they don't do much. >> brown: ray suarez examines the turnabout at augusta national golf club and its decision to accept women members. >> ifill: lindsey hilsum reports from the west african nation of mali, where al qaeda militants have seized a huge area of land. >> the rest of the world should not stand just to look at the situation. unless they would like to see another somalia or another afghanistan. >> brown: and judy woodruff talks to e.j. dionne about his new book, on america's political divide. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: a controversial remark from a senate candidate dominated politics today, with both president obama and mitt romney weighing in-- and taking other jabs as well. president obama, who has been pinning his re-election hopes on women voters, took advantage today of controversial remarks made by republican senate candidate who implieded there are different kinds of rape. >> the views expressed were offensive. rape is rape. and the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we're talking about doesn't make sense to the american people. certainly doesn't make sense to me. what i think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women. >> ifill: missouri congressman todd aiken who is challenging democratic senate incumbent claire mccaskill had been asked to defend his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape. >> it seems to me first of all from what i understand from doctors that's really rare. if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. >> ifill: he later said he misspoke and he apologized his remarks aired over the weekend caused political uproar. mccaskill called the remarks ignorant and offensive, but republicans turned on him too. massachusetts senator scott brown engaged in his own tough re-election campaign called on aiken to quit the race. other g.o.p. groups said they would stop contributing to his campaign. in an interview with wmur television in new hampshire, mitt romney denounced aiken's remarks. >> his comments about rape were deeply offensive. i can't defend what he said. i can't defend him. >> ifill: before the aiken comments came to light, the obama campaign had already released new ad over the weekend aimed at calling attention to the republican ticket's record on women's issues. >> both romney and ryan backed proposals to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and incest. >> reporter: romney and ryan meanwhile continued today to hammer away at the president's record on medicare. they contend he would deplete it to pay for the federal health care law. they campaigned together in new hampshire. >> that's a raid on medicare. mitt romney and i are going to stop that raid of medicare and restore this program. we're going to get these bureaucrats out of the way of standing between our senior set glenns and their medicare. ( cheers and applause ) medicare should not be a piggy bank for obama care. it should be a guaranteed promise that our seniors can count on >> i want to take off that big cloud that's hanging over a lot of small businesses, and that is i want to make sure that get obama care out of the way and replace it something which will help encourage job growth in this country. ( cheers and applause ) >> ifill: the debate over medicare has intensified since ryan joined the ticket a little over a week ago. democrats say romney's budget plan would end the program. on saturday ryan campaigned with his 78-year-old mother deathy in florida >> medicare is there for my mom -- say, hi to my mom betty >> reporter: each side has made it a staple of every campaign day to accuse the other of twisting the facts especially when it comes to taxes. >> it seems as the first victim of the obama campaign is the truth. because all we've heard so far is one attack after the other, and frankly they're not... they're typically not honest. let me make this very clear. you know, i signed a statement i will not raise taxes on anybody. i don't want to raise taxes on the american people >> reporter: at the white house the president also focused on taxes. the records romney won't release >> i think the idea that this is is somehow exceptional, that there should be a rationale or a justification for doing more than the very bare minimum has it backwards. >> ifill: romney has released two years of tax returns and said he's never paid less than a 13% tax rate. ryan released two years of records on friday. which showed he paid an effective tax rate of 20%. the republican national convention begins one week from today, but the political debate is not waiting until then. for more on what's driving today's developments, we turn to susan page, washington bureau chief of "u.s.a. today." and stuart rothenberg of the "rothenberg political report" and "roll call" newspaper. so today a lot of republicans were telling todd aiken to step aside and quit. he said he's going to stay in this race. was this a gift to the democrats >> gift to claire mccaskill who was in a very tough senate re-election campaign. a gift to democrats generally and their hopes of holding on to the senate because it makes that missouri seat harder for them to pick up. i think even to democrats generally for the impact on the republican brand especially with women. remember, women are among the prime group of swing voters that politicians are looking for >> ifill: how worried, stewart, are republicans that this could be the kind of distraction that tips the balance? >> over the long term that's not a huge problem but the short term it is certainly a problem. any day that the republicans are not talking about president obama, his record, the economy, jobs, is a day that they've lost an opportunity. so we just saw that video of mitt romney having to answer a question about todded aiken. he's off message, on the defensive. we're not todd. this is not where the republicans want to be. look, this was an unforced error. this was unintended. i don't think any of us expected today we'll be talking about this. i don't know. we'll be dealing with this in a week or a month but it's a problem for today >> ifill: in fact, we weren't much talking about the missouri race except to the day that claire mccaskill seemed in peril. how critical is missouri? >> now the republican strategists i talked to are very worried about the race. they're unsure that aiken can recover from this. he is a terrible fund-raiser. he has been ad bad fund-raiser. they're concerned that this will dry up any potential establishment mainstream business money that might have gone to him. if he can't compete financially they don't want to invest in the race. if that's the case then he can't win. now we're in the middle of the hurricane. i like to say give us 24 to 48 hours and we'll see what the reality is. but there's nervousness. while he now says he's not getting out of the race, this is... we've seen this before. haven't we, gwen, in politics? 24 hours is a long time >> ifill: standing by people 100% >> we'll wait and see. there's a deadline of 5:00 tomorrow in terms of whether he can get off the ballot and maybe they can put somebody else on. there's a secondary deadline later in september when he might have the opportunity, he would have the opportunity to petition a judge to get off the ballot to place him. >> ifill: usa today did a poll of battle ground states, is missouri one of those states that's up in the air or maybe is it again after day and what did you learn on that? >> missouri is no longer one of the battle ground states. it was once the key battle ground state, a state that you would really look at. it's become republican. we took a poll of the 12 most competitive states in the country in the presidential race. we found by 56% to 40% people in those states, voters in those states say they are not better off than they were four years ago. that is a really alarming number for an incumbent president saying give me a second term. on the other hand president obama continues to lead by 3 percentage points in these states. that says that while voters are unhappy with president obama and his leadership especially on the economy, they do not yet trust mitt romney to look out for their interests. >> ifill: that is the dynamic we're seeing as we watch the white house jump sofully on these kinds of distractions, even on this tax question. >> that's why the white house and the obama campaign wants the election to be about mitt romney. now paul ryan, medicare, romney's taxes. as long as the focus is on romney, it creates doubts about him. as long as he's been unable to ingratiate himself with the american public and to be accepted by them, even though the president isn't doing great as susan suggests, president obama has a better chance. >> ifill: why then if today's distraction provided a... frames this question for me. we spent the last week arguing about' medicare which usually isn't the kind of thing that allows to define the other guy necessarily especially when this seems to be a stand-off over who is going to... >> it's interesting. republicans have taken this head on and tried to take the offensive in medicare which we usually think of as a democrat issue. we had to do that with the pick of paul ryan as a running mate because he has a specific plan on medicare that they felt they had to defend and explain. they did succeed in putting the white house, president obama, a little on the defensive over what the affordable care act does to medicare. to that degree it's a success. but i really agree with stu that if you're talking about any topic that is not jobs and the economy, that is a good day for barack obama >> ifill: that includes medicare too? >> i think so. i don't think the republicans really want to talk about medicare. i think they've been forced to by the ryan selection and the fact that the democrats have jumped on that. they have to respond. they have to say, no, the way we're being portrayed characterizedded on medicare is wrong. here's our propose. but all things being equal i don't think they want to spend a day or a week or a month talking about medicare. they have to talk about jobs, obama health care, what the president has or has not done. >> ifill: we know a week we'll all be tampa watching this debate unfold. do republicans get to at least for that week set the table and talk about what they want to talk about? >> absolutely. i think it's the biggest opportunity that mitt romney has to address that concern that we found in our poll, that people don't feel like they know much about him. a lot of what they know about him they see in the negative ads that have been aired by president obama and his allies so this is a chance they get to stage their own convention, choose their own speakers, and that speech that governor romney will give thursday night i think is perhaps the most important in the campaign for him. that's his chance to talk to americans, to voters who don't know him, don't trust him and say here's why you can trust me. >> ifill: will todd aiken be at the convention? >> i don't think so, no. but i do think i agree with susan completely. voters are ready for a change but they're not sure mitt romney is the right change. he's got to do that over the next few weeks to introduce himself. he's got to put todd aiken way behind him, way behind him. >> ifill: stu rothenberg and susan page, thank you both very much. >> brown: still to come on the newshour, the high rates of smoking worldwide; the achievement gap between rich and poor students; the admission of women to augusta national; the rise of militant islam in mali; and one columnist's view of what's poisoning the political debate. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: president obama issued a new warning to syria today. he left open the possibility of u.s. military involvement, if the regime were to deploy chemical or biological weapons in its crackdown on opposition. syria is known to possess such weapons. the president acknowledged that any such action would force his administration to reassess its policy. >> we have put together a range of contingency plans. we have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that's a red line for us. and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. that would change my al cue layingses significantly. >> sreenivasan: n syria today, heavy shelling rang out across the country, killing up to 30 people. plumes of thick smoke could be seen rising above the cities of aleppo, daraa, and a suburb of damascus. fresh violence erupted in spite of the muslim holiday marking the end of the holy month of ramadan. meanwhile, u.n. peacekeepers pulled out of syria a day after their mandate ended. they were tasked with monitoring last april's cease-fire, but the truce never held. president obama has spoken to afghan president hamid karzai about a wave of lethal "insider" attacks on international troops. in the latest attack on sunday, two afghan policemen turned their weapons on u.s. troops in kandahar province, killing one american. so far in 2012, there have been 32 such attacks, up from 21 for all of last year. president obama said u.s. officials are hard at work on the problem, but the vetting process for afghan troops has to be more rigorous. the wife of a disgraced chinese politician received a suspended death sentence today for the murder of a british businessman. gu kailai is expected to avoid execution in the poisoning death of her business associate, neil heywood, last november, but she'll likely serve life in prison. we have a report from angus walker of independent television news. >> reporter: she escaped excuse, sentencedded to death, suspendedded for two years, she could be free in ten years. despite admitting the murder of british business consultant neal heyward >> in a personal statement to the court, she claims she had sufferd a mental breakdown. it was a show trial which left unanswered questions. on chinese social media, many asked if the woman in court, seen here on the left, was in fact her body double. she certainly looks very a recent photo of the woman is is seen here on the right. but there's no doubt neal heyward had a close relationship with this woman. i.t.v. news has learned she was godmother to his son, and she once asked him to leave his wife. according to one of his close friends, neal heyward had been asking this woman for money. he had been working as a go-between for the family for many years, involved in business deals. he felt that he had hadn't been properly paid. the court heard neal heyward was lured to this hotel in the chinese city last november. there the woman poisoned him with cyanide. she claimed he had threatened her son. her husband was a powerful party boss in the city. now being investigated for corruption. there's a widely held belief that neal heyward had been drawn into a darker political plot to stop the man becoming one of china's top leaders later this year. neal heyward worked from home in the chinese capital. his car complete with 007 number plates remains outside. the british government insists he wasn't a spy, but his life and death remain shrouded in mystery. >> sreenivasan: a family aide and four police officers will also serve time in prison for assisting in the murder plot. in south africa, striking miners were given until tomorrow to quit striking and return to work. last week, police shot and killed 34 striking miners outside the platinum mine. others were still missing four days after the incident. the workers were originally told they had to come back to work today or face firing, but lonmin p.l.c. said only about 30% reported for duty. a new round of lightning strikes sparked more wildfires across the western u.s. today. thousands were forced to evacuate, and crews fought to control the blazes. lightning and dry conditions were also to blame for a fire ignited on saturday in northern california. newshour correspondent spencer michels has this report. >> reporter: lightning lit the dense tippedder-dry forests since saturday >> i looked up and everything was black >> reporter: fast-spreading fires hit across northern/central california well north of sacramento >> this fire has been a very fast-moving fire due to the fact that conditions are just so dry. the brush, the grass, even the timber is incredibly dry >> reporter: in shaft a county thousands of homes are threatened. the red cross has set up evacuation centers. one of the new fires, dubbed ponderosa, started saturday and covers 15,000 acres. it is only 5% contained. to the west in another county, the pacifier covers another 5,000 acres. ten other fires are burning across dry expanses in northern california. so far this summer throughout the west, 13 states have major fires. hard-hit central rocky mountain regions have seen a bit of a reprieve but this map from the u.s. forest service shows an arc from western montana through idaho, even washington and oregon, parts of nevada and into california continues to blaze amid a brutal fire season. and this map of drought conditions from the national oashian graphic and atmospheric administration shows the severe drought in many of the fire-affected areas >> everybody is afraid. our nerves are shot >> reporter: in idaho, an 85,000-acre blaze has forced the evacuation of the town of featherville. >> do you read me okay? reporter: to the west in washington state, crews have gained the upper hand on fires there. >> and here's our bed reporter: but some returned home to find everything gone >> it's like a death in the family. >> reporter: so far this summer more than 6.5 million acres have burned. 10,000 square miles. that's an area the size of vermont. >> sreenivasan: on wall street today, stocks changed very little. the dow jones industrial average lost more than three points to close above 13,271. the nasdaq fell less than a point to close at 3,076. the comedienne and humorist phyllis diller died in her sleep today in los angeles. diller was famous for her distinctive cackle and for paving the way for women in the world of stand-up comedy. she didn't get into comedy until she was nearly 40, after she'd been married and had five children. she worked well into her 80's, performing in nightclubs, films, and on tv. her routine often poked fun at her looks and her life as a housewife. phyllis diller was 95 years old. the film director tony scott committed suicide in los angeles by jumping from a bridge. the british-born director first rose to fame with the 1986 blockbuster "top gun." in all, he directed 16 films, mostly action and thrillers. scott's death was under investigation as a suicide. authorities said he left several notes to loved ones behind. tony scott was 68 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: even as smoking declines in the u.s. and other countries, a new study published in the british medical journal "the lancet" reveals that the use of tobacco in developing countries is booming. >> the report titled the global adult tobacco survey looked at tobacco users in 14 developing nations and included data from the u.s. and the u.k. for comparison. it found that about half the men across the low and middle income nations use tobacco, mostly smoke products. the number was much smaller for women, 11%. but the survey found that women are start at younger ages than in the past. russia had the highest rates, 60% of men and 22% of women used tobacco in some form. and china had the largest number of users, some 300 million. in the meantime, health advocates in australia, which was not included in the new study, scored a victory last week in their fight against tobacco use. the nation's high court upheld a new law recovering that cigarette boxes feature vivid images and warnings on them without company logos. the world health organization said that if current trends continue, the global death toll from tobacco will reach 8 million a year by 2030. we're joined by the lead epidemiologist on the new study. he's the chair of the department of community health and health behavior at the university at buffalo in new york. welcome to you. let me ask you first what was the most important thing that came from this study for you? >> the magnitude of tobacco use in the different countries. the fact that we saw some different patterns that smoking, for example, is very high among men and women in russia especially young men and women. in russia, turkey and ukraine, it was very high. another very important finding was the dominance of the manufactured cigarette. a lot of people think cigarettes are just tobacco chopped up and wrapped in paper. but thed cigarette is a technologically sophisticated device designed to inject flavors and increase nicotine. these are made by multi-national tobacco corporations or government corporations that promote their use and work to undermine efforts to reduce their use. >> one thing that jumped out at me was the low number of people who quit smoking once they've started, especially as compared to in the u.s., for example. what does that tell you? why is that happening? >> well, i think we have some cultures, particularly, for example, in china and india where quitting isn't emphasized. only 10% of people in china and india who have ever smoked daily have quit. that compares to about 45%, when we look at standardized data in the united states and the united kingdom where tobacco control efforts, where efforts to educate people about tobacco use and encourage quitting and prevent initiation have been going on for a long time. it's also much lower, for example, than 35% around in brazil and uruguay where they've been doing tobacco control for a while. i hope that china and india, the governments will look at that and try to improve their efforts to promote quitting among people who have become addicted and daily smokers >> brown: why do you think the rise is happening and these kinds of disparities are happening particularly as the numbers go down in the u.s. and other countries? >> well, many of the same things that we saw happening in america with tobacco being glamorized, the tobacco being made with marketing being directed towards women that make it look glamorous, that make it look like something that's associated with gender equality and freedom. those kinds of things are happening. we're seeing the age of initiation going down in many of our and middle-income countries. we have social norms that support tobacco. in many of these countries, for example, they haven't given smoke free the privilege, the right. they haven't given smoke free the deoption where people people are still bathed in tobacco smoke. smoking is the norm instead of nonsmoking being the norm in many countries where quitting hasn'ting abouting normative. in brazil and uruguay tobacco control has been going strongly and they have very strong smoke-free provisions >> we mentioned in our set-up what's going on in australia, what they're preparing to do with the labels. is something like that possible or do-able in some of these countries? what do we know that does work? >> well, plain packaging is theoretically possible in any country. they will be challengedded in court but the australian highest court upheld the legal challenge. it really doesn't cost governments much money to accept... except to defend the law sues to mandate plain packaging and to mandate very strong warning labels. very strong warning labels inform smokers better than weaker warning labels so graphic warning labels that give a strong message about the healthy feks of tobacco. the other things that work are protecting nonsmokers, of course, offering people help with quitting. hard-hitting mass media campaigns, and enforcing advertising bans or restrictions. in many countries they can actually ban advertising and they do. in our country we can only restrict it. also raising taxes. when the price goes up, consumption goes down. but then in many countries they use some of the money that they get from raising taxes to fund media campaigns, for example, and other tobacco-control strategies >> brown: thanks so much for joining us. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> ifill: now, the first in a pair of stories this week on what some schools are doing to make sure students don't lose ground during the summer. the "newshour's" special correspondent for education, john merrow, reports about efforts in rhode island to reduce the academic gap between the wealthy and the poor. summer is a time when some kids get to go to camp, travel with their families, explore museums. it's also a time when social and economic inequalities are evident. many children in low-income communities miss out on these stimulating opportunities. they spend summer break in their neighborhood, hanging out >> i don't do aate lot of math in the summer. i don't think my skills are improving >> my friends just sit home and watch tv. yeah, they don't do much. >> reporter: this difference in summer experiences has serious consequences. educators call it summer learning loss. children who don't have stimulating summer experiences forget more of the math and reading skills they need to do well in school. by the time summer ends, the achievement gap between rich and poor is actually wider than it was in june. so, is summer school the answer? >> when kids hear "summer school," they her boos or failing. more school in an unconditioned building. >> reporter: typically summer remediation programs are held in the classroom. students complete work sheets and practice math and reading skills for hours at a time. in many districts, including providence, rhode island, this type of learning wasn't working. >> we could have remediation until the cows came home, and we one substantial number of kids didn't attend. and, two, it wasn't effective. >> reporter: providence is trying to change that by turning summer school into an experience that supports classroom learning and excites students. this summer 716 low-income students enrolled in summer scholars, a four-week program for middle-school students. the program, which includes transportation and two meals a day, is free for kids. but costs about $1200 per student. about half of the money comes from private sources, and the school district funds the rest. at a time when 20% of districts across the country have eliminated summer school, providence has redirected its summer remediation funds and is trying something different. sixth, seventh and eighth graders spent twos a week in the field with an instructor from a local organization like "save the bay" and a teacher from the district who ensures that students are practicing skills they struggled with during the year and will need in the fall. in the afternoons, it's back to the classroom. there, teachers like matthew pierce create lessons to help students deepen their understanding of concepts they learned in the field. >> you have to keep their attention especially at this middle-school and early high school level. they will not... they'll just shut down on you if you don't do something fun and get them engaged. >> let's see if it will make it float. >> so if you add salt and make it dense enough, it will float. >> reporter: students worstewed collaboratively in the field and apply what they learn back in the classroom to solve complex problems. this is what educators call deeper learning. the summer scholars program is a partnership between the school district and 30 local organizations like the zoo, the y.m.c.a. and a audubon society. public schools often work alone, but providence has been building these relationships for years. >> this is the knot weed. what we're trying to do is to get rid of it, let it know it's not taking over here. >> reporter: today students are learning about invasive species. rick taylor has been teaching in providence for 17 years. >> i think on a very basic level, we could say that they're just pulling weeds. but in reality they're also learning concepts that they can bring back into school during the school year that will help them. terms like biotic, abiotic. what's the difference between an environment and a hatat? you can read about that in a textbook or you can go into the field and learn it firsthand. i think that firsthand experience actually doing it makes a dramatic difference. >> we do math like circumference, diameter, but we have fun with it because you get to explore outside instead of like sitting inside and having your teacher teach you about it and you still don't know how to like do it >> reporter: hands-on-learning is actually not a new idea. john dewey wrote about it over 100 years ago. month sorry schools do it everyday. it's appearing in providence because educators here were not happy with the results they've been getting using traditional teaching >> this district doesn't have terrific scores. >> we have horrible scores. reporter: don't your kids need remediation instead of this summer fun? >> i think (sighing) the kind of and remediation that might lead to a temporary bump in scores is not the kind of education that really any parent wants for his or her child >> i think that's a branch from a tree. i don't think we're going to get that out >> what i've seen is a tremendous amount of growth very quickly in children. kids are more actively involved and engaged. this program is very different from the traditional classroom setting. >> well it's kind of like school because we're learning about stuff. at the same time we're having a lot of fun. >> i found a web. ewww reporter: superintendent lucy says programs like this are one way to level the playing field >> there are students who never leave providence or maybe even their neighborhood. i think people underestimate what the experiences and interactions that middle-class children tend to have, how that equips kids to engage with education. so this is a thoughtful, organized but very fun way to provide those types of opportunities. the evaluation shows that students who attended these programs had better engagement in their classes and better grades particularly in math. >> reporter: in the afternoon students participate in activities like basketball, computers, art. and dance. it may have felt like camp to some, but even these activities incorporated learning into the fun. students weren't the only ones having fun at school >> i'm learning to relate to children in a much different way. i like the way that i've been able to interact with them. it's very different from what i would do in a normal setting. >> i've had teachers say to me, you know, we need to figure out a i with a to make school look more like this. i think we have to get better and better at giving kids opportunities to apply their learning in ways that are interesting. as well as informative. >> reporter: the obvious goal of the summer scholars is to curb summer learning loss. but this way of teaching might change the way providence schools approach teaching and learning all yearlong. >> ifill: not tonight we head across the country to seattle where a nonprofit is using summer school to achieve an even higher goal: getting students through high school and college. >> brown: next, the home of one of golf's most prestigious tournaments, the masters, admits women for the first time. ray suarez has the story. >> one of the most exclusive private golf clubs in the country, augusta national has been under pressure to admit women for years. today the club chairman announced former secretary of state condoleezza rice and south carolina financier darla moore have accepted membership invitations. the news comes a.m. a decade after the former club chairman said women would not be admitted, quote, at a point of a bay net. kristin brennan was among those who broke today's story. christine brennan, welcome. today augusta national instead of having no women over its 80 years' history now has two. is this a big deal? and if so, why? >> i think it's a very big deal. it's not just about playing golf and sports, ray. to me it's a cultural story. and it comes... it's fitting in many ways that it comes right after the london replyings. the women's olympics. we were talking all about the u.s. women winning so many more gold medals than the u.s. men. a week later you've got this last bastion of male supremacy. augusta national golf club finally in a very public way -- and this is a private club that doesn't tell us anything -- making this announcement, unprecedented that they would go so public and be so forth coming to talk about not one but two female members. i think it's a great step for augusta national. i think it speaks volumes about the need to have more women not only in the game of golf, which is not exactly, you know, the biggest issue in the nation, but also in the corridors of power which is really what we're talking about when we're talking about augusta national. >> suarez: do we know what precipitated this decision? was augusta national's policy hurting the club or its role as the home of the masters? >> certainly what happened in april with the story of the i.b.m. ceo ginny roam ity not becoming a member of the club at that point, the furor that that created i think stunned augusta national and stunned its chairman billy payne who was the man in charge of the 1996 that olympics which were previously known as the women's olympics. billy payne is a much more moderate leader of augusta national than the other men who have come before him. he was just peppered, blistered with questions. from everyone. and i think it took them by surprise. they realized they had to do something. so that april conversation about the i.b.m. ceo who by the way is not one of the two women named today, i think that precipitated everything and made this very private club go public for the first time ever to discuss its membership issues >> suarez: the former augusta chairman hootie johnson told you 13 years ago women would be admitted, what he called, in due time. should the club be congratulated for doing the right thing or still asked, what took you so long? >> i think it can be a little of both. i'm smiling because hootie johnson is kind of a character right out of history. you remember when he said that he would not be pressured at the point of a bay net to admit women. you know, what century was augusta in? that was 2002 when he said that. there was a lot to be critical about. i have been as critical as anyone in my columns in usa today. about this policy. 13 years of writing about it now. but i will say this. they've done it. it was a long time coming. too long. an anguished and arduous task in many ways but they have done it. i picture a ten-year-old girl, 12-year-old girl sitting on the sofa next to her with her mom and dad watching the masters and seeing two women in green jackets and believing that anything is possible. i do believe that these images of people in these places where they've not been before can have a dramatic impact on children. how about a woman, a young boy or girl of color looking at condoleezza rice in a green jacket? that's a very powerful image. so i think while i've been criticizing augusta national for so long, i think you can also say, hey, they've done it. and this is a great day for not only for girls and women in sports and in golf and in our culture but i think it's a great day for the country. >> suarez: similar complaints were heard for years about augusta's all white membership. then in 1990 with great fanfare they admitted a black member. does this take exclusion off the table? does this end the argument at augusta national? >> you know, yes, i actually think this does take it off the tabl it certainly you could imagine the conversation about when will there be the next female member of augusta national? when they get to ten, when will there be more black members? there's five, six, seven now. you about i the fact that you have the first is... it means everything. from the standpoint of what augusta national has done today in a public way, unprecedented, i think they are making a huge statement that they get it. they know they've been very slow, incredibly slow in getting this done. they know they've been out of step with the nation. they also know the golf industry has been clamoring for this because women are the growth industry of the sport. as long as you have the stop sign out saying you cannot come into this sport from the most visible of all clubs, that was a huge problem on the economic side. so for free enterprise alone this was a great day for the golf industry to welcome women in. i just think for the most part now this conversation ends. and that's okay with me because there certainly are other bigger issues hopefully to get to in the future >> suarez: christine brennan broke the story. thanks for joining us >> you bet, ray. thank you very much. >> ifill: we turn now to the first of several stories this week from the western african nation of mali. islamic militants have reportedly seized control of two-thirds of the country. they've imposed strict sharia law, terrorized residents, and prompted hundreds of thousands to flee. lindsey hilsum of independent television news reports. al qaeda has a new refuge. the deserts of northern mali. they drove out the national army and seized their weapons. now they fly the al qaeda flag. they control an area twice the size of britain, including cities and airports, and they're threatening europe. >> when we've conquered france we'll come to the usa. we'll come to london and conquer the whole world. the banner of mohammed, peace be upon his head, will be raised from where the sun rises to where it sets >> reporter: the military commander of al qaeda's local ally, defenders of the faith. 400 miles south in the maliian capital, a make-shift populous militia trains every evening. their mission: to take the north of their country back from the islamists. self-defense units like this are springing up across the country now. the people have got no faith in the army to defend them because they saw how the soldiers fled the moment the rebellion started in the north. but militias, some of them braced on tribe, can be very dangerous. there's no rule of law in mali now. on the night of april 1, islamists and local rebels drove into timbuktu. they had seized 87 pick-ups from the army, gifts of an american anti-terrorist program. by dawn they were in control. the maliian jihaddists, renown kidnappers of westerners. the local people are suffering. mobile phone footage shows a teenager being whipped for smoking. mali's capital is desperately poor. but nearly 200,000 northerners have fled here nonetheless. they're staying with friends and families. traders and shop keepers are finding it hard to survive in islamist controlled towns like timbuktu. >> when they come into our shops, they don't ask permission to search our bags. when they find cigarettes they just take them. so now i have to hide the sig res. my customers ask, have you got any secrets? that's what they call them now. they've changed the name. near a town, a few hours' drive from the capital we went to see how what remains of mali's army is trying to regeup. today we have... they're learning to use heavy machine guns. it's pretty basic stuff. after the soldiers fled the north, a junior officers coups depotsed mali's weak and corrupt civilian government. outside powers are reluctant to lend their support until the soldiers give way to a genuine new civilian administration. aiming practice, but no firing. they're short of ammunition and blanks. of everything really. >> we need support. air support. ground support. personnel support. anything we need. >> reporter: life looks normal here. but paralysis pervades the shiny government buildings. west african states have offered to stabilize a new civilian administration, but the soldiers refused to move aside. as long as the authorities resist international intervention, mali is drifting. aid is being cut. people are getting poorer. there's no solution in sight. >> the situation is serious. the rest o world should not stay just to look at this situation. we should be helped. unless they would like to see another somalia or another afghanistan. >> reporter: friday prayers. 98% of maliians are muslims but that doesn't mean they can tolerate life under harsh islamic rule. senior claireics are trying to negotiate with the jihaddists but all the while al qaeda is strengthening its hold on the north. no one as yet is doing anything to stop tm. snep late today state >> ifill: late today, state television in mali reported that the country has formed a new government. in her nt stories, lindsey hilsum looks at refugees who have fled to mauritania, and the destruction of mali's cultural heritage. >> brown: and finally tonight, a bookend of sorts, as we return to the subject of politics, with the first in a series of conversations about partisanship. judy woodruff starts with a view from the left. >> woodruff: in order to understand the present, we must first understand the past. as our political parties grow farther apart and find it harder to work together, we can study our history for clues to a possible solution. that's the idea behind a new book: our divided political heart. from "washington post" columnist e.j. dionne. he is here. thank you for being with us >> thank you for having me woodruff: how divided is our political heart? >> i argue that from the beginning americans have been torn by a deep but i think ultimately healthy tension between our love of individualism and liberty on the one side and our love for and est for community on the other side. i think this goes all the way back to the puritan founding when john winthrop talked about how we must identify with each other and labor and suffer together and celebrate together. and this community side of us, this part of that emphasizes the common good tends not to be emphasized a lot. we tend to look at ourselves as a country that's basically about individual freedom and liberty. i don't deny for an instant that individual freedom and liberty is is very important to us. but i think that from the beginning we've understood that only if we acted together, only if we came to the defense of each other's liberty does this system work. one of the great facts, in fact, the first word of our constitution is the word "we." we often forget that. we the people in the united states, not the persons of the united states but the people. we are a group as well as a set of individuals with rights that we cherish >> woodruff: so this idea of community, you're saying it's been there all along but it hasn't gotten as much appreciation as a part of who we are? is that... >> right. that's especially true with our friends now in the tea party but it's by no means unique to the te at party. the great political scientists in the '50s put heavy emphasis on this individualistic liberty-loving side of us. i think that we sort of forget, a, how important community was. b, we can misunderstand the role of government in our history. community and government are not the same thing but i do think they are linked because we often turn to government to express the will of the community, to do things together that we can't do alone. if you go all the way back to alexander hamilton, henry clay, abraham lincoln who were very important characters in my book, they used government in important ways to build up the country. not to the detriment of individual rights but in order to create the systems we needed to become a prosperous and well educated country >> woodruff: you argue among other things that today's modern conservatives have in particular gotten away from this idea of community. what caused us or them or it to happen? what brought this about? >> well, i think there are short-term political reasons. there's been a long-term fight among conservatives. write, i like to think and some of my conservative things think i write respectfully about conservatism. ality its outset conservatism was very community oriented. indeed it mistrusted what early conservative thinkers saw as liberal individualism, people like edmund burke were very skeptical of that. i think alongside this more commune tearian conservatism has been a sort of libertarian conservative that mistrususd the community and the traditionalists. i think after the 2008 elections conservatives were at a kind of at in the road. they could say, all right, bush was unpopular because of iraq and because perhaps some of his policies were too conservative. but that was not very functional for the conservatives in the republican party. so instead they decided actually bush was a big-government guy after all. he was a compassionate conservative. he gave us the prescription drug benefit and more federal power over education. so i think the tea party brand of individualism was fueled both by the election of obama and the election of the op sometimes fuels a lot of discontent but also by reaction against president bush >> woodruff: your plea, e.j. dionne, is for what? for modern conservatives to take a closer look at what this compact is all about, this balance between individualism and community? >> right. i mean i have a particular plea to conservatives which is precisely that, that i'd like them to return to a time when, say, william f. buckley, jr., who in many ways was the founder of modern conservatism, could write a book called gratitude in which he talked about what we all owe back to the country that has protected and nurtured us. i wonder if bill buckley, the great conservative, would lose the primary these days if you tried to run on his book gratitude but it's also an argument to all of us. there had been moments when liberals put such heavy emphasis on individual rights that we -- and i think of myself as a liberal -- that we forgot about importance of building community at the local level, at least as much as at the national level. and so i think if we came to think of ourselves as... all of us in some ways divided by these twin loves, it might be a little easier to talk to each other. i don't have any... i'm under no illusions that a book by a lumnist would bring some revolution but i would like people to sort of sit back and say, you know, i'm not a complete individualistic or i'm not a complete community-person. we want a balance here. i think it's that balance that has made us work as a country >> woodruff: i read a review of your book by jeff greenfield journalist who said the fact that you are a columnist for the "washington post," that you're seen as somebody on the liberal side of the ideological spectrum may mean that conservatives aren't going to listen to you or not even going to give your argument the hearing that it deserves. how do you respond to that? >> well, i hope that's not true. i've actually done a number of conservative talk radio shows for this book where i felt that the host really wanted to engage the argument. i've had some real arguments with conservatives. i know that there are a number of conservatives i speak to w do believe that conservatism has gone off the rails. it's not where they want it to be. so i hope some of these ideas penetrate and maybe after this election we can try to have a conversation again. in bitterlect ens conversations are harder than after the election but i grew up in a very, very politically diverse extended family. we could argue with each other all the time and still love each other. i'd love to see a country where that could happen >> woodruff: do you have a sense that's happening? >> right now we don't love each other very much. no. i'd like to see a country where we could argue and not hate each other. of >> woodruff: the book is "our divided political heart." great to have you with us >> it's great to be with you. thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day, president obama took republicans to task about the stand of a g.o.p. senate candidate on abortion and rape and releasing mitt romney's tax returns. on the subject of syria, the president threatened military action if there was evidence the syrian government was moving its stocks of chemical weapons. and one of the country's most exclusive golf clubs and home to the masters opened membership to women after 80 years of denying it. a new movie tells the story of an iranian violinist. hari sreenivasan has more. >> sreenivasan: jeff talked to graphic novelist and director marjane satrapi about the film adaptation of her book, "chicken with plums," currently playing in some theaters. that's on art beat. and on our science page, learn about a new cave-dwelling spider with talon-like claws. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll have the latest on the presidential contest, and much more. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org