captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, october 14: fires in northern california leave whole towns devastated. persecuted rohingya muslims continue to flee myanmar. and, in our signature segment: baby boomers struggling to pay off student loans. next, on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.b.p. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory of abby m. o'neill. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided

by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been 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 at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thanks for joining us. california officials say this week's fast moving wildfires in the northern part of the state have killed at least 35 people, making them the deadliest in state history. the fires have destroyed close to 6,000 structures and forced the evacuation of 100,000 residents. today, more than 10,000 firefighters battled 16 large wildfires that have burned more than 214,000 acres of land. california wine country has sustained the worst property damage, especially in the napa valley and sonoma county, fires there are only 45% contained.

"newshour weekend" special correspondent joanne jennings went to the sonoma hillside town of kenwood, where residents are starting to return to ruins. >> reporter: last sunday night, jim perry went out for a night of dancing. he returned home exhausted, and fell into a deep sleep. >> i'm a sound sleeper. i just smelled smoke; a terrible burning smell. that's the only thing that woke me up. >> reporter: by the time perry awoke, all of his neighbors had evacuated, except one family. >> yeah, i did hear their son scream, "the fire is coming in the back window," and that's all i heard. >> reporter: that family got out, but perry, a machinist, decided to stay to protect the home his father built. >> this whole field was on fire. everything was on fire, all at once, all around me. >> reporter: armed with several garden hoses, rakes, and a leaf blower, perry stayed up all night fighting the raging fire. >> things were exploding.

all the propane tanks exploded. it was like a war zone. i cannot describe it. >> reporter: you could have died. why did you stay? >> because it's my house. sorry. >> reporter: perry's friend jay gamel steps in to comfort him. >> his dad build it. >> i just couldn't leave. >> reporter: this once-tranquil cul de sac is hard to recognize for those who knew it well. it's now covered in ash, rubble, and the charred remains of vehicles. a stack of wheelchairs parked curbside in front of what was once a convalescent home. all eight elderly residents were evacuated safely. although kenwood is inside a mandatory evacuation zone, a handful of residents remained to help. >> well, i think there's been a lot of reports of much woarls wind. >> reporter: in this >> reporter: in this rural, mountainside town, shelly lewis and zach power spend their days caring for animals left behind by evacuees. >> here, kitty, kitty. >> reporter: their own home succumbed to the fires. >> let's turn there. >> reporter: but they don't want to dwell on what they've lost. >> as soon as i was done crying,

i was like, what can i do here? and so, this far outweighs my loss. >> reporter: after a little coaxing, they got these cows to come out of hiding and eat. >> the owner was really concerned about them. they haven't had food or water for a few days. >> reporter: lewis has received dozens of requests from residents who fled in the middle of the night, leaving their animals behind. >> we are also the first eyes on the ground for individual homeowners like that. the are getting national news coverage of the general big picture, but they're like, "what about my house?" so we try to go to homes and send them back video and information. >> reporter: at kenwood elementary school, a group of volunteers hastily clear brush and dried leaves from the building's perimeter. doug zucker is leading the effort. >> the fire department doesn't have any time for preventative work like this, but if we lose

>> reporter: the fire station is a hub for the volunteers and firefighting crews from every part of california and neighboring states. captain fernando calderon and his crew drove seven hours from long beach and worked 40 hours on the fire line. >> and we've been working ever since, nonstop, for about 30 hours now. truly, it's a statewide effort to put this fire out. there is still lots of fire and lots of tragic devastation. it's shocking. it's really, really sad, and hard for us to see. we are doing our best to keep the loss now to a minimum, and just keep this fire from doing any more damage. >> sreenivasan: tulane university in new orleans is offering students in hurricane- damaged puerto rico an opportunity take classes in the spring semester, if they have already paid tuition for schools on the island. tulane was closed for four months due to hurricane katrina in 2005. more than three weeks after hurricane maria tore through the u.s. territory, 85% of the population is still without

electricity; 35% are still without running drinking water; and more than 5,000 puerto ricans are living in shelters. democratic attorneys general from 18 states and the district of columbia are suing to block president trump's decision to scrap subsidies at the core of president obama's affordable care act. the subsidies help obamacare enrollees with low-to-middle incomes pay health insurance premiums. the suit was filed in california federal court last night. on twitter this morning, mr. trump praised his own executive order, saying it would allow greater access to healthcare for millions of americans. he also boasted that health insurance stocks had plunged yesterday. the stock prices of several publicly traded healthcare and hospital companies did fall yesterday, around 3% to 6%. under obamacare, 20 million americans who were previously uninsured gained coverage through subsidized, private plans or medicaid. an a.p. analysis published today finds 70% of those who benefited from the cost-sharing subsidies live in states carried by

mr. trump in last year's election. former white house chief of staff reince priebus is the first current or former senior administration official known to be questioned by special counsel robert mueller's probe. the investigation looks into russian meddling in the presidential election and possible collusion between russians and the trump campaign. priebus' lawyer says, "he was happy to answer all of their questions" in yesterday's session. a new web series explores the effects of gentrification in oakland, california. read more at www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: in the united states, student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt, and is approaching $1.5 trillion. this financial burden falls not only on young graduates, but also on parents who borrowed money to help their children afford school. many older americans still have student loan payments of their own, as well. in tonight's signature segment, newshour weekend's megan thompson reports why so many in

the "baby boomer" generation are still paying for college well into retirement. this story is part of our ongoing series, "chasing the dream," about poverty and opportunity in america. >> reporter: nancy kukay works at a community college in maryland, coordinating technical education programs. she's worked in education most of her career and loves her job. but at 65 years old, she had imagined retiring by now. >> i can't afford to retire. i could never make the payments. >> reporter: payments for student loans she took out for her son andrew about a decade ago. she pays around $500 a month on the nearly $75,000 she owes on loans she took out, and others she co-signed with her son. by her math, she'll probably be paying on her loans alone for another 11 years. >> even if i started drawing on my retirement and social security together, i still wouldn't have enough monthly to make those payments. it's certainly not where i hoped to be at this stage in life.

>> reporter: the number of americans age 60 and older with student loan debt quadrupled between 2005 and 2015 to nearly three million. and the average amount they owe has nearly doubled, from $12,000 to almost $24,000. >> there's a number of factors that contribute to why the number of older borrowers is increasing. >> reporter: attorney persis yu directs the student loan borrower assistance project at the national consumer law center in boston. >> reporter: student loans are structured to be paid over a very long period of time. they have no statute of limitations, which means that they follow you. they can follow you till you die, literally. and so, there are a lot of borrowers who are out there who still have their own student loan debts from the '70s, from the '80s. >> i think, originally, it was like, $27,000. >> reporter: 64-year-old annette pelaez of boston is still paying about $300 a month for the loan she took out 20 years ago to pursue graduate degrees in

american studies, a loan she expects to be paying for another ten years. she worked for nonprofits serving children and the elderly, but her income never reached the level she had hoped. >> i'm making now what i made in the '80s. i'm making about $42,000 a year. >> reporter: so when you went back to grad school, you assumed you'd be making a lot more money than that? >> oh, yes. absolutely. i mean, if i was making that money with a bachelor's degree in the '80s, i assumed that, you know, with a master's, i'd do a little bit better. >> folks with student loan debt typically save less than folks without student loan debt. and then, once they're in retirement, if they are repaying loans, certainly that is a liability that they wouldn't otherwise have to pay for when they're on a fixed and limited income. >> reporter: because of her debt and the high cost of living in boston, pelaez says, she has little retirement savings. she recently retired, but can't afford to keep living in boston, so she moved new mexico, where it's cheaper to live. but even still, her expected $1,000 a month social security

check won't cover her expenses. >> rent will be $620 plus utilities, and then there is the school loan, and there goes the $1,000. so i will be doing some part- time work. >> reporter: how do you feel about that? i mean, is this what you pictured retirement being? >> well, you know, at this point, i'm not so terribly concerned, because i'm still young enough to do so. what concerns me is that when i'm in my 70s or 80s, hopefully, if i get there, i may not be able to do that. >> reporter: like pelaez, 27% of older americans with student loans borrowed for their own education. but most, more than 70%, borrowed for their children's or grandchildren's education. people like nancy kukay. kukay, who's divorced, took out about $46,000 in her name and co-signed for around $34,000 more with her son andrew, who graduated from the university of south carolina in 2008. >> i entered into that, now as i, in hindsight, without nearly

enough information. and didn't know what i didn't know about-- financial aid. it's vastly different from when i went to school. i didn't have to borrow to go to school. >> reporter: kukay obtained about half of the $46,000 she borrowed for her son's education through a federal loan program called "parent plus." the number of parent plus borrowers has grown by 60% since 2005 to 3.5 million americans. the national consumer law center says some families can borrow more than they can afford under parent plus, because the program lets them borrow as much as a college says they need without verifying their income. >> at no point is the school or the federal government seeing if the family can afford to repay this loan. >> reporter: is anyone along the way saying, "hey, if you take out this amount of money, this is what it's going to mean for you."? is anybody kind of giving a warning to families? >> so, you know, there is some very minimal counseling that is required-- when folks take out

federal loans. the other component is, a lot of these families don't have a lot of other options. because education is expensive. so a lot of families feel trapped, and they feel like they have to take out this, because they want to provide for their kids. and they want their kids to have a better future. >> reporter: and that's exactly what nancy kukay wanted for her son. kukay says she wasn't too worried about his ability to pay off his loans once he graduated. >> i kept telling him, and i thought this would be true, is, "this degree will give you a career that you can pay that off." turns out not to be the case. he graduated in 2008 in the depths of the great recession. and jobs were hard to come by. >> reporter: after graduating with a degree in sports management, andrew has worked steadily-- even taking on second jobs at night and on the weekends. but his earnings haven't been enough to keep up with the $400 and $500 payments on the roughly $45,00 he took out, so nancy's

been paying the loans she co- signed. i spoke to andrew over google hangout. >> i did not think that you would be this hard to pay student loans. i definitely went in to school thinking i'll get a decent- paying job. >> reporter: andrew recently landed a higher-paying job, and wants to help pay the loans his mom co-signed. >> i don't want her to be suffering for any longer than she has to, just for doing the nice thing and cosigning on a loan. would i do it all over again? no. i would not do it again. i would stick around and stay home for a couple of years. and go to a community college. near my house. >> reporter: in the meantime, nancy says, the loan payments are weighing her down. >> it governs everything i do, every decision i make. it all revolves around making sure that i have that money to make that payment, every single month. >> reporter: nancy has consolidated, and has gotten

slightly lower interest rates, on some of the loans, but she expects she'll need to work part-time after she retires. and she's also considering moving to montana, where the cost of living is cheaper. >> my life isn't going to be the way that i'd hoped that it would be. it just simply isn't going to be. >> reporter: there's also this catch with federal loans, and older borrowers who can't pay them off-- the u.s. treasury can garnish their social security benefits. in fact, between 2002 and 2015, the number of americans having social security disability and retirements garnished because of unpaid loans increased almost 500%, to 173,000. >> who do i go and get this money back from? >> reporter: it happened to 55-year-old manuel roberts of brooklyn, new york. he paid off most all of the $13,000 he borrowed to attend the university of southern california in the 1980s. but after losing a job, he defaulted on the last $3,000, and then sustained a severe head injury in 2002.

>> then i was injured. street violence. i was a victim of a violent crime. i was in a coma for two weeks or so. >> reporter: roberts received social security disability checks for $1,300 every month. but the government began deducting $200 from every check for the defaulted loan. >> i was already in a bad situation. it's plain to see they just made it worse. >> reporter: the social security deductions pushed roberts to the verge of the federal poverty line. it turns out, there's a program for people disabled like roberts to get their loans eliminated. but many people don't know about it. so no one ever said, "hey, we notice you're getting disability income. you might be also eligible for a disability discharge. this could stop."? >> no, that never-- that was never brought to me by anybody. >> reporter: roberts' attorney helped him get the disability discharge, and is also helping him and six people with similar

stories sue the heads of the federal department of education, treasury, and the social security administration, alleging that they don't do enough to let people know about the disability discharge program. the federal department of education declined an on-camera interview with pbs newshour weekend, and did not respond to written questions. the social security administration and treasury department also did not comment. u.s. senators ron wyden of oregon and sherrod brown of ohio are sponsoring legislation to eliminate the practice of garnishing social security benefits for unpaid loans, but the bill's gone nowhere so far. nancy kukay's social security checks won't be at risk, because she keeps kept up with her monthly student loan payments. for other parents trying to figure out how to pay for college now, she has this advice: >> i would strongly encourage them to become educated in the-- in every aspect of financial aid. talk to the college financial aid people. i didn't do that. that's a huge mistake. i made assumptions that turned out not to be true.

and mine is a cautionary tale. >> sreenivasan: during the past six weeks, half a million muslims from myanmar, known as the rohingya, have fled across their country's border into bangladesh. the exodus comes after witnessing or experiencing horrific atrocities by government soldiers, who rampaged in their villages as part of a crackdown on the long persecuted, ethnic minority." new york times" reporter jeffrey gettleman has reported vividly on the rohingya refugees-- the widespread burning of homes, the systematic raping of women, and brutal killings of men and children. gettleman is a pulitzer prize winner and currently the times' south asia bureau chief. he joins me now via skype from dubai, in the united arab emirates. so, fraum, for people who haven't read your story, you end up helping personalize this through one particular tale of a

woman. summarize that for us. >> this was one of the most upsetting stories i've ever done, and i've been covering conflicts for 20 years, and i was deeply disturbed and felt really helpless working on this story. so i centered a piece on a young woman who had watched her village be burned down in front of her eyes. was then captured by government soldiers, led to a river bank along with many other civilians, and she told me that the soldiers separated the men from the women, then methodically executed all of the men, and then began to rape the young women. and rejumarx had a toddler boy in her arms, and she said the soldiers ripped the little baby out of her arms, threw him into a fire, and killed him right in front of her, and then proceeded

to rape the-- rajuma, and then left her in this burning house to die, and it was only a miracle that she woke up smelling smoke, ran out naked, covered in blood, hid in a field, and then kept running for the next three days until she got to the border of bangladesh. >> sreenivasan: what's remarkable about your story, is besides the fact you verified all of this from other witnesses and so forth, unfortunately, her story is not an anomaly. you're kind of trying to describe something that's on a scale that bee haven't really heard about. >> yeah, this is just it. i was in these camps in bangladesh where half a million people have arrived nearly overnight, fleeing these atrocities in myanmar. and everywhere you go, people have these stories to share that are so disturbing. and then the more you listen, the more you understand the rohingya had been deemobbized

and dehumanized for decades, that many people in myanmar would refer to them as insects, or vermin, and that there was this official policy that they didn't-- they weren't citizens. they didn't really count. they were the most locally people in the entire country. so then in august we had attacks from rohingya militant groups, and this became the long-awaited excuse for the military to just wipe out these people. and they went village to village, burning entire villages to the ground, more than 250 of them, and then they began to slaughter anybody they can get their hands on. >> sreenivasan: as these stories get document, as people start keeping track of whether you want to call it a humanitarian crisis, crimes against humanity, a war crime, et cetera, et cetera, what's the government response been? >> the myanmar government has been denying that anything horrible happened and has called these "clearance operations," and said the government troops were just trying to eliminate

militants. but a half a million people fled, and they only did that because they felt like they would have been killed had they stayed. and so many people told me these firsthand accounts, people from different villages from hundreds-- hundreds of miles apart, and there was a distressing... to the accounts. so you have this huge population that is now trapped in this border area not allowed to leave, not welcomed by either side. and when i was in these camps, it was just this sea of plastic shelters as far as you could see to the horizon, set up on these muddy hillsides with just tons of people packed together with little food or shelter. and they all had been traumatize. >> woodruff: all right jeffrey gettleman from "the new york times," thanks so much. >> thank you.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend, saturday. >> sreenivasan: the u.s. and canadian couple held captive in afghanistan for five years has returned home. american caitlan coleman and canadian joshua boyle arrived in toronto last night, with their three children, who were born in captivity. while on a backpacking trip in 2012, boyle and coleman were kidnapped by the haqqani group, which is linked to the taliban and considered a terrorist network by the u.s. pakistani forces rescued the family on wednesday. in a written statement to an "associated press" reporter on their flight, boyle said, "god has given me and my family unparalleled resilience and determination." at the airport, boyle told reporters, three years ago, the kidnappers raped his wife and killed a fourth child, who was an infant. >> obviously, it will be of incredible importance to my family that we are able to build a secure sanctuary for our three

surviving children to call home, to focus on edification and to my family is asking the islamic emirate of afghanistan, who has already carried out an investigation last year and conceded that these crimes were perpetrated by the haqqani network in 2014 against my family, to provide my family the justice that we are owed. >> sreenivasan: today, officials in afghanistan said a u.s. drone strike on thursday killed at least 14 isis militants. they said the drone targeted a meeting of isis commanders in a remote part of the eastern kunar province. the afghan government has no presence or authority in that part of kunar. in somalia, police say the massive truck bomb that exploded today in a busy section of the capital, mogadishu, has killed at least 20 and injured dozens more. several buildings were destroyed in an area home to government offices, hotels, and restaurants. in another part of the city, a different car bomb killed two more people. police suspect the terrorist attacks were carried out by the al qaeda-linked group,

al shabaab. >> sreenivasan: the academy of motion picture arts and sciences has erks pelled one-time movie mowingle harvey weinstein, due to the growing list of accusations of sexual assault and harassment against him. and finally, players on a top german soccer team took a knee before their game today. the players said they did it in solidarity with american football players who have been protesting racial injustice in this country. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory of abby m. o'neill. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more, pbs.

(man) support for this program is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you! from american university in washington dc, best-selling author and financial expert, suze orman, answers critical questions about your money. tonight is all about you! the goal of money is for you to feel secure. the goal of money is for you to feel powerful. you have problems-- but here's the good news-- i have the solutions. (man) suze provides essential advice in... please welcome suze orman! [drums, guitar, & keyboard play in bright rhythm] ♪ ♪