captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, february 27: the world watches the russian invasion of ukraine. and cognitive neuroscientist daniel levitin learns music from the masters. >> she went with me syllable by syllable and taught me to get out of my own way. >> sreenivasan: next on “pbs newshour weekend.” >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter

foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group: retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. 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.

>> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us. russian tanks, troops and weapons were on the move across ukraine for a fourth day as the invasion continued over the course of a fast-moving day of developments: more nations added new sanctions, russia's president put nuclear forces on alert and plans for possible peace talks emerged. in ukraine, president volodomyr zelensky said he agreed to talks with a russian delegation“ without preconditions” at th ukrainian-belarusian border. >> ( translated ): i'll say frankly, like always, i don't believe in the result of this meeting, but let's try, so that no citizen of ukraine would have any doubt that i, as president, did not try to stop the war when there was even a small chance. >> sreenivasan: in ukraine's second largest city, the interior ministry released video of russian troops advancing, and burned military vehicles. ukrainians kept control of their capital, kyiv, where a curfew was in force. civilians joined military troops defending the city as more

countries agreed to ship weapons to ukraine. and for the very first time in its history, the european union said it will now pay for and deliver weapons to a country under attack. >> european union steps up once morets support for ukraine and the sanctions against the aggressor that is putin's russia. for the first time ever, the european union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack. this is a watershed moment. >> sreenivasan: also today, the e.u. announced a ban on all russian-owned and registered aircraft from its airspace, and a ban on broadcasts from the russian state-owned media outlets "russia today" and "sputnik." late yesterday, the u.s., the e.u., the united kingdom and canada issued a joint statement banning some of russia's banks from the swift international banking system, the most severe economic sanctions so far.

in reaction to that, russian president vladimir putin ordered his nuclear forces to go on high alert this morning. >> ( translated the top officials of leading nato countries allow themselves to make aggressive statements with regards to our country. that is why i order the defense minister and chief of the general staff to put russian army deterrence forces on high combat alert. >> sreenivasan: u.s.fficials called putin's statements part of a pattern. >> this is really a pattern that we've seen from president putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don't exist in order to justify further aggression. and the global community and the american people should look at it through that prism. >> sreenivasan: in russia, anti- war protesters chanted “no to war” at demonstrations today. according to o.v.d. info, a rights group tracking the protests, police detained more than 1,400 people protesting in more than 40 cities across russia.

on ukraine's borders, neighboring cotries continued to admit thousands of refugees. the united nations said more than 368,000 people have now fled ukraine. yaroslav trofimov is chief foreign affairs correspondent for "the wall street journal" and is in kyiv. i spoke with him late this afternoon. yaroslav, what have you been seeing in kyiv these past 24 hours? >> well, it's mostly what we've been hearing. we've been hearing a lot of airstrikes, and the thud of artillery on the horizon, and really seeing empty streets, because kiev has been under a curfew all day since saturday night and until monday morning. and the curfew is necessary, the authorities here say, because of russian infiltrators. there have been russian sleeper cells and russian agents and saboteurs, as the government puts it. they've been trying to take over buildings in the ukrainian capital, have been engaging in firefights. and so, the government says they need this time to hunt them down. and so, through the night, we've

heard for two nights in a row shooting in the streets of kyiv, exchanges of gunfire. during the day it's been quiet, and tonight it's also been quiet. so, it looks like the ukrainians are finally getting control of every corner of the city, while at the same time battles are raging on the outskirts of the city and they are real, real battles using artillery, aviation, the drones that turkey had supplied to ukraine. and we've seen evidence of ukraine stopping this offensive of destroying several russian columns of armor, and pushing back the russian forces from the immediate vicinity of kiev. >> sreenivasan: are people sticking to the curfew, or are they out trying to get whatever they need for the next couple of days? i mean, you seem to be in a place that has electricity, has an internet connection. >> electricity is uninterrupted in the city. mobile phones work, there is internet, there is food in the stores.

you know, people were not supposed to go out today on sunday, but yestery we were going to the supermarkets and we're still well stocked, from before the war, i suppose. a.t.m.s still work and have cash. i was able to pay enough for my groceries with ale pay. so, in some ways, it's very normal. but in other ways, it's an empty city. it used to be, just four days ago, a modern, bustling european capital with nightclubs and restaurants. and all of that has ended now. >> sreenivasan: are most people staying above ground at night, or are they trying to go in bomb shelters, subway stations, basements? >> i think most people have left. most people with small children, and most people with elderly parents, have boarded busses and cars and trains and fled to the west of ukraine, which is much safer than kyiv, that is not being attacked by russia as often and where the threat of russian soldiers showing up on the doorstep is much lower in

thimmediate future. so, i would say, sort of, ballpark estimation is about a third of the residents of kyiv have syed behind, but that third is mostly young people who want to fight. and so, we have seen, you know, thousands and thousands of mostly young men, but also women, joining the new territorial defense forces. and those are peoplof all walks of life, you know, all joining the resistance against the russians and the ukrainian government just said today that in addition to the 200,000 regular troops that they have had, 100,000 people signed up for the military in the last 48 hours. >> sreenivasan: are the people in kyiv tonight aware of how the world perceives what's happening? >> i think they are wary, but they also see it as a bit of too little, too late, because they are now receiving military help, lots of countries such as germany that opposed sending

weapons to ukraine, that opposed sanctioning russia, have now changed tack. but the way many ukrainians see it, if it even had a much sterner in the past, if they'd allowed ukraine to have air defenses, which western nations refused to sell them last year, and there wouldn't be these bombings, and russia wouldn't have this freedom to damage on one of europe's oldest cities. >> sreenivasan: yaroslav trofimov of "the wall street journal" joining us from kyiv tonight. thanks so much. >> thank you so much. thank you. >> sreenivasan: for more on the ukraine invasion and russian reaction i spoke earlier this morning with anton troianovksy, moscow bureau chief for "the new york times." anton, first, how aware are the russian people of what is happening in ukraine? >> so, those who watch television, and rely on televion for their news, which is about half the country according to polls, what they know about this war is that it's not a war. it's a "special military operation" that isocused on

the donbass region in eastern ukraine. there is pretty much nothing in the news about battles in these other cities where fighting has been going on this weekend. but the internet does remain more or less freely accessible in russia. and so, on social media, on independent russian language media outlets, people see really the full extent of what's going on. >> sreenivasan: are people feeling the effects? one of the big things that the biden administration said is that, listen, these economic sanctions aren't going to be painful overnight, but the government and the people there will feel them. >> yeah, they're feeling them already. i think it looks like they're really going to feel them tomorrow, on monday, because these sanctions that were announced friday by the european union and the united states against russia's largest bank, also russia's central bank, that

has the potential to really throw markets into turmoil. and today we've already seen really long lines at a.t.m.s. people really have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. >> sreenivasan: if you were a russian living in moscow right now, do you think that life is pretty normal? >> yeah, i think it's pretty normal. you know, the bars and restaurants are still full, but the fluctuation ofhe ruble, the currency in russia is a really big deal. obviously, so many things are imported-- phones, tvs, wine, you know, you name it. and so, the prices on that are going to be going up drastically. russians are, have become used to, you know, in the middle class, and moscow especially, to be able to take inexpensive trips abroad. and that's going to become much harder, if not impossible now. so, yeah, i think for now, for now, it's still, you can kind of feel some normalcy, but i do

have the feeling that that will really change in the next few days. >> sreenivasan: over the past couple of days, we also saw people in russia, in multiple cities, trying to protest what was happening in ukraine. we also saw them being arrested. is there discussion in the public sphere, so to speak, about standing up to this? >> yeah, there's absolutely discussion. i mean, you know, you mentioned social media being slowed down. they have slowed down access to facebook and twitter, but it still more or less works. instagram, which is kind of the main, one of the main social networks here, continues to work. and there's a ton of discussion on there, a lot of people voicing discontent, and it really feels like not that many people are voicing approval. obviously, it is very risky to actually protest, so the fact that we're seeing thousands of people in the streets, and we saw that again today on sunday

in moscow, there were 800 arrests, but people still came out. >> sreenivasan: this might be in the weeds for the average russian, but when the president declares that he's, sort of, escalated his strategic defense posture and includes, you know, nuclear forces, what goes through the public there? >> if you watch russian state television, and you watch their news programs, they talk about the russian nuclear arsenal quite a lot. they say things like, "we are the only country in the world that can reduce the united states to radioactive ash." that's a direct quote from recently. so, i think, in a way, russians are used to this, especially the kind of more hawkish, conservative russian, sees the country's nuclear arsenal as kind of the thing that should give russia rightful superpower status. and i think people are going to be increasingly afraid. the question is, just what is

that fear then translate to? does that translate to people holding back and, and really just sort of sitting at home in their kitchens, as they say people did in the soviet union? or do you start seeing some more active movement to try to change something? >> sreenivasan: we're hearing that there might be some preliminary agreement on peace talks between the ukrainians and the ruians, but what's the appetite there for this to be over? >> well, i mean, again, in russia, a lot of people don't realize there's a major land invasion happening carried out by their country, and many others do know what's happening and are horrified by it. i mean, until thursday, i think basically no one in russia could actually imagine a war with ukraine, an all out war with ukraine. it's just totally incredible to pele. you know, these were two parts of the soviet union just 30

years ago. so many russians have friends and relatives in ukraine and vice versa. people want peace talks. the only issue is that putin has laid out such maximalist demands when he refers to is the de-militarization and de-nazification of ukraine that it's hard to imagine. i mean, he's made it quite clear he wants to topple zelensky's government and install a new government. so, it's unfortunately hard to see these talks getting anywhere, but fingers crossed. >> sreenivasan: anton trioanovski, moscow bureau chief of "the new york times," thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: for more on russia's invasion of ukraine and additional national and international news, visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: two years ago we brought you the story of a best- selling book called successful aging, and its scientist author who had plenty of tips on the best ways to grow older, including learning and doing new

things. now he's putting his own advice into practice with a little help from some noteworthy friends. newshour weekend special correspondent mike cerre has the story. >> reporter: neuroscientist daniel levitin wrote the bestselling, “this is your brain on music,” and is best known for studying the effects of music on the brain, inclung those of prominent musicians,ike sting. >> i guess you've never had a brain scan before. >> no, i haven't. >> this is going to raise up and go back in the machine. we asked him to compose music in the scanner, and i saw a bunch of activity in the visual cortex, the back of the brain, visual section. he said, “oh, well, i think of composition as architecture. i'm building a structure musically.” >> reporter: a musician and studio engineer himself, he's also helped produce several gold albums for the likes of steely dan. ♪ ♪ ♪ but since his college rock band

days with his group "the mortals," daniel levitin, now 65, has wanted to write and sing albums of his own. >> i didn't do it in mmid-20s because everybody in the music business told me not to, that this was not my calling. well, coming up into 60, i thought, as a neuroscientist, i knew that this with the science of aging had to say, and that is that as you head towards 60, you're going to grow complacent, and set in your ways, and you're not going to want to try new things. >> reporter: any thoughts he might have had about his scientific reseapossibly giving him a leg up on the songwriting process were quickly dashed once he started on an album of his own. >> there's the science of music in the brain, and there's performing and writing and producing, and those are probably not going to meet. ♪ it's greed, it's not money ♪

>> reporter: country star and two-time grammy-winning songwriter, rodney crowell, was one the first professionals to critique levitin's work in progress over several years. >> no one can teach you how to write songs. sometimes i think "don't give up your day job" is the proper encouragement. but in the case of dan, i thought, i'm going to give him some real input on this, because he's a pro. find the truth in the song, and learn to recognize when you're not being truthful. ♪ sitting at a bus stop waiting for a train ♪ and that can-- that can manifest in ting to force a couplet or a soft rhyme into a couplet that doesn't ring true. >> taking rodney crowell's advice, i realized that maybe the reason nobody liked my songs before was because i was writing them for someone else, and they

didn't connect deeply with me. >> reporter: joni mitchell was another friend and music advisor. >> i had become friends with joni in the '90s and, for a while there, we were getting together at her house once a month for dinner, and she would play me whatever song she was working on. and at one point i said, "tell me what do you, what do you what do you think of these songs?" she said, "sing me a line." so i sing her line. she says, "see, you're messing your vowels up. you don't speak your vowels that way. and you're doing the soft 'r.'" she went with me syllable by syllable and basically taught me to get out of my own way, to stop trying so hard to sound like someone else or to be a singer. >> reporter: after seven years of reworking songs he had written, the moment of truth came at this new york recording session for his new album “sex &

math,” accompanied by veteran studio musicians. ♪ you may like fast music but you're slow in your years ♪ >> they're all very personal, and i never stopped writing songs. i've been doing that since i was a teenager. but what took me so long is that, i guess, i just wasn't ready, and i was afraid of being judged and being in the spotlight. ♪ what took you so long baby, it's cold outside ♪ >> and i realize it's cold to live in the shadows of your dreams and your ambitions. that is a very cold place. and i realize it's cold to live >> reporter: daniel levitin, neuroscientist, author, lecturer, musician, song writer, singer. will the real daniel levitin. please stand up?

( laughs ) ♪ you may like fast cars but you're slow changing gears ♪ >> reporter: what do you hope other peoples' brains will be like on the music of daniel levitin? >> if anybody listens, first, i hope that they'll like it, meaning that they'll, they'll have some emotional experience. >> reporter: and if they don't, if they don't, if it's not a success, commercial suess or success by any other standard, is it still a success for you in the fact that you did it? >> it's very much a success for me if it doesn't sell any copies at all. ♪ what took you so long baby, it's cold outside ♪ >> sreenivasan: newshour will have on-the-ground reporting

from ukraine tomorrow, and complete coverage of president joe biden's state of the union address on tuesday. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. for the latest news updates, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. stay healthy, and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz.

the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group: retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and 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.

i always have a notecard in my pocket that tells me what the date is and i have to write down when i eat meals because sometimes i might eat lunch three times because i don't remember that i ate already. the doctors say the brain can continue healing up to 2 years, but whatever is not back by that point is not likely to ever come back. so you had your surgery in november of 2008, right? -right, and so i'm going to have to live the rest of my life this way and the thing that scares me the most is, like, the thought that i will wake up one day and i'll be 80 years old and i won't remember the last 40 years of my life. -do you remember when you first came out of surgery? i know that i used to always think

that i was in san francisco. -what are those things called, do you remember? "confabulations"? -yeah. yeah, do you remember another confabulation that i used to have? yasir: you used to think that your coworker barbara was your mom. -[laughs] oh, that's right. even though she's a completely different race than you. -that's funny. yeah. there was one point where you were confused because u thought we had broken up and i would ask you like "why do you think you're staying at my place?" she's like, "well, we're just cool like that." -yeah, sorry about that. -that's all right. and after all you've been doing for me. -thankfully, you got over that. i'm thankful for that as well. -so, are there any positive things that have come out of losing your memory, that you can look back on? -well, i ran the new york city marathon with you, my boyfriend, and one of the things that i asked you was to help me, as a trick, to not let me look at any of the mile markers along the way and, if i asked you how long we'd been running, to always tell me 10 or 15 minutes. [laughs] and it really worked like a charm.

and when we got to the end, you and i were running across the finish line and, as if on cue, i started crying my eyes out because i was so happy. you know, i have spent a lot of days since my injury comparing myself to what i used to be and feeling sad about the things that i've lost, but doing the marathon shows me that i still have a lot left in me.

hello. i'm greg sherwood. and here in northern california we're used to emergencies or every kind. in recent years we've dealt with severe drought and massive fires and we've learned the painful but necessary lessons about how to prepare. but we all know another emergency is coming because major earthquakes that can strike at any time are central to our history. we all know another one will hit, and over the next half hour we're going to look at the latest science and explain how you can be proactive and protect yourself and your loved ones. we're going to be talking with our first guest in a few moments, but first we'd like to invite you to support kqed and take a big step in your emergency planning at the same time. now, we've got two levels for you to consider. so take a look and then make a pledge at kqed.org/donate or give us a call at 1-800-568-9999.