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JUDY WOODRUFF: Some of the biggest names in Republican politics took on Donald Trump with growing fervor today.

In Salt Lake City, Mitt Romney injected himself into the middle of the GOP race, just ahead of tonight’s candidate debate.

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R), 2012 Republican Presidential Nominee: If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished.

JUDY WOODRUFF: With that, the party’s 2012 nominee for president joined the campaign to stop Trump from becoming this year’s standard-bearer.

MITT ROMNEY: Dishonesty is Donald Trump’s hallmark. He claimed that he had spoken clearly and boldly against going into Iraq.

Wrong. He spoke in favor of invading Iraq. He said he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11.

Wrong. He saw no such thing. He imagined it. He’s not of the temperament of the kind of stable, thoughtful person we need as a leader. His imagination must not be married to real power.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Romney charged, Trump is a phony and fraud who’s taking advantage of the people who support him.

MITT ROMNEY: He’s playing the American public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Romney started by saying he is not joining the race. Instead, he said he’d vote for whomever has the best chance of beating Trump. It was a stark departure from four years ago, when candidate Romney welcomed the billionaire’s backing.

MITT ROMNEY: It means a great deal to me to have the endorsement of Mr. Trump.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Within hours today, Trump answered at a campaign stop in Maine.

DONALD TRUMP (R), Republican Presidential Candidate: Look, Mitt is a failed candidate. He failed. I backed Mitt Romney. I backed him. You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, Mitt, drop to your knees. He would have dropped to his knees. He was begging.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The candidate offered a lengthy personal critique of Romney, blasting his losing effort in 2012.

DONALD TRUMP: He’s a choke artist. He’s an absolute — and I started hitting him so hard. In fact, people say, why did you hit him so hard? Because we cannot take another loss. We can’t take another loss. And Mitt is indeed a choke artist. He choked, and he choked like I have never seen anyone choke.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Other Republican elders are weighing in as well. Senator John McCain, the party’s 2008 nominee, said in a statement: “I would also echo the many concerns about Mr. Trump’s uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national security issues.”

And some 70-plus Republican experts on foreign policy issued a press release pledging to oppose the front-runner.

But one of Trump’s former rivals and newest supporters, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, dismissed the criticism. He noted he’s telling Trump not to bolt the party if he’s denied the nomination.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), New Jersey: I have urged him not to do that, because I don’t think that’s constructive — a constructive way to go about it, and he knows that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All of this just hours before Trump and his remaining rivals, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, face off again in a FOX News debate in Detroit.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, underdog Bernie Sanders in Lansing, Michigan, took new aim today at Hillary Clinton and her stance on trade.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-D), Democratic Presidential Candidate: She has supported NAFTA. I opposed NAFTA. She supported permanent normal trade relations with China. I vigorously opposed PNTR with China. She supported permanent normal trade relations with Vietnam. I opposed that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Clinton stayed off the trail today, but The Washington Post reported a new turn in the FBI investigation of her handling of e-mail as secretary of state. It said Bryan Pagliano, a former State Department staffer who set up her private server, has been granted federal immunity for his cooperation.

Clinton has acknowledged that it was a mistake to use a private server, but has insisted nothing she received or sent was classified at the time.

We will dig further into today’s Republican fireworks after the news summary.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: In recent years, there’s been more attention on discrimination in places like Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

But there’s been less attention of late to the continuing problem of harassment and outright sexism in some firms on Wall Street and the financial industry. Companies long have engaged in training workers about appropriate behavior, but lawsuits are still being filed against firms alleging bias and a culture of harassment.

A new book casts a harsh spotlight on the way women have been treated over time.

Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, has the story. It’s part of his weekly series, Making Sense, which airs every Thursday on the “NewsHour.”

ACTOR: Stock’s going to Pluto, man.

ACTOR: Start unloading.

ACTOR: What? Sell?

ACTOR: Dump it now. Dump it all.

PAUL SOLMAN: Trading floors, for years, the cliche has been a menagerie of men. And even today, only about 15 percent of traders are female. So, what’s it like for a woman?

MAUREEN SHERRY, Author, “Opening Belle”: One woman I know used to work with a managing director. If women were walking by in a skirt, he would throw himself on the floor, pretend to look up their skirt. And they would — he would get the laugh, you know, from the other guys.

PAUL SOLMAN: Former Bear Stearns managing director Maureen Sherry had her own trying walk when she worked on Wall Street.

MAUREEN SHERRY: When I had come back from my maternity leave, I was still nursing, and kept a breast pump under my desk. One trader would notice, and he would start making a mooing sound, and, you know, sometimes other herd members would join in.

PAUL SOLMAN: Actually mooing?

MAUREEN SHERRY: Yes, mooing.

And one night, I was leaving. And someone came to tell me that there had been a bet that a young guy wouldn’t do a shot of my breast milk, and that he had risen to the challenge.

ACTORS: Do hereby pledge allegiance to the frat.

PAUL SOLMAN: Frat-boy antics and overt sexism are vivid features of Sherry’s new novel, “Opening Belle,” based on her experiences on a trading floor in the 1990s, and those of others still in the business.

MAUREEN SHERRY: On the floor I worked on, we had some ex-professional athletes.

PAUL SOLMAN: You had ex-professional…

MAUREEN SHERRY: Many — professional athletes, New York Ranger. We had a Knick. We had people who really, really lived that team mentality.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the competitive edge?

MAUREEN SHERRY: Very competitive. Loved to win, yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Loved to win. Loved to compete, loved to win, loved to risk.

MAUREEN SHERRY: There’s no walls, and they’re all together, and there’s the — the cortisol high of doing trades together every single day, lots of testosterone.

And so you can see where risk becomes part of the language.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the more risk you take, the greater the high?

MAUREEN SHERRY: I think that’s a proven fact.

PAUL SOLMAN: Indeed, it is.

Harvard behavioral economist Iris Bohnet has studied the research.

IRIS BOHNET, Harvard Kennedy School: After having experienced the wins, in particular in, men testosterone tends to spike. And that makes men even more willing to take risks. That has been coined the winner’s effect, meaning that, when we experience a win, that affects how we perceive risks going forward, and become even more risk-loving.

Interestingly enough, a number of papers now have been written which couldn’t find a winner’s effect for women.

PAUL SOLMAN: And that might help explain why women on Wall Street are paid just 68 cents to a man’s dollar, and so few make it to or near the top. The males in charge value the winner’s effect, even though it exaggerates losses too.

IRIS BOHNET: Research does suggest that diverse teams do outperform homogeneous teams.

PAUL SOLMAN: And yet, says Sherry, women are discriminated against in lots of ways.

MAUREEN SHERRY: Accounts not being given equitably, that’s really one way, or an account being taken away when you felt it wasn’t something that you deserved. You have to understand that these men make a really good living, and chances are very high that, if they have children, their wife is probably staying home with their children.

It is just sort of understood that, at a certain point, you’re going to just leave to be with your family.

PAUL SOLMAN: It’s not just on Wall Street, says Professor Bohnet.

IRIS BOHNET: We do know that bias creeps in whenever we take potential into account. We don’t naturally expect women to want to climb up the career leader.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO, Actor: Everybody had a good week?

PAUL SOLMAN: And if you don’t think women are likely to climb, then it’s a lot easier to treat them less professionally.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO: I have offered our lovely sales assistant Danielle Harrison here $10,000 to shave her (EXPLETIVE DELETED) head!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PAUL SOLMAN: Maureen Sherry knew a female banker who approached a male trader about a promotion.

MAUREEN SHERRY: She was really vivacious and beautiful, and she went over and she talked to him about it, and he said, yes, let’s — we need to sit down, have a proper interview, et cetera.

And he said, let’s meet at this bar. And she gets there, and she sat down at the table, and she said, when she put it down and started her prepared interview, he said, that’s what this is about? And he threw a hotel room key on the — on the table, and said, you know, I thought that’s why you wanted to meet, or something like — to that effect.

PAUL SOLMAN: No shock that, in the last decade, several major financial firms have settled large gender discrimination cases, while smaller suits, usually handled in-house and kept hush-hush, abound.

MAUREEN SHERRY: One of the people I have spoken with is a lawyer. I said, how many cases in this genre do you have a year? And he said, my firm? About 80.

PAUL SOLMAN: Eighty?

MAUREEN SHERRY: Eight-zero, one firm.

PAUL SOLMAN: For years, Sherry herself found Wall Street gratifying, atmosphere notwithstanding. But she left in 2000, when she realized she’d gone about as far as she could go.

MAUREEN SHERRY: Look, when you feel that your career’s been determined for you and you’re not progressing any further, it’s incredibly ungratifying.

PAUL SOLMAN: In other words, you hit the glass ceiling.

MAUREEN SHERRY: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Her husband remained in finance, but Sherry became a writer. Her first book, a children’s mystery, was inspired by her New York apartment, where clues to solve an elaborate scavenger hunt are hidden in the walls.

MAUREEN SHERRY: Here, go ahead. Take that picture. Do you know what this is, by the way?

PAUL SOLMAN: That’s Dr. Seuss.

MAUREEN SHERRY: Dr. Seuss.

PAUL SOLMAN: And that’s Sylvester McMonkey McBean. Sneetches. Those are Sneetches.

(LAUGHTER)

MAUREEN SHERRY: You’re right.

Behind each one is a replica of a room in the apartment. They fit together, and behind every single one of these, you could build out a whole house.

PAUL SOLMAN: The mother of four had ample distractions, but Sherry kept dwelling on her more than a decade on Wall Street.

MAUREEN SHERRY: If you can’t get the story out of your head, and can’t let it go, you have to put it to paper.

PAUL SOLMAN: And that’s what it was for you? You couldn’t let it go?

MAUREEN SHERRY: I couldn’t let it go. I tried. It still bothered me. I just wanted to sort of discuss, to let you see through the lens of a woman what it’s like to work in a place like that, what it feels like.

PAUL SOLMAN: What it felt like from 1989 to the year 2000, and apparently what it still feels a lot like today.

“PBS NewsHour” economics correspondent Paul Solman, reporting from New York.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now a different kind of read.

A new memoir captures the grief of losing a spouse and reassessing one’s path.

Jeffrey Brown has this latest addition to the “NewsHour” Bookshelf.

JEFFREY BROWN: For more than 35 years, radio host Diane Rehm has tackled pretty much every topic under the sun.

DIANE REHM, Author, “On My Own”: Already, hundreds of Syrians have been killed.

JEFFREY BROWN: Her two-hour daily public radio program produced by WMAU in Washington, D.C., reaches some 2.5 million listeners nationwide.

Now in a new book titled “On My Own,” she’s addressing a more personal an raw topic, the death of her husband John after 54 years of marriage. John was dying owed with Parkinson’s disease in 2005 and moved into an assisted living facility in 2012.

Two years later, in steady decline, he decided to end his life. But with doctors legally barred from assisting, his only option was to refuse food, liquids and medication. His death came 10 days later. Diane Rehm lives alone now with her dog Maxie and with lingering grief and anger over her husband’s last days.

DIANE REHM: I so resented that John was having to go through this long 10-day process to die. He had said 10 days earlier he was ready to die, and it took him that long. It shouldn’t have, I don’t believe, taken him that long.

JEFFREY BROWN: You write: “I rage at a system that wouldn’t allow John to be helped toward his own death.”

He knew what he was going through. You two had talked this through, and he just wanted to let it happen.

DIANE REHM: He wanted to relinquish life. He didn’t commit suicide. He wanted to let go of life and be on to the next journey.

JEFFREY BROWN: You and he had talked a lot about these kind of end-of-life matters. Right?

DIANE REHM: Absolutely.

JEFFREY BROWN: That is one of the things that comes through in the book, is that that helped you in some degree. Right? Even as hard as it was, you had talked it through.

DIANE REHM: Even after he said, I’m ready, I’m ready to die, I said to him, sweetheart, are you sure? Is this really what you want?

And he said, absolutely. I can no longer use my hands. I cannot walk. I cannot feed myself. I cannot do anything for myself. I am ready to die.

JEFFREY BROWN: One of the things I’m sure will resonate with a lot of people, you refer to is the capital-G guilt that you felt along the way, right, as you were moving toward this point.

(CROSSTALK)

JEFFREY BROWN: … the guilt?

DIANE REHM: Of course, of course.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

DIANE REHM: How could I not feel guilt? I think every spouse who sees another go into an assisted living facility must experience some of that.

If I had stayed home, if I had given up my work, if I had cared for him here at home, perhaps he would have lived at least a few months longer. I’m not sure that is the case. But it was the guilt I felt. We take vows when we marry, for better, for worse, in sickness, in health.

JEFFREY BROWN: Fifty-four-year marriage, right, which you write about very honestly. You write about periods of joy and of partnership, certainly, but also, as you say, years of hostility, endless periods of silence. Why did you write about that?

DIANE REHM: Because I believe that no marriage is perfect.

And yet so many of us go into marriage or partnership or relationship believing that all is going to be sunny, all is going to be wonderful. I wish, Jeff, I had been more mature, because John needed more distance than I did. John needed more quiet time than I did. I love to be with people. John’s greatest solace was being alone.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, in the end, in his last days, was there a kind of understanding?

DIANE REHM: Totally.

I mean, there was such closeness in those last three weeks, four weeks before he died.

JEFFREY BROWN: You know, out of this experience, you have become a much more active advocate, I guess, right, for the right to die. That sets you in the middle of a very passionate debate in this country.

DIANE REHM: I appreciate both sides.

I am arguing not that everyone should feel as I do and ask for death when the time comes. I understand those who would prefer to give and receive palliative care. Total individual choice. But do not let the law prevent me from making my choice about my own life.

JEFFREY BROWN: Becoming so public about it also brought you some questions and criticism from your organization, right?

DIANE REHM: Exactly.

JEFFREY BROWN: Whether you are now an advocate or your more traditional role as a journalist, right?

DIANE REHM: Once I leave the microphone, then I will become, as you say, an advocate. Right now, I am advocating for myself. I am not advocating for any organization in particular or any change in any state law in particular. I am advocating for myself.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, you’re now, as the book says, on your own…

DIANE REHM: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: … for the first time in many, many, many years, right?

DIANE REHM: Yes, all my life.

JEFFREY BROWN: Except for Maxie.

DIANE REHM: Except for Maxie, who is my constant companion.

I talk to Maxie. I talk to John, and John talks back to me.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes. That conversation hasn’t stopped, huh?

DIANE REHM: It hasn’t stopped. I don’t think it will stop. And it really helps me.

JEFFREY BROWN: You have also announced that you will stop doing your radio program at the end of this year.

DIANE REHM: At the end of the year.

JEFFREY BROWN: I wonder if — are the two related?

DIANE REHM: I had decided that, since I am currently 79 — I will be 80 in September — that 80 was a good point to step away from the microphone I have held daily for 37 years.

It seems to me that there ought to be other, fresher voices, newer ideas, newer plans for a national program like mine. And I think I would welcome that change.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. The book is “On My Own.”

Diane Rehm, thanks so much for letting us come.

DIANE REHM: Jeff, thank you.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, another installment of our weekly series Brief But Spectacular.

Today, unleashing your inner beast from singer-songwriter Thao Nguyen of the group Thao and the Get Down Stay Down.

Her latest album, “A Man Alive,” will be released tomorrow. And she will be touring cross-country starting this month.

THAO NGUYEN, Musician: I taught myself how to do this when I was riding the bus to school. Push it.

I did teach myself the guitar and various other string instruments. It’s a technique called fake it until you make it. I could give a seminar, really. You know, my interest in a live — in putting on a live show is connecting with people there.

I’m a pretty reserved person in my real life, in my non-working life, but then, when I get on stage, it’s an opportunity to tap into this beast? It’s the most present I will ever be in my life. We want people to know that when they come to the show, they can come with us. We can go somewhere together.

To be an Asian-American woman, there’s that kind of meekness and timidness and submission that is expected of you. I know that I embody probably the least threatening physical form you could. That’s true. That’s real. That’s — you know, I’m like — I’m tiny. I understand.

I have such love for the audience, but, also, I’m like, I will eat you. I want people to see how little I care about showing that side. When I was growing up, I didn’t really have freedom of expression. And there was no one entirely interested in what I was saying or thinking.

The point is that you’re fed and that you have shelter and do well in school. But it wasn’t until I got on stage where I realized, it just sort of — I could tap into without even wanting to. It just sort of overtook me.

Now I can tame the beast a little bit, enough so that I can only do it for work. To be that open and vulnerable and to have crazy eyes and to be sometimes snarling or just screaming, it’s important for me to share that part, you know, because, you know, I think it’s healthy for the both of us.

I’m Thao Nguyen, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on the beast within.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch other episodes of our Brief But Spectacular series on our Facebook page, Facebook.com/NewsHour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The deep divides among Republicans were on full public display today with Donald Trump again the center of attention.

We explore the rifts now with Michael Leavitt, former Republican governor of Utah. And Stephen Moore, he’s an economist at FreedomWorks. It’s a conservative political group.

And, gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

Governor Leavitt, to you first.

We know you know Governor Romney well. This is almost unprecedented in American politics, for the former standard-bearer to be going after the current front-runner like this.

Four years ago, Mitt Romney praised Donald Trump. He begged for his endorsement, according to Mr. Trump. What changed?

FORMER GOV. MICHAEL LEAVITT (R), Utah: Well, I have the benefit of having actually been there, and I can tell you that the way Donald Trump described it is simply not accurate.

I think Governor Romney graciously received his endorsement. But I think it would be valuable for me to at least provide a bit of personal context here. I think what we have seen is a personal statement on Governor Romney’s part.

I think we have all had a brother or a sister or a close friend we care about who’s about to make a very serious mistake that will have bad consequences and we watch it happening, and there’s a point at which we just simply say, I have to say something or I’m not going to feel good about myself.

I think Mitt Romney feels that way about the country, and this was a statement of his own views of how important it is that this not be made in the context of an emotional state that I think we all understand, but would produce bad consequences.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But, Governor Leavitt, we saw Mitt Romney said he wasn’t there to announce his own candidacy, but he didn’t rule it out either. Is he waiting to be called on? We notice that he didn’t endorse any of the other candidates in the race.

MICHAEL LEAVITT: He says privately to me the same things he says publicly, and that is he is not a candidate and doesn’t intend to be a candidate.

I think this was, as I suggested, a desire to express his views at a time on a matter that he feels deeply about and about a country he cares deeply about and a party he cares deeply about.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Stephen Moore, what was your reaction to Governor Romney’s statement?

STEPHEN MOORE, Economist, FreedomWorks: Hi, Judy.

Well, first, let me say I don’t have a horse in this race. I like Mitt Romney. I like, actually, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. So, I’m not necessarily in favor of one over the other, but I will say this.

And, by the way, I did support Mitt Romney when he ran for president. I have been in politics for 30 years. I think what Mitt Romney did, with all due respect, Governor, today was totally disgraceful.

I am so ashamed of him, as a Republican, to go after the Republican front-runner, the person who is very, very likely to be the Republican nominee, and basically to say that he’s dishonest, that he’s a phony, to call his voters, the millions and millions of middle-class, blue-collar workers who Donald Trump has brought into the party, which is one thing I love about Donald Trump as a Republican — he’s bringing all these people into the party — to call them suckers, I just am outraged by it.

And, by the way, I actually think that this — that the American people and a lot of the Republican voters are outraged by it, too. And I actually think, Judy, that this is going to help Donald Trump, because it makes the point that he is representing the kind of middle-class, blue-collar voters who haven’t seen a pay raise in 10 years, and that, you know, the establishment Republicans are totally against him and they will do anything they can to stop him.

And one last point, if I may, Judy. You know, a lot of — I’m a conservative Republican, and I have kind of held my nose. And I have, you know, worked for Bob Dole to win and Mitt Romney, even though I had serious disagreements with them, because the establishment always said, you conservatives have to get behind the candidate.

Well, now the establishment, now they don’t like the candidate and they’re saying they’re not going to get behind him.

And, Governor, I just think that’s — that’s duplicitous.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Governor, what about that? Could what Governor Romney did today backfire in what he said about the people who support the — what, a third or more of the Republican electorate who support Donald Trump?

MICHAEL LEAVITT: I think there will be people who react that way, in the same way that sometimes we tell a brother or a sister or a friend who is involved in some sort of emotional thing that has them charged up, and they’re about to make a big mistake, say, I’m going to do this because you said this about it.

And I just think Mitt has made a personal statement. This is the way he feels. This is the way he believes. And he simply didn’t feel, doesn’t feel that he wanted this to go forward without having made that statement.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But do you see how voters could take this as an insult, if you will? And are you worried Democrats will use what he said against Donald Trump in the fall if Trump is the nominee?

STEPHEN MOORE: That’s what I’m worried about.

MICHAEL LEAVITT: Well, the Democrats have a lot they can use if Mr. Trump is in fact the nominee.

Again, this is a personal statement. He’s not the nominee and he’s not running to be a candidate. He’s not running for president. He is saying what he believes is important for the American people to know about Donald Trump and he is calling the question.

He called the question on his tax returns and said, release them, so we can see, and if he doesn’t, that’s all the proof that’s necessary. You might recall that Governor Romney went through this himself. And I think he concluded it was a mistake for him not to have done it sooner and in a way that answered the questions. He’s saying the same thing to Donald Trump and has questions that I think many other people share.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Stephen Moore, you said a minute ago you think this could end up helping Donald Trump, but what about the other efforts out there?

We hear that big donors in the Republican Party are trying to raise money to help, whether it’s Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz? What about those efforts?

STEPHEN MOORE: Yes. Yes.

Well, they’re out there. And there’s no — I mean, this is the Republican establishment, and the millionaires and billionaires of the party think that they can buy this election. And, you know, where I disagree with — and, again, I disagree with Donald Trump, Judy, on a lot of things.

I disagree with him fervently on immigration and trade. I am a pro-free trade, pro-immigration Republican, just as the governor is. But what I object to is this idea that we’re not going to let the voters speak.

And I think just that a lot of the Republican establishment is insulting — you used that word, and I think it was exactly the right word — it’s an insult to the people who go out to these things. I have been to some of these Donald Trump rallies, Judy, and it is amazing the people who turn out.

They are bikers and they’re carpenters and they’re soccer moms and they’re veterans and people who care fervently about this country. I just am very reluctant. And I hate to see them dissed this way by the Republican establishment. I just think it’s beneath the party.

And, by the way, Donald Trump is going to be the nominee, and you’re right, Judy. These insults are going to come back and haunt our nominee in November.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Very quickly to both of you, could you each support Donald Trump if he ends up being the nominee of the Republican Party?

Governor Leavitt?

MICHAEL LEAVITT: I think we all want a Republican to win the presidency and think it’s deeply important.

(CROSSTALK)

MICHAEL LEAVITT: … deeply important that, in fact, it happens. And I think that’s why Mitt Romney spoke as well.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And…

STEPHEN MOORE: I would certainly, Judy, support any of these Republicans over Hillary Clinton.

And I will say this. If Donald Trump is the nominee, he is going to win 35 states. He is going to win New York. He’s going to — I just disagree with the polls. I think he brings tens of millions of new voters into the Republican Party.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We will leave it there.

Stephen Moore…

(CROSSTALK)

MICHAEL LEAVITT: Governor Romney also obviously disagrees with Stephen.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right. We got — we did get that sense today from his news conference.

STEPHEN MOORE: I love the governor, by the way.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Stephen Moore, Governor Michael Leavitt, thank you both.

STEPHEN MOORE: Thank you.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I’m Judy Woodruff. Gwen Ifill is away.

On the “NewsHour” tonight: Republicans stand back as their presidential nominee of four years ago levels a blistering attack on this year’s GOP front-runner, Donald Trump.

Also ahead this Thursday: fighting fire with fire. Researchers turn to mosquitoes as a weapon against Zika.

KARLA TEPEDINO, Oxitec: The beauty of this technique is that it can reach the mosquitoes where no other technique can find it. We are using mosquitoes to fight themselves.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Plus, women on Wall Street — the former managing director of a New York investment bank on the rampant sexism she and others endured.

MAUREEN SHERRY, Author, “Opening Belle”: If women were walking by in a skirt, he would throw himself on the floor, pretend to look up their skirt. And they would — he would get the laugh, you know, from the other guys.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight’s “PBS NewsHour.”

(BREAK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day’s other news, both Apple and the FBI picked up allies today in their legal fight over encryption. There was word that Google, Facebook, and Microsoft will oppose efforts to make Apple unlock an iPhone. It was used by Syed Farook in the mass shootings in San Bernardino, California.

At the same time, relatives of six of the victims filed a brief supporting the FBI’s position.

The state of Florida is ready to reinstate the death penalty. State lawmakers voted today to replace a law that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in January. The old law required a simple majority of jurors to recommend a death sentence. The new one says at least 10 of the 12 jurors must agree.

From the United Nations today, hopeful words on Syria. A special envoy declared that a cease-fire is mostly holding after six days. In Geneva, Staffan de Mistura said the truce is fragile, but has — quote — “greatly reduced the violence.”

STAFFAN DE MISTURA, UN Special Envoy for Syria: This is good news for many Syrian people. Unfortunately, we have to admit, like in every cessation of hostilities or cease-fire, and in particular in this one, there are still a number of places where fighting has continued, including parts of Hama, Homs, Latakia, and Damascus.

JUDY WOODRUFF: At the same time, Amnesty International charged Russian and Syrian government forces are deliberately targeting hospitals in and around Aleppo. It said that amounts to war crimes.

North Korea has answered a new round of U.N. sanctions by firing half-a-dozen short-range projectiles into the sea. South Korea’s military says they were fired today near the eastern town of Wonsan and flew less than 100 miles. Later, the North announced that its leader, Kim Jong-un, has ordered the military to be ready to fire nuclear weapons at any time.

European leaders sounded increasingly desperate today to deal with the mounting migrant crisis in Greece. Nearly 32,000 people are stranded, and largely blocked from moving deeper into the continent.

James Mates of Independent Television News is there on the ground.

JAMES MATES: Don’t come to Greece, they have been told. Don’t believe the smugglers. You won’t get any further. But, still, they come, 600 more pouring onto the keys in the Port of Piraeus this morning.

But for these new arrivals, things have changed. No longer are they being waved through on their journey north. For many now, a tent on the dockside is the end of the road. The main ferry terminal has been home to several hundred for more than a week now, many young children, for whom the longed-for passage to Germany may never happen.

This is what happens when you try and block a human tide as it flows northwards. Just a week or so ago, all of these people would have moved on across the Macedonian border and towards Northern Europe. Now, well, they’re struck here.

KATERINA KIDDI, UN Refugee Agency: It’s obvious that Greece cannot do it alone. It was never a Greek problem. It was always a European and a global problem. You cannot expect from one country to share this big responsibility.

JAMES MATES: Senior E.U. officials are in Athens today trying to reassure the Greeks they’re not alone. But the words are aimed at those still thinking of traveling.

DONALD TUSK, President, European Council: Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money. It is all for nothing.

JAMES MATES: But for those already here, Greece may no longer be a transit country. In Athens’ picturesque squares, many hundreds now sleep in the open. They can’t move on. They won’t go back.

But like Zohreg Gasam and her four sisters from Afghanistan, they have found no welcome.

ZOHREG GASAM, Refugee: We are tonight sleeping there, and we not have two…

JAMES MATES: Your blankets.

ZOHREG GASAM: Yes, blankets, yes. The winter was really cool.

JAMES MATES: There was once a warm welcome for refugees when they came off the boats here, but that was when they were able to move on through. Now the burden seems to be falling on Greeks alone. And patience and tolerance are becoming harder to find.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The migrant crisis will be the main subject at a European Union summit on Monday.

Back in this country, Oregon is set to become the first state to eliminate coal from its energy supply by law. The state legislature gave final approval yesterday to the move. It takes full effect by 2030. Governor Kate Brown has indicated she will sign the bill.

Wall Street made some modest progress today. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 44 points to close near 16944. The Nasdaq rose four. And the S&P 500 added nearly seven.

And President Obama says he will do something few presidents have done: stay in Washington after he leaves office. He said today in Milwaukee that he wants Sasha, his younger daughter, to finish high school before the family moves. She’s now in the ninth grade.

Still to come on the “NewsHour”: two leading Republican voices on Mitt Romney and the feverish efforts to stop Donald Trump; mosquitoes that fight the virus they spread; the horrifying ways ISIS is using child soldiers; and much more.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: With the outbreak of the Zika virus growing across the Americas, scientists are working on new ways to try to stop its spread by targeting the insects that carry the virus, mosquitoes.

One idea centers on altering mosquitoes so they will declare war on other mosquitoes.

Science correspondent Miles O’Brien has our report. It’s part of his series of stories that he’s filed from Brazil on Zika.

MILES O’BRIEN: The most deadly animals on Earth may have finally met their match, and the enemy is them. This is the scene every morning in Piracicaba, Brazil, where the mosquito-borne Zika virus is raging, along with a long-running outbreak of dengue fever.

Scientists hit the road, releasing swarms of genetically modified mosquitoes that carry a DNA time bomb. They are killer mosquitoes.

KARLA TEPEDINO, Oxitec: We are in a colony room. This is where we want to have females happy, healthy, and things like that.

MILES O’BRIEN: These mosquitoes are created by a British company called Oxitec. Karla Tepedino runs the supply line.

KARLA TEPEDINO: This is the biggest mosquito factory in the whole world. We are producing two million male mosquitoes per week.

MILES O’BRIEN: You could say it’s in-gene-ious. Oxitec technicians insert a synthetic gene into mosquito eggs that causes them to create too many proteins. It’s a fatal disease.

While they are still in the lab, they’re given an antidote that keeps the disease at bay. Once they are released, they find a female and breed. But their offspring inherit the gene that causes the fatal disease. With no antidotes in the wild, they die not long after they are hatched, before they can breed.

KARLA TEPEDINO: The beauty this technique is that it can reach the mosquitoes where no other technique can find it. We are using mosquitoes to fight themselves.

MILES O’BRIEN: It appears to be working. And here’s how they know. In addition to the killer gene, they add one that’s a special marker. Only the genetically modified mosquitoes will glow under a special light. This way, they can track the mosquito population. They say 90 percent of the insects in this area now carry the fatal flaw.

KARLA TEPEDINO: As the health secretary of Piracicaba has stated last year they had 133 cases of dengue, this year, only one in the area that we are treating.

MILES O’BRIEN: Mosquitoes killing mosquitoes. It may sound too good to be true, and despite more than a decade of work, it remains unclear if this can have lasting impact on a bigger scale. It’s a high-tech twist in the long, difficult war to stop the spread of diseases carried by the mosquito species called Aedes aegypti.

We have been battling the same enemy for generations.

NARRATOR: Notice the white-tipped palps, the triangular white spots on the abdomen, the white leg bands, and the white flyer shaped design on the thorax. These are characteristic of the adult aegypti mosquito.

MILES O’BRIEN: Aegypti is blamed for spreading Zika virus, as well as dengue, West Nile and yellow fever. Combined, the diseases infect hundreds of millions of people a year, causing a host of maladies and birth defects, killing several million.

But with Zika, there is growing concern here that other species are guilty as well. In this government lab in Recife, Brazil, they are working to develop a test that can tell if a mosquito is carrying Zika virus.

Right now, no one knows for certain how common it is, or in which species.

Marcelo Paiva is a molecular entomologist.

You know, when compare this against dengue or yellow fever, any number of other viruses borne by mosquitoes, we don’t know so much about Zika, do we?

MARCELO PAIVA, Fiocruz/UFPE: We have no idea, actually.

MILES O’BRIEN: Really? Tell me.

MARCELO PAIVA: This is totally new.

MILES O’BRIEN: It’s kind of — well, it’s virgin science.

MARCELO PAIVA: It is, yes. We were in a dark field, now — no light at end of tunnel. Now we’re trying to clarify things.

MILES O’BRIEN: As they try to solve this complex puzzle, his boss, entomologist Constancia Ayres, is trying to prove a theory that would have huge, global implications, that another mosquito species called Culex quinquefasciatus could also be a so-called vector for Zika.

Culex is 20 times more abundant here in Brazil, and is also much more common than Aedis aegypti in North America and Europe.

CONSTANCIA AYRES, Entomologist: In Micronesia, when we had the first outbreak of the Zika in 2007, there is no Aedes aegypti there. So, probably, another vector was transmitting the disease. And Culex also transmitted other arbovirus, such as West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis, so why not Zika?

MILES O’BRIEN: The two breeds behave very differently. Culex bites at night, while aegypti prefers the day. Culex breeds in dirty water. Aegypti likes her water clean. This would dramatically up the ante for traditional mosquito control techniques.

CONSTANCIA AYRES: So, if both species are involved, you will have to use repellent 24 hours a day, basically.

MILES O’BRIEN: Wow. Yes. So you’re going deet all the time.

CONSTANCIA AYRES: Yes, all the time.

MILES O’BRIEN: That’s not good. That’s an important, a significant thing. It’s a 24-hour fight.

They are infecting Culex mosquitoes with Zika in the lab, then dissecting them to see how they carry and transmit the virus. The jury is still out on what happens in the real world. It could mean there will be demand for another breed of weaponized mosquito.

This not a new battle here in Brazil. As a matter of fact, it’s actually a long war. And they have had some success over the years. In the mid-’50s and the mid-’70s, they very nearly eradicated these mosquitoes using pesticides, many of them DDT.

But even before DDT was banned, though, the mosquitoes developed a resistance to it. So, today, with the population of humans and mosquitoes so much greater than ever, there really is no realistic way to think about eradication.

But scientists all over the world are not ready to surrender. Leslie Vosshall is a professor of neurogenetics at the Rockefeller University in New York.

LESLIE VOSSHALL, The Rockefeller University: So we’re trying to figure out why some people are more attractive than others. The diseases start with a mosquito. The mosquito needs to find someone to bite. The more attractive people are bitten more. We want to understand why that is.

MILES O’BRIEN: She and her team performed what they all the mosquito magnet study. Open the gate, and down the chute they go. Turns out mosquitoes love some of us more than others. So what is the differentiator?

LESLIE VOSSHALL: So, mosquitoes, especially the mosquitoes that are spreading Zika, dengue, chikungunya, they love humans over any other animal. So they’re cuing into our body odor, the carbon dioxide in our breath, our body heat. So, it’s the body odor that I think is what distinguishes us from other non-human animals.

MILES O’BRIEN: Vosshall and her team are creating designer mosquitoes. It’s genetic engineering, but a different version from Oxitec’s self-destructing insects.

Here, they create unique attributes, for example, a bug that can’t detect certain odors, to try and understand what they are hunting.

LESLIE VOSSHALL: Obviously, if we figure out what makes a mosquito magnet attractive, then we have understood a big part of what mosquitoes are hunting. Then we can interrupt their hunting behavior.

MILES O’BRIEN: In the meantime, all we really have are nets and deet. Researchers aren’t even sure how the chemical thwarts mosquitoes.

Can’t science do better?

LESLIE VOSSHALL: Ultimately, how cool would it be to have like a cream that you put on your arm that has a probiotic, right, that makes you demagnetized as a mosquito magnet?

MILES O’BRIEN: But, for now, there is little to stop the global health havoc caused by mosquitoes. Zika and birth defects are just part of the devastation. The most deadly animal on Earth is an easy foe to underestimate and it marches on with impunity.

Miles O’Brien, the “PBS NewsHour,” Recife, Brazil.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: But first: A new study provides a disturbing look into the ways ISIS uses children to fight its battles.

Hari Sreenivasan has our conversation.

HARI SREENIVASAN: A new report published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point chronicles the increasing use of children as fighters for the so-called Islamic State.

The report’s authors, based at Georgia State University in Atlanta, documented the Islamic State’s own propaganda, which praises deceased young fighters as martyrs. It shows how the group uses children and youth in suicide operations. They found three times as many suicide attacks involving young people in January of this year than last year.

For more on the study’s findings and what they mean, we’re joined by one of the report’s authors, professor Mia Bloom.

Problem Bloom, unfortunately, child soldiers aren’t anything new. So, how is ISIS using them differently?

MIA BLOOM, Georgia State University: So, we started our study with a baseline looking at the literature on child soldiers, looking at biographies and autobiographies of people who had been child soldiers, in order to get a sense of what we thought we might expect.

And so we expected that children would be used when they ran out of adults or when they couldn’t find adults, or that children would be used against civilian targets. And we didn’t find either of those. Instead, what we found was that children in ISIS are used alongside the adults, not instead, and, in fact, only 3 percent of the time were children used against civilian targets; 61 percent of the time, they were going after what we would call hard targets, military, police, militias and the army.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So they’re doing just what the grownups do.

MIA BLOOM: They’re doing exactly what the grownups do, and, in fact, we found considerably more suicide bombers than anyone expected.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And you said — you actually break it down; 39 percent are driving basically car bombs?

MIA BLOOM: Thirty-nine percent were car bombs. These were vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, so it’s a VBIED.

But many of the children were also wearing what we would call a suicide belt, which is an individual IED that is attached to them, so they were part of these marauding raids, these inghimasi, so they would go into the target, shoot and then blow up the IED or the suicide belt at the end of the operation.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Now, it used to be that groups would recruit in secret, that they knew that there was going to be societal backlash. This is the opposite.

You’re saying in your report that ISIS brags about the fact that they’re recruiting young kids.

MIA BLOOM: Not only is ISIS boasting that they’re using these children, but they’re using the children also in a way to humiliate the men.

What we didn’t put into report, but will be exploring further, is that ISIS is using the children, for example, in the prison to determines who lives and dies. They’re also using the children to actually carry out the execution, and so they’re empowering the children, and by doing so, disempowering the men.

And this is a way in which they are recruiting the children to basically feel like you will be more than what you are. You won’t be a child in a society where you’re lesser than, but you will be powerful, you will be a cub and then eventually a lion.

HARI SREENIVASAN: As you watched through all of these images and videos, you actually point out that almost half these children have smiles on their faces, at least in the propaganda that comes out after. Explain that.

MIA BLOOM: Well, one of the things that we tried to do is, we’re trying to get a sense of, is there any coercion? Are the children there voluntarily?

So, for example, again, using the baseline of child soldiers, the stereotypical story that we know from Liberia or Uganda is that these children are coerced and they’re drugged, and so they’re made to perpetrate an act of horrific violence against members of their own family, so that they can never go back to their village.

We didn’t find that with ISIS. We found parents who willingly gave the terrorists access to their children. They encouraged the children. One of the images, for example, we even see the father saying goodbye to his son.

But we also saw a lot of images where the kids are smiling and they look like they are very excited about this future. They even put them in a setting that looks like the Garden of Eden, in order to convey that that’s where they’re headed; they’re going to paradise.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And what kind of age range are we talking about? Obviously, under 18 qualifies as a child, but how young were some of these kids?

MIA BLOOM: So, we used age categories based on developmental psychology.

Some of the kids were as young as 8. So, we had again — an age range of 8-12, 13-15, 16-18, and we didn’t go above 18. And anyone we knew that might be over 18, we didn’t include in the study.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, so we have this information. How should this inform our policy-making or our strategy to combat this?

MIA BLOOM: I mean, part of it is that we have seen in other instances terrorist groups using very young children. So, although they didn’t brag about it, we did some field research in Pakistan, where the Pakistani Taliban has forcibly recruited very young kids to be suicide bombers.

We know that there are ways of de-radicalizing and deprogramming these children, but it’s very involved, it’s very expensive. It requires a multipronged approach. So part of it is, what do we do when soldiers are facing children?

We know that there are increased levels of PTSD. But we also have to figure out ways not just of preventing the children from entering in the first place, but what do we do with them once we find them?

HARI SREENIVASAN: Finally, while several of these children were from Iraq and Syria, you point out that some of these children came from other countries far overseas as well. So, how did they get there? We can understand that a 22-year-old figures out a way to get on a bus, on a plane. How did these small kids from, say, Europe, get in?

MIA BLOOM: Well, what’s the really horrific part of the study is we discovered how many parents are bringing their children with them.

So, among the foreign fighters that are coming from the United Kingdom and France, Belgium, Tunisia, Egypt, they’re bringing their entire families with them when they go. And they’re basically giving the terrorists access to these children when they get there.

So, we are seeing parents who are basically colluding with the terrorists and allowing their children to die at a very early age.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Mia Bloom, thanks so much.

MIA BLOOM: Thank you so much for having me.

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Darius Nabors, left, and Trevor Kemp are on a mission to visit the 59 U.S. national parks in 59 weeks. They will complete their feat in August 2016. Photo courtesy of Darius Nabors

Last year, 30-year-old Darius Nabors did something many Americans only dream of. He quit his job and hit the road.

Nabors grew up visiting national parks on family vacations, but realized it would take him 42 years to see the ones he had not yet visited if he only traveled to one park per year.

Planning for the trip included obtaining permits to raft down the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. Photo courtesy of Darius Nabors

Inspired by his father, a former park ranger at Olympic National Park in Washington, Nabors hatched a plan to ramp up his visitation rate to one park per week.

The trip of a lifetime was born.

With the Park Service marking its 100th anniversary in 2016, Nabors decided this was the year to visit all 59 National Parks in 59 weeks.

So far, Nabors and his friend and travel companion Trevor Kemp, who recently finished his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, have visited 34 parks, including Glacier, Gates of the Artic, Crater Lake, Haleakala and Joshua Tree.

They swam in the Arctic Ocean, rafted down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, and saw Denali on the last day it was Mount McKinley and the first day it was Denali. They’ve also hiked Hawaiian volcanoes and watched the “Bloodmoon” eclipse rise above Mount Rainier.

But the two are not entirely on their own on this trip. In addition to using their own savings, Nabors and Kemp crowdsourced $10,000 through a Rockethub fundraiser and won additional funding through a social media contest hosted by Bear Naked granola. They also continue to take sponsorships through their website 59in59.com.

But the key, said Nabors, is really just living simply.

Friends Darius Nabors and Trevor Kemp are on a mission to visit the 59 U.S. national parks in 59 weeks. They will complete their journey in August 2016. Photo courtesy of Darius Nabors

“It’s a lot of peanut butter and jelly, a lot of easy foods, macaroni and cheese, spam,” he said, “Really, our only other expense is gas, camping (and) coffee at coffee shops so we can get wireless. Other than that, it’s really cutting out the extraneous stuff so that we can do this trip on a budget.”

The two hope their trip helps spark interest in country’s national parks and inspires Americans to see these natural wonders.

“That’s the thing about these parks,” Nabors said. “We try to capture some great photographs but if you want to truly see these parks, you have to get out there and visit them yourself.”

Nabors and Kemp plan to finish their journey in Acadia National Park in Maine on Aug. 25th — the date of the Park Service’s Centennial.

Editor’s note: An earier version of this story incorrectly identified Darius Nabors in the photo from the Grand Canyon. It ha been updated.

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A Banksy artwork is pictured opposite the French embassy on Jan. 25, 2016, in London, England. The graffiti, which depicts a young girl from the musical Les Misérables with tears in her eyes as tear gas moves towards her, criticizes the use of teargas in the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp in Calais. Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images

A team led by Steven Le Comber at the Queen Mary University of London analyzed 140 pieces by the infamous street artist in London and Bristol using geographic profiling. The resulting “geoprofile” pinpointed a pub along with an address in Bristol and three others in London, all places where Gunningham has lived or appeared.

Banksy, who is behind pieces including a recreation of Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” and the satirical amusement park “Dismaland,” does not sign his pieces, so the analysis looked at works that he is suspected of creating.

A Palestinian boy walks past a drawing by British graffiti artist Banksy, along part of the controversial Israeli barrier near the Kalandia checkpoint in the West Bank on Aug. 10, 2005. Photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters

The team at Queen Mary University said in the report’s summary that the same process could be used as a model to locate potential terrorism suspects.

But likening Banksy’s work to “minor terrorism-related acts,” as the report puts it, drew criticism from Gizmodo, which also pointed out several flaws in the analysis:

The method itself is incredibly imprecise, and uses only suspected cases of Banksy’s artwork (Banksy performs his art anonymously, so it’s not obvious which pieces belong to him, or if the work is performed by multiple people). What’s more, outliers in the location data were not excluded, and the researchers did not use a timeline to consider when the art appeared.

This is not the first time that a group has claimed to identify Banksy as Gunningham. A Daily Mail investigation in 2008 claimed that Gunningham, who grew up in Bristol, was “the Scarlet Pimpernel of modern art.”

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MEGAN THOMPSON: At Chicago’s Field Museum, these bronze statues relegated to storage for decades are back on display in a conscious attempt to be provocative about the hot-button topic of race. Alaka Wali is an anthropologist and curator of the exhibit.

ALAKA WALI: Get the conversation going around these issues using this amazing artwork to do that.

MEGAN THOMPSON: The story of this exhibit starts in the late 1920’s, with Malvina Hoffman, an American sculptor who lived in Paris and had studied with Auguste Rodin. The Field Museum commissioned her to sculpt 104 so-called “racial types” that the curators wanted to depict.

ALAKA WALI: And they were like, “We want one of this type. We want one of that type.” They thought that she could sort of create this composite from different people into this one type that would represent the entire population.

MEGAN THOMPSON: Hoffman took more than 3 years to create the mostly bronze sculptures based on photographs and live models.

ALAKA WALI: And then she traveled the world, she went by boat, she went by camel. She went by elephant to parts of Asia, parts of Africa, met people, encountered them.

MEGAN THOMPSON: The museum unveiled the “Races of Mankind” exhibit in 1933 to coincide with the Chicago World’s Fair. The exhibit was popular and remained on display for decades.

MEGAN THOMPSON: At the time, racial divisions in the U.S. were stark, and many parts of the world remained colonized. Scientists and anthropologists classified people in racial groups based on biological traits, like how a person looked. Some groups were considered more advanced than others.

ALAKA WALI: So they started coming up with these categories, primitive, barbaric. And the only ones who could be considered civilized were the Europeans.

MEGAN THOMPSON: Wali says today the theories are considered “scientific racism.” But the thinking influenced Hoffman’s work. For example, a chiseled bodybuilder from Brooklyn depicted almost like a Greek God was chosen to portray the “nordic” type.

ALAKA WALI: Classic kind of, you know, features of what the stereotype of a Northern European would be.

MEGAN THOMPSON: On the other hand, sculptures of the San People of Southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert showed a mother crouched on the ground and a father with bow and arrow.

ALAKA WALI: They were considered among the most primitive of the primitive, because at the time they were still a people who were what we in anthropology would call hunter-gatherers or foragers.

MEGAN THOMPSON: But the San weren’t primitive at all. They extracted an extremely nutritious diet from the barren desert, and had complex traditions of storytelling, music, and art.  Hoffman sometimes disagreed with the Field Museum Curators. She wasn’t comfortable creating a composite of each racial type, like they wanted.

ALAKA WALI: And she said, “No, these people are individuals.”  ‘Cause she was talking to them, you know, in her travels. You have to see these people as individuals.  And so there was that kind of tension.

MEGAN THOMPSON: Hoffman prevailed. Each statue was of an actual person and the new exhibit lists many of their real names.

MEGAN THOMPSON: Millions of people saw the statues during the next thirty years. But by the 1960’s, thinking about race had changed. Culture, not biology, explains differences in how people live and behave.

MEGAN THOMPSON: University of Chicago Professor Michael Dawson, who specializes in the politics of race and ethnicity, says while the sculptures may be works of art, the exhibit was based on archaic ideas of race that have been abandoned.

MICHAEL DAWSON: By the 1960s and 1970s, there’s real pushback on either cultural or biological conceptions of race, particularly those that were associated with some type of hierarchy or some type of sense of one race being superior, even if it’s culturally superior.

MEGAN THOMPSON: By the 1960’s, much of Africa and Asia were de-colonized, and in the U.S. the Civil Rights Movement, including the Black Power Movement, changed attitudes.

MICHAEL DAWSON: So what you saw in Chicago and throughout the country was very angry populations that were very well organized and very mobilized and were thinking at a very fundamental way, “How do we change institutions to make them more just?”

MEGAN THOMPSON: In 1969 the museum removed the “Races of Mankind” exhibit.

ALAKA WALI: The new generations of curators were uncomfortable. They were embarrassed by the exhibit by that point.

MEGAN THOMPSON: The statues were scattered around the museum or put in storage.  But Wali says she felt they could serve a purpose once again.

ALAKA WALI: You don’t want to waste that opportunity to reinstall them in some way, and talk very openly about the history of race in our country.

MEGAN THOMPSON: After a major restoration project, the museum remounted 50 of the statues in a new exhibit called, “Looking at Ourselves: Rethinking the Sculptures of Malvina Hoffman.” It contains a section on the “Black Lives Matter” movement of today. Digital displays counter old notions linking human behavior with physical traits.

MEGAN THOMPSON: Michael Dawson says the exhibit helps put racial misunderstanding in a historical context.

MICHAEL DAWSON: I don’t know how we move forward unless we understand our past better.  And have a discussion about how that past still affects us.

MEGAN THOMPSON: The Field Museum exhibit will be on display through the end of the year.

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A GOP senator says federal aid is not needed in Flint. Photo by Rebecca Cook/Reuters

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said Friday that federal aid is not needed in Flint, Michigan, where lead-contaminated pipes have resulted in an ongoing public health emergency.

Lee said he is holding up bipartisan legislation to address the water crisis in Flint because Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, has not asked for federal help and the state does not need it.

“Michigan has an enormous budget surplus this year” and a rainy-day fund totaling several hundred million dollars, Lee said. The state has approved $70 million in emergency funding for Flint, and Snyder has requested at least $165 million more toward the Flint emergency.

“The people and policymakers of Michigan right now have all the government resources they need to fix the problem,” Lee said. “The only thing Congress is contributing to the Flint recovery is political grandstanding.”

Senators from both parties reached a tentative deal last month for a $220 million package to fix and replace lead-contaminated pipes in Flint and other cities, but the bill remains on hold.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., a key sponsor of the bill, said she was surprised and disappointed that Lee would hold up a bipartisan measure that would “help communities across the country, including in his home state of Utah.”

If Lee opposes the bill, he should vote against it, “but he should not block it from even getting a vote,” Stabenow said.

More than two dozen Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, visited Flint on Friday to hear from families affected by the water crisis.

Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., said the visit allowed lawmakers to hear about Flint’s problems firsthand and also served to keep up pressure for Congress to act on the stalled bill. Kildee criticized Lee and other Senate Republicans for delaying the bill and noted that dozens of lawmakers have visited Flint in recent weeks — all Democrats.

Republican presidential candidates addressed the Flint crisis for no more than “one fleeting second” at a debate in Detroit Thursday night, Pelosi said. “I think that was really an embarrassment,” she said.

The visit by Democratic lawmakers “isn’t about politicizing” the Flint crisis as Lee and other Republicans have claimed, Pelosi said.

“This is about accountability, it’s about helping, it’s about healing. It’s about giving people hope and it’s about not underutilizing any resource to do that at every level,” she said.

Stabenow and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., reached agreement with Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and other senators last month on a bill to fix lead-contaminated pipes across the country, make other infrastructure improvements and bolster lead-prevention programs nationwide.

Supporters said the bill would use federal credit subsidies to provide incentives for up to $700 million in loan guarantees and other financing for water infrastructure projects across the country. Similar problems with aging pipes have cropped up in several states since the Flint crisis became known last year.

The Senate bill would be paid for by redirecting up to $250 million from an Energy Department loan program approved in the 2009 economic stimulus law.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz had placed a hold on the bill last month, but lifted it after reviewing the measure. A spokesman said Cruz will not prevent the bill from moving forward in the Senate.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., also has objected to the bill, which is attached to a broader energy measure being debated in the Senate. Vitter’s concerns are unrelated to Flint and center on efforts to expand fishing areas for red snapper and other species in the Gulf of Mexico.

Vitter said in a statement that he is hopeful the Senate moves forward with the energy bill in the near future. “In the meantime, I’m working with my colleagues to ensure that my language to help promote fishing opportunities for anglers in the Gulf is not neglected,” he said.

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Speaking at CPAC, Ben Carson declined to endorse a candidate for the Republican nomination. Photo by Chris Keane/Reuters

Ben Carson, who recently ended his White House bid, is declining to endorse any candidate for the Republican nomination, though he says he has “talked to all of them this week.”

Speaking to a gathering of conservative activists in suburban Maryland, the retired neurosurgeon says the United States needs “trickle-down ethics.” He says the ideal presidential candidate is ethical and accomplished, has clear policies and treats others well. He says whoever can check all of those boxes would be a “great leader.”

Carson reiterated that he is leaving the campaign trail, something he announced on his Facebook page the day after Super Tuesday contests.

The Conservative Political Action Conference crowd gave him an adoring standing ovation. He says there are “a lot of people who love me, they just won’t vote for me.”

Carson says he will now be working on a project to encourage religious values voters to participate in elections.

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After climbing 12 cents in January, wages fell 3 cents in February. So what’s going on? Photo by Sean Murphy/The Image Bank via Getty Images.

The U.S. economy added 242,000 jobs in February, and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.9 percent. Adding to the good news, December and January’s jobs numbers were revised upwards some 30,000 jobs in total.

Overall, it was a solid jobs report. The labor force participation rate rose to 62.9 percent, suggesting that more discouraged workers are coming back into the workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ U-6, which measures underemployment, dropped from 9.9 percent in January to 9.7 percent in February. Even our more comprehensive Solman Scale U-7 — which includes involuntary part-time workers, anyone who says they want a job, no matter how long it’s been since they last looked, in addition to the officially unemployed — fell to 11.9 percent. To put this in perspective, the U-7 was at 13.3 percent one year ago.

But there was just one pesky measurement that refused to budge: wages.

Participation rate and employment rate are both up, job gains continue to be strong. Our intractable problem: wages.

— Betsey Stevenson (@BetseyStevenson) March 4, 2016

After climbing 12 cents in January — a bright spot in the report — wages fell 3 cents in February.

So what’s going on?

Economic theory assumes that the tighter the labor market, the higher the wages. When more workers are competing for jobs, employers can hire on the cheap. In such an economy, workers are just happy to have a job. However, when employers have slim pickings, they have to pay more to attract and retain workers.

In fact, economists Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that for a typical low wage worker, a sustained 10 percent drop in unemployment rate was associated with a 10 percent increase in hourly wages.

One would then expect that with low unemployment — and 4.9 seems to fall into that category — wages would increase. But many economists point out that the 62.9 percent labor participation rate remains low by historical standards, suggesting slack in the market — plenty of discouraged workers sitting on the sidelines, waiting to jump back into the workforce once they have reason to believe employment prospects are good.

Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said that the drop in wages in February “is a real stumble in getting wage inflation higher.” But, he added, we may be seeing slack in the market because more people are hopeful that job prospects exist and are jumping back into the labor market for them. The only problem? Not all of them have found jobs yet.

“We’re moving on the labor force [participation rate], and that’s quite significant,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the conservative American Action Forum. Once we can get rid of that slack, he added, policymakers need to let the normal mechanisms do their job and let wages rise.

But there’s another factor to keep in mind: productivity growth. “The way to get wages to go up is higher productivity growth,” said Hotlz-Eakin. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing that. Productivity growth fell 2.2 percent in the last quarter of 2015.

MILLENNIALS

A new and depressing report by the left-leaning Center for American Progress shows this wage stagnation is especially true for millennials.

The report showed that median compensation for 30-year-olds in 2014 was $19.30 an hour. This was nearly the same as it was for their counterparts in 1984 at $18.99 an hour adjusted for inflation. And in fact, 30-year-olds in 2004 made $20.63 an hour — nearly a dollar more than 30-year-old millennials today.

It’s not a lack of education or skill holding millennials back. Millennials are 50 percent more likely to have finished college than their counterparts 30 years ago. The Center for American Progress points to a “labor market where the deck is stacked in favor of employers at the expense of employees” as a primary cause for this wage stagnation.

“They’ve only worked in an economy recovering from recession,” said author of the report Brendan Duke. In addition to that, “they don’t have the key tools to help them cope with a loose labor market.”

One of those key tools is bargaining rights, said Duke, which lessens the blow of recessions. In 2014, less than 6 percent of private-sector millennial workers were in a union. But 30 years earlier? Seventeen percent of their counterparts belonged to a union. It comes of no surprise then that the Center for American Progress calls for policies that make it easier for workers to form unions in addition, of course, to monetary policies that promote employment.

Whatever the solution is to stagnant wages, a paycheck bump can’t happen soon enough for the nearly two-thirds of Americans living paycheck to paycheck.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and New York Times columnist David Brooks, who’s joining us today from Santa Barbara, California.

And we welcome you both, gentlemen.

So, the CPAC conference, that was going on today. It will continue through the weekend, but let’s start with last night.

David, what do we make of what happened in Detroit?

DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: Embarrassing, demoralizing. I have been in Waco, Texas, and out here this week, and I have seen so many Republicans depressed.

I’m used to seeing moderate Republicans say they don’t recognize their party. But now I have heard a lot of conservative Republicans say they don’t recognize their party., first the tone and temper of the debate, the things Donald Trump chose to speak about, and then just the nasty back and forth and the shallow name-calling.

It was, I think, a demoralizing debate, and for a lot of Republicans, possibly the worst outcome you could get, with Trump marching, but everybody else sort of hanging around, and a lot of internecine warfare over the future of the party, if there is one.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Demoralizing, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Judy, what strikes me about these debate is the name of Ronald Reagan is constantly invoked by just about everybody.

And Lou Cannon, who was a peerless political reporter, Ronald Reagan’s biographer, for more than a quarter of a century covered him, said of Ronald Reagan, anybody — a crowd heard Ronald Reagan, they felt good about them and they ended up feeling better about themselves.

There is no way that anybody who is not a fierce partisan or blind partisan of one of the candidates could watch last night and feel better about themselves or their country. When the front-runner for the Republican nomination to succeed to the office that has been graced by Washington and Lincoln and FDR publicly boasts about the dimensions of his private parts, you have reached a new low.

I mean, it is dispiriting. It’s beyond partisanship. It’s just discouraging as a citizen, and I don’t know what we do, other than tune out to this. I know we can’t, but I just don’t think you should encourage it by listening to this stuff.

JUDY WOODRUFF: David, does this hurt Donald Trump, does it hurt all the candidates? Who is affected, who is damaged by this, or is anybody?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, we will see.

You know, I think we will see whether — I think ultimately the debate helped him because the candidates said they’d support him in the end. One of the things we have noticed this whole campaign is, Donald Trump just has more courage. Whatever you might think of him — and I don’t think much of him, but he has more courage than his opponents.

And for his opponents to say he’s a scam artist and a con artist and a liar and reckless and would hurt the country, but I would support him, it just doesn’t make sense. And it was a lack of courage on their part to go there.

And Mitt Romney today said he would not support them. And that has to be the case. Normally, you support your party’s nominee, but with somebody like Trump, if you say all the things you say about him, you have got to say, no, I will not support him. I will go third party or I will won’t vote in the presidential election.

So that failure of courage hurts Trump. We will see if a Romney-led Republican officialdom can launch a sustained attack on Trump. I have always thought that the core attack is not to going to go after him for what they have been going after him for, which is what voters like, that he’s politically incorrect and sort of a change agent, but go after him for the fact that he’s a narcissist who thinks about himself and has betrayed all those around him.

They’re beginning to lay that case. It may be too late, but I think it’s the most effective case they have against him.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What is the case that — the most damaging case, Mark? And do you agree with David this doesn’t really necessarily hurt Donald Trump, what happened last night?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, it hasn’t up to now.

At some point, it becomes cumulative, Judy. I think where they failed to make the case, first of all, Mitt Romney, who was a — had to be an act of conscience on his part to make the statement — there was no political payoff for him. It’s to no real advantage politically or personally for him to do it, to make that statement.

The problem in Mitt Romney’s statement, first of all, was that he himself didn’t acknowledge that he had sought and accepted gratefully Donald Trump’s endorsement in 2012. But at the same time, his message is, you have been bamboozled. You’re not quite bright enough to understand this.

What they have to do is exactly what was done to Mitt Romney in 2012, and that was to show the people or at least to present the people who felt that they had been hurt by his economic activities. Remember the company that Bain had taken over and then closed the jobs, and they asked people to build the stage while they announced that they were — their jobs were going overseas.

It has to be a personal connection. You have to show the people…

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean, whether it’s Trump University or one of the other…

(CROSSTALK)

MARK SHIELDS: Trump University or the small companies that have been hurt when he went into bankruptcy and put people out of business, people who lost their jobs, who lost their savings, and who been hurt.

You have to put a human face on it. And they haven’t done that. And when you just say anybody but Trump, that’s no endorsement for any other candidate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What about the argument, David, that Mitt Romney made yesterday? He called Donald Trump a con artist. He used just about every negative term one can think of.

Is that going to make any difference?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, you have to believe that, at some point, Trump voters, like any other voters, rely on the information they have.

And a lot of the — a lot us of have — with Trump voters, they buy Trump’s version of events, which is that he’s a successful businessman and that he’s made a ton of money. But there is another version of events, which is Trump Mortgage, Trump University, Trump Steak, Trump Airline, and the bankruptcies, that he’s not a successful businessman.

He’s a marketing genius who offers no substance. And people either got pushed into subprime loans by Trump Mortgage, or they got suckered into racking up huge credit card debt to buy courses on Trump University, and they were left high and dry when those things went belly up.

And so that’s a story that I think can be told. In a country which is feeling betrayed, he is a mass and serial betrayer. And so I think that’s the line that can be used. But I have to assume all voters are information voters, and, as they get more information, they could change their minds.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But if it’s not Trump, Mark, then who is it? Which one of these other candidates? Ted Cruz has, what, won four states. Marco Rubio’s won one state. I mean, is it Mitt Romney?

MARK SHIELDS: If you want to know what — how weak the Republican field is against Donald Trump at this point, Bernie Sanders has won more states than all the other Republicans other than Donald Trump.

And one can talk about Bernie Sanders has made a marvelous insurgent candidacy, but they just — they haven’t been competitive. And John Kasich got very good reviews last night, which encourages him to stay on the stage, which is a part — nobody outside of the Kasich family sees any logical way that John Kasich can win the nomination, other than by some weirdly broken convention outside of Erie, Ohio, at the Cleveland convention that John Kasich somebody brokers.

But as long as there are the three of them, none of them has the strength. Marco Rubio, I think, is reduced in stature as a consequence of his going back and forth in this sort of junior high school locker room language with Donald Trump. And Cruz just doesn’t show to have the kind of reach beyond a certain regional appeal.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But, David, wasn’t it Mitt Romney’s recommendation that voters support, I think he said Rubio in Florida, Kasich in Ohio, Cruz in — I mean, he’s encouraging everyone to stay in.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, strategically, the idea is to get — prevent Trump from getting a majority of delegates.

But, Judy, I would say this is bigger than just one nomination. This is about the future of the Republican Party and really the future of the country. For almost a century-and-a-half, the Republican Party has stood for a certain free market version of America, an America that’s about openness, that’s about markets, that’s about opportunity, and a definition of what this country is.

Donald Trump offers a very contrasting image. It’s an image of closedness. It’s an image of building walls, of closing barriers, an authoritarian style of leadership. And so the Republican Party’s future is at stake.

And, you know, I think preserving that future in some coherent form is the number one task for the party. Ben Sasse, a senator, has said he is going to — he is advocating a temporary third party, just a conservative who could run for president. You would split the right-wing vote, the conservative voted, and you would lose the White House, but at least you would preserve some integrity of the party and maybe preserve the Senate and the House of Representatives, if you can get some conservatives to show up for the polls.

But that’s, I think, the frame in which to think, that it’s not just about one year. It’s about a long tradition in American politics which may be being replaced.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And in the short run, as David just said, Mark, that could be good news for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or whoever is the Democratic nominee.

MARK SHIELDS: No, it could be.

But, at the same time, I don’t write off Donald Trump by any means. If you’re one of the two candidates on the field in…

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean if there were three — if there were three candidates?

MARK SHIELDS: No, no. I mean, if, in fact, he is the nominee running against either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, it seems most plausibly Hillary Clinton right now — Hillary Clinton has tied herself, Judy, to President Obama.

She has run as Hillary Obama. She has made an appeal to African-American voters. She has made an appeal to the most loyal of Democrats, that she represents a continuation. So, whatever happens, whatever the October surprise is of 2016, and how President Obama handles it or doesn’t handle it, her fate is tied to him and his performance and the performance of his administration over the next eight months.

So, you know, it’s not a lay-down hand, as some Democrats say, oh, there’s no way Donald Trump — Donald Trump has enlarged the electorate in a way that is impressive. I mean, yes, he’s alienated a lot of the people David’s described. He’s brought in a lot of other people to vote in the Republican primary.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, David, what about that? There are people who have come out to vote in these primaries and caucuses who weren’t engaged in the — at least in the last few election cycles. Trump has brought them out.

DAVID BROOKS: Right. They have been displaced.

They have been displaced by the economic crisis. They feel they have been displaced by immigration. They feel they have been displaced by globalization and disrespected by the political class. And, of course, there’s some basis to that.

It’s hard to see how that wakes up into a natural governing majority, though. And I agree with Mark. If you have two people, then anybody could win. There could be a terrorist attack. There could be a recession. Nobody knows what could happen, and Trump could somehow vault into the White House.

But, given the numbers now, it’s very hard to see he could win, given the huge numbers of Americans, the vast majority of Americans who say they could not support the guy. And I still find it hard to believe that somebody as policy-thin and as knowledge-thin would very well — he might be able to wear well with the electorate that we have in the Republican primary. It’s really hard to see him wearing well with a general election electorate, which is a very different thing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, Mark, in less than a minute, just quickly to Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, do you — Bernie Sanders is not getting out of the race.

Does he — is he a factor at this point?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, he’s a factor. I mean, he’s moved — you heard Hillary Clinton today in the excerpt on…

JUDY WOODRUFF: On trade.

MARK SHIELDS: On trade. He’s moved her on trade, I mean, or at least helped her to move, put it that way.

On the pipeline, the Canadian pipeline, he’s moved her on that. You know, we had today news, Judy, of job increases and wages actually going down. So we now have the top one-tenth of 1 percent, to qualify for that distinct group, you have had to have your wages increased 500 percent since Ronald Reagan was president.

And yet the median household income today is lower than it was 18 years ago. It’s just exactly what David was talking about. And Bernie Sanders turned out more people in Colorado, where he won 60 to 40, than had ever turned out before. There is encouragement for him to keep going.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, on that note, gentlemen, a lot to chew over.

Mark Shields, David Brooks, thank you both.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The nation of Brazil was already reeling from economic woes and the onset of the Zika virus, when, this morning, a popular former president was detained in a wide-ranging corruption probe.

We go to Hari Sreenivasan for more.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was the wildly popular president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010.

But this morning, Lula, as he’s known, was brought to a police station in Sao Paulo for questioning by officials, while a large crowd of his supporters formed outside. Lula was questioned as part of a major political corruption scandal involving the country’s gigantic state oil company, Petrobras.

All this comes as the country faces the threat from the Zika virus, a damaging recession and hosting duties for the Summer Olympics.

I’m joined from Rio by Simon Romero of The New York Times.

So, just to get our audience up to speed, what’s this investigation all about?

SIMON ROMERO, The New York Times: Well, it’s a sprawling inquiry into the bribery and kickbacks that took place around Petrobras, which is company of incredible importance to the Brazilian economy.

It made Brazil’s huge offshore oil discoveries about a decade ago and really contributed to Brazil’s rise as a developing world powerhouse, but it turns out that politicians and executives at huge construction companies and contractors were looting the company for years, creating this vast scheme of hundreds of millions of dollars of bribes.

And now it’s engulfing one of the country’s most towering political figures, who is Lula.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Is it the quantity of money being that was pushed off the books? Because, unfortunately, corruption is a reality in lots of parts of the world. Brazil is not immune to it before. So why is this one such a big deal?

SIMON ROMERO: In some cases, yes, it does have to do with the quantity of money. One executive at Petrobras, a relatively obscure, mid-level manager, managed to take almost $100 million in bribes himself, and he’s had to give back almost all of that money as part of a plea deal.

So, the amounts involved are just astonishing. So, even in a country like Brazil, which had been hardened in a sense to stories of corruption throughout various levels of government, the Petrobras scandal has just been astonishing for many people.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Put this in economic context for us. What’s happening to the economy now and why are people paying more attention to this scandal?

SIMON ROMERO: Well, the memories of Brazil’s incredible boom of the previous decade, when, you know, the country really emerged on the global stage and won its bids to host the Olympic Games and the World Cup, are really a thing of the past.

The figures which were released just this week show that the economy shrank 3.8 percent in 2015. That’s the worst economic plunge in 25 years, and some economists are claiming that it’s going to be the worst and most severe recession in the country in nearly a century.

So it’s just a huge dilemma that the country’s leaders are now facing, and in part it’s one of their own making. You know, they put into motion these policies which are creating the crisis they’re experiencing today.

HARI SREENIVASAN: This is also happening at a time when everyone around the world is concerned for Brazil because of the Zika virus.

SIMON ROMERO: That’s right.

The epidemic around the virus is yet another blow to Brazil at a very delicate time for the country. It’s been spreading very quickly throughout Northeast Brazil, a poverty-stricken region, and now you’re finding more and more cases of birth defects which are linked to Zika here in the big cities, in the southeast, more industrialized part of the country here in Rio and Sao Paulo.

HARI SREENIVASAN: That’s also having a ripple effect on the Olympic Games, which are going to start in a few months. There are Olympic teams around the world wondering whether or not that they should bring their athletes to Brazil, and ticket sales are down a lot more than they were projected.

SIMON ROMERO: It’s been yet another disappointment in Brazil’s preparations for the Games.

They’re already dealing with a polluted bay here in Rio where the sailing competition will take place, and Zika is presenting a dilemma to the athletes who are going to compete in Rio and to many of the fans who are going to consider coming.

The CDC in the United States just issued a warning advising pregnant women about coming to Rio at this time, so the risks are very clear to a lot of people.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Simon Romero of The New York Times joining us from Rio via Skype, thanks so much.

SIMON ROMERO: Thank you for having me.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The fur kept flying today, in the raucous Republican presidential race. Donald Trump and his rivals were back on the road hours after their debate in Detroit.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), Republican Presidential Candidate: So how many of you all watched the debate last night?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

SEN. TED CRUZ: We had some fireworks on stage.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), Republican Presidential Candidate: I’m not here to attack anyone. We did plenty of that last night, I suppose.

DONALD TRUMP (R), Republican Presidential Candidate: When I’m on a debate stage and, I have all these people throwing things at me, you have got to fight back.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Fallout from the GOP’s full-on civil war still in the air at today’s campaign events. The rhetoric last night ranged from personal slights.

CHRIS WALLACE, Host, “FOX News Sunday”: I have a policy question for you, sir.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Let’s see if he answers it.

DONALD TRUMP: I will. Don’t worry about it, Marco. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it, little Marco. I will.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO: All right, well, let’s hear it, big Donald.

JUDY WOODRUFF: To downright vulgarity.

DONALD TRUMP: Look at those hands. Are they small hands?

(LAUGHTER)

DONALD TRUMP: And he referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee you.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Donald Trump was the overwhelming focus, with rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio on a furious mission to slow his march to the nomination.

At times, they tag-teamed, as on the Trump University real estate seminars, now the subject of lawsuits claiming fraud.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO: He’s trying to con people into giving him their vote, just like he conned these people.

SEN. TED CRUZ: And if we nominate Donald, we’re going to spend the spring, the fall and the summer with the Republican nominee facing a fraud trial…

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, stop it.

SEN. TED CRUZ: … with Hillary Clinton saying…

DONALD TRUMP: It’s just a minor case. It’s a minor case.

SEN. TED CRUZ: … why did you give my campaign and my foundation $100,000?

DONALD TRUMP: It’s a minor civil case.

JUDY WOODRUFF: FOX News moderators Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier also pushed Trump on his changes of position, and on the math behind his proposals.

CHRIS WALLACE: You say that Medicare could save $300 billion a year negotiating lower drug prices. But Medicare total only spends $78 billion a year on drugs.

Sir, that’s the facts. You are talking about saving more money on Medicare prescription drugs…

DONALD TRUMP: I’m saying saving through negotiation throughout the economy, you will save $300 billion a year.

CHRIS WALLACE: But that doesn’t really cut the federal deficit.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And through it all, Ohio Governor John Kasich strove again to stay above the fray.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), Republican Presidential Candidate: I have never tried to go and get into these scrums that we’re seeing here on the stage. And people say everywhere I go, you seem to be the adult on the stage.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the end, though, all four candidates pledged to support the GOP nominee, whomever that turns out to be.

Today, Kasich and Cruz just outside Washington to address CPAC, the annual meeting of conservative activists.

JOHN KASICH: Bringing people together works.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Rubio is scheduled to speak there tomorrow. But Trump announced he’s skipping his appearance to campaign in Kansas instead. Republicans have contests there on Saturday, and in Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine.

As for the Democrats, Senator Bernie Sanders Edwardsville, Illinois, again slammed Hillary Clinton on trade policy.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-D), Democratic Presidential Candidate: Secretary Clinton supported NAFTA. She supported permanent normal trade relations with China. Those agreements have cost us millions of jobs as a nation.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In Detroit today, Clinton fired back.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), Democratic Presidential Candidate: When it comes to trade deals, here’s my standard. I won’t support any agreement unless it helps create good jobs, at higher wages for American workers and protects our national security.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The two Democrats have their contests tomorrow in Kansas, Louisiana and Nebraska.

And late today, Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson made it official: He suspended his campaign.

We will return to the presidential race, with Mark Shields and David Brooks, later in the program.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: But, first, rural communities around the country have experienced a wave of hospital closures in the last five years, with hundreds more on shaky financial footing.

For many small towns, it all adds up to hard times that may soon get harder.

Sarah Varney has our report from Georgia. The story was produced in collaboration with our partner Kaiser Health News.

SYBIL AMMONS, Stewart County Coroner: It’s just sad. And the hospital, oh, my goodness.

SARAH VARNEY: Sybil Ammons is a fixture in the town of Lumpkin, Georgia, population 1,500. For years, she was the director of nursing at the county’s only hospital in nearby Richland. Now she’s the county coroner.

SYBIL AMMONS: Our people built this hospital, our ancestors. The hospital, when I ride by there, it just breaks my heart, because my mama worked over there before I did. My sister was born over there.

It’s just so sad, so sad.

SARAH VARNEY: The hospital closed in 2013. Since then, Ammons can count off the local residents she thinks have been harmed or died because they couldn’t reach medical care quickly enough.

SYBIL AMMONS: We have had a stroke, several heart attacks, several cardiac problems. We have had traumas out on the four-lane. I would say at least 10 to 15 people have had bad outcomes from the hospital closing.

SARAH VARNEY: Two hundred miles away in Folkston, Georgia, near the Okefenokee Swamp, Pam Renshaw had to bypass her town’s closed hospital when she needed it most. After a day of yard work, Renshaw overturned her four-wheeler, spilling into a fire pit used to burn trash.

Her then-boyfriend, Billy Chavis, pulled her from the fire and patted down the flames on her body with his bare hands.

PAM RENSHAW, Burn Victim: Whenever I got in the truck, my whole — everything right here just fell in my lap. And I just pulled it back up, and I’m like, oh, my gosh. It’s bad, isn’t it?

BILL CHAVIS: And I said, yes, we got to get you to a doctor. And I seriously thought we was going to lose her. And the whole time, I’m driving to town with the palms of my hands, where I burnt my hands. I said, where do I go? Where do I go?

SARAH VARNEY: The hospital had closed just months before Renshaw’s accident, leaving Chavis scrambling. He first tried the EMT office. When he didn’t find anyone, he ran to the police station and a dispatcher summoned an ambulance.

Renshaw was airlifted to a hospital in Gainesville, Florida, 100 miles away. It was an hour-and-a-half before doctors tended to her.

PAM RENSHAW: It burnt like 45 percent of my body, the whole arm all the way across my stomach, and down the left leg to my knee.

SARAH VARNEY: Renshaw was in a medically-induced coma for three months and spent nearly eight months in the hospital. Her body remains terribly scarred.

Dangerous industrial jobs drive the economy in Folkston, and Renshaw’s accident spooked this small town of 5,000. Local leaders are still trying to reopen the hospital.

More than 50 rural hospitals across the country have closed since 2010, and hundreds more are in fragile financial condition. It’s a trend hastened by declining revenues and a restructuring of the health care industry that rewards scale and connectivity, difficult goals for hospitals that are small and remote. As rural hospitals have closed here in Georgia, hundreds of people have lost their jobs. And many small towns have been left reeling.

In Glenwood, Georgia, the hospital has been abandoned for more than a year. Inside, antiquated security cameras flicker between images of empty hallways and still-made beds. In the hospital laboratory, it’s as if the workers simply got up one day and left. Unplugged refrigerators still hold vials of blood.

There are signs of decay outside, too. After the hospital closed, the bank and the town’s only restaurant quickly followed suit. Next may be the nursing home.

YOLANDA JEFFERSON, Glenwood Healthcare, LLC: We have a 50-bed facility, and we have 35 residents. That’s a threat to us. That’s very detrimental. If we go any lower, we might have to close. We can’t — because we can’t meet our financial standards. We can’t meet the financial obligations.

SARAH VARNEY: The hospital was the town’s largest employer, and the loss of more than 100 jobs was yet another blow to a rural community accustomed to hardship.

G.M. JOINER, Mayor of Glenwood: This through the years has been a hair salon, styling-type shop, tanning beds and that kind of stuff. And, of course, it’s vacant now.

SARAH VARNEY: G.M. Joiner has been Glenwood’s mayor for three decades. His father was the mayor before him. Joiner says without the traffic from hospital workers and visitors, local businesses are barely hanging on. The owner of the local grocery store, D.K. Patel, says sales have plummeted.

D.K. PATEL, Owner, Red & White Quality Foods: Yes. After the hospital closed, we dropped about 30 percent sales. It’s been hurting a lot. All I can say is, it’s been hurting a lot.

G.M. JOINER: Obviously, it was our lifeblood, mainstay. It’s not overemphasizing or trying to be a doomsday prophet, but it’s devastating. It’s devastating.

SARAH VARNEY: Across the country, rural hospitals have struggled to adapt to a steady decline in rural populations and to a new reality. A series of budget control measures passed by Congress cut Medicare payments. Further, 19 states have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

That’s left many rural hospitals with unpaid bills just as federal subsidies for the uninsured are scheduled to taper off. For many patients in these small towns, the price has been steep. Sue and Joe Connell of Glenwood, age 75 and 77, now must drive two hours round-trip to their doctors’ appointments. There are no physicians practicing anywhere in their county.

Joe Connell has a blood disorder and other medical problems that keep him and his wife on the road almost daily.

JOE CONNELL, Glenwood Resident: I’m seeing about four different doctors in Dublin. And some trips, like this week, we’re making three trips to Dublin; 90 percent of the miles put on our cars is going to the doctor in Dublin. It costs us. It costs a bunch of money.

SARAH VARNEY: The pace of the closures has only escalated in recent years, and the National Rural Health Association says more than 280 hospitals with 700,000 patient visits are at risk of shutting down.

Chuck Adams travels the state meeting local health care leaders. He’s the executive vice president of the Georgia Hospital Association.

CHUCK ADAMS, Vice President, Georgia Hospital Association: Towns like Glenwood have always had a hospital. When that hospital closed, then these residents immediately lost access without an opportunity to figure out what that next access model was. When you have time to figure it out, I think there are some models out there that could work.

SARAH VARNEY: While the closures have disrupted emergency care, reduced options for pregnant women and drained doctors from some rural communities, researchers have found, on average, that closing down a rural hospital doesn’t increase the chances of death.

Indeed, a separate investigation by The Wall Street Journal found surgeries at many rural hospitals carried a greater risk of complications. And for some emergencies, patients can receive better quality care at larger hospitals that treat more cases.

Alan Kent is CEO of Meadows Regional Medical Center, a bustling, modern hospital in Vidalia, Georgia, that has taken in patients from neighboring towns like Glenwood.

He says, while rural residents need access to primary and urgent care, not every town can sustain a hospital, with costly medical equipment and a roster of specialists.

ALAN KENT, CEO, Meadows Regional Medical Center: There has to be sort of a critical mass to be able to make any business viable, and especially a community hospital.

We have to be more efficient in hospitals if we are going to be sustainable. And I think that’s one of the things that you’re seeing that’s driving the consolidation in the industry.

SARAH VARNEY: Back in Glenwood, Joe and Sue Connell sit on their front porch watching the traffic leave town. They worry that, someday soon, they, too, may need to leave for good.

JOE CONNELL: I got where I can’t drive. And I don’t know what we’re going to do when she gets where she can’t drive.

SARAH VARNEY: For the “PBS NewsHour” and Kaiser Health News, I’m Sarah Varney in Glenwood, Georgia.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the coming days, we will look at a hospital in rural Texas that turned similar challenges into opportunity, and, in the process, became one of the top hospitals in the nation.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Tensions over GOP front-runner Donald Trump are playing out at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC.

Although his campaign canceled the scheduled appearance he had at the annual conservative gathering, he’s top of mind for conference attendees.

REP. TODD ROKITA (R), Indiana: What I’m seeing so far is that people around the country are speaking. They’re sending a message. And, as an elected official, I need to listen. And that’s what I intend to do. That has nothing to do — that doesn’t mean I’m not going to vote for Trump. If he’s our nominee, that’s who I will vote for.

JAY TURLEY, Cruz Supporter: I’m thinking never Trump. I want somebody who’s conservative and that will get government out of the individual people and let us have our liberty.

REP. ROGER WILLIAMS (R), Texas: The opposition is — it’s no choice, you see? So it shouldn’t be never somebody. It should be somebody that’s a conservative that runs on the conservative ticket.

ALEX ROSS, Cruz Supporter: You will notice that he does very well in open primaries, as opposed to closed primaries. Among Republicans, he’s not really that popular and loses when it’s just Republicans, but among Democrats who can come over and vote, well, he wins by a lot.

DUSTIN RIGGINS, Rubio Supporter: I will not vote for Donald Trump if he’s the nominee. This year, I was actually excited. I was looking at Scott Walker. I was looking at a number of different candidates. If Donald Trump wins, I don’t believe he will be very good at all. I just disagree with many of his policies and his often boorish behavior.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I’m Judy Woodruff.

On the “NewsHour” tonight:

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), Republican Presidential Candidate: He’s trying to do to the American voter what he did to the people that signed up for this course. He’s making promises he has no intention of keeping.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump gets hit hard for Trump University and more at last night’s Republican debate.

Then, a dangerous trend: What happens when the only hospital in a remote town is shut down?

BILL CHAVIS: And the whole time, I’m driving to town with the palms of my hands, where I burnt my hands. I said, where do I go? Where do I go?

JUDY WOODRUFF: And it’s Friday. Mark Shields and David Brooks are here to analyze the week’s news.

All that and more on tonight’s “PBS NewsHour.”

(BREAK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day’s other news: The U.S. economy has turned in another strong month, despite a global economic slowdown. The Labor Department reported that U.S. employers added 242,000 jobs in February, led by the retail, restaurant and health care sectors. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.9 percent, as more people started looking for work.

At the White House, President Obama met with his economic advisers and said the numbers prove his detractors wrong.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There seems to be an alternative reality out there from the — some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps. It’s not. America is pretty darn great right now, and making strides right now, and small businesses and large businesses alike are hiring right now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Continued low unemployment may also open the door to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates again in June.

Slowing growth in China is taking a bite out of military spending. Beijing announced today that its defense budget will increase this year by 7 to 8 percent. That is the slowest pace in six years. Since 2000, China has mostly hiked military spending by double digits.

In Syria, rebel groups charged today that government forces are still attacking just a day after the U.N. voiced optimism about a week-old cease-fire. Activists reported warplanes hit a rebel-held town near the capital, Damascus, for the first time since fighting was supposed to stop. Syrian peace talks are due to resume in Geneva next Wednesday.

A court in Turkey has sentenced two Syrian smugglers to four years in prison in the death of a 3-year-old boy. The child’s body washed up on a beach last September, and the images sparked international outrage. Today, the court in Ankara convicted the two men on smuggling charges, but it found them not guilty of causing the boy’s death. The defense blamed his father, who has since returned to Syria.

Back in this country, a flurry in the O.J. Simpson murder case more than 20 years after he was acquitted. Los Angeles police confirmed today that they’re investigating a knife purportedly found at the site of Simpson’s former home. They say someone spotted the knife apparently when the home was torn down in the late ’90s and gave it to a now-retired police officer. But he failed to turn it in until recently.

CAPT. ANDREW NEIMAN, Los Angeles Police Department: I don’t know what the circumstances are, why that didn’t happen, or if that’s entirely accurate, or if this whole story is possibly bogus from the get-go, involving a variety of people. So, we’re looking into that. But I was quite shocked.

JUDY WOODRUFF: NBC News reported later that the knife is inconsistent with other evidence, and it is likely that double jeopardy would bar another murder trial for Simpson, regardless. He was acquitted in 1995 of stabbing to death his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman. He is now serving prison time in Nevada for armed robbery and kidnapping in a separate case.

And today’s positive jobs numbers helped pushed Wall Street higher to finish out the week with modest gains. The Dow Jones industrial average was up nearly 63 points to close back above 17000. The Nasdaq rose nine points, and the S&P 500 added six. For the week, the Dow was up 2 percent. The Nasdaq and the S&P increased well over 2.5 percent.

Still to come on the “NewsHour”: Brazil in dire straits, the Zika virus, corruption, and Olympic woes; European leaders’ tough message for economic migrants; the cost of closing hospitals in rural America; and much more.

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