JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, the rising number of bowel cancer cases and the promise of new treatments on the horizon, then what's behind the lack of affordable rentals in Austin, Texas, even as rents there are dropping, and how our appetite for big amounts of internet data has even bigger cost to the environment.

WOMAN: Researchers think they're in the top 10 water consuming industries in the US.

They use 2 percent of the electricity in the U.S. which is a lot and a source told me that data center campuses can use the resources equivalent to a small city.

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

It's a tale of extremes across the United States oppressive heat, wildfires and flooding hitting many parts of the country.

From the Midwest to the East Coast, millions of people are searching for relief from record setting temperatures.

In many places it feels hotter than 100 degrees.

And it's only the beginning.

Heat Wave is expected to last all weekend affecting people from the Ohio Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and prompting health warnings.

WOMAN: I don't know how long this is going to continue.

It's just horrible.

MAN: You have to be outside, be outside for only a minimal amount of time as much as needed.

Definitely drink a lot of water.

Always stay hydrated.

JOHN YANG: The extreme weather is affecting travelers to Amtrak warns customers that some Northeast Corridor trains are traveling at slower speeds because of the heat that's causing delays of up to an hour.

In the West, a wildfire in New Mexico has taken root and spread quickly.

Residents said an orange and black haze quickly fill the skies.

The village of Ruidoso ordered residents to evacuate.

The town's mayor said entire neighborhoods have been destroyed.

And in northeast Iowa, a different kind of extreme weather.

Weeks of rain have sent the Rock River overflowing its banks forcing people out of their homes.

An Arkansas man is facing capital murder charges stemming from the grocery store shooting that killed three people and wounded 11 others several of them critically.

Police a 44-year old Travis Eugene Posey opened fire yesterday inside the store in the small Arkansas community of Fordyce.

It's about 70 miles south of Little Rock.

Authority say Posey only stopped firing when he was wounded in a gunfight with police that injured two officers.

The death toll in Gaza climbed higher today following two Israeli airstrikes on separate locations.

One hit a refugee camp and another struck an Eastern neighborhood of Gaza City.

Palestinian and hospital officials said at least 39 people were killed.

Israel's military said they were targeting to Hamas military sites.

And in Tel Aviv tonight thousands of people rallied to demand new elections and call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring hostages home.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia has launched more than 2,400 guided missiles at Ukrainian targets this month alone.

His remarks followed a deadly day of attacks that killed three people and injured dozens more in Kharkiv.

That's Ukraine second largest city.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs more help from Western allies.

And a new chapter in an unsolved mystery.

Las Vegas police said they removed a tall monolith from a remote part of Nevada desert.

They said the six foot four structure was a public safety and environmental hazard.

Just how it got there is anybody's guess.

It's the latest in a series of mysterious monolith placements around the world since 2020, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Turkey.

The Nevada monolith made of sheet metal rebar and concrete is being held at an undisclosed location.

Police are trying to figure out how to best store it or dispose of it.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, struggles renters in Austin, Texas are facing as they hunt for affordable housing and the big environmental cost of Big Data.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Bowel cancer or cancer in the colon or rectum is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide killing nearly 1 million people a year and cases of colorectal cancer have been on the rise, especially among those younger than 50.

But there are glimmers of hope for patients with a certain type of bowel cancer in two separate studies, one in the United States and a more recent one in Britain.

Each found that using immunotherapy drugs before surgery dramatically increased the chance of curing bowel cancer in patients with a certain genetic profile.

Dr. Vikram Reddy is chief of Colon and Rectal Surgery at the Yale School of Medicine.

He's not affiliated or connected with either of these studies.

Dr. Reddy, how potentially how big a deal is this?

DR. VIKRAM REDDY, Yale School of Medicine: So this is a huge deal for us because it's a new category of medications that we can use to treat patients with bowel cancers.

JOHN YANG: And immunotherapy drugs tell us what is immunotherapy and how does it work?

VIKRAM REDDY: So immunotherapy is different from conventional chemotherapy.

So immunotherapy actually augments and uses your own immune system to fight the cancers.

Whereas the old conventional chemotherapy, we were targeting the cancer cells and killing them with drugs.

JOHN YANG: And or immunotherapy drugs used in other types of cancer?

VIKRAM REDDY: Oh, yeah, immunotherapy drugs have been used and other kinds of cancers for a while.

But recently, we've been using them for colorectal cancers.

JOHN YANG: What more do you want to know about these drugs?

They're going to continue to try clinical trials, sort of looking at long term results, and relapses, what else do you want to know?

What should the researchers be looking at?

VIKRAM REDDY: I think what the immunotherapy trials, we're seeing a lot of promise in them creating colorectal cancers, we want to see if they can maintain those over a longer period of time.

So whenever we have a patient with cancer, we follow them for five years or even more to make sure the cancer doesn't come back.

Now, most of these trials have been going on for about a year to two years.

So we have short term data, they're very promising.

We just want to make sure there's a sustained response even five years.

JOHN YANG: And as I understand it, there's only - - they've only been testing or there's only been effective found to be effective among patients with a certain genetic pattern.

How widespread is that?

How many colorectal cancer patients have that genetic pattern?

VIKRAM REDDY: So about 15 percent of the patients have these types of cancers called mismatch repair deficient type of colon cancers.

So in those patients, these immunotherapy drugs can work beautifully.

In the past conventional chemotherapy did not -- was not effective against these patients.

But now with immunotherapy, we can actually make a difference for these patients.

JOHN YANG: Why are cases of colorectal cancer on the rise, especially among young people?

VIKRAM REDDY: So it's a multitude of factors, you know, one, you know, our diets have changed.

So diets high in red meat, processed meat, sugars, sedentary lifestyle, these are all associated with an increase in colorectal cancers.

And unfortunately, all of these are going up over the past two decades, and that's why we're seeing an increase in colorectal cancers.

JOHN YANG: Does it suggest that there should be screening earlier are screening in particular cases earlier?

VIKRAM REDDY: So in in the older days, I mean, before 2021, you know, we used to actually start screening people starting at the age of 50.

And in blacks, we used to do it at 45.

But in 2021, we actually changed the guidelines to start screening at 45.

But unfortunately, we even see patients as young as 2018, who are getting colorectal cancers.

So even though what I tell everyone is that if they have any bleeding, like rectal bleeding, if they have abdominal pain, if they have change in their bowel habits, like you know, if you're usually having one problem today, and now you're constipated, or you're having diarrhea, which persists, I say get a colonoscopy, because it can diagnose you, it can even create an early polyp, it can even get rid of the cancer, if it's early stage.

So a colonoscopy is important, but unfortunately, screening by itself only starts at 45.

JOHN YANG: And we've said in the introduction about how prevalent deaths from colon cancer are in terms of cancer deaths, but if it's caught earlier, does that change that that sort of prognosis?

VIKRAM REDDY: Oh, yeah, early stage cancers, the survival is so much better than advanced or metastatic cancers, once it metastasizes.

I mean, our survival is still pretty good.

But you know, you're talking about maybe 50 percent survival, if you resect all metastatic disease.

If you can resect metastatic disease, you know, the survival is much lower.

So if you catch them early, you're looking at almost close to 100 percent.

And especially if you have this MMR deficient, which is the mismatch repair deficient kinds of cancers, with these new category of drugs, I mean, you're, you're talking about a cure.

JOHN YANG: Earlier, we talked about the things that seem to be contributing to the increased number of colorectal cases.

What can people do?

Are there things people can do in terms of diet and terms of lifestyle to reduce the chances of developing colorectal cancer?

VIKRAM REDDY: Absolutely, you know, what I tell patients are, you know, trying to minimize how much red meat really and pork counts as a red meat.

The second thing is try not to eat any processed meat.

Third thing you know, try to increase your fiber intake.

Fiber intake usually comes from fruits and vegetables, so increase your fiber intake to back 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day.

Fourth thing there's some data to show that to tablespoon full of tree nuts like walnuts, almonds or pecans can actually decrease the incidence of colorectal polyps and colorectal cancers.

So I tell them to do those.

The last thing is 30 minutes of exercise five days a week can actually, you know, mitigate the incidence of colorectal cancer.

JOHN YANG: Dr. Vikram Reddy of the Yale School of Medicine.

Thank you very much.

VIKRAM REDDY: Oh, you're welcome.

JOHN YANG: The latest inflation numbers show that nationwide rents have cooled from historic highs, but it's not reaching every rental market or every renter.

Austin, Texas is one of the places where rents are showing a downward trend, but lower income families their say their rents are often staying the same or even going up.

Blair Waltman-Alexin of Austin PBS tells us who's getting a deal on the Texas capitol and who's not.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): Marilu Jaimes had achieved that rare dream in Austin, finding an apartment that was close to everything she needed.

MARILU JAIMES, Austin Resident (through translator): It was close to the library, close to the grocery, store close to my daughter's school.

Also from work.

It was the best I was close to everything.

Now I feel like I'm going to use a lot of gas.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): She's worried about burning gas, because soon she will be moving about 45 minutes outside of town.

She's leaving because her rents gone up and she can't afford to stay.

MARILU JAIMES (through translator): I used to pay $1,040.

And suddenly that was raised to $1,530.

It doesn't seem fair to me that after so many years, they simply raise the rent so much that we have no other option but to leave this place.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): But report show that rents are going down in Austin.

A study by rent.com showed rents dipping more than 12 percent year over year.

JAKE WEGMANN, The University of Texas at Austin: Yeah, so it's not all about.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): Jake Wegmann is an associate professor in the Community Regional Planning Program at the University of Texas.

JAKE WEGMANN: We were flooded with headlines about how all of America was moving to Austin and developers responded to that.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): So Austin's population increased, especially during the pandemic, about 6 percent between 2020 and 2022.

And demand for housing increased as well.

This drew a lot of developers to build apartments.

And maybe as it turned out, too many apartments.

One report showed that as of last fall, almost 20,000 more multifamily units were delivered than released.

And it's got some landlords offering deals to bring in tenants.

JAKE WEGMANN: Maybe two years ago, like feel like they were jostling for an apartment and now the landlord is saying, hey, you know, like, if you sign this, this 12 month lease, then I'll give you a month or more of free rent.

JAZMIN RIVERA, BASTA So I would say the biggest thing has been rent increases.

And we're seeing that throughout Austin and a lot of low income housing properties, specifically.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): Kinsmen Rivera is an outreach specialist with BASTA, a group that works with low income renters like Jaimes.

He says they see residents struggling with a very tight housing market.

JAZMIN RIVERA: We do have a lot of folks that are saying there's no housing I could find that's within my range that I can afford right now.

And so they're definitely moving to the outskirts of Austin, which is really, really hard.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): That's the challenge Jaimes' found herself in.

MARILU JAIMES (through translator): Well, I thought about moving and that's what I'm going to do because I have no other option.

It's too much money.

I can't pay it because I can't pay so much rent alone.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): So if there are all of these new apartments, why can't lower income families find a place to stay?

AWAIS AZHAR, HousingWorks Austin: Most of our newer housing remains unaffordable if it's market rate.

Of course if we created you -- BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): This is Azhar is with HousingWorks Austin and he says part of the problem with a lot of these new buildings.

They're aimed at high income earners.

Nationwide 89 percent of new apartments built in the last couple of years are considered high end.

They're also the ones getting deals on rent.

One report showed that in Texas cities, luxury apartments, a bigger price drops, the middle tier rentals.

WOMAN: What we're seeing in terms of construction of housing is we're seeing of course, the more higher end apartments being built.

At the same time, this gap between housing costs and the gap between income has been growing for over a decade in Austin and other parts of the nation.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): This earning gap didn't just increase the going rate for housing and Austin.

It also skewed a number that has a big impact on low income housing, the median family income or MFI, sometimes referred to as the AMI, or average median income.

Noelia Mann, Interim Director of the eviction mitigation team at BASTA explains.

NOELIA MANN, BASTA: So if you're having an influx of high income earners, right, that's going to tip the scale.

But for the most part, newer affordable housing programs are actually tied to the AMI.

The AMI goes up, but like working class families income is not increasing in the same way.

So the affordability, I would say it's actually going the opposite way like it's getting less affordable for regular working class people in Austin.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): So when the MFI increases, the amount landlords can charge for affordable housing also increases.

But experts say wages for lower income workers aren't keeping up.

And rents are still above pre pandemic levels, even when the price drops.

As hard says high housing costs can eat into other parts of a family's budget.

AWAIS AZHAR: Once folks and 30 percent of their income on housing and utility related costs.

That means they're cutting funding from somewhere else, whether their childcare or healthcare, or other basic provisions of life.

Even though I know we're hearing a lot about how rents have, you know, comparatively gone down to their peak during the pandemic.

We're still seeing that they're high enough for a lot of households to be struggling.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): Jake Wegmann says there is a silver lining here for affordable housing advocates.

JAKE WEGMANN: This is a great time for the public sector and for nonprofits to scoop up land and to scoop up projects at a lower rate.

Maybe they are now able to acquire more projects during a downturn like this and then they had been planning on.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): The city is still pursuing its housing goals.

Voters approved 300 million in 2020 for anti-displacement efforts as part of the New Project Connect transit plan.

But those plans will take time to come together for Jaimes and others who can't afford their rent now, when she puts in her notice, she says she has about 60 days.

MARILU JAIMES (through translator): We found a place to live together so there's no other option.

BLAIR WALTMAN-ALEXIN (voice-over): For PBS News Weekend.

I'm Blair Waltman-Alexin in Austin.

JOHN YANG: The rise of artificial intelligence is requiring faster and bigger computations for even simple tests.

Then for say a Google search.

It's adding to the demand for more internet data centers, the places that house all those servers that keep the internet running.

But as Ali Rogin reports, there's a price to pay for that.

ALI ROGIN: Demand for data centers is growing rapidly.

But these facilities come at a big environmental cost, especially for the communities that host them.

Northern Virginia is the largest data center hub in the world.

The area is responsible for processing nearly 70 percent of global digital traffic.

It's a rate that local officials say is unsustainable.

Sachi Kitajima Mulkey is a science journalist and writer for the climate focus news outlet Grist.

Sachi, thank you so much for joining us.

First of all, tell us a little bit more about what a data center is.

And why do we need so many of them?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY, Grist: Whenever we use the internet, upload photos to the cloud, send emails, watch a video, all of that data and digital information needs a home and it lives in these huge facilities called data centers, which hold tens of thousands of servers each and they process all that digital information for us.

Something like 70 percent of the world's digital information is processed by a cluster of data centers in Virginia alone.

And there are over 5,000 facilities in the US.

ALI ROGIN: What are the environmental impacts of having some of these data centers in your backyard?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: So to process all that information, they need two things.

The first is electricity, of course, to physically crunch and process all that gigabyte going on.

The other is water, which are used in cooling systems to protect these servers from physically overheating.

And researchers think they're in the top 10 water consuming industries in the U.S. they use 2 percent of the electricity in the U.S., which is a lot.

And a source told me that data center campuses can use the resources equivalent to a small city and as AI booms they'll use even more.

The average AI application uses six times the amount of electricity so they run a lot hotter and that is scales exponentially they just need more water to cool down.

ALI ROGIN: And how do these data centers in the United States and around the world affect global efforts to decarbonize?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: It's tricky, because right now we are building out green energy solutions at a great scale, it's happening really fast, but it might not be happening fast enough.

Currently, a lot of the grid is still running on fossil fuels, and even plans in Virginia to shut down, you know, coal firing plants may not go through, because these data centers need so much energy that grid operators need to fire those coal plants backup or just keep them running in order to meet all that demand.

So in one of the talking points of these data center reform coalition's I've spoken to is that that's a step backwards from clean energy goals, and kind of almost a betrayal of some of the promises certain states have made to, you know, get off of carbon.

ALI ROGIN: And many of these data centers are located in densely populated residential areas.

What's it like to live near one?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: Yeah, you know, they're being built near schools and neighborhoods protected nature parks in Virginia, in particular.

And one big impact is that they're really loud, they hum and they bring all this noise pollution to the area.

All that concrete also means a huge increase in stormwater runoff, because that rain can no longer soak into the ground at all has to go somewhere.

And so the amount of electricity also could be more than the grid may be able to handle.

So when there's an outage, there's kind of a question of who gets the power of residents or data centers.

ALI ROGIN: We're talking to you now via Skype, we're using a lot of data to do it.

As we increasingly rely on this type of cloud computing, to do so many things we use apps we use, we do virtual meetings, that kind of thing.

Is there any way that these data centers can continue to expand, continue to grow and support all this usage, but do so in a more environmentally friendly way?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: You know, it is possible to build cooling systems that use less water, but we don't really see those built out at scale yet.

And you could power them with green energy.

But again, right now we have a grid that's kind of stuck on fossil fuels, and we're slowly making the transition to green energy, but maybe not fast enough to meet all this demand.

First, before we can really know what we need to do next, we just need more transparency from the industry, which scientists and activists both told me is pretty secretive.

Google is saying it's a leader in sustainable data centers.

And they only began releasing their water usage data a couple of years ago, after a lawsuit.

ALI ROGIN: And to that transparency point, I want to play for you a soundbite from an environmental activist in Northern Virginia, as we've said, where so many of these data centers are located.

JULIE BOLTHOUSE, Piedmont Environmental Council: One of the big things that concerns me is that some of these data center companies are claiming to be holding federal or Department of Defense servers, and therefore their critical infrastructure and cannot be allowed to go down.

And so there's this this question of who gets the water in a trout situation?

And are they going to leverage that kind of argument of national security to potentially say they get the water first?

ALI ROGIN: Are there any safeguards that exist to make sure that these companies are being honest about the types of companies that they're supporting with their servers and what the effect on the environment is?

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: We're kind of trusting companies to be transparent and do the right thing.

There are a lot of companies like to tout sustainability goals.

But truthfully, we're trying to get lost there in Virginia right now, a couple of bills were introduced in Virginia and in other states, but they're not getting a lot of traction until we have that research we need.

And so right now, Virginia is conducting a data center impact study.

And the results of that will come out later this year, hopefully.

I mean, we're just seeing a lot of action.

In Virginia in particular, the Piedmont Environmental Council is a group that has this coalition called the Data Center Reform Coalition.

And they just started this year really digging in organizing their community together with hundreds of individuals and nonprofits on board.

And they're working directly with lawmakers too to see what they can do, and how they can, you know, keep this industry a little bit more accountable.

They also are taking action through the Freedom of Information Act requests, to see what other kinds of information they can learn about these data centers even before the transparency is coming from the companies themselves.

ALI ROGIN: Science journalist Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, thank you so much for joining us.

SACHI KITAJIMA MULKEY: Great.

Thank you so much for having me.

JOHN YANG: On the latest edition of PBS News Weekly, Nick Schifrin has an in depth look at the latest developments in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

All that and more is on NewsHours' YouTube channel.

And that is PBS News Weekend for this Sunday or this Saturday.

On Sunday, how one ninth grader is helping restore Mississippi's endangered oyster reefs one oyster at a time.

I'm John Yang.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

See you tomorrow.