Corporate funding is provided by mutual of america designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why we are your retirement company. Additional support is provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. From the tisch wnet studios in Lincoln Center in new york, hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan good evening. Thanks for joining us. In iraq today, a rare battlefield defeat for islamic militants who have captured large portions of the north and west of the country with little resistance the past few months. Kurdish fighters reportedly forced the jihadists to retreat from two towns they had captured about 30 miles from erbil. Many americans are in erbil. Responding to the growing crisis in northern iraq, the state Department Today removed some personnel from the u. S. Consulate in erbil. The u. S. Had moved some personnel from baghdad to erbil just two months ago, because of the deteriorating security situation near the capital. Earlier today, u. S. Warplanes again dropped bombs on militant positions and late last night american and british planes delivered more aid to yazidis, a Minority Religious Group who had fled the area in the face of the Islamic State advance. The yazidis took refuge on a mountain, where thousands of them are still stranded with little food or water. We have a report from Jonathan Rugman of itn. Other Building Sites east of sinjar, there is what 20 families call home. They are camping under the concrete, after escaping the jihadist advance with the clothes on their backs and nothing more. Swinging from building wood is baby uni, just six months old. His mother told me Islamic State fighters have captured her husband in sinjar and that she and her four children could never go back there. Has similar says the jihadists have taken his son. He will either be converted to islam or killed, he says. We cant live with the arabs anymore. And this is hali. Exhausted after her nine hour trek down from sinjar mountain. All her relatives are missing and presumed dead. From his mobile phone, he manages to get through to his cousin, still trapped on the mountain. Right now, there are children dying he is told. Our arab neighbors have betrayed us, the world has deserted us. And those who have escaped to this building site with almost nothing are desperately waiting for news. Amid the frantic chanting of mobile phones. So that news can get through. These people have not only fled for their lives, but many of them have left their relatives missing or dead behind them. They have almost nothing to eat and unless Relief International relief agencies get here soon this humanitarian disaster could significantly worsen. A picture then of iraqs yazidi community, exhausted after walking for miles, persecuted to the brink of extermination here, even amid huh, even if humanitarian and military help turn the tide. Sreenivasan for more about this, we are joined once again tonight from washington by douglas ollivant. He is a Senior NationalSecurity Studies fellow at the new America Foundation and a partner at mantid international. The question we have referred to them as militants, as fighters, as jihadists but considering some of the brutality that we are hearing reports of, of the burying people alive in mass graves and indiscriminately shooting them, it seems to be somewhat different. They are different, i mean, they are islamist terrorists, they are islamist fighters but there is this core brutality to them, something that reminds us of almost khmerrouge extermination, their tactics, their terror, the destruction of cultural heritage, the rape, the slave markets we hear, the burying alive, we havent heard any stories of crucifixions in iraq but certainly we have seen it in syria by this group, the Islamic State in iraq and syria or isir or the Islamic State, they are something very different than what we have seen before. And they very have been clear about exactly who they want to target and even the Geographic Area of what they want, i mean in is the cal fat, an empire they want to resurrect. Right. Well, they declared the Islamic State a few weeks ago so now evidently they think they rule all muslim areas from the west end of east africa and spain all the way to indonesia. But even before that, there were the Islamic State and iraq in the levant, you look there it is very clear they want jordan, they want lebanon, they want israel, the northern part of saudi arabia, the southern part of turkey, they are very clear about their war aims. And either the french born minister had a quote in the press, we are not fighting a terrorist organization, we are fighting a terrorist state, does that change how the International Community responds to this . I think it absolutely has to, that is absolutely right. This is no longer a terror safe haven within a state, it is a de facto state that is a terrorist safe haven. And, again, given the brutality of this group, and their clear longterm aims, we do need to take this seriously, right now they are focused on what they call the near enemy, the maliki and assad regimes but this turn to the curds to the northeast demonstrate thats not all they are focused on. Today it was kurdistan, if i were jordan or lebanon i would be concerned. Even if the politicians are able to agree in baghdad what is to keep the forces on the ground from turning away and running like they did in the north, in previous occasions . Well, one, i think now they have seen what isis is and the threat it represents to their countries so hopefully that has put more backbone into the forces. We still dont entirely understand what happened in north, some combination of infiltration, desertions, ghost soldiers, lots of corruption, poor leadership, lots of things happened in the dissolving of the forces in the north. What we can hope for now is for more reliable units to come from the south from the iraqi army, for the kurdish to accordin come northeast, perhaps not as reliable as we were once told that may be for lack of ammunition and weapons and for the sunnies themselves to ass a fifth column on behalf of the iraqi government. Inside these areas that will be the battlegrounds as some fierce fight willing have to take place in mosul, fallujah and other cities if iraqis are going to retake this land from the Islamic State. And where do the curds or the peshawar get that ammunition if they are to launch a fight . They will have to cut a deal with baghdad. It is very, very difficult to arm the peshawar directly, for the United States to do that, because our laws as i understand them dont allow us to give military equipment to a sub state group it has to come through a state and go through their ministry of defense or, baghdad will have to play a role in facilitating the arming of the curds. Forth footly it looks like they see that may well be in their interest. Douglas ol vanlt joining us from washington. Thank you so much. Thank you, harry. Sreenivasan israel and hamas today accepted an egyptian plan for another 72hour ceasefire, and israel said its negotiators would return to cairo tomorrow for negotiations about a longer term peace plan, if the truce holds until then. Earlier today, at the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu said israels military operation in gaza would continue until it met its goal, which he said was, quoting now, the restoration of quiet for a long period. In turkey today, tens of millions of voters turned out for the nations first direct president ial election. And the man who has been Prime Minister for 11 years, Tayyip Erdogan won with just more than 50 . That means there will be no runoff later this month. Turkey is a member of nato and a key ally of the United States in the region. A Top World Health Organization official said today he thought it very unlikely that there would be a major Ebola Outbreak in the United States despite people flying into this country from liberia, sierra leone and guinea, three west african nations where nearly one thousand people have died. It is possible that you may have some few cases associated with that, few infections. I think that in those countries which really have good health systems, good Health Professionals good Surveillance Systems its very unlikely that you would have large outbreaks in the way that we are seeing them in these countries right now. Sreenivasan in this country outside saint louis last night, demonstrators gathered to protest the Fatal Shooting by police of an unarmed African American teen. The local chapter of the n. A. A. C. P. Is calling for a federal investigation. The officer who fired the fatal shot has been placed on paid administrative leave. Police said today that the shooting occurred after the teen assaulted the officer and reached for the officers gun. Police in miami are trying to determine if the Fatal Shooting of a rabbi yesterday was a hate crime. Joseph raksin was gunned down en route to a synagogue. Even though the incident occurred in an area near north miami beach, where swastikas were painted on a synagogue last month, as of now, police say the evidence points to a botched robbery. And one of americas top race car drivers, tony stewart, withdrew from an event today after the car he was driving during a race last night in upstate new york hit and killed another driver. The incident occurred less than a minute after stewarts car apparently bumped the car driven by kevin ward junior, causing ward to spin out and crash into a wall. Ward then left his car, evidently to confront stewart as he came back around. Thats when stewarts car hit him. Authorities are investigating the incident. A story published earlier this week in the wall street journal got our attention. It described a gallup poll measuring how student loan debts undermine the happiness and wellbeing of borrowers years after they graduate college. Yesterday, i interviewed the author of the piece, douglas belkin, who joined us from chicago. I began by asking him how gallup defined wellbeing. Gallup came up with this wellbeing index 30 years ago and they have a series of questions that looks like, sets a purpose, sense of purpose in life, if you connected to your job, how well you feel physically if you have a lot of energy, if you are connected to your community if you are connected, if you have good social relationships, sort of a lot of softball questions like that and asked them and they correlate it with how much debt you have, and they did this for the 30,000 College Graduates, these questions in march and it turns out that even 25 years after you have graduated the more debt you carried when you graduated, the more poorly you scored on those questions later on. So they said they felt less physically fit, less connected to their job, their family . How is that . It is worse than you think. The interesting part about this, to me, was that it carries on so much longer. The real question is why, i think, but you are talking about difference of 15 points in terms of the number of people, the percentage of people who feel physically fit, for instance, or have a purpose in their job. So folks who have a strong answer for what exactly is happening, iment if you get out of school and owe a lot of money your options are limited, you owe that, five or 6,000 bucks and you want to take a job, maybe in the helping services or helping people, that you are drawn toward a job that pays better, you like less, these sort of things influence decisions, you know, for years. And is there a Tipping Point number of student debt that makes people worse in is it 25,000 . 50,000 . Around 25,000 the numbers start to look bleaker. The average debt right now for a graduate of college is 33,000, a little over 33,000. And that is for the 70 odd percent of kids who graduate with debt. This survey looked at College Graduates for decades, it people who graduated before 1990 took out so little debt, this survey looked just at 1990 forward, right now, the numbers were worse at 50,000 plus, 33. 6 or 334, where kids are graduating on average now has almost doubled in ten years and probably going to hit 50,000 eventually. Lets talk a little bit about correlation versus causation, these are subjective answers these people are giving, what about the possibility there are people who didnt take out debt were maybe wealthier and happier to start with. That is certainly possible, this survey doesnt and cant look that, tata. Is this causal or correlational. If you are just more engaged in life and more up beat you do better, it is not clear if that is because it is not clear how that stands later on in life. And then what about the idea of the things that the debt might compromise in your life, if you have a huge student debt, maybe you are pulling off buying a house or another major purchase and that give you some tension, ten, 15 years down the line. Yes if you have big debt and cant save enough for a house. Right now kids are putting1x off buying houses much longer than they were, a decade or two ago, they are putting off marriage and children as well, furthermore, you may pay off the debt and move into a house but you didnt start staving on retirement because you were focused on paying off your debt so that adds stress to your life in 40s and fifties. Is, is there a take away lesson. I am a parent of a child about to go into college or about to Enter College myself, is there some way i should structure my debt thinking forward, this may make me more or less happy . I think it is an antecedent to structuring your ket and your college experience, 20 years ago, the conventional wisdom was you take out as much debt as you need or you go to the best school you got into, and that sort of is where the thinking stopped. Now, it is more about how you go to college, so what the survey has found i is that if you are connected to a professor, if you are if jew mentor at school, if you have sort of experience of learning in school, you are much more engaged in work as you go. So how you go to school, what you do while you are there is as important or more important than where you go to school. There is no relationship to being much more happy in life or engaged in work according to the prestige of the school that you went to. All right. Doug belkin of the wall street journal, thanks so much. Thanks so much. Sreenivasan and now to the arts, and an exhibit in boston featuring the works of jamie wyeth, the grandson of artist and illustrator n. C. Wyeth and the son of the painter andrew wyeth. Recently, jared bowen of wgbh sat down with him to talk about some of the works in the exhibit and to look back at his now 60 year career. I have no idea what inspires me, all the things that i paint are thing that i know very well. Reporter and jamie wyeth will tell you its all hes ever known. 60 years of the prolific painters work are now on view at the museum of fine arts in his first major retrospective. It takes us from wyeths boyhood promise to lateinlife reflections. Seeing all your work from very early on, to the most recent pieces, what is it like to see everything in one place . The emotion is sheer terror on my part, i mean i really am not being cute about it, i try to tell a variety of friends of mine, its as if youre in a room and everybodys reading your new novel or your new poem, all the inadequacies staring at it, i cringe and say iwhat wasi thinking . Why did i get obsessed with that . So its not a pleasant experience, im obviously incredibly honored. Reporter in truth, hes always been in the spotlight as the Third Generation of the famed wyeth family, the son of andrew, the grandson of n. C. Were you conscious of who came before you in terms of your father and grandfather and what they depicted . Well, i love their work. I mean i, as a very young child of course my grandfather, he died before i was born, but here was this physically huge studio up the hill from our house, full of costumes and cutlasses and flint like rifles all from his props from his illustrations, so it was magical to me. And i always say, then i would go back to our house and there would be my father painting a dead crow or something, and that was kind of boring. Reporter wyeths earliest pieces, saved and annotated by his mother, reveal a childs fascination with adventure. More significantly though, they show his early mastery of the line. He was an artist to the canvas born. Is it something you could ever conceive of not being central to your life . Well actually i have a brother nikki who, an older brother, who ate the same bacon and eggs and he had no interest in painting. So it wasnt forced upon us, but the tools were there. We lived in my fathers studio so there were the brushes and the pencils and the paints, so it was very natural for me to want to paint. It was never questioned. Reporter by age 17, in his portrait of shorty, wyeths skill was already long cemented and consuming. I would just get up in the morning, just wanted to paint. Im a very boring person, and then all i do is want to paint and to record what i feel moves me or what interests me, and that could be in the form of a pig or in the form of president kennedy. Reporter his portrait of john f. Kennedy, recently acquired by the mfa, was painted after the president s death at the request of his grieving family. I was taken by the kennedys as much as everyone was at that time. And then i realized i started doing this sort of glorified portrait of president kennedy and i felt the need to have life so i did a lot of drawings the two brothers, bob and ted. His widow jackie showed me all her films. I always say it added up to maybe i had sat with him for ten minutes, to at least to create a memory of a living person. I didnt want to just work from photographs, and actually theres a portrait of ted under the actual painting reporter really . In what way . I literally did him and then changed it into his brother, just to have i was so desperate, i didnt want it to look like preposterous portrait. Repoerter dancer Rudolf Nuryev though was someone wyeth knew incredibly well, having studied the russian ballet star intensely for a year and a half. On stage he was extraordinary of course, but off stage he was as fascinating. He would come and stay at our house, and it was like having a panther in the house. He had this amazing presence, and this sort of remarkable and this sort of remarkable look and that just drew me. He was beyond dance, he was just this amazing figure. Reporter wyeth met nuryev during his days at andy warhols factory, that 1970s new york hotbed of the avantgarde, exploration and sexuality. It was a most unlikely combo. Sometimes opposites attract, and i always i was intrigued with his work, and the resonance he has today i think is remarkable with young people still. I mean the quality i most loved in warhol it was his sense of wonder, he was absolutely, i mean he was, oh, my god, isnt that wonderful . It wasnt that he was cool and kind of calculated at all. He was very childlike. Reporter personalities aside, much of wyeths work has been about painting place specifically, where he grew up, the rugged coast of maine and the bucolic brandywine river valley stretching between pennsylvania and delaware. Im not interested in travelling and i never travel, and painting the himalayas, i dont care about scenes, i dont care about interesting looking trees. What i do care about are trees that i know that ive grown up with and touched. I just think it makes the work more meaningful. The more youre familiar with something, and comfortable, and have a love for it, or a hate for it even, the better the result. Reporter for jamie wyeth, his lifes work is his life story. Some news before we leave you tonight, ukrainian authorities claim today prorussian separate tests are deserting in mass as Government Forces attack the rebels last major stronghold. At least 1,300 people have died in the fighting there since april. And u upstate new york said thee is no reason to believe nascar champion tony stewart had criminal intent when he hit and killed another driver during a race last night. Joining us on air and online tomorrow for the latest on iraq and the fight against islamic rebels there. I am hari sreenivasan. Thanks for joining us and have a good night. Captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org pbs newshour weekend is made possible by Corporate Funding is provided by mutual of america designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why we are your retirement company. Additional support is provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Narrator a baby elephant, whose bond with one woman inspired a lifetime of devotion. Woman there were many years when i refused to talk about aisha. I loved her like my child. Narrator the american ape, challenging what it really means to be human. Second woman he told us he was an orangutan person. Narrator and one mans lifelong quest for the truth about the rhino who joined his human family. Oh, i cant believe it, guys. This is actually extremely emotional for me. 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