matter of fact, i'm soledad o'brien, coming up on the show. america's public schools have an attendance problem. if we don't address this issue, we are going to suffer huge consequences. millions of students are

regularly missing school, jeopardizing their futures and impacting the education of their classmates. we knew we needed to change our approach. we see how one school's more personal approach is getting kids back to class. plus, deep in winter were always on the lookout for the next covid or flu outbreak. so people like you and me can go and check on the website and say, i have a really young baby. how is rsv spreading? we look at why wastewater test is giving communities a heads up and helping people plan and i'd swipe left, swipe right, repeat it. we were built to love and the new way to do it is these dating sites. a new lawsuit accuses dating apps of deliberately turning users into addicts. the science of online dating and our brains. those stories right now on matter of fact. a record number of kids are regularly missing school during the 2122 school year, nearly.

15 million students were chronically absent. that's when someone misses more than 10% of the school year, and it includes both excuse. and unexcused absences that number is twice what what it was before the pandemic. attendance did improve last school year, but only slightly. and while every state has chronic absenteeism, it's more prevalent in communities with high poverty rates. our correspondent jessica gomez visited a virginia school district that had skyrocketing absences and then decided to rethink its strategy. we there's this morning, we're going to do some home visits at fairfield court elementary school in richmond, virginia. marquise davis, normally we do home visits when i'm not successful, reaching out to a parent via phone call. marquise is a family liaison. his job getting kids into school. mr. davis from fairfield elementary. there are times where i may make

a visit and it may not even be attendance focused. you know, it may just be engagement focused. you feeling you okay? or it may just be a ride to school. you know, today's picture day as well. yeah, we want that relationship to start with the families in their homes, in their community is what specific actions will get us there. doctor shadae harris is the chief engagement officer with richmond public schools. she's behind an effort to change the way they view attendance here, how you make people feel matters. it's a big dog. how you feel already struggling with attendance, richmond saw the numbers skyrocket after the pandemic at fairfield court, nearly half of the students were chronically absent that first year back. prince angela, right. we needed to find out why they weren't coming back in the building. what's that barrier from preventing you to come in? how can we get you in those doors so you always round up the district now, keeping better

track of why students are missing school, including information from the more than 40,000 home visits so far. as mr. davis said, fairfield elementary family liaison and beefed up attendance teams connecting families with community resources that might help. i think there's the idea that if your child is missing 20, 30, 40 days of school, you just don't care as a parent. is that true? it wasn't that families did not care about their education, it was that there were real barriers in their lives that they were struggling with around health care, housing, um, job security, food security. it's not not just the 30% of kids who are chronically absent who are being affected. now. hedy chang is the executive director of the education nonprofit attendance works, which tracks national attendance data and consults districts on how to keep kids in school. one message is that online

learning, just by itself is not sufficient to educate and socialize our kids. the second thing is, during the pandemic, we told families stay home for any symptom of illness and that is not what we need now. we need kids to be back into a routine of going to school every day. when that doesn't happen, she says. like in richmond, the focus should be on relationship building, not discipline. once you start with punitive approaches, you drive families away at the very moment when you have to forge a strong partnership. and when that partnership breaks down, even richmond judge mary langer is changing her approach, moving her courtroom to one of the middle schools once a month, ordering families with extreme absences to access community services lining the hallway before issuing harsher consequences.

this isn't a punish your way out of it. it really is a try to offer some supports that helps to boost people up to to be able to put their child in school the way they need to be. you speak to the lady with the balloon sitting outside. reporter these strategies starting to pay off at fairfield. chronic absences have decreased by more than 50% since that first year back, and small changes like a donated washer and dryer as long as you look good, you feel good. you perform good and free haircuts from barber brandon good seemed to be making a big difference. yeah, it makes me feel good because it's actually somebody out there that cares for the kids that actually they want them to come to school and learn. it's really just just showing up. it's really just showing up, showing up. for markise davis, it's a long terme strategy. so kind of just want to touch base. so with the five days missed, if i can make one person smile, if i can just make a slight difference in one of my family's lives every day, then i've done

my job. yes, of course, if you need me, you know, just send me a text. give me a call. okay. in richmond, virginia, for matter of fact, i'm jessica gomez. next on. matter of fact, she's part of a team testing wastewater from around the country. the power of this data is so incredible how they're findings are helping keep communities safe and healthy. plus, is online dating overwhelming our circuits? the brain gets overloaded. and what neuroscience tells us about the limits of finding love on the internet yet, and the effort to launch a free online tool that could help curb climate change. you're watching, matter of fact, america was number one nationally syndicated public affairs news magazine. winter is almost over right now. my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis held me back... now with skyrizi, i'm all in with clearer skin. ♪ things are getting clearer...♪ ( ♪♪ )

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covid rates are down across the country. flu is still high, but stabilizing and respiratory infections are dropping. how do we know all this tracking and testing. wastewater testing is playing an increasingly important role. it came to prominence during the pandemic as a way to monitor covid spread. while individual tests were still hard to come by and mit startup in massachusetts called bio bot was a key part of that analyze samples from all 50 states. well, now biobot is finding new ways to help communities. our producer, tara cleary, spoke to their head of chemistry, caitlin hess jimenez, to find out what other valuable information can be found in wastewater. in 2017, biobot first started looking at wastewater samples in cary, north carolina, looking for opioids. the town believed that they had a heroin problem. actually, as they looked for

more targets, it was uncovered that they had a prescription opioid problem. there's a lot of fentanyl, the kind of interventions that the town can use are totally different for a heroin problem versus a prescription opioid problem. so it was a really powerful tool. increased testing is key as communities move toward the new normal. when the world was kind of upended by the covid 19 pandemic, biobot pivoted from looking for opioids and wastewater to looking for covid 19 and wastewater. is this the first run, or is the repeat injection being able to use wastewater testing, certainly at the beginning of the pandemic, was a huge advantage because there was so little data at that time. i mean, if you remember having to wait in line for a car to get a test and then waiting days for these results to come back, we were able to have a readout of the levels and the concentration and the spread of virus, not just here, but across the country. in days. so it was it was a game changer.

biobot currently tests across all 50 states. we receive on any given day a few hundred samples. we first have a kit that is assembled and shipped to our many different partners. when on someone at one of these treatment facilities or manhole collects the sample, they will ship the sample back to biobot. when we receive the samples at biobot, they're kind of identified for which testing mechanism they'll go through. we give our data back to public health departments and then they are able to ingest this into other avenues to give back to their communities. also, on our website, we provide national averages and some county level averages for covid 19, flu and rsv. so people like you and me can go and check on the website and say, ah, you know, i have a family gathering coming up. what does covid look like across the us right now?

wastewater testing for both chemicals and pathogens is incredibly important. it's anonymous. we're looking at hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands of people from a single sample. and we're never identifying genetic information. in the most exciting part about wastewater testing is we still have so much further to go. we've expanded from covid now into rsv and influenza. there's norovirus testing, there's testing for a high risk substances, but that's not the end. there are still so many other biomarkers we can look for. and the chemistry realm, there are so many other pathogens we can look for in ways that make people sick, but also there are other markers that are indicative of good health, too, that we haven't begun even digging into a little bit yet. so i am so optimistic about all of the directions that the field can go and how much further we have to really encompassing all of human health.

coming up, a group of people are suing dating apps, accusing them of designing technology that deliberately addicts users. we talked to an anthropologist about the impact of dating app fatigue on your brain. plus, scientists are turning to space in an effort to address global warming. how a satellite will solve a crucial climate challenge. welcome back to matter of fact

looking for love online is just a click, a scroll, and a swipe away. but are the dating apps that millions use also addictive? six plaintiffs are bringing a class action lawsuit against match group. it's the owner of apps like tinder and hinge. they accuse the company of having a predatory business model with manipulative and game like features that keep users hooked. in 2022, our correspondent laura chavez did some digging into how online dating and dating apps impact the brain. she spoke with the chief science advisor to match.com, as well as to one of the millions of people who are trying to find love online. kierra hughes is a successful 39 year old single woman who runs a learning center for children and is very close to having everything she wants is there anything missing from your life? yes, a husband i would love a husband kierra isn't alone in trying to find a partner. according to the most recent us

census, a little under 50% of adults in america are single or unmarried. i've been dating for about two decades. where and how are you meeting people? i've been set up by my friends and family members. i've even been set up by people in the grocery store. you've been on dating apps? i've tried pof or plenty of fish. i've tried tinder, i've tried facebook, dating. i've tried bumble in hand, match.com. oh my goodness, there's so many. how would you say you feel about dating at this moment? some days i feel hopeful about dating. um, some days i don't want to do it. that kind of dating fatigue, which is mostly related to dating apps, inspired maryland psychotherapist nora padison to start a modern dating support group for singles like kierra hi, i'm kierra. we talk about setting and respecting boundaries and then we also talk about navigating

burnout and rejection as well. wanting to meet someone, wanting a relationship. you have no idea what the other people logging into those apps are expecting. it does get overwhelming when you get in so many messages on this app that can feel very overstimulating. neuroscience explains why kierra and so many others feel overwhelmed and this little brain region, the ventral tegmental area vta makes dopamine a natural stimulant. this is doctor helen fisher, a biological anthropologist and chief science adviser to match.com. she studied how people find and fall in love for over two decades and has data on why online dating might feel debilitating. we know from studying the brain that we can absorb about 5 to 9 options, and after about nine options, the brain gets overloaded. and it's called the paradox of choice or cognitive overload. and this cognitive overload applies to every one. it's a basic brain system.

it doesn't matter what color you are, where you came from, what you do for a living. it's exactly the same. which brings us back to kierra and her search for mr. right. what do you see for your future dating life? if i was to have one wish in the future, i just want god to send me a man through amazon. just bring them to my door and say, this is the one in baltimore. i'm laura chavez, for matter of fact, ahead on matter of fact, reducing global warming means less risk of wildfires and drought, cleaner air, and healthier communities. how a satellite coming to the skies near you could help and a once in a lifetime event begins in just a few weeks. find out how the noisy emergence of billions of cicadas actually helps the environment to stay up to date with. matter of fact, sign up for our newsletter at matteroffacttv tv. matter of fact, sign up for our newsletter at matteroffacttv tv. an innovative satellite is about

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to launch into space and it's expected to give a big boost to the efforts to curb global warming. it's called methanesat, an appropriate name for a satellite whose job it is to track methane emissions. methane is, of course, a greenhouse gas. it traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to the rise of the global temperature. here, the satellite will orbit earth about 15 times a day from 350 miles up, collecting data. now, that data combined with cloud computing and ai will create detailed, accurate emissions mapping. the goal is to track methane levels of major oil and gas producers and detect and measure smaller sources of emissions and leaks around the world. several notable organizations are pulling together to do this. google, with its advanced ai and mapping harvard and its center for astrophysics six.

the environmental defense fund and its scientific expertise, among others. the hope is that this detailed and free information can assist policymakers and industry as they develop specific strategies to reduce emissions around the world. now, researchers say cutting methane emissions from fossil fuel operations and agriculture and other sectors could slow global warming by as much as 30%. still ahead on matter of fact, loud, annoying everywhere but harmless. that's why cicadas are coming back in a way we haven't seen in centuries. (vo) welcome to lobsterfest. is your party ready? ready to attack this new lobster & shrimp stack? ready for your lobster lover's dream to come true? they're two of ten lobster creations, only at lobsterfest. plus, cheddar bays for days. but lobsterfest won't last, so hurry in. jordan's sore nose let out a fiery sneeze, so dad grabbed puffs plus lotion to soothe her with ease.

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what do i see in peter dixon? i see my husband... the father of our girls. i see a public servant. a man who served under secretary clinton in the state department... where he took on the epidemic of violence against women in the congo. i see a fighter, a tenacious problem-solver... who will go to congress and protect abortion rights and our democracy. because he sees a better future for all of us. i'm peter dixon and i approved this message. things happening this year. the olympics, the presidential election, and the cicadas. this spring for the first time since 1803, two different generations of cicadas or broods, as they're called, will

emerge at the same time. so for context, thomas jefferson was president then, and there were only 17 states back to cicadas. one group lives on a 13 year cycle. they're called brood 19. the other on a 17 year cycle. that's called brood 13. it's confusing. i know. stay with me. we're talking about billions of cicadas. between those two broods. now, brood 13 will appear in the midwest, centered around illinois, spilling over into wisconsin, indiana and iowa. and brood 19 will overlap a little bit in illinois and then stretch across missouri, louisiana, north carolina, virginia, and maryland. they're expected to arrive in april and then engage in a noisy mating frenzy. the bugs emit a high pitched buzz that can reach up to 100 decibel. that's it's loud. as a jackhammer, they find a mate, lay their eggs, and die. scientists say cicadas actually help the environment. they prune mature trees, they aerate the soil, and they're

carcasses are an important source of nitrogen for plants and supposedly they'll be gone by july 1st. also, it's not going to happen again for another. 221 years. that's it for this edition of matter of fact, i'm soledad o'brien. i'll see you back here next week to watch more stories like this. anytime, head to matteroffacttv.

hello, welcome to "asian pacific america." today, we're having a special show with abigail, author and film producer who has been on our show many times before, and she was helping nbc universe at and comcast celebrate the lunar new year, so we wanted to share some of that interview with you today. ♪ ♪