JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, consumer confidence hits a near record low amid worries that President Trump's trade war could fuel inflation and trigger an economic downturn.

Then, the Trump administration dismisses hundreds of scientists helping to write a major report on climate change.

And we look back at the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens 45 years ago today.

MAN: It was the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens was much more powerful than any hurricane.

Any explosion of a nuclear weapon was a devastating event.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening.

I'm John Yang.

Today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seemed to acknowledge that President Trump's tariffs may lead to some prices going up, but downplayed fears that it would fuel inflation.

On CNN's State of the Union, Bessent said he spoke with Walmart CEO after he announced this past week that the retailer may pass tariff costs along to consumers.

SCOTT BESSENT, Secretary of the Treasury: Walmart will be absorbing some of the tariffs.

Some may get passed on to consumers.

But the other thing that's happening is that inflation is down.

We had the first drop inflation in four years under President Trump.

JOHN YANG: This past week, a closely watched measure of consumer sentiment slid to a near record low, largely on concerns about trade policy.

Ali Rogin spoke about all of this with Erin Lowry, a personal finance expert and author of the "Broke Millennial" book series.

ALI ROGIN: Erin, thanks for joining me.

Let's start with the anxiety that lots of Americans are feeling right now, the R word recession that's being thrown around a lot in recent weeks.

Are we any closer to a recession right now?

ERIN LOWRY, Author, "Broke Millentnial": The situation is we don't actually know whether or not we are in a recession yet.

And part of that is because they can't declare if we're in a recession until there's enough data to make that determination.

That they is the National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER, and that's the organization that determines and announces the start and the end date to recessions.

Now, one of the key indicators is 2/4 consecutively of negative GDP growth now, we had one last quarter.

We'll find out in June whether or not there were two quarters.

So by July, we might know whether or not we have been in a recession this entire time.

ALI ROGIN: You've coined the term personal recession to refer to how some people feel despite broader economic indicators.

What does that mean and how can people break out of that sort of cycle?

ERIN LOWRY: Well, when it comes to a personal recession, that can happen at any time, no matter how the economy is doing.

And it largely has to do with your ability to earn an income.

So if we think about folks who may be en masse have been getting laid off lately, there are plenty of people who are already potentially in a personal recession.

There are so many Americans that live in a paycheck to paycheck cycle that disruption of a job loss is catastrophic potentially to their personal finances.

So even if the economy is doing well and or if the stock market is doing well, it can still feel for some people like a personal recession.

And if inflation is going up, cost of consumer goods are going up, everything feels more expensive to you, and it's reflected in your household budget.

That's pretty painful.

ALI ROGIN: Some of the data shows that the job market is strong despite layoffs.

Inflation is slowing somewhat.

So why then is consumer confidence still at the low point that it is?

ERIN LOWRY: Well, if you think about a lot of the goods that consumers are interacting with every day, we're thinking about groceries or gas prices that if they continue to go up or stay high and cost of groceries especially have felt very high for quite a long time.

Unless there's a really significant decline, those are things people are interacting with weekly.

If you're seeing all of these prices just go up and up or just stay high, that feels like a recession to you.

Whether or not the other economic indicators actually conclude we're in one, it at least feels shaky to folks, and it can really erode at consumer confidence.

ALI ROGIN: What would you say to everyday investors who are looking to navigate some of the recent turmoil that somewhat seems to have leveled out at the moment, but of course, everything is still very in flux.

ERIN LOWRY: One important thing to remember is that the stock market is not the economy.

We so often conflate those two things.

But while they play with each other, they are not mutually dependent on each other.

So the stock market sometimes does really well while we're in a recession.

And sometimes the economy's doing great, but the stock market goes into a bear market.

One of the great examples of this is the Great Recession.

Back in March of 2009 is when the longest bull run in stock market history that went on for a full decade started.

We weren't officially called at the end of the recession until June of 2009.

So the bull market started before the recession ended.

But I'm a millennial.

I remember it felt like were in the Great Recession for a heck of a lot longer than June of 2009.

So even though it still felt really hard to get a job or maintain employment, the stock market did do really well during that time.

ALI ROGIN: What would your financial advice be for people on either ends of the employment spectrum right now, both those entering the job market and those looking retire sometime soon?

ERIN LOWERY: Well, I'll start first with those who are looking to retire.

And that is to say, if you do not have a financial advisor, now is a great time to talk to someone.

Take a look at your investment portfolio.

Determine whether or not it makes sense to retire into this economic climate, or maybe if it would make more sense to perhaps push the date on retirement.

Now, for folks who are just entering, I see you.

I remember how it feels to graduate into a recession and try to find stable employment.

A few big things to keep in mind.

One, if you do have student loans, stay on top of those payments.

Make it sure that you understand all of the ins and outs of when they're due, who you have to make payments to, and at least make those minimum payments.

You do want to protect your credit score as much as you can during this time.

You don't want anything going to collections.

Millennials.

We were teased a lot for being what they called boomerang kids going back to live with our parents.

But hey, if you can keep your cost of living down significantly, it makes a lot of sense.

You can really shore up those cash reserves, especially during uncertain economic times.

ALI ROGIN: Erin Lowry, thank you so much for your insights.

ERIN LOWERY: Thanks for having me.

JOHN YANG: In other news tonight, former President Biden's office has announced that he's been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

The cancer spread to the bone and Mr. Biden and his family are reviewing treatment options with his doctors.

Statement said the cancer appears to be hormone sensitive, which means there are treatment options available.

The diagnosis came on Friday after he'd experienced urinary symptoms earlier in the week.

Mr. Biden is 82 years old.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square for Pope Leo XIV's inaugural mass.

To greet them, the pontiff used the Pope mobile for the first time.

During the Mass, Leo was visibly moved as he received two important symbols of the papacy, the lamb's wool stole and the fisherman's ring.

The pontiff laid out his vision for the church and its 1.4 billion followers.

POPE LEO XIV, Leader of Catholic Church (through translator): In our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the earth's resources, marginalizes the poorest.

For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity.

JOHN YANG: Among the world leaders attending the mass was Vice President J.D.

Vance.

He led a U.S. delegation that included Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Vance and Rubio later met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who also attended.

Tomorrow, President Trump is to speak by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin about a possible ceasefire in Ukraine.

The Israeli military said today that its forces have begun extensive ground operations in Gaza.

This as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel will allow some food into Gaza in hopes of easing a worsening hunger crisis.

The IDF said airstrikes in northern and southern Gaza killed dozens of Hamas members.

Gazan health officials say more than 100 people died, including women and children, as if the air assault forced northern Gaza's main hospital to close.

Israel blames the deaths on Hamas, saying the group operates in civilian areas.

The FBI has identified a 25-year-old man as the person responsible for yesterday's explosion and outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs.

Officials say it was an intentional act of terrorism and that the suspect's writings exhibit nihilistic beliefs.

He was killed in the blast.

Four others were injured.

The FBI revealed today that the suspect tried to livestream the attack, but the video failed to upload.

The head of the clinic said all the eggs and embryos at the facility have been saved.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, what the dismissal of hundreds of scientists could mean for a flagship climate change report and looking back at the devastating eruption of Mount St. Helens.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Late last month, hundreds of volunteers, scientists and experts across the country were told by the Trump administration that they were no longer needed to compile the next national climate assessment.

That's a report mandated by Congress to periodically catalog the ways climate change is affecting the nation.

It's considered the government's flagship document on the topic.

The sixth edition is to be released by 2028, but the message said that its scope is currently being reevaluated.

Elizabeth Koebele was among the recipients of that message.

She's an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, and was leading the team studying the Southwest.

Elizabeth, what's the purpose of this document and how is it used?

ELIZABETH KOEBELE, Former Chapter Leader, 6th National Climate Assessment: It's a congressionally mandated report, and it's produced every four years under the direction of the U.S.

Global Change Research Program or the USGCRP.

And what it does is it really analyzes the impacts of global change on the United States with a focus on how such changes might put things that Americans value most at risk, whether that's our national security, our community safety, our resources, those sorts of things.

It's really a synthesis of the newest and most relevant research on global change.

And it's divided into chapters that focus on things like systems such as water or specific regions like the Southwest, which I was leading.

JOHN YANG: And there are no policy prescription in this or recommendations in this.

ELIZABETH KOEBELE: You're right.

It's meant to be a nonpartisan report that's policy relevant, but not policy prescriptive and this means it synthesizes information on global climate change that can help decision makers across federal, regional, state, local levels make the best decisions for their sectors and their communities.

So there are no recommendations for specific decisions, but it does gather the state of the art information on these changes and on potential mitigation and adaptation actions so that we're providing the best information to these decision makers for their communities.

JOHN YANG: In addition to helping these decision makers.

What's its contribution to overall climate research?

ELIZABETH KOEBELE: I think the National Climate Assessment points out important knowledge gaps in our research and can potentially provide directions to scientists, whether in academic positions or whether in federal agencies that can help build knowledge to make our country more resilient to global change.

It can guide their work in developing programs and policies aimed at everything from natural resource management to national security, and overall enhance our understanding of how climate change puts things that we value most at risk.

JOHN YANG: President Trump has said that he thinks the stated effects of climate change are overstated.

The administration dismantling a lot of climate change research.

Given that, what do you think it means when the administration says that it's reevaluating the scope of this document?

ELIZABETH KOEBELE: Unfortunately, the authors that were released from the assessment haven't gotten any further information at this time about that reassessment of the scope.

The report is congressionally mandated, so it could potentially be the case that the Trump administration will select a new set of authors which for us starting this assessment process and took almost a year to select and onboard all of the authors and get them trained and started working on the assessment.

So that would need to happen pretty quickly in order to meet the assessment deadline.

But right now we're really waiting to see what the administration says and what guidance that can provide on how to get a report out on the mandated timeline.

JOHN YANG: Overall, how does the administration's approach to climate change, how do you think that's going to affect climate change research?

ELIZABETH KOEBELE: I think that we're already seeing the effects of climate change on so many sectors in so many communities in the U.S. and it's really important for us to have the state of the art research on how climate's affecting these different communities, how climate's affecting things we value in order to protect Americans across the United States, to protect our security, to protect our economy.

So I do hope that we are able to move some sort of report forward in order to provide information to decision makers who can help achieve these things.

JOHN YANG: Could this be done without the support of the administration, without the support of the government?

ELIZABETH KOEBELE: One thing that I think is really important about the national climate assessment is that the report goes through a really rigorous process of review at several stages.

And these reviews are done by the public, by federal agencies.

And all of the chapters in the NCAA are really required to uphold very high standards of transparency by predicting providing what we call traceable accounts of our sort of assessment process in addition to our findings.

And it takes a lot of infrastructure, coordination, resources to support that kind of thorough policy, relevant, up to date, transparent assessment.

So while I do think it's possible that we may still be able to get some of this information out through other assessments, I do think that this is a really critical government function to support this report because the findings are so relevant and important to Americans across the country.

JOHN YANG: Elizabeth Koebele of the University of Nevada, Reno, thank you very much.

ELIZABETH KOEBELE: Thanks very much for having me.

JOHN YANG: Tomorrow, President Trump is to sign the bipartisan Take It Down Act.

It calls for stricter penalties for posting sexually explicit images online without the subject's consent or with harmful intent.

That's sometimes called revenge porn.

Ali Rogan is back with a conversation with Laurie Segall, a tech journalist and CEO of Mostly Human Media.

ALI ROGIN: Laurie, thank you so much for joining us.

First, let's talk about some of the terms that this law deals with.

There's deepfake pornography and there's revenge porn.

Let's talk first about what those mean.

LAURIE SEGALL, CEO, Mostly Human Media: Sure.

It's interesting.

First of all, a sexually explicit deep fake is essentially as if you're looking at a photo of yourself nude.

It is not you that was used with artificial intelligence.

So now you see the rise of apps and the rise of technology that enables people to digitally undress someone in a couple clips.

And then revenge porn and nonconsensual imagery is essentially if someone has a nude image of you and puts it out there without your consent.

I think consent is the biggest word on all of these.

ALI ROGIN: And so what does this law do?

How does it work?

LAURIE SEGALL: This is the first federal legislation that actually addresses both of these issues, nonconsensual imagery and sexually explicit deepfakes.

And what it does is it criminalizes the publication of these types of this nonconsensual imagery.

And it also requires tech platforms, once a victim has reported this, to remove that imagery within 48 hours.

So over the last couple of years, we've seen a lot of state laws that are popping up that vary in scopes.

Some are civil, some are criminal that try to address this type of thing.

Same with nonconsensual imagery and these revenge porn laws.

But we haven't had a federal law.

And so, you know, a federal law that actually addresses this and criminalizes the publication of this makes the stakes a lot higher.

ALI ROGIN: And what have those tech companies been saying, the ones that are going to be in charge of compliance?

LAURIE SEGALL: A lot of tech companies are behind this.

Right.

You have Snap, Meta has come out and supported this.

There are some issues that people are saying, well, could this become a free speech issue?

Could people report content that they just don't like and try to turn this into something for their own benefit?

And so there are folks in the free speech space and area that are a little bit concerned about this.

But largely, I would say this is a bipartisan effort that folks have come forward and a lot of folks are behind this.

ALI ROGIN: I know another piece of criticism that some of those groups have leveled is the idea that tech companies might just paint too broad a brush and censor everything just because they don't want to have to deal with individual cases of determining whether something needs to be taken down.

What's the risk of that sort of thing happening?

LAURIE SEGALL: Yeah, I think critics have talked about this as like one of the main unintended consequences.

And I think President Trump made a comment, he said something along the lines of, oh, maybe he'll use this because people say bad things about him online.

I'm not quoting it word for word.

And so there is that fear that this could overreach.

But I would say as someone who's been covering this, one of the biggest problems that victims face when this happens, it's as if their nude images are everywhere and there is nothing they can do.

And they are knocking on the doors of tech companies, they are not getting any responses.

Many, many times they feel hopeless.

And it is a new type of trauma.

And so I think this idea that within 48 hours action has to be taken, you know, under the right circumstances, I think it'll be a big game changer to a lot of the folks who have dealt with this type of digital abuse.

ALI ROGIN: And around the same time that this bill is becoming law, in the last few days, the person who was behind one of the biggest deepfake nonconsensual imagery websites was taken down and also unveiled.

Is that a coincidence?

LAURIE SEGALL: Look, this is a game of whack-a-mole.

You take one thing down, there's all these other things.

And this site was called Mr. Deepfakes.

It's no longer, you know, it's no longer in service.

At its peak, 18 million people were actually going to this website that literally took the faces, the images and created hyper realistic deep fake pornography.

It was a nightmare for so many women.

It took so many things.

It took lead laws changing in the U.K. and also I would say investigative journalism and people shouting out loud that this isn't okay.

I mean went out to Canada and we confronted the man we believe to behind this with a tremendous amount of evidence and asked for comment.

He was living a double life.

He created an army of Mr. Deepfakes.

And so I think like we almost have to create our own army.

And that army includes legislation and laws and accountability at tech companies and unfortunately victims speaking up and many of who had about how this is real abuse.

It's not just something that happens online.

There's a real impact offline.

ALI ROGIN: Laurie Segall, CEO of Mostly Human Media, thank you so much.

LAURIE SEGALL: Thanks.

JOHN YANG: It was 45 years ago today that Mount St. Helens, a volcano 50 miles north of Portland, Oregon exploded in a spectacular and devastating eruption.

It triggered the biggest landslide in Earth's recorded history.

200 square miles of forest was flattened.

The ash cloud eventually reached the northeastern United States.

57 people died, making it the deadliest and most destructive volcanic eruption in US history.

Steve Olson is the author of "Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St.

Helens."

Steve, remind us, take us back just how big, how devastating was this explosion, this eruption?

STEVE OLSON, Author, "Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St.

Helens.

": Oh, it was an incredible event.

It was the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens was much more powerful than any hurricane, any explosion of a nuclear weapon, any.

It was, it was a devastating event for southwest Washington state 44 years ago.

JOHN YANG: But are effects still being felt in certain parts of the region?

STEVE OLSON: They are actually communities downstream from Mount St. Helens are still dealing with sediment that washed down in the eruption that keeps coming down the rivers and clogs water intake pipes and fills up the rivers, making it hard for boats to get through.

The eruption generated so much sediment that scientists don't actually know what to do with it.

They've erected a dam to try to control it, but no, it's going to be an ongoing problem for decades, I'm sure.

And that's even assuming the volcano doesn't erupt again.

JOHN YANG: Now, most people think of a volcanic eruption as going up the mountain, sort of blows the top off, but I understand this went sideways, lateral, is that right?

STEVE OLSON: It did.

And that was one of the reason that the danger zones around the mountain were so close to the volcano.

Of the 57 people who died, 54 were outside the danger zones.

And the three who were inside the danger zones actually had permission to be in that area.

Before 1980, volcanologists didn't have a lot of experience with volcanoes that collapse.

But since Mount St. Helens, because of all the lessons that they learned from that eruption, they've actually identified hundreds of volcanoes all over the world, some on other planets, that have done just that.

They have collapsed and then rebuilt themselves back up and then collapsed again.

JOHN YANG: So is Mount St. Helens sort of given scientists a place to study this, a place to study these kinds of eruptions?

STEVE OLSON: It has been.

No, it's probably been the most important volcanic eruption in the history of the study of volcanoes.

There were a lot of people around the volcano who were taking pictures of it.

Some of them did not survive, but a lot of people survived with their photographs.

And those photographs just provided incredible documentary evidence of the eruption and its aftermath.

JOHN YANG: As I understand, the U.S. Geological Survey said that before 1980, the last eruption was, I believe, 1857.

But there were warning signs, weren't there that some rumbling starting in March.

And has this taught anything to scientists or emergency preparedness people that's been used over the years?

STEVE OLSON: There were warnings and that was a warning that magma was moving around underneath the volcano.

So, scientists started monitoring the volcano using the technologies that they had available at the time and trying to figure out what the volcano was going to do.

Since then, technologies have been developed that allow much more accurate and careful monitoring of volcanoes.

There are many more seismometers that are around volcanoes.

You can use GPS or radar to measure the movement of the ground so that you know that magma is moving around in there.

You can measure volcanic gases.

And so volcanoes are much more closely monitored now than they were in 1980.

But nevertheless, yes, in the two months before the big eruption of Mount St. Helens, lots of volcanologists came to that area.

And we're keeping a close eye on the volcano.

JOHN YANG: There were lots of people, lots of communities who either lived through it or lost family members in this.

What's the legacy for them of Mount St. Helens?

STEVE OLSON: Lots of people in southwest Washington and elsewhere lost family members that day.

And so for them, this anniversary is sort of a day of remembrance.

But it's also a day where a lot of people in Washington state and elsewhere are reminded how lucky they are that they were killed by the volcano.

It happened on a Sunday morning, and there were probably fewer people around the volcano right at that point than at any other time during the week.

If the volcano had erupted just 24 hours later, hundreds of loggers who were cutting down the old growth right around Mount St. Helens would have been killed.

It would have been the greatest natural disaster and industrial disaster in U.S. history.

JOHN YANG: Writer Steve Olson, thank you very much.

STEVE OLSON: My pleasure.

JOHN YANG: 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.