♪ geoff: good evening. amna: on the newshour tonight, the international criminal court issues arrest warrants for israeli and hamas leaders. geoff: offensive's president and foreign minister are killed in a helicopter crash raising questions about the future of

the country. >> it will bring the resistance a big step forward. this was a big blow. amna: and the prosecution rests its case in former president donald trump's criminal hush money trial. ♪ announcer: major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the newshour including leonard and norma clarifying and the judy and peter bloom kohler foundation. >> to read tired executives turned their attention to greyhounds. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose and the way you give

back. life well planned. announcer: william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world at hewlett.org. and with the ongoing support of these individual -- of these individuals and institutions. ♪ ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the newshour

appeared in an unprecedented announcement the international criminal court said it was seeking warns tourist notnly the leaders of hamas but also the elected leadership of israel on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. geoff: president biden called it outrageous and prime minister netanyahu called it a blood libel but the prosecutor defended his decision. nick schifrin starts our coverage. >> my office charges netanyahu as co-perpetrators. reporter: devastating and divisive allegations by international criminal court prosecutor. accusing israel of intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population and the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. requesting arrest warrants for netanyahu and the defense minister. >> these individuals through a common plan have systematically deprived the civilian population

of gaza of objects indispensable to human survival. reporter: the icc also seeks arrest warrants for a hamas leader including the military branch leader on the right, both of whom are hiding in gaza and the political bureau had who -- who openly lives in qatar who kidnapped more than 250 on october 7 accuses lee. >> these three hamas leaders are criminally responsible for the killing of israeli civilians and attacks perpetrated by hamas and other groups on seven october, 2023. reporter: israeli and u.s. officials argued the icc has no jurisdiction especially with ongoing mastic investigations in israel. the prime minister calling it outrageous. >> through this and send here a decision, he takes his place among the great anti-semites in

modern times. he stands alongside those infamous german judges who put on their robes and upheld walls that denied the jewish people their most basic rights and enabled the nazis to perpetrate the worst crammed -- crimes in history. reporter: the announcement united usually fractious lawmakers in israel. >> it is unforgivable. we have and our managing -- and are managing a just war and will not stay silent. reporter: president biden called the announcement outrageous and said there was no equivalent between israel and hamas. hamas also condemned this announcement. a panel of judges will now decide whether to issue the warns he requested today. for the pbs newshour, i am nick schifrin. geoff: we will get to perspectives.

a professor from rutgers law school and the chair of international law at the hebrew university of jerusalem. he is also a form that he is also a former chair of the human rights committee. how significant is this move by the chief prosecutor at the international criminal court to seek arrest warrants for top leaders from both israel and hamas? and what might the practical impact of this be given israel's government does not recognize the icc? >> the significance is tremendous. we have the prosecutor of the international criminal court bringing serious charges against the leaders of hamas and the israeli military and political as tablet schmidt and their -- establishment and it is a variety of cris including murder, rape, torture for hamas and on the israeli side, the use

of starvation as a method of warfare. both the leaders of hamas and israel have been charged with crimes against humanity as well as war crimes. these are incredibly serious allegations. serious crimes. and the fact they are being charged in an objective manner by the prosecutor is of enormous significance. the practical significance may be limited. difficult to execute them. but they are significant into other ways. the expressive value. affirming the rights and dignity of the victims of crimes convicted -- committed. and the other is to catalyze the political process to bring the conflict to a close and create accountability for the many victims on both sides. geoff: what about that?

what has been the reaction in israel? do you think this move by the icc might change the way israel is carrying? ? out its >> i would note that the prosecutor -- although the charges are quite significant and broad, ultimately they deal with a relatively narrow set of facts. with hamas, it is dealing with the murders that took place on october 7, the taking and mistreatment of hostages and on the israeli side, it has to do with the policy of humanitarian aid which has been characterized as a form of a policy of starvation. reaction in israel is extremely negative. the very idea that hamas -- that the israeli leadership is put on

a similar level to the hamas leadership is regarded as a form of insult. and i imagine that israel is not going to cooperate with these proceedings going forward. it has also been commented a lease by the opposition that this is a diplomatic failure by the government. that it has led us to such a low place. will it affect the war in the short run? probably not. israel has changed its policy with regard to humanitarian aid. now the declare policy is allegedly flooding the gaza strip with aid. but i do believe that beyond the very short term range, this could be another impetus for israel to bring the war to an end because it does appear to be in a state of a tailspin where

the legal front and diplomatic france are becoming got and diplomatic front -- and diplomatic front are becoming more complicated. geoff: president biden called this outrages and antony blinken said the u.s. fundamentally rejects a call for arrest warrants and says it could jeopardize diplomacy for a cease fire or hostage deal. how do you assess the u.s. response? >> the u.s. response has been disappointing. a striking feature is i have not yet seen any defense of israeli policy on the merits. the objections are on -- are to suppose it equivalents being drawn between the israeli and hamas leaders. nothing really though on the

merits. nothing saying the israeli leaders are not guilty as charged. on the point of equivalence, it is important to understand that international law does not compare individuals with each other. it compares the conduct of individuals to their leader -- to their obligations. the standard is the law. is each side complying with legal obligations? according to the prosecutor, neither side has complied with its obligations. both should be brought to justice. geoff: the icc chief prosecutor has faced significant pressure from washington for months to avoid bringing arrest warrants against top israeli leaders in particular and yet they move forward anyway. what accounts for the timing? what is the overall impact on the israeli prime minister and his political standing? >> his political standing for

the short time, we will see some rallying around the flag and there has already been more than 100 parliament members signing a statement that condemns the proceeding. but in the long run it does increase the perception of netanyahu as a political liability for the state of israel. netanyahu who ran many campaigns on the basis of his diplomatic skills i think may be running out of road in this regard. geoff: thank you to you both for your insights. we appreciate that. >> thank you very much. ♪ amna: in the days other headlines, the container ship that caused the deadly bridge collapse in baltimore has returned to porch. the dolly made the slow journey back to land escorted by tugboats. the bow is still covered with

damaged containers. court officials said they are getting closer to fully reopening the channel. >> as early as the depth and draft necessary to bring in larger vessels, the depth is there. we don't have the width. there are still bridge sections in place. as a unified command and army corps have indicated, they are looking at the end of may. amna: shipping company officials are working on allowing the crew members to disembark. they have stayed on board for maintenance and help investigators determine what led to the crash. wind and hail battered large parts of oklahoma and kansas last night as the leaders -- as the latest bout of severe weather swept through the region. officials say two people were injured. the national weather service received 13 tornado reports across three states. on the rez -- and the risk of

severe storms is expected to continue until tuesday. lloyd austin as vowing to keep the flow of weapons moving to ukraine as russia intensifies its attacks. austin spoke this morning to a virtual meeting of some 50 defense leaders from europe and around the world. he promised weapons would keep coming week after week. >> we are again delivering urgently needed assistance to ukraine and the security assistance we are rushing there will make a difference in this fight. the u.s. remains determined to do our part. amna: his comments come as ukraine's president expressed frustration over the pace of western military support. he said that for every one big step forward, there are two steps back. a british port -- court has ruled that julian assange can challenge his extradition to the u.s. his lawyers had argued his

free-speech rights would not be protected if you was sent here to face trial. his supporters celebrated the decision. the australian activist has been indicted on 17 as bnr's charges over the publication of classified documents. his wife called for u.s. authorities to drop the charges. >> as a family we are relieved. but how long can this go on? the united states should drop this case now. now is the moment. amna: he has spent the last five years and a british prison after seeking refuge at the ecuadorian embassy in london in 2012. and in the u.k. a public inquiry has concluded that a blood transfusion scandal was not an accident. it finds that britain's national health service knowingly exposed tens of thousands of patients to tainted blood from -- trying to

cover it out. an estimated 3000 people are known to have died. the british prime minister apologized to the victims and their families today. >> this is a day to of fate for the british stage. at every level the people and institutions in which we place our trust failed in the most harrowing and devastating way. amna: he also said the details of the $12 billion compensation package for victims will be announced on tuesday. the chairman of the federal deposit insurance corporation is resigning. martin is currently serving his second term as head of the bank regulator. he has come under fire after an external review found evidence of a toxic workplace culture including reports of employee mistreatment.

in a statement he said in light of recent events i'm prepared to step down from my responsibility once a successor is confirmed. on wall street stocks drifted to a mixed close in a quiet trading day. the dow jones closed back below 40,000. the nasdaq rose 108 points. the s&p 500 added four points. and a wall street related passing of point. ivan bows ski has died. he was the basis for the michael douglas character in wall street. he made his fortune betting on corporate takeover targets often with the help of illegally obtained information. as part of a plea deal he worked with authorities to bring others to justice including michael milken. he was 87 years old. still to come on the newshour,

major question surface about the future of artificial intelligence as tech firms showcase new products. we break down the latest political headlines. and we get an inside look at a career retrospective of critically acclaimed -- of a critically acclaimed arthur -- artist. >> this is a pbs newshour from w eta new stations in washington. amna: iranian president and the country's foreign minister were found and confirmed dead today hours after their helicopter crashed in fog leaving the as llama grow public without two key leaders as extraordinary tensions grip the wider middle east. a supreme leader who has the final say in the shiite ya chris quickly named a little-known vice president as caretaker until a new election and

insisted that the government was in control. the deaths mark another blow to a country be set by pressures at home and abroad. reporter: it was a crash felt across the middle east. iran iniran's mountainous -- in iran's mountainous northwest. after an hours long search, rescue teams found no survivors. among the eight people on board, iran's hard-line president and the supreme leader's protégé as well as the cotry's foreign minister -- two of iran's senior figures killed. >> this is a serious incident for all of us. reporter: a stunning loss that threatens instability but today, the newly appointed caretaker delivered a message of reassurance.

>> the country will continue moving forward under this leadership. everyone should continue on with their roles despite this incident. in no way will this interfere with the running of our country. reporter: the president was viewed -- the vice president was viewed as a regime loyalist. and a presidential candidacy in 2017. that year he lost. four years later he won after a carefully choreographed election campaign. his government cracked down on internal unrest after the death of another leader sparking massive protests in 2022. he won the presidential election with the lowest voter turnout in four decades. he was clearly not a popular figure. even so many believe his carefully engineered political rise would not end in the presidency. many believe he was being

groomed to replace the supreme leader. the most important question now may not be who the next president is but who the next supreme leader will be. in tehran, several of his followers were mourning. >> he humiliated the enemies. he made us proud. reporter: outside iran's borders, different sentiment. in berlin, iranians living in exile showed little sorrow. >> we are very happy. we hope that we as soon as possible will take our country back. reporter: he and his convoy were flying back from azerbaijan on sunday. he met with leaders and visited

a dam construction site. flying conditions were poor but officials did not say what caused the bell helicopter to go down. u.s. state department officials blamed iran for flying the helicopter carrying the president and bad weather. >> ultimately it is the iranian government's responsibility to choose to fly a helicopter in poor weather conditions. reporter: the acting president spoke with leaders of russia and turkey and condolences poured in from countries around the world. officials from lebanon, syria and iraq announced a warning period for the next three days. amna: to break down what this means for iran's future and how it impacts foreign policy, we turn to suzanne maloney, the director of foreign policy at the brooks thing -- at the brookings institution. let's begin with the helicopter

crash. is there any reason to believe this was anything other than an accident? >> i think the most realistic explanation is one that is the most obvious. it was very poor weather based on some of the scenes of the rescue efforts. there was fog. there was rain. and it was a helicopter that was quite old. it is understandable that there are conspiracy theories. iranians have a tendency to interpret events in light of their own history and in particular the region has been a flame recently. iran recently struck israel in an unprecedented attack and the israeli response was mild given the past history of israeli assassinations, it is not surprising there are conspiracy theories among iranians and those in the region. amna: tell us more about the leader.

not a popular man but tell us about his leadership role. >> his most notable achievement was his role in the deaths of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 who were sent to their deaths in sham trial over -- over which he and others presided. that cemented his rise through the judicial apparatus which is not traditionally a path to power in the executive branch. he was plucked from the judiciary being groomed for something greater by the iranian supreme leader. he had run the largest religious shrine. many considered him to be the leading candidate for the succession to the so cream leader who holds the ultimate authority. amna: and he was a protégé.

he was 85 years old. succession talk is ramping up. is there a clear successor? >> the only other well-known candidate is the son of the current supreme leader and who was quite influential behind the scenes but has never held a leadership role and has dubious clerical credentials. given this as a system that has invaded against hereditary monarchy. this would be quite a critical moment. amna: there is enormous upheaval in the region. could the uncertainty of this moment have broader implications outside of iran? >> i think it will have a big shock to the system. the foreign minister that was killed was quite influential and well-connected to the security

bureaucracy and played a major role in iran's coordination among its proxies. his loss will be felt. the regime will be on edge as they want to avoid an appearance of vulnerability. the population has demonstrated little interest in these heavily managed elections. and they have to ensure they set the leadership up for a smooth transition with the expectation of a potential succession for the supreme leader. amna: do you see any future leader dramatically changing iran strategy? >> it is hard to imagine someone coming from within the system that could make major changes. there have been times in the history where there have been movements to try to promote gradual rough form. those have been shut down by those that control the security bureaucracy and the judiciary.

he was a key figure in that repression. he is likely to be replaced by someone with a similar background. amna: one gentleman said that his death could empower or embolden the resistance within iran. >> i think it is an opportunity. iranians have few opportunities to celebrate and dream of something different for their country. i look forward to seeing what may happen over the course of the upcoming weeks. amna: suzanne maloney from the brookings institution, thank you for your time. ♪ geoff: cross-examination wrapped up today for michael cohen, donald trump's former lawyer who is also a central witness in the trial against the former president. mr. trump lead defense lawyer

portrayed michael cohen as a serial liar and some that has profited by turning against his former boss. the prosecution has rested his case against the former president. william brangham was in court today. the cross-examination ended today, his fourth day on the stand. how did mr. trump's legal team tried to undercut the man that was the most important witness for the prosecution? reporter: they did what they did a lot of last week which was point out all the ways they could wear michael cohen said one thing one time and said the opposite another time. they kept bringing up stories of how he said -- once upon a time that donald trump had no knowledge of the stormy daniels hush money scheme and now claims that he did. todd blanche again was saying that michael cohen is not motivated to be a truth teller as he sometimes likes to portray

himself but is motivated by vengeance and greed. he brought up how michael cohen has made millions of dollars off books and podcasts. he is arguing that if donald trump is convicted that michael cohen will make more money. he got michael cohen when to admit that he stole money from the trump organization. all of these stories are just to reiterate to the jurors that michael cohen is not a just worthy trustworthy witness and everything coming out from him is not to be believed. michael cohen himself under this cross-examination reiterated what he has said all along which is yes, i lied at one point for mike -- for donald trump because i was loyal to him and under his sway but i am not anymore and i am now telling the truth. geoff: when it was the donald trump's legal team, they called robert castello who tried to further undercut michael --

michael cowans credibility, what did he have to say? >> he would is a form -- he is a lawyer in private practice. in 2018 after michael cowans offices and apartment were rated by the fbi with regards to a different investigation, because dello offered himself -- close dello -- costello offered himself. michael cohen says costello to him felt like he was part of a pressure campaign from rudy giuliani and by donald trump to make sure that michael cohen never changed the story. on the stand today costello said when i first met michael cohen he said i have nothing on donald trump to offer. donald trump knew nothing about

the stormy daniels business. he read just to any notion he had been trying to pressure michael cohen did change his story. his testimony was something of a last-minute addition and he was truly a cantankerous and feisty witness. several times he expressed verbal displeasure with the judges comments, with the judge sustaining certain objections. the judge was heard by the way he was behaving and he cleared the courtroom and gave him a tongue lashing saying when you are in my courtroom, you will not behave this way and you will uphold a certain level of the corm no side i. the jury was brought back in and he finished his testimony. he will still be on the stand for more cross-examination tomorrow. geoff: walk us through the timing for the rest of the trial. expected to wrap up early next

week? >> that was the plan. the judge did not want to have a circumstance where this week the jury got to hear the closing arguments from both sides and then sat with that information for the entire memorial day weekend. he said that because the testimony ran long, we will push this off and have closing arguments tuesday after memorial day. geoff: that is william brangham in new york city for us. thank you. ♪ amna: rapid advancements in artificial intelligence continue as companies roll out new products sparking wonder and concern. over the last week, openai unveiled its next generation chatgpt 4.0. the new ai assistant can respond

to visual commands and voice commands in real time. >> a bedtime story about robots and love? i've got you coverage. gather around. once upon a time-- >> i want maximum expressiveness. >> understood. let's amplify the drama. once upon a time -- >> can you use a robotic voice now? >> initiating dramatic robotic voice. once upon a time -- amna: openai paused the boys of that virtual boys after some pointed out its similarity to scarlett johansson. >> good morning, theodore. you want to try getting out of bed? i want to learn everything about everything. amna: google unveiled a new ai

powered search function this week. for more on that we are joined by the editor and chief of the verge and host of the decoder cost -- decoder podcast. making major changes to how billions of people search the web. users will see a ai generated answer to their search. >> this is a momentous change to how the web works today. a lot of websites you visit are driven by the need for google traffic. when google starts keeping more of that traffic to it south, that will change the economics of putting content on the web and might shift it to other platforms like tiktok and instagram and it will shift up how the web organizes its structure. google has a big question to

answer around what is the incentive to put new content on the web is if it is just going to present it to people searching for free. and i spoke with a representative and he said it is a paradigm shift. amna: you describe the reaction to this news as fundamentally apocalyptic. >> the web has reached a steady-state over the last 25 years at where people put up websites, google indexes of the websites and they allow google to do that and in return google sends traffic to websites. it is a huge portion of traffic for a lot of the websites. google search traffic. if google starts to keep the traffic for themselves, a lot of business as well fail. amna: what about this chatgpt bot that openai just revealed?

is this the model of how we will interact with tech one day? >> it is the vision. google unveiled something similar. the idea to have a multimodal search interface with a phone in your hand and it is talking to you about what it sees. it has a personality. openai is really leaning into the personality factor. we have not seen a huge leap in terms of accuracy. the fact bots are good at language so you can build convincing products. they can do different image generation and recognize videos of broken toys and your home and tell you how to fix them. the flipside is a language and intelligence are not 100% correlated or maybe not at all. you see a gap where you ask a question and it is very confident in what it tells you

but it is sometimes wrong. that is that thing that will hold these kinds of products back. they have to get better at being accurate. i think we are seeing incredible advances with the facility with language and a steady state in terms of intelligence. amna: microsoft is going to make its own big ai announcement this week. what do we expect? >> today microsoft unveiled a new line of ai pcs. the chip will be faster than the chip in apple's product. and they are rolling out a new vision -- version of windows. including recall. the operating system or windows watches along with you as you use your computer. you can oust it questions. as you play games, you can ask it about what is on the screen. as you are using the applications on your pc and it

-- and you ask for help, it can help. this has been the dream for a long time. you will have an intelligent agent on your computer helping you use that computer. microsoft took the first steps to that today. it seems compelling. i have a lot of questions about privacy and security and where that data is going and who is tracking it. microsoft -- amna:amna: you mentioned privacy and security concerns and accuracy concerns with some of the other ai functions. how much insight do you have into where all of the concerns rank in terms of how quickly some of these tech firms are pushing out new products? is it a shared concern? >> i don't think that concern ranks nearly highly enough. you are seeing an extraordinary battle among a bunch of big tech companies that feel the

competitive pressure for the first time in a long time from openai and another -- and one another and they are racing to capture market share cannot be left behind. in a few weeks, apple will roll out a bunch of ai features and we will see them partner with google or openai. we have to see what they claim. that is all because of the pressure that this is a paradigm shift on the order of multiple. and if you get left behind, you are going to lose a ton of market share. amna: that is the editor in chief of the verge. thank you for being with us. ♪ geoff: as donald trump's try on years its conclusion, high-profile republican supporters continue to make

appearances to the new york city courthouse to show their support for the former president good is this the new litmus test for gop candidates? one of the questions for our monday team. amy walter and tamra keith. let's start there with this stream of gop elected leaders who have been making the pilgrimage to the new york city courthouse to speak out in support of donald trump. what should we make of this? these elected leaders say they are there to speak on behalf of mr. trump. >> they are delivering the message that the former president wants to have delivered. a message that both with their presence and their words is saying that this trial is not serious. this trial is a witchhunt or a democratic prosecutor run amok. by making the pilgrimage, often dressed in the trump uniform,

they are standing behind him quite literally and signaling certainly to republican base voters, it is ok. you don't have to worry about this. no matter how it turns out, this is fine. geoff: speaker mike johnson's appearance is notable given the constitutional have to of his office -- the constitutional heft of his office. >> i would argue that what he is trying to do by going there showing support is trying to keep his own job. we know the role that donald trump can play in keeping the fractious republican party together and in fact, he was pretty much responsible for making sure the congresswoman, marjorie taylor greene's, call

to oust mike johnson failed. he put out on truth social -- she is really great and everything but now is the time for us to come together. do not vote to oust the speaker. he had an important notes at the end of that missive where he said, we may at some point need to oust him but that is not now. if you are mike johnson you know that every day your ability to keep your job depends on getting the support of the former president. geoff: at the same time, the big lie about the 2020 has become a big litmus test for republicans expanding to their willingness to accept the results of the 20 front -- 2024 election. arco rubio -- marco rubio was on

meet the press yesterday and would not commit to accepting the 2024 results. >> will you accept the results no matter what happens? >> if it is an unfair election -- >> i think you are the wrong person. the democrats have opposed every republican victory since 2000. geoff: and senator tim scott would also not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election. this is party where the doxy. >> this is similar to language that many republicans landed on after the 2020 election and before january 6. they did not want to go all the way as far as donald trump sang the election was stolen but they wanted to say, you should look into it. and what they are saying here is, we will support the results if it is a fear election. it is worth noting that former president trump only things and

election is fair, if he wins. i will remind you that after 2016 he won and then claimed there was voter fraud in california and new hampshire because he did not win those states. he is someone that has a lengthy proven track record of denying election results. now you have republicans out there creating a permission structure saying, if it is fair, then maybe i will support the results. they are not willing to commit in advance creating a permission structure for mainstream republican voters to say, if they are ok with this, then i can be ok with this. geoff: we know how damaging this denial is him is for our -- denialism is for our democracy. what does this do for independent voters or moderate republicans? >> when you see folks like marco

rubio or the other candidates going on tv and answering questions like this, they are not speaking to voters but an audience of one, donald trump. many of them are in try outs to be the vice president. what we know about this president, and it has ratcheted up, in the most recent time period, that he looks for loyalty above all else especially in his vice president, the person that will be with him if he gets back to the white house. he wants to make sure that no matter what this person will stand with him. i think we will see similar loyalty tests all the way down to any office that would get filled by a political appointee you should donald trump win the election to a second term. geoff: the news broke last wednesday after we spoke with you last monday.

the first scheduled debate is six weeks away in june on cnn. arrival campaigns have skirted around the commission on presidential debates. what is the risk-reward calculus for both sides? >> both donald trump and his team and biden and his team think his opponent cannot stand there for 90 minutes and conduct a debate without embarrassing themselves, falling asleep, slurring words, you name it. they think their opponents are incapable of going into a debate. that is part of the calculus on both sides. on the biden side, they really believe and have been saying it for months that people are not focused on the campaign. when donald trump said anytime, anywhere, they said in june because we want people to pay attention to the choice and be aware of the stakes. that is the theory the biden

campaign is operating under. their numbers will improve when people realize that joe biden and donald trump are the candidates. and they are trying to jump ahead of the conventions which would be the traditional time people would be aware of the election. geoff: is june to early for a debate that will matter? >> if you are the biden campaign, you need to shake up the race. it is not too early. this decision to exempt this debate -- this decision to accept this debate for the biden campaign shows they recognize they need to turn this election. the risk is that either it doesn't work and now it is june and the numbers don't move and the president goes into his convention a few weeks later

with a more depressed and anxious base of voters. and donald trump can go into his convention with a lot of wind at his back. there is a big risk for biden that it doesn't go as planned. but if the biden campaign, the entire theory of the keys is that this has to be made clear that it is a choice. and the choice has to be put in front of voters as quickly as possible and as often as possible. geoff: amy walter, tamra keith, thank you to you both as always. ♪ amna: some 50 years into her career and almost 90 years old, lorraine o'grady was honored with the prestigious guggenheim fellowship your if that sounds like an honor delayed, must of

her career has played out with a slow burn with her first ever museum retrospective, she now looks back at her long path to acceptance in the art world. our special correspondent in boston has the story for our arts and culture series. reporter: iner work and in life she has long confronted a world of black and white. including in racism including what she experienced working at the bureau of labor of statistics in the 1950's. >> we were all intellectuals and they saw me as an intellectual, they could not imagine a black intellectual or a black female intellectual. they had not seen it good and that was because the black people's path was being willfully ignored. reporter: but she would not be ignored and in the next 20 years

she established her boys covering the arts. and then she decided to be seen. in the 1970's and 80's, she became an artist herself zeroing in on the new york art world by reinventing herself as a conceptual and performance artist. >> they did not have a history. that meant you could make a history. you can make the present and the future. reporter: the art world at the time was deeply divided along racial lines. she called it out. she invaded new york city art spaces under the guise of madame as well bourgeois -- mademoiselle bourgeois noire. it was a vision that came to her after many encounters with the safe, white art world. >> i said, that is what that

was. it was art. this piece had two motivations. to introduce myself as an artist and to answer the white art world. >> she is an icon. she is one of the most prominent, contemporary, conceptual artists that we have among us. reporter: nikki greene is an associate professor of art history at wellesley college. on view now at the davis museum is her first ever retrospective coming nearly half a century into the now 89-year-old artists career. >> we cover her persistence over the last four decades. i think people have finally seen the light in many ways. reporter: gallery after gallery reveals her argument that the world is so much more than black and white. cross-pollination courses

through her work. a family album that features the egyptian queen nefertiti alongside the artists sister. her parade attendees framed as arch. is a day for tree or a palm tree? royalty or family? and the answer as she has argued time and again is "both and" - -the name of the show. >> she had a sense of duality in her own heritage. being black but also having ancestry of european dissent. being american but living at home with parents who had very strong jamaican accents. reporter: in 1982 she depicted her life in a one-day performance at central park called the woman then read. a figure emerges from her blended new england and

caribbean background. >> the key moment is when she sees a white stove and she realizes it is now or never and she begins to paint it her own color. she pains it read, it is me becoming an artist. reporter: for her crotch -- for her project entitled "arts is" --the greater focus was on the community where paradegoer's joyously made themselves the arch. >> when one thinks of an ornate gold frame, they are often thinking of precious, fine art, perhaps from the renaissance or the baroque area -- baroque era. taking a gilded frame means you are the most precious art as well. reporter: less precious to o'grady, the new york times. in one of her most famous

series, she spent success of sunday's cutting out headlines, words and phrases restructuring them into her own poetry. >> these are examples of how this cutting and pasting and stitching can create something on its own that is completely new and innovative. reporter: for her latest work, she has gone back to the beginning remembering statues of a in and joan of arc that adorned her boston high school. she commissioned her own suit of armor and in making that she is going back to her own creative routes fusing renaissance armor with a caribbean palm tree. >> i never know which part of my body is getting me in trouble and which part of my mind is getting me out of trouble. i knew i needed, in the position of the body, i needed europe. in the position of the mind, i

needed the caribbean. reporter: for lorraine o'grady, the sum of her parts is as great as the whole or how she would put it -- "both and." ♪ ♪ geoff: join us again tomorrow night when we will have our interview with the late-night host, bill mark and that is the newshour for tonight. amna: on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. announcer: major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. on a voyage with cunard, the world awaits. a world of flavor, diverse

destinations, and immersive experiences. a world of leisure and british style. travel with cunard's white star service. ♪ >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at mac found.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. xfinity internet. made for streaming. hello, everyone and welcome to amanpour and company. here is what is coming up. israel says it has recovered the bodies of three hostages from gaza. then, as settlor violence intensifies on the west bank i speak to staff writer ronen bergman about the forces ar