JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, the latest is Israel continues bombarding southern Gaza in orders beleaguered Palestinians to evacuate, then why the Arctic ground squirrel may clues (ph) for treating injuries and curing disease in humans.
And author Stephanie Land on her latest memoir "Class" about navigating motherhood, poverty and college.
STEPHANIE LAND, Author: My main motivation in talking about what it's like to live under the poverty level is so that other people who live that experience won't feel so isolated and alone.
(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening, I'm John Yang.
Tonight, Israel has ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza and says its ground operations have expanded to include every part of the Gaza Strip.
Over Khan Younis, Gaza's second largest city Israel dropped leaflets declaring the area a dangerous combat zone, that residents say was followed by heavy bombardment.
Some of those under evacuation orders have already been displaced at least once before.
The United Nations estimates that nearly 80 percent of the Gaza strips 2.3 million people have fled their homes and Gazans say they're running out of safe places to go.
NABIL AL-GHANDOUR, Gazan Resident (through translator): There's no safe place in Gaza.
We were in the tomb.
It was shelled.
We were in the Shakti camp.
It was shelled.
We move because what can we do?
We have children and all night there's shelling so we move from area to area.
But there's no safety anywhere in Gaza.
JOHN YANG: In the face of the mounting death toll in Gaza, Biden administration officials have repeatedly stressed Israel's responsibility to protect civilians.
On the Sunday talk shows today, National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby pointed to the evacuation orders as evidence the message is getting through.
And fears that the conflict could widen across the region were stoked by reports that a U.S. Navy destroyer the USS Carney shot down a drone in self-defense and the Red Sea.
The action came during an attack claimed by Houthi rebels on commercial vessels off the coast of Yemen.
It's the latest in a series of low intensity attacks on U.S. forces by Iranian proxies since the war began.
Pentagon officials said the Carney suffered no damage and that its crew reported no injuries.
Two incidents half a world apart are being investigated for links to terrorism.
In the Philippines, at least four people were killed and about 50 others injured when a bomb went off during a Catholic mass at a university gymnasium.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. blamed foreign terrorists but didn't say why.
And in Paris, a German tourist was stabbed to death near the Eiffel Tower.
The suspect told police he was upset over Muslims being killed, notably in Afghanistan and Gaza.
The French interior minister said the suspect had previously been convicted for planning violence was being watched for suspected Islamic radicalization, and it was under psychiatric treatment.
One of the three students of Palestinian descent who were shot in Vermont last weekend is paralyzed from the chest down.
The mother of 20-year-old Hisham Awartani says the Brown University student is to be moved from the hospital to rehabilitation care later this week.
His family has set up a GoFundMe page.
The two other students all longtime friends from the West Bank have already been released from the hospital.
And in the United Kingdom, heavy snow left thousands without power and stranded people in their cars overnight.
Across Bavaria record snowfall in Germany this weekend sent some to the ski slopes and in Munich when transportation shut down some just swapped buses and trains for skis.
Still to come on PBS News Weekend, what researchers are learning from the hibernation habits of the Arctic Brown Squirrel, and writer Stephanie Land atalks about her new memoir "Class."
(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Apple's new iPhone 15 is already looking like one of the hottest in demand items this holiday season.
But as Ali Rogin tells us several factors like shifting supply chains, labor disputes and geopolitics are combining to keep the smartphone hard to find.
ALI ROGIN: The world's most valuable company Apple at one point in time had their main supplier making 500,000 of its cell phones per day at one mega factory in China.
Then last year, COVID-19 lockdowns and protests of harsh working conditions caused major disruptions at the factory.
It cost Apple an estimated $1 billion per week.
Since then, Apple has reportedly told its manufacturing partners that it wants to do more business outside of China.
Apple's main supplier, the Taiwan based Foxconn has been moving more of its production out of China into India.
Nilesh Christopher is the South Asia correspondent for the technology publication Rest of World and he's been reporting on the transition.
Nilesh thank you so much for joining us.
Let's talk a little bit more about why Foxconn has been making these moves out of China into India.
NILESH CHRISTOPHER, Rest of World: I think it all ties to geopolitics.
For the longest time, iPhones have always been produced in China.
But over the past couple of years.
The U.S.-China trade war is effectively meant that Apple has been increasingly pushing its suppliers to shift its supply chain outside of China.
So, what effectively has happened over the past year is Foxconn chairman has met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi thrice to be able to build relations and improve their investments in the country.
The government has offered subsidies to Foxconn to the tune of a million dollars to be able to ramp up production.
And all this has effectively meant that Foxconn right now has to hit the ground running and be able to produce iPhone 15s.
ALI ROGIN: And what are some of the challenges Foxconn has been experiencing in India that were not factors in China?
NILESH CHRISTOPHER: China's one party system goes to great lengths on Foxconn behalf investing millions of dollars to set up factories and subsidized energy and shipping.
This is effectively meant that Foxconn has been able to scale smoothly whereas in India, it becomes difficult for them because Apple suppliers have to contend with local policymakers, landowners, one Chinese engineer put it that Apple has been spoiled by China.
ALI ROGIN: But because of that, it also seems like Apple is in many ways beholden to China because the conditions there simply can't be replicated.
Do the challenges Foxconn is experiencing in scaling up in India underscore just how entrenched Apple's interests in China really are.
NILESH CHRISTOPHER: Apple is absolutely beholden to China.
Because of the efficiency of these factories and the production that's happened.
91 percent of the phones being shipped iPhone 15s are still outside of China.
India right now has produces about 10 percent of the iPhones.
And there's a long way to go from shipping about 4 million units in 2020 there are about 9 million right now.
One of the ways is to be able to train Indian workforce and engineers to produce the most advanced phone Apple has yet produced.
And for this Foxconn has been sending in engineers from China to India to train the local engineers in work, which is brought about interesting culture clashes.
One of the interesting sort of production kings that came about is the culture shock that many of these Chinese engineers felt.
One is they felt Indian workers were a little lazy.
And one Chinese engineer was surprised that like a 30 minute delay did not bother an Indian worker on workflow.
And an Indian engineers and workers were more acclimatized to take offs.
And one flippantly said that even for Black Moon day or lunar eclipse the take-off, which is sort of culturally it's in this in auspicious day for women to work.
So, all these are the cultural differences in attitudes that are highly efficient cutthroat manufacturing culture in China to be able to replicate that in India under these conditions, relations.
That's the big challenge.
ALI ROGIN: What is your reporting show about how these two countries ways of government are affecting Foxconn and Apple's ability to achieve their business goals?
NILESH CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely.
The One Party system effectively gives them subsidies, infrastructure, buses in labor, when they will labor shortages.
But India, it's a noisy democracy.
You have to contend with lawmakers, landowners, labor groups, bunch of these people to be able to get the same level of efficiency.
That doesn't mean that the Indian state governments have not done it.
Last February, some of the state governments passed local laws which increased the work hours from eight hours to 12 hours.
And one of the interesting things that has happened is once this bill was passed in the assembly, there was immediate backlash from even the local government affiliate labor.
That meant that a couple of days after the bill was passed, it was immediately shelved.
So it showcases the new kind of normal that Apple and Foxconn has to deal with in being able to meet the Indian shop floor as efficient as the Chinese one.
ALI ROGIN: Nilesh Christopher with Rest of World, thank you so much for joining us.
NILESH CHRISTOPHER: Thanks Ali.
JOHN YANG: Bears aren't the only animals settling in for their winter hibernation right about now.
Arctic ground squirrels can lower their body temperatures to freezing levels and stay dormant for up to eight months.
Researchers at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks are studying how these squirrels can survive on the edge of life.
And as public Alaska Public Media's Kavitha George reports they may hold the clues to treating injuries and disease in humans.
The story was produced in collaboration with Nova with major support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
KAVITHA GEORGE, Alaska Public Media (voice-over): This little squirrel just came out of a lab freezer, but it's not dead.
And scientists like Sarah Rice want to know why.
SARAH RICE, University of Alaska Fairbanks: There's no cardiac arrest.
There's no stroke.
They're obese, but there's no ill effects.
There's no bone loss.
KAVITHA GEORGE (voice-over): This is an Arctic ground squirrel and during hibernation, it can chill its body down to the freezing point, 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's the only mammal that we know can get that cold.
SARAH RICE: And they wake up and they're just fine in the springtime.
KAVITHA GEORGE (voice-over): Here at the University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers are trying to understand the biological mechanisms that allow squirrels to withstand such extreme conditions and bounce back completely healthy.
They found that when the squirrels hibernate, they cycle in and out of a deep sleep called torpor.
SARAH RICE: They're in torpor for weeks at a time where they're super, super cold.
The heartbeats maybe five times a minute, they breathe once a minute, and they're just inactive.
KAVITHA GEORGE (voice-over): Arctic ground squirrels are found all over Alaska, Siberia and parts of Canada.
They hibernate because harsh winters limit their ability to find food for much of the year.
But every few weeks, they slowly warm their bodies to make glucose proteins and immune cells, basically everything their bodies need to do to keep living.
So how do they do it?
If researchers here can figure it out, it might help them develop drugs that can mimic hibernation in humans.
Biologist Kelly Drew says hibernation might help patients with critical brain injuries, like someone who's just had a stroke.
Scientists have known for decades that lowering body temperature helps to slow brain damage.
KELLY DREW, University of Alaska Fairbanks: The optimal therapy for somebody who has a brain injury is to either stop fever, or to cool the body.
And the best way to do that is through the same mechanism that the ground squirrels do to turn down the thermostat.
KAVITHA GEORGE (voice-over): Drew's small team of scientists is working on creating a drug to chemically turn down the body's thermostat like squirrels do in hibernation.
They're focused on certain receptors in the brain called adenosine A-1 which Drew found play a role in slowing the squirrel's metabolic rate and lowering their body temperature.
Her hope is that a drug that stimulates A-1 receptors in human brains to induce body cooling could be part of an effective treatment for stroke or other brain injuries, or even promote brain health as we age.
KELLY DREW: The other thing that cooling and rewarming does to the brain is it also creates these regeneration of synapses and maybe even neurons.
And so for things like mental health, I think cooling and rewarming could be remarkable because it promotes plasticity.
Same with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
KAVITHA GEORGE (voice-over): So far, Drew says the drug has shown promising results in rats and pigs.
The drug testing process is long and rigorous.
If it works, it could be five to 10 years before it has final FDA approval for human use.
Drew says NASA has even shown an interest in the potential to put astronauts in a hibernation like state to aid space travel.
The seven-month trip to Mars would be a a lot more pleasant in a hibernation bubble.
For PBS News Weekend, I'm Kavitha George in Fairbanks Alaska.
JOHN YANG: Stephanie Land's 2019 memoir "Maid" recounted her struggles as a single mother, cleaning houses to earn money and wrestling with the rules of government assistance programs.
It was a New York Times best seller and the basis of a hit Netflix series.
Her new book "Class" A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger and Higher Education" picks up where made left off, she and her young daughter moved to a new state and a new city so land can pursue a college degree.
But her new life had the same old problems compounded by navigating the strange new world of college and by tens of thousands dollars in student loans.
Stephanie Land is in St. Louis, where her book tour is and Stephanie thanks so much for being here.
In the acknowledgments you say this is the book you've always wanted to write why?
STEPHANIE LAND: Well, I think it's the part of my story that I am the most proud of.
And I guess, the most climactic part of it, I escaped a toxic place and found us a community that we could grow and thrive in.
And then I went on to graduate college.
JOHN YANG: I wandered off there was sort of a motivation to tell this story to expose the life that you were living, you were struggling with little jobs, cleaning jobs to put food on the table.
Sometimes you went hungry, were you trying to sort of show this life to maybe upper class or upper middle class readers who may have no idea what this is like?
STEPHANIE LAND: Absolutely.
I mean, that was part of my motivation for both books for made and for class.
But, you know, my main motivation in talking about what it's like to live under the poverty level, especially as a single mom is so that other people who live that experience won't feel so isolated and alone.
JOHN YANG: You caught Australian comic and writer Hannah Gadsby saying what I would have done to have heard a story like mine STEPHANIE LAND: Class, you know, it wasn't very easy story to write.
And my reason for it is, is really, because that's the story that I needed when I was going through it.
JOHN YANG: And you were doing so much to get a college degree.
What did you see a college degree giving you?
STEPHANIE LAND: You know, I really saw it as kind of a magical piece of paper that would somehow lift me out of poverty, but in reality was sinking me further into poverty by taking out student loans.
And in order to stay in school, I just I kind of had to keep this hope alive, that it was going to magically do something for me.
JOHN YANG: And you also talked about how government assistance programs made it hard for someone like you, someone paying your own tuition in college to get that degree that could make it so you wouldn't have to be on a government assistance program.
STEPHANIE LAND: Yes, absolutely.
The work requirements, especially for food stamps.
The classes that I went to, the time that I spent there, the time that I spent doing homework was not included in those work requirements.
So, it was kind of a battle between, you know, am I more valuable as a worker?
Or am I more valuable as someone who is trying to better my life through education?
JOHN YANG: In college, you'd write about how there were certain sort of unwritten codes you didn't understand about office hours, about the value of networking.
Even when you were in college?
Did you feel like you were sort of not part of the elite that you still had your, your nose pressed up against the window?
STEPHANIE LAND: Yeah, in a sense.
Yeah.
I mean, not just me being like, 10 years older than everybody.
And, you know, I sometimes had a kindergartener with me in class.
But it very much felt like I wasn't in on the joke, you know, or it kind of a language that I didn't understand or an ease in feeling comfortable there.
I felt very out of place pretty constantly.
JOHN YANG: And you also said had harsh judgments about higher education.
You're right that I had forgotten the part of the game where no one's education mattered more, more than the money the university could make from your opportunity to soak up all that learning.
God forbid they would make it affordable or easy.
STEPHANIE LAND: I experimented with being a little angry in this book.
And it shows through.
I got very frustrated in in the core classes that I was required to take.
I mean, and I took a lot of them online, so that means that I took like, PE, like physical education online, which was just basically lying about exercising.
That's funny now.
But like at the time, I was spending a lot of resources on that.
So it was just frustrating to me that in order to be seen as this well rounded student that you had to spend thousands of dollars on classes to get there.
JOHN YANG: The book ends before you get the advanced for made before made becomes a Netflix series a lot of people think well that probably solve everything.
Did it?
STEPHANIE LAND: No.
I mean, the trauma that I experienced from being food insecure from being housing insecure, you know, there's a lot of lasting PTSD you know, there's a lot of stuff that I'm still going to carry with me from those years and my children well to.
There was a lot of digging out to do you know, after you've been under the poverty line for a long time.
JOHN YANG: Is there any sort of, I don't know, success, guilt that some of your friends, some of people who were in, in your situation, may still be in that situation.
STEPHANIE LAND: It took me a long time to figure out how to enjoy the success.
And what I ended up doing was, you know, I travel a lot as a public speaker, and now being on book tour.
And the way that I enjoy success is by leaving really, really huge tips.
JOHN YANG: I like that.
Are there things about your life now that the college senior Stephanie Land would just find incomprehensible?
STEPHANIE LAND: No one's ever asked me that before probably the amount of toilet paper that's in my house.
I mean, that's something that I used to steal.
Or just that I have like, extra shampoo and toiletries like those things.
Just they still boggle my mind that like I just now I have them in quantities, you know, instead of stressing over oh, my goodness, I'm running out of shampoo.
JOHN YANG: Are there lessons you think that people going through this can pick up from the book?
STEPHANIE LAND: I would hope so.
I mean, for me, it's always been about fighting back on a lot of stigmas that surround especially mothers who live in poverty, and who are single moms, and to help people maybe not pass as much judgment and to be more empathetic and hopefully show some compassion.
JOHN YANG: The book is Class.
The author is Stephanie lamb.
Stephanie, thank you very much.
STEPHANIE LAND: Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
JOHN YANG: And that is PBS News Weekend for this Sunday.
On tomorrow's PBS News Hour, the Supreme Court hears arguments on opioid maker Purdue farmers bankruptcy deal.
I'm John Yang.
For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.
Have a good week.