captioning sponsored by wnet >> stewart: on this edition for sunday, november, 30: officer darren wilson resigns as the march from ferguson to the state capitol enters its second day. inside the numbers-- how retailers and shoppers alike are feeling so far this holiday shopping season. and new options that may help those with student loans. 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, alison stewart. >> stewart: good evening thanks for joining us. i'm alison stewart in for hari sreenivasan. demonstrators are nearing the end of day-two of a week-long march across missouri. they're protesting a grand jury's decision not to charge a white police officer for killing an unarmed black teen. the march has been peaceful so far. the naacp says about 100 protesters are making the 120 mile journey from ferguson to the governor's mansion in jefferson city. darren wilson, the police officer who fatally shot michael

brown, resigned yesterday. in his resignation letter, wilson said he didn't want his continued employment to put residents or other officers at risk. today, the mayor of ferguson said wilson will not be offered a severance package. the mayor also announced a new community outreach program to increase the number of african- americans on the ferguson police force. >> they city of ferguson has established a scholarship program to recruit african- american candidates to attend the police academy. this initiative is a pro-active step in making the department more reflective of the demographics of our community. the attorney representing the brown family says civil action against wilson and the police department is possible. a justice department civil rights investigation into brown's shooting is on-going. also today, michael brown's parents attended services at the church where their son's funeral was held. the reverend al sharpton gave the sermon. sharpton is also helping to raise money to repair the church where michael brown's father is member. it was burned along with other buildings during protests last week. in the middle east, british human rights observers say u.s.- led warplanes conducted as many as 30 airstrikes overnight in

northeastern syria. coalition forces reportedly targeted isis militants around their de facto capital in raqqa. activists say at least 50 isis militants were killed in both the airstrikes and in clashes with kurds on the ground. at the same time, another human rights group reported that syrian warplanes targeted the southern province of daraa, killing at least a dozen people, including women and children. in egypt, protests erupted overnight with demonstrators condemning yesterday's court decision to drop criminal charges against ousted president hosni mubarak. two people were reportedly killed and at least nine others injured when security forces started firing tear gas, water cannons and birdshot into the crowds around cairo. police are blocking access to tahrir square, the site of egypt's arab spring uprising in 2011. in afghanistan, taliban insurgents have intensified attacks in the capital city of kabul targeting foreigners. this as kabul's police chief, general mohammed zahir, abruptly

resigned amid the increasing violence. authorities say a south african aid worker and his two children were killed when militants armed with guns and grenades stormed a compound overnight. taliban fighters reportedly took seven other people hostage. afghan security forces ended up killing the attackers and freeing the hostages. the world health organization now estimates that more than 16,000 people have contracted ebola and nearly 7,000 have died. even more troubling, the w.h.o. warns that these figures could be a significant underestimation. and today marks the official end of what's been a relatively mellow hurricane season. in fact, it's been a record- breaking nine years since a category three or stronger hurricane made landfall along the u.s. coastline. that was 2005 when hurricanes katrina and wilma hit the gulf coast and florida. meteorologists don't count superstorm sandy, since it was not a hurricane when it made

landfall in 2012. >> stewart: experts expect tomorrow's so-called cyber monday sales to see an uptick over last year. but will it be enough for businesses to consider the extended shopping weekend a success? for some insight we are joined now by shelly banjo of the wall street journal. shelly, let's just talk about the numbers, the sheer numbers. what kind of spending went on and when did it happen given so many stores opened on thursday? >> sure. so we're seeing spending on-line skyrocket. just up double digits, just the same as last year. really going above years past. and both thanksgiving and on friday and throughout the weekend. different numbers have come out versus, you know, how the brick and mortar retailers have faired but pretty much on par with last year. >> let's talk about that

brick and mortar versus on-line debate. for a while it seemed that brick and mortars were a thing of the past. everyone was shopping on-line. is that the case for this year? >> i think the on-line people definitely are shopping more but people still went out to the stores. so i went out to i a wall part on thursday night after thanksgiving and lines were out the door so much that i couldn't even get in. so obviously that is evidence. but you are definitely still seeing people show up and go the to stores. >> did the thursday openings have an impact on the black friday sales on saturday? >> i think it just shifts it. so i think what is starting to happen is you can't really just look at the black friday numbers. because when you are having sales all week, especially on monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, you can't just look at the black friday numbers in isolation. >> so this has become more of a marathon rather than actually a sprint on friday. >> right, right. so interesting. i want your take on the idea of the sort of packaging of this weekend. as you have black friday and then small business saturday and then today is good shopping sunday where some

stores are offering a percentage to charities, and tomorrow is cybermonday. is this actually reflect people's behaviors and their wants or is this just a marketing ploy to have retailers just continue to have people focused on shopping. >> right, i think it's probably a little bit of both. i think that a lot of people are coming to expect deals. but i asked one of the wal-mart executives this question and he said, you know, let's just call it november at this point, you know. because it's like every single day there are some sort of sales, marketing gimmick. and not only sales but also personalized e-mails telling you to come in, get an extra 10% off so it is just about messaging and ham aring down to the consumers, to get a deal to come in the stores and shopping. >> there is also an interesting statistic out there that people are shopping for themselves initially. that they are self-gifting is this good news for the economy, good news for the shopping season or is it just an effect of the economy that people are waiting to buy things

themselves so they go on sale? >> i think people are all waiting to buy things for themselves to go on sale, things like for example laptops, television, seeing a ton of consumer electronics this area. which is rare and interesting because consumer electronics haven't actually been doing that well. so a lot of people have been buying these thing thises for themselves and waiting because they know the discount is going to come to you. >> traditionally there is a lull after this five day period. what is the forecast? >> i think it's going to be a struggle for retailers to keep shoppers coming in. they've got three or four weeks now until christmas. and there is generally a huge black friday weekend and saturday before christmas. and in betweens, that's when the real fight is going to be. >> you said 10 and 15% doesn't cut it any more. >> you sea these signs now, 40% off, 50% off, in october. so why am i going to be excited about 10 or 15 percent off at a store. >> shelly banjo from "the wall street journal," thank you for being with us. >> thanks.

>> stewart: student debt is something millions of americans live with for years, even decades, after they graduate from college. now, two of the nation's largest private student lenders are rolling out options that will allow borrowers to modify the terms on their loans. for more about the significance of this, earlier hari sreenivasan sat down with marian wang, a reporter with "propublica" and anna maria andriotis of the "wall street journal." >> sreenivasan: so annamaria, let me start with you. explain the change. what kinds of modifications are we talking about? who does this apply to? >> so we're talking about declines in the interest rates that student loan borrowers are paying. and this announcement came out of wells fargo this past week. wells fargo is the second largest private student lender, and what they have decided to start doing is to lower the monthly payment by essentially lowering the interest rate to as low as one percent for borrowers. that's significant because

actually many borrowers have private student loans with interest rates that are 10% or higher than that. so what they're starting to see is significant declines in what they're paying monthly. >> sreenivasan: and banks didn't want to do this. why did they go forward with this? >> this is a significant turnaround, and there's a lot of discussion as to what has led to it. what we know is that over the past couple of years the consumer financial protection bureau has been applying a lot of pressure on private lenders, basically telling them that they need to start offering repayment options similar to what the federal government offers on its loans. the federal government offers a lot of flexibility for borrowers, in particular those who don't have high salaries. so there's been a lot of back and forth between the c.f.p.b. and private lenders. in addition, from the private lender side, what we have started hearing is that there have been a lot of internal discussions at banks about how do we increase loan revenue going forward? if we alienate student borrowers, people who are right

now in their 20s and early 30s, down the road when it comes time for them to get a mortgage or when they're looking to establish some type of banking relationship, we might not get those borrowers. they might go somewhere else. >> sreenivasan: right, right, right. so marian, put this population in perspective for us, because as she mentioned, the federal loans have already been doing some of this in the past. and how much can an average kind of borrower save if they qualify for this modification, do you think? >> well, just to give a little more context, the pool of private student loan borrowers is vastly outnumbered by the pool of federal student loan borrowers. and the feds originate a vast majority of student loan debt. and you're absolutely right that the feds have for a long time offered income-based repayment plans, things that will help you sort of scale your monthly payments to something that's reasonable for you if you qualify for those programs. >> sreenivasan: right. so is there an idea, is there kind of a benchmark that they know about what income level

this is going to hit someone at, and if they go from 10% to one percent, that's obviously a significant saving, but it also, i guess, depends on how much they have in debt, right? >> sure, so what wells fargo, at least, has said is it's going to look at their overall debt by looking at the borrowers credit reports and they're looking at their income, and they're hoping to come to something like a monthly payment that equals about 10 to 15% of their income. now, what's also interesting is that discover, which is the third largest private student lender in the country, is also planning on rolling out loan modifications early next year. what we've heard from them is there are potentially even more significant breaks that are being considered. for instance, loan forgiveness, which is something totally unheard of that a private lender would have never even considered up until recently. and it's important to point out that private student borrowers, though dealing with a lot of difficulties, as marian pointed out, are a small share of the overall borrowers out there. so private student loan debt accounts for about eight percent of outstanding student loans.

we've seen a lot of back and forth between lenders and the c.f.p.b. lenders are saying, why are you picking on us when the federal government accounts for the majority of that out there. >> sreenivasan: all right, so marian, what about the role that parents play in this? a lot of parents take out private personal loans on top of whatever the financial aid package is that the university can give, right? >> well, yeah, and there's actually a federal program that's specifically geared at parents that i did a report on a couple years ago. it's interesting because federal student loans to students in particular are capped at a certain level. you can only borrow so much in a year. and so, there's not a lot of underwriting and that's why there's a cap. this federal program for borrowing specifically geared toward parents, actually it's called the parent plus program, and that's an interesting program because those programs aren't capped. you can take as much out as you need. there's very limited underwriting for those loans.

and that program is interesting because you see a lot of the financial strain that families face through that program because it's not capped. and so you can see more parents taking out more loans, taking out larger loans through this program over time. you've really seen it especially in the last five years. >> sreenivasan: so are those loans through the parent plus program at greater risk for default if, say for example, a parent may not have a steady income coming in but they still qualify to take out a huge loan to get their kids through school. >> absolutely. that's something we looked at. there's very limited underwriting where they don't look at your debt-to-income ratio, like a private lender would. and they can take out vast amounts of money, as much as they need, essentially, to help their kid out, and a lot of parents do. that's absolutely a thing that parents can get overextended in doing so. >> sreenivasan: and what about the roles that colleges and universities play in this too? i mean, there doesn't seem to be that much transparency in figuring out exactly what the financial aid package is and why once student got this much and another student got this much,

when perhaps their parents made the same, right? >> well, what's playing out, the reason why we're seeing more borrowers, more students come out of school with more debt is because college tuition costs keep rising, right? and what become very confusing for families is when financial aid packages go out to students. and most schools, what they do is they include student loans as part of the financial aid package, federal student loans, that is, but one would argue is to how much of aid is a student loan when a student loan is something you have to pay back. it's not like grants or scholarships, for example. so colleges for sure do play a large role here. and there's been this ongoing debate about why should, for instance, the federal government keep giving out more and more aid? it's essentially incentivizing the colleges to continue increasing their tuition because they're saying, well, the money's got to come from somewhere, someone's going to pay for it. >> sreenivasan: right. >> and to your question, too, i

think absolutely, schools need to be brought into this. schools have their own pot of financial aid, essentially. and there's a sticker price, but they discount it heavily depending on what kind of student you are. and so they have your financial information and they are essentially moneyballing financial aid these days. >> sreenivasan: explain that. >> there's a whole industry called enrollment management. there didn't used to be enrollment managers at schools, you know, two decades ago. but that's a position that's sort of been created, essentially to use data, to really create detailed student profiles and do what they call, this is all jargon, but it's financial aid leveraging. how does the school get the biggest bang for its financial aid dollar? and sometimes that means they're essentially picking students that they are ok having over- borrow, versus students whom they really want and will generally try to protect from having to borrow. and so they're trying to incentivize certain students coming and certain students they care less about and they're more comfortable, honestly packaging

a student loan in that financial aid package. and that's a decision that schools are making, picking which students essentially get more, and which students will have to borrow more. and i think that should definitely be put on schools. the other thing i think is really important to bring up is that it's on schools to make sure that kids are graduating on time with a meaningful degree. and the surest way to get in over your head with student debt is to drop out and have debt for college and nothing to show for it. you don't have that credential. you don't have that higher earning power. that's a huge source of debt, and that's really a terrible situation for a student to be in. the other thing is graduating on time. it's a sure way to get more debt if you stay six years versus your peer who's able to get out in four. >> sreenivasan: all right, marian wang from "propublica" and annamaria andriotis from the "wall street journal," thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks for having us.

>> stewart: if you think recent college grads are the only ones dealing with student loan debt, think again. find out how america's seniors are affected. visit newshour.pbs.org. >> stewart: as you are about to see, musician betse ellis has a distinctive, fiery style of fiddling. but her love of music from the ozarks in her native arkansas wasn't truly sparked until a chance meeting with another fiddler, violet hensley, who recently turned 98. here's their story, which was produced by our colleagues at kcpt in kansas city missouri. >> reporter: when i fell in love with fiddle music, i fell so hard, and i turned away from pretty much all other genres of music for years. and it was only a few years into that first flush of loving traditional fiddle music that i met violet. and i hadn't spent too much time

with elder generation players before that, i had met a few. i had been really excited by some of those meetings and inspired by other ozark fiddlers in particular, actually, but i didn't have that many inspirations who were female. and meeting violet and this really strong lady, that first meeting was so impactful and she was so welcoming, and she cared enough to spend time with me. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i am violet hensley. i'm called the "whittlin' fiddler" because i've made 73

fiddles, made fiddles and played fiddle. i wanted to play the fiddle, i guess, because we didn't have anything else to do. but we didn't have television or radio. and dad played it, and i guess it just struck me as i wanted to play. i can't read, i'm not a musician. i just learned it, it's in my head. if i can't play it in my head, i can't put it on the fiddle. >> i like this lady right here, too. we've been friends all of our life, but we didn't know it until we met about 10 years ago. ♪ >> learning a tune from violet gives me the opportunity to see the whole picture literally. i like to think of fiddle tunes as melody. the notes come in the ears, and then the bowing comes in to the eyes.

♪ and so i can sit there and watch violet and see the circles that she draws, the little handwriting, as she calls it, with her wrists, and i can see how that has an impact on the overall tune. ♪ >> yeah, she's trying to copy my bow work. it just happens to be my arm's way of doing things. i developed that over the years of playing. i used to play, my dad was kind of a stiff arm fiddler. i'm still going to teach her some more. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> well, violet has her own approach to these tunes, so some of them are so unique that i've never heard the likes of them anywhere else. there are some tunes that come directly from her family.

♪ you know, violet and her existence and her example she puts out everywhere, it's also a great reminder to appreciate those who have lived very different lives from our own, people who've lived longer than we have and the multitude of lessons we can get from them. ♪ ♪ ( cheers and applause )

errs are stepping up demands for candidates not preselected by the chinese government. that is it for this edition of pbs weekend. i'm alison stewart, thank you for joining us. good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> hi, i'm rick steves. thanks for joining us. to showcase the beauties of public television, we've put together a little festival of clips showing europe at play. in the next half hour, we'll experience festive europe. from prancing horses to well-trained sheepdogs to street parties in paris, it's hands-on travel today as europe embraces life with gusto, inspiring us to get the most out of our lives as well. our first festival is in spain. the festival of san fermin in pamplona is an example of how special events are well worth planning for, and how anyone can enjoy a front-row seat. and when you understand the historical and religious context, you realize it's more than just running with the bulls. enjoy this high-energy first segment, and i'll see you at the break. hold on to your castanets. this is festive europe. pamplona, the historic capitol