JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, a look at the Supreme Court term that just ended and what it tells us about the courts future direction.

Then a new documentary sheds light on the fast fashion industry and its exploitation of workers and environmental pollution.

And my conversation with chess master and commentator Levy Rozman about the agent games boom in popularity.

LEVY ROZMAN, Chess Master and Commentator: The entire culture and generation of chess has completely changed.

I used to be embarrassed bringing chess trophies to school, I would get made fun of that's not a thing anymore.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening, I'm John Yang.

A fourth of July weekend block party in Baltimore, Maryland late last night ended in chaos and tragedy as gunfire broke out just after midnight.

30 people were shot at least two of them fatally.

Some of the wounded are in critical condition.

Baltimore Police say the crime scene is extensive.

So far they've made no arrests.

And there was another mass shooting overnight this one at a Wichita, Kansas nightclub.

Nine people were hurt there, seven were shot and two more were trampled in a rush to the exits.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 338 incidents so far this year, in which four or more people were shot.

That's an average of nearly two a day.

Across France a fifth straight night of violent riots or with a fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old of North African descent.

Police said they arrested more than 700 protesters overnight.

It's the worst rioting in France in years.

The mayor of a Paris suburb says he was the target of an attempted murder.

His home was rammed by a flaming car.

He wasn't at home but his wife and one of his children were hurt.

French President Emmanuel Macron has gathered his top ministers this evening to discuss the crisis.

And in Ukraine, a barrage of Russian drones rained down on Kyiv overnight.

It was the first drone attack since Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion more than a week ago.

No one was hurt and all the Iranian made drones were shot down.

It ended nearly two weeks of relative calm in the Capitol.

There is fierce fighting to the south and east as Ukraine wages a counter offensive.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend.

The real environmental and human cost of fast fashion and why chess is surging in popularity among all ages.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: The Supreme Court ended its term this past week with the six justice conservative supermajority, flexing its muscles to make big changes in law in society, killing race conscious college admissions, shelving President Biden student loan forgiveness program and siding with an evangelical Christian website designer who doesn't want to create websites for same sex marriages.

Big bold steps.

But looking at the entire term, there were times that the conservative justices made more incremental changes and even made alliances with their liberal colleagues.

Marcia Coyle is the news hours Supreme Court analyst.

Marcia, so much of the headlines, this term were about the justices extracurricular activities.

MARCIA COYLE: That's right, John.

This has not been a particularly good time for the Supreme Court.

There were reports on lavish trips taken by Justices Thomas and Justice Alito.

The fact that they did not disclose those trips as gifts or transportation really roused a lot of interest in and a lot of dismay, particularly on Capitol Hill.

There was an attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh.

There were protests in front of the justices homes, especially the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.

So it was a tough time.

All of this came together as well, bringing pressure on the court to adopt an ethics code and to do better in terms of disclosures on their financial reports and also to be more transparent in terms of recusals.

Justice Thomas, in particular, was targeted because of his failure to recuse in an election case out of Arizona that his own wife had worked on in terms of trying to overturn the 2020 election results.

So, I'm sure John Roberts, who cares very much about the image of the institution was cringing throughout the summer as all this transpired.

JOHN YANG: The ideological split.

So six conservative justices on one side, the three liberal justices on another did hold in a number of cases, the distinctions between those two sides really came out and some of the written opinions.

MARCIA COYLE: Absolutely.

I think affirmative action was a good example.

The student loan case was a good example.

And even the case about the website designer who claimed her free speech rights were being violated if she had to create a website for same sex couples, when she wanted to expand her business to wedding websites.

So we really did see some dramatic differences in how they view the issues that come before them.

And much as you know, we said a year ago, this is still even though we're going to talk about maybe some alignments between the sides, this is still a very conservative, aggressive court.

JOHN YANG: But we did see cases in which the some conservative justices sided with the liberal justices, to give them a majority.

MARCIA COYLE: Absolutely, one of the biggest cases involved, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act a case out of Alabama involving redistricting, there was a lot of concern within the civil rights community about this case.

The court had already imposed certain restrictions on Section 2, and there was fear that it would do more damage to Section 2 in this case, but it didn't happen.

Instead, the Chief Justice along with Justice Kavanaugh, join the left side of the bench, and really a very strong affirmation of section two of the Voting Rights Act.

JOHN YANG: Did, you know, so much was made in Dobbs that the Chief Justice didn't join them in overturning Roe v. Wade, that he sort of had trouble?

They said sort of leading this court at that time.

Does this what's -- what does this look like after this term?

MARCIA COYLE: Well, I think most people would agree that the Chief Justice seem to regain if not control, more influence, but largely because he was able to bring along Justice Kavanaugh and the other three justices on the left, you know, whether that's going to hold in future cases, so much depends on the cases that are on the docket and what they choose to take.

And they choose to -- they have been choosing to take some very controversial divisive cases.

So I think they're we're just going to have to wait and see.

But for this past term that that just ended, the Chief Justice's sort of preference to move incrementally, although his critics might call it, you know, faux judicial restraint.

I think that was the phrase Justice Scalia used once.

You know, he was able to do so in certain key areas.

JOHN YANG: This was also the first term for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, what did we learn about her from watching her this term?

MARCIA COYLE: She is a voice to be reckoned with.

She may not have the votes, but she will be heard her very first week on the court in the Alabama redistricting case.

She just sort of sent a shot across the bow of the bench to Justice Thomas, and she has called herself an originalist.

And she made it clear that she did not see a colorblind constitution, which has been just as Thomas's sort of mantra for decades now.

She asks a lot of questions.

And I think you can attribute some of it to the fact that she was a trial judge for eight years.

She managed a courtroom.

To do that, you have to -- you can't be a shrinking violet, and she clearly isn't.

JOHN YANG: The court was away for the summer now.

They'll be back the first Monday in October.

They've already taken some cases.

What are they like?

MARCIA COYLE: I think the one that there'll be a lot of attention to is Rahimi versus United States.

That's the case that asks whether the federal law that prohibits someone who's subject to a domestic violence restraining order can have a gun.

The lower federal appellate court struck down that provision and the United States came to the Supreme Court with an appeal.

And there's been a lot of trouble in the lower courts trying to apply Justice Thomas's standard under the Second Amendment for when gun restrictions can pass constitutional muster.

And I think the court took this because it knows that and it may have to provide a little more guidance on what to do with it.

JOHN YANG: This they handed that the new rule down just two years ago, in Braun (ph) case.

MARCIA COYLE: They did that last term.

And also, then there are a couple of cases that will be very important.

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, there's a challenge to that, that could pretty much end that bureau.

And then the court is also going to look at an old doctrine, that it's called the Chevron Doctrine about giving federal courts giving deference to agency decisions when they're trying to interpret an ambiguous statute that they enforce that could have huge ramifications for federal regulation.

JOHN YANG: Marcia Coyle, you'll be watching it all, thank you very much.

MARCIA COYLE: My pleasure, John.

JOHN YANG: It's easy to see the allure of fast fashion, affordable, trendy clothes that land in stores as soon as the style is in vogue.

The industry is valued at over $100 billion.

The brands are particularly popular with young consumers.

But the industry is under scrutiny for poor working conditions and using cheap textiles that end up in landfills after only a few wears.

Ali Rogin tells us how Chinese company SHEIN which is one of the fastest growing fashion brands in the world is trying to repair its public image and the reaction to it.

ALI ROGIN: Recently, SHEIN invited a group of influencers from the video sharing app TikTok on a paid trip to its so called Innovation factory in Guangzhou, China.

The influencers posted glowingly about the company and the factories conditions.

But that is just one of the company's 6000 factories.

In its other facilities, SHEIN has faced accusations of worker abuse and abusing materials linked to weaker slave labor.

The company denies this.

Journalist Iman Amrani investigated SHEIN in the documentary "Inside the SHEIN Machine: Untold."

MAN (through translator): If you want to take a day off or go back to your hometown, your wages will be deducted.

WOMAN (through translator): This is completely unreasonable because there is no rest at all.

I feel really, really tired, exhausted.

ALI ROGIN: And Iman Amrani joins me now tell us more about the accusations that SHEIN faces.

IMAN AMRANI, Host, "Inside the SHEIN Machine: Untold": So thank you for having me, Ali.

We discovered that there were people who were working 18 hour days that which is against the law in China, it's also against SHEIN's code of conduct.

People were given one day off a month.

And many people came to the factory and lived nearby in these kind of dormitories, which meant they couldn't visit their families and they couldn't go back home very easily or they would have their paddock.

There were other concerns about the fact that the environment was very pressured because the production level is so high and it's so fast, they have to make so many items of clothing, and they have to work on commission.

So, it means that it's a very, very stressful environment to work in and not one that I think most people would want to work in.

ALI ROGIN: Before we get into this trip that recently happened that influencers have come under fire for let's talk about the relationship between SHEIN and TikTok and other social media influencers.

There's a very symbiotic relationship here.

IMAN AMRANI: Well, SHEIN is a brand doesn't really have a face as it was.

So the influencers that the partner with become the face of the brand.

So the partner sometimes with micro influencers, which are influencers with around 10,000 followers or less, who generate trust with their followers, because it's a small community of followers.

They feel very connected to those influences.

But the influencers who went on this trip, some of them have half a million or a million followers.

So they really work with influencers across the spectrum, hoping that they will advertise to consumers that will spend money with them.

ALI ROGIN: And now tell us a little bit more about the backlash that's happened to these influencers that went on this trip.

It seems that the conditions that they spotlit in the videos that they produced and the content that came out from the trip was very different from the conditions that you and your colleagues uncovered in your documentary.

IMAN AMRANI: Yes.

Well, I was quite surprised when I saw the videos that were posted by these influencers because I have seen the undercover footage that our journalist found and it was interesting that when these infamous as when they were describing themselves as investigative journalists jokingly and saying that they were speaking to these workers who seemed very happy but also didn't seem to be making many items of clothing.

It will look like a showroom to me the place that they were taken to.

And as you have said in the introduction, there are many, many suppliers that make clothes for SHEIN.

So I don't think it's actually very honest, to try and portray this one factory as being a place where the clothes that people buy on the website are coming from.

ALI ROGIN: Is it your understanding that other fast fashion companies also engage in these sorts of tactics?

Or is SHEIN a bit of an outlier?

IMAN AMRANI: I would say that many, many clothing companies are engaging in similar tactics, but not to the extent that SHEIN is.

SHEIN outstrips all other fast fashion brands, it is the biggest fast fashion brand in the world.

It has more Google searches than Nike, for example.

And I think that the point about the focus on SHEIN is because it is the biggest, it sets the tone, if it is engaging in really aggressive ways of making clothes and marketing to people, then other companies and other brands are going to feel like they need to compete with that by doing the same thing.

ALI ROGIN: The Influencers themselves have been coming under a lot of criticism for going on this trip and accepting SHEIN's spin without really challenging it.

What do you make of that criticism?

IMAN AMRANI: I think that it's really unfair for this criticism to be laid at the feet of the influencers.

The responsibility is with the brand.

And as I say, the brand doesn't have a face.

So the influences become the face of the brand.

And you end up with people arguing about the influences and forgetting about the bigger picture here, which is about what the brands practices are like.

And I think it's also unfair to put influencers in this position.

There is a reason why they don't invite journalists to come and have a tour of the factories.

They invite influencers who operate in a clout economy.

They are people, young people who are aspirational, they want to be seen to be fashionable and to see to be seen to be in demand.

What I don't understand is why they didn't do their research in the first place.

Although I do think that now they've definitely had a backlash.

And I think that we need to take a step back from that and keep focusing on the brand.

ALI ROGIN: Some observers have also pointed out that SHEIN appeared to invite only a certain segment of the influencer community, particularly those from underrepresented groups, there was a plus size influencer, there were a few women of color on the trip.

What do you make of that observation?

IMAN AMRANI: I think that they are very savvy about audiences.

They know that young people are more into accessibility and fashion and they want representation.

And I also think that by using minority influencers or people who are underrepresented in the fashion industry, it means that they we can have these arguments we talk about the fact that it is difficult to buy clothes that fit plus size women, but that isn't the focus here.

The focus here is about the practices and yes, all women should be able to buy clothes that make them feel comfortable, but it shouldn't be at the expense of people who are working in factories and having to make those clothes ALI ROGIN: Absolutely journalist Iman Amrani, the documentarian behind Inside the SHEIN Machine: Untold, thank you so much for joining us.

IMAN AMRANI: Thank you for having me.

JOHN YANG: In our weekend, spotlight is a centuries old game that's enjoying new popularity with young people.

It's chess after the 2020 Netflix drama The Queen's Gambit, the game sides biggest boon in the United States since American Bobby Fischer won the 1972 World Chess Championship.

Chess Club memberships are soaring and earlier this year chess.com servers overloaded when it had the most active users ever.

The renewed interest has created demand for other online content.

Levy Rozman is one of those providing.

His YouTube channel Gotham Chess has the most subscribers of any YouTube channel and his new book "How to Win at Chess, The Ultimate Guide for Beginners and Beyond" is out this fall Levy, you are an international Master?

LEVY ROZMAN: Yes.

JOHN YANG: All right.

What does that mean?

LEVY ROZMAN: International master is the second highest title you can have in the chess world.

And I guess internationally for lack of a better word.

The title above mine is Grandmaster which is the title that everyone aspires to.

I stopped at an international master because I frankly never even thought I would get it.

So when I got it, it was a huge adrenaline dump for me.

And I was very happily going back to my university studies.

JOHN YANG: How did you get involved in chess?

Or how did you start playing chess?

And what was the appeal?

LEVY ROZMAN: Both sides of my family moms and dads are from the former Soviet Union.

So it's ingrained there in the culture for sure.

And there's a very funny story.

My parents were trying to sign me up for after school classes when I was five.

My mom said chess, my dad said art.

He's too crazy for chess.

And it turns out that my mom was actually right because I was I became completely obsessed with the game but I ran from art class.

I would hide in the playground tubes.

I played my first tournament when I was seven, and I just played ever since.

JOHN YANG: What do you think accounts for the popularity in the United States?

Now we talked a little bit about the Queen's Gambit, but it's still becoming more and more popular.

LEVY ROZMAN: Yeah.

So I would say, first of all, how much time do we have?

We've had three big booms, right, then 2020 Queen's Gambit happened.

And right around that time, I had decided to make content full time.

So that meant YouTube videos, some live streaming, but it wasn't a big deal until Queen's Gambit came.

My view count on YouTube went from about 70,000 in a 48 hour window to a million.

And that just kept happening because somebody would watch the Queen's Gambit trailer.

And on the sidebar, it would say how to play the Queen's Gambit by Gotham chess, a video that I made with a little potato of a webcam never thought much of, but it just blew up.

Then in 2022, we had the cheating scandal, which you can make a story on its own about.

And now it's skewed to the younger audience through short form content.

So I'm talking about TikTok, YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, bite size chess content.

Now you can just scroll on your phone and you learn something about chess in 30 seconds.

And then you can try it against the friend.

So the entire culture and generation of chess has completely changed.

I used to be embarrassed bringing chess trophies to school, I would get made fun of that's not a thing anymore.

On the airport coming here, a group of seventh graders recognize me.

And I've never seen kids that excited.

JOHN YANG: Most people say it is among the big boom is in middle school and high school.

LEVY ROZMAN: Yeah.

JOHN YANG: Why that age group?

Why do you think that is?

LEVY ROZMAN: Definitely recently that that has been the age group.

But over the last few years, it's been people who learned it in childhood, didn't play it for 3040 years, and they're now playing it again, reconnecting with a relative with a father, grandfather, grandmother.

I mean, it goes across generations.

The young audience really enjoys that, I think because, first of all, they enjoy a gaming period.

There's something different about chess.

It's not just a one on one game where you mash a controller or learn some, you know, little trick.

There has never been a better time to learn the game, whether online or print.

It used to be really hard to access this information.

You could watch something for 60 seconds, go and try it and you're like, I'm the -- I'm the smart one in the front group now, at least until the next person learned something.

JOHN YANG: You're talking about playing online.

I've seen people, I know people who if they're the top chess players in the same room, and there's a board set up, they'd rather play on their phone against each other than sit down and play the game.

Why do you think that is?

LEVY ROZMAN: Well, I suppose it's also just a microcosm of general society, if you will.

I mean, we're just a bit too comfortable on our phones nowadays.

I got to tell you, I enjoy playing speed games, way more on my phone than I do live at parties or in tournaments.

It's like three minute games, one minute games.

I'm a monster on my phone.

Put me in front of a person, there's psychology, there's nerves, you don't see the squares the same way you do.

I mean, the last three years, you likely got into chess online, you didn't get into chess at your local club.

So people are having a little bit of a tough time moving that skill to IRL, but it's still very popular a lot of chess clubs at pubs, libraries, schools, so we'll get there.

JOHN YANG: IRL in real life.

LEVY ROZMAN: Yes, yes, in real life.

Apologies.

Creator terminology.

You have to mash everything into acronyms.

JOHN YANG: A lot of pro athletes are talking about playing just Joe Burrow, the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback and went to the Super Bowl keeps a chessboard by his locker.

He says it helps him read defenses on the on the football field.

Are there other things that help if you learn to play chess that you can take IRL, in real life?

LEVY ROZMAN: I think it's mildly overblown.

But yes, I would say more than one on one endeavors like boxing, because you have to prepare for the opposition.

Your opponent has tendencies positions.

They like to get to whether they use the left or the right, Southpaw orthodox.

But the same goes for football formations, I would imagine.

I don't know a huge amount about football specifically.

But basketball, how do you break down a defense?

And a lot of athletes do like chess and for good reason.

Because it does get your brain thinking in a much more if this than this, well, then I'll do this.

But what if they do that kind of a way?

But I would say the short answer is yes.

There's a lot of overlap between athletics and kind of this forward thinking and chess.

JOHN YANG: Your book is subtitled The Ultimate Guide for Beginners and Beyond.

Who do you think would most benefit from the book a beginner or someone who's sort of trying to move up to the next level?

LEVY ROZMAN: Over the last few years, I've been asked this question probably 1,000 times, which is do you have a chess book recommendation?

OK, there's all this YouTube, all this online.

I just want to book give me a good book.

There is no good one answer.

There doesn't have to be one answer.

There's could be two or three.

But I decided to write this book.

So you could read it 15 minutes before bed while laying on the couch while relaxing.

You don't need a physical board to guide you along.

But the book guides you by the arm through all things chess, and I think it's a really refreshing read because a lot of chess books that were purchased by people like myself included are hard to finish you need the board, you need hours of practice, they skip from one diagram to the second and six moves happened.

And if you're not at that level, it's very difficult to read.

So, just like chess has had a revolution in online and digital content.

This was my idea with the book.

I'm not dumbing down the subject.

I think I'm just making it a bit more refreshing.

JOHN YANG: Levy Rozman, thank you very much.

LEVY ROZMAN: Thank you.

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 safe Fourth of July.