captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, august 17: a new overnight curfew fails to halt the violence in ferguson, missouri, following the killing of an unarmed black teen. margaret warner joins us from northern iraq, where a humanitarian crisis is unfolding after gains by islamic extremists. and a new york exhibit explores the secrets of genius. next, on pbs newshour weekend. >> 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. from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening. thanks for joining us. attorney general eric holder today ordered federal authorities to perform an independent autopsy of 18-year- old michael brown. the unarmed black youth was killing by a white police officer eight days ago, touching off a wave of clashes between demonstrators and police. overnight, seven people were arrested by police after a small group of protesters defied the midnight to 5:00 a.m. curfew that had been imposed hours earlier.

police used smoke and later tear gas grenades to try to disperse the protesters. authorities said a police car had been shot at but not hit. this morning, the governor of missouri criticized police in ferguson for releasing pictures of the slain black youth apparently robbing a store a short time before he was shot by the policeman who reportedly did not know about the robbery at the time. >> we were unaware that they were going to release it and we certainly were not happy with that, that being released, especially in the way that it was. it appeared to, you know, cast aspersions on a young man that was gunned down in the street. >> sreenivasan: overseas today, there's been renewed violence in eastern ukraine where government forces are trying to oust pro- russian separatists who seized several towns last spring. this is amateur video believed to have been shot yesterday in an eastern ukrainian village and at the airport in the city of luhansk, one of the rebels' last major strongholds. earlier today, the ukrainian government acknowledged that the rebels had shot down a ukrainian fighter plane today. all this as foreign ministers

from russia, ukraine, france and germany met in berlin today to try to hammer out a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict. in the middle east, the latest ceasefire between israel and hamas is expiring and today israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu issued a new warning. >> if hamas thinks its defeat on the battlefield will be papered over by a victory at the negotiating table it is mistaken. if hamas thinks that by continuing the sporadic shootings of rockets at israel it will make us agree to concessions it is mistaken, as long as the silence does not return to israel, hamas will continue to suffer hard hits. >> sreenivasan: egypt has been mediating talks between the two sides. according to the united nations, nearly 2,000 palestinians and 66 israelis have died in fighting that began about six weeks ago. in syria today, government warplanes pounded positions in the east of the country, near iraq, that are held by fighters from the islamic state extremist group. a human rights group in syria says at least 31 militants were killed and 40 wounded.

this as american warplanes today intensified their strikes against islamic state fighters in iraq. today's bombings there, like yesterday's, were meant to regain control of the country's biggest dam from the militants. friendly kurdish forces reportedly had taken control of parts of the dam by evening. the newshour's chief foreign correspondent, margaret warner, and producer morgan till are now in northern iraq. and margaret joins us now via skype from the biggest city in the kurdish region, irbil. >> margaret, you have been reporting this morning and throughout the day there have been air strikes near the mosul dam to try to help the kurdish or peshawar regain the area, what have you heard on the ground? >> just as we have been speaking, the pbs reported with heavy u.s. air strikes, u.s. special fors calling in the locations of the strikes, and peshawar fighters with their special forces they have retaken the dam and it is a critical, critical facility, it controls a

big part of the water that flows down the tigris river, it can ultimately threaten baghdad if that dam were destroyed as the isis and isil fighters, what they did do another dam earlier question was to destroy it, so it is a huge, strategic, i would say strategic victory for the kurdish, iraqi and american forces. >> so, martha, you are out on the front lines today in 115-degree heat, what was it like. >> what did you see. >> well, hari, we were about an hour south of here to the city which the kurdish peshawar have boasted of taking over, with the help of u.s. air strikes, but only five percent of the people in the town have dared to return, mostly men to look after their property, like one man had all of his bakery and electronic shop burned out so he said he didn't bring his wife and

children, all the men standing around him said the same thing and that they would not feel safe until they actually, the peshawar drove isis further south, so when we went to the front line, in fact we talked to the commander there and he told us, you have to leave now, because new strikes are about to begin. >> so considering there are so many people displace ready you seeing the impacts of that in cities like the one you are in? >> oh, absolutely, hari, i think this is the untold story of this kurdish region, having been here just 24, 30 hours, and that is that the world's attention was captured by the tens of thousands who fled from sinjar, this christian community farther west, yes, farther west, and then they are making their way into this province, erbil province, there is the only place they feel safe, and you have had this dramatic footage. the fact is, since early

january, when isis first really entered iraq in force, in anbar province, you know, fallujah, ramadi, so on, you have had tens and hundreds of thousands of iraqis fleeing to the north, fleeing here to the kurdish region, because it is the only place they feel safe, and we have talked to the u.n. refugee agency and the man who is a senior advisor to the kurdish humanitarian agency, who both said they think it is about one to 1.2 million new idps they are called, because they are not refugees, they are within the same country, internally displaced people just since january. this whole region, this autonomous, semiautonomous region is only 5 million people so today for example we met a woman who wasn't sure of her age, she had fled mock moore which is where we were, had been before, she had come to erbil but nothing but the clothes on

her back, with her three sons two, daughters law, four grandsons and all they could do is live in concrete out buildings in the compound of a relative. they had nothing. i mean, they had pallets on the floor. that was it. they were given food and water and power, but she was devastated and afraid to go back and afraid to go back even now that her town has been retaken. so it is a heart wrenching story and it is also a huge strain for the resources of the kurdish regional government. >> all right, margaret warner joining us via skype from iraq. thank you. >> >> sreenivasan: in liberia, in west africa, an incident that illustrates just how great the fear of ebola has become. residents of monrovia's largest slum, angered that ebola patients were being treated in their neighborhood, today raided the center where people with the disease had been quarantined. the mob removed many items including blood-stained sheets

and mattresses, and several of the patients fled. authorities fear the incident will only spread the disease further. and on a much lighter note, cambridge university in england is searching for a doctoral candidate to study how to keep chocolate from melting. the mars company might be wondering why. for 60 years now, it's been advertising the problem's been solved. >> remember m&m's milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand. >> sreenivasan: here in the >> sreenivasan: here in the united states nearly 4,000 people a year die waiting for a kidney, and while it is illegal almost everywhere in the world to traffic in organs, there is a thriving global market, yesterday i spoke with kevin sack of the new york times who has been investigating the global organ trade. >> you have been looking at this for a year. what did you find? >> well, we found that there is organ trafficking really all over the world. i don't know that there is a

country that is necessarily immune, including the united states, we had a prosecution here a couple of years ago, the first prosecution of organ traffic manager this country, so it happens everywhere and obviously it is just because there is this huge demand for kidneys, people are desperate to get these organs and save their lives. >> you focused on israel and you said they have actually a disrho portion that influence on the global demand. how is that? explain. >> well it is kind of remarkable but over the last 15 years, just time after time, when there have been prosecutions of organ traffickers, israel always seems to have some role: >> they are either israel lis, the buyers or sellers, often they are the brokers and it has a lot to do with a view among some orthodox rabbis that brain death which obviously is the optimal circumstance for organ donation is not actually death, and as a result, organ donation rates in israel are very low and people have few places to turn,

other than the black market. >> and they are trying to take some steps to change that, right? >> they have, they passed a series of laws in 2008 and the numbers have been improved, a significant decrease there. >> and you also looked at where they go and the supply-side and you focused on close, costa rica, what is the circumstance that people are selling their kidneys about this. >> the way we went about to to illustrate how organ trafficking works we trace add single network from beginning to end and this was a network in which israelly brokers sent mostly but not exclusively israelly recipients to costa rica where a prominent nephrologist would connect them with kidneys sold by poor costa ricans. >> so there was a price tag, and what are the health out comes in the surgeries? >> well, there had been some research, it is not terribly conclusive but the research that has been done suggests that people who go overseas for

transplants have higher risks of injury and of organ failure and even of death, and that certainly was the case with this pipeline that we examined. there were at least two israel lis who we pound who got transplants in costa rica who had very poor out comes. >> so i imagine that some of these people are being taken advantage of, the poor people selling their kidneys but also raise this is larger question about the ethics of a marketplace. you tackle that in your story. >> right. well, you know, these folks have very few choices and i think when any of us put ourselves in their circumstances of either having to buy an organ or face, say, five years on dialysis and perhaps even death, before they would get to the top of the wait list, people feel that they would go the same thing if it was them or a loved one and would it really reinforces is how deep the gap is between the

supply of kidneys and the demand for them. the world health organization estimates that ten percent of the need is supplied by the current availability of organs. >> kevin sack of "the new york times", thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. >> >> >> sreenivasan: throughout human history, there have been individuals who have stood out for their extraordinary abilities to think and create-- people we think of as "geniuses". but even today, the question persists: are these people simply born gifted or do they benefit from the people and circumstances that surround them? that's the focus of a new museum exhibit in new york. the newshour's zachary green reports. >> reporter: when we think of the word "genius", we may think of towering figures like shakespeare or isaac newton, or of seminal works of art, like handel's messiah or the indian epic the bhaghavad gita. now these works and dozens of

others can all be seen in one room. they're part of a new exhibition called "marks of genius", which is on display at the morgan library in new york city until september 28. on loan from the bodleian library at oxford university in england, the exhibit features priceless manuscripts and artifacts: a copy of the first folio of shakespeare; fragments containing the work of the greek poetess, sappho; a 12th century arabic manuscript on the y of the magna carta; all of them intended to reflect the idea of genius throughout world history. >> the sort of inspiration or genius of creation goes across all formats, all levels of human creativity. so you're able to see that through putting a printed book from the 20th century next to a medieval manuscript from the 15th, through something from western europe next to something from persia. >> reporter: john mcquillen is the curator in charge of the "marks of genius" exhibition at

the morgan library. an expert in medieval art history, mcquillen has also had to familiarize himself with the nearly 60 pieces from different time periods and from all over the world. mcquillen says that one of the exhibition's goals is to challenge some of the more modern ideas about what genius is and who possesses it. >> in western civilization over the centuries, genius did become something that was a divine gift given to only a few. but i think now we are sort of returning to an idea that everyone is capable of this and that genius is something that we all possess, whether we... it comes to fruition and we show it or not. and it now even could be getting a little bit overused. "this book is genius. this blog is genius. this facebook post is genius." >> reporter: i mean, a that's kind of like a democratization of the... >> yes >> reporter: word genius, this idea that it's a quality that everybody possesses in one form or another. but you can also look at an

exhibition like this and say, "everyone might have a spark of genius within them, but these are the works that we've kind of chosen to set up on high as the, the truer works of genius." >> i think some of it is completely by chance, what we decide is a work of genius and what is not. i think part of what genius is that there is an afterlife to it. you have created, or made something, written something that has an impact, that has influence even for ten years, 50 years, 500 years, 1,000 years. if it still speaks to generations later, they might consider it an act of genius. >> reporter: so genius in that sense isn't necessarily linked to your iq score or how well you do in school. >> yeah. we tend now to sort of think of genius as kind of a synonym for einstein, as just someone who was brilliant usually in math or science. but you have aspects of artistic and literary genius, genius in

problem solving, in fashion design-- choices that are inspired somehow that you can equate to being a mark of genius. >> reporter: mcquillen says that one way of discovering how genius is inspired is by going back to an original source, such as the pieces in the exhibition. and one thing they show is that genius is not always created in a vacuum. take this original handwritten manuscript of mary shelley's "frankenstein". mcquillen says that its back story shows how genius is often the product of place and circumstance. the novel might not even exist, were it not for a vacation in switzerland that mary shelley took in 1816 with her future husband, the poet, percy shelley, and their friend, lord byron. >> lord byron proposed that they have a competition to write the best ghost story. one evening, byron and shelley were having a conversation about the reanimation of people and if you can bring something or someone back to life.

and after that, she had a very sleepless night and this sort of waking dream, where she saw dr. frankenstein with this creation. and from this sort of vision, she, you know, had the idea for the novel "frankenstein". >> reporter: since the story's conception, "frankenstein" has been popularized in many different forms, including multiple film adaptations. >> it's alive! it's alive! it's alive! >> reporter: but what appeared on screen was not necessarily what mary shelley originally envisioned. in fact, her companions' influence went beyond the inspiration for the story we all know today. >> it's alive! >> reporter: as the manuscript at the morgan's exhibition shows us, mary's lover, percy shelley, helped to edit her novel. one alteration he made, in particular, stands out. >> one of the main things that he did change was the last sentence of the work. >> reporter: the last sentence of "frankenstein"... >> the last sentence.

he had to get that in. the way mary wrote it, the creature-- dr. frankenstein's creation-- leaps from a ship onto an ice floe and pushes away from the ship and sort of sails off into the distance. but you're left with this idea that he is going on to live somewhere else. in percy shelley's revision of that, the creature jumps off onto the ice floe and the ice floe takes him away, but you're left really unsure whether the creature is alive or dead, and he just falls off into the darkness. so that's really one of the major changes in how that novel ends and what happens to the creature. >> reporter: mcquillen says that this story is indicative of the way that the shelleys and many artists and thinkers throughout history have influenced each other. so, this idea of genius, sitting alone in a room, working furiously... not necessarily true in all cases. >> no, i think, genius always needs a little bit of help. >> reporter: mcquillen says that

details like this might make the process of genius more understandable and help all the rest of us appreciate it. >> sreenivasan: for an in-depth look at more works of genius, visit newshour.pbs.org. and now to viewers like you-- your response to some of our recent work. we got a lot of email overnight about yesterday's story profiling a company that tries to attract millennials to museums by making the museum experience more fun and by linking high works of art to pop culture. john anthony cheng liked the taking them to a piece of amazing sculpture of diana which is at the museum of art and how do we compare her to maybe kim kardashian. >> john anna nicole smith any cheng liked the idea. >> john anthony cheng liked the idea. "first, you have got to get people to look. i don't really care how then if the art we say we cherish is as

good as we think it is, people will be intelligent enough to recognize its qualities and eventually they too will become the hushed, contemplative fogies that museums were truly meant to attract." jonathan robertson is a fan too. "i think it's an excellent idea. once someone gets the light in the eyes from wonderment, however a tour is presented, i believe that person will return and, hopefully, donate via a membership." but more of you were critical. alex lindstrom wrote: "as a 20-something, i find this distressing. do i want people to go to museums more? yes, but i caution what we may lose in emphasizing the pursuit of knowledge as valuable only when it entertains us." rho huang joined in. "this won't make kids like or appreciate art any more or less than they did. all it does is provide legitimate reasons for them to goof around museums and annoy the heck out of people who are there to actually enjoy arts." diane roman isn't a fan. "if playing games and posting selfies is all we can do to teach people to appreciate the arts, we're in really sad shape."

and from debbie florio mcgee... "just another way to continue the dumbing down of america." as always, let us know what you think of our stories, on twitter, facebook or at newshour.pbs.org. >> some news before we leave you, president obama is interrupting his vacation on martha's vineyard and returning to washington tonight he reportedly will meet whether the national security council tomorrow about the situation in iraq. late today a top kurdish leader said his forces do not have complete control of the mosul dam a midnight to 5:00 a.m. curfew will be in effect for a second night in ferguson, missouri despite the curfew there was more unrest there overnight. and hundreds of flights into and out of dallas have been canceled, nearly three inches of rain fell at the dallas-fort worth airport earlier today. i margaret warner reports on the fight to beat back the raging

islamic insurgency. >> i am hari sreenivasan. thanks for joining us. >> 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.

announcer: production funding for this program provided in part by generous donations to yosemite conservancy. additional production funding provided by delaware north companies, innovators of the greenpath initiative. [birds chirping] [hoofbeats] [footsteps]