>> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, november, 2: a new climate change report warns of irreversible damage unless fossil fuels are phased out. the democrats and republicans make last-minute appeals for votes in tuesday's midterm elections.

in our signature segment: brittany maynard, the young woman with terminal brain cancer, has gone to oregon to get the medication she needs to die. we'll look at how the assisted suicide law there works. and a boston exhibit celebrating the works of alexander calder. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening. thanks for joining us. the united nations warned today that the world must get most of its energy from renewable sources by 2050 or increase the likelihood of what it called severe, pervasive and irreversible damage.

a report produced by hundreds of scientists around the world said inaction ultimately would prove much more expensive than switching over to renewables. secretary of state john kerry issued this statement in response: greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are higher than ever and we're seeing more and more extreme weather and climate events. it's not a coincidence. with this report, we have yet another round of authoritative, peer-reviewed science to prove it. and there was this from un secretary general ban ki moon: science has spoken. there is no ambiguity in their message. leaders must act. time is not on our side. isis fighters in iraq reportedly have committed another massacre. officials say the sunni extremists lined up and executed at least 50 people today in a village west of baghdad. officials said the victims, reportedly including six women and four children, were assembled, then shot one by one in public. it was the third incident of its kind in the past several days. it's estimated that as many as 320 people have been killed.

there were also fatal bombings today in and around baghdad. these are images from the aftermath of a car bombing that killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more. the victims were shiite pilgrims. in the west bank today, new clashes between palestinians and israeli security forces following israel's decision earlier in the week to limit access to a sacred religious site in jerusalem. muslims know it as the noble sanctuary, the place the prophet mohammad is said to have ascended to heaven. the area is known by jews as the temple mount. it's where two ancient temples once stood and is considered the holiest site in judaism. today, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu issued this statement: >> ( translated ): it is very easy to ignite a religious fire but much harder to extinguish it, these messages have been relayed in the sharpest way possible to mahmoud abbas and all elements. what is needed now is calm. >> sreenivasan: violence in another part of the world today. a group linked to the taliban has claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed at least 45 people and wounded at least 70 more near a military

checkpoint in pakistan. the explosion occurred just 500 yards from pakistan's wagagh border with india, right after a daily ceremony when both sides lower their flags simultaneously, an event often witnessed by hundreds of tourists. for the first time in nearly four years, the average price of a gallon of regular gas in this country has slipped below three dollars a gallon. this, according to the triple "a." some experts believe gas prices could go even lower. it means millions of americans will have more to spend as the holiday shopping season approaches. a kenyan man and a kenyan woman were the top finishers in the new york city marathon today. wilson kipsang won the men's division in just under two hours and 11 minutes, mary keitany covered the same distance in just longer than two hours and 25 minutes. and for the second year in a row, american tatyana mcfadden won the women's wheelchair division. she also won the marathons this year and last in boston, london and chicago, completing back-to- back grand slams. she was born with spina bifida

and paralyzed from the waist down. when she was six, she was adopted from a russian orphanage by an american family. more than 50,000 participated in today's race in cold and windy conditions. >> sreenivasan: much of the analysis after the 2012 presidential election focused on how the obama campaign had made better use of technology than the romney campaign to get its supporters to the polls. tonight, we look at what both major parties are doing this time around in the days leading up to tuesday's mid-term elections. ashley parker co-authored an article this weekend in the "new york times" and joins us now from washington. >> so there seems to be advantage goes between one party to another party given which election cycle and there's a game of catchup that happens. >> yeah, absolutely and this time republicans are definitely playing catchup. the obama campaign gave

republicans catchup in 2008 and 2012. the romney team didn't make as much of their digital team, they're actually taking a lot of pages not surprisingly the obama play book. >> so give us an example of how digital advertising can be targeted versus a television spot. >> sure. well on television you place your ads on a tv show during the commercial break. so for instance if you place ads on abc scandal because you want to reach female viewers you get female viewers and you maybe get male viewers, or male viewers who are forced to watch the show with their girlfriends but with this way you can focus on a device, it follows them when they are there. when they're looking at their phone when they're waking up you can serve them an ad, not only the at home but if you are

serving them an ad on their tablet you can target them when they're on their way to work, on their way home, in the kitchen cacooking dinner when they're at home. >> due to facebook are they selling the preferences we are exhibiting and telling them about? >> yes, they absolutely are. facebook for instance offers a menu of options, a campaign could target female users of facebook or certain zip code on facebook or users who like certain facebook pages, rachel madow, or europe lift its file, target to get out and vote and they can literally serve ads to all those exact people who are users of facebook. >> okay, so how much money are we talking about campaign spending in the grand scheme of things?

is more of it shifting to digital to targeting like this? >> yeah, so you know, each cycle is seeing a larger portion of the overall budget going to digital, for instance, some groups that ensure digital gets a fair shake, 15 or 20% of it goes to a digital buy but compared to television it's still a very small portion. so it's increasing rapidly but television is sort of the 800 pound gorilla. >> ashley parker, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: and now to our signature segment. our original in-depth reports from around the nation and the world. you've probably seen portions of this statement that brittany maynard posted online nearly a month ago. >> i hope to enjoy however many days i have left on this beautiful earth and spend as

much of it outside as i can surrounded by those i love. i hope to pass in peace. >> sreenivasan: maynard, of course, is the 29-year-old california woman who moved to oregon recently because that state permits assisted suicide. maynard wants to die before her malignant brain tumor leaves her completely incapacitated. her case, which has rekindled a national debate about assisted suicide, gives us the opportunity to take a look at how oregon's, assisted suicide law has been working. the newshour's stephen fee reports. >> reporter: like millions of americans, oregonian pam wald was riveted by the video of brittany maynard, a 29-year-old woman suffering from brain cancer who moved here to end her own life. >> i looked at that video. i studied, especially the last time i saw that video, i don't think i left her eyes. >> reporter: maynard lived in

california but relocated to take advantage of oregon's death with dignity law that permits what's commonly known as physician assisted suicide. >> i will die upstairs in my bedroom that i share with my husband, with my mother and my husband by my side. >> reporter: she was featured in a media campaign by a group called compassion and choices, twenty years earlier, its predecessor group played a key role in advocating for oregon's first-in-the-nation right-to-die bill. in 1994, pam wald considered herself a supporter of oregon's death with dignity act. so you voted for it, but you never thought, this has to do with me. >> no, no. it was kind of like out of compassion. the idea that, you know, someone gets in this situation, they deserve a right, you know, to choose. you know, it's important to choose how we live our lives and how we die. >> reporter: but then you found yourself in this situation. >> yes. >> reporter: where you... where it's, now it's the story's about you. >> yeah.

this is my husband. >> reporter: in 2011, pam's husband of 43 years, ben wald, discovered an earlier bout of cancer had returned, soon after, the disease began taking a lethal toll. pam and daughter bonnie watched as the once robust ben rapidly lost weight. as the cancer spread to his bones, the pain became intolerable. >> ben woke me up in the middle of the night and he said, pam, we gotta talk. i don't want to keep, you know, i'm dying, pam. i've had a good life with you and bonnie. i really don't want to just keep living like this. i want to explore oregon's death with dignity law. >> reporter: under oregon's law, a doctor must determine a terminally ill patient has six months or fewer to live. the physician can write a life

ending prescription only after a second doctor signs on and both agree the patient is of sound mind. the patient must request the drug again 15 days after the initial request. but once the patient has it, the doctors' role is over. since the law went into effect in 1997, nearly 1,200 people have received life-ending prescriptions, but just 752 have actually taken them and died. others died sooner and some changed their minds. as ben's health deteriorated, he and pam sought help from compassion and choices, the group supporting brittany maynard. in 2012, the group connected them with two doctors who signed off on ben's wishes. >> monday, ben got the order for the prescription so it meant we could pick it up on wednesday. and i thought at that point we would have it and then we would just kind of see. i thought i had more time with him.

but he said to me, "pam, i want to take it on friday of that week." >> reporter: portland physician bill toffler has also followed the case of brittany maynard brittany's story strikes a chord with him, too. toffler's wife of 40 years was diagnosed with cancer in 2009. dr. bill toffler, physicians for compassionate care education foundation: we were blessed with five years after the diagnosis was made. and she died just four and a half months ago. >> reporter: for dr. toffler and his wife, assisted suicide was never an option. he leads a group, physicians for compassionate care education foundation, that opposes prescribing lethal drugs to terminal patients. every day we lived differently because we knew that we had a limited amount of time in a way that i never perceived before i had a wife what that clear diagnosis. and i'd hope patients recognize that i value them as a doctor, regardless of how disabled they are, regardless of how sick they

are, that their life still has meaning and value. and i want to reflect that, even when they don't see it themselves. >> reporter: but what about the fear and the pain that can surround dying? why not help, i asked dr. toffler, if a patient asks? it is a very scary time. and at that time, i want to come around the person. i want to walk alongside them. i want to be the best doctor i can be. i'm called to be more of a doctor than ever. i'm not supposed to be the person who helps her to kill herself. that's all too easy. in a policy opinion, the american medical association says physician assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer. and some religious groups, most notably the u.s. conference of catholic bishops, have strongly opposed the practice. according to the gallup polling organization, a slim majority of americans supports assisted suicide, but it's only legal in three states-- oregon, of course, along with washington and vermont. and court decisions have opened the door for assisted suicide in new mexico and montana.

bio-ethicist arthur caplan, who was an opponent of the practice but now supports it, says the terms of the debate haven't really changed over the past 20 years, even with the publicity surrounding brittany maynard's case. >> i think what's different in this debate is that brittany maynard is 29, attractive, articulate, almost-- passionate about her right to choose here. that's making the debate focus for a group that didn't pay attention, younger people. >> reporter: caplan says fears of figures like dr. jack kevorkian helped derail the right-to-die movement in the 1990s and that improvements in end-of-life care have eased americans' concerns over suffering at death. >> i can't even tell you the amount of relief it provides me. but he says brittany maynard's case may provide new momentum for supporters of assisted suicide. >> i think she's shifting the politics in a way that we may

see some of the folks who got tied up in say, trying to broaden marriage laws and trying to see homosexuality gain wider acceptance move to say this is a choice i want. this is something i care about because it's her. >> reporter: on may 4, 2012, pam and ben wald gathered their closest friends in the living room. they sang songs together, and afterward, in the bedroom they shared, pam handed ben the medication that would end his life. he took it without hesitating. >> early on when i got together with my husband and we were first together, we'd be laying in bed together and he was thinking, he'd go like this with his hands. his hands were always moving. it's kind of like, it's when he was thinking kind of thing and everything. but what i've never forgotten is his hands were like this on his chest, and i held my hands on top of his. but his hands never went like that and they just stayed, because he was just at peace.

and his last words were, "thank you." and he died in two hours. >> reporter: ben wald was 75- years-old. so what can we learn from oregon's experience? katrina hedberg of the state health authority, who's neutral on the issue, tracks statistics on oregon's death with dignity law. >> initially there were a number of concerns that people had around would this be disproportionately used by people who were disenfranchised, so uneducated or people who might have had disabilities or those kinds of things. and we've really found that the people who are participating are people who really want to control the timing and manner surrounding their death. >> reporter: still, dr. toffler says those final months and days should never be cut short, as he

learned from experience with his own wife. >> we were married for 40 years. and in the last five years i think we had the best years of our life, when she actually had a terminal diagnosis. and i wouldn't trade those five years for anything. >> reporter: as for pam, she's now volunteering for compassion and choices, guiding other families through a process she now knows firsthand. >> nobody wants to talk about dying and death. but once we get into that, it really becomes an act of love. it really does. >> sreenivasan: for more of our coverage about the debate surrounding assisted suicide in the u.s. and for a deeper look at the impact of the right-to- die movement, read our producer's notebook online at newshour.pbs.org.

>> sreenivasan: and now to the arts, and the works of one of america's most celebrated artists, alexander calder. wbgh's arts editor jared bowen sat down recently with the chief curator of the peabody essex museum near boston to discuss the man and his creations. the exhibit runs till january. >> the notion that you could stand in front of something and wait to see if it moves, how it moves, automatically slows you down. it means you have to take a lot of time to look carefully. >> reporter: by working in movement, calder near single- handedly changed the definition of sculpture-rejecting tradition and those carved masses for which his own prominent family of sculptors was known. >> calder is one of these people who was in the right place at the right time. >> reporter: lynda roscoe hartigan has overseen this installation of calder's work at the peabody essex museum. it traces his career beginning

with his search for the new which took him to paris. throughout the 1920s and 30s he immersed himself in that city's avant-garde group. >> all this ferment was happening. you know, how do you write differently, how do you creative different kinds of music, how do you creative a new kind of art. he really knew how to connect with people and really got involved with artists like marcel duchamp and mondrian. >> reporter: that led to calder's lifelong fascination with movement and form-what many an observer has deemed his own ballets. >> when you think about how a dancer moves, so much of it is about balance. also, i think when you go through this exhibition you begin to see that there are conversations, there are partnerships among some of the works and so, you could say that it's like choreography. you could also say it's theatrical because its performative. >> reporter: it certainly helped that the mathematically-minded calder brought a hefty engineering prowess to his

connecticut studio where he made all of his own pieces using simple hand tools. >> he had a degree in mechanical engineering. where you would attach weight or release weight, how far you can extend before it goes woppy- jawed in a way that you don't want. sophisticated yet simple and basic principles of physics. >> reporter: along with a very limited color palette. calder loved black and white, hartigan says for it's impact and contrast. although the show is punctuated with color. >> red is the color he felt could really stand up to the black and white. yellow and blue, the other two primaries, become the colors he thought had good accent points. apparently, absolutely detested the color green. >> reporter: throughout his lifetime, calder remained a hugely popular artist. he began making large-scale

public art-interacting with audiences just as his mobiles and stabiles had, but in a grand way. >> he really felt like he could make large outdoor sculpture that could engage people's appreciation of space and architecture, that that could enhance their lives. >> reporter: calder died in 1976. his work has been much debated in the intervening years with critics targeting him perhaps because of his popularity. but hartigan says nearly 40 years after calder's death, there's no question that he remains one of the 20th century's most profound creators. >> the reason for his popularity is also the reason for his actual success as an artist because he was so committed to change. i mean, you cannot engage with space now without understanding with what he's helped us interact with as sculpture.

>> sreenivasan: this week marked the second anniversary of hurricane sandy. and here in new york city the recovery has been very uneven it's something that photographer nathan kensinger has documented in a series of photo essays for the website curbed. in this waterfront community in southern queens, flooding caused a fire that burned more than 100 homes. >> and it was kind of a wasteland, it had really just burned out a huge section of this neighborhood all around you, you were surrounded just by the smoking remains of these homes that had been completely destroyed by the storm. >> sreenivasan: this is what it looked like a year ago. and this is what it looks like today. >> it was a shock to see how much they had rebuilt, it was pretty amazing to see. it had gone from being completely burn out and nothing there to row upon row of houses. >> sreenivasan: but several

other shore communities here in staten island have gone in the opposite direction. right after the storm, kensinger met jean laurie. >> her house had been very damaged by the storm, but she had set up out front of her home this whole station to help give people food and water and warm clothes. she really wanted to bring her neighborhood back, even though sandy had just happened. >> sreenivasan: but two years later her home site is nothing but this patch of grass and dirt. the state offered her and other homeowners the pre-storm value of their home, plus a 5% to 10% incentive, with the idea that the area would be converted to a natural buffer zone against future storms. jean laurie accepted the offer. kensinger has documented that while some new yorkers who live by the shore have moved away from the water that did them such harm, not everyone has. >> geographically they are all right there on the water, the and they're going to flood again. and so some of them have chosen to come back and face that, and some of them, you know, the decision was like, you know, we can't live here anymore. we know we're going to flood

soon and we don't want to face that again. >> some more news before we leave you tonight. two days. the mid term elections polls show republicans leading in most of the heavily contested elections that will control the u.s. senate. and bernard mays has died. quote, what was needed was really a compassionate ear, someone to talk to. mays the founder of national public radio was 85. 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: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

♪ >> the theme for this year is russia and its influences. we put together this program with a lot of eastern european composers who are very influenced by russia. ♪ >> the greats of tomorrow, today -- "on stage at curtis." ♪ ♪ i