kind of mental health issues. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: our u.s.-based customer service team is on hand to help. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv >> the john s. and james l. knight foundation. fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> wdruff: president biden's covid relief package, totaling nearly $2 trillion, moves another step closer to enactment today. the u.s. senate sent the bill to the house of representatives for a final vote tomorrow. in advance, democrats and republicans jousted again over the benefits and costs. >> this legislation represents the boldest action taken on behalf of the american people since the great depression and will give us the tools to build back better. it will put money in people's pockets. it will cut poverty in half, cut child poverty in half, and it will give communities the resources needed to safely reopen schools. >> we could have had a bill that was you know a fraction of the cost of this one, it could have gotten bipartisan approval and support but the speaker decided to go in another direction so we're going to be saddled with a spending and tax burden that is really indefensible from the perspective of what it actually accomplishes. >> woodruff: we'll return to the covid relief bill after the news summary. a trial centered on the death of george floyd in minneapolis pushed ahead with jury selection today. former police officer derek chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. the judge allowed lawyers to question potential jurors, while an appeals court considers reinstating an additional murder charge. the world health organization reports nearly one in three women worldwide has suffered physical or sexual violence. it says one-quarter of young women in relationships experienced violence by their mid-20's. today's findings come from the largest study yet of the problem, spanning 2010 through 2018. in central africa, the death toll neared 100 today from explosions at a military base in equatorial guinea. more than 600 otrs were wounded. rescue workers have been pulling bodies from the rubble since sunday. officials blame the military for mishandling dynamite at the base. the british royal family has now responded to allegations of racism by prince harry and his wife meghan, who is bi-racial. a statement from buckingham palace today said queen elizabeth and the royal family are saddened by the claims. it said the family will address the issues privately. back in this country, kansas university dismissed head football coach les miles over allegations of sexual misconduct, from his time at louisiana state university. miles coached 11 years at l.s.u., and won a national championship. he was fired in 2016, and joined kansas in 2018. an l.s.u. review has cited miles' troubling treatment of female students. on wall street today, tech stocks roared back as the rest of the market made modest gains. the dow jones industrial average added 30 points to close at 31,832. the nasdaq jumped 464 points, nearly 3.7%, for its biggest gain in nearly a year. and, the s&p 500 rose 54 points. and, longtime political correspondent and anchor roger mudd has died. he spent much of his career with cbs news before stints at nbc news and then, with the "macneil lehrer newshour," a predecessor of this program. roger mudd was 93 years old. we'll look at his career, later in the program. still to come on the newshour: the house prepares to vote on the final version of the covid relief bill. we talk to iran's top nuclear scientist as an agreement with the u.s. remains elusive. a surge of unaccompanied minors at the southern border tests president biden's immigration policy. and much more. >> woodruff: the house is set to pass the amecan rescue plan, the final sign-off before the bill lands on president biden's desk. last night, we heard from a democratic member on the issue. tonight, a republican point of view: congresswoman nicole malliotakis of new york joins me now. >> woodruff: congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate it. you have said you do plan to oppose the bill, to vote against it. tell us why. >> well, i thank you for the opportunity. i have to tell you, as a freshman member, one of my goals was to come here and to ensure that we provided relief to our community. but i have to tell you that this bill is extremely bloated and puts in all sorts of alternative spending that is unnecessary. there is still $1 trillion left over from the previous packages that remains unspent. about $150 billion for p.p.p. loans to support the small businesses. eventually that money turns into grants for them. also $64 billion put in to reopen america's schools, which the c.d.c. says only $25 billion is needed. there is plenty of money there that has not yet been spent and our schools remain closed. this bill actually, just to show you how bloated it is, less than 1% of the funding actually goes to our number one priority right now, which is vaccine production and distribution. you ask any local leader at the state and local level, democrat or republican, local or federal, they will tell you that that is the key to normalcy here, and the fact that it is less than 1% of the overall spending shows how much money is in here that is unrelated, number one. secondly, instead of cutting out the pork, what we saw the senate do was actually take away from middle-class families. they lowered the stimulus payments so if you're a single individual earning $80,000, you get absolutely nothing, but they left provisions in there, didn't clarify the bill, to still allow people who are sitting in jail as convicted felons to receive the stimulus checks. i think there are major issues with this bill, and i think it is unfortunate the way nancy pelosi wouldn't allow us to debate it thoroughly on the house of the floor of representatives. she gives a half hour for a 600-page bill that spends $1.9 trillion. >> woodruff: you've raised several issues there. number one, in the education community, we hear from a number of organizations -- you mentioned schools -- that they are counting on that money, that because of the way they're budget rolls out, they know that there is a delay in how dollars are spent, and they're counting on the money in this legislation that will allow them to be safe when they do open their doors again for in-person classes. and with regard to the vaccine money, that, as you know, a lot of this measure is all about economic relief for people who have lost their jobs or small businesses who have had to close down. so it is more than pure vaccine distribution. >> sure. well, first, with the schools, the c.d.c. had estimated it would cost $25 billion to reopen america's school safely. the last package passed in december, they allocated $64 billion. most of that money is still sitting there. take new york, for example, which received $4 billion, and yet our schools in new york city are not yet reopened. i think that is part of the problem. spend the money that has already been allocated. they want to spend another $130 billion in this bill, which 95% of it can't even be spent this year. so it is not for emergency reopening. that money has already been there. our argument has en let's -- once again today they denied allowing us to bring up the reopen schools act which would reopen our schools. the president is saying within 100 days of him being sworn in, he wants to reopen schools just one day a week. that is not acceptable to most parents i represent. they want to see the children back in the classroom, and the money has already been allocated in the previous fund to do so. and the assistance for families, we absolutely need to extend the unemployment, and i support that, and i support stimulus checks being returned to families who are taxpayers, absolutely. the fact that a single person who earns $80,000 won't get anything, and yet somebody who sits in jail would get something is an insult to l law-abiding citizens. >> woodruff: and a number of republicans were supporting that, and they said it went to people who were at the higher end of the scale. congresswoman malliotakis, let me ask you something: one of my colleagues spoke to a number of constituents in your district, staten island, and one woman, named marie, says she has been unemployed, taking care of two daughterss, one on the autism spectrum, and another who had an injury. and she is said she is desperately in need of a payment. and she says even this bill is not going to be enough. what do you say to her about your vote no? >> well, that is exactly the person i'm trying to help by making sure that this bill is being tailored. my concern is governor cuomo, or the state of new york, will be getting $50 billion, and he has not made a commitment to not increase income taxes or to not increase property taxes, which will be passed on if your a homeowner or a renter. i want to ensure that money is actually getting back to the people, and that is the concern here. we should absolutely be focused on extending unemployment, we should absolutely be providing taxpayer money -- their man back in the form of a stimulus. but what we should not be doing is all sorts of other things. $3..5 billion going to the global health fund to deal with aids and malaria. it is a great cause, but it shouldn't be in the covid relief package, and american taxpayers shouldn't be picking up 88% of that fund's expenditures. i advocated for a tailored bill that helps the unemployed, helps tax-paying families, helps our small business community, and the restaurants, and some of that stuff was in there, but if it was tailored and focused and congress took the time to actually do this right, we could have spent the trillion dollars that has been sitting there. that should be going first and we could be taking the time right now to make sure we did this bill right and it got to the people, like those i represent who are struggling right now. >> woodruff: but, congresswoman, by your vote, however, these people will not get that additional aid that they need. >> they'll be getting it- unless, of course -- >> woodruff: i mean, if you had your way, is my point. >> if i had my way, the bill would be a much better bill and it would go to the issues we're facing in our communities. you can do all of these things, probably with an $800 billion. you don't need to spend $1.9 trillion. her great-grandchildren will be owing the debt. we're saddling our future generations with debt, when we could do a much smaller package that is tailored to the specific needs of those individuals that i represent and that are struggling. not doing this bloated package. i think that is a big difference here, a big difference. we support tailored relief that actually gets to the people, not this bloated package that goes all over the place, including other parts of the world, and it hooks the taxpayer and their future generations for that increased debt as we approached a $30 trillion debt in this nation. i think we need to be responsible. >> woodruff: congresswoman nicole malliotakis, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: one of the major foreign policy decisions facing the biden administration is its promise to re-enter the iran nuclear deal. but the biden team is confronting obstacles re- starting talks. nick schifrin introduces our revealing conversation today with iran's top nuclear scientist. >> schifrin: the 2015 nuclear deal made a fundamental trade: the west relieved sanctions on iran, and iran froze its nuclear program. after the trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018, it reimposed sanctions. and iran, in return, exceeded some of the deal's nuclear limits, and restricted required inspections. the biden administration and europe are offering to sit down with iran, but iran refuses, until sanctions are relieved. in that context our reza sayah got a rare interview with iran's nuclear head, and reza joins us now from tehran. the political contact. the u.s. says it is waiting for iran to suggest the next diplomatic steps. what is iran saying? >> tehran is saying, washington, you're the one that pulled out of the nuclear deal. you're the one that undermined the agreement where five other countries were involved, the deal that took two years to hammer out. it is your move. the ball is in your court. tehran is looking for some sanctions relief. it is important to point out that initially, during donald trump's maximum pressure campaign, tehran was saying all sanctions must be lifted. now they're clearly saying they'd be fine with a step by step process, whereby washington would ease some sanctions, and then iran would make a move. even that hasn't resolved things. and that's why we're still in this stalemate. >> schifrin: and the u.s. says it won't make that first step yet. so that is the stalemate. that is the context for your interview. ali akbar salehi, who is he and what does he say? >> he is iran's nuclear chief, an important figure with iran's leadership. he is one of the supreme leaders, must trusted advisors. when the nuclear deal was negotiated in 2013, 2014, he was very involved with the technical aspects. and like any iranian leaders, he felt the bite and the impact of former president donald trump's maximum pressure campaign. you would think that he would be happy that donald trump is no longer the president, but that wasn't exactly the ca. >> schifrin: my guess is when mr. joe biden was elected president, it pleased you. >> do you read minds? >> i'm guessing. >> you're guessing. >> were you pleased when mr. biden was elected president? >> this is not a matter of being pleased or not pleased. we look at what the really actions are. >> you saw mr. trump's actions, and my impression is you wanted someone else in office? >> but so far that mr. biden has come, though he has promised to sort of come back to the j.c. p.o. s., he has not yet delivered to that promise. >> he has not delivered, from your point of view, but mr. biden has said he wants to restore the deal, and he wants to talk. iran says we don't want to talk. isn't this the opportunity that iran was looking for? >> the answer is that the one who has left the jcpoa has to come back first. >> but the biden administration is saying they don't want to negotiate the deal. they just want to discuss the mechanism, the sequencing -- >> why do we want to complicate the issue. >> because the issue is complicated. >> no, it is not really complicated. we have the jcpoa deal, a deal that was negotiated for over two years, and the u.s. administration at one time felt that they wanted to leave the deal. you are the one who has left the deal, and you have to come back to the deal, and then we sit at the table within the framework of the five plus one and talk over whatever issues are deemed to be talked about. >> while we're at this deadlock, iran's nuclear program is increasingly active, you're enriching more uranium, you're using advanced centrifuges, you're restricting i.a.e. a. inspections. this is no longer about the nuclear deal and your country. you are clearly pressuring the biden administration. >> this issue of the nuclear deal, it is better to say it is fabricated or manufactured issue of the iranian nuclear deal. it is a technical issue, but it is politicized. so it seems we have to use political instruments to resolve it. answering your question, d would like to say that we have not restricted the iaea inspections in iran. but the other part of the voluntary agreement that we have committed oursves, and that was the additional protocol. those were have put aside. >> part of the additional protocol with cameras -- >> the cameras are still there. >> cameras are still there? >> yeah. those will keep on recording whatever they want to record. but the iaea will not have action. for up to three months, if the jcpoa is back, they will be given the administration. >> and if not, you say you're going to trash them? >> yes. >> would you not be trashing transparency? >> it is easy to resolve the issue. come back to the jcpoa and not let that happen. >> iran is stockpiling uranium, i think you're up to 3,000 kilograms -- >> it depends on how you measure it. in iranian, it is 250 kilograms, to the best of my understanding. >> you plan on moving forward with the uranium -- >> and then everything stops. >> what do you do with the excess enriched uranium? >> then we can settle that. we can sell it. we can turn it into something that would be of mutual agreement, like into fuel. >> last month. iaea says it verified the presence of 6.3grams of uranium metal at a plant in isbadan? can you explain that? >> we are looking for new fuel that would increase the efficiency of the reactor. they have propagated it as if we are producing metal for the purpose of keeping the metal. >> for the core of the nuclear bomb? that's what your critics are saying? >> yes. it has many uses. one is non-peaceful and others are peaceful. >> accusations that iran is secretly building a bomb has existed. they are still there. your government, the supreme leader, has always said this is a peaceful nuclear program. but many argue that nuclear deterrents are affective. the super powers have it. israel has a program many believe that hasn't been declared. is there anyone within the government that says, let's discuss it. let's discuss the possible benefits of a bomb? >> no. you see, the final wording on th is by the supreme leader. once the supreme leader has issued a fatwa, that fatwa is not only a religious fatwa, but it is a decree. >> it means there is not even a discussion? >> no discussion -- >> not even a meeting. >> there is no room for a discussion. >> no one can say -- >> not no one can say. you can speak your mind, whatever you wish, but in reality, when it comes to action and all, we do what the fatwa says. we do what the decree says. >> are there people within the government and the leadership who think it is a good idea to go after a bomb? >> there may be, i don't know. >> but you don't know. you haven't heard it. what makes a nuclear bomb hadom and long-range missiles not hadom? >> long-range missiles you hit the places you wish to hit. a nuclear bomb as it was used in hiroshima and nagasaki, it inflicted harm on innocent people. 200,000 people. >> your colleague, one of iran's leading scientists, he was assassinated. does it make you question iran's security structure? how could this happen on your soil? >> this is not a very complicated issue. if you want to kill somebody, they can always hire some people to kill somebody. >> you, your government, accuse israel of carrying out the assassination -- >> certainly it is israel, with the support of the united states. >> something they both deny, or haven't commented on. do you worry about your own safety? >> i don't worry about it. because we believe in destiny. destiny is in the hands of god. eventually we have to die, sooner or later. okay? you die as a martyr, so much the better. >> woodruff:hat was special correspondent reza sayah in tehran. >> woodruff: the biden administration is struggling to respond to a new surge of migrant children at the country's southern border. our yamiche alcindor takes a deeper look at the recent increase, and how facilities to hold these children are becoming overwhelmed. >> alcindor: judy, the situation at the border is increasingly challenging. according to the "new york times," the number of detained migrant children has tripled in the past two weeks; almost half are being held longer than permitted by law; in january, the number of unaccompanied children found at the border was 1,000 more than in october 2020 to help break all this down, i'm joined by theresa cardinal brown. she is the director of immigration and cross-border policy at the bipartisan policy center. >> teresa, thank you so much for being here. what is different, and most concerning about what is happening right now at the border, and how concerned are you about the trauma that unaccompanied miles an minors andunaccompanied childree at the border? >> the biden administration is trying to figure out t to treat the migrants arriving at the border. trump's administration was to send them home without any process. the biden administration wants to do it differently. the challenge it has is it doesn't inherent an infrastructure that would enable it to process the numbers of arrivals in the way it wants to. it is scrambling, i think, to find places that it can create new shelter environments that can treat the children well. >> the law has the process set ut for what should happen to unaccompanied children. they first encounter a border patrol agent. they would take them back to a border patrol station, which is like a police precinct. it is a jail. it is not a place for families and kids. the next place they should go is to an office of refugee resettlement shelter. those shelters are operated by licensed care-givers who are trained to deal with migrant children. they are around the country. but right now the network is below its capacity because of covid restrictions. even if it were to change those covid restrictions, whether or not that shelter capacity is sufficient depends on how many children are arriving. so when any part of the system essentially gets backlogged, the children remain in the border patrol station. that is what has to change. the biden administration has to quickly figure out how quickly it can safely expand that shelter capacity and get those children away from the border patrol. >> the message is obviously not reaching a lot of migrants. what do you make of that? >> i think government messages about coming or not coming have never been successful, no matter which administration has tried it. i think migrants decide to leave based on the situation they're leaving. it has become untenable where they are. they are more likely to listen to what they've heard from their networks, their social networks, their family networks, their fellow community members who have already come to the border. what's it like? what's it like? those decisions tell them when it is time to come to the border, more so than any government messaging. right now their colleagues are coming in and they're hopeful. i think you can't underestimate the factor that migrants have of just the idea of hope, that coming to the united states is hope for them. and they will take any measure they need to try to capture that hope. >> and president biden has been talking about passing an immigration bill. i wonder what you make of whether or not there will be an impact with an immigration bill, or whether or not this is really a people problem, a logistics problem, a child problem. >> this problem sa is a logistics problem. the law is clear what should happen to children. what the trump administration did was supersede the administration law to send the children back to the places they were fleeing. biden is trying to abide by the immigration order, but it is a capacity problem. his attempt at immigration reform wouldn't necessarily address this particular problem, other than that it would, or might, create new legal pathways for people to come sohey wouldn't be arriving illegally at the border. >> what do you make of the republican party, and how they've been talking about immigratn? they've been saying that president biden is not handling the situation that is unen una untenable. and they say there are immigrants being allowed in this country that can spread covid. >> it doesn't seem that the immigrants are bringing covid at any greater rate of what is happening in the united states. republicans are going to be critical because that's what they do, and democrats can critical of trump. the focus has to be on how to best manage this issue at the border for the safety of the children. >> a tough situation. thank you so much for joining us to talk about it. theresa cardinal brown of the bipartisan policy center. >> thank you. >> woodruff: it's been nearly a month since a deep freeze hit parts of the south, ocking out power and water in texas, mississippi and elsewhere. but in jackson, mississippi, the largest city in the state, water service is still not totally reliable yet. john yang has the details. >> yang: judy, much of mississippi's largest city is beginning it's fourth week without safe drinking tap water. jackson residents, about 80% of whom are black, remain under a system-wide order to boil water, and some don't have any running water at all. joanne moore lives in south jackson. >> we just been taking it day- by-day. that's all we can do until we get full restoration of our water. it's been hard, but we've been dealing with it, you know, but the infrastructure is just so old. >> yang: since the mid-february winter storm, the city has had about 80 water main breaks. chokwe antar lumumba is the mayor of jackson. >> he joins us now. mr. mayor, thanks so much. tell us, what is the situation right now, as we speak? and give us some idea of what life has been like for your residents for the past three weeks. >> mayor: you know, life has been quite difficult for our residents. as you can imagine. it not only has limited people's ability to drink water and to eat food and cook with water, but to bathe. and we have to remember that we are in the midst of a pandemic, so it becomes all the more alarming to not have water for all of the hygienic recommendations that we have laid out in the midst of this pandemic in almost every conceivable way. where we are today, fortunately, we can report that we're towards the end of our journey. we have somewhere in the neighborhood of less than 500 residents that are still without water, and the majority of those have low water pressure. and that is on account of a myriad of issues, breaks that have happened in their homes, issues with the water meter. so we are quickly moving to bring that number down. we won't be satisfied until the very last resident has their water restored. >> you've talked about state and federal officials about help, about help to sort of repair the system and then bring the system up to date. what has been the response? >> mayor: well, fortunately we've been able to gain audience with the leadership in the state house. some members of our family, like representation from the e.p.a., have reached out and expressed their desire to be supportive of the city of jacson. so we have made certain that we put in our estimated damages from the recent crisis that we suffered, and we hope that the state, the county through the state, issues that through the federal government. and we're hopeful and optimistic we'll be able to get the support that we need in order to address this most recent crisis. jackson's infrastructure is in a dire state. it is an aged legacy city, where one of our plants is literally more than 100 jeers old. another one is outdated, and so we are in need of several repairs because we face more extreme weather conditions today. we have hotter summers, colder winters, and more rain in the rainy season. >> in the past couple of weeks, the governor and the lieutenant-governor have both made remarks about the city, about the city's ability to collect water bills and keep up its infrastructure. the lieutenant-governor even says the last time workad been done was under a mayor who happened to have been the last white mayor of jackson. what was your reaction to that? >> mayor: i think it is not often talked about but is a reality, is that there are equity questions about how infrastructure is supported in terms of how cities are supported. we need to be able to build equitable models of what it means to build and support cities. in fact, as we look at the success of our state's economy, it should be more based on a dignity, the inherent dignity of every community, and not look at it based on issues of race. it is not surprising. it has been the history of the city of jackson to not have support, which is commensurate with the support that the city of jackson provides to the state of mississippi. what i mean by that is we're the largest city by a factor of three. meaning we provide the overwhelming taxes to the city. many of our properties are not taxes, and we provide services to the state, such as give them water with no payment for the water bill. and other cities get payment in lieu of taxes. we don't receive that. and so these are questions at have needed to be answered for a long time. so most certainly city leadership has a responsibility to make certain we're in a better place than in which how we receive the city. the state has a responsibility as well. and we will never solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it. it is that kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place. >> jackson mayor chokwe lumumba, thank you very much. >> thank >> woodruff: this week marks a full year since the covid-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic. and experts are increasingly concerned about the toll it's taking on the mental health of young people in this country. with in-person classes closed for months for many students, there also are concerns the risks of youth suicide are being exacerbated. stephanie sy has this report. and a warning to underline: this story deals with sensitive subject matter. >> sy: since boyhood, toby gard needed to be on the move. growing up in a small ski-town west of denver, he was well- known and well-loved. >> he seemed to have a really bright future ahead of him and, you know, started his freshman year knowing somebody in every class and every group and he could have been in any group he wanted to. >> sy: but in his second semester of sophomore year, the coronavirus pandemic struck. his high school closed, sports were cancelled. toby had had suicidal thoughts before. >> had it not gone into lockdown. he would still be here because he would have gone into lacrosse practice. he would have been getting the exercise. he would have been getting the connection with the team. he would have been getting those needs met and not dwelling on the negative. >> sy: last april, heather gard lost her first-born son, to suicide. >> he said, 'mom, i just don't know what to do.' it's the last thing he said to me. i went and got in the bath. came out, see if he wanted to get in and found him, he was already gone. called 911, started c.p.r., but he was gone. >> sy: experts are not yet drawing any direct lines between youth suicide and the pandemic, but they do say the pandemic has added stress to young people while taking away some important stress relief. >> we don't know about the impact yet of covid-19 on kids and on the suicide rate, but we do know that there are some risk factors that are being exacerbated. >> sy: lishorowitz is a clinical psychologist at the national institute of mental health and has studied suicide for decades. >> forced isolation and kids not being in school and being cut off from their social contacts, that really makes it even harder when you're struggling with any kind of mental health issues. >> sy: prior to the pandemic, suicide was the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 24. for that same age group, the suicide rate increased by more than 50% between 2007 and 2017. since the pandemic began, local officials around the country have reported more youth suicides. certain youth are at even greater risk. >> it's really heartbreaking, i think is the word that i would use to describe the situations that young people find themselves in simply because of who they are. >> sy: tia dole is the chief clinical operations officer at the trevor project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for l.g.b.t.q. young people. >> when you think about what's it's much harder to keep secrets. i think that that's actually been super stressful because in some ways, you're putting yourself back in the closet, as it were, in order to maintain peace in the he. >> sy: before the pandemic, lesbian, gay and bisexual teens, were more than three times as likely to have suicidal thoughts than their heterosexual peers. dole says being a member of a racial minority can also raise the risk of suicide. >> if you are a person who is in a community that is marginalized, you're going to experience more stressors than other people. the research shows that young black boys, for instance, are much more likely to complete suicide than other populations. >> sy: for many young people, school is the only safe space. our students are speaking out about this issue, that they are devastated by the loss of peers and friends. >> sy: superintendent kathy hoffman oversees arizona's more than t thousand public schools. arizona's youth suicide rate has been consistently above the national average for years. as coronavirus cases have surged up and down, schools have bounced between opening and closing. last wk, arizona governor doug ducey ordered most schools to reopen to in-person learning by march 15th. but throughout the pandemic, hoffman says she's been forced to thread a needle between containing covid and addressing the needs of students, that's been made even harder by policies that prioritize businesses over scols. >> experts have said that we should close bars and nightclubs before we closed schools. and that's not the decision that has been made here in arizona. >> sy: psychologist lisa horowitz says regardless of when schools re-open, children and parents can learn how to help prevent suicide. >> we teach them to read and to write and to do math and to do science. but when do we teach them what to do when you can't bear a disappointment or you feel so alone and isolated that you can't stand it anymore? >> sy: i think it'so taboo and a lot of parents don't even want to say the word because they don't want to even plant that in the mind of their young child. >> the number one myth of suicide, is that talking to someone about suicide can put the idea in their head. it's the opposite is true. the best way to keep a teenager from killing themselves is to ask them directly, are you thinking of killing yourself? and then listen to the answer. and this part is really important. it's important to listen because sometimes the answer is scary. and so you listen to what they say and then you do your version of we're going to get through this together, i'm going to get you help. i want you to be prepared. >> sy: horowitz says to make sure kids know suicide is never an option-- it's something, even parents need to remind themselves of, as the pandemic drags on. >> we have to pay very close attention to our kids now, whether they're in school or online, because they're struggling. and not only that, but their parents are struggling and this might even be more important because the mental health of parents really affects kids. >> sy: back in colorado, heather gard grieves. >> it's tough. losing a child is the hardest thing that's ever going to happen to a person. >> sy: she is trying to turn pain into purpose, raising awareness about suicide and the collateral damage caused by a pandemic stretching into a second year. >> yeah, it makes me feel better knowing that it didn't mean nothing. he will touch others and his memory will live on. until pandemic restrictions on gatherings are over, a memorial service for toby is on hold. for the pbs newshour, i'm stephanie sy in phoenix. >> woodruff: and please stick with us-- we remember a broadcast news legend and dear friend of the newshour, roger mudd. but first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. it's a chance to offer your support, which hel keep programs like ours on the air. >> woodruff: for those staying with us, this is an increasingly divided time in our country, but a new book looks at history as a way to find new paths toward equality. this encore presentation by paul solman is part of his regular series, "making sense." >> reporter: harvard social scientist robert putnam, famous for his best-seller, 20 years ago, about increasing disconnectedness in america, "bowling alone." >> bowling is big in america, you know. but bowling in leagues, bowling in teams, is off by about 40%. so the fact that we're bowling alone represents one more missing occasion for connections. >> reporter: but this fall, putnam is in semi-seclusion, with wife rosemary, in resplendent rural new hampshire, and he appreciates the irony. >> i've taken a ton of criticism and teasing from my family for 25 years for writing about how important it is that people connect to one another. but in order to do that, i come up here in total isolation. of course, it's different now with the coronavirus. mostly because we're trying to escape from the risks down in-- down in the city. >> reporter: putnam's refuge is especially ironic in light of his new book, "the upswing," the culmination of his work about social capital-- that is, social connectedness-- and how to rebuild it in an ever-more on-your-own america, as polarized as it was in the late 19th century. >> this is the first gilded age. we were very polarized. we were very unequal. and e next 70 years, basically, everything rises. we get more and more connected. we get less and less polarized. we get more and more equal. >> reporter: and thus the upswing to a more egalitarian society. from untouchable gilded age fortunes of the 1890s-- summer "cottages" of newport, rhode island, for example, with rooms of marble and gold-- to a national income tax, almost only on the rich, in 1913. the new deal of the 1930s... >> i pledge myself to a new deal for the american people. >> the great society rests on abundance and liberty for all. >> reporter: ..the great society of the 1960s. rotary clubs, bowling leagues, ever more economic equality. but what swung up, sure swung down. >> when the boomers came of age, they inherited a society that was moving in the right direction. >> reporter: yes. >> and very, very affluent. and they blew it. >> reporter: but we thght we were doing the right thing and bringing america to the right place. >> i know you did. >> reporter: so, "rock and roll," "never trust anybody over 30, "down with authority," non-conformity, self-expression, that began the downswing? >> yes. >> reporter: which then expressed itself economically. >> yeah. if you think we're not all in this together, it's every man for himself. >> reporter: okay, boomers, check out these meticulous, data-driven charts, in which putnam shows how, starting in the '60s, america became less economically equal, less politically tolerant, less socially engaged, less altruistic. the era of "me, myself and i." and many of you, too. >> my job was really to come in and figure out a way to tell this story, so that it was more than just numbers and curves and data. >> reporter: putnam's partner on this latest project is his former student, shaylyn romney garrett-- a cousin of mitt, though her politics aren't related. >> i'll never forget the moment when we're sitting at the dinner table with bob and rosemary and he starts telling me about these obscure data sets that he's been tinkering with on google, called n-gram data. >> the n-gram program can tell you how often a given word has appeared in any book published in any year. >> reporter: so putnam typed in the words "i" and "we." >> it was exactly the same curve as all these other curves we'd been studying. >> reporter: and the data punchline is that in the late 19th century, it was "i, i, i." it then became more "we, we, we, we," up until the 1960s. and then, in all the literature that's assembled, it becomes more and more "i, i, i" again? >> yeah. not over-night, of course, paul. it's a gradual trend. >> you see a real shift, not just, you know, away from using the first-person pronoun tthe "we" pronoun, but-- but in asking americans to rethink what this nation is really about in terms of our core values. and we saw a shift away from the social darwinism, that sort of dog-eat-dog mindset of the time, into what historians call the "social gospel," which was a movement that tried to get us to think more about what we owe to each other, what responsibilities do we have to each other in a society, rather than simply the idea that a society is one giant competition. >> reporter: which is where we are today. >> we're even more polarized now-- i'm talking about the data-- even more polarized now than during the civil war. >> reporter: the purpose of putnam and romney's book? to de-polarize. spur a new "upswing" to bring us back together. >> sometimes we look at the political polarization today and say, "oh, well, that was nice that they did that back then. but we can never do that today, because nobody can agree on anything." well, the lesson of this book is "we have been in that exact same place before, and this group of determined reformers managed to pull us up out of it." by immigrant activism, by worker activism, by muckrakers. one of the most, you know, under-recognized of whom is ida b. wells, a black american engaging in a moral outcry against lynching. >> reporter: joining the activists back then? those atop the polarized society who began to think twice. >> chastened elites. people who had this realization that america was going off the rails, and that they had played a part in shaping the underlying values that had created that deeply unappealing situation that they found themselves in. >> reporter: people much like bob putnam himself. being up here, the "we should all get together guy," who bemoans the fact that we're bowling alone, do you feel guilty that you're sequestered and protected? >> well, i do, of course, because of the implications for inequality. the average income of people here along the pond is probably $300,000 or $400,000 a year. the average income of the people 400 or 500 yards back is probably $25,000 or $30,000 a year? forget about the virus-- the degree of inequality embedded in my life-- this is just not fair. i mean, at some level, that fairness is the core here. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, this is paul solman. >> woodruff: now, we remember the career of roger mudd, a broadcast journalist known for his incisive questioning and tough approach to news, especially in the nation's capital. mudd, who died today, was also a >> jeffrey brown has or appreciation. >> this is the "cbs evening news" with roger mudd. >> for almost 20 years, beginning in 1961, roger mudd was a familiar face in millions of american households, as a correspondent for cbs news. >> this is roger mudd at the u.s. capitol. >> it was the era of three major networks, and mudd stood out, covering congress and national election compaigns. including a famous moment in 1979 with ted kennedy, and a simple question that left him stunned. >> why do you want to be president? >> he was also primary substitute for anchor walter correct me if i'm walter cronkite. and he was reporting on the night that robert f. kennedy was assassinated in 1968. he called his 2008 mem wear of those years, a place to be. in a conversation on the "newshour," he told me why. >> because it was a perfect storm. it was a collection of principled, talented, honest, hard-working, very tough perfectionists who all came together during a 20-year period that had written into those two decades violence, chaos, marvelous stories, terrible stories to cover, constitutional crises, assassinations, everything that could have happened, happened in those 20 years, and we were there with a swagger covering every bit of it. >> there was always bruising competition. >> the rule at cbs news during those 20 years was first we cover the news, and next you beat the hell out of nbc. we used to call it the national biscuit company. >> reporter: in 1980, mudd joined nbc. he later spent five years with us at the "newshour," as a substitute anchor. >> our top story is today's trade news. >> and congressional correspondent. in one classic mudd moment, he found a way to sneak in a question to congressman dan roskincowski he was told was off-limits. >> i don't want to talk about it. >> i promised i would ask. so, did george bush pull it off last night or not? >> he is well remembered as a colleague who seemed to know every one of washington's nooks and crannies and loved talking about them. he retired in 2004. his wife, e.j., died in 2011. they had four children and 14 grandchildren. he died of kidney failure at his home in mcclain, virginia. he was 93 years old. for the pbs "newshour," i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: a man who left his mark in and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. emergency planning for kids. we can't predict when an emergency will happen. so that's why it's important to make a plan with your parents. here are a few tips to stay safe. know how to get in touch with your family. write down phone numbers for your parents, siblings and neighbors. hell everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. >> i just didn't want to be alive 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