john: tonight on pbs news weekend, as the war in ukraine leaves a growing number of people with amputations, a non-profit is helping them get fitted with artificial limbs. >> more than 30,000 people are waiting for prosthetics right now. that means they have lost at

least one limb. so the situation is getting really bad day after day. john: then, with spain's historic victory in the women's world cup, a look at both the progress and remaining challenges for women's soccer. and, as americans head overseas in record numbers, rick steves' advice on navigating post-pandemic travel. ♪ >> major fundingor the "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- >> a pocket dial. with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. have a nice day. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support

of these individuals and institutions. ♪ and friends of the newshour, including leonard and norma clorevine, and koo and patricia -- and, friends of the newshour. ♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcastg, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ john: good evening. i'm john yang. tropical storm hilary made landfall this afternoon along mexico's baja peninsula. it may have lost its hurricane status, but forecasters warn it will still deliver potentially historic rainfall across the southwest, which could trigger life-threatening flash floods. by tomorrow morning, the fast-moving storm is eected to

be well inland over nevada as a tropical depression. but on its way there, forecasters say the storm could dump up to 6 ihes of rain on parts of california, nevada, and arizona. and that could lead to mudslides and power outages. officials say the worst conditions are expected in the mountains east of los angeles. >> rain is forecast to begin earlier than expected. as you can see if you look outside, it's here. the valley and san gabriel mountain areas outside of the city of los angeles are expected to see the largest impacts, with three to seven inches of rain. john: los angeles mayor karen bass says the city has been reaching out to people without homes living in encampments along thcity's riverbeds and other flood-prone areas. she says city shelters are available for residents without a home. to the north, in washington state, another kind of climate

disaster. three wildfires in the eastern part of the state have claimed a life and destroyed some 185 structures. officials say the largest of the blazes, called the gray fire, has charred about 10,000 acres west of spokane and is totally uncontaid. spokane county is under a state of emergency, and thousands have been forced to evacuate. the netherlands and denmark said today they'll supply u.s.-made f-16 fighter jets to ukraine. the united states had earlier approved the transfer. ukrainian president zelenskyy has been asking for f-16's as he seeks an edge in the war with russia. the planes won'have an immediate effect. officials said pilot training would begin this month and take at least six months to complete. and, spain's women's soccer team won its first world cup championship today, defeating england 1-0. a packed crowd in sydney, australia, watched spanish left-back olga carmona score the game's only goal about midway through the first half. this year's world cup tournament set records for both attendance

and tv viewers. still to come on pbs news weekend, a look at the progress made in women's soccer, and the challenges the sport still faces on the global stage. and, rick steves gives his well-traveled advice on being a post-pandemic tourist. ♪ >> this is pbs news weekend from weta news studios in washington, home of the newshour weeknights on pbs. john: the war in ukraine has reached a grim milestone. as many as 120,000 ukrainians have been wounded, and close to 70,000 killed. as the conflict rages on, a critical need has emerged for some of those wounded on the frontlines, access to artificial limbs. nick schifrin reports on a ukrainian non-profit that helps survivors move forward after life-changing injuries. nick schifrin: it is the largest land war the world has seen in 80 years, and russia has built an 800 mile long defensive line

that includes massive fields of mines. some 20,000 to 50,000 ukrainians have been seriously hurt and forced to amputate one or more limbs since the russian full scale invasion last february. that number surpasses levels not seen since world war i. the ukrainian group superhuman center is trying to answer the massive need for medical attention, offering reconstructive surgery and physical and psychological support to those who have lost limbs. andrey stavnitser is the co-founder and joins me now. how massive is this challenge , and has it increased in the last few months as ukraine has gone on the counter-offensive through those russian minefields? andrey stavnitser: so just for your understanding, we have approximately the size of austria, a land plot the size of austria is filled with mines right now in ukraine. so even if the war stops today, it's going to take many months, if not years, to de-mine it and

we see civilians and military personnel stepping on those mines every day. and about 30,000, more than 30,000 people are waiting for prosthetics right now. that means they have lost at least one limb. so the situation is getting really bad day after d. nick: and you mentioned it's both civilians and soldiers. for those soldiers, are you seeing a dramatic increase because of the nature of how the russian defenses have been built and the fact that ukrainian soldiers simply have to go through the minefields in order to get to the russian forces that have occupied your land? andrey: exactly. we are in the middle of the counter-offensive. and we are losing a lot of great guys. and we're really, really waiting for the f-16s to back us up from the skies. and that hopefully is going to change the course of the war. but meanwhile, what superhumans is doing is we're trying to save as many victims of war, so we don't distinguish between

civilians or military or kids. it doesn't matter for us. and we try to provide them with the best prosthetic solutions there are. and we do it totally free of charge, thanks to our donors from all over the world, and especially from the u.s. nick: russia has systematically targeted the ukrainian health care system. the organization of physicians for human rights now says 1000 facilities have been targeted. what are the barriers, what are the challenges within the system already that these victims who are losing limbs face? andrey: so the biggest issue was to create the ecosystem, to bring the expertise into the country, the expertise of prosthetics. and it's not only prosthetics, it's also psychological, physiological rehabilitation. it's production of prosthetics. installation and maintenance has to come as a package because, you know, these peoplethey

need complex, holistic solutions. our main goal is to put them back to work, to make them able to perform in the office or whatever they would be doing before. for example, we have a patient who is ice skating instructor, so we have produced ance skating prosthetic so that he can go back to training kids, you know, doing figure skating. nick: does that mean that every person who comes to you at least needs a tailor-made prosthetic and how difficult is that? , andrey: it is quite difficult. your prosthesis is a point of contact for the rest of your life, because whenever you lose a little bit of weight or you gain a bit of weight or something happen to you, you have to come and adjust your prosthetics. they start causing trouble. it starts causing pain. so you have to make sure that it's always fitting you in the best possible way so you can be vertical and you can do sports and you can be active, etc, and so it's a complex thing and ukraine never had it. so we had to bring all this expertise. we had to teach our doctors abroad and bring them in. we had to find u.s., u.k.,

german doctors, bring them into ukraine so that they could train as many doctors in ukraine who could then go and work across the country. nick: you currently have one facility in lviv, the largest city in western ukraine. you're hoping to open five facilities in the next two years. are you concerned that the need for what you do is only going to increase as this war continues? andrey: we're trying to be ready for that. before the war started, i thought $1 million was a lot of money. but right now i see that $1 million is only 50 patients for superhumans. our biggest bottleneck right now is that we need more financing in order to bring help to more people. we're obviously blessed with donors, but this is not enough. the amount of people that need help is much bigger than than any of our current donors. nick: andrey stavnitser is the co-founder of the superhumans center.

andrey: thank you, nick. ♪ john: five years ago, spain's national women's soccer team didn't have jerseys designed for women, did not have high-quality training facilities, and did not have enough physical trainers. their rapid rise to today's world cup championship, and what the team went through to achieve it, symbolize both the sport's worldwide progress and the challenges it still faces. meg linehan is a senior writer for the athletic who covers the u.s. women's national team and the u.s. pro women's soccer league. team members were talking with each other, this is a team that had never won a knockout round game before in any official tournament. talk about what they achieved and what they did today. >> first time world cup winners,

dethroning the u.s., to go through this tournament in australia and new zealand and survived the group stage is a massive accomplishment for spain . and they tested success on the youth level as well so we are seeing this growth across the game in spain but to win the women's world cup is a massive accomplishment to win against a team like england to just won last year zero competition. a major, major win and something for them use as a massive platform moving forward. john: talk about coming out of the world cup what the current and future state of women's soccer looks like? >> this world cup has shown how

investment immediately makes a difference not only in the growth of the game but the level of play. danowski, who essentially lost his job because of the u.s. performance of the world helps , said multiple times the rankings don't matter this world

cup. we saw just an incredible level of play and the incredible level of competition where debutantes were hanging with major teams. john: this is obviously something the u.s. team has been pushing for, in a way is there a legacy of the u.s. team as they exited early and they are no longer the dominant player but have they helped this issue? >> i think we saw sweden knocked the u.s. out and then immediately turned around and said you have to respect the team for what they have done on the field and as players but also for everything they fought for. this fight i think it boiled down in simple terms of equal pay but it goes more beyond the payment, the salaries, equal prize money for a world cup, it goes into equal working conditions and how bonuses are structured and if you have

enough medical staff, are you equipped to play at the highest level the way the men's national team is? we saw this with canada. they don't really start thinking out it until janine beckie goes to cover the men's world cup and sees what the men's national team has and comes back and says, why don't we have this? so it's a bigger fight than the equal pay but the u.s. women's national team set the stage in terms of saying equal pay has to be on the table, equal prize money, but it is also working conditions, travel conditions, hotels, physio-'s, all of these things usually make a difference to what we can accomplish. john: on the question of equity at the end of last week, the , fifa president gianni infantino, first of all, he called it will pay a slogan and also told the women's players to

pick the right battles, you have the power to convince us men what we have to do. what do you make of that? >> i mean it is pure gianni , infantino. he has said multiple things along those same lines. he acts as if the doors are open for female footballers in this space and what we have seen from this world cup is that so many teams are fighting their federations. payments that fifa has promised for these players are not actually going to reach these pockets. there is no magical opening of doors, unlike what he is promising. there are still multiple systemic battles that ha to happen in order for the game to be respected. but what we're seeing is that even when teams are fighting their federations, they can win a world cup. even when teams are fighting their federations, they can accomplish things.

and even when every systemic barrier is put into place the , women's game explodes and -- explodes in popularity and investment so it will happen with or without him but hopefully he will get on the right side of things. john: megan linnehan of the senior writer of the athletics, thank you very much. >> thank you. john: a lot of pent-up wanderlust is being released after three years of pandemic restrictions. americans are crossing the atlantic in record numbers, jamming hotels and popular tourist sites. a lot of them, no doubt, are armed with a rick steves guidebook or advice from one of steves' columns, newsletters, or long-running series on public radio and pbs. thank you for joining us. i understand you just got back

from iceland and poland. were there any differences, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. -- pandemic? >> i've spent a couple of months in europe so far this year, ranging from spain to estonia to iceland. and the big issue is the crowds. there's sort of a feeling of revenge travel, they're calling . everybody wants to get back there and do the trips that were canceled. and europe has learned how to moderate the crowds by having people book admissions to museums. europe did not waste time during the pandemic. there's a lot of impressive new infrastructure, new museums, new libraries, new creative restaurants. it's pretty exciting time to be there. john: i know your guides urge people to get off the beaten path, to do things that not many tourists do, but do things that the locals do. are you still finding new things after all these years? >> my whole idea is to go over there and hit and miss and miss and hit and miss and bring home the hits, to make mistakes and learn from my mistakes. take careful notes so people can learn from my mistakes rather than your own and travel more smoothly. i've done in the last couple of years venerable long distance trails in the alps. i've done barge tours in burgundy.

i've learned the joy of second cities in europe. everybody goes to the first cities. why not try lyon or marseilles after paris? why not go to porto instead of lisbon? you're going to go to edinburgh. be sure to check out glasgow. yes, go to dublin, but don't miss belfast. it's these rust belt industrial cities that used to be ignored that are now edgy and i think really rewarding. and they get you away from all the crowds. john: how do you approach a new place when you first encounter it? >> i try to be as confused as a typical tourist would be. i've been going there all my li fe. a first timer is not going to know what end's up. and then i realized that, you know, your time, your money is a limited resource, but so is your time. and that means remembering a taxi ride can be a good economic choice. considering what you and your travel partners time is worth. that means do a smart itinerary, recognizing that you don't want to have redundancy, you don't want to see oxford and

cambridge. do one or other of the great university towns and make time for something entirely different, like the castles in northern wales. i think it's really, really constructive for us to get out there, get to know the world, find out that there's more than one right way to do things. and the world is filled with beautiful people and a lot of love and a lot of joy. and you come home then with i think the most beautiful souvenir, and that's a broader perspective. john: during the pandemic, there was a t of that sort of tunnel vision focusing on things right in front of us. how has that changed americans' attitude toward travel? >> the challenge for us these days is to get away from our screen. you know, i was filming in venice recently and we were trying to find two lovers on a gondola going under the bridge of sighs. there's no lovers going under the bridge of sighs, they're all taking selfies, you know? and as a tour guide, i have to really remind my travelers, be in the moment. that's a big challenge for us. and another big challenge is don't be sheep going where everybody's going.

i mean, these days it's crowdsourced. you've got a lot of people who've never been to paris telling you where the best hot chocolate is. you know, you can let that design your itinerary. but really, it's important for us not to have that instagram mentality where you got to stand on the same pier and get the same frame so you can prove to your friends that you're having a great time. go over there and carve your own path. if you've got irish heritage, that's where you should go. if you love wagner and opera music, you can go to the wagner festival. if you love italian food, you can go to italy. if you love world war ii history, you can go to normandy. it's just, for me, so exciting to be able to go over there and sort through all the options, cut through all the superlatives, and find out ways that we can travel smartly. john: you mentioned instagram. there's so many people talking about travel on instagram, on youtube channels, influencers who may be getting a lot of freebies from the things they're talking about. how has that changed how people learn about travel? how has that changed what you do?

>> in the future, i think there's going to be two kinds of travelers. those who consume information smartly, and those who take information that comes at you with an agenda. you got to know how to travel like a temporary local. you got to know when you walk down the main street, the damrak in amsterdam, you're going to see a place that looks like a tourist information center, but it's actually a box office selling commercial ventures. there's no anne frank. there's no dutch east india company. there's no rembrandt in that box office. there's just a bunch of gimmicks at want your time and your money on your vacation. what you need to do is equip yourself with good information. expect yourself to travel smart, and you will. a good example is lines. the green, thoughtless, unprepared traveler spends a lot of time needlessly in lines. and for me, that's a big agenda. if i encounter a line when i'm researching for my guidebooks, i find a way around that line. i find a way to coach my

travelers to be able to enjoy that site without wasting 2 hours trying to get into it. john: rick steves, helping people travel smart. thank you very much. >> hey, thank you, john, and happy travels. ♪ that is pbs news weekend for this sunday. on monday, a controversial new california law that allows courts to enforce care plans on people with mental illness. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> how may i help you? >> this is a pocket dial. >> with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is our thing. have a nice day. ♪

>> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

tely, but just what is it? the word comes from the latin word for this, a fasces. the idea? well, you can break one stick easily, but when you bundle them together, they become very stron and, when a ctator convinces an entire nation to march together in lockstep, they feel strong, too, and, in fascism, an ax symbolizes that it's unity with discipline; brutal, if necessary.