♪ judy: good evening. on the "newshour" tonight, high stakes debate. six democratic rivals, with a first-timeon the stage, face off in las vegas tonight before the nevada caucuses. then, who is michael bloomberg? tilook at the billionaire businessman disr the democratic presidential race. and, warnings from antarctica. the melting, florida-sized bloct of ice that ists are callinthe "doomsday glacier." >> change happens, and this looks ke a potential case for change going forward that could be quite impactful. judy: plus, desperate journey. the horrific living conditionsge re face as they wait for europe to open its doors. >> we don't have water.

sometimes, water come, and sometimes it go, and we cannot take shower, actlly. judy: all that and more, on tonight's "pbs newshour." ♪ >> major fundinguror the pbs ne has been provided by -- >> ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf. the enginehat connects us. >> fidelity investments.

consumer cellular. american cruise lines. collect. supporting social entrepreneurs and their solution to the world's most pressing problems skoll foundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation, committed to improving lives and developing countries, on the web at lemelson.org. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more jusac verdant and ul world. more information at macfound.or g. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. ♪ >> this program was made

possible by the corporation for blic broadcasting and b contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. stephanie: good evening. i'm stephanie sy at newshour west.ur we'll rto judy woodruff and the full program after these headlines. six democratic presidential candidates face off night in las vegas, and for the first time, michael bloombll be on the debate stage. the former new york city mayor is not officially competing in saturday's caucuses in nevada,t has been surging in national polls. we'll have a report from lasve s, after the news summary. meanwhile, president trump isin hoa rally here in phoenix tonight, after a day of fundrasing and campaigning throughout the west. s thislive look at the rally in phoenix withf thousands trump supporters waiting for the president to speak. president trump tweeted this evening his pick for the nect acting dr of national intelligence. richard grenell is the current u.s. ambassador to germany, and a longtime trump loyalist.

he will succeed joseph macguire, who temporarily served in the acting role after dan coats resigned from the post last summer. ise u.s. justice departmen denying reports that attorney general william barr might quit over frustration with president trump. the president has nored barr's plea to stop tweeting about ongoing investigations and court cases. but a spokman at justice said last night that barr has no plans to resign, and a white house spokesman said much the >> the president a attorney general actually do agree that there have been some grave injustices throughout thee ral government. and we have confidence that attorney general barr will do wha's right to make sure that justice is served. stephanie: the president said tuesday that he will go on speaking his mind, and using social media to do it. a top pentagon official is resigning, the latest government employee to be purged since president trump's impeachment trial.

john rood signed off on a certification last year to allow the release of u.s. military aid to ukraine.p' but mr. t's delay in sending the aid triggered the impeachment inquiry. in his resignation letter, rood said he is leaving at president's request. former illois governor rod blagojevich was back home today, after president trump commuted his prison sentence. supporters cheered as he walked out of his home in chicago, with his wife and daughters. he declared himself a freed political prisoner, and, quote, a "trump-ocr". >> how do you properly thank someone who's ven you back a freedom that was stolen from you? he didn't have to do this. he's a republican president, i was a democratic governor, and doing this does nothing to help his politics. stephanie: blagojevich served 8 yes of a 14-year sentence. he'd been convicted of trying to sell an appointment to the u.s. senate seat from illinois vacated by president oma. german police say that eight

people are dead this evening, nllowing two shootings at the city of hanar frankfurt. five people were wounded. the police are still searching for the suspects. in china, health insctors finished door-to-door inspections in wuhan, thete epicof a coronavirus outbreak. the city's hospitals are still full of patients, with china reporting 74,500 cases nationwide, d 2,100 deaths. but officials counted only a few hundred new cases today. and in japan, officials ended a 2-week quarantine of a cruise ship, while confirming 79 more cases. we'lleturn to this story late in the program. turkey issued a new warning toda syria to stop attacks that are driving thousands of people toward its border it followed failed talks with russia. moscow is baing the syrian offensive in idlib province, the last rebel-held stronghold in syria. in ankara, turkish president recep tayyip erdogan said ti

is running out for the syrians to stop. >> we are entering the lt days for the syrian regime to end its offeive in idlib and retreatou to thearies of the existing agreement. we are delivering our final warnings. imminent.on in idlib is to the regime and those who encourage it who haven't this subject, we will not leave idlib. stephanie: since decemr, some 900,000 syrians have fled to makeshift camps athe turkish border, in bitter cold.ia u.n. off said today that scores are being killed by russian and syrian air strikes. back in this country, a federal judge ruled today conditns at most arizona border patrol facilities are so poor as to be unconstitutional. the ruling stems from a 2015ws t, and rules in favor of migrants who have long complained about inhumane and unsanitary conditions in holding ces. the order also bars the agency frn holding migrants more t

48 hours until their basic needs can be met. the ruling applies to eight border patrol stations in arizona. a federal appeals court found today that florida has wrongly barredormer felons from voting unless they pay their court fees. that upholds a lower cou's ruling against a law passed by the republican-controlled legislature. but the republican governorea plans to a a statewide referendum in 2018 approved restoring voting rights to 1.6 milon ex-convicts. on wall street today, stocks again shook off worries about the virus outbreak in china. the dow jones industrial average pgained 1nts to close at 29,348. the nasdaq rose 84 points, to a new record high, and the s&p 500 added 15 points, also hitting a new high. and, today marked 75 years since the battle of iwo jima began in world war ii. s. marines landed on the pacific island, touching off 36 days of savage fighting.

nearly 7,000 americans and 22,000 japanese troops were killed. the battle is best known for the image of vtorious marines raising the u.s. flag on mount suribachi. still to come on the "newshour" with judy woodruff, a look at the high stakes that presidential candidates face tonight on the debate stage. who is michael bloomberg, the billionaire businessman and former new york city mayor shaking up the demratic race? the latest on the worldwide spread of the deadlyru coronavis. and much more. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios in washington and f the west, from the walter cronkite schoolurnalism at arizona state university. judy: six democrats, vying for their pay's presidential nomination, are set to face off tonight in las vegas.

former new york city mayor michael bloomberg will make his debate stage dut, after qualifying as a result of the test pbs newshour-npr-marist poll with just 3 days to go before the nevada caucuses, amna nawaz joins me now from lavegas for a prevw. hello to you. this is t third contest in the season. this is the most diverse grou of voters yet to be waiting in. what are ty saying on the ound? amna: the candidates have been disproportionately focused on iowa and new hampshire, which are too small whites. for the first time, they have to address estate andst voters in a e that looks more like america. if you look at the democratic caucus selected from 2016, it was 19% latino, 13% black, 4% asian. nonwhites made up 41% of the

electorate. the candidatethhave to tailor r message a little more and broaden the message at the same time. gone are the days of the retail handshake room by room politicking. they have to deliver a bigger message now, specific some of these communities. what we saw, my colleagues have been following the candidates on the ground and they areg hav voter evidence that target some of these communities, like mayor buttigieg ske specifically to a black student group yesterday. former vice president joe biden spoke to an asian-american-pacific islander group. there is early voting going on, so you see these events set up next to early voting locations, trying to get some ovothose diversrs out early. you are hearit from the candidates is a much bigger message because they know to show and prove they can tmpete in other places in america, they hashow they can do it here in nevada. judy: about the caucuses this ekend, in the national poll we mentioned earlier,

newshour-npr-marist, 72% of the people who responded said they think the caucus pcess will be fair and accurate. but there were problems with e iowa caucuses just days ago. what are democrats in nevada saying is their level of confidce about what will happen this saturday? amna: they say confidce is hehigh. but proof will be in the actual caucus tally results. there are lots of firsts unfold in this caucus process. the first time they are trying to incorporate ethly voting into process some of the early voting wrapped yesterday. it is the first timththey are usin one specific tool, on ipads it is handed out to all the precinct chairs. they developed it in response to what happened in iowa because same app the iowa caucuses used. they scrapped that plan after ey sawhe chaos there, but they have high confidence that

they aretrunning enough nings and there are more trainings available for people who feel they are not comfortable with that too will they are using right now. i had a chance to speak with the dnc chair come a tom perez. i asked about his message to voters who might feel uneasy about the process and he said, we took lesso learned from iowa and applied them here and we have confidence the prior -- the process will go smoothly. judy: tonight's the ninth democratic presidential debate. you have six candidas on the stag including for the first ti f,mer new york mayor michael bloomberg. what is his team sing is their expectation tonight, and what do we think the other candidates may do because he is very echoes -- he is there? amna: theloomberg camp is preparing him t connect more with the audience. that is something he hasn't had to do before. right now he is messsing through d buys and summit gets, but he should also be prepared for a number of attacks.

the presence of former mayor bloomberg means he is an easy rails against theers who disproportionate power billionaires in erica has. he could also take some fire from moderates, people like biden and buttigieg and klobuchar because he is fighting forte supremacy in that mode blame they all currently occupy. a lot to watch for on the d ate judy: you and the team there.be we will be talking to you later in the week. thank you. amna: thanks, judy. ♪ sjjudy: and now, lisa dins dives into michael bloomberg's complicated, and atimes controversial, record. lisa: activist, billionair big city mayor and occasional subway rider, michael bloomberg is many things at once, including, now, both disrupter and establied politician. >> the momentum in this city is the legacy we're really leaving.

lisa: bloomberg gan his 12 years as new york city mayor as a republican in january 2002 -- >> so help me, god. thank you. lisa: mere months after the september 11th attacks shook the city's heart. >> he is definitely what new york needs, as far as finance goes. after september 11th, we need more commerce, more business in new york. lisa: 18 years later, that imaga ofeliverer is one bloomberg's running on. >> he took charge, becoming ath e-term mayor who brought a city back from the ashes. lisa: by the end of the bloomberg era, more than half of new yorkers polled said the city's economy was doing "good," and about a third believed quality of life s better. there was wide approval of some of his initiatives, ke banni smoking in restaurants and adding miles of bike lanes. but other bloomberg policies stirred discontent, or outright protest. things like his iled proposal

to ban large sodas. his extension of "stop and frisk" police tactics, whichos targetedy black and latino men, was deeply divisive, both then and now. bloomberg renounced stop and frisk last fall, but just five years ago defended his approach as appropriate >> 95% of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one m.o. you can just take the description, xerox it, and pass it out to e cops. they are male, minorities, 16 to 25. t i am committusing -- lisa: supporters point out the bloomberg has spent millions aiming to lift up marginalized communities, but critics sayli word those belie a deeper problem. and yestday, buzzfeed newsha reportedlast year, bloomberg seemed to scold democrats who campaign for transgender rights. he said, "if your conversation onring a presidential elec is about some guy wearing a dress, that's not a winning formula for most people."

above all, bloomberg stresses he is a man who knows how to get things done, one of the world's most successful sinessme but here, too, are questions. multiple news stories, including a recent washington post report, comments he made while leadingst his namesake financial data company, bloomberg l.p.t, bloomberg deni and told the hosts of abc "the view" last month, women thrive in his workplace overall. >> you talk to most women in the company, they would say equal pay, equal promotion, equal opportunity, it's a great place to work. did i ever tell a bawdy joke? yeah, sure i did. and do i regret it? yes, it'ssi embarr. but, you know, that's the way i grew up. lisa: his company is also under scrutiny, because the bloomberg l.p. news opation has a policy of blocking any in-depth investigations of bloomberg or his primary rivals. he told cbs this.

>> people ve said to me, how can you investigate yourself? and i've said, i don't think you can.ur >> but even wn news reporters have complained, they think it's unfair they can't , they aren't allowed to investigate other democratic candidates because their boss is in the rhae. >> you jus to learn to live with some things. >> there are some billionaires -- lisa: bloomberg's primary rivals have not held back their criticisms. >> well, i've got news for mr. bloomberg, and that is, the american people are sick andai tired of billis buying elections. lisa: bloomberg's team rejects this, and defends him as someone dointhe hard work. he's visited 25 states sfar, and 60 cities. and he is campaigning on his past national activism, especiallyn guns and climate change. his biggest pitch, maybe the bicest question for democra voters, does past accomplishment guarantee success in november? for a closer look at the man shaking up the race for the white house, i'm joined by

eanor randolph, who covered bloomberg's mayoral career as a member of the new york timesd editorial bod is the author of "the many lives of michael bloomberg." thank you for joining us, eleanor. me ask you right away, what you think michael bloomberg is running? x he has always wanted to be president. he talked about running for president when he wa college. he looked at the race in 2016, he looked seriously at the race, and then he didn't run and i think actually, in marti decided he wasn't going to run. he decided the numrs weren't ere. then, his people came back to him and said, yo know, what's happening in the old blue wall, the blue states, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, trump is winning. so why don't we get out there and gafter him? so bloomberg decided that he should be the one to do that. lisa: let's talk aboutae how

mi bloomberg is running. he is. spending a lot of money i spoke to his campaign and they confirmed he now has 2400 mpaign staffers in 43 states, has spent at least $400 million, that is according to the most recent analysis, likely more than that. that is ju in a handful of nths that he has had a presidential campaign. can you talk about bloomberg leverages his resources, his money, and also, his personal alliances from being a top democratic donor? >> he is worth over $60 billion. many of the ads phaple have seen been anti-trump adds and what bloomberg is trying to do is soften trump up for whoever is the democratic nominee to run against him in november. lisa: what you think you think's of the optics of him running as a new york bilonaire at a time takeut another wealthy man

from new york, who criticized trump as being out of touch hebecauss a man of such wealth? how does bloomberg seearhose optics rng himself? >> he sees himself as a different kind ofilonaire. a different kind of businessman. also, he has promised he is going to give away his money before he dies i don't think donald trump has come anywhere near that. and so bloomberg's philanthropy has been vast, anit has been very pointed, even more than the political money that we have started to see now. so i tnk bloomberg sees this money as a way, as a way to deal withome of the problems of the world, like climate change and gun control, and donald trump. so he is spending whatever he

can to try to get trump defeated. and he said no matter who on that stage ends up being the nominee, he is going to support them. lisa: what do you think is michael bloomberg's biggest challenge? >> he is not a great sobaker. he is ly not going to do exceptionally well in this dete tonight and there are some other ones, there iarone in southina, and he doesn't come unlike trump, or bernie sanders, he doesn't connect with an audience. he has to sort of explained to people that he is mr. fix it. he likes to get things done. if he were president, it would be a quieter presidency, and maybe there are some people that want that. he doesn't, he is a former engineer. he trained as anngineer. he doesn't show his emotions very much, or very and you don't see him hammering

the mdium, you don't see crowd.f raising his voice to the he will never be that person. lisa: alan are randolph, biographer, journalist, thank you r joining us. ♪ judy: stay with us. coming up on the newshour, a greek migrant camp where inhumane conditions are growing bleaker by the day. the "doomsday glacier," a melting block of ice the size of florida that's threatening these world'levels. and, novelist kevin wilson's satirical look at the complicated relationships between parents and their children.ar as wreporteder, china is still struggling to contain the, coronavifficially known as covid-19. the virus has killed more than 2,000 people worldde. william brangham has the lateste

william: theretill many, many questions researchers have about this viral outbreak. but we do ve new information from the chinese government about the vir' mortality rate and other important concerns. dr. anony fauci is the director of the national institute for allergy and infectious diseases at the nih.i he joins me tonight from the nih campus. thank you very much for being here. chinese officials seem increasingly confident that they are able to get their hands outbreak, they thin they will contain it and seingly arguing that the number of new cases is going to plateau pretty soon. do you agree with that? >> i think we really need to wait and see if that's the case. they have been talking about the numberof cases each day being less than the previous day over the past few days in a row. i would hope that is the t ining point, beally think we

need to reserve judgment on that because we still have a very na, rightroblem in c no so hopefully, that is making the turn around but i don't know that yet. william: i mentioned before we are getting a better look at the mortality rate of the viru meaning of the number of people who get infected, how many are likely to die. what can you tell us he aga >> if you look at the official counts of the 70 plus thousand people in fact did and the about 2000 deaths, the mortality rate of t c fatality rate as we refer to it, is approximately 2%-two .3%. if you compare that with seasonal influenza, which is zero point 1%, this is a serious level of mortality not as bad a sars in 2002 which is 9%-10%, and the middle east2espiratory system in 201 which was 36%.

i don't believe the 2% is ultimately the correct case fatality rate. the reason i say that is because the denominator for that calculation is probay much larger than they are putting into it. for example, there are many, a many individuals who have asymptomatic disease or minimally symptomatic whic' means they aret being counted as an individual who is sick. when the denominator gets much larger than the case fatality rate will go down. mylf and my colleagues are figuring it is likely 1% or less . when you count all of e people who are infected, and do the calculation for a fatality rate. william: we know this is a fairly contagious virus. but there have beenti some qus about whether people are contagious before they show symptoms. what do we know about that?

>>y we certaiow there are lots of people who are infected without symptoms. there have been andotal cases that i think are pretty solid, that there has been transmission from a person who ha symptoms to another person i think that will turn out to be a real phenomenon. the question that still remainsw unanswered is,t is the asymptomatict transmission? t isminor component of the outbreak, or is it a substantial component? ift is substantial, that sbecome problematic. that would mean that when you do screening for people, you can't rely just on whether or not they are symptomatic. you have to do a test. are pursuing right now.on we what is the degree of nsasymptomatic tssion? william: on the issue of contagious and is, a term people might have hea, the

sur-spreader, someone who is particularly contagious. is that a real phenomenon? we>> it is. aw it very clearly in the sars outbreak in 2002. there arepi a number ofdes now that have been repord that individual, the wordn super-spreader is used and that confuses people what you mean that. it means a person has such a high level of virus that they are shedding that when they come into contact with a group of people, that the odds of them infecting more than just one of them, maybe several people at a shot, those are the ones we are calling super-spreader's. we have seen it in family units and particularly among health care providers, where you have one person who might infect 5, 6, seven, even 10 health care providers hence the designation of a super-spreader. the answer to your question is that it is a real phenomenon. william: dr., thank you for the update.

>> good to be with you. ♪ judy: when refugees and migrantm ountries in crisis come ashore on the greek island of lesbos, their suffering is far from over, as they face hunger and the threat of violence in the notorious moria camp. residents are demaasbos solution. special correspondent malclom brabant has this week's secondur desperate y report from the island. >> stop the boat! hey! stop it. stop the boat! malcolm: crossing the aegean sea from turkey to the greek islands at night is a nerve-wracking experience, especially for young ones on the dinghy. >> stop the boat. malcolm: offers from the

european border force frontex are yelling orders becausehey don't want the boat to capsize. the children get another scare as they are transferred to theli po vessel. then, they enter the darkness that is mori and a new kind of fear begins. >>ctually, here in the nig is scary, and don't have security always at night. there's fight with knives. they fight with knife. it's so scar i can't go anywhere at nit. malcolm: sakine moradi is 13 years old. her family fled afghanistan because of threats from the taliban. they arrived in lesbos five months ago. along with other afghans,th 've set up small bakeries inside moria, where they sell traditional flatbread r 50 cents apiece. >> i think that here i horrible. here is so bad.

we cannot go to the bathroom. we don't have electric, so we don't cook anything, because the food here is so bad. and we don't have water. sometimes, water come, and sometimes it goes. and we cannot take shower, actually. >> the fact that these humans, our fell humans, are living like this, in absolute desperation five years in, is just shocking. i lt ashamed personally, working there and being there. i felt ashamed of having to send people back to those conditions after i'd seen them in the clinic. malcolm: annie chapman is a british emergency room doctor nonprofit. she's just returned home after n stint wonight shifts inside moria. >> 42% of the camp now is made up of children. children are coming over, some with pre-existing cons, but also battling the fact that they're living in tents. there's a new outbreak of meningococcal meningitis in the camp at the moment. and there's an increase in

violence in the camp, largely, to my mind, due to the inhumane ling conditions, and the desperation people are feeling. malcolm: this is what she means a man ho an official document saying that he's housed. and this is his shelter, a plastic tarp. ria just has to be the worst place in europe right now. the message that the conditions are sending to peopld in asia, thee east, and africa is that you are not welcome here. but nothing seems to deter them. they keep on coming, driven by the dream that sooner or later, europe is going to be forced to open its borders. during the night in moa, women are especially vulnerable. the thre of sexual violence is so severe that rather than venture out, many wear a brand of diaper called pampers. leading afghan refugee advocate yonous muhammadi. >> the women, they are wearing these pampers,hich are for children, because there is no

access to toilets. and also, there is no security. so they are wearing thisecause there is no toilets. the womendo are ing that. malcolm: there ia constant stream of mothertaking their children to clinics run by nonprofits. >> it's only getting in the e wrong directiory day, it's getting worse. every day, more patients come asking for help, children with more signs of traumas, worse and worse. t malcolm: mkelsen is a senior nurse with doctors without borders. >> can i get an update on your numbers? it's skin diseases, it's scabies, it's lice, it's aa -- diarrhea,omiting, it's problems that come from the living conditions mainly. we don't talk about if the child is traumatised. wealk about how traumatise the child is. that's where we're at the moment. and it's every day. we cannot follow with thamount of scabies patients, with the amount of lice shampoo. all of the things are just basic things, but it's overwhelming to us. malcolm: the resilience of

children is on display, as they play marbles. but psychologists are worried about their exposure tadult violence in moria. aggression among cn in thed camp. but 17-year-old qudrat ullah shafaye from afghanistan is determined to make difference. he arrived here five months ago, and is now teaching english in a rudimentary school ia called wave of hope. >> i want to live ine country, in a place where i can study. i know the situation in moria is ve bad again. 80%, i agr that i should not be here in moria. because there are many things that are going on, like killing each other and the bad situation in which we are living. malcolm: he believes thatof educatiors the best long-term chance of escape from moria's squalor. >> if i know 60% or 70% english,

i must teach them, that they should learn. this is a positive work. malcolm: other migrants sy themselves gatring wood for building. farmers complain their olive trees are being chopped down. but there is no room f new arrivals inside the official camp, and they are forced to construct shelters where the ca the migrant crisis has confounded greece for the past five years, and at a protest in athens, vangelis grammatikakis, from the island of crete, criticised the lack of action. >> when the aegean is bleeng, i bleed, too. that's how a citizen should think. the migration issue can solved in 24 hours, but they don't want to solve it. it's not that it can't be solved, they don't want to solve it. malcolm: there's a stalemate over government plans to close moria and similar camps on other islands, a replace them with better facilities. moria and its overspilcontains 20,000 people. that's two-thirds the population of lesbos' main town, mytillinis

the scale aliorgos stantzos, mayor of samos, a nearby island. >> the new camp on samos is already big. its capacity is for 1200 people. we acknowledge the difficulty of the situation, and have accepted it as long as the refugees a migrants stay for a limited period of time in the camp, and he migration flows stop. even if we accept camps of 20,000 people, if the flows do not stop, these camps will easily end up hosting 40,000, p 50,000, 60,0ple in the whole of the aegean. malcolm: but refugee leader yonous muhammadi says greece needs a reality check. >> greece should accept that migration came here to stay. it is not a passage country. it is also a destination untry. some thousands of people will stay here. it means that integration is the only way. it means that every greek, they should have, they will have migrants beside them at their neighbourhood. they have to find a way, how to live with these people.

malcolm: back in moria, sakine moradi clings to theope that her stay in the darkness will soon end, and she can find sanctuary in another country. >> anywhere that i have a good future, that, maybe together with my family. then, i want to gonyere so i don't have to be scared. malcolm: you don't want to be scared? e.>> we need, we need peac malcolm: and, say psychologists, that is what all the children need, if their mental ars are to have a chance to heal.t peace is the btidote to the violence they have witnessed.fo the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in moria. ♪ judy: the thwaites glacier ise

the largest in antarctica, and it's melting at an alarming rate. the world took notice earlier 0 is month, when temperatures there hit nearlygrees. but getting a better read on wh a's happening has be challenge. our science correspondent, miles o'brien, gave scientist david holland and his team camera equipment to document their mission to the glacier. miles has this dispatch, as part of our series, the leading-edge. miles: it's an urgent scientific mission at the far edge of what'sossible, to the edge of a massive melting glacier. it's the largest, most menacing source of rising sea levels all over the world.we ome to the thwaites glacier in west antarctica. ouguide on this journey is david holland, a professor of math and atmosphere-ocean science at new york university. he is a principal investigator on the melt project, pt of the

international thwaites glacier collaboration. the five-year campaign is funded by the u.k. natural environment research council and the u.s. national science foundation, a newsur funder, as well. why is thwaites so important? y is it worth the effort >> so, it's the most vulnerable place on earth. and the curious thing is, how is it that it's so vulnerable, and at the same time, it has warm ngter in front of it today? is it just two tthat may be coincidental? but they're both real, and they're happening. miles: for years, scientists have warily watched ites from afar, using nasa satellites.ab t the size of florida, it is vanishing at an alarming rate, retreating about a half mile,ng and thins much as 15 feet, every year. d it sits on llow sea level. there is nothing to stop its accelerating retre. it could melt away in a few decades. some call it the "doomsday" glacier.re if thwaites weo melt or drop

into the sea tomorrow, how much sea level rise would we expect? >> so, it's less thater. it's probably of order of, say, 65 centimeters. than the neighboring ice would become unstable. and so, altother, it would be more than three meters of ice, something of the scale of 10 feet. it is a major change rewriting , a of the coastline. miles: thwaites is like a cork in a bottle. once it is gone, there will be nothing to stop a cascading lossf nearly all the glaciers in west antarctica. that is why holland wanted to come to this place, to drill a half-me hole through the ice to see what's happening underneath. it's never been done before, and it very nearly did not happen s this antarctmer. >> the motto for me is, have no expectatns. if you have expectations, you will be deeply disappointed. miles: in november, they flew to christchurch, new zealand. within a few days, they were on a u.s. air force air mobility command c-17, stuffed to the gills with scientists, support

crews, and gear. after a 5-hour-long flight due m soh 23es, they landed at mcrdo station, headquarter for the national science foundation in antarctica but they were still more tha 1300 difficult miles away from their camp on thwaites. and the weather was terrible, and the airplanedokept breaking . what was to be a one-week stop at mcmurdo for briefgs, training, and practice became more than a month. by the time they got to thwaites, all the weather and mechanical trouble left them barely enough time to do their science. but, safety first. >> we're out at the grounding zone for this glacier right now. miles: a team, led by geophysicist seth campbell of the university of maine, surveyed the area. he explored some nearby caves. >> that thing has never been seen, probably. miles: and towed a ground-penetrating radar on a

sled to identify perilous accrevasses beneath the su >> if you zoom in here, we can ow you what they look like. the way radar works ise imaging layers in the snow pack below us. so you can see there's a crevasse here. and we can see there's actually a crevasse here as well. miles: others were more obvious. working on the edge of a glacier is dangerous business. a wrong step would be fatal. >> i think we will go around o th. miles: they also looked beneath the ice using another technique called seismic reflection, ironically often used by the oil industry to find places to drill. but in this case, they are making an underground map to transitions from sitting on the rock to floating in the ocean, the so-called grounding line. they detonated some small buried explosives, akin to fireworks. lizzie clyne is a doctoral candidate at penn state. >> when we set off that explosive charge that sets off a

t of seismic energy that todiates down through the ice to the bed to the bof your shelf. any sort of change in material wi trigger a reflection that cos back to us. so this way, we can see ether there's water or there's sediment or there's rock beneath the ice. les: the reflections they recorded show the ice, these loor, and a thin column of water. a bullseye,ctly where the team wanted to drill. they don't use drill bits here, just hot water, nearly boiling. the rig at -- requires several aviation fuel powered burners attached to a long.pool of hose w>>see the drill rig and the hose goes down to a hole in the ground here. right there. miles: is it iesky to the glself? >> no, because it's such a small fraction of the glacier. we're like, literally touching onemi ionth of a percent of the glacier. miles: when they finally got arted drilling, a big storm

blew in. >> you really cannot see nothin visi all. just stay in here for the day. miles: the team had to hunker down for three days. the timing was not looking good. >> if we don't get the drilling started tomorrow, then wrun ins. a whole series of probl basically there's another storm coming in about three days but we need three days to get the drilling set up and done miles: but when the storm passed, the go weather held and things fell into place quickly. after 36 hours of hot water drilling, they broke through the half mile beneath.to the ocean a they lowered in a remotelyle operated vehalled icefin which provided some unprecedented images of the ice covered shore of a glacier. funded by nasa, the device was t built bym from georgia tech led by astrobiologist britney schmidt.

>> one of the things that we don't know very well is exactly how glaciers move anhow the very base of the glacier operates. so when we get to see it right up close, right where it hits the ocean, we are seeint the fresaterial. miles: they collected sediment cores and dropped in instruments that measure water salinity, temperature, and turbulence. it tns out the water at this particular spot is very still. student at nyu. is a grad nc>> since turbuis below detectable levels, that means there i't as much mixing as potentially we would have expected. and so what that means is, the warm water is mostly staying near the bottom and not necessarily making its way up to the ice. miles: that might seem like good news, but for the first time scientists have confirmed what they suspected. e ocean under thwaites

warm, 3.6 degrees fahrenheit above freezing, too warm for the ice to remain stable. it is a sobering moment. >> yeah. change happens and this looks like a potential case for change going forwat could be quite impactful. you can probably change air temperature over the next centur but the ocean isuch a big sluggish creature that in a way, when it is doing what it is doing, it ishe kind of thing we can engineer and stop very easily. miles: before they left, the d team burve gps stations across the grounding line. they will gather precise dataab t the glacier's movement and thickness over the long dark winter. the melt team plans to be back next year to recover that data and do more science. they hope this risky work at thd of possible will help researchers make better forecast models, adding more facts to the growg fear. for the pbs newshour, i'm miles o' brien.

♪ judy a child's tantrum is rarely humorous, but a new and highlycclaimed novel, "nothing to see here" from author kevin wilson, takes an otherwise dreaded situation and turns it into satire. as a part of our arts and culture series canvas, jeffrey brown sat down with wilson and began by asking why he felt a compulsion to explore family dynamics. >> fore, compulsion is love, so i love to write about families. i come back to it again and again. i arted off, i wrote out -- about family from the perspective of a child because that's how i grew up, thinking about the weirdness ofeing bo into what family. >> we were all born and wha >> but you don't ask for it. all of a sudden there are these people and they are like, we are going to take care of you and

raiset you and t a vy strange kind of feeling where you inc. miami made of these people but slowly, i'm going to become my own person. maybe the writing about family would havet stopped, en i had kids and i was on the other side of watching thesep hildren deved leave mei, an thought come i will just keep writing about it. >> what is this book about? >> to me, the idea of family, i it is not just our immediate family. i'm thinking a family as how you can expanded to include the people w are important to you, the people that protect you. in this book, a lot of the people are not actually biolically linked, yet they are in this space and they are basically somehow, they form a faly. so i'm trying to think about family in broader terms with this >> to fill in aittle bit of the plot, your main, protagoni lillian, late 20's, self-described loser going

nowhere. she gets a call from her old friend madison who is a very wealthy woman married to a senator with annusual request, come take care of his 10-year-old twins by a former wife. >> yes. the catch i thesehiren, when they are educateco spontaneouslust. they burst into flames. >> you have to stop there becausey tterally catch on fire when they get agitated, angry or upset. which sounds crazy. >> it is. i think it is a hard book to emsell off that initial e, a book about children who burst into flames. they can harm everyone around them, the surroundings, but they are fi. the book becomes lillian trying to figure out how to take care thihese children with strange kind of power. >> and instant unexpected

family. >> if we go back to family, llian finds herself in possession of these two children and she becomes their caretaker. it is this ideaf, how do you protect the people you love, how do you keep them safe, keep yourself safe when you are dealing with vulnerable children? although she is not their mother , it is still family. >> i'm thinking people watching our hearing children that combust, catch on fire, that soundsorrible. you somehow make ital a kind of nond even, if this is a very funny boo. how are we to understand the >> anybody to my mind, if you have had a kid or been around a three-year-old, this metaphor isn't that crazy to me. if you are in a store and you are leading your three year around and you are in a public place and they want a cookie and

they are tired and you can come i have seen itwn >> the melt >> the face starts to get red and you know they are about to blow up. it is happening. a lot of times, you can't stop it. you just have to contain it. to make him of the chintren burstingflames made perfect sense. ds are combustible. >> what is normal? these kids become normalized to me as a reader, but of course they are not normal. this is not a normal situation. is that part of wh you're looking at? what is normal, how do we think about it? i live on a mountainn tennessee and everything is weird to me. the world is very bizarre and strange to me. when i tnk of normal, what i think of are those people who pretty muchgainst all odds, try to contain weirdness. to me, that is when normally is. it is notre actually lar state of being, it is an

enforced state of being for ciety to function. people think normality needs to override weirdness. for me, there is no containing it. weirdness spills out no matter what and it is kind of a fools errand. >> this is kind of a wildly funny, satirical look at other issues like class. i'm wondering, who are your models? >> andatch it is a writer where, her stories are many times about family, but also a diverse group of evil who under strange circumstances, have to become a family. she is, to my mind, she writes so elegantly about css and abouthat it means to have privilege, but that book me, what i love about i it, has these fairytale elements that make the story slightly magical to me. the other writer is george saunders.

as you know, he is so wild and strange but a story like "sea oak" is about the inescapable ability of poverty omt instead ofg at it head-on, he has this aunt, back from the dead who becomes a profane oracle and at influenced me. if i'm going to write about this stuff, i don't know that i have the authority to do it so i'm going to come at it in a strange way. that way, that will give me, if ny at first, i can wor my way into the larger topics. >> childhood and family and what is the meaning of normal, class issues. i use the word satire. >> that works for me. especially with this book, it is mitirical in the way it es kind of old south money, old south politics, the way privilege kind of protect you from -- protect you from distress or affliction for as long assi you py can. >> kevin wilson, the book is

"nothi to see here." judy: that's theewshour tonight. on thursday, a review of michae' bloom's debut on the democratic debate stage. i'm judy woodruff. from all of us at the newshour, thank you and we will see you soon. newshour has been provided by -- '> before we talk about your investments, whas new? ask audrey is expecting. >> twins. >> we could be cser to the twins. >> change in plans. ty>> at fidea change in plans is always part of the plan. >> we offer wireless plans designed for a talker, texture, browser, photographer, a bit of everything. our customer service team is re to find a plan tyot works for for more, go to consumer cellular.tv. >> let --. colle american cruise lines.

bnsf railway. the ford foundation, working with visionaries onhe front lines of social change worldwide. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcntting and by butions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank. you ♪ >> there is no parallel for this election in 2020. >> the entire point is to get past the headles, to get pas. >> we can go deeper into topics.

everything isn't necessarily red or blue. wrecks we need to go behind the story and under the story. not just a find out what happened but why it s. ex this will be a political -- >> this will be a political roller coaster but count on pbs to be there every step of the way. ♪ r>> this is pbs newsh west from weta studios in washington andre from our bu at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪ lidia: buon giorno. i'm lidia bastianich,d

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