captioning sponsored by wn >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, february 29: the first death in the united ates from coronavirus. south carolina's democratic presential primary takes center stage, as candidates hope to gain ground ahead of super tuesday. and, in our signature segment: maracaibo, venezuela. once an oil-wealthy playground, now a ghost town. next, on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment,

to not miss what's right in front of us.at utual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. tprovided by:t has been and by the corporation for ndublic broadcasting, a private corporation by the american people. and by contributio to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thanks for joining us. health officials in washington ste reported the first death from the new coronavirus in the united states toe day. rson who died was described as being a man in his mid-fifties, and a mediyca high risk patient, who had not had any known contact with infected patients. shortly after the announcement, president trump called a press conference at the mite house wibers of his coronavirus task force. >> additional cases in the

united states are likely, but healthy individuals should be able to fully recover. >> sreenivasan: dr. antctny fauci, di of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases at the na institutes of health, said the virus cases are being isolated and traced. because we get asked all the time, still remains at low risk. but, when we say that, we want to underscore that this is an evolving situation and in rea time, we will keep you apprised of the situation, just like we are doing today. >> sreenivasan: additional travel restrictions were annound for countries with the highest rates of infection, including a ban on anyone who has travel to iran in the past two weeks or to regions of italy and south korea. >> the president today has authorized the state department to increase the travel advisories for americans to level 4. are urging americans to not travel in the areas of italy and

the areas in south korea that are most affected by the coroavirus. >> sreenivasan: the federal food and drug administration announced a new policy today that allows laboratories to devep their own tests for covid-19, vastly increasing the capacity for diagnostic testing across the country. italy announced eight more deaths and 240 more cases since yesterday, raising the number of cases to more than 1,100 people. south korea announced 600 additional cases, the biggest single-day increase. the number of cases in that country is now more than 3,000 people. polls opened at 7:00 this morning throughout sou carolina, for the first-in-the- south primary ve for the democratic nominee for president. former vice president jobiden was out greeting voters in greenville, hoping to maintain his polling lead in the crowded field.ss husetts senator elizabeth warren made her appeal in columbia. south carolina represents the first major test of the ndidates appeal to african american voters, and the primary comes justhree days before super tuesday, when voters in

14 statesnd one u.s. territory will cast their ballots. with their sights set on tuesday, several cdidates were campaigning outside south carolina today. rsrmont senator bernie san was in massachusetts. others he rallies and events planned tonighacross the country. we'll have more from south carolina coming up on the broadcast. the united states and the today that sets the stage for an end to the 18-year war in afghanistan. u.s. envoy zalmay khalilzad and taliban leader m ghani baradar signed the agreement. secretary of state mike pompeo called it a st toward stability in the region. >> we are seizing the best opporty unr peace in a generation, built on the hard work of our soldiers, diplomatsme, busine aid workers, friends and the afghans themselves. >> sreenivasan: the terms of the agreement state that in exchange for the withdrawalu.s. troops, the taliban promises not to support extremism in afghanistan. at a ceremony in kabul today, secretary of defense mark esper and afghan presidentshraf

ghani signed a joint statement committing thghe government to the conditional deal. >> our declaration acknowledges the deep bond shared by afghan and u.s. forces, and reflects our commitment to working together to aceve a sustainable negotiated agreement thatnds the war, for the benefit of all afghans. >> sreenivasan: more than 2,400 u.s. troops and tens o thousands of afghans have died in the war since operations the began in 2001. turkey opened its borders with europe today, allowing syrian migrants and refugees to flee to the continent. in response, greece reinforced its border to stop the wave of migrants from entering, leading to clashes beten the refugees and greek authorities. near 950,000 civilians have been pushed toward the syrian- turkish bordger during ongo fighting in syria and cold weather. president recep tayyip erdog said that turkey can't handle the migrants, a that he has no

plan to reverse his decision. >> sreenivasan: for the latest on the south carolina primary, i'm j joined now by gavkson, host and public affairs reporter for public television station scetv. so you went to the polls this mornog. talked to of those early-bird voters. what was on their mind? >> reporter: tnks, hari yeah, i went to several locations in sou carolina, in columbia, south carolina, here in the central part of the ate, and i talked to a wide variety of people. and i remember talking to one woman early in e morning, and i asked her who she voted for, and she asid well, i debating between my heart and conference, and her hairt vote ev then she didn't know who she wanted to vote for because it was ( former vice president joe biden and senator bernie sanders. people are thinking to super

tuesday and beyond and who c beat donald trump. electability is the top issue os vominds. folks i talked to black, white-- were very big on of course backing who the nominee was going to be, even if it was senator sanders, even though those i talked to were not inreally bsenator sanders. >> sreenivasan: do they see the importancof it playg out, given there weren't overwhelming victories in a the previous states? do they know the kind of scrutiny and spotlight they're under? >> reporter: yeah, definitely. you know, south carolina always plays kind of thatdetermining role. it's funny because i did talk ti our an of the democratic party here after the debate on tuesday in charleston >> and asked him, "travdwe get any clarity tonight? is it and he said, "no, but we'll have clarity at tef sellsaturday." aven the polls close we'll some idea who is leading the pack here.

obviously, bernie sanderhas e momentum coming in here, but joe biden, soles poles show he is having a pretty strong resurgence. a gt of people are credit that to joe getting back on the ground here. he was one of the few candidates who went to church here this past suny which is surprising when we look at how candidates are treating soh carolina this go-around. several candidates aren't even in the state toda bernie standers is not in the state. he might come in second pla but won't be giving a speech in south carolina. joe biden ayend tom steare in the state. people are noticing. they pay attention. they watched the deate. y've been seeing ads on tv, of course, besieged by ads. and also voting with people they've known and wheyou see someone like congressman jimg clyburn givthat endorsement, people take note of that and they do vote witr theiheart. >> sreenivasan: what about the endorsement of promine african americans in south car how much of a sway does that have, versus people recognizing a face or even just seeing one

on tv? >> reporter: i would say that those endorsements have been very portant. 've seen a lot of black legislators get involved in jo back some r candidates, specifically, tom steyer, whicho is another rwhy we have been seeing steyer do so well here in south carolina, making those inroads with members of the black community, which is so critical to winning south carolina. tom has been on the ground here a lot. he's been on the ai aiferlzs a . they know who tom steyer is because hezis ad proll all the time. it's trog see how much traction and saturation he's been gettin and whether that will turn into votes. yes, those endorsements matter because th filter down into the community with leaders, faith leaders and othernd word gets around. >> sreenivasan: finally, i want to ask, donald trump was there. of his strategy seems to be to go to these places where the votes are happening the nighte, before the vor two nights before the vote. any impact about that? >> reporter: i don't-- i don't think we've sch of an impact from that, hari.

i think-- you know, i will tell you, i was editing a package the other day, and looking back to last fll when present donald cump was here in columbia at a historically blalege, the same weekend as a slate of democratic presidential candidates were re to speak, too. so that was the big ruffle, i think and the big impact donald trump has had on tcehe so far, in terms of him coming to south carolina. obviously, rep wublicare pretty hyped up about that, but affecting democratic turnout, not so much. i talked to a republican voter rso vote forward joe biden, not bernie san as so many have been talking about republicans would be doing to affect this turnout to help maybe propel bernie sanders to become the minee. this man was saying bernie sanders was the worst thing for the country and he wanted to make sure he was backing joe biden since we have open primary here's. >> sreenivasan: gavin jackson from south carolina, sce-tv, thanks so much for jning us. >> thanks, hari. >> sreenivasan: for more on the

2020 presidential race and the latest results from thh carolina primary visit www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: we tw to venezuela, which finds itself more than a year into the stndoff for leadership betw socialist president nicolas madu and opposition leader juan guaido. all week, newshour has been reporting on the political and economic turmoil in that country creating a humanitarian crisis in the once wealthy and thriving nation. tonight, newshour weekend special correspondent marcia biggs takes us more than 300 miles west of the capital city of caracas to maracaibo. the country's second-largest city w js once tel of venezuela's petroleum economy. now, it's a mere shell of itselfo. surt for this series comes from the pulitzer center. >> reporter: sunrise in maracaibo, and these people have been up all night waiting in line for gasoline. how long have you been here? >> ( speaking in spanish )s >> reporter: tn says he's been here since 6:00 a.m. the day before. venezuela is suffering from a massive gas shortage, so most of them have been in line for 24

diurs, drinking coffee, talking among friends, r the newspaper, doing anything to pass the time. >> ( translated ): the thing is, here.e you practically live here. >> reporter: these lines can stretch for miles, snaking througs h neighborhod wrapping around ci blocks. once drivers finally reach the pump, they can only fill up around 13 gallons at a time, which, among these many old cars, doesn't la lon the good news is, they will pay no money. gas is so heavily subsidized in venezuela, it's essentially free. but they do pay a heavy price with their time. t and wh gas is gone for the day, it's gone. "iant to explode," says eddie rincon. he waited in line almost 24 hours, only to now be told there was no gas left. >> ( translated ): can you imagine how i feel? pained, cheated and humiliated by all of it!

>> reporter: the frustration and eoccupation with filling the tank on a regular basis really dominates daily life here.ev ything revolves around "what time do i need to get in line, what place am i going to get, how much gas will i receive." the irony is, we're standing on the world's largest oil reserve. >cities anywhere: maracaibo. >> reporter: maracaibo was the icl boomtown of south amer, venezuela's second-largest city and home to two-thirds of its oil production, drawing mpanies and workers from all over the world, including united statesan >> her familiar site was a used car lot full of american autos. >> repter: once a city where ventiezuela's glitteratent to suntan and make money, and to spend it, now a ghost town. and lake maracaibo, once thought to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, now a graveyard for venezuela's crumbling oil industry. rusting and stagnant, broken pipelines underwater leaking oil

everywhere. nw long has all of this b shut down? >> ( translated ): that? around five years. this is a cemetery now. >> reporter: we went out with fisherman luis moreno, who grew up on this lake and is one of its few remaining inhabitants. >> ( translated ): it's sad tog bru to this place the way it is, because if you had come here 15 years ago, you would have been impressed by the beauty of this place. fore, there were fishermen, people swimming, having fun. we weren't afraid of getting covered in oil. >> reporter: i mean, this is just an incredible scene. there's-- there's oil covering the-- the top of the lake, oil on the outside of the boat. there's oil on his clothes, oil on his hands.me , we're just surrounded by oil. estamos rodeados de...ro >> de óleo? >> reporter: ...de petró, ci. >> por um tempo. >> reporter: once home, luise, uses gasolhich he also waited in line for hours to get, to remove the oil from his hands and clreothes. the eneighborhood lives this cruel irony. and there's another problem, and

one that'sve emore dangerous: pure crude leaks from hoses meant to serve the community withooking ga so, he saying that he's not worried about the anger factorca of this e this is pure l. they know it's oil. but what he worries about is when the gas line comes and they think it's gas, and actually it's-- it's a mix ofi gas and purel. that, he said, could be very dangerous. >> ( speaking in spaorsh ) >> rr: luis' neighbor, romelia de silva, says her gas lines have been leaking purefo crude the last year and a half. and last year, she sayshe was trying to cook when the gas line exploded. no one was seriously injured, and they have since disconnected the hose from the stove. buthey can't keep the oil from flowing, so they simplfill up these buckets to try to prevent its spread. "we should all be millionaires sitting on this oil," she told us, "and yet we don't have anything to eat." >> ( translated ): is not normal. it's not normal. this is crazy! >> reporter: we sat down with four workers from the state oil company, petróleos de venezuela,

or pdvsa. maintenance worker jairo sibada and boat drivers carlos vera, jack sanchez and larry salazar. collectively, they represent 50 years of service to venezuela's oil industry.an >> ( ated ): five people u ed when a house exploded. n imagine the situation because pdvsa doesn't take respoibility for any of it. it n'dotake responsibility for the dead people, nor for improvements, for anything. anything. they didn't answer for anything. it's run for your les here. >> reporter: jairo h worked for pdvsa the longest, 33 yearti he says prod facilities on the lake have deteriorated by 90% andue to lack of maint. how does it feel when you see now the ruins of the instry that you dedicated your life to? >> ( itranslated ): actuall feel quite sabecause pdvsa doesn't belong to party or to a government. pdvsa belongs to the nation, for the progress of a country.

>> reporter:he fate of venezuela and its economy has historically been tied to the oil industry. was oil that made it the fourth-richest cotry in the world back in 1950. and, in 19, when hugo chavez was elected president, the country was producing 3.5 million barrels of oil a day near the peak. chavez began using profits from the state-run company to fund his socialist revolution, building housing projects for the poor and sending them free boxes of food. ( crowd s houting in late 2002, pdsva workers tiposed to chavez went on strike for new elecs, so chavez fired 19,000 pdsva employees, almost half the total workfoe, and replaced them with but over the years, his loyalists failed toake much needed investments, and since 2007 production has steadily fallen, last year reaching the lowest level since the strike. >> ( translated ): the situation

is that these guys have stolen all the money. they stole everything. i meanwhen they wanted to invest, they couldn't do it because they had taken it all. they destroyed everything. >> reporter: these workers, who are not chavez loyists, say they continue to go to work but simply sign in and leave, because thers nothing to do. do you worry about the consequences of speaking out? >> ( translated ): we wanthe world to know what is happening in venezuela. >> ( translated ): i don't have anything to lose. let them see the cameras. let them see, because i don'tre nymore. >> reporter: since 2013, when president nicolas maduro was elected, venezuela's been suffering the world's worst economic contraction outside o a war zone, and few cities have suffered more than maracaibo. of the roughly five million migrants who have alreadleft the country, many come from here, escapig failing hospitals and schools, rising malnutrition, unemndployment a poverty. blow: a wave of lo aftertrophic

the country's electrigrid failed and the city lost power for an entire week. over 500 businesses were ransacked, many of which never reopened. none were hit harder than this former destination for vacationers and business norte.ers, the hotel brisadel odalis vergara is the hotel e nager. she's worked hernce it opened 22 years ago. she says on the morning of march prepared for demo.ved in trucks, even the countertops were ripped out-- ev electrical cables in the ceili. >> ( translated ): how did they dothat? and how did they do it so fast? >> reporter: she sayshe reported the incident to police but never received any response. limany others, the owners have left the country, and the hotel remains shuttered and in ruins.ed >> ( transl ): it's hard,

the recovery, cause there's no help, there's no support, there's no interest. it's already been a year, and we haven't got anybody from the government to say, "what do you want to do? and let's guarantee this." without guarantees, who would dare inst in us? >> reporter: have you recovered? >> ( translated ): no. ve been working here for 22 years. it was my life. i've been here since it was built, so the hurt is immense. >> reporter: even at night, you can see at least hear that most of the city hasn't recovered. generators hum during the many rolling blackouts, and people line up for gas idarkness. for his part, president maduro has amed the gas crisis and woes of the oil industry on new u.s. sanctions imposed last year by president donald trump, which have further damaged an alrnody crippled e. under mounting pressure and like hugo chavez before him, madu's leaned increasingly o his backers in russia and china, recently inviting foreign

companies from those two countries to take over large parts of the state-run oil industry. they'vbe investing for years but not managing production. >> ( translated ): chinese nor the russians are going to do it because we've been waiting 20 years for thosee ople. >> reporter: and these pdvsa workers say that move won't fix the problem anyway, and they look to the past, to the days when american companies like standardil worked in venezuela. >> ( translated ): with the americans, the indusy worked before. >> reporter: so, you want the americans to come back? >> ( translated ): o!cour they have to comeere that they can change pdvsa. >> ( translated ): oh, my god!he i wantto enter with planes and with all their equipment, with f-16s, with drones, with everything. i want them to enter in force sy an clean everything up and pdvsa can be reborn. >> reporter: you're saying you wouldn't mind that they start a war he. >> ( translated ): i don't care because we're already at war. what do we have to lose? we've alread ey lorything here.

we at least want an intervention because we're starving.lished, we don't have clothes. we don't ha anything. >> sreenivasan: wais afternoon, ington state's governor declared a state of emergency, and directed state agencies to use "all resources necessary" to prepare for and respond to the coronavirus outbak. in addition to the death of one man from the virus, ere are several other confirmed cases there. and, we will have complete sults from south carolina's primary online tonight and on our broadcast tomorrow, and, we'll have a look ahead to the super tuesday vote. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. happy leap day. have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh

access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein fly. rosalind p. walter. learbara hope zuckerberg. charrosenblum. we try toive in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. o muf america financial investments.ement services and >>hen it comes to wireless, consumer cellular gives its customere choice. our no-contract plans give you as much or as little talk,s ext and datau want. and our u.s.-based customer service team is on-hand to help. to learn more, go to www.consumercellular.tv. additional suort has been ovided by: and by the corporati b for publadcasting, a private corporation funded by the

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