jeffrey brown explores that question. >> brown: 131 million americans- - more than a third of the country-- are expected to shop online before this day is out. that's according to the national retail federation. and brad wilson at the coupon site bradsdeals.com, says a lot is riding on that prediction. >> this day is the single largest e-commerce day all year round. it's so important for the retailers to be competitive. >> brown: in fact, holiday cyber shopping is already well under way. the analytic firm com-score says online sales for thanksgiving weekend were up 17% from last year, helped by greater use of mobile devices. at the same time, the retail federation estimates that total spending over the weekend, including brick-and-mortar stores, was actually down nearly 3% from last year. a record 141 million people went shopping, but the average shopper spent nearly 4% less than a year ago, partly due to deep discounts. some big retailers-- wal-mart and macy's, for example-- say they're not expecting any growth this holiday season, with six fewer days between thanksgiving and christmas.

jeffrey brown has our profile of carlos santana. >> brown: since his emergence in the san francisco music scene in the late 1960s, carlos santana has been recognized as one of rock 'n roll's greatest guitarists. ♪ whose latin-infused sounds and rhythms, beginning with the band that bore his name, have produced hit songs and albums that have sold in the millions. his appearance at woodstock helped rocket him to fame and concerts around the world continued to this day. in february, he makes his first concert tour of south africa, part of a long-held interest in the continent. and, just ahead of the kennedy center honors ceremony, we met up at the smithsonian national museum of african art in washington. santana's story began in mexico, first in the small town of autlan de navarro and later in tijuana as the son of a mariachi music violinist. >> i remember my dad playing violin since i was a kid. >> brown: what do you remember about it? what did you hear when you were a kid? >> it's a sound of screaming charisma. >> brown: screaming charisma? >> oh, my dad had charisma like he just-- the w

jeffrey brown has our look at a group of women of vision. >> brown: two boys chasing a kite through the rubble of an anti-government stronghold near yemen's border. a herder in norway chanting while tending his reindeer. a full moon hanging above the highway to mount st. helen's. three of the 100 photographs depicting cultures far-flung and close to home in an exhibition titled, "women of vision: national geographic photographers on assignment," part of the society's 125th anniversary celebration. it showcases 11 women, from veterans of the magazine to several who've completed just a few projects. one of the best known is 39- year-old lynsay addario, a pulitzer-prize winning war correspondent who's covered conflicts from iraq and afghanistan to darfur and congo for national geographic and the new york times. >> i go in because i think the story has to be told. like any journalist who dedicates their life to covering conflict. i feel very strongly that these stories need to be seen by the american public. >> brown: part of that coverage: capturing the daily life that somehow goes on amid

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: the dodd-frank act, signed into law by president obama in 2010, contained hundreds of provisions designed to avoid future meltdowns. among the most controversial: the volcker rule. named for the former fed chairman. >> all in favor, say aye. >> aye! >> brown: its final approval today by five regulatory agencies signals a major shift in practices banks can undertake, and their oversight. in an effort to prevent excessively risky bets like last year's so-called "london whale" trades, which led to $6 billion in losses for j.p. morgan chase, the rule bans so-called proprietary trading, when banks trade with their own money for a profit. banks are still allowed to buy and sell investments for their own clients, known as market making. they'll also be allowed to hedge those bets against potential losses. but deciding when a "hedge" crosses into dangerous territory will test regulators and bank officials. fed chairman ben bernanke spoke before voting in favor of the rule today. >> i note, though, the ultimate effectiveness of the rule will depend import

jeffrey brown has our book conversation. the tricky thing about being a writer or about being any kind of art cyst that in addition to making art, you also have to make a living. so like ann patchett author of such acclaimed novels state of wonder as her work of a writer as nonfiction. her new become there is the story of a happy marriage collects essays she's written over the years on various slices of life. and she joins us now, welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: so this idea of having to make a living. you realize that in your 20s. >> when my parents told me to leave. >> brown: but there you were, and you're wanting to be a novelist in your early 20s and the choices are waiting on tables and things like that. >> and teaching. i done know why they seem like parallel ca raers-- careers coy teach, coy wait table its, i could cook in a restaurant. food and teaching were the two skills i had. >> brown: but you found writing. >> there were problems with both. one i was too tired if i was a waitress, too tired at the end of

jeffrey brown talks with one of the continent's biggest stars. ♪ ♪ . >> brown: born in the west african nation of mali, daughter of a diplomat posted around the world, rokia traore and her music are african and western influences and languages. ♪ ♪ ♪. >> brown: musical career took off in the 1990s. ♪ ♪. >> brown: she late err moved back permanently to mali's capitol where she's lived through the troubled recent times for her country, including an islamist insurgency that for a time lead to the burning of precious manufacture you scripts and books and banning of music in parts of the north. ♪ traore new album addresses the problems of mali and the continent but also as its title, beautiful africa suggests, much more. we talked recently in washington and i asked her first how she describes her music. >> i would describe my music as mallian-- music, a mix of a profound mallian culture in which my music and yes, my personality is rooted and also opened to all my influences. i had during my travels when i was a child. >> brown: so a mix of traditional malian music and all that yo

jeffrey brown gets the details on what people need to know. >> brown: the administration also asked insurers to be lenient with late sign-ups and other problems. alex wayne covers all this for bloomberg news and joins me now. it will not extend or reinstate plans that are being canceled under at fordable care act. alex wayne explains all this from ploom berg new, first a brief overview, why these steps. >> sure, well the administers-- administration is trying to con front a number of problems that they either didn't anticipate when they were working on implementing this law or that they anticipated and didn't address in advance. so they've got a problem with enrollment. it's a bit anemic right now. they're only about half the pace they need to be to get the 7 million people that they said they wanted to enroll by the end of march. they've also had a problem with cancelled health insurance plans. they've had apparently many more people than they thought face cancellations at the end of this year, anywhere between 1.5 to maybe 4 or 5 million people in the country. >> brown: so one of the thing

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: the 300-page report recommends scores of changes in how the national security agency gathers intelligence. it urges the massive amount of phone record data collected by the agency be stored by telephone companies themselves or a third party. it also proposes requiring a court to approve individual searches of phone and internet records. at the white house, press secretary jay carney said president obama plans no public comment on the findings. >> in january, when the overall internal review is completed, the president will make remarks about the work that he has undertaken and the outcomes of his review. >> brown: the outside assessment was ordered after former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden leaked secret details about the agency's efforts last summer. intelligence officials maintain their data collection operation has thwarted a number of terror attacks. but opponents argue it goes too far. carney insisted the president's top priority is the safety and security of the american people. >> he does believe that we can take steps to refine our practices

jeffrey brown has our report. >> brown: the president faced the white house press corps after a difficult year that's seen his approval ratings sinking. but he insisted he's not downcast. >> that's not how i think about it. i have now been in office five years, close to five years, was running for president for two years before that, and for those who've covered me during that time, we have had ups and we have had downs. what i've been focused on each and every day is, are we moving the ball in helping the american people, families, have more opportunity, have a little more security, to feel as if... if they work hard, they can get ahead. >> brown: the beleaguered rollout of the health care law has contributed heavily to the president's slump in the polls-- from healthcare.gov's many problems to the cancellation of millions of policies. >> since i'm in charge, obviously, we screwed it up. and i'm going to be making appropriate adjustments once we get through this year and we've gotten through the initial surge of people who have been signing up. but, you know, having said all that, the bo

jeffrey brown has that. three south africans currently >> brown: tonight we hear from three south africans currently teaching in this country: penelope andrews is president and dean of the albany law school. mzamo mangaliso is a management professor at the university of massacusetts, amherst. charles villa-vicencio was the national research director in the south african truth and reconciliation commission. he's a visiting professor at georgetown university. penelope andrews i want to start with you. if i can frame it personally first tell us what nelson mandela meant to you growing newspaper south africa, how did you see him? >> well, for me growing up in south africa, certainly nelson mandela was a in many ways a mythical figure. but he also became a sim symbol of what south africa was to become. an mandela has always represented for me as a lawyer, a profound commitment to the rule of law, to constitutionalism and the possibilities of law to change people's lives. and i think he means that to me as a lawye

i mean we were desperate for change. >> brown: his aha! moment came while coaching his 11-year-old son's baseball team. having learned to record and post instructional videos for his players to watch outside of practice, he was struck by how much time was then left to focus on individual players on the field. he saw the educational potential starting with the power of videos. >> kids can go back and watch them as many times as they want. and me as an instructor or expert, i don't have to redo it all the time. and i can spend my time with the students in class, in actually assisting them. and so if i could do that with 11-year-olds, imagine what we could do with 15 or 16-year-olds doing math. >> brown: green went all in, flipping the entire school. urging his staff to rethink the use of technology and how it complements traditional teaching. and getting local businesses to help fund the effort. >> the legislative branch makes the laws. >> brown: now lectures are recorded and posted on-line. >> the american civil war lasted from 1861 to 1865

jeffrey brown fills in the picture. >> brown: it's one of the country's great museums now in a most unusual and potentially dire situation. the building and several thousand works of hart in-- art in the collection of the detroit institute of the art are owned by the city and the at this manager overseeing the bankruptcy has said it's possible that some those works could be sold to pay off creditors. our colleague's at detroit public television produced a documentary about the museum and its might in this excerpt museum directors argue against such a move. >> we were the first art museum in america to acquire a van gogh in 1920. we were the first art museum to acquire a matisse in 1922. we have the finest collection of italian sculpture in the western hemisphere. we're still the only major art museum to have a department of african american art. the argument more tends to be, "well, you've got four van goghs, why don't you just sell one of those because you'll still have three?" it's a total failure of public trust to do that. it's the most damning admission of failure. there's no precedent

tonight, jeffrey brown takes a closer look at that side of the story. >> brown: david ignatius, foreign affairs columnist for the "washington post," recently returned from a reporting trip to iran, where he looked at perceptions and opinions surrounding the country's negotiations with the west. he joins me now. welcome back. >> thank you. >> brown: you saw a lively debate within iran about this deal. explain what you saw and how did the sides divide. >> i was in iran for four days, not a long time so i don't want to pretend that i have any kind of comprehensive view. but i did manage to see representatives of the most pragmatic, pro negotiation wing, the foreign minister zarif and one of the hardest line people close to the supreme leader, a man name the hughes ann maduri who was the editor of the big conservative newspaper. these two spoke about the negotiations over the nuclear issue with the united states and other countries in such different terms. and what was fascinating to me was the pragmatist zarif and the hard-liner maduri each spoke as if they were talking for the supreme lea

jeffrey brown has more. >> brown: the review was commissioned by president obama after revelations by former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden. with me now are two of the five members of the panel: geoffrey stone, professor of law at the university of chicago. he's written extensively about constitutional law and civil liberties. and peter swire, professor at the scheller college of business at georgia tech. he served as chief counselor for privacy during the clinton administration. geoff restone let me start with you. you're not calling to end the program, but are you saying that as a general rule, the u.s. should stop collecting and storing mass mehtadata so how are we to understand that? how strong a critique is this. >> basically the critique says that there is potential value in collecting this type of information. but there are also serious potential dangers. and therefore the idea is to find a way to balance these two interests in a way that maximizes the necessary benefit. and so our conclusion is not that there should be no inquiry into the metadata but rather the data should

jeffrey brown has our book conversation. >> from the recording studios in memphis ♪ i saw the weeping will owe how to cry ♪ ♪. >> california follow some prison ♪ ♪ i hear the train a coming ♪ ♪ it's rolling and the bend ♪ ♪ and i ain't seen the sunshine ♪ ♪ since i don't know when ♪. >> to the famous last video he recorded before he died ♪ i hurt myself today ♪ ♪ to see if i still feel ♪. >> johnny cash crossed musical boundaries and influenced and moved several generations of singers, songwriters and fans even while he struggled with his own addictions and pains. all of this can be found in johnny cash the life, a new biography by robert hillburn who serveds achieve music critic for the los angeles times it for more than 30 year, welcome to you. >> thank you, jeff, nice to be here. >> brown: the man himself wrote memoirs, there is the famous hit movie, right, walked line. there's been other biographies, why did you feel it was necessary, what has been missed that you wanted to kaptur. >> well, i had known cash from the follow some prison days through the

jeffrey brown has our conversation a a disenchanted washington lobbyist, just some of the american pros file add long with well-known figures like oprah colin powell and sam wallton in this year's national book award winner for nonfiction, the unwinding, a story of american institutions and people coming undone amid large scale economic and social changes. author george is a staff writer, join us now and congratulations. >> thank you. the unwinding in broad terms, it's a breakdown of institutions, right? things that used to work but no longer do. >> and social contract that sort of underwrote all of them. a contract that said if you work hard, if you essentially are a good citizen, there will be a place for you, not only an economic place, you'll have a security life, your kids will have a chance to have a better life but will it be recognized as part of the national fabric? and over the generation of my adult life going back to the late 70s, that fabric has come unraveled and the contract has essentially been torn up. >> brown: how what happened? >> it's complicated. some of it was the

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: "the mission's already accomplished. i already won." the words of edward snowden from an extended interview conducted in moscow. it comes six months after snowden's revelations first appeared in newspapers. barton gellman of the "washington post" wrote some of those key early stories and it was he who's just interviewed snowden. he's also a senior fellow at the century foundation. gellman joins us now. >> the welcome to you, clearly edward snowden feels you succeeded how does he define his mission and what he silt out to do? >> that's exactly the important question. he is not saying he succeeded in remaking the world or changing any particular policy. what he wanted to do was take big important decisions out of a small secret world and give it to the people, on whose behalf the policies were undertaken. he thought something big and dangerous was growing in terms of a big sur vail answer apparatus, he wanted the american people to decide for themselves what the limits should be. >> that question aimed at him, who elected to you decide wh

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: it's considered by many the world's most important exam. the program for international student assessment, or "pisa" test, has been given to 15-year- olds in 65 countries every three years since 2000. a way to test and compare performances in reading, math and science. results from 2012 were released today, and, once again, the u.s. hovered near the middle of the pack, lagging in some areas even as other countries advanced. math remains the biggest challenge. 29 other systems had higher average scores than american high schoolers. the u.s. fared better in reading, where it ranked 20th, and in science, ranking 23rd. the best results were in east asia, where students from shanghai, singapore, south korea and japan, among others, placed near the top. pisa results also showed another concern for american teens as well: a smaller percentage of them reached the top levels of proficiency. as in the past, though, some education experts questioned just what and how much pisa tells us, given social, cultural and economic differences among nations. th

jeffrey brown has our book conversation. >> who was jesus? how have his words and deeds resonated from his time to ours? a new book examines the questions not from the perspective of a religious scholar but of a writer, poe and the time teacher of literature, jesus the human face of god is the face in a series called icons, short biographies on figures that changed history. jay parini is professor of english at middlebury college. among the previous works are "the last station" and a biography of robert frost. welcome. >> good to be here. >> i want to use that starting point that you will not a religious scholar. you're approaching this as a writer. what did you think that you wanted to bring to the life of jesus. >> i was hoping at a poet and novelist i could bring energy to the narrative. this is a great story, and i use the word all through the work mythos, the greek word for myth i always say that a myth is a tear in the fabric of reality, through which all of this spiritual energy pours, and i'm trying in this book to trace the outline o

jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> it's the longest-running weekly prime time series in the country and most honored. 17 peabodys and 57 emmys to its credit. upstairs downstairs put masterpiece theater on the map in 1974. other british dramas followed. >> good evening. i'm alistair cooke. >> each program introduced by a host with alistair cooke holding the position for 22 years. >> what's become of him? >> what becomes of anybody? >> the series helped launch the american careers of many well renowned british actors. >> she was murdered, michael. she was found in a prostitute's exeter. now i want you to look at this photograph. >> presumably they thought you were. now look here -- excuse me. >> reporter: several years ago masterpiece updated its look and moved into three parts, classic, mystery and contemporary. >> and it's now of course with downtown abbey, the highest pbs drama of all time. behind the scenes for the last 25 years, rebecca eaton, author of "making masterpiece." >> rebecca joins us now. welcome. >> thank you. >> you start the book with an anecdote about how you first

. >> and jeffrey brown looks at images of war, before, during, and after. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> "pbs newshour weekend" is made possible by lewis b. cullman and louise hirschfeld cullman, mutual of america, judy and josh weston, citi foundation, in memory of miriam and ira d. wallach, cheryl and philip milstein family, rosalind p. walter, additional support is provided by -- and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs sto z station from viewers like you. thank you. >>> good evening. thanks for joining us. the white house said today it's met its goal of improving healthcare.gov so that millions of americans can buy health insurance. the administration's progress and performance report said the website now works smoothly for the vast majority of people using it. it called the site stable 90% of the time and said it is now operating at its intended capacity with pages failing to load less than 1% of the time. but republican senator bob corker warned that those trying to sign up for health care plans offered on th

jeffrey brown reports. >> then there are pictures that feature an individual and you grieve for that individual. or you wonder what happened to them. >> that's it for this edition of "pbs newshour weekend." i'm hari sreenivasan, thanks for watching. >> announcer: "pbs newshour weekend" is made possible by luis b. and lu ouise coleman, judy and josh westin, joy b. hale, the wallet family, in memory of miriam and ira d. w wallich, bernard and irene schwartz. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america, designing customized, individual, and group retirement products. that's why we're 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. >> explore new worlds and new ideas through programs like this. made available for everyone through contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by tjl productions, llc] >> folk music has been around as long as there have been folks to sing it. folk music is about real pe

marcela also went to brown and then medical school. third child david, harvard, and while i would like to tell you my seat mate normandy went to college without incident, it didn't happen that way. >> as we flew our last leg into dallas international, i learned one month before his freshman year in college, nor handes of almost killed in a bicycle accident. >> he was in a coma for day, his brain so damaged that when he finally woke up he couldn't see very well or think clearly, and yet he attacked his rehabilitation with such determination that his father, perhaps the strongest man he knew began calling him el trucador, the fighter. and so he entered college on time, a full year before doctors thought he could do it. >> he's one of the people i most admire in this world. he is just something else. ♪ >> five weeks after i met normandy he graduated from harvard university. the fourth in his family to earn an ivy league education. ed they done it with scholarship, with you when i asked him how his parents could afford the week-long trip