captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> sreenivasan: good evening, i'm hari sreenivasan. gwen ifill and judy woodruff are away. on the newshour tonight, after a contentious debate the nation's top republican won't defend donald trump, focusing instead on trying to keep control of the u.s. house. also ahead this monday, hurricane matthew leaves a path of destruction throughout the nation's southeast as dangerous flooding continues to threaten north carolina. and, ruth bader ginsburg in her own words. we sit down with the supreme court justice to talk about her new book and breaking boundaries. >> when i graduated from law school in 1959, there was not a single woman on any federal bench. it would not be a realistic ambition. >> sreenivasan: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: 29 days to go till the election-- it's the day after debate number 2-- and donald trump is scrambling to save his presidential bid. but, the fallout from his lewd remarks about women cost him again today. lisa desjardin reports. >> reporter: he is the highest- ranking republican in the nation, and today, house speaker paul ryan drew a hard line with his party's nominee: he won't defend donald trump, and won't campaign for him, either. a spokeswoman for ryan told the "newshour" the speaker is "going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities".

but ryan is still on the record endorsing trump. about that, his spokeswoman said: "there is no update in his position". all this, three days after "the washington post" posted video of trump in 2005 using lewd language and bragging about making unwanted sexual advances on women. in last night's debate, trump again apologized for the remarks but mainly argued that his words were simple bravado. >> it was locker room talk. >> reporter: today trump, in turn, took to twitter, to lash out at the speaker. he wrote: "paul ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration" -- he said -- "and not waste his time on fighting (the) republican nominee." trump, in turn, lashed out at ryan, during his first post- debate appearance, just outside pittsburgh: >> i'm not proud of everything that i've done in life. i mean, who among us is. is anybody totally proud of

every single element? >> reporter: meanwhile, for democrat hillary clinton, the day after the debate was occasion to kick off a two-day, three-college swing. she was back on the attack, this afternoon at wayne state university in detroit: >> i believe that every single one of us in this room today has paid more in federal income taxes than donald trump has. >> reporter: even as she embarks on her post-debate push ... a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, conducted after the trump video tape appeared, shows clinton widening her lead over trump, with 46% in a 4-way race to trump's 35%. and libertarian gary johnson and the green party's jill stein in the single digits. that poll was conducted, before a national tv audience, of around 60 million people, who watched the second clinton-trump debate last night. and a few moments have cascaded into questions today. >> okay. he and i haven't spoken, and i disagree. >> reporter: that was trump disagreeing with a stance on

syria that moderator martha raddatz attributed to his running mate, mike pence: that the u.s. should be ready to use force against russian ally and syrian leader bashar al-assad. pence's actual words from the v.p. debate >> if russia chooses to be involved and continue, i should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in aleppo, the united states of america should be prepared to use military force to strike >> reporter: on cnn this morning, pence stressed again he was speaking about using force if russia attacks civilians in aleppo. that's still a difference with trump, but it's a narrower one than was portrayed in the debate. and, there was one other moment, on investigating hillary clinton's e-mails: >> if i win, i am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. >> reporter: the clinton campaign decried the remarks as using power to target political

opponents, but this morning, trump, campaign manager kellyanne conway indicated her boss' words were sarcastic: >> that was a quip and i saw in nbc's own reporting it was referred it a quip so i'll go with nbc on it. >> reporter: conway went on to say that trump was venting the frustrations of his voters. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> sreenivasan: we'll take a closer look at the campaign, and divisions within republican ranks, right after the news summary. in the day's other news, the desperation of aleppo, syria prompted "doctors without borders" to appeal for access, amid a russian-syrian assault on the city. the group supports eight hospitals there, but has only 35 doctors to help 275,000 civilians. it says the wounded are sleeping outside, waiting for care. meanwhile, russia announced it is creating a permanent naval base in syria, to increase its military presence in the region. the wind and rain have subsided, but the damage that hurricane "matthew" did is far from over.

as of today, the storm is blamed for hundreds of deaths in haiti, plus at least 20 more in the u.s. flooding extends across five states, with north carolina hit the hardest. whole towns awash in water: the legacy of a long, stormy weekend across eastern north carolina. >> i'm so upset. i don't have nothing left. nothing. i have to take all this and put it in the garbage. i just want somewhere else to go. >> sreenivasan: it's the worst the state has seen since hurricane "floyd" in 1999, and governor pat mcrory warned today, it will not end soon. >> the greatest threat at this point in time remains inland flooding that will continue this week in central and eastern north carolina. >> sreenivasan: "matthew" dumped a foot or more of rain, more than 100 miles inland at fayetteville, and eight inches in raleigh, the state capital. in lumberton, just south of fayetteville, rescuers worked to evacuate 1,500 people after a

levee along the lumber river broke overnight. the deluge also triggered scores of rescue missions saturday night and sunday, with emergency crews from as far away as new york taking part. >> to pitch in, pitch together and help people get out the apartments, get our stuff out and crawl through water all babies, all, children, all stuck in the water. >> sreenivasan: nearly a million homes and businesses in the carolinas were still in the dark today, plus thousands more in georgia and virginia. parts of interstate 95 were flooded-- in several places, in north carolina-- halting traffic on a major north-south artery. a number of roads and bridges remained closed in south carolina as well, and 2,000 people were still in shelters. meanwhile, cleanup began elsewhere, in savannah, georgia, where 17 inches of rain fell. and in florida, where governor rick scott surveyed coastal erosion today. >> we were actually blessed that this storm never turned in and had direct hit.

while we don't want to see the devastation we've seen behind this at all the most important thing is to save everybody's life >> sreenivasan: the hurricane did score a direct hit on haiti, destroying whole towns. estimates of the dead there range from 500 to 1,000 dead, with a new outbreak of cholera compounding the crisis. the united nations called today for a "massive response" to get food, water and shelter to at least 750,000 haitians. we'll look at what the hurricane did to the nation's oldest city, later in the program. samsung faced a new debacle today after reports that replacement "galaxy note 7" phones are overheating and catching fire, just like the originals. the company said it is "temporarily" adjusting production schedules. it did not confirm reports that it halted production entirely. samsung recalled the original batch of 2.5 million "note 7's" last month over the fire issue. two boston area professors will share this year's nobel prize for economics. oliver hart of harvard

university and bengt holmstrom of massachusetts institute of technology were honored today for their work in contract theory. in stockholm today, the nobel committee said they've shed light on everything from paying executives to privatizing prisons. >> thanks to their research we now have, can analyze not just financial terms, who should get paid what, but also the control and decision rights: ownership, property rights and other types of decision rights and contracts. >> sreenivasan: hart was born in britain and has taught at harvard since 1993. holmstrom is from finland. on wall street today, stocks rose as the price of oil topped $51 a barrel-- the highest in a year. the dow jones industrial average gained 88 points to close at 18,329. the nasdaq rose 36 points, and the s&p 500 added nearly 10. still to come on the newshour: the g.o.p. divide after last night's fiery presidential debate. in florida, what hurrican3 matthew has left in its wake. justice ruth bader ginsberg's

newest book "my own words," and much more. >> sreenivasan: we return to the race for the white house, with election day now four weeks away. john yang looks at the growing split within the republican party. >> yang: with the mass defection of high-profile republicans from their presidential nominee, has the divide between donald trump and the gop establishment become irreconcilable? we explore that question now with tom davis, a former member of congress who was in charge of electing republicanns to the trump's virginia state chairman. mr. davis, let me start with you. the house speaker this morning said he's not going to defend donald trump, he's not going to campaign with him, he's going to focus on the house and senate. is he saying he thinks the

presidential race is over? >> no, i think he's saying he wants to make sure the house republicans get reelected and he has a house ma jomplet this isn't different than what he was telling the house a month ago, you have to look after your own district. in some districts donald trump will be doing good and in some he will be a liability and candidates will have to do what they have to do. his responsibility is to help reelect house members. when i was campaign chairman in 20 2 * 000, it was a similar arrangement with george w. bush where they did their things and we did ours. they coordinated to some extent but it was up to each individual member as to how to handle it. >> yang: so many reps over the weekend m in tough races m running for reelection, saying they are no longer supporting donald trump. is that the smart move? >> well, the smart move is to recognize the issues he's talking about and how people are reacting to them and talk about those issues. you know, if this were an

election on personality, donald trump would be down by 100 points. hillary spent $200 million pointing out his perfectly obvious imperfections. but the issues he talks about and why people rally around him and i think it would be smart for all candidates to think about thos issues. >> yang: we've had donald trump tweeting maybe paul ryan should be focusing on balancing the budget, creating jobs and immigration and not fighting with him, that kellyanne conway this morning talked about inappropriate behavior by some of the republicans who are now turning against him. are we lining up with this one wing of the party versus another wing of the party? >> i hope not. i hope we're lining up with people across america. that's all mr. trump should be talking about. there are people who haven't had a real increase in real wages in a real long time, that's what we should be talking about, i don't care what about paul ryan does. his duty is to help elect

members of the house and he's good at it. they don't need to be talking about each other. >> john, i don't think there is any question that the trump constituency came in was anti-establishment and that means anti-congressional establishment. there is some tension there. can they co-exist and get along and maximize their produce through republican congress and perhaps elect a republican president. of course there are tensions. >> yang: the question is can and how can they get i long. >> depends. some districts you have people supporting trump and others your can't find if trump comes to town. in any district in northern virginia, after a couple of terms, there were very few reps i could appear with without hurting myself. first you owe yourself a duty and the caucus to get reelected.

donald trump performance well in some districts and some not. >> yang: we saw paul ryan get booed when he talked about the situation, the videotape and that trump wasn't with him as he was scheduled to be when joe heck in nevada, a senate candidate withdrew his endorsement of mr. trump, he got booed. is there a risk for candidates jumping off the trump bandwagon? >> yes. no one's ever successfully sawed a boat in half and floated to safety. once you're in the boat, you're in the boat. we need to win the presidential race and if not it needs to be close for house and senate races like joe heck to get across the line. so you have to be very careful. you can have your own opinions but realize 40 to 60% of your supporters are still with him. so don't go too far. >> yang: mr. davis, if you were running the congressiona

campaign committee now, what would you be telling challengers and your members voting for -- running for reelection? >> it's district by district. if you look at the top of the ticket you want to try to latch on the coattails and ride across the line. if the wind is coming at you, you basically have to personalize the district, make this a referendum on you. in john cat koas district in syracuse, he's running double digits ahead and mr. trum is running double digits behind. everybody cons this. profits understand you have to do what you have to do to get reelected. mr. trump's remarks, nobody's going to attach themselves to those remarks, but that doesn't necessarily mean you abandon ship because once you divide yourself up, i've seen very few cases where parties survive that kind of thing. >> yang: no matter what happens at the top of the ticket in november, this anti-establishment feeling you have been talking about is going to be there, it's going to continue and going to exist.

what does the republican party look like moving forward? what does it do moving forward? because even if donald trump is elected president, he will have to deal with this congress that is the establishment that so many of his supporters hate right now. >> i think the caucus probably gets larger. i think there's going to be more turmoil. i think if we think the scary stuff is over now, wait until after the election because the winner probably is going to only have 40 or 50r% of the vote because more would have voted for them than not voted for them. >> reporter: what would you do, mr. davis, if you were running the party and were the r.n.c. chairman? how would you move forward after the election no matter who sphwhins. >> we have to learn how to co-exist. what republicans found in virginia is even when they're united given the d. j. shifts, we lose sometimes. so you have to learn to

co-exist, everybody get a piece of things and try to line up accordingly. we're going to primaries instead of conventions. i think that's a good thing in this state. shouldn't jeopardize the trump supporters who won primaries. but it's the kind of thing where we have to learn to co-exist. coalitions mean sometimes you get in a room with people you're not quite comfortable with to advance your own interests and the reps have not gotten comfortable with their coalition. democrats also a diverse coalition have learned to co-exist and win. >> yang: thanks for coming in and discussing these interesting days with us. >> thank you. > >> sreenivasan: that brings us to our politics monday duo amy walter of the "cook political report" and tamara keith of npr, joining us tonight from detroit. so amy,ettes start with this vape weighs of support from republican leadership. does it matter? >> oh, it absolutely meters. if you think about the 2012 election, mitt romney, of course, lost the campaign. he lost more than 93% of the republican vote.

getting less than 90% is a big problem in a country that is as polarized as this. if it's only 5% or 10% of voters, not necessarily who even go out and vote for hillary clinton, but the wigger concern for reps down ballot is traditional republican voters stay home. they find themselves so disgusted, they can't support donald trump, don't like hillary clinton, they sit on their hands and don't turn out. that is a bigger problem for down ballot races than almost anything else. >> sreenivasan: what does it mean when paul ryan, leader to have house, says he's not necessarily unendorsing donald trump but he's not backing him, he's not going to spend more effort? >> he's in absolutely a tough position and he's been in a tough position and really the trump candidacy has put a ton of republicans in very tough positions. from the democratic perspective, the clinton campaign today responding to paul ryan

basically said, paul ryan, you enabled donald trump for months throughout the summer and before that, and they are intent open not letting congressional republicans including those ones who are unendorsing get away with trying to dietsens themselves from donald trump. and i think we're very close to this point in campaign where potentially you are going to have congressional candidates, republican congressional candidates running saying, let's assume hillary clinton is going to be president, reelect me or elect me so we can have a republican senate and republican house to serve as a counterbalance to the person they assume will be the president of the united states, and that is a pretty remarkable moment. >> that happened during the clinton -- >> uring the '96 campaign, there was consider effort by the house and senate campaign committees to basically concede the presidential race and say vote for republican candidate x to make sure that then bill clinton doesn't get a blank check. and this has been happening throughout the campaign, hari.

we've seen the republican party divided, come back together, divide, come back together, and we are now only 30 days from the election, and so the question is does it come back together like it always does or are we going to see it continue to be divided, dispirited and essentially you will have this big enthusiasm gap between those who will go out and support hillary clinton and the republicans. >> sreenivasan: late in the afternoon we had the r.n.c. come out and say we are still behind our candidate. is this continuous cause to believe there is a lift among the reps as to who is the true republican? >> there have been rumors the r.n.c. was cutting bait and going to pull its campaign support from donald trump and with this priebus is essentially saying, no, we're in it for our candidate. priebus is in another tough

position. off large portion of the republican bakers yeah, there are -- base, yeah, there are people who are reps who -- republicans who say they can't vote for trump, but a lot voted for him in the primaries, passionate about his canned si and don't want establishment republicans tell them they can't have their candidate. >> sreenivasan: where do voters fall on this divide inside the republican party? >> we've had polling come out in the wake of the videotape that came out over the weekend, and the question was asked as the "wall street journal" poll asked voters who were supporting donald trump, do you think this is enough for the republican party to distance themselves to ask him to step down, maybe to repudiate him? 68% of reps said don't do anything, donald trump is in the right, the party has no right to basically do any of those things. 67% is a big number, as tam pointed out, that is not a group

of voters you want to alienate. at the same time, there is another sizable group of republicans right now or at least people who would support donald trump who say i don't know that i can continue to have him at the top of ticket, and that is a very,er are difficult spot to be, especially if you are a candidate, running for congress in one of these districts like tom davis did, suburban where you have a lot of voters who are independent, maybe who are republican by nature but feeling very alienated by the party at this point. >> sreenivasan: tamara, your impression tons the debate. >> yeah, so it was a tough debate. it was rough, it was hard to watch. i got messages from lots of people saying, oh, my gosh, i have a pit in my stomach watching this. in the end, you know, donald trump went nuclear. he really did. he brought out the big thing that he said he had been

threatening to bring out for a long time, and i don't know that it materially changed the state of the race. it certainly excites his base, but it's not clear that it was any sort of a knockout blow against hillary clinton. you know, today, she at her rally said, how about that debate? and got the biggest applause of the day again. so for people who support her, she did a fine job, and they were happy with it, and in terms of broadening the ways, donald trump appealed to his base, but i don't know that he appealed to people who were looking, trying to figure out what to do in this election. >> there is a lot of talk about iis the floor going to drop out on donald trump. he never had a floor problem, 35, 40% to have the electorate have always been with it. his problem is a ceiling problem because he keeps talking to the people who make up his floor instead of going to the people who can expand his ceiling.

and that scorched earth campaign that he ran yesterday at the debate to me suggests that that's the kind of thing we're going to see for the next 30 days, which means there is no reaching out, there is no broadening, there's no pivoting, this is all about can i get those people who love me, who come to my rallies to continue to support me at the same rate, that's not a winning coalition, it's a coalition that he likes to spend time with. >> sreenivasan: it's also one of the first times we had a candidate intentionally threaten to throw the other one in jail if he wins. >> yeah, we've never seen anything quite like that, and his campaign will say he quipped about it, but the fact of the matter is, first of all, i'm going to have the justice department appoint a special prosecutor to investigate somebody who lost a campaign, and then, as an aside, he said, well, if i were president, you would be in jail. that is not something that anybody has ever seen before, and i think, again, to the

voters who are looking to see could they picture donald trump as president, the number one concern i hear especially from women voters, worried about his temperament, that is the sorts of thing that keeps them -- you know, keeps pushing them away. >> reporter: tamara, did hillary clinton reach out to larger audiences last night? >> there is a little of that and the campaign is continuing that today. certainly she delivered her stronger together message which is the theme of her campaign, but that is a message that is intended to reach people who aren't just deep blue democrats and today her campaign is out with four ads to be running in swing states that feature republicans talking about why they're voting for her and not donald trump, and she's really presenting this as a choice of saying voters know who donald trump is, but the way we vote will say who we are, is the message she's delivering. that is a message that's aimed

at republicans and independents and certainly not just die-hard democrats. >> sreenivasan: tamera keith, amy walter, thank you so much. >> you're welcome. >> sreenivasan: and our analysis and fact-checking continues on our website, where you can find the top five debate takeaways from our politics team. >> sreenivasan: we turn now to the ongoing civil war in yemen, where the civilian death toll grew over the weekend. more than 140 died after what witnesses say was an airstrike on a funeral saturday in the capital, sana'a. the saudi airforce has been bombing the country for months, with logistical assistance from the u.s. indeed reports from the scene said it was u.s.-made bombs were dropped on the funeral. the saudi-backed government in yemen is fighting houthi rebels as well as al qaeda forces. at least 10,000 people have died over the last 18 months, and more than million have been

displaced and, on sunday, a u.s. navy guided missile destroyer in the red sea was targeted by houthi missiles fired from the yemeni coast. the navy says the missiles detonated short of the target, leaving the ship untouched. we begin with this report from neil connery of independent television news. >> reporter: they're burying the dead in sanaa, dozens of burials, for those killed, the funeral was attacked. (sirens) thousands came to mourn the capital's governor. his picture looking down on his own procession. the governor was one of hundreds of people packed into the funeral hall when it was hit by a saudi-led coalition airstrike. but even as they pay respects to the governor's family, the jets are back again, heard overhead.

as sanaa buries its dead, there is rising anger at the weekend funeral attack and wit, calls for revenge. hopes for peace here have never seen so far away. >> we need peace. we will kill or be killed. eye for eye. >> reporter: yemen's tragedy has a new chapter, the single deadliest attack in its 19-month war. in the capital, as they cover the graves of its victims, how many more will follow? >> and to j.b. >> brown: yesterday secretary kerry spoke with saudi officials and called for immediate sees sailings of hostilities.

an international security ire security council spokesman said the u.s. would review the support of the saudi-led coalition. i'm joined by michael hannah a senior fellow at the century foundation. welcome. there was already so much concern and anger over civilian casualties and deaths in this conflict, how important is this new incident? >> it's gotten more attention than this war usually does and partly because to have the nature of this attack and the scope of the damage. this is a really horrific attack that happened on a funeral hall with a huge number of senior yemeni figures, tribal figures and political figures, and it does seem like a difference in time, like a red line had been crossed in bombing this kind of funeral gathering and for this reason it's gotten a lot of

negative attention and the reaction of the united states has been different. we have seen horrific bomb -- bombings in the past but this elicited a different kind of response from the united states. >> brown: remind us briefly where things stand in this conflict in yemen and what's behind the saudi-led bombing? >> the saudi military campaign began in march of 2015 so it's been going on about a year and a half and, of course, yemen and saudi border countries, so saudi has looked at yemen differently than at other conflicts, say syria for example. that being said, it is quite different to see saudi arabia engaged in direct military conflict. they began a military campaign about a year and a half ago, they were joined by other gulf states and are getting support from the united states and the united kingdom. and, so, this is a difference in kind. i think saudi arabia sees the region changing.

it's quite concerned about the influence of iran. it sees in houthis the rebel movement that essentially overthrew the government in yemen as a kind of extension of iranian influence, as a proxy force. and while the united states has a differing view of the conflict, does not necessarily agree about the saudi analysis of the conflict, it has clearly reached a point for saudi arabia and its own calculations that enough is enough, and some of this is about establishing deterrent capacity and trying to change the kind of regional balance of power at the moment. >> brown: so to the extent the u.s. has supported this vawdy effort and, yet, there have been mr. strange, particularly over casualties, among civilians, what now, when they talk about a review, what do you see happening? >> well, i think it's high time there is a review. the statement this weekend

suggested u.s. security operation is not a blank check and i think for a long time now the nate has hoped that the saudis and others would essentially declare victory and focus on a political settlement, and i think that's still the american position, and that has been voiced publicly and privately, but i do think this seems different, that the united states, because of this latest incident, is going to be much more keen in bringing about a cessation of hostilities, and much more keen on focusing on the diplomatic track, which has sputtered on through various iterations but has failed to have any kind of lasting impact. but i think the united states has a very different view about the continuing utility of this military campaign and the prospects for it to be particularly successful in the coming months. >> brown: michael hannah, thank you very much.

>> thank you. >> sreenivasan: earlier in the program, we told you about the record-breaking flooding in north carolina. hurricane matthew also left a wake of damage on its way to north carolina along the coasts of three states. billed as the oldest city in america, st. augustine, florida was one of the places that felt the storm's might. the small coastal town of nearly 14,000, which dates back to the 16th century, is only now emerging from this weekend's storm. i was there yesterday. it looked like one big garage sale on solana road in saint augustine, florida.... but everything in the front yards was contaminated. couches, mattresses, family keepsakes-- all soaked by the floods after hurricane matthew. families were racing to get it all out before the moisture turned to mold and made its way into the walls. >> when you evacuate you take

only the things that you really find irreplaceable. but this is whole-- these are all the things that may be replaceable. but they're what give you something to come home to. >> sreenivasan: mayor nancy shaver took us to one of the low lying areas that was hardest hit. the sewer pumps were still offline, meaning underground waste was overflowing onto the street. residents were only allowed back into the area saturday. >> your home is where you're supposed to go to be peaceful, restful, be with your family, sleep, eat. and none of these things are possible in these homes. >> sreenivasan: one of the homeowners on this block: the city manager, john regan, tasked so what did you have to throw out? >> everything. everything. my house was two feet of water. with coordinating the city's recovery effort, now working furiously on his own. >> sreenivasan: while trying to salvage what he could from his home, he was also trying to prevent more fires like the ones the city has been fighting every

night since the storm. >> yeah, and all these houses that have been flooded, when we bring the power back, you got to be sensitive that there's no short circuiting. >> sreenivasan: regan is luckier than some just up the coast, who will never move back into their homes again. the storm's waves, gouged deep beneath the foundations of some homes, and surge driven waters lifted and washed away everything they could. the debris is not limited to the coastline, but inlets as well. marinas usually full of tourists and boaters are shut down because floating junk is a danger to boats and several docks have lost their moorings. >> we're ready to go fishing but at this point this marina we can't get our boats in here. bill hunsicker captains a charter boat for sport fishermen. >> sreenivasan: he says he can last two weeks without customers before he has to make tough decisions. in the city's historic "old town," most businesses remained shuttered, as they dried out and cleaned up. >> this is the oldest bar in the oldest town.

>> sreenivasan: the local watering hole, that rarely closes, stopped for matthew. >> usually we have a hurricane party, but this year we didn't have any power. >> it was a really bad one. nobody wanted to be here. >> sreenivasan: blogger jorge rivera wanted to stay and track the storm. >> the water's up to my waist. he captured some of the earliest scenes of matthew's arrival. >> sreenivasan: over the weeken, he continued to document its toll. >> it's not so much that the hurricane is powerful, it's that you're in such a vulnerable place. >> sreenivasan: now, he wonders whether it would have been worth it. >> the question is, once they find your body they say, was he a fool or was he brave? i don't know. i don't have an answer for that. >> sreenivasan: but rivera wasn't alone. mayor shaver says almost half the city stayed behind-- many who didn't have the means to evacuate and others who were homeless and out of reach. numbers she hopes to change in the future.

we've have 450 years of practice. we are an extraordinarily resilient city, it's a real community it has a very rich fabric of reaching out, connecting and helping folks. >> sreenivasan: that sentiment moved the owners of le macaron to hand out sweets to their local firefighters. recent transplants from france, the're overwhelmed by the support >> here we see this, and we don't have this in europe, in france. i'm sorry to say that but here it's very different than with lots of people coming, every 15 minutes saying hey we can help us. >> sreenivasan: this city has soldiered on through challenges for more than 400 years, city hall, which was flooded reopened to essential personnel today. online, a poet shares her experience of hurricane destruction and recovery. find that at pbs.org/newshour.

>> sreenivasan: next, combining sustainable agriculture with entrepreneurship in developing countries. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports from earth university, a campus in costa rica that aims to do just that. his story is part of our agents for change series. >> reporter: it is quite likely is the only university in the world where traffic stops for bananas-millions of them wrapped tightly in blue plastic. earth university actually was a commercial banana plantation before being converted in 1992 to a university to train students from developing countries grappling with climate change and growing populations. funds came from the u.s. and costa rican governments and the michigan based kellogg

foundation. >> when we first came to this property, the whole river was contaminated with the blue plastic bag. that also have chemical inside to protect it, to protect it from insects. and when the first group of students came, we brought them here and we started to pick all the plastic. >> reporter: today, university co founder joze zaglul says the blue plastic bags are recycled and tons of plant waste-stalks; fruits that don't make the grade-things that used to be discarded-are collected and fed to livestock. >> so we don't use chemicals in the bags. and we also are using an organic fungicide. >> reporter: these bananas are labeled as "responsibly grown" and sold across the u.s. in whole foods stores. the enterprise supports dozens of local jobs and scholarships >> that girl over there, she's from panama. that guy is from brazil.

she is from ecuador. that guy you see, he's from somaliland in africa. >> reporter: 43 countries are represented here; a majority of the 400 students depend on financial aid. from 1,600 applications, about 110 are admitted each year >> what we attempt to discover their interest to go back to the countries, because we are about forming leaders, and individuals that really overcome barriers. >> reporter: yves rusanganwa is a first year student from rwanda-born soon after that country's genocide. >> i grew up hearing about hunger, hearing about poverty, hearing epidemic diseases, i grew up in that environment so as i was growing up i grew up a passion inside me of doing something in this world and try to change that history. >> reporter: many students say a

lack of knowledge hinders productivity and keeps most farmers in their homelands in poverty. devotha tumushimiyimana is also from rwanda, a nation the size of maryland with a population of 11 million. >> my country is a small country and i would like also to teach people how they can do agriculture in small land. >> reporter: jose zaglul says doing agriculture on small land- or even no land-is an important part of the curriculum. >> at home, in the schools, on rooftops in the cities. and you don't have to utilize so much energy and fossil fuels to transport them. >> reporter: across campus, fruits and vegetables are grown in unlikely containers, with unlikely tools. >> all the bottles that you see there, its like drip irrigation. >> reporter: the campus tries to model the ideal, carbon neutral world it wants its graduates to

help create. zaglul says that's sometimes involved taking risks-like the decision at the start to keep producing bananas >> it used to cost us 25 cents more per box to do all this sustainable practices, and nobody would pay us for that. i tell you we were losing money, but we had to show the students that it is possible to do sustainable business. >> reporter: possible, he says, because over time recycling and not using pesticides save money. then came the right large customer: whole foods. besides the classroom and field emphasis on sustainable practices, students are encouraged to develop business ideas. 23-year-old senior diderot saintilma plans for when he returns to his native haiti/ >> where i come from there are a lot of peanut farmers. they don't do very much post harvest processing. so i'd like to start an

association or cooperative of small peanut farmers so they can get added value for products. >> reporter: many graduates have taken ideas from here to the business world. for costa rican joaquin viquez, it was animal waste recycling-- solids are separated to make fertilizer while large bladders or bio-digesters break down liquid wastes to capture methane, or biogas. its not new technology, he says, it simply wasn't commercialized for farms in developing countries >> there was no one you could call or no store you could go and say 'hey i want a digester.' and so we made it technically accessible and we do a lot of efforts to make it economically feasible for the farmer. >> reporter: on this day, they were installing a digester at the calderon family farm, with about 100 head of dairy and beef cows.

>> ( translated ): i took a course recently at the national institute of learning and they talked about global warming and hygiene and i really came back wanting to have a clean farm, so i contacted a microfinance agency, talked to my husband, used our savings to do this. >> reporter: viquez says not only will this family be reducing greenhouse gases emitted by unprocessed animal wastes but their energy savings over time will more than cover the digester's $3400 cost >> they're not going to have to use any firewood or propane for the cooking. they're going to have a surplus >> reporter: viquez is one of about 2,000 earth university alumni, jose zaglul says each on average has created four other jobs and their influence has spread in other ways. many commercial banana producers have adopted practices that began here, he says. for the pbs newshour, this is fred de sam lazaro in guapile, costa rica >> sreenivasan: fred's reporting

is a partnership with the undertold stories project at the university of st. thomas, in minnesota. >> sreenivasan: ruth bader ginsburg broke countless barriers for women in the legal profession long before she was tapped by president bill clinton for the highest court in the land. now she has published a collection of her writings and speeches, "my own words." for this latest addition to the newshour bookshelf, gwen ifill sat down with her recently at the supreme court. >> ifill: justice ginsburg, thank you tore speaking with us. i want to start with a broader question than you even address in your book which is you've become something of a folk hero to some women. did you see that coming? >> it is utterly amazing. of course, i didn't see it coming. it was all the creation of a second-year law student at

n.y.u. it came about this way -- she was reading a court's decision that invalidated a very significant part of the voting rights act of 1965, and she was angry, and then she remembered that i had said anger is a useless emotion, it doesn't get you any place, do something positive. so she created this tumbler starting with my dissent, and then it took off into the wild blue yonder. >> ifill: you know, some people would say it's about politics, but i wonder if it's not also about your presence, your very existence on the court and the way that you write and the way that you sometimes take on your colleagues. >> i would like to think so, but i certainly was given a tremendous boost into the public arena by the notorious rbg. when i was asked about it

because i said notorious b.i.g. and i had something in common? you did? we were both born in brooklyn, new york. >> ifill: you ever consider being a rapper? >> i don't think i have that talent. >> ifill: neither do i. i want to talk to you about someone you give a lot of credit to in this book and this is your late husband marty and you said you would never be on the court without him. do you agree with that? >> it's absolutely true. one of my law clerks said at the time clinton was considering his first nominee to the court, he said you will probably be around number 25 unless you do something to promote yourself. so i'm not very good at promotion, but marty was, and he

was tireless in his effort to see that i would be the nominee. >> ifill: just the way you write about, speak about marty, it's almost like a present tense presence in your life. >> he will be president in my life as long as i live. i have his portrait in my broom and -- in my bedroom and i say, you would probably like what i am doing now. >> ifill: of all the speeches and writings you've collected in this book, what do you get the most frequent questions about? what do younger and older people ask you? >> one question is did you always want to be a judge, or, more exorbitantly, did you always want to be a supreme court justice? i try to explain the way things were in the not-so-good-old-days.

so when i graduated from law school in 1959, there was not a single woman on any federal bench. it would not be a realistic ambition for a woman to want to become a federal judge. it was not realistic until jimmy carter became our president. he looked around at the federal judiciary and said, that's nice, but they all look like me. so i am determined to appoint members of minority groups and women in numbers to the federal bench, so we will use the talent of all of the people of the united states and not just some of them. >> ifill: i'm not sure everyone knows how extensive your interest in women's issues and women's rights were long before you got to the court. is that something which this can also begin to luminate?

>> yes. the book includes one of the many speeches why we need an equal rights amendment. >> do you feel as a liberal that conservative men and women can identify with you as well? >> every time i hear of that, i think of the great gilbert and sullivan song that goes, every girl and every boy that's born alive is either a little liberal or conservative. what does that mean? depends on who's being born. >> ifill: you got into trouble about making a comment about donald trump this year. do you still regret it? >> i said what i had to say about that and i will not address that subject again. >> ifill: that's fair. let me ask you another question about what's happening uh now.

do you merrick garland? >> yes, i know merrick quite well. he is now the chief judge of the court on which i served for many years and he's an expert in administrative law. i've read his writings. i wish that the spirit that prevailed in 1993 when i was nominated, i wish that that could be restored. 1993, the vote on me was 96 to 3. there was a two bipartisan spirit prevailing, democrat and republicans work together, they got things done. >> everybody wonders whether you're going to be ever done. >> ifill: at first i said i wanted to stay as long as a

justice did that was appointed when i was 60, but he retired at age 83, which is what i am. my answer is i will do this job as long as i can do it full steam. at my age, that means you take it year by year. i am confident that in year there will be no slowdown. what will be next year, i don't know. >> none of us really knows, with but we'll be watching. justice ruth bader ginsberg, thank you very much. >> it was a pleasure. >> sreenivasan: on the newshour online,69 years ago tonight, a brand new rodgers and hammerstein musical about an ambitious doctor debuted on broadway, and it was a huge flop. but that doesn't stop medical historian howard markel from recommending the play for its important life lessons. plus, we've shared exclusive

snapchat and instagram stories about seven bee species in hawaii recently added to the endangered species list. follow us at pbsnews on snapchat and newshour on instagram. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday we'll head to greece, a country grappling with letting refugee children into school. i'm hari sreenivasan. 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: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

>> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this is "nightly busine wit. the putin rally. oil gushes to multimonth highs as russia's president supports supply limits, and energy shares take stocks along for the ride. samsung struggles as retailer in the u.s. stop selling even the replacement note 7 phones. those were the ones that were not supposed to catch fire. but are. what's next for korea's biggest brand? >> your money, your vote. ow the investment markets interpret the presidential race those stories and more tonight on "nightly bu for monday, october 10th. good evening, everyone. welcome. politics top of mind for just about every