captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> sreenivasan: and i'm hari sreenivasan. >> woodruff: on the newshour tonight, a new dynamic on the campaign trail: donald trump heads to west virginia looking past the primary and to the general election. how top republicans are responding. >> sreenivasan: also ahead this thursday, no more e-cigarettes for minors. the f.d.a. announces new age requirements in a crackdown on unregulated tobacco, while california raises the legal age for smoking to 21. >> woodruff: and, planning a vacation? how airlines are battling over bargain airfare over the north atlantic. >> the airlines are afraid that if customers are given the choice, they'll buy their tickets somewhere else from someone who will offer them a better deal. the last i heard, that was capitalism.

>> sreenivasan: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation.

promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> 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. >> woodruff: republican donald trump gets back to campaigning tonight, now that he's virtually wrapped up the g.o.p. nomination for president.

but as he works to win over voters, he faces new resistance from leaders in his own party. the latest example came today from paul ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. we begin our coverage with john yang who's covering tonight's trump event in west virginia. >> reporter: for donald trump, tonight's event in charleston isn't about next week's primary, b about winning the fall campaign. he come out, won indiana, secured the nomination and one of the first things that come out of his mouth was we're going to help people in west virginia, we're going to help people in pennsylvania, we're going to get coal back on the market. >> reporter: and in today's "new york times," trump outlined goals for his first 100 days in office. they include: designing the "wall" he says he'll build on the mexican border, banning stopping muslim immigration, auditing the federal reserve, and repealing the affordable care act. the nominee-to-be he also went on cnbc, summing his economic appeal making his economic pitch to voters. >> they have two jobs in some

cases, and they're making less money than they made 20 years ago. and that's why you're wondering what's going on and why they're not liking republicans or democrats. i mean, they're not liking either, to be honest with you. >> reporter: but there's was new evidence that trump has a long way to go to rally his own party. "politico" obtained this recording of republican senator john mccain speaking at a recent fundraiser. >> if donald trump is at the top of the ticket, here in arizona, with over 30% of the vote being the hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life. >> reporter: nevertheless, top trump aides have begun the behind the scenes overtures to party leaders. they've already had some success. a number of g.o.p. republican members of congress, including the five seen here, are signing up to lend their support. meanwhile, the democrats are still battling. bernie sanders is in west virginia too. >> it's about time we started in the wealthiest nation in the

world to talk about poverty. (cheers and applause) >> reporter: still >> reporter: still dogging hillary clinton despite her big lead in delegates. hillary clinton already has trump squarely in her sights. >> i think anybody running for office should spend as much or more time listening than talking and i know i will be way ahead in that category against donald trump, no doubt about that. people have been waiting for hours in the cold rain in charleston waiting for donald trump to do what he says working on hillary clinton in the general election campaign. many are excited to see trump as the nominee for the very first time. judy? >> woodruff: so, john, do you sense there is something different in how they see him now that he's the presumptive nominee? >> i think there is excitement that he's now the guy, he has now cleared the way to the

nomination and he will start to take on hillary clinton. a lot of the people we talked to said they were very excited to see that. a lot of talk about west virginia. they hope he can help west virginia's economy, particularly the coal workers we talked to, who expressed some anger at what they heard from hillary clinton lately about putting coal workers out of work, judy. >> woodruff: and, john, what have you learned about how donald trump may be shaping a different kind of campaign going into the general election against secretary clinton, assuming it is secretary clinton? >> well, that's the big question, judy. these campaign -- this campaign has been unlike anything we've ever seen before. not much television adds. a lot of social media. a lot of free media. television interviews. he only has one event a day, usually late in the day like this one because he's going home every night, commuting to

new york and flying out again the next day. the big question is whether this will change in the general election, although some may sa yoyouer with success. judy? >> finally, john, we know hillary clinton's opponent bernie sanders is also in west virginia today nivment read on the kind of reception he's getting there? >> a pretty strong lead in the polls, about 8-point lead in the last pre-primary poll. what's fueling his campaign are a lot of the same issues, forces and demographics that is giving trump a lot of strength here. this is a state of poor white voters, a lot of whom are hurting very much from the economy, a lot of people hurting from the downturn in the coal industry, a lot of those things giving fuel to sanders' campaign and it's also likely to help him at some of the other states down the road like kentucky, right down until that big showdown in

california. so he's going to be dogging hillary clinton every step of the way right to the end. judy. >> john yang reporting for us from what will be a trump campaign event in charleston, west virginia. we thank you. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: >> woodruff: we'll take a closer look at how republicans are dividing over donald trump as their nominee, later in the program. >> sreenivasan: in the day's other news, a raging wildfire forced new evacuations in the heart of canada's oil sands country. wind-driven flames had already put more than 80,000 people to flight, from fort mcmurray in alberta. today, three more towns to the south were evacuated as the fire swept across tinder-dry woodlands. paul davies of independent television news has this report. they are driving away from homes they have abandoned to the flames. the fire so close, it's showering sparks from trees it's consuming alongside the road. and caught in this vision of

armageddon, thousands of families running for their lives. how long it will be before fort mcmurray will welcome people again, no one can know. the city had laid on a fleet of buses to help the less advantaged escape from the inevitable destruction, but there were strict limits on what possessions could be taken. for many, it was the clothes they could carry and their pets but no more. >> you don't know what's burned or not burned, when you can go back. now you're sitting here and all you see is red flames. it's pretty scary. >> the evacuation so far prevented loss of life but in the suburbs where the flames have done worse and moved on, there is little left for people to return to. 2,000 buildings have been destroyed and tonight there are fears large portions of the city may be lost before any improvement in weather conditions. >> sreenivasan: the fire has also shut down about one-third of canada's total crude oil

capacity. >> woodruff: a near- miracle today in nairobi, kenya. four more people were rescued after being trapped for six days in the rubble of a collapsed building. the first was a woman who was eight months pregnant and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. officials said her unborn baby did not survive. the death toll from friday's collapse now stands at 36, with dozens still missing. >> sreenivasan: in syria, an air strike killed at least 28 people in a crowded refugee camp, including children. it happened at the northwestern town of sarmada, in a rebel-held area near the turkish border. video posted on social media showed tents burned to the ground, amid clouds of dark smoke. the camp is home to around 2,000 people. it was unclear whose planes carried out the strike, but u.s. officials denied any role. >> woodruff: meanwhile, the prime minister of turkey announced today he's resigning, moving the nato nation ever closer to authoritarian rule ahmet davutoglu had held his

office since 2014, but he was at odds with president recep tayyip erdogan, who's pushing for greater power. still, the prime minister pledged continued support for erdogan, despite his crackdown on dissent. >> ( translated ): my loyalty to our president will continue until the last breath i will breathe. nobody has or will hear a single word against our president from my mouth. everybody should know that and i would never let people exploit this matter. >> woodruff: the resignation comes as europe is relying on turkey to cut off the flow of migrants, and the u.s. needs its help fighting the islamic state group. >> sreenivasan: back in this country, the number of sexual assaults reported in the military stayed about the same last year, but pentagon officials say it's still far too high. in all, there were 6,083 reports of assaults in 2015, virtually unchanged from 2014. but, more than 16,000 service members intervened in situations they believed could escalate to sexual assault.

>> woodruff: president obama has commuted prison sentences for 58 more federal convicts. it's part of his recent push to overhaul the criminal justice system, with a focus on non-violent drug offenders. most of this latest group will be freed in september. 18 had been serving life sentences. >> sreenivasan: wall street struggled to find much direction today. the dow jones industrial average gained nine points to close at 17,660. the nasdaq fell eight points, and the s&p 500 dropped a fraction of a point. >> woodruff: and, a game that dates back to 1978 leads the new class of inductees into the video game hall of fame. "space invaders" set off a craze for arcade games in the '70's and '80's. also inducted today: the educational adventure game "oregon trail," as well as "sonic the hedgehog," "the sims," "the legend of zelda," and "grand theft auto 3."

the video game hall of fame is in rochester, new york. still to come on the newshour: banning the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. conservatives for and against the presumptive republican nominee. the rise of discount airlines in the u.s., and much more. >> sreenivasan: there'll be no more e-cigarette and cigar sales to people under the age of 18. federal oversight of the growing industry was announced today by the food and drug administration. they've been around since 2006, but until now, they were largely un-regulated. e-cigarettes turn nicotine into an inhalable liquid vapor, but without the tobacco in regular cigarettes. >> with blue e-cigs there's no tobacco only vapor. >> sreenivasan: ads for the

products tout benefits, using celebrity endorsements, like this one from actress jenny mccarthey. in fact, there's no scientific consensus on benefits, or potential harm. but health and human services secretary sylvia burwell says the industry will now be regulated, citing its rapid growth among teens. >> between 2011 and 2015 the percentage of high school students who smoke e-cigarettes has skyrocketed over 900%. meanwhile hooka usage has risen significantly among young people and cigar smoking continues to be a problem among high schoolers. together that means millions of kids are being introduced to nicotine every year, a new generation hooked on a highly addictive chemical. >> sreenivasan: manufacturers, many of them small companies, will have to undergo a lengthy federal review in order to stay on the market. in response, gregory conley, president of the american vaping

association, said today: "if the f.d.a.'s rule is not changed by congress or the courts, thousands of small businesses will close in two to three years." house republicans have their own answer: a bill to curb retroactive safety reviews for e-cigarettes and cigars. meanwhile, some states have launched ad campaigns against teenage use of e-cigarettes. and yesterday, california became the second state in the nation, after hawaii, to raise the smoking age to 21. the use of e-cigarettes among youth keeps rising. the latest estimates from the c.d.c. show about 2.5 million high school students or middle schoolers vaped at least once a month. mitch zeller is the f.d.a.'s point person on today's decision. he's the director of its center for tobacco products. what's the exact health risk you're trying to prevent? >> no child, no teenager should be exposed to nicotine. nicotine is addictive.

e-cigarettes have nicotine in them. kids should not be inhaling those products into their lungs. there is a separate debate about whether e-cigarettes have a public health benefit to current cigarette smokers who might be able to use the product to transition away from harmful cigarettes, but kids should not be using e-cigarettes and today's action will take this product out of the wild wild west of unregulation into the world of being regulated. >> sreenivasan: are you concerned it could have a chilling effect on the people trying to transition away from conventional cigarettes using this as a way to step down? >> f.d.a. is a public health protection and consumer agency and we will make policy where the science takes us. the fact is 70% of all adult e-cigarettes consumers are still smoking cigarettes together with the e-cigarettes. we don't know if they're transitioning away from e-cigarettes or if they're losing interest in quitting conventional cigarettes. >> sreenivasan: how do we

measure this? what's the science behind how behaviors are changing. >> f.d.a. is making a massive investment in regulatory science to answer two fundamental questions -- who is using products like e-cigarettes and how are they used? we're following 46,000 children and adults to get answers to what products are you using, how and how the industry is changing. >> sreenivasan: some are pushing back saying the fees may close down small businesses and small manufacturers and protect the big tobacco companies that shifted and you will be giving them an advantage over the long haul. >> this is a public health issue. beyond e-cigarettes we're talking about the need to regulate cigars. every single day more teenage boys light up a cigar for the first time than a regular cigarette. so between cigars and e-cigarettes, we have a lot of work to do to protect kids from

the harms of tobacco products. there are costs associated with becoming regulated. we have tried to address the concerns of small businesses. i disagree with the assessment that this is an industry that's going out of business. they may have to transition away from the typical model we see in a vape shop but there is time to submit the applications, time to submit the reviews. >> sreenivasan: some ad advocats say there is too much time involved, up to three years the folks can continue to sell their wares knowing that's when they have to sunset their business. >> we received over 135,000 chents as part of our rule making process and on the issue of flavors in e-cigarettes we got comments across the board from public health groups that said flavors should be band, to e-cigarette users who said that's what got me off cigarettes. we think we've struck the right

middle of the road. the key is what f.d.a. has done is foundational, e-cigarettes, cigars and hooka will be regulated by the f.d.a. >> sreenivasan: if you know what attracts the young kids is the flavors, why not have something that addresses the flavors today. >> we will be able to address flavors in each and every one of the applications the companies mitted for marketing authorization and they will have to answer our questions about what role are the flavors in your products playing in initiation by kids and anyone who's never used the product? we'll be able to hand that through the applications. >> sreenivasan: there is a concern there is a grandfather date going back to 2007 saying we're going to start the rule making back then. are you maybe protecting devices that were more dangerous and didn't have to comply with the rules you're imposing today? >> the grandfather date is a legislative and legal issue, and what we said is that, as a regulatory agency, we can't change the date by which certain

products would receive grandfather status and be exempt from pre-market review. what some in industry are trying to do is advance the grandfather date in a way we and the administration thinks will be harmful to public health by fever exempting all currently marketed e-cigarettes and cigars from a pre-market review by the f.d.a. we think that would be bad for health. >> sreenivasan: what happens to the entire force of the law if the grandfather at a time is moved to, say, 2016? >> if that legislation passes, we think that public health will be harmed because one of the most important responsibilities congress gave f.d.a. was to apply public health principles to determine which products would be authorized for marketing. if they received grandfather status and we don't have the opportunity to apply the public health principles, we don't think that's good for public health. >> sreenivasan: mitch zeller from the f.d.a., thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: now, back to the race for the white house. as we reported, house speaker paul ryan today became the highest ranking republican yet to say he's not ready to support donald trump. we examine the divisions the trump nomination is driving with two conservatives on either side of the split. we start with a trump supporter, representative tom marino who joins us from state college, pennsylvania. congressman marino, thank you for joining us. you endorsed donald trump as early as just about anybody in the house of representatives back in february. why? >> well, it's very simple. i'll answer that with a rhetorical statement. how's it been knowing last 30 years having governors, senators, career politicians being president, we're 20 trillion in debt, 20 million people out of work, businesses are leaving the country in droves, the borders are not secured, people tell me in my

district they're afraid they're not going to be able to even send their kids to school because they don't know if they're going to have a job or find a job. so donald trump has hired tens of thousands of people. he's the only candidate that has signed the front of a paycheck. i just was talking to him the other day and you know what one of his first meetings among others will be? with business people, men and women, who can tell donald what the problem, is why they have to leave this country. so i think it's a no-brainer. >> woodruff: congressman, what do you say to fellow republicans who say they don't believe donald trump is really, truly conservative? >> well, you know, i'm a conservative. donald is a -- he's an individual that touches all americans, republicans, democrats and independents. he's a populist. he's bringing more and more people out to vote that ever came out to vote in the past. he's going to have -- when the

primary is over, he's going to have more votes from the republicans than any other presidential primary candidate in the history of this country. he's built a $10 billion business by surrounding him with the best and the brightest, and i don't see what any of these other people have to offer. the american people are sick and tired of being sick. they're sick and tired of the establishment, the career politicians, the so-called political bosses in washington, and, really, what we needed to do was bull doze washington and start over. >over. >> woodruff: congressman, one of the other criticisms one hears about mr. trump is about his temperament. there are some who say they might be willing to support him but worry as president he doesn't have the temperament to be leader of the free world. >> if he didn't have the temperament to be the president, i don't think he would be as successful as he is in business. i have been with him many times, smoking with him many times.

he asked my advice. i give it to him. i don't say just exactly what you might want to hear because i'm that kind of a person, but just look in the past. what does hillary clinton have to offer? you know, what do other candidates have to offer as far as creating jobs? he's known all over the world and he's certainly going to let the rest of the world know that we don't think we're better than anyone else, but we won't be taken advantage of anymore like we have been in trade, foreign affairs concerning putin. he's going to take china on. i think they know he's a serious guy and i believe that he's going to make this country great again with the help of the american people. >> woodruff: and what do you say to the leader in your own party in the house of representatives, speaker paul ryan, who said today he's not ready to support donald trump because he still has work to do to unify your party? >> well, paul is new at the job. it's a big switch going from the

chairmannen to the speaker of the house because there is no one in the public's eye than the speaker other than the president. i'll give paul the benefit of the doubt. we're back in d.c. next week. we'll have a discussion about that. there it is a responsibility there that he has to work to bring the party together and i know he and donald have been having dugs. >> woodruff: representative tom marino of pennsylvania, we thank you very much. >> it's always my pleasure. >> woodruff: and donald trump he said "i am not ready to support speaker ryan's agenda. perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the american people. they have been treated so badly for so long that it's about time for politicians to put them first. now for a view from a conservative critic of donald trump, we turn to john

mccormack, senior writer at the weekly standard magazine. john mccormack, welcome. why are you opposed to mr. trump as the party's nominee? >> what you heard paul ryan saying we want a standard bearer who bears our standards. you could view that from ideology, something that paul ryan would say is we're going to have a debt crisis if we don't get entitlements under control, donald trump is completely not a conservative on that and other issues, but for me it's temperament and character. for the last ten months, donald trump has proven to be an unstable conspiracy theorist with a stubborn streak. he got his start in politics saying barack obama's birth certificate was fake and saying george bush knowingly lied that there are weren't weapons of mass destruction in iraq. he said ted cruz's father was involved in the assassination of

j.f.k. that's not the stability you want in a commander-in-chief. on matters of character and temperament, i don't think he's there. >> woodruff: you probably heard, i talked with congressman tom marino of pennsylvania, who i asked him that temperament question, and he said, well, he's been a successful businessman. he said his temperament is what's helped him get him where he is today. what about that? >> if you look at a lot of his business dealings, he's insulted a lot of people, been very aggressive. he's gotten where he is more out of his fame than business acumen. in this campaign we've seen him denigrate women, insulted even prisoners of war when he said of john mccain, i like people who weren't captured. i can't believe a patriotic party has chosen somebody who denigrated prisoners of war like that and until donald trump can prove he's a man of temperament and character, i don't think i

could support him. >> woodruff: are you saying you and others who agree with you couldn't come around to support donald trump if he demonstrates temperament you look for in a president changes and maybe comes up with positions on issues that you can agree with is this. >> i think the donald trump that we've seen over the last ten months is the real donald trump. i don't see him apologizing publicly to all the women he's insulted -- degraded, really -- to the prisoner of war people like john mccain, the nationalists welcoming home in his campaign, he bounces all over the place on tissues. can't control his impulses, threatened to "spill the beans" on heidi cruz. i think the person you've seen in the last ten months is donald trump. i don't think i'll be able to support him in november. i hope there is a third party candidate somebody like dr. coburn from oklahoma. i hope there's a viable option

for conservatives in november. >> woodruff: what do you and other conservatives do who aren't able to support donald trump? if you support a third party, doesn't that automatically help the democratic nominee who's likely to be hillary clinton? >> the polls show hillary clinton is going to beat donald trump whether or not conservative. it's very likely she'll beat him whether or not conservatives support donald trump. a recent cnn poll found 84% of republican back donald trump. hillary clinton was leading by 13%, which means if 100% of republicans supported donald trump, he would still lose to hillary clinton. but at the end of the day, conservatives will have to say both candidates are disqualified. on the one hand, hillary clinton's supreme court nominee would trample the constitution, and donald trump unfit to be commander-in-chief. you have to take a stand, let the chips fall where they may. you can hope there is a third party principled candidate there and if not write someone in on

the ballot. >> woodruff: congressman marino, a populist, said donald trump is appealing to democrats, independents as well as republicans. why wouldn't donald trump be able to put together a coalition that could prevail in november? >> well, it hasn't happened so far. he has the highest unfavorable ratings of any candidate in the modern era. roughly 65% of americans have an unfavorable view of him. his net unfavorability rating is minus 37%, hillary clinton is minus 17. she's not all that unpopular but he's a lot more unpopular than she is. he would have to be a different person in the next six months to have people have a different view of him. i'm not sure he's capable of that. >> woodruff: you don't see the republican party and conservatives coming together between now and november to support him? >> i think a lot of principled conservatives won't be able to. i don't think the fact he's now the presumptive nominee doesn't change the fact he's manifestly unfit to be president of the united states and

commander-in-chief and neither do i think hillary clinton is qualified to be commander-in-chief given what her supreme court nominees would do to the constitution and where they would take this country. >> woodruff: john mccormack, senior writer for the weekly magazine. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: 9/11 victims making headway in their fight to sue saudi arabia. a retrospective of a photographer's controversial work. and a 91-year-old's take on getting old. but first, a fight brewing over flights and lower cost trips to some exotic locales. economics correspondent paul solman suffered through this tough assignment, part of his weekly series, making sense, which airs thursdays. >> reporter: france in the caribbean: the islands of guadeloupe. pretty much as paradisal as

their p.r. footage portrays them: french; exotic; with more than a hint of spice. all just four hours from new york and, if you book early, for $69 or less, november through april. >> flying to guadeloupe? >> reporter: because upstart norwegian airlines, some call it the southwest airlines of europe, is now undercutting the few big post-merger carriers and their few foreign partners, which among them control u.s. skies for travel abroad. anders lindstrom of norwegian. >> so the fare is not unique for a european airline, it just that really highlights how overpriced the american aviation market really is. >> reporter: founded in 1993, the low-cost airline is profitable, due to several advantages: high load factors; our plane was 90% full; brand- new boeings, the most fuel- efficient planes on earth. but mainly, says lindstrom... >> we don't have all the decades

of maintenance costs and labor costs that the airlines traditionally do. so we're starting with new aircraft, new crew, which really keeps fares low. >> reporter: and of course low fares tend to mean full planes. but in the end, says aviation industry watcher michael e. levine... >> the main difference is labor arrangements. they're a new airline, their pilots have low seniority, they have more productive labor arrangements. >> reporter: arrangements like not using hubs and instead flying non-stop point to point so pilots and crew can live near the airports they fly from. and that's the southwest model, right? one type of aircraft, all the pilots qualified to fly it. >> yeah, it's a simplified version, and that's something goes across all low cost airlines around the world. >> reporter: what seemed odd, though, was that the big carriers, who used to fly to guadeloupe in the '70s, haven't, for years, save for a few

american airlines flights from miami. how come no american carrier saw this as an opportunity? >> we think that they were afraid not to fill their plane. norwegian took the risk and they are now flying full planes. >> reporter: jerome siobud manages guadeloupe's airport. he says that because this is legally france, it's part of the european union, which in the 1980s voted to prohibit countries from offering monetary guarantees to airlines, basically bidding for their business. so u.s. carriers abruptly stopped coming. >> you know that this is part of the business and the industry, as part of the european community, we can not do that, so... >> reporter: but when norwegian decided to test the u.s. market by flying to now under-served guadeloupe, it demanded no guarantees. and business boomed. >> 66,000 passengers to the u.s. in 2015. and after three months in 2016,

we have 42,000 people flying to the u.s. >> reporter: a more than 150% increase in traffic. the u.s. seemed ripe for discount global carriers. unfortunately, the u.s. department of transportation was sitting, for two years, on a norwegian request to expand transatlantic service. >> american pilots don't want norwegian to spread its wings. >> reporter: the opposition? big carriers and their unions. >> only with your support will we stop this scheme that threatens the future of u.s. airlines and their employees. >> we are in a fight for our future. >> reporter: this video from the airline pilots association, titled "the wolf is at the door," was directed against norwegian. >> we must stop it now or fight the growth of pilot-shopping around the world, at third world prices. >> so they were saying that we were hiring cheap asian labor to operate the flights to and from the u.s., which is very incorrect.

>> reporter: again, norwegian's lindstrom. >> we have more u.s.-based cabin crew than any other international airline. we have about 300 in the u.s. we will be tripling if not quadrupling in the next year as we grow. >> reporter: so in your view, this is just a classic example of businesses and labor trying to protect their own turf, or their own jobs, their own profits? >> yes, very much so. >> reporter: but with the big airlines finally making profits after years of losses, their opposition is understandable, says industry expert levine. >> they're not really interested in seeing anyone else in. the airlines are afraid that if customers are given the choice, they'll buy their tickets somewhere else from someone who will offer them a better deal. the last i heard, that was capitalism. >> reporter: on the very day we flew, as it happens, norwegian's request was finally ruled upon. we asked anders lindstrom about it after we got to guadeloupe, so yesterday the department of transportation permit you've

been waiting for for two years now finally came through. this a big deal? >> it's a big step. it's a tentative approval and we're hoping for the final approval in just a few months. that will mean that we can expand into the u.s. but also use the same aircraft, expanding from europe into other markets such as india, south africa, and south america. >> reporter: meanwhile, what's good for norwegian is good for guadeloupe, over-reliant since the '80s on just one country for its second biggest industry, says tourism official sandra venite. >> 90% of our tourists are from mainland france. this is the people that are here. >> reporter: and so the deal with norwegian is low cost, no frills fares to get the american tourists back? >> yes, exactly. for once, it benefited us to be french, to get an airline flying from the u.s. to the french caribbean. how crazy is that? (laughs) >> reporter: but $69 fares from new york and watch out! >> we have capacity to absorb the demand. we just need more americans in

guadeloupe. we need to go back to where we were in the '70s. >> reporter: and with real airline competition, guadeloupe expects to get there. as for norwegian's future, says michael e. levine... >> you can do the kind of thing we're talking about pretty well as a new, relatively small niche airline. as you grow, your labor force becomes more senior. you're under a lot of the pressures that make these other airlines less efficient. norwegian's challenge is to figure out how to grow and maintain its competitive edge. that is something that many airlinesave failed at over the years. >> reporter: but it's not something that guadeloupe has to worry about, it seems, not for a while. for the pbs newshour... come on in, the water's fine! this is economics correspondent

paul solman, reporting from france, in the caribbean. >> sreenivasan: the tense state of relations between the u.s. and saudi arabia have been roiled lately by two issues: a pending bill in congress that would allow lawsuits against countries found to have been involved in terrorist attacks on american soil, and the so-called "28 pages," parts of a congressional inquiry after september 11th that are said to detail possible saudi complicity in aiding the attacks. here to tell us more about both is chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner. so first let's talk about the bill, what's in it and what's the status of it. >> the bill, hari, would carve out a special exemption in what's called the foreign sovereign immunity act which every country has a similar act

and observe, which is you don't sue foreign governments, with a few narrow exceptions. there was an exception made for terrorism but only if you were on the state sponsored terrorism list which saudi isn't. so the 9/11 victims families have been trying to push this, get this bill in a court. it was rejected by a federal judge in september saying, sorry, violates this act. so that's sort of what's new here. it passed unanimously a session ago in the senate but now it's run into a buzz saw of white house opposition. you have president obama telling charlie rose if we let this happen we'll have foreign citizens suing our government. all the senior members of the administration have come out against this. two weeks ago, senator lindsey graham, one of the 22 co-sponsors and lawyer which training put a hold on the bill and people thought it was dead.

several widows came to see him last week. he was working on language. and today i learned very quietly he removed his hold on tuesday. so what's happening now is that the two main co-sponsors, republican john cornyn and democrat chuck schumer of new york are essentially counting heads. they want to make sure nobody in their caucus objections, no one with else is -- caucus objects, no one is going to put a secret hold on it and then will ask mitch zeller if he will bring it to the floor. >> sreenivasan: what role do the 28 pages play in this. they're discrete but melt together. >> they do. a lot is a public relations side. the white house said the "60 minutes" report that appeared three weeks ago in which the head of the congressional investigation, co-sponsor bob graham, and three of the 9/11 commission members, which you know was an independent, came out and said there is very -- they didn't say "evidence" but strong signs of

saudi complicity in aiding some of the hijackers as we call 15 of the 19 were saudi and particular the two who were in san diego. you know, mysteriously, they meet a man who gives them an apartment, and these are two guys who don't speak any english and have had no experience living in the west so there are a lot of threads in there. what one white house official said is that "60 minutes" report is that rocket has been a booster to the saudi lawsuit bill and one of the top staff members said they were thinking the same thing. he said we were bumping along on it and now it's front and center. >> sreenivasan: likely the to turn into a presidential campaign issue? >> maybe. hillary clinton and donald trump have actually endorsed the saudi lawsuit bill and especially when they were in new york and on new york radio and television. so i think the only thing that could become political is if president obama, who is supposed to decide on the 28 pages,

supposedly by the end of next month, if he were to say i'm not releasing them, then it could be an issue. >> sreenivasan: what's the white house's reaction. >> appo presidentiaappoplectic. he said the saudis are violently opposed to this and put in the crosshairs on this bill and, in fact, at one point the foreign minister threatened to sell all u.s. assets 750 billion on the market. since rescinded that but still they are very concerned. >> sreenivasan: chief white house correspondent margaret warner, thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now, looking back and looking anew at an artist at

the center of the so-called "culture wars" of the 1980s and '90s. jeffrey brown reports from los angeles. >> brown: take another look: that's the invitation from two los angeles museums, together presenting a major retrospective of the work of robert mapplethorpe. mapplethorpe was best known for his homo-erotic photographs and explicit sado-masochistic imagery, and the political and legal battles around them. even now, we've chosen not to present his most controversial work. but the new exhibition, "robert mapplethorpe: the perfect medium", wants us to see how much more there was to the artist. britt salveson is a curator at the los angeles county museum of art. >> for several years after the culture wars debate of the late '80s, early '90s, it was impossible to see the work as art because we were preoccupied with its status as evidence let's say.

>> brown: as part of that culture war. >> yes. and that really forestalled an assessment of his artwork. >> brown: mapplethorpe grew up in a conservative irish catholic household in queens, new york, and in the 1970s became part of the city's burgeoning gay scene. he focused from the beginning on three main subjects: portraiture, including artists and celebrities of the day, floral still lifes, and sex and the body. >> those are very traditional art historical subjects, i mean long before photography. so the question becomes, how do you make them your own? and i think mapplethorpe does it through a refinement, a reduction of extraneous elements. his sense of perfection and beauty is what he applies to those traditional subjects. >> brown: paul martineau curated a companion exhibition at the getty museum. the two museums acquired the

artist's archives from the mapplethorpe foundation five years ago. >> you won't find wilted flowers in his photographs. he liked flowers at their most powerful and erect. once they started wilting, he'd get rid of them. he really didn't like flowers. he liked pictures of flowers. >> brown: was he after perfection? beauty? >> he was after perfection. and beauty was high up there as well. >> brown: one regular subject was patti smith, the poet and later famed rock musician. she wrote about their youthful times in her national book award winning memoir, "just kids," and in 2010 told me about her friend and the ambition they shared. >> robert really believed in himself. robert was a very interesting boy, because he was quite shy, yet absolutely confident in his abilities and that he would someday, you know, achieve acclaim. he saw his...

>> brown: he knew that, he felt that? >> he felt that, absolutely. >> brown: he would achieve fame, but for the public at large that came in 1989 when north carolina senator jesse helms took to the senate floor to decry federal funding for a traveling exhibition of mapplethorpe's work. >> i don't even acknowledge that it's art. i don't even acknowledge that the fellow who did it was an artist. i think he was a jerk. >> brown: bowing to political pressure, washington's corcoran museum cancelled the show, and when it went on to the cincinnati arts center, its director was arrested and charged with obscenity. he was later acquitted. but mapplethorpe's work would for years after be seen in this context. the los angeles exhibitions contain the controversial work, accompanied by warning signs of their explicit content. mapplethorpe himself, this is his last self-portrait, died of aids, at age 42, just before the cultural tempest burst. >> he said that his life was the

work of art and the pictures were secondary. the ultimate work of art as far as he was concerned was his life. >> brown: so he's creating himself as a work of art? >> and documenting his life. i think that's part of why so much of his art has such impact. because there's an honesty to it. there's an intimacy to it. >> everything was a means to an end to his career. he was a new type of art. >> brown: in conjunction with the joint exhibition, filmmakers fenton bailey and randy barbato released an hbo documentary called "look at the pictures," a portrait of the man and his times. >> i think he was playing

something of a game of cat and mouse with his audience and critics. i think he knew that it would provoke, but he also said he never was intending to shock people. >> brown: i mean, do you take that at face value? how could it not shock people? >> i do and i don't. he knew that the key here was to photograph things, to document things that people considered outside of the realm of art. the way he did it was to elevate them and make them beautiful. the composition and the lighting was incredible. so he made what other people just dismissed as pornography, he made it art, and made us look at it seriously. >> it's ironic, we live in a world now where you can access the most explicit imagery at the tip of, you know, at your fingertips, yet as a society we're still incredibly puritanical about sex. and so his images still, the

explicit ones, i think people still find it challenging and uncomfortable. and i think that's important. i think it's important for people to ask themselves why. >> brown: and these many years later, as "robert mapplethorpe: the perfect medium" shows, there's also much to look at anew. from los angeles, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> sreenivasan: finally, another installment in our brief but spectacular series. tonight, we hear from 91-year- old flossie lewis. a former english teacher, she now lives at the piedmont gardens senior living community in the bay area. lewis keeps busy by writing fiction and offers us insight on what it feels like to grow old. getting old is a state of mind. now, i'm 91.

i'm badly crippled, but i still think i'm 15. will this go viral? >> we hope so. ♪ >> there are several ways i keep myself stimulated. by dragging myself to piedmont avenue on my walker or in my wheelchair, and you should see me use my wheelchair. i write light verse for the crest which is our newspaper and every month you can find a sly little bit of verse from flossie lewis. the other way i keep being stimulated is just watching politics. and if that isn't enough to drive you crazy, i don't know what is. you do struggle to keep yourself neat and clean and fashionable and there is always the

possibility that romance comes your way. just liking someone is a treat because part of being old is to get cranky. there is indigestion and your teeth fall out and suddenly you need hearing aids and you feel increasingly unattractive, and then somebody says, how nice you look today, mrs. lewis! or, you're a real kick, flossie! and you feel good about yourself. you pick yourself up and you say, i'm going to get through it. i'm going to get through it because i have a reason to get through it. really growing old is when you discover that you haven't a reason to get through it anymore, and that you would like to go to sleep with a certain amount of dignity.

accepting the fact the body is going to go but the personality doesn't have to go, and that thing which is the hardest to admit is that character doesn't have to go. i'm flossie lewis. this is my brief but spectacular take on growing old. >> woodruff: what a charmer. i want to be flossie lewis. >> sreenivasan: if politics is the key, you should get a few more years. >> woodruff: watch our brief and spectacular videos online. >> woodruff: donald trump is work, to build his presidential campaign and win over republican leaders but house speaker paul ryan says he is not ready to support trump. a raging wildlife forced new

evacuations near fort mcmurray, alberta, in the heart of canada's oil sands country and an airstrike in northwest syria killed at least 28 people in a crowded refugee camp near the turkish border. unclear who launched the strike. on the newshour online right now, the largest stash of elephant tusks and rhino horns ever assembled in one place was burned over the weekend in kenya. that's 100 tons, destroyed in an effort to eliminate the prized ivory from the black market. find a photo essay from the burn on our homepage. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: tune in later tonight on charlie rose, daveed diggs, the actor who plays both thomas jefferson and the marquis de lafayette in the tony- nominated musical, "hamilton." and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm hari sreenivasan >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. 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. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future.

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this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. oil inferno, a massive fire raging through the canadian city home to the world's third-largest reserve of crude sending oil and stocks on a volatile rise. sticking point. why verizon's striking workers are taking their concerns right to shareholders. planning for future. a simple yet important document could prevent you from making a major financial mistake. all that and more on "nightly business report" for thursday, may 5th. >> a day before the monthly jobs report is set to be released a number of federal reserve officials are speaking on the economy. we'll have more on that shortly.