♪ john: tonight on pbs news weekend, how millions of residents of mexico city are managing a water crisis that's worsening due to poor management, infrastructure, and climate change. then while millions around the world struggle to find love, is artificial intelligence a sufficient substitute for the real thing? >> these chat bots are formed to be suprtive, to be a lot more agreeable. right. and human relationships, we know that there's conflict. so there's challenges in terms of how this is shaping maybe how people think about real life human relationships with others. john: and history breaking

performances in both college and professional basketball from the sport's biggest stars. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, this is sam. how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. somebody's pocket, thought i would let you know that you get nation right coverage with no, that with no contact. that's kind of her thing. have a nice day. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour.

♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank yo john: good evening, i'm john yang. nikki haley, the last remaining rival to dominant frontrunner donald trump, says she no longer feels bound by the pledge the rnc required of candidates, to back the party's eventual presidential nominee. haley was asked about it on nbc's "meet the press." >> you did sign a pledge, an rnc pledge to support the eventual nominee. do you still feel bound by that pledge? amb. haley: i have always said that i have serious concerns about donald trump. i have even more concerns about joe biden. >> so, is that a no? are you bound by the rnc pledge? amb. haley: the rnc is now not

the same rnc. now, it's trump's -- >> so, you're no longer bound by that pledge? amb. haley: no, i think i'll make what decision i want to make. but that's not something i'm thinking about. john: a new new york times/siena -- haley said both trump, who is 77, and president biden, who's 81, are too old. a new new york times/siena college poll out this weekend found that 73% of the registered voters questioned said mr. biden was too old to be an effective president, while 42% said the same thing about trump. the two would be the oldest presidential nominees in history. pills in senate leaders reached a bipartisan deal on six spending bills which need to be passed by friday in order to avoid a partial government shutdown. they would defund the -- they would fund the departments of justice, agricultu, transportation, housing, interior, and veterans affairs. the rest of the government must be funded by march 22, including funding for the state department and pentagon. the israeli military says a preliminary review of that chaotic aid delivery last week

that ended with more than 100 palestinians dead, found that most of the deaths were caused by people being trampled. but gaza health officials said those taken to hospitals had been hit with large caliber ammuniition. israel had prevously said its soldiers had opened fire when they felt threatened by the surging crowd. in haiti, hundreds of inmates fled the country's main prison after armed gangs stormed the facility overnight. it's the latest escalation in violence between gangs and haiti's outgunned police. last week, gangs carried out coordinated attacks on the international airport and two police stations. civilians fled their homes. four police officers were killed. haitian prime minister ariel henry recently went to kenya to try to get support for a united nations-backed security force in haiti. and pakistan's newly formed parliament elected shehbaz sharif as prime minister, ending a month of political turmoil and allegations of vote-rigging in the general election. as sharif accepted the post, allies of imprisoned former prime minister imran khan shouted calls of thief.

sharif's second time as prime minister begins with the country in a deep economic crisis, and mired in political distrust. khan's allies say they will keep protesting and pushing for an investigation into the election. still to come on "pbs news weekend," why people are seeking life partners using artificial intelligence. and history making performances in both men's and women's baskteball. >> thiss pbs news weekend from w eta studios in washington, home of the pbs newshour, weeknights on pbs. john: mexico city, one of the world's most populous cities, could be just months away from running out of water. it's been brought on by a combination of geography, mushrooming growth and leaky infrastructure, all compounded by the effects of climate change. emily green is a journalist based in mexico city who's covered this story for npr. emily, what's the situation there now? what's daily life like now for

just for you. you live there in mexico city or are there restrictions on water use? emily: there are restrictions on water use. i think it very much depends where you live in the city. and that is maybe like the entire world, you know, if you have more money and you're going to feel the impact of the water shortage, much less. that said, i think what's unique rit now is that it is being felt citywide, and i'll just use myself as an example. i live in one of the more upscale neighborhoods of mexico city, and while reporting this story, the water stopped flowing from the tap. i mean, i had a sink full of dishes, zero water coming. for me, it was a little shocking. i haven't had that happen in a while. but that is actually a daily reality for many people in mexico city. john: what are the factors that brought us to this point? emily: i would say that there is two major factors. one is extremely old infrastructure in terms of the water pipes. so the city loses around 40% of the water it receives because of leaks in the pipes.

and that's been a long standing problem. but on top of that, compounding that, is climate change. and that is really what's happening right here. you have this very, volatile combination of old infrastructure cbined with climate change, which means there have been years of much less rainfall than normal, so the levels of the reservoir that provide the water to mexico ci, they're they're very low. and so that's what's happening now, this kind of volatile combination. john: and you sayeakage has been a problem for a long time. has anyone tried to do anything about it? emily: oh, yeah. i remember i was here in 2018 and the city shut off the water supply in order to try and address these leaks. that was one of the first water stories i did in mexico city was at that time. but of course, we're still having the same issues, so it doesn't seem to have made a huge difference. john: and you said earlier that that people who are better off feel it less than maybe people who need -- you may be in need.

is that because of the resources they have, or is it the parts of the city that were affected? emily: both. i visited one area. it's called ecatepec. it is in the greater metropolitan mexico city and in this neighborhood, they haven't had running water for two years now. and the running water that they do have, it comes out and it looks dark brown and it smelled like sewage. so that is an example of where they are living in the city has a major impact. but i think on top of that, what's happening is that if the water is not coming from the tap, people are buying it from private water tanks. they are having it trucked in on water tanks. and it's just a fact that that $70 that one spends is going to impact you more or less, depending on how much money you have. so it's that combination of where you live and also how much money you can afford to spend on trucks, private trucks, bringing in water and paying for that. john: what are the potential effects on schools, hospitals, homes? what are the people worrying

about? emily: if you don't have water, you can't flush the toilet, you can't do the dishes, you can't wash clothes. the list goes on and on. and so it does have a massive impact. the former chief resilience officer of mexico city, said thatlimate change is really the greatest risk to mexico city. and i think that that is coming to bear right now. john: and if climate change is the greatest risk, it sounds like, is there anything anyone can do about this right now? emily: yeah, you can use less water. and i think that there can be measures taken to ensure that individuals use less water, but also factories use less water. i think also this issue of the old infrastructure is a really serious one. and i think that steps can be taken, to improve the, the infrastructure. so i would say it's again, it's -- there's no silver bullet to what's going on right now. the causes are very varied and the solutions are also going to be varied. john: has anyone said that if nothing changes, have they

predicted when taps are just going to run dry in mexico city? emily: i mean, that's the talk of the town here. it's what they call "day zero" and this is the idea that the taps are essentially going to go run completely dry. the date that's being thrown out there is at the end of june. most of the experts that i talked to say that's unlikely to happen. the reservoirs that supply a great percentage of mexico city's water -- they're not the only source of water. there's also underground aquifers. so it's unlikely that the city is going to completely run out of water, but this is a very, very, very serious crisis. and it is not as if we know that next year there's going to be a huge amount of rainfall, so if this drought continues, i don't even want to imagine where we're going to be in a year or two or three. john: emily green in mexico city, where they're running out of water. thank you very much. emily: thank you. ♪

john: shakespeare may have said that music be the food of love, but increasingly these days, the language of this very real emotion may be artificial intelligence. ali rogin tells us about this growing phenomenon in the search for companionship. ali: for some users, they are a friend to talk to. for others, and for a fee, they will even become your boyfriend or girlfriend. computerized companions, generatecompletely by artificial intelligence, are becoming more common. and the bots are sophisticated enough to learn from prior conversations, mimic human language, flirt, and build personal connections. but the rise in ai companionship also raises ethical concerns, and questions about the role these apps can play in an increasingly disconnected and online world. haleluya hadero covers technology and internet culture for the associated press. thank you so much for joining us. tell us about these ai companions. how do they work and what sort of services do they provide? haleluya: like any app, you can

download them on your phone and once it's on your phone, you can start to have initial conversations with a lot of the characters that are offered on these apps. some apps let you do it for free. some apps you have to pay subscriptions. for the ones that let you do it for free, there are teirs of access that you can have so you can pay extra, a subscription for unlimited chats for, different statuses and relationships or replika, for example, which is, you know, the most prominent app in this space. they let you pay extra for intimate conversations or more romantic statuses compared to a friend, which you can have for free. ali: who are the typical consumers engaging in these products? haleluya: we really don't have really good information in terms of the gender brkdown or the different age groups that are using these. but we do know from external, -- external studies at have been done on this topic that, at least when it comes to replika, that a lot of the people that have been using these apps are people that have experienced loneliness in the past, or people that, more than just have

experienced loneliness. feel it a lot more acutely in their lives, and they have more severe forms of loneliness that they're going through. ali: you talked to some users who really reported how they felt like they were making a real connection with these bots. tell us about what those experiences have been, like those that you've reported out. haleluya: one person we put in the story, we spoke to him more. his name is derek carrier. he is 39. he lives in bellville, michiga and he doesn't use replika. he's used another app called paradot that came out more recently. he's had a tough life. he's never had a girlfriend before. he hasn't had a steady career. he has a genetic disorder. he's more reliant on his parents. he lives with them. so these are all things that make traditional dating very difficult for him. recently, he was looking at this ai boom that was happening in our society. so he downloaded paradot and he started using it. initially he said he experienced a ton of romantic feelings and emotions. he even had trouble sleeping, in

the early days. when he started using it. because he was just kind of going through, like, crush, like, symptoms. you know, when we have crushes and how we sometimes can't sleep because we're thinking about that person. over time, his use of paradot kind of tapered down. you know, he was spending a lot of time on the app. even if he wasn't spending time on the app, he was talking to other people online that were using the app, and he felt like it was a bit too much. so he decreased his use. ali: the surgeon general has called loneliness a public health crisis in this country. is there a debate happening now about whether these bots are helping adess the loneliness crisis? or are they, in fact, exacerbating it? haleluya: if you talk to replika, they would say they're helping, right? it just depends on who you're speaking with. some of the users that, for example, if you go on reddit that have reported some of their experiences with these apps, they say, you know, it's helping them deal with loneliness, cope with those emotions, and maybe get the type of comfort that

they don't really get in there human relationships that they have in real life. but then there's other researchers, people that have kind of expressed caution about- -- about these apps as well. ali: what about some of the ethical concerns about privacy, about maybe using people's data without their consent? what do those conversations look like? haleluya: there's researchers that have expressed concerns about, you know, data privacy. or is the data the type of conversations that people are having with these chat bots, are they safe? in terms of, you know, there's a lot of advertisers that might want a piece of that information. there's concerns about, you know, just the fact that there's private companies in the space that are encouraging these deep bonds to form between users and these chat bots and companies that want to make profits. there's concerns about, just in terms of what this does to us as a society when these chat bots are formed to be supportive, to be a lot more agreeable. right. and human relationships, we know that there's conflict. you know, we're not always agreeing with our, with our partners. so there's challenges in terms of how this is shaping maybe how

people think about real life human relationships with others. ali: haleluya hadero, covering technology and internet culture for the ap. thank you so much for your time. haleluya: thank you, ali. ♪ john: two historic milestones in basketball this weekend. last night, lebron james of the los angeles lakers became the first nba player to score more than 40,000 points in his career. he did it with this spin-move drive to the basket. and this afternoon, on a foul shot, caitlin clark of the university of iowa became the new all-time ncaa scoring leader, for men and women, breaking a record set more than a half-century ago by pete maravich at louiana state. christine brennan is a usa today columnist. put this accomplishment this afternoon and the player in

perspective. how big of a deal is this and how good is she? christine: the person with the most points in the history of major college basketball is a woman. and i never in a million years would have thought i would have been able to say that sentence. the fact that caitlin clark has come a long -- come along at this time in our nations history, you and i have to about title ix, we as a nation, we have fallen love with what we have created. the opportunity for girls and women to play sports. it would be inevitable that someone like caitlin clark would come along. a terrific role model, great person, and has had a run that we may not see in sports, men's, women's, basketball, other sports, inany, many months or years to come. just this incredible ability to hit those threes. it is unfortunate it was a foul shot, but she had many threes in the game.

and a big victory for iowa over ohio state, a rival day wanted to win the game on senior date. there was a lot going on. she has more games to go. she will put number even higher and may be out of reach for others coming after her. john: you mentioned the significance a woman is now the all-time scoring leader. talk about the fact that this is a record that stood for so long, more than half a century. christine: right. pistol pete maravich, i remember as a girl watching him play. . he was prolific, spectacular, he was exciting. in many ways, people have said to caitlin clark, watch videos of pistol pete because you are so much like him. that is a perfect analogy. and also the fact that we are talking -- there are people out there that maybe aren't loving this. may be guys who are thinking, wait a minute here. you know what? the conversation has brought pistol pete back into our consciousness. tragically, he passed away in 1988, 14 years before caitlin clark was even born. he was 40 years old.

the fact that we are talking about him and bringing him back and telling kids about him is fantastic. now this. these steppingstones in our nation's history and culture as we look at the advancement of women in sports. and a male domain. basketball has been a guys club, and a sense of, we talk about -- we don't use the adjective men's often when we talk about basketball. people talk about doing their bracket when there are two brackets. i would guess a lot of people will be doing a woman's bracket this year. nonetheless, click -- caitlin clark has been breaking through this with a smile and joy and happiness that has brought millions of people along for the ride with her. john: she is going into the wnba draft. what is impact on the league? christine: i think it is significant and will happen right away. i was checking the ticket prices of games in washington. she will be with the indiana fever. they will take her. she will be playing professionally starting in may.

there ws one game that was $75 on stub hub. the caitlin clark gain -- a-game, $400 for a seat. that was within 24 hours of the announcement that she was going pro. she will be a presence in our kids lives, and in the lives of so many americans for years to come. as these super stash as a superstar. because she has a place to play, professional basketball, and she will raise the consciousness and the exposure of the wnba to new heights. because she is that kind of person who will bring some many people with her wherever she is playing. john: just turned to men's basketball. lebron james, 40,000 points in his career. how big of a deal is that? christine: no one has ever done it. it is a member he has set himself, it is a big number, and a browned number. he said, that is not the most important thing in his career, but it is a milestone he

celebrated. and that basketball is having a heckuva weekend. what does it mean? its longevity. this is a man who was drafted in the nba right out of high school in 2003, 18 years old. what he has done now is he is 39, he will turn 40 december 30. what he has done is show how to play the game with class and grace, and incredible talent. a great teammate, he passes the ball. caitlin clark, incredible assist lebron james, incredible assist. playmaker, teammates, going to show other teammates as well, not just the star of the show. the fact that he passed kareem abdul-jabbar last year for the highest scorer in nba history in this year, setting that newmark, it is fantastic. he has had four nba titles. one of them in his hometown of cleveland. came back to cleveland, the

canaries, where he is from, to give northern ohio that championship. a spectacular person, one of the greatest athletes we have ever seen. and he deserves absolutely all of the accolades he is getting. john: christine brennan of usa today on a big weekend for basketball. thank you very much. christine: john, thank you. ♪ john: now online, we find out why deaths associated with excessive alcohol use have risen 29% in just five years. all that and more is on our website, pbs.org/newshour. 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. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> >> cunard is a proud

supporter of public television. on a voyage with cunard, the world awaits. a world of flavor. diverse destinations. and immersive experiences. a world of entertainment. and british style. all with cunard's white star service. ♪ >> 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.]

>> you're watching pbs.

(man) this program is made possible in part by contributions to your pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. can you all live the ultimate retirement? you can. (man) from the new world center in miami beach, acclaimed personal finance expert suze orman provides essential advice to make your retirement more successful and secure. every little action that you take can make a tremendous difference. it's never too soon to begin. fear no more.