JOHN YANG: Tonight on "PBS News Weekend," we look at the latest research trying to better understand long COVID and how to treat it.
Then climate change and other human activity are driving a decline in the bird population, what's being done to reverse it.
WOMAN: The loss of habitat combined with climate change is making it trickier for birds to find places that have ideal conditions for them to survive.
JOHN YANG: And the under told story of a larger than life figure in New York City's gay liberation movement.
(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening.
I'm John Yang.
Former President Donald Trump is vowing that nothing is going to drive him out of the presidential race, not even a conviction on any of the felony charges he's facing.
Flying between campaign speeches last night, Trump told POLITICO, I'll never leave.
Look if I would have left I would have left prior to the original race in 2016.
On Fox News Sunday, former Attorney General Bill Barr said the charges alleging his former boss mishandled classified documents are very serious.
WILLIAM BARR, Former Attorney General: I do think we have to wait and see what the defense says and what proves to be true.
But I do think if even half of it is true, then he's toast.
I mean, it's a pretty -- it's a very detailed indictment.
And it's very, very damning.
JOHN YANG: There are no legal bar to Trump's running for office while he's on trial or even as a convicted felon.
He'll be arraigned in a federal courtroom in Miami on Tuesday.
In Ukraine amidst heavy fighting and the ongoing counter offensive, Ukrainian forces say they've retaken a village in the Donetsk region in the southeast.
They claim that video shows soldiers displaying the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag there.
In the south water levels are receding after last week's big dam collapse and catastrophic floods.
But the humanitarian crisis remains.
Ukraine claimed Russia shelled a boat carrying evacuees from the flood zone, killing three and injuring 10 others.
Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was arrested and questioned today as part of an investigation into the finances of Scotland's ruling party.
There are allegations that the party misspent hundreds of thousands of dollars raised to campaign for Scottish independence.
Sturgeon abruptly resigned in February after dominating Scottish politics for nearly a decade.
Her husband the party's former chief executive was arrested in April but has not been charged.
Sturgeon was released after being questioned.
Her spokesperson says she's cooperating with the investigation.
The North Carolina Republican Convention voted behind closed doors to center the state's second term senior U.S.
Senator Tom Tillis.
Convention delegates said Tillis has strayed from conservative values on LGBTQ plus rights, immigration and gun safety.
But tell his spokesperson told The Associated Press that the Senator has no apologies for his positions on those issues.
History was made at yesterday's Belmont Stakes the victory of the racehorse Arcangelo made trader Jena Antonucci, the first woman to win a triple crown race.
Since 1937, 30 women had tried 47 times to break that glass ceiling without success.
Also at the Belmont Park Racetrack yesterday, a continuation of the string of horse fatalities and the tracks last race of the day one of the horses suffered fatal injuries.
This year at least one horse died in the undercard of each triple crown race.
And Novak Djokovic won the French Open today setting the record for men's Grand Slam titles at 23.
He's now just one shorter Margaret Court's all time record.
Still to come on "PBS News Weekend," while two-thirds of North American bird species face extinction.
And the story of a trailblazing transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson.
(BREAK) JOHN YANG: According to government data, more than 100 million people in the United States have had COVID.
For most of us, it's meant a few miserable days.
But for about 15 percent of those who have gotten the virus it's meant prolonged symptoms, what's come to be known as long COVID.
More than three years into the pandemic physicians and researchers are still struggling to understand a lot of things about the condition.
Laura Santhanam, our news digital health reporter has written a lot about long COVID.
Laura, one thing they've had trouble with as defining it actually what it is there was a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association recently that tries to stick a step toward definition.
What did they find?
LAURA SANTHANAM: That's exactly right.
So researchers at Mass General Brigham in Boston, they surveyed thousands of long COVID patients and basically asked them through, you know, to tell them, you know, what are your symptoms.
And so what they found were, you know, really echoing a lot of what you hear about from people who've been dealing with long COVID, right?
They took 37 symptoms, whittled them down through infection history and statistical modeling into these 12 symptoms that they say form the hallmark of long COVID, things like brain fog, dizziness, chronic cough, also this thing called post exertional malaise.
So say you, you get up to walk across the room, or you read a recipe to make supper one night, it just wipes you out, things that people used to do that without, you know, even thinking about now, it just -- they're completely exhausted.
And it's just really points to how transformational this disease is.
And also, we're just beginning to understand it.
Researchers call this an attempt to create a common language around how to understand this disease.
JOHN YANG: Is there any correlation between Long COVID and vaccination status?
LAURA SANTHANAM: According to this study, there is evidence that supports that.
So you know, they took these different survey responses from long COVID patients and broke them into four different clusters, looking at types of symptoms, and also severity, you know, people who tended to have the worst symptoms and outcomes and just sort of all of it were those who didn't have their full primary series, so two vaccines, doses of Moderna, or Pfizer, what have you, and also had been infected with COVID, multiple times.
So that combination is really rough for people who are then end up with long COVID.
JOHN YANG: Some COVID experts have reservations about this study, what are their concerns?
LAURA SANTHANAM: You know, it's one of the big concerns about this study is that we're still so early in this process, right?
You know, the researchers themselves, when I asked them, they say, you know, this is not a diagnostic tool.
You don't take this study, and then, you know, diagnose someone one way or another with long COVID.
So what it does do is that it, again, forms a common language around how we can talk about this disease, you know, create clinical trials to then better understand what are the treatments that we should be using for people who are sick with this, and then ultimately working towards creating diagnostic tests, giving someone a test and then saying, do you have this or not?
Another thing that researchers will also tell you, told me, you know, is that, you know, they didn't use lab data to see, you know, if these people did in fact have long COVID.
It's just self-reported survey data, you know, which has its limitations in that respect.
But, you know, another step in this process would be, you know, taking, you know, does they -- do they have an immune response that suggests they have these sorts of disorders.
JOHN YANG: Now, you've talked to in for your reporting on our website, you talked to a lot of people who are experiencing long COVID.
What did they tell you not only about their experiences, their symptoms, but about getting medical care?
LAURA SANTHANAM: Yeah, it's been such a struggle for so many people, and many of them have felt adrift in the healthcare system for some money for as long as, you know, for years.
You know, what, you know, one patient who I talked to said that, you know, if you are lucky enough to find a physician who will listen to you, that's going a long way but so many times they are just sort of round - - it's like a round robin of medical care trying to, you know, create -- find someone who will listen to them, instead of just saying it's all in your head, and then get the kind of care that they need.
A lot of them describe their care as trial and error.
Many of them go to, you know, Facebook groups, they describe the weight for post-COVID care centers as being six months or more the waitlist certainly support those stories.
And it's just really been a struggle for people who again, so many of them struggle to just get up and walk across the room much less, you know, try and get transportation, childcare, their whole life in order so they can get an appointment that takes months in the making.
JOHN YANG: Earlier you mentioned looking for antibodies and some of these people, what else needs to be done?
Or what else is being done to further understand this condition?
And also figure out the best ways to treat it?
LAURA SANTHANAM: That's a really great question.
I mean, you know, that and that's what one of the -- that's one of the things that this study supports is just sort of looking at these 12 symptoms.
How can we treat those symptoms in design clinical studies that are targeting those symptoms.
And then see what happens when we do.
You know, other areas where we need to certainly do more research, or looking at long COVID in pediatric patients in looking at this disease in, you know, pregnant people.
Right.
And those are certainly part of this broader initiative, you know, recover initiative from the National Institutes of Health, which the study is also a part of, but there's certainly a long way to go and long COVID patients have been waiting a very long time to get there.
JOHN YANG: Laura Santhanam, thank you very much.
LAURA SANTHANAM: Thank you.
JOHN YANG: As the climate crisis worsens so does pressure on wildlife.
New research indicates that the population of nearly half of all animal species is declining.
And as Ali Rogin reports, among the most affected are birds.
ALI ROGIN: If you're accustomed to waking up to the sound of them chirping or watching them flock to the feeder outside, you might not realize it, but birds are in trouble.
The number of birds in North America has declined by 3 billion in the last 50 years.
That decline has hit some species of the animal harder than others with birds living in Canadian and American grassland habitats, experiencing the biggest drops in population.
Joining me now is Brooke Bateman, Director of Climate Science at the National Audubon Society.
Brooke, thank you so much for joining us.
Two-thirds of North American bird species are teetering on the edge of extinction.
Why is this?
What environmental factors lead to this?
BROOKE BATEMAN, Director of Climate Science, National Audubon Society: Yeah, so we've lost 30 percent of our births since 1970.
And a lot of the changes that we've seen across the North America are due to human changes in the landscape, such as loss of forests, conversion of grasslands, to agriculture.
So we've seen a lot of habitat loss, it's really affected the birds in North America where they have less habitat than they used to back in 1970 and prior to that.
ALI ROGIN: And how much of this is attributable to climate change?
BROOKE BATEMAN: So we are already seeing effects of climate change.
And what we're actually seeing is sort of these two effects working together against species.
So the loss of habitat combined with climate change, is making it trickier for birds to find places that have ideal conditions for them to survive.
So, we're already seeing birds move because of climate change and trying to find new locations to move into.
And that's tricky when there's not a lot of habitat because things have been altered on the landscape from what they've been used to.
ALI ROGIN: And tell us a little bit about the role that birds play in the ecosystem and what might happen.
What are the detrimental effects if their populations continued to decline?
BROOKE BATEMAN: Yeah, birds are really integral for the ecosystem.
At Audubon, we say birds tell us because birds tell us what's happening in the ecosystem.
And they really are tied to that the changes that we're seeing.
And so birds are really important for things like insect control, they really help our crops, including our coffee crops that have insects, they come help and by eating the insects, they help those crops survive.
They also keep away some of our invasive species, the insects like emerald ash borers.
They're really important for pollination.
So some of the key things that we need from pollination brings us our vegetables, and our fruits.
And birds are key for that along with insects.
And they also do other things.
So blue jays, for example, are one of our, what we call ecosystem engineers, because when they pull acorns off the ground from Oak trees, they can actually move those hundreds of miles and build forests.
So they're important for the movement and the growth of new forests.
So birds just do a ton for us.
And if we didn't have them, we lose a lot of those ecosystem services.
ALI ROGIN: Talk to us about the efforts on the federal level to conserve the species.
BROOKE BATEMAN: Yeah, so the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is an act that helps protect migratory birds and protects them.
And so that's been a really important act that has helped birds and keep them protected within North America, as well as the Endangered Species Act for some of our species that are endangered to really make sure that they have the safety that they need out in the places that they live.
So those are two really important federal policies that that help protect birds.
ALI ROGIN: And I know a lot of the efforts right now are about keeping birds off that Endangered Species Act list.
But what additional steps would you like to see in terms of preserving and renewing these species populations?
BROOKE BATEMAN: Yeah, so I think one of the biggest things that we can do is try to help bring back certain habitats and restoration efforts are really going to be key here, but there are things that you can do even in your own backyard.
So one of the things that I think is the most exciting and promising is planting native plants and reducing the amount of grass that you have in your backyard and putting more native plant species, because that will provide habitat for birds and food for birds.
And also it actually has a wonderful side effect that plants actually store carbon in their matter.
And so that helps pull carbon out of the atmosphere carbon dioxide, so it also helps with climate change.
So it's kind of a win-win, to rely on these ecosystem native plants and habitats that will benefit birds and help stabilize the climate.
ALI ROGIN: And the Audubon Society has been doing a lot to get individuals involved as well.
I mean, the Audubon Society has been studying birds since it was founded about a century ago.
But now you have a lot of kind of open source resources for folks, including the Climate Watch program.
Tell us about that, and how it's helping advance our understanding of birds.
BROOKE BATEMAN: Yeah.
So at Audubon, we study how climate change affects birds, we put out a report in 2019 that showed that two-thirds of birds in North America are extinct -- at risk of extinction because of climate change.
And so we really wanted to track how that was happening on the ground in real time in Climate Watch.
This is having volunteers across the country, go out and count birds and look for birds.
And what we're doing is scientists were studying and looking at how these birds are actually shifting where they live because of climate change.
And so we're looking at climate change as it's happening.
Climate change is not a far off problem that's happening only with polar bears, we're actually finding that the birds are changing where they occur because of climate change.
And that's because of the Climate Watch program.
It's one of the ways that we're able to understand that climate change is already affecting the birds that we love in our backyards.
ALI ROGIN: And of course, we're talking about all of these species that are endangered.
But there are some bright spots, it seems in some of these recent reports, including waterfowl populations have actually been on the rise.
And that seems to be kind of ironically, thanks to the efforts of hunters and fishermen.
I'm wondering if you can talk about that and any other notable grassroots efforts to preserve certain species?
BROOKE BATEMAN: Yeah, I think waterbirds are a wonderful example of how when we take conservation actions into our own hands and put some funding into it, we can really make a big difference.
And the funding that's been coming in through hunters, as well as duck stamps, which hunters needs to acquire before they hunt, but anybody can buy a duck stamp, that money goes back into the system and the Fish and Wildlife Service helps establish habitats and do conservation efforts that have helped waterbirds do so well.
So I think it's a great model to show that if we know what we need to do, we can make a big difference.
Another great example is the Raptors.
So our eagles and our bigger hawks, those birds were in decline because of a pesticide called DDT.
And again, there were big efforts to kind of remove that pesticide from the system.
And now those birds that 50 years later have bounced back and we can see bald eagles kind of all over the U.S. now where we used to not be able to.
So, it just shows that if you know what to do, and you take action, you can make a big difference.
ALI ROGIN: Brooke Bateman, Director of Climate Science at the National Audubon Society.
Thank you so much for joining us.
BROOKE BATEMAN: Thank you for having me.
JOHN YANG: And now as part of our Hidden History series, we look back on the legacy of a larger than life figure in her own community.
Her contributions to the fight for gay and transgender rights were until recently largely overlooked.
She was fondly known as St. Marsha, a central figure in New York City's gay liberation movement, a model for artists Andy Warhol, and an advocate for transgender and homeless youth.
Marsha P. Johnson wore many hats sometimes literally.
They were often adorned with plastic fruit or flowers.
MARSHA JOHNSON, Founding Member Of The Gay Liberation Front: They call me Marsha pay it no mind Johnson.
I try and pay a lot of little things that happen to me in life absolutely no mind.
JOHN YANG: Assigned male at her 1945 birth in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Johnson started wearing clothes made for girls when she was five, but felt pressured to stop after being sexually assaulted by a 13-year old boy.
As soon as she graduated from high school, she fled across the Hudson River to New York City with just $15 and a bag of clothes.
There, she dressed as she pleased while better than in her hometown life in New York City could still be hard for those who didn't match societal norms.
Crossdressing was a crime in New York State and Johnson was sometimes arrested simply for wearing makeup in public.
Often unable to find a job and without a permanent residence, she turned to sex work.
Johnson really enjoyed performing and drag.
She was part of a drag group called Hot Peaches and took to the stage sporting red heels and bright wings.
Even though the Bahamian enclave of Greenwich Village where Johnson lived was the focal point of the city's gay life.
Police still routinely rated gay bars there.
During a late night June 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn, patrons fought back and the modern gay rights movement in America was born.
Johnson, who was 23 at the time has wrongly been credited with throwing the first brick of the uprising.
She said she didn't arrive at the scene until after the chaos had begun.
One of the many transgender women on the front lines that night because they said they had nothing left to lose.
Johnson may not have started to Stonewall riot, but for decades to come.
She was a key player in the LGBTQ plus rights movement that had sparked even as many gay and lesbian groups marginalized transgender people.
MARSHA JOHNSON: You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights.
JOHN YANG: With longtime friend Sylvia Rivera, also a transgender woman, Johnson founded STAR, Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, the term transgender was not widely used yet.
The political collective supported and housed homeless LGBTQ plus youth and sex workers.
During the AIDS crisis that began in the 1980s, Johnson helped spread awareness and raise money.
She looked after sick friends even as she struggled with her own mental illness and became HIV positive herself.
In 1992, Johnson's body was pulled from the Hudson River.
Police first called it suicide then reclassified it as undetermined.
And in 2012, reopen the case which remains unsolved.
She was 46 years old.
MARSHA JOHNSON: And if I die, I hope nobody cries either.
Instead, stand up, get up and dance, party and have a good time.
JOHN YANG: Today her name and legacy live on with the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, which advocates for the rights of black transgender people.
And now online four things to know about the history and evolution of the world's oceans.
All that and more is on our website pbs.org/newshour.
And that is "PBS News Weekend" for this Sunday.
On Monday, the latest on the historic indictment of former President Donald Trump.
I'm John Yang.
For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.
Have a good week.