captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, august 11: the latest on jeffrey epstein. in our signature segment: music great carlos santana. and a unique dance style: taking center stage and changing lives. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> des newshour weekend is ma possible by: bernarand irene schwartz. sue and edgar chenheim iii. the cheryl and phifap milstein ly. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter, in mory of george o'neil. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america--

designing customized individual rend group retirement products. that's why wour retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. a private corporation funded bh american people. 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. the investigation into the death by apparent suicide of jeffrey epstein continues. the 66-year-old multi- millionaire nvicted sex offender was being held in a federal prison in new rk city on charges of sex trafficking when he was found in cardiac arrest in his cell and declared dead shortly after. the medical examinuc's office cod an autopsy today but as of late this afternoon, tot results wereet public. "the new york times" reported that according to a law enasrcement official epstein alone in a special housing unit r ll at the metropolitan

correctional cend was not checked on by guards every 30 minutes as require conspiracy theories about epstein's death erupd across social media last night. with no evidence and immediateem cotion, president trump retweeted one that suggestedep ein's death was not suicide and was somehow connected to former president bill clinton. the chief federal prosecutor in new york said yesterday that epstein's death does not end the investigation. august in iowa means it's time for the annual state fair-- also the unofficial kick-off for then presal campaign season. over the weekend, a parade of imocratic presidential hopefuls aimed to make anression on iowa voters who will hold the first nominating contest on february 3. candidates engaged in the usual fair activities-- holding babies, eating fried food-- and delivering stump speeches. e weekend was devoted to a more serious topics on voters' minds: the mass shootings that left 31 people dead in texas and ohio last weekend. more than a dozen candidates

attended a forum on gun controla yest organized by the group everytown for gun safety. many expressed support for proposals like universal background checks, red flag laws and an assault weapons ban. for more on the immigration issue and the rift between the trump administration and decrats, visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreivasan: this weekend saw democratic presidential candidates and even the lone publican challenger to president trump, former massachusetts governor bill weld, racing to evenafter event in iowa. meanwhile, the president daportedly raised $12,000,000 at fundraisers on fnight and then began his vacation at his golf club in new jersey, a vacation that includes a barrage of tweets and retweets. newshour weekend special correspondent jeff greenfield is here now to talk about all that and more political news. to say that the president retweeting a conspiracy theory connecting the clintons to the death of jeffrey epstein is a surprise? not so much. i mean--

>> in one sense, you could say what else is new? you know, he was the birther but still, wheyou read something like that, this president accusing another president of complicity in a murder, you know, that's what we think other countries were like when they would jail or execute ponents.l and the barrier's that are not just pushed, but crashed, combined onc with the massive silence of his own party, in one sense, i think st leaves you, as a human, poleaxed. did i really read that?ar am i really g this from the president of the united states? the sheer overreach in some h sense protec ,because you almost literally can't believe it. it's-- it's-- don't know how to get our heads around it. >> sreenivasan: yeah. well, let's t our heads around actual news that did matter this week, that was substantive and oftentes is ignored by the tweet stream and these kinds of spectacles. >> i think one of the big stories was the fact that sue gordy, the deputy d.n.i., director of national intelligence, s forced out of her job by her boss, who is himself being pushed aside, dan

coats. because the president doesn't trust the intelligence he gets or he doesn't like it when it contradicts his ideas. no, sue gordy is the kind of person that a government should embrace. both party intelligence experts really respected. they wanted her to get the cheif job, and for her to be brushed we also saw a scientist in the department of agricultit because he wasn't permitted to present evidence that climate change was having an effect on nutrients like rice. and we've heard the f.b.i. saying, u know, we really want to focus on domestic terrorism, by which they mean white nationalist terrorism. but we're getting, we're really uncomfortable if that's going to affect somehow people in thet' presidbase. and what's the common theme? that people in power don't want to hear facts that challenge their premises and whether it's been vietnam or iraq or god knows how many other examples, when people in power don't want to hear evidence that may forcee them to change minds, you got a problem. >> sreenivasan: this weekend we also saw every democrati candidate running around, and obviously bill weld as tiwell, you know, they're turkey wings at the state fair

and whatever else they have to do in iowa. but you also have seen a steady drip of stories over the past few days on joe biden and the verbal gaffes, again, in the context of the tweets and so forth that we were just talkinle about, they n comparison. but what's the net result? >> the problem, and i thinkli normally i'm id to say, come on, you know this is hype. but there are times when these events have a politicaimpact, and that is when they tend to reinforce a stereotype anyway. so, for instance, whenerald ford, the most athletic president we ever had, pro football pyer had a few trips and chevy chase of "saturday night live" turned it into, i guess, a meme, that all of a sudden was came, he's a klutz. so for biden, you know what's a dilemma? he's, he's old and an otherwise unmemorable slip, particularly if they're a couple, begins to raise that question, since it's ere anyway in the political firmament. and so i, i hate to sound superficial about this, but those things can matter. >> sreenivasan: all right, jeff greenfield, thanks so much.

>> thank you. >> sreenivasan: next w the 50th anniversary of one of the iconic cultural events of america's three days of peace and music that came to be known as "woodstock."ar onst who came to prominence at the festival went on to become a multi-platinum a sensation wi string of hits, including one of the best-sellinglbums of all time, "supernatural." we're talking about musician carlos santana. in the conclusion of our two-part series on ther legend, pbs newshour weekend's tom casciato speaks with santana not only about history's most famous musicestival, but also the road that took him there. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: in this year of commemorations for 72-year-old carlos santana, it's instructive to know that the path he set oux on as a boy ino didn't begin with the guitar. >> what happened was that my

father's a musician, and when i saw how people-- specifically-- women looked at my dad when you play the violin and wh he sang i looked at them and i looked at him and i was like "whoa." my dad would draft me once in a while. he says, you know so and so, it's not as good, put on his mariachi suit.t couldn't get a sound on the violin. i didn't like the way i sounded. i didn't like the way the violin smelled and i didn't like the way it felt. but i try to please my dad as much as i could. and i won a two, three contest in the fairs playing fascination-- ♪ doo doo doo doo doo y so tve me the trophy. >> reporter: that's not bad for a guy who didn't like the smell of the violin. >> exactly, but i had to do it to please my dad.t entually he saw that, you know, i was crying a lot, and sm i told don't want to play the violin. i want to play the guitar. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: you could say right ulthen that the world of p

music would never be the same, but that was a few years away yet. for a time santana did whatever he could to help his father support his mom and siblings. >> whether it was washing dishes e playing the violin beca have a big family and that's usat took a little longer for me to become a fullian. i was a weekend musician. they wash dishes or do something. when you're a full time musician you sound differently and you walk differently. and for me music is-- is-- is an invitation to visit your spirituality and visit your romance without guilt. >> reporter: but when did you figure that out? >> in tijuana, watching the strippers strip.ep >>ter: in the 1950's santana cut his teeth as a guitar playeamong the patrons and prostitutes in the strip joints on tijuana's avenida revolucion. >> you know i started noticing that you play--

♪ dad dad dad dada down you know like honky tonk. ♪ doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo ♪ and the woman started walking just like--ad ♪dada and then i was like, "oh!" >> reporter: eventuae young guitarist and his family migrated to san francisco, where carlos ban to pattern himself after what he calls the magnificent american blues guitar masters. he says his influences included t. bone walker... ♪ ♪ b.b. king...♪ ♪ ♪ buddy guy... ♪ ♪ and chicago le♪nd otis rush. ♪ >> otis rush is just a pure voice of trueness.e there's not te on any record i ever heard where otisdi rush it has anance from his heart. ♪ ♪

the first time i saw mr. otis rush it gave me the confidence right there: it's time to ave your home it's time to leave mom and dad and really become what you were born to do. >> reporter: by the time he was 22, santana had recorded his first album with the group that bore his name. it would be released in august 1969, just around the time the band played woodstock. a lot of people don't remember that santana was not aes blished band when you played woodstock. >> no, not at all. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: the group's lack of stature would play a huge rolea' in carlos santperformance heat day. it started when as approached in the morning by a guitar-playing friend from san francisco. >> jerry garcia, he says, "what time you go on?" i said that we're going two or three bands after you." he goes, "well, man, you make, make yourself comfortable. apparentlye're not going 'til like 12:00 or 12:00 at night or

something, you know. >> rorter: so you didn't thi you were going to play for all day, you had a whole day to kill. >> especially becae nobody knows us, so we're gonna be at the mercy wherever they put us. >> reporter: garcia, he says offered him some hallucinogens to help kill the time.ne but no shad the drugs kicked in than a call came from the stage. >> they said you got to go on now. if you don't play now you're not going to play at all. so, i trust that god is present and he's going to give me what i request, please keep me in time, please keep me in tune. i'll never do this again. i promise. >> reporter: and what happened? >> it was-- it was kind of like a wrestling match. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: were you hallucinating while you played? >> totally.ep >>ter: santana says his guitar "turned into an electric wisting and turning" as he played, while the music took a path of its own. >> i mean, look, you hear thed.

so it's over here and then it comeh down throue through youric fingers in thep of the guitar through a wire that goes tothis p.a. out there and i goes like that to the people. like aocean of people. and then it comes back. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: woodstock helped change everything for carlos santana. soon came a string of hits that reads like a rock 'n roll hall of fame playlist: "black magic woman," "evil ways," "oye como va," "no one to depend on." but then, influenc by listening to jazz artists including his friend miles davis, carlos wanted to go in a different direction. with the band's fourth album, "caravansarai," he began exploring music with a decidedly spiritual bent. and that was extraordinarily sophisticated music, but not

nely as commercially viabl music as "evil ways" or "black magic woman. >> exactly. >> reporter: were people in the music business telling you, "carlos, you're not going to have the hits, man, you're noton going to bhe radio." >> everybody. clive davis, bill graham, my mom, everybody. >> reporter: even your mom. >> even my mom says, "mijo, youn this, why you going this way? musically why does it have to be so extreme?" and i said, "mom, even i don't know all. i know that i have tfollow my heart." ♪ ♪ ta reporter: in the ensuing decades carlos s followed his heart all the way from mere star to legend in his adopted country. you got the kennedy center hors. and you were introduced by harry belafont ( applause ) >> well, i tell you folks, there's no two ways out it. we've got to do something about

mexican immigration. ( laughter ) every day you have people like carlos santana coming into this country and taking the jobs that should be going-- w,laughter and applause ) >> you kife is so delicious for this mexican over here, man. that's one of the things that i always treasure, you know, in my hmcompartment of accomplists. >> reporter: thosemp accoshments are legion, but what impresses most on this occasion is the optimism he's maintained-- an optimism born over three days half a century ago. so many people are cynical i think, 50 years after woodstock, about woodstock, about the woodstock nation, about peace and love.

you don't seem to have a shred of that about you. en you look at this what do you see? >> woodstock signifies that we arcan coexist in unity andny with grace and elegance and yeah, ing funky, too. if people want to say, "oh, they're freaking hippies, man. th get on my nerves." well, you know what-- we were so glad that you were not at woodstock, becse at woodstock whatever we had whether it was--it was just granola, we shed it. and if you feel that hippies are like kumbaya, bunch of-- or whatever. it's okay you keep yourself with that frequency. mahatma gandhi or martin luther king or you know all the guys who people call kumbaya people, you know they're my heroes. kumbaya-- >> reporter: because people say that critically or the- it cyically, "kumbaya people." >> yeah. and i'm aware of that, you know. but i always tell them kumbaya will always kick your ass from re to eternity and back. because kumbaya is here to stay. ♪ ♪

sreenivasan: one of new york city's newest art centers-- the shed-- is currently featuring a performance piece rooted in a t uniqe of dance called "flexn." but to its creators and f practitionerxn is far more than simply a dance style. newshour weekend's ivette feliciano has our storre >> wheou at? c'mon, ladies in the house! c'n, ladies! y'all ladies good? where ladies at? >> reporter: dancer and choreographer reggie "regg roc"o gray's newat the shed, called "maze," created with co-directokaneza schaal, is steeped in a dance style that gray helped develop in the 90's called "flexn." he says the name came from "fl li brooklyn," a former pubc access show that he and his crew danced on. >> we didn't even dub flexn,

like, the youth did. ra would-- we would go to chi-chinese rests. and they would be, like, "hey, like, you guys-- you the flexn guys." and we were like, "what-- whatis hat?" you know? >> reporter: flexn takes the full body twisting of the jamaican dance style, "bruk up," and hones it into moves known as "pauzin." "gliding." and "bone-breaking." gray says that these moves help dancers dramatize their own stories and surrounding issues of social justice. for example, one scene in "maze" recreates the 2014 police shooting of laquan mcdonald in nechicago. >> officer begins shooting. he immediately sinks to the ground. and the video clearly shows i sink to the ground. >> it's not just entertainment. it's more self-express and i ink that's where it

kinda started to really get its-- its form from. >> reporter: as flexn became more mainstream-appearing in music videos, movies, and commercials, gray and his dancers began touring the u.s. and the world. they caught the attention of the shed's artistic director, alex poots, who wanted to help increase gray's impact. >> reggie hadn't really had a creative team around him before. he'd done it all on him-- on his own pretty much. and so to me it seemed important to offer him that support. >> reporter: the shed-- which just opened this year-- commissioned gray and his dancers to develop-- not just a flexn performance, but a program called flexnyc to bring the art form to more than 500 new york city students in 20 schools and community centers. the students-- mainly from under-served communities-- range from 5-19, and receive free classes from gray's dance troupe all school year long.

gray says the program gives kidr eative outlet. >> when i go to some of theho s to check them out, they'll, you know, some of them be havin' a hard day. and then they'll go through,i' "heynot havin' a good day, but can i dance this out real fast?" it's been part of their way to- get througe everyday struggles of just being a kid. you know? >> reporter: two of thds are emmanuel hernandez, 16, and ebony sexius, 17, who attend landmark high tahool in manh >> they will give us, like, fake homework to, like, build up the whsson for the following week. like, "oh, like-ever happens around you during, like, the weekend, come back and tell us atory." >> reporter: that's interesting that you call it fake homework. that sounds like homework-- h >> that's reework. >> reporter: is it 'cause it's more fun than regular-- >> yeah. >> when you go to class and thee you, "oh, go home and practice," it's, like, i'm already doin' that. >> reporter: ebony sexius says that flexnyc helped her discover unknown abilities. >> i'm not double-jointed at all. but my teacher, jason, he stretched me so much that i'd be-- i'm, like, able to bone-break now. >> reporter: go ahead and show me. >> all right.

it's, like--ep >>ter: oh, wow! >> yeah, it's like-- >> and did ya see that? i-- i-- no. no. >> reporter: t program helped them deal with difficult issues. hernandez composed a dance about his parents' troubled relationship and sexius composed one about the absence of some of her family members. >> i am a crybaby.bu i honestly, like, never cried in front of my school before. so it's, like-- >> yeah. >> i just started crying, like, before i even started dancing. 'cause it's just, like, i-- like, my-- the story behind it was, like, really strong. >> reporter: the new performance at the shed features audiencepa icipation and live music from vocalists and drummers. ♪ ♪ and in addition to gray's gular dance troupe, two skexnyc students have been to perform-- ebony sexius and emmanuel hernandez. >> since we were already working in the schools, it we, why not? you know, why not just say, "hey, guys, come on out. let's have this perience."

>> there are all these dancers who you've been working with since they were babies. >> yeah. >> who have now been uered into the company. and there's a way that incorporating the young peop felt like this natural flow from the broader practice that reggie and the company has created. >> reporter: both hernandez and sexius say that flexn will always be a part of their lives, even after the show closes >> i've learned stuff about myself that i didn't know before. i've been able to connect with people that i've never known before. i've had a teacher that i never talked to come up toe and tell me, "oh my god, that solo that you did was amazing." so i feel like i'll always dance to have those moments, so i can always carry those moments with me. >> you know when somebody says, "come home?" that's what it makes me feel like. i wanna take this with me in my future just to, like, make this n' ong for years and years so it won't be forgotten. ♪ ♪ ( cheers and applause )

>> this is "pbs newshour weekend," sunday. >> sreenivasan: ne international , guatemalans went to the polls today to elect their next president. voters are decnsing between vative alejandro giammattei, former head of the couny's prisons, and center- left candidate sandra torres, a former first lady. the winn will have to implement last month's agreement with the u.s. where guaterala h.st off asylum to migrants traveling throug it's an attempt to reduce the nuer of central american migrants seeking asylum in the u.s. both candidates have criticized the deal which guatemalan officials signed after the trump administration threatened muonomic sanctions. in jerusalem todayim worshippers and israeli police clashed at a major holy siteh whs been long been a focal point of israeli and palestinian conflict. tens of thousands of muslim worshippers were gathered for prayers at the al-aqsa mosque compound for the first day of the islamic holiday eid al-adha. the holy site is also known as" temple mount" to jews. because today was the jewish

holiday of fasting and mourning tisha b'av., about 1,300 jews came to the site with permission to enter. sh least 14 palestinians were injured in the cla with israeli police, according to a palestinian ambulance service. israelauthorities said four of its officers were injured. norwegian authorities are investigating a shooting at a mosque yesterd, as an" tempted act of terrorism." one person was wounded. the allege man in his 20's, is in custody. police said the suspect expressed "right-wing extremist views" online. he is also a murder suspect after police found his 17-year- old sister dead at his home when were investigating the mosque shooting. evacuations continued in china today as typhoon lekima moved north ong the country's east coast, causing heavy flooding andestroying homes. the storm, whichade landfall yesterday, has killed more than 30 people and at least 16 are missing. thousands of flights have been canceled and rail service was suspended throughout the region. more than a million people he been relocated so far.

more on the investigation into jeffrey upstein' apparent news site pbsrg/newshour and on the bodcast tomorrow. that's allr fo this episode of "newshour weekend."ri i'm reenivasan. thanks for watching. captioning sponsored by wnet media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made: possible chernard and irene schwartz.

sue and edgar heim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. e j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter, in memory of georgo'neil. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirementroducts. that's why we're your tirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more. pbs. be more.

maria shriver: perhaps the greatest mystery... is the human brain. in only the past few decades, sciensts have made incredible leaps in our understanding. and we are just now unraveling the secret of how the brain can change throughout our lives, leading to incredible transformation. merzenich: we have this new understanding that the us person that is withis actually a product of change that occurs within our lifetime. this is new science. it's one of the great discoveries of our era, because it has the potential of giving everyone e. a better l you've been gin this gift. that's what brain plasticity is. seidler: the brain is adaptively changing, that's what brain plasticity is. modifying, making new connections, in some cases,