. >> bryan cranston sits down with jeffrey brown on pbs "news hour weekend."ade possible by -- corporate funding is provided by -- additional support is provided by -- >>> from the tisch wnet studio at lincoln center in new york. >> good evening, thanks for joining us. the kremlin said today it had received thousands of calls for assistance from russian-speakers in eastern ukraine. a statement that could signal russia's intention to get more involved in the conflict there. military analysts said they saw no signs of a russian invasion. all this as ukraine continues its attack on separatists who had seized government buildings throughout ukraine. today they released the people they held captive. >> the osc observers, free after a week under the control of the self-proclaimed mayor. he said this was no kidnap. just an intended visit. >> translator: they're not being released. they're leaving us, as was promised. we celebrated my birthday and now they can leave for home. >> down the road and through the chicane to safety, their colleagues were there to meet them

over the past year, jeffrey brown and u.s. poet laureate natasha trethewey have been exploring that question in various corners of american life. they recently traveled to los angeles to look at how that played out with a graduate writing program at antioch university. it's the last chapter in our series on discovering ""where poetry lives." >> brown: on a recent thursday evening at a community hall just east of los angeles, alejandra sanchez led a group of latina women in a poetry writing exercise. >> you're going to use those five words. just freestyle with it and write a poem using the five words. >> brown: sanchez began the project as part of a requirement to get her masters in fine arts degree from antioch university, los angeles, which was founded as a satellite of the original ohio campus. the two-year graduate program demands that all students participate in a community service project to enhance the "writing life" of others. sanchez set up her field study project to work with low-income women who'd not had access to w

on friday, jeffrey brown sits down with opera legend jessye norman.ill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks among others. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> bnsf. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by cont

jeffrey brown has our report. >> brown: in jerusalem this morning, at the yad vashem holocaust memorial, pope francis laid a wreath of white and yellow flowers and kissed the hands of six holocaust survivors. >> ( translated ): remember us in your mercy. grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done, to be ashamed of this massive idolatry, of having despised and destroyed our own flesh, which you formed from the earth, to which you gave life with your own breath of life. never again, lord, never again! >> i thought i should kiss his hand, and he kissed my hand. >> brown: one survivor, joseph gottdenker, told the pope a catholic family had saved his life. >> i said i know that they are looking down from heaven and very proud that the person that they saved was in the presence of their pope. >> brown: earlier in the day, pope francis prayed at the western wall and left a hand- written note with the "our father" prayer amid the cracks of stone. at israel's request, the pope visited the "victims of acts of terror memorial", where he bowed his head and touched the stone. and also

jeffrey brown reports. >> we are united in our determination to impose costs on russia for its actions, >> brown: in the white house rose garden this afternoon, there were strong words for moscow. the president warned more severe economic penalties are coming unless russian leader vladimir putin backs off. >> our hope is, is that we shouldn't have to use them. we're not interested in punishing the russian people. we do think that mr. putin and his leadership circle are taking bad decisions and unnecessary decisions and he needs to be dissuaded from his current course. >> brown: mr. obama said there will be no choice but to act if russia disrupts ukraine's presidential election on may 25th. chancellor merkel agreed. >> ( translated ): the 25th of may is not all that far away. should that not be possible to stabilize the situation, further sanctions will be unavoidable. this is something that we don't want. we have made a diplomatic offer, an offer for a diplomatic solution. so it's very much up to the russians which road we will embark on. >> brown: earlier, though, a spokesman for pres

jeffrey brown traveled there recently. here's the last of his reports. >> brown: it's a simple act: driving a hearse through a poor neighborhood in the city of yangon. but it's part of a larger effort with great significance for the country, and the driver. in the 1980's and 90's, kyaw thu was one of myanmar's leading film stars. appearing in more than 200 movies, directing six others, and winning two burmese academy awards. he was so popular, the military government used him to star in several propaganda films. in one, he played a government soldier fighting rebels in the ethnic region of karen. >> ( translated ): we had to carry guns with bullets in them to assure our safety during the filming. the karen rebels had ordered me dead, they had a price on my head, because i was making these propaganda films. >> brown: at a certain point, though, kyaw thu realized that his sympathies were more with the protesters and rebels. so when the government asked him to do another propaganda film, he made a career-ending decision. >> (

jeffrey brown reports. >> we want our girls, we want our girls! >> brown: anger and frustration filled the air in lagos, nigeria, as hundreds of protesters demanded a stepped-up search for the girls. >> we want these girls to be rescued with immediate effect. we want them back alive because they are our tomorrow. >> brown: in all more than 300 female students were reportedly taken from a boarding school in northeast nigeria on april 14th. 53 later escaped. the leader of the islamist militant boko haram formally claimed responsibility today, but he dismissed the international outcry over the mass kidnapping. and, he declared the girls are now slaves. >> ( translated ): just because i took some little girls from their western education everybody is making noise. and i say stop western education, i repeat i took the girls, and i will sell them off, there is a market for selling girls. >> brown: already, it's reported that some of the girls have been forced to marry their kidnappers or taken to neighboring countries. >> we promise that wherever these g

. >> sreenivasan: jeffrey brown spoke to margaret a short time ago. >> brown: how do officials explaint's going on with vladimir putin and seemingly contradictory statements? >> reporter: they believe he's playing a double game. he wants to keep ukraine destabilized and torn between east and west. on the other hand, he doesn't want to be blamed entirely for messing up the election because the u.s. and europeans have made it really clear to him there will be tougher economic sanctions and you notice his remarks today came in an economic form of global c.e.o. in st. petersburg. so the intimidation campaign continues. he would like to make it look like the results are of dubious legitimacy, but i'm told people close to him are privately talking to the man considered to be the likely winner if not outright on sunday then in a runoff and that is the so-called chocolate king, multi-billionaire petro cherchgo. >> brown: what would be the impact on the donetsk people's republic? >> reporter: when we told them putin was going to move troops off the border, they look dismayed. this does not comp

our jeffrey brown has the story. >> a few minutes ago, secretary shinseki offered me his own resignation considerable regret, i accept it. >> brown: the announcement came just after shinseki left his private meeting in the oval office, ending his five-year stint in the veterans affairs post. president obama said the secretary decided he could not effectively deal with the scandal in the v.a. health care system amid growing cries for his ouster. >> he does not want to be a distraction, because his priority is to fix the problem and make sure our vets are getting the care that they need. that was ric's judgment on behalf of his fellow veterans. and i agree. we don't have time for distractions. we need to fix the problem. >> brown: more than 100 members of congress, of both parties, had demanded the secretary step down or be fired. in accepting his resignation, he heaped praise on the retired four-star general. >> ric's commitment to our veterans is unquestioned. his service to our country is exemplary. i am grateful for his service as are many veterans across the country. he has worked har

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: the world health organization calls it an extraordinary eventhat threatens the decades-long battle to wipe out polio. on monday, the agency declared an international public health emergency. bruce aylward is leading the w.h.o. polio effort. he spoke during a teleconference from geneva. >> while the virus has re- surged, i think it reminds us that until it's eradicated it is going to spread internationally and it's going to find and paralyze susceptible kids, indeed it could become endemic again in the entire world if we do not complete the eradication of this disease. >> brown: worldwide, there've been 74 confirmed cases of polio this year, three times as many as the same period in 2013. they're focused in asia, africa, and the middle east. in all, the outbreak has spread across at least ten countries. the w.h.o. singles out syria, cameroon and pakistan as the main sources of the disease. of those three, the vast majority of cases have been in pakistan. >> this slum in karachi is one of the last places in the world where polio is still a threat.

jeffrey brown has that. >> reporter: in 2008 california voters pass the proposition 8 a ban on same-sex marriage. latest turn in a long running battle over the issue largely waged state by state. it led to a federal pursuit of a federal lawsuit to overthrow prop 8 that ended in a major decision by the supreme court. the story is told in the new book "forcing the spring: inside the fight for marriage equality" by author jo becker the pulitzer prize winning reporter for the "new york times" and i have to add long ago a young staff person at the newshour. welcome back. >> thanks for having me brunchts to go back to where this started for you you saw a story in 2008. you managed to embed yourself with part of that effort. tell us how it started. >> i wrote a story for the "new york times" about ted olson, a guy liberals loved to hate. he won bush v gore for bush, how he had come to embrace this cause. i was hooked. you had rob reiner, the movie direct, chad griffin, a young political op pra active and the pairing up of these super lawyers ted olson and david boies who was his adder have usa

today tweeted a picture of herself holding up a sign with the hashtag, #bring- back-our-girls jeffrey brownnigerians make of all this and what assistance the u.s. can offer, i'm joined by jon temin, director of africa programs for the u.s. institute of peace. and heather murdock, who's in abuja covering the story for the christian science monitor. start where you. secretary kerry announced help from the u.s. he said, you're going to see a very, very rapid response. is it clear what that means? what is the expectation there? >> well, there's different expectations. publicly a lot of people are welcoming the u.s. thinking that if anybody can come save those girls, it is the u.s. there is? concern among security experts wondering if it could possibly escalate the situation and put the girls in harm's way. on the streets and protests most people are very happy that the u.s. is finally agreed to come and help them. >> reporter: this is a very small force, certainly for the moment not military focus but intelligence focused i guess in. >> tell generals focused also skills focused. law enforce. th

jeffrey brown reports. >> all those in favor of the motion to issue the subpoena will say aye. aye.rter: the house veterans' affairs committee voted overwhelmingly this morning to subpoena communications between veterans affairs secretary eric shinseki and his colleagues. the focus, allegations that employees at v.a. facilities in phoenix, arizona, and fort collins, colorado falsified records on delays in treating patients. a retired doctor in phoenix who had worked at the hospital came forward with allegations that up to 40 v.a. patients died while awaiting care. on monday, the head of nation's largest veterans group, the american legion, called for shinseki's resignation. >> there needs to be a change and that change needs to occur at the top. >> the administration needs to take steps now. this is long overdue. they should have taken steps months ago. >> reporter: three republican senators, including john cornyn of texas, quickly joined that call. >> the president needs to find a new leader to lead this organization out of the wilderness and back to providing the service that our

jeffrey brown has our story, part of his series, "culture at risk." >> looks like this one is another of a very long walk through all of this city, including some 880,000 parcels of land to survey its rich heritage. >> this one's 1927. there's a related feature, a tennis court in back. >> reporter: on this day mary ringhoff and evanne st. charles, contracted by the city, were in the hancock park neighborhood, first settled in the 1920's by immigrants from poland and russia. along the way, they took photographs, made notes, and logged information into an electronic tablet. when you walk up to these houses, what are you looking at? >> we look at the style. this is a spanish revival.ç the next one is a tudor revival. then we look at the alterations, whether they've put additions on. whether they've put in new windows. >> reporter: los angeles is, of course, constantly changing, constantly reinvpgting itself. but there's an effort underway now to document its history, its neighborhoods, its buildings, its people, its cultural heritage all that makes the city what it is. but the story sta

jeffrey brown reports. >> reporter: the $400 billion- dollar deal became reality at this ceremony inn wednesday. russian president vladimir putin and his chinese counterpart xi jinping toasted the 30-year pact between their state-controlled gas monopolies. >> ( translated ): this will be the biggest construction in the world for the next four years, without any exaggeration. it is new enterprises and thousands of new workplaces. >> reporter: today, a spokesman for china's foreign ministry also hailed the agreement. >> ( translated ): these deals play a significant role in promoting comprehensive energy cooperation and the overall strategic partnership between china and russia. to make it all happen, russia will lay thousands of miles of new pipelines across siberia. sending natural gas to china's major cities, as early as 2018. the deal is a victory for putin at a moment when russia faces western economic sanctions over its actions in ukraine. in washington, state department spokeswoman jen psaki said yesterday the sanctions will go forward, regardless. we turn to geoff dyer, u.s. di

jeffrey brown reports. >> brown: it was a highly- anticipated face-to-face between nuclear-armed rivals. on his first full day on the job, india's prime minister narendra modi met with his pakistani counterpart, nawaz sharif, for almost an hour. sharif, who took office just last year, described the conversation as cordial. >> i pointed out that we were at the beginning of our respective tenures with a clear mandate. this provides us the opportunity of meeting the hopes and aspirations of our peoples that we will succeed in turning a new page in our relations. >> brown: india's foreign secretary said modi pressed the issue of terrorism. >> it was conveyed that pakistan must abide by its commitment to prevent its territory and territory under its control from being used for terrorism against india. we also expect that necessary steps will be taken in the mumbai terror attack trial underway in pakistan, to ensure >> brown: the mumbai attack, in 2008, left 163 people dead at the hands of pakistani militants. india has complained that pakistan has slow-walked the investigation, and that the

jeffrey brown looks deeper, with the author of one of the new reports. >> the u.s. female population is the largest in the world with more than 2 million people behind bars. and while a nation that counts for 5% of the world's population it houses 25% of its prisoners. these numbers have increased fourfold over the past 40 years. a new report by the national academy of sciences examines the causes and consequences of this explosion in rates and recommends the u.s. revise its current criminal justice policies in order to cut down the figures. the qhar of the committee that issued the report joins us now, jeremy travis of john jay college of criminal justice in new york, welcome to you. >> thank you for the invitation. >> first the sheer size of this population which you call historically unprecedented and internationally unique. what are the key drivers that got us there? >> so the drivers are a big change in our pennal posture as a country so the how we think about punishment. how we think about how do respond to crime. and we have invested heavily in prison as a re

jeffrey brown has our appreciation. >> a rock, a river, a tree. >> brown: on a chilly january day in3, maya angelou captured national attention and, in her own special way, the spirit of the moment, for the inauguration of president bill clinton. the poem she read, "on the pulse of the morning" became a national bestseller. >> but today, the rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, come, you may stand upon my back and face your distant destiny, but seek no haven in my shadow. i will give you no more hiding place down here. >> brown: long before that moment, maya angelou had become one of the most respected authors and cultural figures of her generation, making a remarkable journey from rough beginnings. she was born marguerite johnson and spent much of her childhood in racially segregated arkansas. after her mother's boyfriend raped her at the age of seven, she retreated into silence for years. in 2012, at the new york public library, she remembered how books came into her life in those troubled times. >> i had been abused and i returned to a little village in arkansas. and a black

jeffrey brown has our book conversation. >> brown: a young black man narrates his story of friendship war in post-colonial africa. a young white woman narrates her story of meeting and coming to love that man in a small midwestern american town. the new novel "all our names" explores lost and found identities and a collision of worlds. its author, dinaw mengestu, was born in ethiopia but has lived most of his life in the u.s. he's a 2012 macarthur fellow and now professor of english at georgetown university. this is his third novel. welcome to you. >> thank you. >> i'm curious, did this start with you with the africa part of the story or the mid west america story or was it always intended to be together. >> it began very much with the sea and from there began to go and what happened to the mid west. my initial idea was to see if i could tell a story deeply rooted in the particular moment of africa's history i hadn't had a chance to explore yet in my work. >> brown: why that particular moment. explain it's in the 60's or so when the u.s. was off in the colonial period but fella par. >

brown envelopes in my desk. the people world over wanted to help with clues. and clues poured forth. we don't have any of that here. it is very quiet. >> jeffreys, 66% say it is likely flight 370's disappearance was due to actions by the pilot or flight crew. do you believe this was an intentional act? >> yes, i do, don. and going off the back of what mary was just saying in the absencof any terror-related finger presents if you like, i think the pilot is the cause of the disappearance of flight 370. and so do most of the investigators on the case. and that's the message coming out, is that the pilot input is the likely cause. >> jeff wise, roughly half think the search is being conducted in the wrong place. do you? >> you know, don, i think the more times goes on and we don't find anything in the southern ocean and the more evidence accumulate, that the shorts might have been barking up the wrong tree with this search area. i think there's a good chance -- i don't know he what happens to this plane, nobody does -- but i think there it is realistic it may be in the north. >> mary, officials are not holding out any hope that there are any survi