captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, april 3: brussels re-opens its airport 12 days after terrorists attacked it. how migrants and refugees help keep one small italian town alive. and, the passion of singer- songwriter lucinda williams. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: lewis b. and louise hirschfeld cullman. bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the citi foundation. supporting innovation and enabling urban progress. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii.

corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thanks for joining us. the airport in brussels, belgium, has reopened, almost two weeks after isis suicide bombers killed 32 people there and at a brussels subway stop. a small crowd held a minute of silence before the first flight took off. there were only three departures and arrivals today, but officials said the airport should be up to 20% capacity by tomorrow and full capacity by the end of june.

>> we are turning a page, a page full of blood, but we have to rebuild this airport, and we will do so. >> sreenivasan: under tighter security measures, passengers are not allowed to enter the check-in area before having their baggage inspected, and police are conducting random checks of all arriving vehicles. one week after syrian government troops recaptured the key city of palmyra from isis militants, the syrian army is claiming another victory. backed by russian air strikes, the army said today it has driven isis out of al-qaryatain, a central syrian city of 40,000 people that lies between palmyra and syria's capital, damascus. syrian soldiers now occupying palmyra have found a mass grave containing at least 45 bodies believed to be both civilians and and soldiers. here in the u.s., amtrak service on the busy northeast corridor has resumed following a deadly accident in chester, pennsylvania, 15 miles south of philadelphia.

amtrak's palmetto train, bound for savannah, georgia, was carrying 341 passengers and seven crew when it struck a backhoe left on the tracks, causing the locomotive to derail. officials say two amtrak workers on or near the backhoe were killed 35 passengers were treated for injuries at local hospitals. none was considered life threatening. turning to the presidential race, republican frontrunner donald trump said today he would not rule out an independent run, if he wins the most votes and delegates in the primaries but does not secure the party's nomination. >> i want to run as a republican. i will beat hillary clinton. >> but if you don't get the nomination? >> we're going to have to see how i was treated. i'm going to have to see how i was treated. very simple. >> sreenivasan: setting her sights on trump, democratic frontrunner hillary clinton today criticized him for his rhetoric and his supporters' behavior at rallies. >> when you incite violence, you are acting like a political arsonist, and i want people to understand there's a very

different way of working toward our common ground. >> sreenivasan: vermont senator bernie sanders today said he would have a better chance of beating trump in november. >> i believe i am the strongest candidate to take on the republicans, and the fact that i have been the longest serving independent in the history of the united states makes my candidacy even stronger. >> sreenivasan: both parties hold primaries in wisconsin on tuesday. learn what experts have to say about security concerns at nuclear facilities around the world. read our report online at pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: starting tomorrow, the european union plans to start sending back some of the 170,000 migrants and refugees who have made the dangerous journey by sea to europe this year. some migrants who've arrived since march 20, particularly syrians who crossed from turkey across the aegean sea to greece, are eligible to be sent to refugee camps in turkey.

border closings and the gradual lifting of the welcome mat reflects frustration by europeans and their political leaders who doubt whether the continent can continue to house, feed, employ, and integrate these stranded new arrivals. along the other, main migrant sea route, from north africa toward italy, one small town has a very different, friendly posture toward migrants and refugees. the town is called riace, and for tonight's signature segment, special correspondent, christopher livesay, went there to bring us this story. >> reporter: it's a short, 10 minute drive up the coast in italy's southernmost region of calabria, to the hilltop town of riace. at first glance, it seems typical of a town dating back to medieval times. there are narrow, winding streets and a 16th-century church in the main square. men pass the time, as they have for generations, playing cards. but there's something very atypical about riace these days. while much of europe is reacting

warily to migrants and refugees from the middle east, south asia, and africa, riace welcomes them, with a smile. >> hey bon giorno. >> reporter: daniel yaboah is originally from ghana. >> i've known him for many years, this woman says. his children were born here. >> reporter: a familiar face here in riace, yaboah goes house to house collecting trash and recyclables along with his trusty donkey. he's been here 7.5 years. he says he was forced to flee death threats in ghana after his wife converted for him from islam to christianity. you have a life here? >> yes, of course. we have a life here, and the people here, give us a chance to feel like home, you know. the people here, they are used to foreigners, they are used to welcome everybody here. i'm very happy i'm here now. >> reporter: this couple, jasmin and shahid, arrived to riace with their daughter in november.

jasmin says they fled pakistan, because her life was threatened by government officials. the family was bounced around migrant camps elsewhere in europe for months, until a knowing camp organizer got them transferred. >> reporter: why did they move you to riace? >> they say it's a good place for the family. it's different. nobody is calling us every day, 'you have to go back,' and this and that. we are enjoying going to school with our children. we are thinking about our problems also, but yes, you can say we are free now. >> reporter: more than just a handful of refugees live here. of riace's 1,800 residents, about 400, or 22 percent, are non-italians from more than 20 different countries, a fact proudly displayed on welcome signs. >> they are from afghanistan, pakistan, somalia, syria. every part of the world! >> vengo dalla, syria. >> vengo dal pakistan. >> il mio nome e mohamed, vengo dalla somalia.

>> reporter: hearing this next generation learning italian, and their parents as well, is music to the ears of riace's mayor since 2004, domenico lucano. >> albania! >> reporter: over there is an albanian family. over there is a pakistani family. there, an afghan family. this is a tavern that we brought back to life. we're all about renovation and giving back hope. >> reporter: for mayor lucano, helping refugees settle here is not just the right thing to do, it's practical. >> reporter: what would the town be like without refugees right now? >> simply put, riace would no longer exist. >> reporter: that's because by the 1990's this once thriving town of 2,500 people was becoming a ghost town. suffering the fate of so many small old towns in europe. its population had dropped almost in half, as young people moved away to find jobs in cities and left behind empty houses and shuttered businesses. the one public elementary school almost closed. then, one day in 1998, fate

sailed in. >> ( translated ): a sailboat washed up on the beach of riace. the people aboard were kurds from iraq and turkey. for me and for others, it was a sign. >> reporter: bahram acar was among the 200 kurdish refugees crammed on the boat, drifting across the mediterranean sea. >> ( translated ): we ran out of food. we ran out of water. it was getting too hot. the boat was small, and at times we were taking on water. i slept for three days like this with water to my knees. >> reporter: during their eighth night at sea, the boat washed up on the beach in riace. the red cross came immediately to help, people from the town, priests. >> everyone was running to help. >> ( translated ): i liked how when the sun came up, i saw that the geography was like a second kurdistan. i said: i'm not going anywhere. i want to stay here. >> reporter: acar has lived here ever since, becoming fluent in italian, raising a family and working in construction. that boatload of kurdish refugees 18 years ago was also a

"eureka" moment for mayor lucano. rather than seeing them as a threat or a disruptor, he saw them as the town's future, an opportunity. young refugees in search of better lives needed homes, and riace had hundreds of empty ones to fill. >> ( translated ): even if you're here by yourself, you get your own house. because this is the strategy that we launched from the beginning. the whole town is a migrant center. >> reporter: not only would refugees get their own homes to live in, lucano started a program to transform other abandoned houses into all types of artistic workshops, giving refugees skills to help them independently earn a living. migrants and refugees have also found work in the mayor's office and other municipal jobs. of course, it takes money to make all this happen. the italian national government subsidizes riace and towns like it the equivalent of 30 dollars a day for every refugee for one year. riace uses the funds to renovate homes, help migrants start new businesses, and pay them a monthly stipend. the money also helps riace

rebuild itself. this ravine, for instance, had decayed into sand and dirt. migrant and local labor is restoring it as a place for livestock and recreation. >> so where you see the donkeys, those donkeys are used to collect trash, specifically recycling garbage. you'll notice it's a clean town. below that, in each of these stables, that are still under construction you'll have more and more livestock." >> reporter: over time, seeing results like this helped persuade skeptical townspeople that welcoming migrants is worth it. this woman says: "riace has changed for the better." and this convenience store manager says he would not be open today, if it weren't for all the purchases made by refugees. including an influx of a thousand refugees last year, the mayor estimates between seven and eight thousand have come through riace since the late '90s. most have chosen to stay for only a short time, eventually heading to northern europe, where they may have friends or family or perceive better prospects. but the hundreds who have stayed for good find benefits and sympathy.

riace is hosting a particular group of people, not people who come for economic reasons, because the locals from riace are leaving for economic reasons. the people coming here are from parts of the world that are at war. when they say that migrants bring nothing but trouble, look what beautiful things she brings. this woman, aadela, has a job as a weaver that pays about 800 dollars a month. she says she fled afghanistan after the taliban killed her husband, a bookseller in kabul. she and her daughter endured an 18 month journey by foot and by bus to a refugee camp in greece, where aadela met a man who joined their journey. they're married now and have been in riace since december, living in this comfortable house provided by the town. >> ( translated ): i'm sorry for the people who come by sea, those who make it and those who don't. whenever i see them on tv, i'm shocked. shocked. i always cry and ask god to help. help them all.

>> reporter: despite the mayor's best efforts to accommodate migrants, sometimes he falls short. these men came from nigeria with their wives and children. "lucky" has been here since the fall of 2014. he has a two year residence permit. >> this one is my residence. >> reporter: a place to live, and a 200 dollar a month stipend for each member of his family. but neither lucky nor his friend neosa, >> this is of my baby. >> reporter: have been able to find steady work. >> the biggest problem we have here is a job. a family man cannot live without no job. i need to work. that is the problem i'm crying for. >> reporter: i asked the mayor what would happen to those nigerian men. >> ( translated ): with respect to all the migrants we welcome here, we don't have the resources to find work for every one of them. but what i can say is that no one has ever left because their temporary job came to an end. no one has left because the state has told us that these

people need to leave. that's never happened. mayor lucano says riace will continue helping as many refugees as it can, and he hopes to inspire other european communities to open their arms too. to people like aadela, and bahram acar, people caught in modern conflicts who found refuge in a medieval town. >> i feel like it's my hometown. truly. all my friends are here. everyone in town knows me. i like it here. >> i'm always looking ahead. now i'm happy in riace. riace is tiny. but it has a big heart. >> >> sreenivasan: so far in 2016, chicago is experiencing its worst murder rate in two decades, with more than 140 homicides recorded in the first three months of the year. the nation's third most-populous

city is sadly on pace to see as many as 600 murders this year. joining me to discuss the reasons for this surge in violence is "usa today" chicago correspondent, aamer madhani. thanks for joining us. what's behind this, is it because you had that much snow and it wasn't that bad a winter, gang violence? >> i think it's a few things. the primary reason the police department and the mayor ar are attributing the violence to, the propensity of illegal gunl gunsn the street. police morale is down, you remember the la kwan mcdonald video, sured conflict, and the city entered into an agreement with the aclu to begin filling out what are essentially forms of every time they did a street

stop through what is known as stop and frisk stops on the street, the aclu found they were disproportionately targeting minorities. stops went down by about 90% for the first three months of the year. >> reporter: you also have a new police chief. what's he expected to do, what's his record? >> we actually have our third police chief in three or four months. gary mccarthy was fired soon after the la kwan mcdonald video came out. interim superintendent john escalante came in and more recently, eddie johnson, 27 year veteran of chicago police department, he grew up the first nine years of his life in the cabrini greenhousing projects and moved to the south side where he still lives. he is very popular with the police department, they hope

this will raise the morale of the police department, but he also is a black officer, there's hope he can sort of bridge the gap in this city. >> sreenivasan: what's the pressure on rahm emanuel? >> there is a lot of pressure. his approval ratings are in the dumps. he got a 27% approval published in february. the thing is he's got three years before reelection but he's got big problems. he's got violence of course that we're talking about and he's got the police department and reengaging the trust in the african american community that is crucial for him winning his second term. but then even if he's able to solve all those things you have a city that is in enormous fiscal disaster right now. $21 billion public employees retirement defendant.

>> aamer madhani, thank you. >> sreenivasan: one of the most critically acclaimed american singer-songwriters of the past two decades is lucinda williams. she's a hard-to-categorize southerner who transcends any one style, and has won grammy awards for rock, country, and folk music. williams is also a late bloomer, in that it's taken her four decades to achieve the recognition and following she has today. the newshour's phil hirschkorn has this profile. >> reporter: the songs lucinda williams writes are full of raw emotions about longing, love, and love lost. >> i changed the lock on my front door so you can't see me anymore. >> reporter: at this sold out, week-long residency at the manhattan club "city winery," the audience could hear her range from electric to acoustic, rooted in blues, rock, country, and folk.

>> did an angel whisper in your reporter: it's simply hard to label you. >> the very thing that made it hard to get a record deal now has become, you know, my signature sound. reporter: williams has been a creative roll since releasing her best selling album "car wheels on a gravel road," in 1998. a commercial breakthrough in her mid-40's, it won her a grammy award and a wider audience. the album included one of her most requested songs "joy." >> i don't want you anymore'i cause you took my joy. i don't want you anymore, you took my joy. you took my joy, i want it back! you took my joy, i want it back! reporter: do the words typically come first or the music? >> the words. sometimes i'll get a little line with a little melody thing, you know, that'll pop into my head at the same time. my brain is always going. i might be sitting at a bar or

anywhere i might be and hear something somebody says and i'll jot it down a lot of times on a cocktail napkin and i save everything. i put it in a big folder. >> reporter: since "carwheels," williams has recorded seven more studio albums, earning consistent critical acclaim and healthy sales. in 2002, "time" magazine declared her the best songwriter in america. this year, "rolling stone" gave four stars, for "excellent," to her new album, "ghosts of highway 20." >> farms and truck stops and firework stands, i know this road like the back of my hand. >> reporter: highway 20 is the main drag through the deep south where williams spent her childhood and formative years. >> from atlanta, georgia, to birmingham, alabama, onto jackson, mississippi and to monroe, louisiana, and beyond. reporter: autobiographical songs, cherishing memories and exorcising demons.

that will wander with the ghost of highway 20. >> reporter: is the songwriting therapeutic for you? >> oh yeah. it's a life force, you know, that drives me. it's cathartic. >> reporter: if i took all your songs and threw the lyrics into a word cloud, i'd probably get top hits for 'ipain,' 'itears,'i blue,' 'iblues. words like that. >> i have plenty to write about. i'm carrying around a lot of baggage, you know, from my childhood. i look at it like here's a well, you know. all i have to do is dip my hand in and pull something. there's a sadness so deep the sun seems black. >> reporter: many of her lyrics are poetic, a gift she may have inherited from her father, miller williams, a prolific poet who read at bill clinton's second inauguration. she used to run lyrics by him, and since he died last year, a few of his lines have inspired

her songs, like "dust." >> you couldn't cry if you wanted to. even your thoughts are dust. even your thoughts are dust. >> it took me years to learn how to kind of relax more on stage and engage the audience. it takes a toll, just the traveling part, but you know i'd rather be doing this than working at wal-mart. >> reporter: williams says success in the music industry is 50 % talent and 50 % drive, and that she's got a lot of drive touring with new material at age 63. >> bob dylan was writing amazing songs when he was 18 or 19. so was hank williams, but i wasn't. i remember my father said one time in the world of poets nobody takes you seriously until you're in your 60s. >> maybe in slidell, i will find my joy!

maybe in slidell i will find my joy! >> this is pbs newshour weekend, sunday. >> sreenivasan: in fargo, north dakota, republicans complete their state convention today by choosing 28 delegates for the national convention in july. that's just one percent of the total delegates, but the presidential campaigns are competing hard for them. the newshour's dan bush is in fargo and joins me via skype. is a state you pointed out in your blog that's voted republican ten times in the past. suddenly they're relevant why? >> all of north dakota's 28 delegates are unbound. which means they can vote for whoever they like, at the republican national convention with the potential floor fight there, all republicans are sending their delegates, provide the delegates should back then earlier in the summer. >> sreenivasan: what is the

closing argument that ted cruz made and the sur gat ben carson made? >> if the republican party nominates donald trump, entering an election putting clinton on a silver platter. found chance to meet with him several times and that he is the best person to lead the country economically in our national security as well. >> sreenivasan: the people that you've talked to in north dakota the ones behind you atlantic making this decision they don't have to declare whether they are going to owner goes to the national convention for cruz or kasich or trurchl right? >> the delegates to this convention here requested that all the national delegates come out and say ahead of time, determined that would not happen so the delegates that get elected here today not have to say who they are going to

support in cleveland later this year. >> sreenivasan: all right, dan bush thanks so much. >> thank you. and finally this afternoon newsrooms tashe around the worln publishing the panama papers, how offshore companies and banks move funds and protect the wealthy, the story is based on millions of leaked documents, based on a panamanian mase fonseca. we interviewed the head of the international consortium of investigative journalists. see it online at newshour. all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan, have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made

possible by: lewis b. and louise hirschfeld cullman. bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the citi foundation. supporting innovation and enabling urban progress. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

major funding for "eating alabama" was provided by the corporation for public broadcasting. additional funding was provided by... that's me. this is near where i grew up, and i come from a family of hunters. but maybe you can tell... i've never done this before. yikes. so how did i get to this freezing-cold shack in the middle of the woods trying to kill a deer? well, that's a good question. it all starts a few years before this when my wife rashmi and i moved back to our home state of alabama.