JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, as the war in Israel reaches its second month, fighting near hospitals in Gaza grows and calls for a ceasefire intensified.
Then with the Supreme Court considering gun ownership for domestic abusers, we will look at the role of firearms play and domestic violence incidents.
And how horses are heroines cope with the trauma they've suffered in combat.
MAN: He came up to me he put his head right on my shoulder.
It just like lowers everything down and I was like can bring you to tears.
(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening, I'm John Yang.
Tonight, international aid organizations are raising alarms about conditions of Gaza as main hospital which Israel's war against Hamas has left without power.
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross says it's an unbearably desperate situation.
The U.N. humanitarian chief says there is no justification for what's happening.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas is responsible for Palestinian civilian casualties because they use them as shields.
Our report tonight is from special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen.
LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: As Israel's bombardment continues and ground forces penetrate deeper into Gaza, hospitals like Al Quds are going dark, losing power amid the destruction.
A local journalists captured an explosion last night at Gaza's Indonesian hospital.
The Palestinian Quds News network reports that surgeries there have halted and the Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry said today Al-Shifa Hospital, the territories largest medical facility can no longer do surgeries or run life support equipment after running out of fuel.
Doctors Without Borders and other medical NGOs claimed patients inside the hospital were fired upon.
Palestinian health Minister Mai al-Kaila called for more to be done.
DR. MAI AL-KAILA, Palestinian Health Minister: That hospital Al-Shifa is the main hospital in Gaza Strip, it is now threatened by -- because it lacks oxygen, it lacks electricity, it lacks fuel.
LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The Israeli military says there is fighting near Al Shifa but no siege all strikes on it.
And today a military spokesperson added that Israeli forces will help evacuate babies from Al Shifa tomorrow.
Israel claims Hamas has built command centers under Al-Shifa and other hospitals.
Hamas denies this.
Over 800 miles away in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia today, dozens of leaders at an Islamic Arab summit called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza.
More in the West are also adding pressure on Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron last night on the BBC joined the growing calls for a ceasefire.
EMMANUEL MACRON, French President: I think there is no justification precisely to attack civilians.
LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: In London, hundreds of thousands marched on Armistice Day in support of Palestinians.
Dozens were arrested.
In Tel Aviv friends and family of one of the more than 230 people taken hostage by Hamas marched in her name.
Back in Gaza as the conflict rages with no end in sight, thousands more Palestinians from Al-Shifa and elsewhere today fled to southern Gaza, a journey marked by desperation.
KHALIL AYOUB, Displaced Palestinian (through translator): The road is all suffering, suffering that the devil itself wouldn't think of.
I witnessed three conflicts and I have never witnessed something like this one.
I don't know where my sons are.
My wife needs kidney dialysis, there is no hospital.
There are no signs of life.
We in the animals are the same.
LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: For PBS News Weekend, I'm Leila Molana-Allen in Tel Aviv.
JOHN YANG: Russian missiles threaten the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv today for the first time in nearly two months, the sound of air raid siren sent residents scrambling receive shelter and a 52-day period of calm.
Ukrainian officials say air defenses intercept all the missiles.
The fiercest fighting remains in the regions to the south and east of the capitol.
Pope Francis took the rare step today of removing a bishop Joseph Strickland was the Bishop of Tyler, Texas, and one of the loudest voices within the American church critical of Pope Francis is liberalization attempts.
The most recent point of contention was the Pope's efforts to make the church more welcoming of the LGBTQ plus community.
And President Biden marked Veterans Day today with the traditional wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Afterward, he spoke of his personal connection with the day because of his late son Beau, who served in Iraq.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. President: Like it was yesterday, I can still hear what he told me when he signed up to serve.
I said, Beau why?
God's truth, he said, Dad, it's my duty.
Folks as a nation, we owe them.
We owe you.
Not just for keeping the flame of freedom burning during the darkest of moments, but for serving our communities even after they hang up the uniforms.
JOHN YANG: Mr. Biden used the week leading up to Veterans Day to announce two initiatives, a task force aimed at protecting veterans and their families from scams and the elimination of co-payments, enrollment fees and monthly premiums for living World War II veterans getting VA health care.
Still to come on PBS News Weekend, after the fall of Roe vs. Wade why more men are having vasectomy.
And a Connecticut farm where horses are helping veterans deal with combat trauma.
(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether the government made bar people subject to domestic violence protective orders from having a gun.
The decision will come by next summer.
Domestic violence and a firearm can be a deadly combination.
According to CDC numbers, every month, an average of 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner.
And a study found that access to a gun makes it five times more likely that a woman will die at the hands of a domestic abuser.
Kelly Roskam is the Director of Law and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Center for gun violence solutions.
Kelly, thanks so much for being here.
In the introduction we talked about the outcomes of the mix of guns and domestic violence.
In an episode of domestic violence, how does the presence of a gun change the dynamic?
What effect does it have?
KELLY ROSKAM, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions: The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation often turns violence into lethality.
So what we know is that over half of women murdered in the United States are murdered by their intimate partners, and more than half of those intimate partner homicides are committed with firearms.
JOHN YANG: How common is this?
I mean, you're talking about the half of those that are committed.
But how common is this?
Is it more common do you think than people realize?
KELLY ROSKAM: I do think it's more common than people realize thousands of women every year are murdered by their intimate partners.
JOHN YANG: What more should be done about this?
KELLY ROSKAM: What should be done is that people subjected to domestic violence protective orders should be prohibited not only from purchasing and possessing firearms, but there should be a mechanism after the issuance of an order to ensure that an individual who's subject to that order is giving up those guns.
JOHN YANG: I was going to ask about that because the person who is the subject of the Supreme Court case was told when he had the protective order that he could not have a gun that if he did, he would be violating federal law.
But he continued to have a gun.
He continued to use a gun, and they searched his apartment and found the guns and also found the protective order in his apartment.
Is there any other proactive way of doing that?
KELLY ROSKAM: There absolutely is.
While all 50 states and the District of Columbia have civil domestic violence protective orders, and the vast majority of those states prohibit purchase and possession.
Many fewer states have specific removal laws.
Detailing how respondents are meant to give up those guns and to ensure that there's compliance with that order.
JOHN YANG: How often is that federal law prosecuted?
Or is this more a way of denying someone to purchase if the -- if they in the background check if this turns up?
KELLY ROSKAM: While violations of the law are prosecuted, it's much more likely that they would be prohibited from purchasing.
And again, states have similar laws prohibiting people subject to these orders from having firearms and include those removal policies.
JOHN YANG: Are they more effective?
Are the results more effectively you're finding among the states and how do they do the removal policy?
KELLY ROSKAM: So we do find that studies show that having a removal policy in addition to prohibiting purchase and possession shows a greater reductions in intimate partner homicide.
And states are doing this in a variety of different ways by providing explicit instructions to respondents to surrender firearms to, for example, law enforcement, federally licensed firearms dealers, or identified third parties.
And then some states include the schedule of a compliance hearing, where a respondent is required to come back before a judge and show proof of compliance.
And if not, that information may be forwarded to law enforcement to determine if they should seek a search warrant and if charges should be brought.
JOHN YANG: I know in your work, you speak with public health officials a lot.
Do they say that there are red flags or warning signs that a relationship could turn violent?
KELLY ROSKAM: Yes, I mean, one of the biggest indicators are the use of firearms in non-lethal or non-fatal situations, so threats of the use of firearms, threats to children threats to other family members and also threats to strangers.
But additional behaviors like strangulation are big indicators of lethality in domestic violence situations.
JOHN YANG: Kelly Roskam of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
Thank you very much.
KELLY ROSKAM: Thank you.
JOHN YANG: An estimated 15 percent of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD and depression.
For some it's the invisible wounds that take the greatest toll.
Pamela Watts of Rhode Island PBS weekly reports on a program that helps ease those struggles with horses.
THOR TORGERSON, V.E.T.S.
Co-founder and Instructor: Winston Churchill said, you know the outside of the horse is good for the inside of a person, you know, and it's true.
There is a magic that happens of being around an animal that large with that type of energy.
Thank you.
PAMELA WATTS: On this Connecticut farm in 2015, Thor Torgreson co-founded a nonprofit to help combat veterans.
THOR TORGERSON: I have seen individuals who have been homeless addicted to drugs, incapable of walking on their own without a walker or a wheelchair, become fully mobile, off of their addictions, own their own home now drive credit of each 100 percent transformation.
We kind of had that anecdotal data of where there have been individuals who told me that they have not ended their lives because of this program.
Start to make a turn because he's going to want to walk out.
PAMELA WATTS: The program is simply called V.E.T.S.
or Veteran Equine Therapeutic Services.
THOR TORGERSON: Horses are just by nature, the poster child of PTSD, they have hypervigilant, stress, tissues fight or flight issues, all of the markers that are traditional PTSD markers.
And that is a survival mechanism.
And we have veterans who come in who have those same issues.
And you know, when they come in, I kind of jokingly say you're just a horse, and we can work with that.
PAMELA WATTS: The equine specialists first encourage veterans to totally unwind, shaking off tension with deep breaths to let the horse know they are calm in control, and a decisive leader.
THOR TORGERSON: If you put both hands on him, and do that same breathing exercise, you're trying to relax and make him relaxed by you relaxing.
PAMELA WATTS: Torgeson says horses are perceptive, they can sense anger and stress in humans.
Empathy, compassion, and emotional management lead the horse to respond.
The hope is veterans take those skills off the farm and into their lives.
And it doesn't require mounting a horse just harnessing trust.
THOR TORGERSON: Because if I taught you how to ride a horse, and then you never interacted with the horse, again, the skill or the experience would be wasted versus coming get to understand an animal at a very deep level that makes you understand yourself at a very deep level.
PAMELA WATTS: Torgeson says the program can be transformational.
THOR TORGERSON: There are people who have had to see and do things that no one should have to see or do.
You want to stuff those in the darkest place that you can and many people feel that they can never come back from that darkness.
MIKE WARREN, Retired U.S. Marine: I wasn't worried.
I don't, you know, just a lot of bad things done to human people, you know, a lot of wrong, you know that.
You would see any humanitarian situation.
PAMELA WATTS: Mike Warren found himself in that darkness.
He was an 18-year-old Marine when he was deployed to the Gulf War.
On the way his company was rerouted to evacuate U.S. citizens from Liberia during its civil war.
MIKE WARREN: I saw you know, a kid on the street, you know, he had to be like 11 years old shoot an adult, you know?
And those are just things that you never forget.
PAMELA WATTS: And then there were two deployments to Iraq.
How did you get diagnosed with PTSD?
What happened to you?
Well, MIKE WARREN: I didn't know until later.
I ended up going to an alcoholic and drug rehabilitation treatment.
PAMELA WATTS: To self-medicating?
MIKE WARREN: Yeah.
Self-medicated, you know, and -- PAMELA WATTS: Because why?
MIKE WARREN: Try to suppress the feelings that I had of the things that I've seen.
PAMELA WATTS: How did this program make a difference for you?
MIKE WARREN: I'm here today because of the program.
PAMELA WATTS: Really?
MIKE WARREN: Yeah, because I was in the hospital five times for suicide.
You don't want to commit suicide.
PAMELA WATTS: Warren is now a volunteer here.
Caring for more than the horses, he helps veterans entering the program.
Some 100 service people have come through these gates, all served free of charge.
Families of veterans also benefit.
Sara Stepalavich was pregnant with a young son at home when her husband was deployed with the Coast Guard.
She gave birth to her son with Down Syndrome and was raising both boys alone while her husband was frequently at sea.
SARA STEPALAVICH, Coast Guard Spouse: I like to say that out of something really dark came something really beautiful.
I was at a moment of total crisis.
My oldest is here all the time.
He loves coming out here.
My youngest absolutely loves it here.
My husband has benefited from this program.
I mean, this is my second home.
This is my second family.
I found my tribe.
PAMELA WATTS: Stepalavich also found her calling at the farm.
SARA STEPALAVICH: I'm trying to get certified in equine bodywork and getting hopefully my equine specialist and mental health and learning.
PAMELA WATTS: Mike Warren believes the program has helped him communicate better with family and friends.
MIKE WARREN: The horse starts to like, bring you down and break you down, you know?
So it opens your heart, either cowboy.
Ah, no, good boy, aren't you?
PAMELA WATTS: Warren cherishes a breakthrough moment.
While cleaning the paddock, this horse named Gump showed his appreciation.
MIKE WARREN: He came up to me and he put his head right on my shoulder.
It just like lowers everything down and almost like can bring you to tears.
PAMELA WATTS: In this space and at this pace, soldiers who have returned home from war are finding peace.
MIKE WARREN: When I'm here.
I'm not there.
You know what I mean?
But I'm here with the horses.
I'm in a different place.
Tranquil place.
It's a lifesaver.
You're a good boy.
PAMELA WATTS: For PBS News Weekend, I'm Pamela Watts in Stonington, Connecticut.
JOHN YANG: Since the Supreme Court struck down the right to seek an abortion last year, health providers across the country say there is more interest in vasectomies as birth control.
And there are efforts to make the procedure more accessible.
Communities correspondent Gabrielle Hays spoke with doctors and patients in Missouri, which is where she's based.
Gabby, I want to get to your conversations in a bit.
But first, is there data or the hard numbers to illustrate this?
GABRIELLE HAYS: Yeah, there absolutely is, you know, we got a bit of a peek of what that looks like earlier this year, when researchers from the Cleveland Clinic release data that essentially shows that nationally, we saw more than a 30 percent increase in requests for vasectomies, and then a more than 20 percent increase in people actually, you know, going through with the procedure.
But I think, you know, when we talk about the state of Missouri, providers here tell me they've seen an increase here as well to the point where they have been working even at more than a year later after the Dobbs decision to bring more access to the procedure to the uninsured and underinsured.
JOHN YANG: And tell us about the situation in Missouri, which is where you are now.
GABRIELLE HAYS: It's important to note that almost immediately after this Dobbs decision came down last year that Missouri essentially made it illegal to get an abortion in the exception.
The only exception was a medical emergency.
And so providers tell me that, you know, they saw the number of people getting vasectomies rise as much as 100 percent last year.
You know, for instance, a perfect example would be Planned Parenthood held a three-day vasectomy clinic and three different cities across state of Missouri.
That was open to 100 people, a 100 people signed up 91 of them, I'm told, actually follow through and got the procedure.
So they say that the need is exponential, but not just in Missouri, it's we're talking about states surrounding Missouri, in part other parts of the country.
I spoke to a doctor, Dr. Esgar Guarin also known as Dr. G, who has a mobile clinic in Iowa, he came from Iowa to St. Louis to help with the -- with vasectomy patients last week, and he tells me, even in his state where he is with his mobile clinic, he drives all over the state in order to bring access to people not only looking for the procedure, and his state, but people coming from out of state to get it as well.
DR. ESGAR GUARIN, Simplevas Vasectomy Clinic: So normally, I was doing not that many 40, 45 vasectomies in a month.
And then within the first 48 hours, 20 people signed up and we saw a bump of 100 percent in the number of vasectomies that we did in July of 2022.
And that trend continue for three more months, and eventually it kind of came down.
But at this moment ever since the Roe v Wade was overturned, I can tell you that we have not gone back to the pre-Dobbs decision numbers.
So I can tell you that at least for our clinic, a 30 to 50 percent overall increase in the numbers.
We've noticed since then, so it was a big impact.
GABRIELLE HAYS: Dr. G made it clear to me that even in those 48 hours post Dobbs decisions last year, he saw a 300 percent increase in just traffic to his website alone.
He's in Iowa now still performing vasectomies and is about to head out of country.
And so far, he says he's performed at least 5,000th of a second he's in his career.
JOHN YANG: And Gabby, in addition to providers, you spoke with patients as well, what did they tell you?
GABRIELLE HAYS: For one, the patients that I spoke to who got the procedure last year who got it this year, say that this is something that they had been thinking about for a long time, right?
They just -- were trying to figure out what access would look like, you know.
One person I spoke to last week told me that he got it after the Dobbs decision because he was afraid that at some point maybe the option wouldn't be available to him in the future.
But then you have other folks, like another person I spoke to last week who got the vasectomy last week who said you know his decision to get it wasn't a direct result of Dobbs, but he understood how people could make that connection and further just the mere access to being able to get a vasectomy, he said is a basic human right and so that's why he got it.
But providers also tell me, you know, the access to them is important because they hear from patients that there are some doctors who won't do it for patients because they say they may change their mind later, JOHN YANG: Communities correspondent Gabrielle Hays.
Gabby, thanks a lot.
GABRIELLE HAYS: Thank you.
JOHN YANG: Finally, tonight, an animated story for Veterans Day from our partners at StoryCorps.
Since the 1970s, a man known as Dreamer has been giving free haircuts to fellow veterans in Los Angeles.
Dreamer spoke with his friend Paul Crowley, about the day they first met.
PAUL CROWLEY: When I showed up, I was washed.
You've been drinking.
I was totally out of hope.
And part of that was the way I looked and shaved in a couple of weeks.
My hair was filthy and scraggly.
But getting the haircut made me feel for lack of a better word normal, which I hadn't done in a long, long time.
DREAMER: When I first ran into you, I saw a guy that could at some point rise above it.
And I've just felt it, I can help you.
Abraham Lincoln once said never underestimate the power of a haircut.
Of course he never said that but he should have said it.
PAUL CROWLEY: I try and help you out.
DREAMER: Yeah.
PAUL CROWLEY: And I mean I'm not cutting hair.
But when I'm there at the trailer, I've watched the guy that just came right off the streets not doing too well.
And the only thing he has to pay you with is an orange.
DREAMER: Whatever you got, we'll make a deal.
I got rubberband balls.
I've got pebbles, rocks, washers.
PAUL CROWLEY: I've never seen you turn anybody away.
It's amazing to me to see the guys that come in, in the beginning.
And then after they've been there a little while they're going out to look for work, and they walk in with a suit and a haircut you given them the day before and can't even recognize them compared to the day they walked in.
You impress me from the very start, and I respect what you have imparted to me.
It's what has made me into a better person, because of my interaction with you.
DREAMER: Thank you, buddy.
We're going to move forward.
That's why we comb our hair backwards.
PAUL CROWLEY: That's right.
JOHN YANG: For more stories like this, you can go to storycorps.org.
And that is PBS News Weekend for this Saturday.
I'm John Yang.
For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.
And on this Veterans Day, a salute with gratitude to all those who serve and to those who continue to serve.
See you tomorrow.