captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is on assignment. on the newshour tonight, the buzz behind donald trump. why the celebrity candidate is dominating the republican spotlight in a crowded field. >> everybody on the republican side is campaigning as an outsider, and donald trump is that to the nth degree. everybody is paying attention to him. >> woodruff: then, history in the making: two female soldiers complete the rigorous training to become army rangers. plus, building a bridge between high school and college. texas educators aim big to graduate students with an associate's degree by the time they get their high school diploma.

>> it encourages these young people to step up their game, and i think too many of our high schools are sort of structured with kind of minimal expectations. and you reap what you sew. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> 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.

>> woodruff: for the first time, the u.s. environmental protection agency formally proposed cutting methane emissions from oil and gas production today. the goal is a reduction 40-45% by 2025, from 2012 levels. energy companies would have to repair leaks in oil and gas wells, and capture gas that escapes during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. authorities in thailand have pinpointed a suspect in the bangkok bombing that killed at least 22 people and wounded scores more. now, they're searching for the man seen on security video. jonathan miller of independent television news reports on the day's developments. >> reporter: a young man in large heavy-framed glasses, with a thick shock of dark hair, yellow t-shirt, blue knee-length shorts, plastic bag in one hand

and black back-pack. thai police are now convinced that this is the bangkok bomber. here he is, at the erawan shrine. you can see the size of the back pack here. it's big. he sits down next to the wrought iron fence, slips off the pack and places it where he was sitting. he walks away, looking at what may be his phone and leaving the pack in position. this cctv footage is time- stamped 18:40, exactly 15 minutes before the explosion. he's picked up on another camera. there he is. he strides out of the gate and turns left towards the erawan grand hyatt hotel. two more still shots show him leaving. it's hard to tell where he might be from; some say caucasian, or middle eastern. the chief of police said he could be thai or a foreigner. we now all know what happened next. but these pictures, filmed on a mobile phone by a chinese

tourist on a walkway nearby, make for chilling viewing. divers search the murky water below the bridge this afternoon. this pier is also a commuter and tourist hot spot. >> it happened last night. we crossed the river to try to get away from it. and then people were just falling into the river. they said no one was hurt, which is really good to know, but it's still quite unnerving that it's happening again.

in his first televised address since last year's coup, general prayuth chan-ocha, the head of the military junta, said they were working to track down the perpetrators of last night's bombing, what he called "thailand's worst-ever attack." there were those, he said, seeking to destroy the country. the list of possible suspects is long in a country wracked by political violence and insurgency. some speculate chinese uighurs might be behind this, some think jihadists. whoever it was has left thailand, land of the free, trapped in a contagion of fear. >> woodruff: so far, there's been no claim of responsibility for either attack. in china, thunderstorms hampered recovery efforts at a port devastated by last week's chemical warehouse explosions. as crews monitored for contamination today, concerns rose that rain could spread the chemicals, or even touch off new explosions. >> ( translated ): if we find

anything that exceeds, or even slightly exceeds, the safety standards, we have a preventative facility to make sure any cyanide pollution is up to standard. then we will drain the water. we can also strengthen the barriers sealing the site at the moment, to combat against any heavy rain. >> woodruff: the blast killed 114 people. nearly 60 others are still missing, most of them firefighters. separately, chinese authorities have cracked down on cybercrimes, rounding up 15,000 people on suspicion of hacking and online fraud. the ministry of public security announced the arrests today, but did not say when they were made. the six-month special operation to clean up the internet was launched in july. turkey faced new political turmoil today as it confronts islamic state militants in syria and kurdish militants at home. the prime minister gave up trying to form a new government, after weeks of coalition talks failed. the ruling a.k. party lost its majority in parliament in june's

election. now, the country may well have to hold new elections. back in this country, a judge in new mexico has ordered two police officers to stand trial for murder in the death of a homeless man. he was shot during an hours-long standoff outside albuquerque last year. video from an officer's helmet camera showed 38-year-old james boyd appearing to surrender before he was shot. authorities say he had schizophrenia. the incident sparked protests and an overhaul in policy. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost about 34 points to close above 17,510. the nasdaq fell 32 points, and the s&p 500 slipped five. still to come on the newshour: the trump factor in iowa. a critical take on the iran nuclear deal. and much more.

>> woodruff: ready or not, the 2016 campaign is now shifting into higher gears. today alone, candidates were fanned out at events in six states. but among the more than a score of white house hopefuls, one is dominating the conversation. the question is, how will that translate into votes? gwen ifill takes a look at the unconventional donald trump strategy in iowa, and whether it's working with the republican faithful. >> ifill: he's the anti-establishment candidate, playing by his own rules. let rick santorum visit all 99 counties, trump has only bothered to come here five times since he announced in june. >> i think about my mother dorothy. >> ifill: let hillary clinton and ben carson pay to run soft focus biographical ads in des

moines and cedar rapids. >> that's why i've always done this, for all the dorthys. >> together we can make america great again. >> ifill: trump gets his attention for free. >> donald, donald. donald! >> ifill: the result: he's well ahead in every poll. this is what unconventional looks like. last weekend trump buzzed the state fair in his branded helicopter. sunday he called for the deportation of immigrants and the end of constitutionally protected birthright citizenship. >> you're going to deport families. >> check. >> you're going to deport children. >> check. no, no, we have to keep the families together. but they have to go. >> what if they have no place to go? >> we will work with them. they have to go. we it's very a country or we don't have a country. >> ifill: although many republican voters lead toward his point of view, one iowa group found only 30% of likely caucus voters agree, but that would be sweating the details. one of trump's ten paid advisers

in iowa says policy is not necessarily the point. people have put a lot of money on the ground in terms of just blanketing every county with a place that has trump signage. you're not doing it that way. >> we're really attracting a lot of new voters, a lot of new people that want to go to the caucuses. it's been surprising how many people are coming to us saying they want to volunteer. we haven't even focused on needing to add staff because we have so many people, new people coming out wanting to volunteer to help mr. trump. >> ifill: artisan ders have a political science professor at drake university in des moines. what are we seeing here, reality or a reality show? >> it's sort of both at the same time. there's a real campaign going on. but we're far enough out that especially with donald trump in the campaign, that it's largely playing out as this very strange attempt by people to get people

to pay attention to them, especially on the republican side, when there are so many people running. >> ifill: how do you explain the donald trump phenomenon on the right? >> part of the republican base ethos for many years has been washington is broken, politicians are all corrupt, we need to change the system, and outsiders, true... everybody on the republican side is campaigning as an outsider, and donald trump is that to the nth degree. >> ifill: when trump is not physically in the state, you have to search for signs of his campaign. this is trump's only headquarters in iowa. long-time activists have never seen anything like it. the head of the conservative group the family leader invited all the candidates to speak at an iowa forum last month. have you ever asked god

for forgiveness? >> i'm not sure i have. i just go on and try to do a better job. i don't think so. i think if i do something wrong, i think i just try and make it right. i don't bring god into that picture. i don't. now, when i take... when we go to church and when i drink my little wine, which is about the only wine i drink and have my little cracker, i guess that's a form of asking for forgiveness. >> ifill: even that answer does not appear to have hurt trump among christian conservatives. >> i think what mr. trump is doing is he's taking this lack of political correctness to a whole other level. he's tapping into the frustration of the american people that are sick and tired of their government. they believe politicians lie to them all the time. and whether they agree with how donald trump is saying it or they don't agree with it, they just like that somebody is saying it. so that's why donald trump is

doing so well in the polls right now. >> ifill: in the case of donald trump, simply being famous may be enough to force every other candidate to respond to his every utterance. just yesterday wisconsin governor scott walker, once considered the front-runner iowa, said he agreed with trump about revoking birthright citizenship. the trump iowa team is ecstatic. how much of this is about celebrity and how much of this is about policy? >> i would say that you can't even really separate that. because policy with what mr. trump has started to come out with with policy is going to work, and his celebrity status is what probably started to drive people to question coming to see him. they're tired of people having to stop and think about what they're going to say before they answer, whereas mr. trump, he just lets it go. >> ifill: and when trump lets it go, he overshadows the entire race, including the long line of candidates competing for

attention, money and votes. for now it's threatening to turn the entire race upside down and may already have. i'm gwen ifill in des moines. >> woodruff: president obama has lost two more potential senate allies in his quest for support for the iran nuclear deal: republican bob corker, and democrat robert menendez. tonight, we continue our series of conversations about the agreement. last week we talked with a supporter, gary saymore, who had just resigned from an advocacy group which opposed the deal. tonight, we turn to the viewpoint from israel where the majority of the population is against the agreement. joining me is ephraim asculai, who spent more than 40 years working as a scientist at the israel atomic energy commission,

and five years for the i.a.e.a. in vienna. he's now a senior fellow at the institute for national security studies in tel aviv. ephraim asculai, thank you very much for joining us. you have argued that this is a deal that is deeply flawed. what's the main problem with it in your opinion? >> the issue is going to be the search for concealed facilities, the possible search for undeclared facilities, and these an we know and we remember from the history of iran are very probable issues. and looking for these sites, for these facilities, will be a very, very difficult issue with the president's agreement. the other issue is let's say that intelligence finds out about an undeclared concealed

facility. what will the parties to the agreement do? can they go and tell the iaea, and this is written in the agreement, they tell the iaea the exact source of their information. this is not always possible. >> woodruff: what about the argument of the proponents that whatever the iranians did to cheat would involve a significant amount of nuclear material that by its very nature would be indefinitely discoverable, that it's difficult if not impossible to hide radioactive nuclear material that they were working with? >> well, there are two answers to that. the first one, not all processes involve releases to the atmosphere or to the environment of nuclear radioactive materials. of course reactors and processing plants are more prone to releases, but enrichment plants are less prone to that.

but this is only one aspect. the other aspect is development of the explosive mechanism, which does not involve in many parts does not involve -- facilities with radioactive material, it is not always feasible for the inspectors to go there because they're not permitted to go and search for these facilities. >> woodruff: let me ask you about another aspect of. this we know just in the last few days the israeli defense forces have put out a strategic paper talking about the major threats facing the nation of israel. a 33-page report that barely mentions iran or its nuclear program. >> well, i don't know.

i think this is only the unclassified program that was published in the press. i think that there's a much longer document, which is classified, and i think that iran probably preaches quite a lot. >> woodruff: i also want to ask you about something that the any "the new york times" columnist tom friedman wrote in the last week. he pointed out, he says israel has itself between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons. it has the ability to deliver them to iran. and he said... his point is knowing how outmatched it is, why in the world would iran launch any kind of an attack on israel, knowing what that would mean in return? >> i want to ask why iran is proclaiming that it wants to anigh -- annihilate israel. i don't think iran is afraid of

israel if it denies the holocaust, if it wants to destroy israel. it probably is not very sane. i think they really mean it. and if they mean it, israel has to be prepared and take all precautions against it. >> woodruff: what do you think the better alternative is, mr. asculai? what better agreement could be reached with iran and the other five nations that would reach... that would achieve the kind of satisfactory arrangement that you think is necessary? >> i think that the president's agreement can be modified. okay. if it's going back to the drawing board. i know. i realize. it probably is very difficult. but treaties have been modified over the years, many treaties have been modified. and i think if you modify this one, you could get a better

result, perhaps not a perfect one, but a much better result could be achieved. so many things were left out, so many things that were discussed during the last year or so within the international community, and they were left out. and that's a pity. >> woodruff: ephraim asculai, former official with the iaea joining us tonight from israel. thank you very much. >> you're most welcome. >> woodruff: and we will have more viewpoints on the iran agreement in the coming days and weeks. all of our deal or no deal interviews can be seen on our web >> woodruff: we will have more viewpoints on the iran agreement in the coming days and weeks. all of our "deal or no deal" interviews can be seen on our website. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: starting the college experience while still enrolled in high school. innovations in telemedicine that

increase access to care for patients in rural america. and, what we've gotten all wrong about robert frost's poem, "the road not taken." but first, we turn now to our armed forces, and a new barrier broken by two young women. long marches, rigorous drills, 62 days that push you to the limit, and beyond. the army ranger training program in fort benning, georgia tests the ability to overcome fatigue, hunger and stress during combat. now, for the first time, two women, both of them officers and west point graduates, have made the grade. just last week, army chief of staff general ray odierno praised their effort, as he formally retired. >> they've impressed all they've come in contact with. they've motivated.

that's what we want out of our soldiers. >> woodruff: the army has not released their names. on graduation friday, they'll be awarded the prestigious ranger tab to wear on their uniforms. but unlike the 94 male graduates, they will not yet be allowed to serve in elite ranger units. the pentagon still bans women from serving in combat. however, that could soon change. in january of 2013, then-defense secretary leon panetta ordered all of the services to study the issue. >> we're not talking about reducing the qualifications for the job. if they can meet the qualifications for the job, then they should have right to serve, regardless of creed or color or gender or sexual orientation. >> woodruff: the military has until january to open all combat jobs to women or explain why any must remain closed. for more on the military's plans to expand the number of combat jobs to women, i'm joined by retired colonel ellen haring.

she's a 30-year veteran of the army. in 2012, she sued to remove barriers to women serving in the military. she's now a senior fellow at the organization women in international security. and gayle tzemach lemmon is a journalist and senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. she is also the author of "ashley's war: the untold story of a team of women soldiers on the special ops battlefield." and we welcome you both to the program. colonel haring, to you first. just how significant is it that these two women, first two women, are coming out of ranger training school successfully? >> well, i think it's enormous. i've got to tell you that the west point community, at least the west point women have been just... i can't even describe the level of enthusiasm and excitement that has been pouring out of the women graduates community right now. look at our facebook site and

everybody has just pictures of the rangers school and what this means to us. >> woodruff: gayle tzemach lemmon, you have been reporting on this ranger program for a number of months. how is everyone involved in the program viewing this? >> well, i think for leadership, you know, the issue was we want to keep the standard the same, and we want the prove to people that nothing will be changed. we're only giving women a chance to meet that same standard. what you heard from everybody the moment you would reach fort bening in georgia was we don't want a different standard, from all of these women. so i think what you see today is a lot of women in the army who have watched very carefully to see how these women would do. they're just incredibly proud. one of the women who is an observer who was part of the ranger school said to me, you know, this just shows how much we can do if given the opportunity.

>> woodruff: colonel haring, just how hard is this? how different is this from regular training that any man or woman would go through in the army? >> only 3% of the army ever qualifies to be an army ranger. just that is a testament to how difficult the program is. less than half of the people that attempt to course actually succeed, and by people, it's always been men, so it's fewer than half of the men who attempt the court are actually awarded the ranger tag. so i think it's tremendously difficult. it's 61 days long. it's multiple different areas of the country that they train in. and eventually if they're successful, they're awarded the ranger tab. of course, now it's two women who will also be wearing that ranger tab. >> woodruff: gayle, why is it so hard to get through this? >> i think it's the ultimate test of your grit and endurance and how bad you want it. it's 61 days if you make it

straight through, but well over one-third of men do not do that, and these women also have not. they've now been in the program for more than 100 days some this is a huge test of your physical ability, of your mental power and of your real grit to want to go on. i interviewed a ranger who was part of leading ranger school, and he said, you know, some people were arguing this is part of an agenda, but once you see these women in action, you see how badly they want that and how hard they work to do it, they change hearts and minds. >> woodruff: colonel haring, i want to come back to what you said initially, that this is a big deal, and yet these women will not be able to serve as rangers. they have the badge, but they still can't serve. so why... how much does it matter in that regard? >> well, i think that is really important and significant, and we need to... we really need to push the army to go forward with with with this because i think this is one step toward to vetch opening of the 75th ranger

regiment. i can't imagine that the army would continue to deny women the opportunity to serve in the regiment if they're qualified as rangers. i mean, it's opening an entirely additional demographic to the army. if only 3% of men can get through and now you have this additional demographic with a%age of women, that gives you just that much greater of a pool of ranger-qualified candidates to select from. > woodruff: gayle lemmon, how much bearing do you believe this achievement will have on the military's decision coming up? >> i think this is one more step as ellen said. it's much harder to talk about something in the abstract when it's now moved into concrete reality. there have been so many conversations about can women meet the standard, will they, what do we have to do, and now that they've met it, it moves from abstraction to practical reality, and so it gets much harder as general odierno, as colonels and these other folks who have been leading this effort talk about, it's much

harder to say you can't have that opportunity when you've already shown you can meet the standard of excellence. and, you know, i think one other point is that women have been out there a longside rangers. "auerbachly's war" was about a team of women recruited for night raids in 2011 to go on these kinds of combat operations. this is not entirely new for the army either. >> woodruff: colonel haring, let's talk about that. what exactly would women be doing in combat that they can't do now? what is restricted that you and others would argue the barriers need to come down so they can do that? >> so there's still 220,000 pollses closed to women, basically all infantry in both the army and the marine corps is closed to women, all armour in both those services as well as all of the special operations career fields continue to be completely closed to women. so that's a lot of positions. and they have opened about 100,000 positions in the last two and a half years, but that

was one-third of positions closed. now we're here at the end of three years. they've opened one-third of the positions but still two-thirds remain closed. >> woodruff: but gayle lemmon, what's the difference between what they can do and what they want to do and what others are arguing they should be able to do? >> what i have been pointing out is there is a difference between what women have been doing and what they could do only in the sense that they have been supporting rangers and seals on these kinds of operations, but they couldn't become rangers and seals in their own right. i think part of that was they had not had the training. they had not had the opportunity to do things like ranger school. so now women are showing not only can we show that we make a difference on the battlefield, which they did, and that's really the world that "ashley's war" showed us, but it says, give us the chance to meet a very high standard. don't lower it, but let us rise to it. that's where you see conversation going now, whether they can be seals and rangers in

their own right come january 1. >> woodruff: speaking of that, when it comes down to this decision, the military is going to be making, are all the branches pretty much in an equal position to open? you mentioned before there are some hundreds of thousands of positions closed to women. are the branches equally open to considering this? how do you see it? >> so i think they take different approaches. i think the army has been the most open and they have looked at how are we going to integrate women, whereas i think that the special operations community as well as the marines have been more sceptical, and they have said kind of whether they should open these positions. i think the services have definitely approached this difl as well as special operations command. i think the marine corps is very resistant still and i think the army is inching forward cautiously, but more aggressively or progressively than the marine corps certainly and special operations, you know, i'm... i haven't heard much about what they're doing.

with the exception of this one assessment. >> woodruff: quickly, gayle lemmon, what are you hearing about what the services are likely to do? >> everyone is watching and waiting to see. there are studies the special operations command commissioned that they're reviewing now. everybody is waiting to see whether women will have that chance. by october 1, there's a report due to the second they of defense about what the services are urging the secretary of defense to do. i think we'll know a lot more then. all these young women want to do is serve to the greatest of their capacity. they're not going out there to prove a point. they're going out there to serve with purpose. >> woodruff: gayle tzemach lemmon and colonel haring, we thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next tonight, we continue our series, "rethinking

college: closing the graduation gap," with a story about a unique experiment on the border of mexico. there, a high school district and a local college have combined forces to dramatically increase the number of college graduates in the region. hari sreenivasan reports. >> sreenivasan: when superintendent daniel king walks the halls of his south texas high school -- >> how are you guys doing? >> sreenivasan: he's not focused on the fact that nearly all of his students will live in poverty. >> good morning. >> sreenivasan: or that almost half learned english as a second language. what king talks about almost exclusively is college. >> have you started college classes already? >> yes. >> sreenivasan: in a district on the mexican border where most adults have no college education, daniel king is intent on ensuring their children get one, before they even leave high school. >> what are you going to study? >> in the medical field. >> any idea what yet?

>> no. >> sreenivasan: seven year kin's district partnered with south texas college to offer classes for free to all 8,000 plus high school students. >> college becomes something concrete for them. are you going to have an associate degree? stay still have the potential to leave here for two years of college under their belt. that's a big economic savings. >> sreenivasan: this may nearly 500 seniors graduated with a two-year college degree or certificate. >> are you going to start this summer? >> sreenivasan: and nearly 3,000 high school students were enrolled in college courses. >> by 2018, our goal is to have 50% have completed an associate's degree or certificate by the time they graduate from high school. >> sreenivasan: the cultural shift in this border region has been so shift it's changing expectations within families. >> that is psychology. >> sreenivasan: this girl heard about early college while still in middle school. >> i said if it's being offered,

it was the trend. you know, college for free? let's do it. >> sreenivasan: in may she graduated fifth in her high school class with 60 college credit hours and a two-year associate's degree. it was a different story for stephanie's older sister, 24-year-old alex who attended high school just a few years earlier. >> when i was, there they didn't have early college. so once they offered it to her, we were all saying to go for it because i didn't have that chance. >> sreenivasan: their mother raised stephanie and her siblings after their father, who worked for the border patrol, was killed by gunfire in mexico while off duty. alex took on a job at the dollar store after high school. a place where she and her mother still work. >> i fell like it was my responsibility. i had my two little one, my brother and my sister, and i had to work to help my mom out, too.

>> sreenivasan: she enrolled in community college but soon dropped out when she found work and school too much to juggle. >> it's not easy to pay your bills and having to go to school. >> sreenivasan: the family is focused on stephanie's future. >> she's going to go. we're excited. >> it's everybody's dream. >> i have to do it for my little brother. i have to go on the college. >> tell me how you created that circuit. >> sreenivasan: but how do students handle the extra work? is high school made easier? are college courses watered down? joel vargas, who works with early college programs across the country says the opposite often happens. >> i'll give you about two more minutes, guys. it encourages these young people to step up their game. and i think too many of our high schools are sort of structured with minimal expectations, and you reap what you sew in that regard. when you set the barlow. >> the pluses are definitely more rigorous than the high school classes. >> the relationship between the -- >> you have to learn about

discipline. you have to learn to study. you know, and it's just a matter of knowing what you're getting into. >> the hypothesis... >> sreenivasan: samuel freeman at texas pan american has taught and advised many early college learners from the district. >> the vast majority of them are not ready emotionally or intellectually. >> sreenivasan: he says high-achieving students may do well, but many early college students arrive on campus without the emotional maturity to handle high-level course work. >> what happens to many of these early college students when they get here and they walk in the first day of class and they're in junior and senior level courses is they do not have the critical and an lettic thinking skills, they do not have the reading skills. they can't handle the reading load. they don't have the writing skills. they cannot write. i'll only have one resistor.

>> sreenivasan: this physics teacher has a different view. he thinks early college prepares students for higher education. >> a lot of the students that graduate from high school, if they don't go through the rig roar of these classes when they're in high school, what happens to them? it's a rude awakening once they get to college and a lot of them, they don't end up making it. >> sreenivasan: how can districts afford this idea? how can you have college classes inside high school classrooms for free? >> the state of texas has good policies in this regard. the state will pay both colleges and high schools in a way they get a two-for. >> how many college hours are you going to have by the end of this smes? >> sreenivasan: the way superintendent king sees it, k-12 education in america should be restructured. >> we're bridging high school and college. we have this drastic transition from a system where students get handed right off smoothly to middle school and then on to high school. college, it's sink or swim.

>> sreenivasan: oscar, stephanie's economics professor from south texas college, agrees. >> most of these students are first students in college. so for them to see that path from the very beginning and make that path visible, i think it's very important. and that is a big change. >> sreenivasan: stephanie says she's ready for the challenge. she'll be attending the prestigious university of texas at austin this fall and hopes one day to be a lawyer. >> i see it as an opportunity to do more for my family. after college i plan to graduate and come back. my family is my number-one priority. i want to give them a better life. i mean, obviously my mom, they proved over here from mexico to give us a better life. i want to do the same. i mean, everything i do is definitely for her. >> sreenivasan: so far more than 95% of the students who graduated from the san alamo school with an associates degree

have gone on to pursue their bachelors. for the pbs news hour, i'm hari sreenivasan. >> woodruff: we have more in our series online: more than $31 billion in federal pell grants go to low-income college students, but how do those students fare? our partners at the hechinger report investigated whether grantees are making it to graduation at 80 of the country's largest universities. that's on our homepage. >> woodruff: people facing life- threatening illnesses often turn to palliative care, not only to help ease the pain, but also to navigate end-of-life choices. it's never an easy process, but it's even harder for those living in remote, rural areas. one doctor in northern california is finding innovative ways to help ease the burden. special correspondent joanne jennings reports from humboldt county, california. it's the latest in our

"breakthroughs" series on invention and innovation. >> reporter: dr michael fratkin, an internist specializing in palliative medicine, is making a house call to a terminally ill patient. >> this is where i'd like to die when i die in my own bed, in my own home. >> reporter: at 73 years old, kristi is confronting her mortality. six months ago, the retired school guidance counselor was diagnosed with an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. her oncologist recommended surgery and chemotherapy, but chose to forgo treatment. >> my husband was in the hospital for a long time before he died and it was painful. i don't want to live the rest of my life like that. if i have three months, six months, i don't care. i want quality of life with my family. >> reporter: now home, goechel is savoring every moment.

>> where's the pain? >> reporter: like most palliative care doctors, fratkin does manage pain. but he also tries to get his patients to focus beyond the physical. >> how are you feeling inside yourself? >> i'm feeling better. i was feeling pretty crazy inside myself for a while. i'm trying to work that out now, emotionally. >> reporter: to offer this kind of personal care requires time. but with most of his patients living off the beaten path, far from fratkin's office in eureka, that's almost impossible. with the help of pilot mark harris and his 1957 cessna, fratkin shows us the distance he covers. >> just our service area,

extends 100 miles north and south and probably 60 to 80 miles from the beach eastward. there are people that live in the nooks and crannies of our environment by choice. that's where they've lived their life and that's where they want to complete their life. a little bit more than a year ago, i was burned out. i had no team and no way of thinking how was i possibly going to meet the demand that this community has for this kind of supportive care. >> reporter: so he came up with a solution: videoconferencing. >> by adding the video conferencing technology, we can travel that distance instantaneously. >> as long as our relationships are solid and that we've delivered an environment of trust in working with these folks, it works beautifully well >> reporter: for 44-year-old

rich schlesiger, this type of communication makes all the difference. the former sheriff's deputy had been making a 10-hour round-trip drive to san francisco for brain cancer treatments. after trying everything, his tumor continued to grow, so he made a tough decision: stop chemotherapy, and live out his final days at home in fortuna. from his living room couch, with his wife morgan and mother pam by his side, schlesiger discusses his drug regimen with his neurooncologist, dr. jennifer clarke. she's in san francisco, and dr. fratkin is in eureka. >> did you feel like it made any difference from the standpoint of headaches or from the standpoint of your right side? >> i don't think so. >> reporter: after sharing a few laughs, they quickly move into an intense conversation. >> how is the rest of your family around you doing, rich? >> it's rough because i don't

know where to go, you know? i feel good, then i'm going down. you know and them i'm like goddamn it, something's wrong. you know how i am, you both know how i am. i just want to do it and that's how i am. >> if i was a betting man, i'd say this would be in some ways the hardest part of things. it's not about doing. it's about being. >> it's good that he's showing those emotions. it's good that he has all that. it's just a part of rich that we love. >> reporter: pam schlesiger says that video conferencing has made this very difficult process more bearable. >> he gets to talk to dr. clarke and dr. fratkin too, and here we are in our house. who would even think of that? >> reporter: dr. clarke, who hadn't done video consultations

before meeting the schlesigers, is impressed. >> this was my first experience with telemedicine. i found it, in fact, much more powerful than i was anticipating. i think this could be a really powerful tool to allow us to take better care of patients, particularly when they're becoming less mobile toward the end of life. >> reporter: but despite the promise, dr. clarke does not yet have a mechanism to bill for video consultations. for dr. fratkin's older patients, medicare often pays after an initial face-to-face visit. and, through a new pilot program for medicaid patients, he's trying to replace the traditional fee for service system with a so-called value- based payment model. here's how it works: >> for eligible participants, we'll be provided a per member, per month amount of money. with this value-based payment model, it doesn't matter whether we see the person once a month or twice a day. it doesn't matter if we send a social worker or community health worker.

it doesn't matter if we use a telephone or we use a video conferencing technology. what matters is that we deliver value that makes sense to that person. >> reporter: meanwhile, dr. fratkin is helping his patients get used to the whole concept of palliative care via video conference. >> then, what we'll do is, we'll connect by video conference. >> alright. >> reporter: kristi goechel says she prefers in-person visits, but she'll give video a try. for the pbs newshour, i'm joanne jennings in redway, california. >> woodruff: technology is also giving the homebound a chance to climb the eiffel tower or hike a volcano, at least to feel as if they are. a nonprofit photography organization gives "virtual photo tours," and you can join one tomorrow. the details are on our home page.

>> woodruff: now, another addition to our newshour bookshelf. we look at a new take on a long- admired american poem. arts correspondent jeffrey brown has that. >> brown: "two roads die vernalled in a wood. sorry i could not travel both and one traveler long i stood." the first lines of one of the best-known poems by one of the nation's best-loved poets, robert frost. it's called "the road not taken." that's the title of the new book that calls it the poet everyone loves and almost everyone gets wrong. welcome. as you say, this is one of those rare poems that gets into mainstream culture, even commercials. why? what has done that? >> i begin the book by talking about a commercial in new zealand, and it's a commercial for ford cars. and the narration of the

commercial is nothing but someone reading "the road not taken." they don't attribute it to frost. they don't even tell you what it is. they just read the poem. the fact that you could recite a poem written by an american in new zealand today, a 100-year-old poem, is pretty amazing. and they're expected to recognize it, know what it is, have associations with it. it's an incredibly popular piece of writing. >> brown: that's from the fay louse lines in the last stanza, "i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." it's read as a kind of pay on the individualism. >> absolutely, absolutely. that's why you see it in so many graduation speeches. that's why you see it in commercials. there are no companies in the world that would put the poem up as part of their commercial if they knew what the poem is more likely to mean. >> brown: which is what? >> if you look at the end of the poem, the speaker is claiming he's going to be saying something about the future. he's saying, i shall be saying this with a sigh some ages and

ages hence, but it's easy to forget what happens in the middle of the poem. in the middle of the poem it becomes too clear that the two roads are actually the same or at least interchangeable. and, in fact, we should probably take a look at those lines so people can understand what i'm talking about. the middle of the poem, frost writes, "though as for that, the passing there had worn them really about the same, and both equally lay in leaves no step had extraordinarien black." >> brown: in that sense it doesn't matter what you take. >> frost is suggesting when the speaker later claims that the road he took was less traveled and that it made all the difference, the speaker will be making up a story after the pack to justify a choice that maybe wasn't even really a choice in the first place. >> brown: frost himself wrote it for a friend? >> that's right. >> brown: as a skywest or joke? >> that's what he says. he claims he wrote it because he used to go on walks with the

english poet edward thomas because frost spent brief time in england, the beginning of his career as a poet. and what he would like to say, at readings afterward, is that he and testimony mass would go on these walks and thomas, who is a somewhat more romantic sensibility than frost, thomas would always regret whatever path they had taken. and then afterward, we really should have gone to the right. i should have shown you something over. there we should have gone to the left. i could have shown you something there. frost was amused by this. so he wrote the poem as a joke on his friend's expense. >> brown: you're inevitably writing about frost himself, who is subject to the same kind of duality, the way he's seen as the avuncular, the farmer, the wise man, but as you write and as biographers have shown, it's a constructedded self. >> that's right. that's right. there's a duality to frost much like the duality in this poem. in fact, what you see is a

popular reverence for frost that is based in this image of him as a kind of farmer, poet, you know, tilling the soil of new england and coming up with all of these immortal poems. and then there's a sort of countervailing image of frost among the academic leadership for poetry, which is, you know, a very, very dark and withholding and manipulative sort of poet. what i try suggest in the book is that there is an element of truth to beth of these image, just as there is an element of truth to beth of the common interpretations of "the road not taken." >> brown: your larger story is the reading and the misreading both tell us something about ourselves, particularly as americans, and our ideas about individuality and community and so on. >> that's right. because if you think about this sort of setting of the poem, it is an individual making a choice between two options, which is a very, very distilled version of the idea of choosing. often we're choosing among dozens of options or making

choices in groups. this is the most focused version of choice you could come up with. and, you know, in america, as a lot of psychologists and social psychologists have been demonstrating for some time now, we favor a kind of highly pronounced individualism that is maybe not quite so characteristic of some other countries. >> brown: the book is "the road not taken." david orr, thank you so much. >> thanks a lot. >> woodruff: finally tonight, our "newshour shares" of the day. something that caught our eye which might be of interest to you, too. our senior politics producer bob kovach went to iowa to cover the candidates, but noticed a much more popular item at the iowa state fair: the state's iconic pork chop. he sent us this video post card of the chefs behind the grill and the people who line up to partake.

>> we rack up about 45 or 50 on each rack and see them all at one time. i have the most of a little over 12,000 iowa chops during the fair probably and grab it by the bone, just like you do the stick, and eat it right off the bone. these are great without the sauce. when we get 'em all there, we'll pull them off and they go into warming ovens where we hold them to go on into the line. it's gas fired. there are four different burners in there to keep the heat spread. that always becomes a challenge. when do you stop cooking and when do you have enough to make 9:00. which is time we close. you don't have a bunch left over at that time. >> this is wonderful. this iowa chop is what it's really all about. this is why i come to the fair.

this and the porkchop on the stick. it's one of the greatest things of the fair. i soak my teeth into a mouthwatering porkchop that was just so beautiful. oh, yeah. just having an iowa porkchop is just one of the greatest things when you come to the fair. it's a good meal to eat. >> woodruff: on the newshour online: it's a common complaint, that if you spend the night in the hospital, you probably won't get much sleep. but hospitals are rethinking how they function at night-- in some cases, reducing nighttime check- ins-- so that more patients can rest uninterrupted. see what else they're doing, we have a report from kaiser health news, on our home page, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll talk to republican presidential candidate john kasich, the governor of ohio. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night.

>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support

of these institutions and individuals. >> 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 sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> this is "bbc world news america." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by -- the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation -- giving all profits from newman's own to charity and pursuing the common good, kovler foundation -- pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs, and mufg. >> it is a global truth. we can do more when we work together. at mufg, our banking relationships span cultures and support almost every institute across the globe, because