claims of distorted intelligence. did military analysts spin too rosy a picture of the fight against the islamic state? all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. violence erupted today between hungarian police and thousands now blocked from entering the country. the clashes came at a key crossing point in a new barrier stretching 110 miles along the border with serbia. at the same time, the flow of mostly syrian refugees shifted to a new frontline state: croatia. jonathan miller of independent television news reports on the day's events. >> reporter: on the serbian side of the frontier, tensions ratcheted up. anger rose and temps frayed in the late summer heat. hungarian riot police held firm. from above, a hungarian police helicopter kept watch. suddenly, frustrations exploded into hop hostility on this the southern front in the migration war of 2015. tear gas forcing the refugees and the migrants to retreat, eyes stinging, women and children among those now backing away. others enraged, retaliated, flinging stones at the hungarian police who, in turn, brought out the water cannons. rumors of trouble on the hungarian front have been passed down the lines to belgrade and south to the mas donian border. by social media and word of mouth a grand diversion was agreed upon. a new overland route bypassing water cannon and razor wire. the the lone marchers set a brisk pace to the northwestern serbian corn fields towards croatia, the e.u.'s newest member. the finish line still somewhat off, ahead the e.u.'s new front line. this dusty farm track is the serb-croac border. croation please were there. they warned refugees from distant conflict and wandering through unmatched mine fields from the balkan wars 20 years ago when last time hundreds of thousands trudged through the region towards western europe. we entered croatia by a more formal route and found a refugee crisis center in a nearby town. a croatian government minister was watching. is croatia prepared for what's about to happen? >> we have been following what's happening in croatia and hungry for the past month, we've prepared protocols and want to be a good host for people transiting through croatia and into the european union. >> reporter: transit it is, for nobody we spoke to wants asylum in the balkans. like hungary, part of the schengen zone, where they can head where they please, no restrictions. at least ten bus loads arrived in the border today but after what happened on the hungarian frontier this afternoon, you can belt with the multitudes will soon be on their way. >> ifill: this evening, serbia's government accused hungary of "brutal" and "non-european" behavior, and sent more police to the border. in turn, hungary's prime minister viktor orban announced his government will extend the border fence to parts of its frontier with croatia. meanwhile, syrian president bashar al-assad declared the refugee crisis is europe's fault. he said western support for rebels in syria has escalated the fighting, and driven people to flee. speaking to russian reporters, assad also criticized what he called "european double standards". >> europe is to blame for the problem of refugees. how can one be indignant about a drowned child and remain silent about the death of thousands of children, elderly people, women and men killed by terrorists in syria? europe supports terrorism and provides protection for terrorists, calling them moderates. >> ifill: the syrian leader did not directly address the russian military buildup in his country. but he did accuse u.s. officials of "willful blindness", for refusing to coordinate with syria's military on attacking islamic state forces. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu will visit washington in november to discuss the iran nuclear deal directly with president obama. the two men have had chilly relations, and netanyahu had urged congress to block the iran deal. that effort failed. the president pressed congressional republicans today to steer clear of another government shutdown. a partial closure could happen october 1st unless lawmakers approve money to keep things running. but mr. obama warned a business roundtable gathering today that demands to de-fund planned parenthood could block a budget agreement. >> the notion that we play chicken with an 18 trillion economy and global markets that are already skittish, all because of an issue around a women's health provider that receives less than 20 cents out of every $1,000 in the federal budget, that's not good policy making. >> ifill: later, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell also rejected a shutdown, and warned against what he called "exercises in futility". >> we need to deal with the world we have. we have a president who deeply supports planned parenthood and will not sign a bill that defunds it. and even if he did sign such a bill, it wouldn't work, because it would only take a small portion of funds away from planned parenthood. >> ifill: instead, mcconnell said he will seek temporary funding to keep federal operations going through late fall. income and poverty were virtually unchanged in the u.s. last year, over the year before. the latest census bureau report finds median income was about $53,700, down very slightly. the poverty rate rose slightly to 14.8% of the population. a separate report found the number of americans without health care insurance dropped nearly 3%. a 14-year-old muslim boy who was hauled out of school in handcuffs spoke out today. ahmed mohamed is an amateur inventor. but when he brought a homemade clock to school on monday, staffers said it looked like a bomb, and he was taken away. but the incident sparked a huge debate on social media, where the school and the police were accused of anti-muslim profiling. facebook ceo mark zuckerberg invited mohamed to visit. and president obama tweeted that the clock was "cool", and invited the teenager to the white house. wall street scored gains today with energy stocks leading the way. they shot higher, along with oil prices, after inventories of crude oil fell. in turn, the dow jones industrial average jumped 140 points to close at 16,740. the nasdaq rose nearly 29 points, and the s&p added 17. and in colorado, retailers selling marijuana offered doorbuster specials today, hoping for a windfall. recreational use of pot is legal in the state, but taxes, totaling 25%, were suspended for the day due to a quirk in state law. as a result, customers came out in droves, hoping for bargains. and, stores handed out coupons and deals. still to come on the newshour: previewing the second republican debate. the science behind the rampant wildfires in the west. and much more. >> ifill: the stage is set for tonight's cnn republican debate from the ronald reagan presidential library. the candidates with 11 meeting in the prime time event and four in the early round. the majority have a great deal riding on the outcome as they seek to emerge on the shadow of frontrunner donald trump. lisa desjardins is in simi valley tonight and she is watching the doings and joins us now. hello, lisa! >> hi, gwen. >> ifill: let's talk about donald trump, first of all. what is it that he has at stake as the prohibitive frontrunner at this point? >> it might sound strange, but there are big stakes that the trump campaign sees at this point. they think he needs to work on his long-term viability, make sure by being a fire brand he doesn't become only the fire brand. by that they say they're going to try to tone him down. donald trump himself talked to the christian broadcasting network about that in the last days. i noticed on the u.s. u.s u.s.s, less sharp tones, talking about immigration, talking about what he calls the border babies, but he seemed to have a less sharp tone overall, and the campaign thinks that's important so he can actually make it past this early wave he's riding and get some soiled ground beneath him for iowa, for new hampshire, for the spring into march. >> ifill: we know jeb bush and scott walker had pretty big early waste and may again but they are looking at the debate differently. what's at stake for them? >> that's right. they have perhaps the highest stakes of anyone on stage because they had such a clear slide. let's start first of all with jeb bush. what the bush campaign wants to do going forward is have the former governor be more assertive. also he'll keep talking about policy issues. but they will say he is going to specifically differentiate himself more and more from donald trump. how will he do that? he's going to talk about how he is a true conservative and make the argument donald trump is not a conservative and not a republican. he's already been doing that, gwen, as we've seen, but now they're going to ramp that up. as for scott walker who considers himself the ultimate conservative, notice the theme here, gwen, his campaign says he will also be more aggressive, that he is going to try to get out front and, these are the words they told me, inject himself more into the overall debate. also look for scott walker to come out with more policy positions. they think he is a smart candidate who has serious policy to offer. they say the time for the summer love fest is over and they think this more serious phase of the campaign will lead to perhaps more consideration of policy. at least that's what they hope. >> ifill: assume weg're senterring the more serious phase of the campaign, what that might mean, at some point tonight or going forward they'll talk about policy, is that in the play book not only for tonight but after tonight for any of these candidates? >> i think it's a fascinating moment, gwen, because that exact issue, do you talk about policy or not now, is one of the strategic issues separating these campaigns. you're going to see, as i said, bush and walker coming out and perhaps pounding a lot of serious policy showing they know their stuff on serious issues and they know how to govern. they'll probably speak to past experience. john kasich, we may see policy positions from him as well. other candidates like donald trump aren't offering specifics expect on immigration, but with that exception, we don't know exactly how he wants to build the american military and so far he has no plans to tell us. one specific contrast, i talked to dr. ben carson in the last hour and a half and asked him when do you think the time is to come out with more policy positions. he said, honestly, i don't think policy specifics are helpful now. i don't think that's what i should be doing. i think the american people need to get to know the voters. i think the appetite among voters that the politicians are trying to feel out, do they want someone they like, trust, who is an outsider, or someone they think that can govern both sides of the field and are gambling on what the question is. >> ifill: and some are waiting to see who eats the spinach, i suppose. have a good time at the debate. >> you got it. of course. >> ifill: crews battling wildfires in california seem to have turned a corner against two of the most difficult and destructive blazes. progress was reported in containing the "valley fire", which erupted this weekend north of napa valley, which torched nearly 600 homes and left many homeless. that, and a second fire, have scorched more than 140,000 acres in just a matter of days, much of it exacerbated by california's continuing drought. hari sreenivasan, in our new york studio, has that. >> sreenivasan: the fires in recent days have led to the evacuation of 20,000 people and left some towns looking like charred ruins. despite the progress, conditions remain unsafe in many areas. and it comes as the west is facing a potentially record- breaking fire season. in california alone, more than 650,000 acres have been burned by more than 7,000 wildfires. newshour science correspondent miles o'brien joins me from california. miles, the focus that's been on fires over the past few days because to have the amazing videos that we see, but really the drought is affecting pretty much everything around there. >> it affects every aspect of life there. los angeles came in yesterday, all abuzz over a little rainfall they've had. actually had rain in july which caught them by surprise, that doesn't happen here often. there are indications of a strong el niño season ahead this we wanter, pretty strong indications. everyone is thinking el niño is going to save them but really won't. it might make a down payment but there is a double-edged sword component. a lot of el niño rain after all this drought can lead to all kinds of problems including mudslides. >> sreenivasan: when you talk about a good rain season and perhaps good winter, how much of a dent is that likely to make in the snow pack which i saw animations and graphics yesterday that said it's the worst in 500 years. >> it's at a 500-year low. some scientists looking at data that's been collected in more modern times and, also, looking at tree ring data, comparing tree rings, came up with this notion that in the sierra nevadas it's at the 500-year low. the ice pack in the sierra nevada as a lot of people don't realize provide one-third of the drinking water in all of california. another third is aquifer, another third out of rivers and lakes and so forth. that's a very significant thing to watch. when you hear a 500-year low, that's got to get your attention. >> reporterattention. >> sreenivasan: when you look at the drought monitor map, it's not just california, you go all the way into washington and you see deep reds where it's very dry there, too. >> it's a scary picture, hari, and unfortunately as you project to the middle of the century ahead of us, it gets scarier. we're looking at consequences of almost 2-degree fahrenheit increase in temperature since 1970 and we're expected to do much worse than that over the next 40rbgs 50 years. what that does is make things drier where places are drier and makes places that are wetter wetter, too. the climate change changes in weird ways with climate change. we have less of a snow pack. we have drier conditions for a longer period of time. we have more fires, the fires are more severe, and the fire season lasts longer and then just had to that the fact that we're building homes in the middle of the areas susceptible to forest fires and you have a big problem ahead. >> yesterday we herd experts in the past couple of days saying the explosiveness of these fires is different because almost everything around is like kindling. >> it is. you know, a lot of this has to do with fire management techniques and the fact the fuel builds up, but when you have a situation where you have a longer season that is drier, you make more kindling and you also make it easier for bugs and other pests to do their work and make the trees less hardy when it comes into the face of fire. so there is all kinds of subtle, unintentt cons -- unintended consequences that come as a result of climate change and there's a mound of science that will tell us this is likely fueling a much worse fire picture here in the west along with a drought situation. >> and finally, briefly, looks like in the weather maps that you're bound to get a little bit of rain. that should help. >> a little bit of rain should help but they need a lot of rain and you have to make sure, too, that you're phot drinking from a fire hose. if you get el niño downpours on land that is dry and devoid of a lot of foliage, that causes all kinds of problems. >> sreenivasan: "newshour" science correspondent miles o'brien joining me from california, thanks so much. >> you're welcome. >> ifill: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: a look at the so-called henry ford of heart surgeries. how climate change is altering the way that sea turtles breed. and the unusual childhood and remarkable career of a black pioneer. >> ifill: but first, a look at a growing controversy that has gripped one part of the government's intelligence community. at centcom, the military headquarters for u.s. forces in the middle east, a number of intelligence officers are claiming that senior officials have been altering their analysis, painting a more optimistic assessment about the fight against the islamic state group. jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: the pentagon's inspector general is now conducting an investigation of these allegations. and this morning, the commander of central command, general lloyd austin, addressed this issue at a hearing on capitol hill. >> because the allegations are currently under investigation, it would be premature and inappropriate for me to discuss this matter. what i will say is i welcome the d.o.d. i.g.'s oversight and once the investigation is complete, based upon the findings, you can be assured that i will take appropriate actions. >> brown: but general austin drew a sharp rebuke from arizona senator john mccain when he described the u.s. efforts to combat isis. fortunately, amidst all the, amidst the many challenges that exist in iraq and syria, we find opportunities, and we remain confident that our actions in pursuit of these opportunities will continue to produce positive results in the coming days. >> if things aren't going well and we've had quote setbacks, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says it's tactically stalemated and you think everything is going well as pursuing the strategy and tactics on the ground that we are, general austin, i respectfully disagree. i respectfully, fundamentally disagree. this is an abject failure. >> brown: joining us now is retired colonel derek harvey, a former intelligence officer and special adviser to the commander of u.s. forces in iraq. he's now a professor of practice at the university of south florida. and new york times intelligence reporter mark mazzetti. welcome to both of you. mark, let me start with you. you have been reporting this story for a month but it seems to have taken a big jump forward now as the scope becomes clearer. >> the scope has become clearer. a number of senior lawmakers have spoken about the seriousness of the matter and it's not just senator mccain. a lot of democrats as well who have talked about that this issue sort of cuts to the heart of the credibility of centcom, the credibility of senior officers who talk about the progress of or the lack thereof. so i think you're starting to see it build up, and, as you said, the scope has become clearer. i think we have a better sense that it seems to be a problem within the intelligence unit of central command, but it's a huge unit, some 1,500 people, and they call it -- it's called the j.-2. it's people who provide intelligence about the whole central command area. but very specifically about this war and how it's going. >> brown: col. harvey, leep us understand who's who here, these intelligence officers raising concerns. who do they work for? what's supposed to happen with their reports? >> well, this is a very interesting demand and it's comprised of very professional, very capable defense intelligence agency analysts, contractor and military personnel, and they are some of the best and brightest intelligence analysts this country has particularly on the problem of terrorism in the middle east, the islamic state and challenges with iran. they are extremely professional, and that's why this is very interesting because you have very professional people making allegations about the attempts to thwart their assessments, and they have been submitting these reports, apparently, and their concern is that their bottom line, their analysis has not been able to move forward, and it's not about sources, it's not about the credibility of the methodology, it's not about what might be a normal intelligence debate about how to think about a problem. it probably isn't about the commanders there having an operational context that the intelligence analysts don't have. so the j.-2 there who is the director of intelligence, major general steve grove and his tep diare involved according to the media reporting and there is allegations their reports have been distorted or parts left out which go to the heart of whether or not we're having success on the ground as senator mccain went through today. >> brown: two big questions -- who's under suspicion of tampering with intelligence, we heard one name thrown out, and why would they be doing it? >> the first question is easier to answer right now. i think it's really focused around the senior command of the intelligence outfit at centcom, so major general steve grove, his deputy general and the allegations among the group of analysts is they are reworking the assessments. the bigger question is why, and we don't know yet, and we're trying to figure out what the implications are, but what specifically the charges are. there have been things -- there have been allegations in the last month that maybe there are people who are close to the administration, who want to only tow the line of what the administration wants. >> brown: there have been allegations. any evidence of -- >> no, so we're really trying to get to the bottom to hav to of . >> brown: col. harvey, what are you picking up from former colleagues of yours about how high this goes, perhaps why it might be going on and how it's affecting things there? >> i think the concern within the command is about some things that have been record in the media about a toxic command environment and about stalinist approaches that diminish the freedom of intellectual pursuit of the analysts. and this investigation and the news media coverage of it is going to have an impact on the ability of the analysts because it's going to distract people and sow doubt. also, from my perspective, it brings in the question in the media, as we've heard, the coverage of the senate hearing today, doubts of overall credibility of intelligence and raise as host of questions. what i wonder about is did any of these -- if these are true and the inspector general determined whether or not these allegations are true or not and so we have to reserve some judgment here, but did anything that was not put forward have an impact on how we characterize the fight and did that lead to a decision being taken or not taken that would not have been otherwise. so that's something we need to look at, too. >> brown: mark mazzetti, we saw senator mccain in the earlier clip, some of the fireworks earlier today, but you also quoted in your article today a representative adam schiff, the top democrat in the house intelligence, and he was saying, in your story, that in this administration or in recent years that some of the internal divisions have been aired pretty well. it has not been such a problem of keeping bad news under raps. what's going on? >> the infamous example is pre-iraq war intelligence where dissent was disregarded or buried if footnotes or things like that, so you only got a unanimous picture almost to have the iraq's w.m.d. so in the wake of that debacle, there were all of these checks put in place to prevent that from happening again, allowing alternate analysis to be raised in products, to allow greater debate, to allow all sorts of what they call red teaming, different ways of thinking through problems, and not -- and allowing policymakers to see a lot of different views and, so, what representative schiff was talking about is that, in recent years, it has gotten better to prevent the very problems we saw before the iraq war. but as col. haver j talked about, there is still this question of if one intelligence outfit, one command is presenting a certain view, and it's a very, you know, influential command, that will have impact on policy, it will have impact on how lawmakers consider a problem. so this is the military headquarters running the war. so what they say matters and, as col. harvey said, if there are doubts about the veracity of what they're saying, that is going to have a big credibility problem not for just general austin but everybody below him. >> brown: much more to come here, clear. mark mazzetti and derek harvey, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, the story of a man who's been called the henry ford of heart surgery. fred de sam lazaro reports from india. it's part of his on-going series agents for change. a warning: some images may be disturbing. >> hole in the heart. it's one of those standard procedures. >> reporter: it is especially standard for 62-year-old devi prasad shetty, one of the world's most prolific heart surgeons. >> i do now about one or two surgeries a day and we work six days a week. my colleagues, some of them do four surgeries, five surgeries a day. >> reporter: anywhere from 25 to 35 open heart operations are performed in the theaters here every day-- many on babies-- making this by far the largest cardiac care facility in the world. it's part of a fast growing for profit chain called narayana health offering top notch surgery, like this complex valve replacement at rock bottom costs. >> this patient would have paid us about $2,500 to about $3,000, but in the u.s an operation of this nature would cost i guess anything from $70,000 to $100,000. >> reporter: dr. shetty founded narayana health 15 years ago. it serves wealthy patients and some medical tourists. but he says the goal is to bring the latest advances in cardiac surgery to the poor. >> it's pointless we talking about huge developments in cardiac surgery or a brain operation or a complex cancer surgery if the common man cannot afford it. if a solution is not affordable, it is not a solution. >> reporter: in other words, making it affordable is as critical as the surgery itself. >> i see 70, 100 patients a day. the typical patient i see is a little kid in a mother's lap. >> ( translated ): he has a leakage in the valve of his heart. he needs an operation. >> reporter: the surgery carries risks, shetty warned. >> ( translated ): sir, he is my only child, that's all i want to say. >> ( translated ): i will do everything possible. god will make it all right. don't worry. >> reporter: it's a scene repeated several times a day, shetty says, and the tears, the anguish are not always just about whether the surgery will be successful. >> i tell the mother that the baby requires a heart operation and she has only one question: how much it is going to cost? i tell her that it is going to cost 80,000 rupees, which she doesn't have and that is the price tag on the kid's life. she comes up with 80,000 she can have the baby. if she does not have 80,000 she going to lose the kid. >> reporter: that's about $1,300, a lot of money in india where hundreds of millions earn two dollars a day or less, a country where 80% of all medical bills are paid out of pocket. a few patients receive care from a charitable trust narayana set up, but shetty says most have scrougned together the resources before coming here. >> they virtually sell everything that they have and come for treatment. half the country's population borrow money or sell assets to pay the medical bills. >> reporter: the parents of five-month-old manoj borrowed about three times their monthly income as rural farm laborers just to figure out why the child wasn't thriving . >> ( translated ): he was not taking his milk properly. he had fevers and cough so we took him to see the doctor. they told us he needed surgery. >> reporter: that meant a day long train journey to this hospital. but once here, another narayana benefit kicked in: an insurance program developed with farmers groups and state governments in south india. >> reporter: the insurance policy covers only major medical costs, like surgery but the premium of just ten u.s. cents a month, makes it widely affordable, says narayan's c.e.o dr. ashutosh raghuvanshi. >> it's amazing that such a small amount of money could provide that care. the number of people who are covered under this scheme is about 10 million now and it has performed close to about 100,000 operations of various kinds. >> reporter: we were assured three-year-old chitrashri was in no physical pain, just anxious, as nurses removed her stitches from a successful heart operation-a huge relief, medically and financially for her parents, who struggle to get by selling milk from their two cows. the insurance coverage for this extended family and many others- the first of its type in aimed specifically at the poor-has also been a significant source of income for narayana health. >> about 25%. >> reporter: really? so it's significant. >> yes, it's significant. >> reporter: it is just one strategy narayana has used to find revenue. it also has a walmart-like approach to cost control, squeezing vendors for everything from surgical gowns to supplies to devices. >> we have 32 hospitals across india, 12% of heart surgery done in india is done by us. when we implant one of the largest number of heart valves in the world obviously you pay for it less than others. and also, more than cost, our results are better. >> reporter: he says the sheer volume of surgery not only means more productivity it makes better surgeons-attracting those focused on their surgery rather than their income. they're paid well by indian standards but far less that they could earn elsewhere, especially in the west. >> we can address the need of the doctors but we cannot address the greed of the doctors and i'm pleased to say that our attrition among doctors is virtually zero percent. they love working here. >> reporter: what qualities are you looking for specifically to work in a place like this? >> the most important quality is the passion. the second most important quality is compassion. >> reporter: despite his compassion, he says, he's not running a charity. >> charity is not scalable. it doesn't matter who you are. you may be richest person living on this planet but if you want to offer free surgery free treatment to everyone, you will go broke within a month. but good business principles, standard business policies are scalable. >> reporter: narayana health has branched out beyond cardiac surgery into cancer and kidney care and shetty says it will become the largest hospital system in the world in a few years. >> ( translated ): it was very difficult at first when we came to see him. but the doctors told us that things are going to be all right. >> reporter: baby manoj is but one case, shetty says, that proves health care-even sophisticated surgery-can be made accessible to the poorest people in the farthest corners of the world. for the pbs newshour, this is fred de sam lazaro in bengaluru, india. >> ifill: a version of this story aired on the pbs program religion and ethics newsweekly. fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at st. m university of minnesota. >> ifill: now, we turn to another angle of our continuing coverage of climate change and its impact. tonight, our science team looks at the toll it is taking on sea turtles and some of their tiniest offspring. we went to the coast of southern florida and came back with a major report that we are launching on our website tonight. here's part of it. urtles go back around 230 million years. sea turtles go back around 110 million years. while i'm happy to report we've had a big nesting year this year, last year the numbers are still depleted from what they have been historically, so we're not looking at a species yet. when we think about the biology of the animal, the logging turtle has been around for 60 million years. there have been a lot of climatic changes during that time and very few of them have occurred at this rate. it changes when the droughts occur, when the heavy rainfall events occur, it changes where major tropical storms occur and the sizes of the tropical storms, the shift in climate, there's shift in turtles as well. one of the things we discovered from those major rainfall amounts or major storm surge events, we can see the changing in the temperature of the nest. so the reason why the temperature matters is because sea turtles have environmentally-determined sex. they don't have an extra y chromosome, they have a sex that's defined in development by the incubation environment. in general, we have higher bias sex ratios, where if the absorbs more heat we'll push the female bias which is common here to a more extreme situation. so typical loggerhead down here in southern florida is producing about 105 eggs. the female nests five times. five times 105 if my math is good should be 525 eggs. so she'll have to nest over 10 nesting seasons which in the case of a loggerhead is over a 20, 30-year period just to replace herself and maybe one mate. the calculation, one in seven thousand are making it to adulthood. let's take that same turtle and her nesting over 20 years, so that's ten nesting events. if five of those, everything gets wiped out by storms. and five of those are drought years where production is low and it's so hot that everything that comes out of the nest is a female, wow, as long as they can find a date, they've got a future. but if there aren't enough males out there, then there is a problem. they go through some changes, but we hope this changing event is not one that they can't recover from, that they can't compensate for, and if it is so bad that they can't compensate, that's a pretty dire statement, not only for the turtles but for us. >> i'm joined by science producer nsikan akpan. you're a science guy and know about melting glaciers and polar bears. why do we care about loggerhead turtles. >> we're calling the series the wild side of sea level rise because we're looking at incidental ways sea level rise impacts the wildlife on the coast. sea turtles are not that tiny. a loggerback can weigh as much as a motorcycle but climate change has a huge im-- sea level rise has a huge impact on their nests. sea level rise is watching out nests, storm surges are a part. we have the issue with beach erosion, squeezing the amount of area sea turtles have to nest. >> ifill: i highly recommend people reading your report which is very interesting but one of the things that struck me is you reported that only one in 7,000 of these loggerheads, once born, actually make it to adulthood. >> right, sea turtles and especially hatchlings serve as prey for a lot of predators. when we were on the beach producer mike fritz and i saw a fox running around the beach and one of the researchers told us a fox could eat an entire nest of sea turtle eggs or 100 eggs in a single serving. once the eggs make it off the beach into the water, they're often prey for sharks. once you combine few survive natural predation and then storm surges washing out more nests, you will have sea turtles pushed to the brink in terms of genetic diversity and population numbers overall. >> ifill: what's different is it seems we're talking about drought and erosion and warming and storm surges. of all the factors, what would you say is having the most deadly impact. >> i think all those are having pretty cataclysmic effects. as janette mentioned, with their research, drought is forcing the sex ratio bias where they will have primarily females being reproduced. if you have that occur for multiple generations, you can lose a lot of diversity of sea turtles but also their ability to reproduce overall. >> ifill: what are the solutions and can we pay for it? >> beach renourishment is when you ship sand from offshore and try to rebuild the beach. that isn't always the great for sea turtles. they often have a hard time digging into a renourished beach. their nests are often misshapen and hatch lings can't escape and it's a big trap. >> ifill: expensive, also. t's also very expensive. since 1991, florida spent over $2 billion to renourish beaches. if you think about this prospect long term, it isn't very sustainable because sea levels are predicted to rise by at least five feet at 2100 which beach renourishment really isn't a solution in that case. >> ifill: nsikan akpan introduced me to something i knew nothing about and i find interesting. thank you very much. >> thank you, gwen. >> ifill: now, the newest addition to the newshour bookshelf. clifton wharton, jr is sometimes known as "the quiet trailblazer", much accomplished but not widely known. his memoir, "privilege and prejudice: the life of a black pioneer", has just been published. he sat down to talk about it recently with judy woodruff. admitted to harvard at age 16, the first black student to earn an economic doctorate at the university of chicago worked on development issues and latin america and asia, president of michigan state university, chairman and c.e.o. of t.i.a.a. cref, the pension and financial services company, the number two man at the department of state. these are but a few highlights from a storied life. clifton wharton, welcome. >> thank you. >> woodruff: great to have you with us. the title of the book, "privilege and prejudice: the life of a black pioneer," signaling you've experienced privilege and prejudice. >> yes. >> woodruff: in equal amounts or more one than another. >> i wouldn't say i measured them. throughout my life when i've had exposure, it sometimes has occurred, prejudice. >> woodruff: but you grew up the son of a diplomat, of an ambassador, a pretty sophisticated life. you were overseas much of the time as a child. >> yes. a lot was expected of you. yes. when we lived abroad, most of my early years were spent in the canary islands of spain. i knew i was black because my mother taught me a great deal about outstanding blacks including my father, so i didn't experience any significant racial incident till i came back to the united states. >> woodruff: you were about 10 or 11 years old. i was struck, you wrote about it, and though it was a tough experience for you, you said, "although it never went away, over time my indignation cooled to a small diamond-hard ire i could usually disregard." >> oh, yes, indeed. and it also provided me with a tremendous amount of inner strength to be able to deal with it. i first experienced it when i was temporarily in the fourth grade on home leave. a youngster in class was very angry was a teacher used me to show the students how to read. after one of the periods, he came up to me and said you think you're a smart "n," and i didn't know what that word meant. i went home and said to my mother, what is that? she explained, that is a term that's used to put you in a box. she said, don't ever let anybody put you in a box. >> woodruff: you mention dealing with race throughout the book but you always worked right through it. >> oh, yes. there are times when it becomes a matter of how you deal with it yourself. as to say, you begin to approach it as an instant where the other person who may be expressing racist sentiments requires a bit of education, and teach them exactly what is they're doing and why. >> woodruff: when you see where the united states is today with race relations, what do you make of it all? >> well, i would say that we have, to a great extent, improved situations but made some of them worse. but one of the things which disturbs me a great deal today is that we are, in fact, reducing the opportunities, for a variety of reasons, for young minorities to receive a grade and good -- a great and good education. i say that because i think the united states needs to recognize that the failure of providing that education creates a loss in human capital for the country as a whole. >> woodruff: you mean failing to provide it in k-12 or at the higher -- >> in all of it, particularly in k-through 12 but also colleges and universities. let me give you an example. there is been a recent study that shows that if you are in the upper quart of families in the united states your child has an 85% chance of getting a degree and if you're in the last quartile, your child has a small chance. >> woodruff: why? because we failed to recognize there is institutional racism when it's built into the psyche of people. >> woodruff: why is it so hard to minimize or get rid of this? >> there are individuals who continually develop aspects of institutional racism. for example, why is it that we have so many young blacks, such a huge percentage of the population in jail? that creates, itself, a problem. >> woodruff: you're about to turn 89 and things have gotten better, you just said, but we still have a long twie go. do you get discouraged? >> no, i don't get discouraged in that sense. i get discouraged when i see we are not correcting some of the problems that are creating it. >> but whose fault is that? i think it's everybody's fault in a sense. we have missed the opportunity to recognize what it is we're doing. it's not in the national self-interest to avoid developing healing capital that could contribute to our society. >> woodruff: doesn't someone bear responsibility? >> collectively there's a problem. we have so many times missed the boat on these things, and once they become a cycle of poverty, which perpetuates itself, it's very, very hard to break. >> woodruff: what, clifton wharton, is your advice to young african-americans in the united states today? >> oh, i would say be prepared and always look for the kind of opportunities where you think you can make your own way and contribution to society. many of these individuals need that kind of encouragement that people believe in them, people recognize they have skills and competencies and will be able to succeed. quite frankly, for me, the greatest return is when you see them being converted into significant human capital for society, that's wonderful. >> woodruff: clifton wharton, the book is "privilege and prejudice: the life of a black pioneer." thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. >> ifill: finally tonight, our newshour shares of the day. something that caught our eye, which might be of interest to you too. calligraphy, the art of handwritten lettering, is drawing a new audience on social media. u.k.-based artist and designer seb lester frequently posts videos featuring the creation of his calligraphy. a compilation posted on facebook reached more than 45 million views in five days. lester talked with the newshour today about the art and craft of writing. my name is lester. i'm a designer and artist and i work in the united kingdom. i think creative is many things for many people. for me it's a form of self-expression. i describe calligraphy as ancient magic. it has simplicity and infinite complexity and that's part of the challenge. often a starting point for a piece of art will be a piece of poetry that appeals to me and the job is to interpret the words. calligraphy is very good at accentuating meaning and it can be very engaging and seductive. so it's about finding a visual tone of voice for a given projects that's appropriate. i think social media is open to the whole idea of creative entertainment and it's a performance, really, for an audience. it's kind of uncharted territory. it's very interesting to see how things develop. >> ifill: you can see more of our shares on our website. also on the newshour online: sunday is the primetime emmy awards. in preparation, we revisited the work of some of our favorite tv critics, and turned it into a quiz. see if you can guess they said about your favorite show. test your knowledge on our home page: pbs.org/newshour and join us tomorrow for a twitter chat on the european migrant and refugee crisis. former secretary of state madeleine albright and others will join us to answer your questions, beginning at 1:00 pm eastern time. details are on our home page: pbs.org/newshour and that's the newshour for tonight. next week, pope francis comes to the united states. tomorrow, we make sense of his critique of capitalism. i'm gwen ifill... join us online. and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. report" with tyler matheson and sue herera. >> split decision, the brightest minds in business and economic disagree on what the federal reserve will do tomorrow making the start of this meeting one of the most uncertain in recent memory. something's brewing. the world's biggest beer maker wants to get bigger. it won't have an' time getting there. >> expectations today, we learned the slowing global economy is taking a toll on a well-known flagship american company. all that and more tonight on nightly business report for wednesday september 16th. good evening, everyone. the great divide like few have seen before. some of wall street's leading economists, strategists and top money managers are spotlight on whether the federal reserve