Covid19 to fasttrack vaccine. Soledad pump soledad im soledad obrien. Welcome to matter of fact. Its the fourth of july holiday, a time to reflect on the nations beginnings its ideals, its dreams, its failures, and its flaws. And a time to consider what it means to be an american. For immigrants and refugees, the journey to becoming an american citizen can take years. First, learning a new language, then studying the countrys history, passing the citizenship test, and finally, taking the oath of citizenship. While covid19 put the traditional naturalization ceremonies on hold, this week the nation once again welcomed new citizens as federal magistrates across the country got creative and held ceremonies on sidewalks, in small groups, and one on one. Judge nancy joseph, a federal magistrate in milwaukee, invited our cameras to witness that special moment last fall at the marquette law schools Constitution Day event. There are people from almost every part of the globe. And we tell them with the raising of the hand, they get to be part of america. So it is really a powerful, powerful moment. In what i see is a glimmer of hope of what the possibility of america means to them. My name is nancy joseph, and i am a United States magistrate judge. The United States district court, district of wisconsin, now in session. My favorite part of the job is doing naturalization ceremonies. During the ceremony, the citizens take the oath of citizenship, so it is really the last step in their journey. They have met the requirements, past their civic exam, and then they come to court and raise their right hands and pledge allegiance to the United States. It is really a very powerful moment. For me personally though, the real reason i really love naturalization ceremonies is because i am a naturalized citizen myself. I was born in haiti. My parents left haiti when i was one or two years old, and they left me in the care of my other mother who raised me until i joined my parents in the u. S. When i was eight years old. It was quite the transition to come to the United States. And i had to learn english and what it was like to walk in the snow and attend schools with kids who didnt speak the same language. I was 19 years old. I was going to be a sophomore in college when i became a citizen. You will be raising your right hands and repeating after me. I now get to administer the oath that i took back when i was a young adult. I hereby declare each time i do the ceremony, its an anniversary for me, of my path to citizenship. That i will support and defend the constitution and laws of the United States of america. One of the most interesting and exciting and meaningful experiences i had was to travel to new york and administer the oath of citizenship to my other mom who raised me in haiti. She knew i was coming to the ceremony, of course, but she didnt know i was going to preside. When they called the case and everyone came out and i took the bench, she literally froze there. She has been living in the United States for a number of years and then finally, finally at the age of 92, she became a United States citizen. So it was a special moment for the entire family. That i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that i will bear arms on behalf of the United States. I always come to every ceremony with excitement about what awaits this new class of americans. Theres a mystery, too. What stories are they going to write . Which one among them will have a daughter that will grow up to be a judge or a teacher or a doctor . What chapter are they going to write in our american story . That i will perform noncombatant services in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law. So when you watch people take the oath and you listen to what they are pledging to, it really makes you think, what does it mean to be an american . To me, what it means to be an american is to be hopeful. So help me god. Congratulations, you are citizens of the United States. Hopeful about the possibilities of america. To me, the hopefulness does not mean blindness. It means that despite whatever challenges that you have as americans, were still hopeful about all the possibilities that america can be. Next on matter of fact, is it unethical to deliberately infect people with covid19 in order to speed up the search for a vaccine . Then, fighting to survive, how a boxing gym helped a family beat the odds during the financial crisis. Pampers the 1 pediatrician recommended brand, helps keep baby skin dry healthy so every touch is as comforting as the first pampers. The 1 pediatrician recommended brand doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. For spending a perfectly reasonable amount of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub . Grubhubs gonna reward you for that with a 5 off perk. doorbell rings [crowd] grubhub fireworks exploding soledad welcome back to matter of fact. As covid cases spike again, theres a rush to produce a vaccine by the end of the year. Even that timeline would be ambitious by historical standards, which has led to calls for a different type of testing. Our special contributor joie chen looks at the push for human challenge trials. Yeah, so my name is josh morrison. Im a volunteer for human challenge trial for covid19. Josh morrison is volunteering to do something most of us are trying hard not to do, get infected with the novel coronavirus. This is different from the vaccine trials already underway , where volunteers get an experimental dose and go back to their daily lives to see if it works, a process that typically takes months. A human challenge trial is a way of testing a drug or a vaccine where the volunteers are actually being deliberately exposed doing that but to infection, so you can see how quickly a vaccine works. Josh helped launch onedaysooner for challenge trial volunteers. More than 25000 people have already signed up. No Drug Companies funded the project. And though some have expressed interest, there has been no testing this way yet. And while the pandemic is almost unprecedented, challenge trials or not. You may have heard of edward jenner, the english doctor credited with pioneering the smallpox vaccine. People in china and africa had used primitive methods of innoculation against smallpox for centuries. Jenners big advance, scraping cowpox scabs from a milkmaid, using that to infect his gardeners eightyearold son and, here is the key part, jenner then infected the boy with smallpox scabs to prove cowpox actually helped him develop immunity against smallpox. This was the very first human challenge trial. Wasnt there something inherently unethical in that . Absolutely. Professor nir eyal is a bioethicist, who points out is much more points out science is much more careful with challenge trials today. There are obvious risks in such a trial, but there are risks in the conventional testing method, as well. What is the benefit of doing it this way . Ask the main benefits are that you know the answer faster and you know you will have an answer. One limitation of a conventional clinical trial, he says, is that it depends on people getting accidentally exposed. To find out whether the vaccine works can take months or even longer. Thing is, we may never get to that point. Efficacy trials often end without results. So to start from scratch after many months that weve invested in trying to find an answer, many months means, if you look at the numbers, many millions of deaths. So time is not on our side, but the numbers, eyal says, actually are. He says choose the volunteers carefully come about 100 of them, and keeping them quarantined with the best possible metal co. Care. The number of deaths would be reduced to one in 3000, which he says is a relatively acceptable risk. I recruit them from areas where there is anyhow expected to be a lot of infections. These are people would likely to be infected anyhow, and there would be better access to care inside the trial. The argument for human challenge trials by supporters of capitol hill, 35 members wrote to the fda, congress understands that a more risktolerant develop a process is likely appropriate. But at northwesterns lurie Childrens Hospital in chicago, bioethicist seema shah urges careful consideration, to not let need dictate speed. If all these people are willing to volunteer, understanding this could be a risk to their lives, why not let them . Its not enough for people to step up and say, this might work so i think it would be, im willing to do it. Willing to take the risk. Although challenge studies are really promising and powerful ways to learn about diseases, they can pose significant risk. So its really important to make sure that doing a challenge study is worth the amount of risk it would involve and that it will make a difference. For matter of fact. Coming up, a family knocked down but not out thanks to a commun soledad sometimes when our correspondence visit a city, they come across a story they were not looking for but strikes as important to tell, and that is what happened recently in detroit. While working on a story about the measured steps the city, once a covid hotspot, was taking to reopen, our correspondent Jessica Gomez met a family like so many families across the country parents laid off, looking for ways to trim expenses while trying to do the best by their kids here but what was different for this family, an unexpected source of support, a local boxing gym that decided no family should be on the ropes if they could find a way to help. Jessica at the downtown boxing gym on detroits east side, helping hands instead of jabs and punches. We wanted to put together some packages to send home to the kids and to the families, as well. Jessica the kids who would normally be here before covid19, this is what you would see at the gym, a Free Afterschool Program where kids have access to tutoring, mentoring, meals, and workouts, like boxing. We do boxing, yet appeared we are pretty good at it. Jessica the boxing ring empty. Times 5 you will get 15. Jessica conant tutors and coaches doing rounds with the kids virtually. Through their phone, the cain kids taking the gyms evening workout class. They have relied on the Afterschool Program for years. 16yearold kenedie even helps out with the gyms stem program, her first real job. What does that look like . Elephant. Jessica mom janine, like many parents across the country, has been homeschooling her kids, but she needs the familys only computer to work from home, one of her two jobs. To have to work two jobs is already horrific but to want to work and cannot work and cannot supply the needs of your family is even more horrifying. Jessica weeks of lost income for janine and her husband still taking its toll, the family rationing food and electricity. I tell them all the time, put more socks on, blankets on. I do not want them to feel like this is not home, not comfortable, but we have to be wise because the last thing i want is for them to flick that light on and it dont come on. So yes, i do have to tell them. It hurts. It is not easy. It is an Assembly Line of hope for those who need it. It is always here. Jessica at the gym, boxes of food and supplies ready to be delivered to families, like the cains. We have a lot of people who normally dont come together working together for the common cause which is our whole community, our whole city. We have the gym that says i know you still have to eat, we are here for you. They employ my daughter and they stop paying her peer they never stop paying her. So that helps. They have always been my hero. And during this pandemic, it is even better. It is a giveandtake thing. They give us the opportunity to work with their kids and help filled a stronger community. It is all about community for us, so we want to be there for each other. Jessica the cains knocked down, but not out, thanks to the downtown boxing gym. In detroit for matter of fact, i am Jessica Gomez. Still to come, from the court to the classroom, the lesson Supreme CourtJustice Sonia sotomayor once all students to learn. [narrator] did you just reward yourself for spending a perfectly reasonable amount of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub . Grubhubs gonna reward you for that with a 5 off perk. doorbell rings [crowd] grubhub fireworks exploding soledad at a moment of crisis over our National Identity as a country, Difficult Conversations are taking place. People wonder, is this the moment in our history when well address the racial inequalities that have plagued the nation since its inception . How do we acknowledge and respect our differences while still focusing on what we all have in common . This was a conversation i had with Supreme CourtJustice Sonia sotomayor last year. And it is just as relevant today. I cant think of how many people describe someone as someone they admire, even if they do not agree with them. That is a very rare thing to hear nowadays. Justice sotomayor i am sorry to hear that. Very sorry. If it is, it is a sad statement about where we are. Many colleagues think that Justice Thomas and i, while we are fundamentally different while our views are a bit infant, i actually respect him for his treatment of people. He is the first one when someone is hurt or sick in the courthouse who reaches out and helps, the first set of flowers i received when my stepfather died were from Justice Thomas. I may disagree with him on a whole host of issues, but i can respect that part of that man. Soledad what brings the country together in a way where people can say, hey, listen, this person is completely on a different part of the aisle , across the aisle from a politically, but i respect them. I know we are at a time when people hate each other peer what solves that, civics . Justice sotomayor civics helps that. I think Civic Engagement does because it teaches people how to talk about the issues, how to debate them but in a civil way, and how to do it from a basis of information. Because you need information to be persuasive about an argument. I think we all forget our commonalities. We spend so much time concentrating on our differences that we forget to look at all of the things that are the same for all of us. Love of family, loyalty to friends, our respect for community, our sense of wanting to be good and to give good things to others. We disagree on the details of how to do that. But fundamentally, we are more the same than different. Whether those differences are our skin color or the way we speak, our language or how our eyes look, those things are very, very superficial. If you look at how we live our lives, virtually every community is tied to their family in one way or another. And that tie is fiercely close. Soledad Supreme CourtJustice Sonia sotomayor. So nice to chat with you. Justice sotomayor it was lovely to see you. , why this enormous evergreen is now rooted in history. When it comes to parenting, youre a pro. You know your kid doesnt step around puddles. And you know cheap leaky diapers are an amateur move. You need luvs prolevel protection. Luvs. Parent like a pro. And geico loves helping riders get to where theyre going, so to help even more, geico is giving new and current customers a fifteen percent credit on their motorcycle policies with the geico giveback. And because were committed for the long haul, the credit lasts your full policy term. The geico giveback. Helping riders focus on the road ahead. We waste up to 20 gallons of water the geico giveback. Every time we prerinse lets skip the rinse. New finish quantum with activeblu technology, designed to clean without prerinsing. Switch to finish and skip the rinse to save water. Soledad finally, a 1900yearold pine tree is standing tall in china. The ancient evergreen is 59 feet tall, about equal to a sixstory building. The roots reach more than 164 feet underground. You can even fit about seven people inside the trees hallowedout trunk. The goal is to make the tree a local tourist attraction while still protecting it. And although 1900 years is seriously old, it is not worlds oldest living tree. That record, according to science daily, belongs to a 9500 year old spruce in sweden. Now that is old. Thats it for this edition of matter of fact. Well see you next week. Hello and welcome to Asian Pacific america. Im robert handa, your host for our virtual show here on nbc bay area. We welcome back assemblyman evan lowe who pushed through a bill along with kevin mullen that could allow some 17yearolds to vote. Next, we join us with john osaki who will talk about the ongoing project to renovate the San Francisco japan town peace plaza. There is a crucial vote coming up this month. Next, its time for the