captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition r saturday, september 29 controversy delays the confirmation for supreme urt nominee brett kavanaugh; a tionalnt for inter education turns 50; and in our signature segment, a rare lookth at libya, wherislamic state is staking its claim. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. ro corporate funding isded by mutual of america-- designing customized individual

nand group retireroducts. that's why we're your retirement company. addi oprovided by:has been and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by ocontributions topbs station from viewers like you. thank you. hfromisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, anari sreenivasan. >> sreenivgood evening, and thanks for joining us. the f.b.i. has started a background investigation into supreme court nominee brett hivanaugh. the "wton post" and the associated press both report that the bureau bos contacted h ramirez, who alleges kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at yale university where they were both students. the f.b. will also investigate allegations from christine blasey ford that kanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school. a lawyer for land keyser, ford's high school friend, said she will cooperate with the f.b.i. and clafied an earlier

statement and now says she "does not refute dr. ford's account" but still says that she has no recollection of the incident in question. yesterday, arizona republican senator jeff flake called for a gateweek delay to inves before a senate vote on the nomination. in an "atlantic" interview today, flake said he would "pla to support kavanaugh unless they turn up something, and they might." we'll have more perspective on this developing story right after our news summary. in indonesia, the death toll is rising as rescuers r ach areas hit assive earthquake which triggered a tsunami with 20-foot-high waves yesterday. the hardest hit region is on the northern coast of the island of sulawesi. schard pallot of i.t.v. n reports. >> car alarms sound ments after the tsunami struck. hundreds have died ere, in the only location where the authorities have been able to gauge fatalities. upon arge bridge ha been destroyed, one of its

residents tries out to god. elsewhere, other villages and towns remain cut off the indonesian president said on national trician that the army had beleen mobilized to hp but reaching some of the hardest hit areas may prove very difficult.i t struck at dusk yesterday after a 7.5-mag tude earthquake. there had been a tsunami warning, but many killed were playing on a beach in aarrow bay that magnified the water's force. troopsave begun flying in, although the region'rport is severely damaged and the main road blocked by a landslide. power is alsoown, hampering communication and rescue efforts. it is known, though, that then injured are btreated outside for fear of aftershocks llapsing more buildings. indonesia is prone to earthquakes because it's situated on then so-called g of fire, this latest one coming

just weeks after one on a neighboring island. how many homes have been destroyed and how many lives unst this time remains rtain. >> sreenivasan: north korea said fday there is no way they will disast without greater trust in the united states. their top diplomat told the united nationsal assembly that his country wants to see rrwhat he called a "coponding response" from the u.s. to north korea's early disarmament moves. ri yong-ho said continuing sanctions on north korea are" d deepening" mistrust n't work. >> ( translated ): the perception that sanctions can bring us to our knees is a pipe m of the people who are ignorant about us. but the problem is that the continued sanctions are deepening our mistrust. >> sreenivasan: nuclear envoys from the u.s. and ally south korea met three times during .n. meetings to talk about nuclear disarmament. u.s. secretary of state mike pompeo was scheduled to go back to pyongyang to prepare for another summit between kim jong un and president trump.

>> sreenivasan: the kavanaugh confirmation hearing, the f.b.i. investigation now under way, and monday's start of a new supreme court term are many stories in one. to put them in perspective, we're debuting a new segment we call "weekend exchange." it's not a debate cutnce for different perspectives to add to the context of what we're all talking about. thjoining me today here in studio is columbia university law school professor jamal greeand from washington, d.c., national public radio's legal affairs correspondent, nina totenberg. nina let me start with you. i want to remind viewers that it was your reporting on anita hill that led the senate committee reopening the conversation on clarence thomas. how different does this episode feel to you? >> well, it is differe because we are in the #metoo movement, and i re-read the thomas-hill

uonfirmation hearing again this week, and nobody ld talk to aes wialleging sexual harassment or sexual assault the way that the committee republicans-- or even ck then.s-- did you couldn't do that today. however, there are a lot of parallels, including the republican desire to push this through as a matter o as fast ad to rescue a nomination that's in trouhie. really atpoint, a lot hangs in the balance. >> sreenivasan: jamal greene, this investigation, is there enough time for it? and, you know, when you think back to the time ty looked into clarence thomas, those were adults in a workplace. he was her boss. that took four days. is is totally different. >> well, certainly, it's not quite the same in that there are more kind of loose threads gog investigation. the f.b.i. has a lot of resources at its distposal. when does criminal

investigations -- and of course this is different. this is a backbuound check. when they do criminal investigations they can do qeete a lot in a and i'm sure given how high profile this situation is, it will get attention from the highest levels of the f.b.i. and can they can do quite a lot in that span of time, interview a lot of witnesses and try to tie some of the loose threads in this case. >> sreenivasan: nina totenberg, the tonend the temperament of kavanaugh changed dramatically between the first time that he met with the senator, or testified in front t dthem, versus what he j this week. do the members of the supreme court watch these conirmation hearings? >> oh, you you better believe it. but they know b or at least they thought they knew him. i thought i knew him. ie brett kavanaugh who testified this wee nothing like the brett kavanaugh i have seen over thare s. and i suspect it's nothing like what they've seen over the years. afr all, elena kagan, justice kagan, hired brett kavanaugh to teach at harvard law school. and his students love him,

including a lot of female students who i've talked to. >> sreenivasan: you be, speaking oelena kagan, she said something earlier this week, it's a quote, "american governance depends on people believe that it is not simply an extension of politics, that its decision making has a kind of integrity to it." she was talking about the institution of the s reme jamal, how much is the question of the integrity of the court in play now given the opening testimony and what's happening in the past week? >> i think it's very clearly in play. it would be in play anyway, even if kavanaugh had never testified, given how dug in the sides in this issue are. but kavanaugh began his testimony with as partisan a statement as you'llver see from a sitting judge. and so, he jected quite a bit of partisanship into the situation. sly, his supporters are going to say that it was already there to begin with. but we're not used to seeing the

veil really come off of the court in quite that ovairt w and i think it's going to take a long time for the court to recover from this, no mter what happens. >> sreenivasan: just in the past couple of years, we've had a couple of incidents where ruth bader ginsburg famously meteorologisted after calling then-candidate trump a fake or the campaign trail. then we ha neal gorsuch, the ju sstice, who gave ech to a group at a trump hotel, and whether that was proper or not. e the times changing? >> well, justicnse burg apologized. i don't think speak taig trump hotel, for allf the potential unseamlessness of it is quite like this. i've actually never seen a nominee for anything significant give that partisann opening statement. and to say this was revenge on behalf of the clintons, from a person who was involved in the kenneth starr iestigation of

the clinton-- i was talking to one professor this week w calls himself a right-wing nut. and he was appalled-- that's his word-- appalled. >> senivasan: jamal, it's been a while since we had a justice that voted unpredictay, that a president appointed them and all of a sudden they're doing theer opposite, consg last few justices we have. should we specifically make these partisan aointments. sanell, they are parti appointments. i'm not sure there's anything implicit about it. everyone knows thakat brett naugh is expected to have political views that align with people who appointed him. i will say we have seen some surprises from john roberts, in particular, in recent years, in the affordable care act case, for example, and that was a momentous case. but i do-- i thin it's quite right that we're even moving gradually in a direction of being able to predict the ways ces on thehe justi court decide cases. and it's an open question how long the court can maintain i whatever venehas left of

being a nonpartisan institution over time. >> sreenivasan: npr's nina totenberg and columbia university law school's jamal greene, thanhayou both. >> you. s enivasan: read what the kavanaugh hearings tell us about systems of gender and power on our web site at www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: we've been telling you in recent weeks about the resurgence of the terrorist organization is in iraq. tonight, some new reporting on the group's rise lom the ashes ya. newshour weekend special correspondent chris livesay was recently the first american broadcast journalist legally allowed into the country in almost a year. ountry in dangerous disarray,r with isis trying to fill the sulting power vacuum. this story, the first of two parts, was made possible with special funding fren the pulitzerr on crisis reporting. >> reporter: the city of sirte, once the crowning jewel of the islamic state in lya.

it was part of 150 milesf isis-controlled coastline from 2015 to the end of 2016. today, the city has been reduced to rubble-- first, in an offensive against isis led by libyan security forces in 2016; then by nearly 500 precision air strikes from the united states. bombing largely ceased last year. large swaths of town remain abandoned.e thvernment has yet to clear bbndreds of corpses beneath the for fear of mines and usexploded ordnance. beof that, the air is still thick with the stench of rotting bodies. colonel ibrahim bin rabaa is the commander of libyan counterterrorism forces in sirte. >> ( translated ): my son volunteered to fight isis and protect sirte. isis killed him. he was 24 years old. >> reporter: the six-month offensive eventually wiped out an estimated 2,500 isis combatants, but bin rabaa tells us sle cells still lurk especially in rte's desert.

though it no longer controls any territory, the terror group is succefully carrying out more attacks in libya. the spike in violence has been shar in 2017, isis managed to pul off only four attacks; so far this year, it's more than a dozen. the most audacious was in may, when isis gunmen stormed libya's election commission headquarters in tripoli, detonated suicide vests and killed at least 16 civilians. these counterterrorism forces in sirte recently raised the isis threat level in the area from 70% to 100%.is so is in this direction. they're regrouping in the desert, here in the south. >> aanytime, they can come i one or two people and blow themselves up. we rely on shepherds to tell us if there are any isis fighters passing through their pastures. >> reporte so far this year, in libya, there have already been more than twice the number

of isis attacks. is isis trying to regroup in order to launch attacks abroa outside of libya, as well? ( translated ): right now, they lack the ability to control any major territory in libya, but they are doing their best to regroup and mount attacks again. our men have proven themselves in this war with the islamic state, but we asfoand we hope help from other countries. we cannot eradicate isis on our own. >> reporter: that's largely because isis isn't libya's only problem. the country has been reeling since 2011, the year of thed nato-bacerthrow of libyan strongman muammar gaddafi. by 2014, a full-blown civil war was under way. carnegie endowment senioric associate fredwehrey has a new book about the libyan situation. >> the fragmentation that you see in libya, the fact that the country is so divided among

regional, town, tribal lines; the fact that there's no coherent institution, no sovereign authority, that's given space for isis to emerge. and you can actually trace ie emergence s to the outbrean k of civil war ibya r 2014. that's when isislly took advantage and expanded because the libyan factions were so busy fighting each other that it wasa idground for isis to really flourish. >> reporter: t country remains divided. a u.n.-backegovernment in the west sits in tripoli, with jurisdiction stretching down to sirte. a onrival administraules the east. and in b armed militias, governed only by themselves. for its part, the u.s. continues to support the government inol tripwith air strikes against isis, but at only offers short-term solutions, according to the u.n. special envoy to libya, ghassan salame. >> this can produce an effect, but it's very limited effect.

it's an effect on... by killing one particular leader or one particular chief of a band or something like that. but the real solution to terrorism in libya is to rebuild ng, unified, legitimate state. there is no other alternative to that. ( applause ) >> reporter: both governments have agreed to general elections at the end of this year, a vote that would elect a unity president and parliament. wehrey says in order to stabilize the country, all factions must agree to disarm the militias and to share libya's oil wealth, as well as political power. >> i think more broadly to win the peace, you need economic recovery, you need inclusive governance. you need a faijudiciary. let's not forget that isis often emerges in prisons, and we're seeing horrific abuses inside libyan prisons. and my fear t could be cultivating a new generation of tedicals. >> reporr: at this checkpoint

in sirte, unity seems a long way off. troop morale is lo >> ( translated ): we've gone a year without getting paid. we fought and died saving this city from isis. the government in tripoli needs respect that. reporter: and tas border crossing between libya's rival governments in the east and west. the colonel says it's become a critical weak link for isis to exploit. >> ( translated there are more than 500 yards of no-man's land between these two gates, where neither governnt has direct control. isis is using that area to take shelter, resupply and attet to infiltrate the city. >> reporter: no-go zones are common, and they aren't relegated to checkpoints. in fact, entire swaths of libya are lawless, and government officials fear to enter. we travel to one such area in libya's far western region in order to see how freely isis has been able to operate. driving us is a minder from the government in tripoli. it's the first time in nearly a

year they've allowed american tv journalists to enter the country. in return, the government insists on constant supervision. on the way, we pass a checkpoint operated by the tripoli government. r isently claimed responsibility for shooting four people to death in an attack here. it's not long before we're completely outside the area controlled by any government. our government minder locks all the doors. >> reporter: we'reoun a very dangpart of libya right now. we've been told not to get out of the car because of the high level ofangs and islamist militias that control the smugglinroutes in this area.es ournation: sabratha. it's home to spectacular ruins from the roman era, buthyhat's not we're here. until recently, it waoualso an infhub for migrant traffickers. local officials say those same traffickers worked hand-in-hand with isis militants. isis militants, we're told, who never really left.

>> sreenivasan: for students across the country, the school for some, that means learning from a curriculum known as the intenarnatbaccalaureate, an academic program growing in popularity that's used in close to 5,000 schoolsround the world. schools say the riadrous course s why they offer the program, which is now in its 50th year. newshour weekend sat down with t first female head of the foundation that develops the curriculum to discuss how it's preparing students to compete in a globally connected world. christopher booker has more. >> arreporter: dr. siva kis on the road a lot, often meeting with educators from around the world. she's head of the international baccalaureate foundation, or i.b. for short. the organization develops curricula, also called i.b., for students around the world. the foundation was started in

swanitzeback in 1968. >> we were created as a reaction to the world wars 50 years ago. essentially, a group of international educatorsfr including thos america came together to say education is more than just about academic achievement. >> reporter: to design an education program that promoted more than just test results the founders looked to the progressive learning philosophies of the time. so, instead of teaching rote memorization, they pushed analytical thinking. the first students to use i.b. often came from elite international families. but 50 years later, i.b. can be found in both public and private mschools around the worlde than 1,800 in the u.s. alone, educating students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. it consists of curricula for students three through 19. there are elementary, middle and high school-specific programs, as well as ones related to careers, all aiming to foster indepedendent, curious ss. >> and we want to create children who are able to think critically, solve probtems able to wo explain.

to be foced on what they're doing and to own the learning. >> reporter: the curricula include standard subjects, like english, science and math. but students also take design classes to develop their ability to create products. in middle school, subjects are combined to study how concepts overlap. >> we are beginning to move to mwardo-culture. >> reporter: i.b. approaches learning from a worldwide perspective, teaching students not just about local issues, but global ones, as well. studying a foreign language is required. the goal of it all pl an interdisary approach to the complex world the students will enter. >> we try to understand at is the psychology, what is the brain fu at that point. child how do you take chances? how do you fail?ow you the ability of the child even at that level and the tomary level to be ab speak and to defend their thinking. >> reporter: but with a set framework of elements for students to learn, some educators are concerned too much control rests with an international organization and honot enough at the local level.

siva kumari rejects that asnt. >> it's a misnomer that we're sitting somewhere in some ivory tower and controlling the world. we have no such interest. ( laughs ) the reason i think it works is, we don't mandate exactly what happens in a local school. >> please remember that you can always practice on another piece of paper. >> reporter: kathleen busoni is an art teacher and coordinates the i.b. program for brooklyn latin, a public high school in new york city. she says that one thing that attracted the school to i.b. is ios progressive philosophy, less instrufrom a teacher and more active student participation in class. that sounds so cliche, right? in education today, well say s ke student-centered is best. but for meteacher, that was where i realized that's where the magic happens. that's where the studeow ged learn the most, is if you help and encoura them and coach them rather than tell them ord demand from them. >> rr: at brooklyn latin, all 11th and 12th grade students

use what's called the i.b. diplogram. it's a choice that a school might make instead of, say offering advanced placement courses. the curriculum has six subjects inclung art and science, and in order to receive an i.b. diploma, students must pass i.b.'s own exams. but it goes further, requiring tyboth commuervice and a 4,000-word independent research paper. >> the i.b. is not about one singular exam. so, for one course, a student might do a grp project or do an oral commentary, but then they might also do an extended writing. and then, they might sit down in may and take a timed exam. but each course has at least three different assessments that combined together to give them a score. that is so unique and important cause our students are not all perfect at taking multiple cho this gives them the ability to e ow their excelle several

different ways. >> reporter: but for all the benefinits that buees in i.b., she's also concerned about the program's cost. and she's not alone. educators around the world have called the program expensive. to cover operational costs, the foundation charges fous for its vaprograms and services. busoni estimates brooklyn latin pays about $1,0 for exams and fees for each 12th grader. >> the i.b. does amazg things, but it costs a lot to help to manage that program. and as a public school, that's a lot of money wh we have 189 seniors this past year. >> reporter: but i.b. representatives say it's worth it. an siva kumari stresses th the programs produce students ready for higher education. 78% of i.b. diploma students go on to college right after graduation. >> the successful i.b. student is one in whatever field ty've chosen, that they're able to be the person that colleagues

consider "this is a mindful person who asked the right questions, who is able to drive consensus, who is able to provide e long view on things and be the wise person in the room." >> sreenivasan: join us tomorrow for the latest on the investigati of supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. and in our signature story, we'll look at why spouses of h-1b visa holders may find it more difficult to be able to work in s. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watchin have a good night. io cang sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. b.agelos. the j.oundation. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of ameca-- signing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement comny. 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.

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