corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's 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. we begin tonight with syria, where the extremist militant group isis has increased its control in parts of that country and in neighboring iraq. the syrian government continues to battle the militants, who have taken control of three military bases in recent weeks. late this week, the government sent in reinforcements to maintain control of the tabqa air base in eastern syria, the government's last stronghold in the region. after isis released a video on tuesday showing the beheading of american journalist james foley, the obama administration announced that it is reconsidering its military strategy, including the possibility of air strikes in syria. this following a new united nations report which puts the death toll from the conflict in syria at more than 191,000. in the last year, the number of casualties has more than doubled. for some analysis of the syrian situation as the united states considers its options against isis, we are joined from washington by douglas ollivant. he is a senior national security studies fellow at the new america foundation and a partner at mantid international. doug, let me start with that u.n. report-- 191,000 dead. just to put that in superpower, that's the entire population of salt lake city gone. >> the civil war goes on and on, new reinforcements seem to be coming to each side, and there does seem to be no end in sight. it's a continuing humanitarian disaster. >> sreenivasan: how significant is it if they gain control of this airbase? >> any time you lose a piece of infrastructure, it's very serious. and this appears to be the government's real last stronghold in the east, and they're directly confronting isis for control of this key terrain. >> sreenivasan: what kind of control does isis have in the entire country? is it basically, the entire northern end they've taken control over, similar to iraq? >> well, they certainly have loose control over much of the northeastern part, everything between the regime and the kurds with occasional smatterings of free syrian army, controlled areas, and islamic front controlled areas. but in shot, they have some contiguous territory in syria that ajoins that that they control in iraq. >> sreenivasan: what are some of the options here for the u.s.? air strikes have been considered. we're hearing conversations of trying to ask congress for the authorization of unlimited uses of force. >> i think as the administration looks at the problem as a whole, the isis threat in both iraq and syria, you start to realize that if you only attack them in iraq and leave them a safe haif nen syria, that's just not going to work. you know, we have precedence for this. the taliban and haqqanis having their safe haven in pakistan, and going back further the viet cong with safe havens in cambodia. you leave them a place where they can rest and be safe, your chance of success are very slim. >> sreenivasan: yesterday ben rhodes made the quote, we're not going to be restricted by borders which is a fairly aggressive foreign policy stance. >> that's certainly the first time we've heard that, and i think the administration is starting to recalculate exactly what's involved in some of its internal preferenceit may have to overcome to effectively confront the isis threat. >> sreenivasan: and here's how it gets a little trick nethe middle east in the sense that last year, there wasn't enough support by the international community to go after the assad regime. and now, we essentially attack an enemy of our enemy, are we essentially helping bashar al-assad? >> the short answer is yes. and that's what makes this so complicated. this is why we've not struck isis in syria as no one has wanted to give even the aappearance of giving aid and support to the assad regime. but i think we're now coming to a reluctant acceptance of the fact as bad as the assad regime is-- and no one is downplaying how awful the assad regime is-- the isis threat is both worse and a more real danger to the united states and its interests. >> sreenivasan: douglas ollivant joining us from washington, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: tensions continue to mount in the russia- ukraine crisis as 227 trucks from a russian aid convoy departed ukraine today and returned to russia. the convoy entered ukraine on friday through a rebel-held border, a move the ukrainian government called an act of invasion. the mission of the convoy has been consistently disputed. in question: what the trucks contained, and if they actually delivered any humanitarian aid to the rebel-held city of luhansk. on friday, nato said it had evidence that russian troops are operating inside ukraine, an accusation that moscow's ambassador to the u.n. denied. as government forces continued their fight to reclaim the rebel-held city of donetsk, ukrainian president petro poroshenko met with german chancellor angela merkel today in kiev. merkel made the trip as a show of support for ukraine and to urge a peaceful, political solution to the crisis. president petro poroshenko is set to meet with russian president vladimir putin in minsk on tuesday for their first encounter since june. for more, we're joined by steve sestanovich, a senior fellow from the council on foreign relations in washington, d.c., and author of the book "maximalist: america in the world from truman to obama." so, did vladimir putin win in the world of war of perception, so to speak, or did he back down. >> he certainly did something that was unexpected. yesterday, everybody was predicting that maybe we were finally going over the cliff to war, that this time the russians were serious about an invasion, and all hell was going to break loose. today, they are taking the troops back, and putin has not done the big thing that he seemed to be threatening, which was to make his troops, his men, his trucks a shield for the separatists in eastern ukraine. and the same landscape is really there now that was there before this truck convoy story. putin has to figure out how to support the separatists who are basically going down without over-involvement that will excite too much opposition from the west and embroil him in a big mess that he wants to stay out of. >> sreenivasan: what does the west do about it? >> well, one of the things that the west did yesterday, european and american governments, were really loud in their criticism of what russia did, and made it clear that there was going to be new trouble ahead if he persisted and tried to really interpose russian forces into this fight in eastern ukraine. i think that's got to be one of the reasons that made it such a quick roundtrip for these trucks in and out of luhansk. >> sreenivasan: what does president poroshenko do on tuesday when he meets with putin? >> what he said is he wants to talk peace. he said we've had enough of war, but he's laid out some important conditions in his conversations today with chancellor merkel of germany, who is visiting, giving him a show of support. he said he wants to have an opportunity to-- for dialogue with eastern ukrainians, but he wants all the mercenaries out, meaning the russian military intelligence officers and soldiers of fortune who have shown up in eastern ukraine. he is demanding that putin pull back and stop meddling, stop the flow of arms, and men into eastern ukraine. he's got the wind at his back in some ways. he's had a military offensive in eastern ukraine that's been pretty successful. so he deals with putin on a stronger footing than many would have expected a few weeks ago. >> sreenivasan: what's the end game for putin here? >> this is a little hard to say. there is a range of possibilities. he could be looking at a kind of permanent ferment in eastern ukraine, something like the support that russia has given over many years to separatists in moldavia, in georgia, and elsewhere. that's not a really good outcome because it doesn't get him off the hook with the west. it means a lot of these sanctions probably stay in place for a long time. a better outcome would be one in which he gets some kind of concessions from poroshenko about the structure of ukrainian politics, some kind of acknowledgment that there has to be decentralization. poroshenko has offered all of that, but he baent offered to do it in a way that looks enough to putin like a real victory. >> sreenivasan: all right steve sestanovich joining us from washington, d.c., thanks so much. >> sreenivasan: violence in gaza continued today as egypt called for palestinians and israelis to return to peace talks. the request from egypt's foreign ministry came after palestinian president mahmoud abbas met with the egyptian president in cairo. >> ( translated ): what matters to us now is to stop the flow of blood and to stop these acts that cause more sacrifices. and as soon as it stops, we must support the humanitarian effort and reconstruction of gaza. >> sreenivasan: the israeli government declined to comment. more than 2,000 palestinians and more than 60 israelis have been killed since the conflict in gaza began on july 8. egypt is requesting an open- ended cease fire. the ivory coast is the latest country in west africa to close its borders to prevent the spread of the most deadly ebola outbreak on record. the ivory coast is flanked by guinea and liberia, both hit hard by the outbreaks. nigeria reported two new cases of ebola yesterday, affecting health workers who had cared for an american there. the world health organization says there are more than 2,600 confirmed or suspected cases and 1,427 deaths so far. all of the cases have originated in west africa. on staten island today, thousands marched to seek justice in the death of an unarmed black man who was killed by a white police officer. on july 17, new york city police used a chokehold to subdue 43- year-old eric garner after detaining him for selling cigarettes illegally. the asthmatic father of six died as a result. many marchers carried "hands-up, don't shoot" signs, a reference to the events in ferguson, missouri, where police recently killed another unarmed black man. the reverend al sharpton asked attendees to remain nonviolent, and garner's widow asked the crowd to "get justice" for her late husband. sharpton has repeatedly called the death of garner and events in ferguson a "defining moment" for policing in the united states. california has become the seventh state to address backlogged rape kits. lawmakers passed a bill yesterday which will require hospitals to submit rape kits to forensic labs within five days of obtaining d.n.a. evidence from a sexual assault victim. it gives law enforcement 20 days to process the evidence. this comes after a recent audit found a backlog of thousands of cases in california. another big bank, another big settlement. goldman sachs will pay $3.5 billion to resolve claims it knowingly sold fannie mae and freddie mac risky mortgage bonds. as part of the deal, goldman will buy back securities it sold to the mortgage giants between 2005 and 2007 for $1 billion more than the bonds are now worth. this latest settlement comes the day after it was announced that bank of america would be paying a record $16.65 billion as part of an agreement with federal regulators. $7 billion of that will go towards consumer relief. >> sreenivasan: news came yesterday that a cyber attack against a private company, u.s.i.s., that conducts background checks for the federal government exposed data on 25,000 workers, including some undercover investigators. this after the justice department claimed earlier this year that the company submitted incomplete background checks on more than 600,000 applicants. it's the latest piece of bad news for the background check industry, which has come under fire in recent years for inaccurate and incomplete reports. the vast majority of employers use background checks to screen job applicants. in tonight's signature segment, we take a look at the story of one man who alleges his background check came back with mistakes and cost him a potential job. newshour correspondent megan thompson reports. >> reporter: in 2012, kevin a. jones applied for a part-time job as a doorman in new york city. he was soon called in for an interview at the large property management company, halstead. >> the interview actually went very well. i hand him my resume, we talked about my background, and he basically ended the interview by saying, "we would love to have you work for us." >> reporter: great news for the divorced 58-year-old father and professional driver who needed the extra money to help pay child support. jones filled out the paperwork, submitted a drug test and waited to hear when he could start. instead, he got a different kind of call. >> human resources said, "there's a problem with your background check." and i said, "what problem?" "yeah, there's some criminal stuff going on. you need to talk to them." >> reporter: it turned out the background check, conducted by a company now called sterling backcheck, showed convictions for drunk driving, attempted petit larceny and forgery, and two stints in jail. a few days later, jones got a letter in the mail saying unless he could clear the matter up, his job offer was being revoked. do you have any kind of criminal history? >> none. never. ever. i was upset and, of course, embarrassed, you know. i'm thinking, this is not right. you guys have made a major mistake, and this needs to be fixed. >> reporter: jones says after months of phone calls with no resolution, he had to get a lawyer to sort it out. but by then, the damage had been done. so, earlier this year, he became lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against sterling, accusing it of "systematically failing to use reasonable procedures" to ensure accuracy as required by the federal fair credit reporting act. jones also sued his would-be employers, halstead and brown harris stevens, alleging they denied him adequate opportunity to dispute the report, his right under federal law. >> these companies are getting thousands of disputes a year from consumers who are claiming that there's an inaccuracy on their background check. >> reporter: jim francis is one of jones' attorneys, whose firm specializes in cases of botched background checks. >> it's a very, very troubling problem, and one that i don't see abating at any time in the near future. >> reporter: since 9/11, the background screening industry has grown dramatically. today, almost 90% of employers screen their applicants, meaning millions of checks are done every year. the idea is to avoid problems and keep the workplace safe. but critics say the sources some screeners get their information from-- bulk databases or other companies called data brokers-- can be flawed. and the volume and speed at which it's all compiled can mean mistakes are made, jobs lost and reputations ruined. >> what is the cause of it is a business model from the background screening industry that promotes speed and value of sales over accuracy and care. >> reporter: in recent years, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against background check companies, some resulting in multimillion-dollar class action settlements. the federal trade commission has also stepped up its enforcement, issuing hefty fines against major screeners and data brokers. what's more, the burden can fall on the job applicant to get a mistake fixed, and most don't know where to begin. >> i was disagreeing vehemently, but they... they weren't listening, and... and no one was helping. it wasn't like there was a suggestion, "well, why don't you try this?," you know. >> i went and i pulled record number one. >> reporter: in the case of his client, kevin a. jones, jim francis contacted the local courthouses and pulled the actual records. he found all those convictions belonged to another man in upstate new york with the same first and last name and birthday. but all the records showed this man had a different middle initial, "m." he also had completely different home addresses. >> there was plenty of information available in the actual public record that would have been able to prove that he was not the person who was the subject of these criminal records, but they didn't get these records. >> reporter: there is no central government database that contains criminal history information from the thousands of local jurisdictions across the u.s., and francis says the massive databases background screeners compile themselves or get from outside data brokers can be incomplete and out of date. >> you have to see that if there's some information that doesn't match, if there are multiple fields that don't match, you have to ask more questions. >> reporter: maneesha mithal is the associate director of the division of privacy and identity protection at the federal trade commission, which enforces the fair credit reporting act. it requires that background screeners use "reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy." it also guarantees a free copy of the background report, and requires the screener to reinvestigate if a job applicant disputes something in their report. >> if you have a sex offender applying for a job at a day care, you don't want to require necessarily that every piece of information matches because you want to be able to catch people who might have a transposed middle initial but actually are the sex offenders. at the same time, you don't want people who are not sex offenders to be denied that job based on erroneous information. so, what we've told companies is that you have to have reasonable procedures. you have to do some due diligence. you have to do some checking. >> reporter: is there any requirement that these background screening companies have to register with anyone? or is there any kind of national list of these companies? >> no, there isn't. >> reporter: so, we don't know how many com... of these companies are even out there? >> no, we don't. and i think that's one of the challenges. >> reporter: we asked for a statement from sterling backcheck, the company that issued kevin jones' background report. it declined comment. but in a court filing, the company denied the allegations and any liability to jones or other plaintiffs. jones' would-be employers, halstead and brown harris stevens, said in a statement they engage an independent, third party provider to complete background checks and "if there was a case of mistaken identity by our screening company, we are nonetheless sympathetic to mr. jones' situation and have so informed his counsel. we support the fair credit reporting act and believe that we are fully compliant with its requirements." >> certainly the one or two that come through that ha... may have a potential issue are the ones that become more noteworthy and noticeable. what you don't necessarily hear about are the millions of successful screens that are happening each and every day. >> reporter: melissa sorenson is the executive director of the national association of professional background screeners, an industry group with about 700 members, including many of the biggest screening companies. it launched its own accreditation program four years ago and says about 10% of its members have gone through it. but sorenson says there is no information publicly available about the accuracy rate in the industry. >> for all of our members, accuracy is key to the product that they're providing. it's key not only because it's critical and mandatory under federal law, but their customers demand an end product that's accurate and that they can use in making a hiring decision. >> reporter: sorensen says if a screener finds something questionable, the fair credit reporting act requires it either check the original source or give notice to the employer and job applicant. so, you're saying that the screener can then just send a letter to the employer and the consumer saying, "hey, we found this." i mean, hasn't the damage then already been done? >> with that initial notice that comes out, you then have the opportunity as a consumer to dispute that information. >> reporter: sorenson says screeners have a duty to reinvestigate if a dispute is made, but there are no requirements about what a reinvestigation entails. and if a job applicant does get a mistake fixed, that information isn't necessarily shared among the other companies. >> background screening companies operate independently. and it's possible that if a background screen show... something came back on a background screen for a particular individual and then another screening company performed a screen, the same information could show up. >> reporter: and that's exactly what kevin jones says he's worried about. >> if it happened once, it could happen again. if... it's unfortunate to feel that way, but it happened, so i... i have to feel that way. >> reporter: jones is now working full-time and says he hopes his lawsuits will help prevent this from happening to someone else. his cases are currently pending in new york district court. >> sreenivasan: should background checks be used to review job applicants? take our poll. visit newshour.pbs.org. >> sreenivasan: malala yousafzai became a global crusader for women's education after she was shot in the head by the taliban on her way home from school in pakistan in 2012. since recovering, the 17-year- old has been traveling the world advocating for the millions of children across the globe who don't have access to education. i sat down with her this week while she was in new york promoting the release of a new edition of her book, "i am malala," for young readers. here is an excerpt from that conversation. what do you say to young women and girls in developed countries who have this opportunity? how do you inspire them to get the same fire in the bell beeducation that you have or people from developing countries who have never seen it have? >> so the first thing is that in the developing country, there are so many children, so many girls who are raising their voices, who are speaking up for education, and they want to go to school. this is their dream. they do not dream for an ipad or for a playstation or an x-box. their only dream is just to go to school. and here children in the u.k., in the u.s.a., in the developed countries they have got this opportunity to go to good schools and they get free education. so i think they should be very thankful for it. i heard there were so many girls deprived of education and only one out of 10 girls get the opportunity to go to school. it's quite difficult in many countries for girls to go forward, even for boyses, it is kite difficult to go forward and make their dreams come true because they also wish to become doctors and become teachers and engineers, but because of the difficulties they can not achieve their dreams and they cannot be what they want to be. here, if you've got this good opportunity, then you can fulfill your dreams and i can contribute to a society by becoming what i really want. >> sreenivasan: and finally tonight, president obama has ordered a review of weapons used by state and local police departments which often include military-grade equipment provided by the government, according to a senior administration official. the "new york times" reports the president was affected by pictures of heavily armed police clashing with protesters in ferguson, missouri. join us on air and online tomorrow. from the philippines, will a new reproductive health care law slow down one of asia's highest birth rates. i'm hari sreenivasan, thanks ff watching. 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. that's 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. ♪ they graduation recital is a great chance to really show people what i have learned in this five years. person to grow a up like in this year. i don't need to think about other things. i just need to think about myself and find a way to finish my journey here. >> the great of tomorrow, today on stage at curtis. , at first,know why especially the last four years, i just hated beethoven, that sonata