though, is that how are we as Asian Americans responding to it.

And I feel like that you can point to a lot of progress in the sense that we're much stronger community now.

We have a lot of infrastructure, we're able to stand up when people, you know, are perpetrating all this anti-Asian hate crimes, we're actually doing something about it.

And so I think that has been really exciting for me, and why I'm very optimistic about the future.

JOHN YANG: Why did you write the memoir and what do you hope readers will take away from it?

PHILIP CHAN: We live in a very divided country right now, right?

We have these little silos where didn't talk to each other.

But it feels like Chinese restaurants are one of those few places where you can actually see people from different races, socioeconomic backgrounds, religion, sexual orientation.

And if we just took the opportunity to just, you know, maybe lean across the table over us and just say, hey, what are you eating?

Like, maybe those are the little things that our country, you know, as people that live in this country need to do, we just need to start being able to, like, engage with each other, and I feel like food, you know, and places we get food are places that are perfect for that.

And so, as I said to my friends, it's like, the book I'm pitching is comfort the egg grows, but stay for the talk on racism, you know, because these are very important topics for us to discuss in this country.

I wouldn't want us to shy away from them.

But let's do in a way that actually brings us together that that heals our country that allows us to move forward and maybe having a nice plate of Chinese food, you know, will help that.

JOHN YANG: The book is "Everything I learned I learned at a Chinese Restaurant."

The author was Curtis chin.

Curtis, thank you very much.

CURTIS CHIN: Thank you.

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

I'm John Yang.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

Have a good week.