>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> fathom travel. carnival corporation's small ship line. offering seven day cruises to three citiesn cuba. exploring the culture, cuisine and historic sites through its people. more at fathom.org. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.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. >> woodruff: it's five days until the wisconsin primary, and rivals in both parties are turning up the heat on donald trump. after a rough 24 hours, the republican frontrunner stayed mostly out of the public eye today. one meeting was with donald trump's foreign policy team, a day after he refused to rule out a nuclear strike against islamic state militants. >> can you tell the middle east we're not using a nuclear weapon? >> can you tell the middle east we're not using a nuclear weapon on anybody? >> i would never say that. i would never take any of my cards off the table. >> how about europe? we won't use it in europe? >> i-- i'm not going to take it aughter)ht use it in europe? >> no, i don't think so. >> woodruff: in fact, u.s. presidents by tradition do not rule out the use of nuclear weapons on any front, in order in that same televised town hall, trump also said women who have abortions should be punished, if they're ever made illegal. later, in a new statement, he said the physician, not the woman, should face penalties. today, republican rival john kasich pounced, as he campaigned on trump's home turf: new york city... >> he becomes unmoored. and then has to spend a lot of time, trying to figure out how to correct all the mistakes that he made. i have to tell you, as commander-in-chief, and leader of the free world, you don't get do-overs. >> woodruff: in purchase, new york, the democratic frontrunner hillary clinton zeroed in on the abortion comments. >> you know one of my favorite americans, maya angelou, said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. donald trump is showing us exactly who he is, and we should believe him. >> woodruff: clinton's rival bernie sanders took on trump's comments indirectly, in pittsburgh. >> all of you are aware of republicans running all over the country talking about family values, how much they love families, what i want you to know exactly what they mean. what they mean is no woman in this huge room, in this state, in this country, should have the right to control her own body. i disagree. >> woodruff: for all of the candidates, the next big day of reckoning looms tuesday, in primaries in wisconsin. we'll talk to one of donald trump's main foreign policy advisors, after the news summary. parts of the south kept watch today for heavy thunderstorms and possible tornadoes. avy rainfall triggered flood watches in georgia and louisiana, and tornado alerts in parts of mississippi, alabama, tennessee and kentucky. last night, a tornado touched down several times in northeastern oklahoma. it damaged homes and businesses and injured at least seven people. at least 21 people died in india today when an overpass that was under construction, collapsed. it happened in a busy commercial district in kolkata. more than 70 people were injured, with an undetermined number still to be rescued. jonathan miller of independent television news has our report. >> reporter: a frantic, terrifying chaos followed the kolkata collapse as people tore with their bare hands at twisted reinforcing steel and crumbled concrete to free those trapped and still alive. a freshly-concreted 300-foot- long section of the flyover had given way, crushing cars and trucks and auto-rickshaws, pinning pedestrians and vehicle occupants under tons of mangled metal and cement. cctv footage caught the moment. two yellow ambassador taxis among the vehicles crawling along burrabazar, then this. someone said it sounded like a bomb exploding. you can see how many must have been entombed in this small area alone. "there were loads of people standing underneath," this man says. "rickshaws, taxis, everything was buried." local residents as furious as they were horrified. "i can't tell you exactly why it collapsed," this man says, "but it happened because they were trying to finish its construction in a rush." "this is the state of our engineering," she says. "there is corruption everywhere." tonight the search and rescue efforts have continued under spotlights, the army and specialist teams deployed now; all as recriminations build in advance of next month's state elections. there are likely to be political victims of this tragedy as well. >> woodruff: the cause of the incident is now under investigation. in syria, there's word of one of the deadliest attacks since a cease-fire took effect a month ago. opposition activists say at least 23 people died in government air strikes that hit near a school and hospital, just east of damascus. that area is divided among various factions. embattled south african president jacob zuma is facing more legal trouble. the country's highest court ruled today he "failed to uphold" the constitution by using more than $20 million in state money to upgrade his private home. it's the latest in a string of claims zuma has abused his power. back in this country, the north korean nuclear threat dominated a meeting between president obama and his counterparts from japan and south korea. it was the first time they'd met since the north's latest nuclear and missile tests. afterward, the leaders warned their countries could take new action to counter any threats from the north. >> we recognize that our security is linked that we have to work together to meet this challenge, and we also recognize that it is important to the international community to vigilantly enforce the strong un security measures that were passed in light of some of the ballistic missile and nuclear activity that pyongyang has been engaging in. >> woodruff: mr. obama also met with chinese president xi jinping. we'll take a closer look at the challenges xi faces at home, after the news summary. >> woodruff: in california, propose state raise the minimum wage to $15. and wall street was mostly down. wall street was mostly down today. the dow jones industrial average lost 31 points to close at 17,685. the nasdaq rose a fraction, and the s-and-p 500 slipped four. and, famed architect zaha hadid died today, in miami, after a heart attack. she was known for bold, futuristic designs, and was the first woman to win architecture's pritzker prize. hadid's work includes the glittering opera house in guangzhou, china, the curved heydar aliyev center in baku, azerbaijan, and the london aquatics center used for the 2012 olympics. zaha hadid was 65 years old. still to come on the newshour: donald trump's foreign policy advisor on the g.o.p. frontrunner's world view. why several presidential hopefuls are having trouble winning over women voters. china's president in washington amid unsual public criticism, and much more. >> woodruff: we return now to politics, and a look at where the candidates stand on foreign policy. tonight, we focus on republican frontrunner donald trump. he met with his foreign policy team earlier today. and we are joined now by one of the advisors in that meeting, walid phares. he was an advisor to mitt romney in the 2012 campaign. welcome to the program. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: you just told me the meeting went on two hours. there's been a lot of criticism mr. trump is not well informed whin it comes to international affairs. how well informed is he? >> in this meeting we felt he was informed about many actors and players in the world. of course, he has to be informed by his advisors and hopefully by f he wins by the actual agency. so he is collecting the information, the assessment and focusing on the most important priorities for him. >> woodruff: he's gotten some headlines lately for comments he's made about the use of nuclear weapons about in the asian theater and in in your opinion toward i.s.i.s. would u.s. policy about the use of nuclear weapons in any way change under a president trump, do you think? >> let's pay attention to his work. he said, i won't rule it out. it won't be off the table, but there would be an exception. and the exception would be if the terrorists would obtain nukes, maybe his advisor would tell him we would need that. but it won't change our posture with the chinese and the russians and others as well. >> woodruff: is that because he doesn't want to take them office table? >> in his doctrine and approach to all issues, he doesn't want to let go of any options. does not mean he's going to use that option. his new doctrine of national security is going to be wider, how to build and how to react to these scenarios. >> woodruff: he's made comments about n.a.t.o. thinking n.a.t.o. should pick up more of the cost of its own defense, is that because he thinks n.a.t.o. is not under serious threat from russia? >> actually, that's another example of how the perception of what he said is different than what he meant, that's why these important meetings are helpful. what he meant by a n.a.t.o. review is n.a.t.o. was created under a cold war and the posture changed. most of the crises are in the levant and norfolk and other places. he wants to restructure the n.a.t.o. alliance and the posture toward russia as well. >> woodruff: is that because he thinks russia is not a serious threat? >> we and russia have serious problems and tensions and he recognizes them in ukraine, crimea, but he also knows russia is threatened by the jihadists and i.s.i.s. and even more than us so he thinks it can be an area we collaborate with the russians against the jihadists and maintain our partnership with europe. >> woodruff: speaking of jihadists, you were telling us one of the things discussed was a new approach toward i.s.i.s. what could that look like? >> number one, having to do with a collaboration not just with russia, but with china, india, maybe other african countries. egibbet. so increase coalition. the other hand, may be a serious arab coalition that would do the job on the ground but we need to be helpful with them. >> woodruff: as you know this administration has tried to put together an arab coalition, tried to get countries in the region to work together toward i.s.i.s. how would mr. trump be able to make it happen? >> because maybe for the reason it didn't happen is the iran deal, in the sense that the administration was very nervous about not endangering the iran deal and, therefore, the arab coalition was very nervous about the iran deal. now it has been signed. so a new era could be opened with the arab leaders. >> woodruff: i want to ask you about a comment made by chinese leader xi jinping where he's saying words to the effect he's not going to allow other nations to violate china's sovereignty in the south china sea. he's referring to the dispute over the islands there. would a president trump address china under these circumstances? >> we're in a primary that's very early and even if he clinches the nomination, it will still be early. for these kind of strategic decisions, he would definitely need the information available at the agencies, within the government and defense agent ags and other allies, but the posture is going to be national security of the united states comes first. >> woodruff: walid phares, who was an advisor to donald trump, we thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. >> woodruff: >> woodruff: another issue in the spotlight this week: women voters. in 2012, they made up 53% of the electorate in the presidential race. to check in on that crucial voting bloc and what is driving the thinking of women voters this year, we are joined by rebecca traister, journalist and author of "all the single ladies: unmarried women and the rise of an independent nation." kelly dittmar, a scholar at the center for american women and politics at rutgers university, and pollster ann selzer, president of selzer and company. we welcome all three of you to the program. let me start with you, kelly dittmar. remind us, how did american women vote in the last few presidential elections? >> sure. so there's a persistent gender gap in terms of women's support and presidential vote choice. where we see women more likely to vote for the democratic candidate than their male counterpart. if you look at 2012, for example, you see women were supporting barack obama at about 55% compared to men at about 45%, so we call that a 10-point gender gap. if you break that down, you see even stronger support among women of color for barack obama at 96%, for example, among black women. >> woodruff: an ann selzer, what do we see so far this year in how the women's vote is break down based ton exit polls in the primaries so far? let's start with the republicans. >> well, we're just starting to see things coalesce here. in terms of the primaries with bernie sanders and hillary clinton, she is leading with women. she's not necessarily leading with younger women. so that really remains her challenge as she thinks about heading into a general election. in terms of the republican side of this, what you have is a stronger showing by cruz among women and a stronger showing for trump among men. he pretty much dominates the male vote. it's a two-point race between trump and cruz in terms of the primary vote. >> woodruff: has that been consistent through the primaries or shifting, ann? >> well, what we have been seeing is the favabilit3 shifting quite a bit in terms of trump, in particular. in that he has started out from a negative position in terms of overall favorability and only gotten more negligent nigh terms of how -- negative in terms of how women are rating him. women are the people -- that's the constituency that elects presidents, as we just heard from the numbers of romney versus obama, and for donald trump to have an unfavorable number of 60% among women, makes it hard tore him to think about winning an election. >> woodruff: rebecca traister, you have been looking at what's driving the women's vote. you wrote a book about unmarried women, but across the board, what do you see women -- what is it that motivates women when they go to the polls? >> well, as you said, you know, i have been looking specifically at unmarried women who make up a huge part of the electorate. in 2012, unmarried women comprised 23% of the electorate and they seemed to vote very far left. they voted for barack obama in 2012. almost a quarter of the electorate voted for barack obama 67% to 31%. one of the things that i think we're seeing reflected on the democratic platform, both bernie sanders and hillary clinton, are putting forth all kinds of policies increasingly making sense in a world in which women are living more independently from marriage than before and include the increase in minimum wage. two-thirds of minimum-wage workers are women, half unmarried women. things like paid leave, bert subsidized early childhood education and daycare. both candidates are talking about reducing college costs. of course, you know, women are very interested, often especially those who lean left are very interested in protecting reproductive rights which are obviously part of the democratic -- those are strong democratic priorities. so i think this election in particular, you're seeing a a lt of people, a lot of women voting democratic and talking about their economic concerns and wanting to see new social and economic programs that are going to stabilize their economic life. >> woodruff: let me turn to kelly dittmar about women voting in the republican primaries. seems they're not necessarily motivated by the same things that are motivating women who turn out to vote democratic. >> yeah, i think one interesting thing we have been seeing in some of the polling on the republican side is that there is been a strong kurt push. we talked in past elections about security moms as a certain subset of voter, but actually more so in this election than some elections in the past, i've seen some gender gaps in the prioritization of security-related issues, things like concern about terrorism in light of recent attacks or someone's ability toñr be commander-in-chief and that seems more important among republican women voters than among democratic women voters. >> woodruff: ann selzer, how would you add to the difference about what's motivating women on the democratic and republican side and how they're making the decisions? >> well, one of the things i think is the obvious women's issues, we don't really talk about them as women's issues anymore. we don't talk about the pay gap as much as we're talking about income inequality. there are ways in the part of women's issues is sort of fading, but it doesn't mean that that's not important to women anymore. it's more of kind to have the hushed side of it -- it's more kind of the hushed side of it that are the feminism women's issues. the bloomberg national politics poll did a package on trade and took a look at how people are feeling in the environment where republicans are talking about more restrictions, tightening imhats happening with free trade and women are more protectionists, republicans and democrats, than men. so there are ways in which women are responding to issues very differently, and this is shaping up to be such a different election for us all as we look at the way the tea leaves are falling. >> woodruff: what about that, rebecca traister? i mean, could this year turn upside down some of the assumption about women, whether married or unmarried, as they think about a whom to support? >> well, i think the election is already sort of offering a whole set of new choices. i don't think we've ever had a candidate like donald trump, for instance. i don't know whether he'll wind up the republican nominee or not, but in terms of his style of speaking his approach doesn't match previous models, and, of course, when it comes to either hillary clinton or bernie sanders, you're looking at candidates unlike anything we've ever seen before, and i think that, in fact, not only in that she is a woman and he is a jewish, self-described socialist, i think you're also looking at a democratic platform that is much further to the left in general in terms of a whole suite of issues than we've seen in recent memory. so i think a lot of expectations are very much up in the air. i think very few people could have predictorred going in and very few did predict donald trump's success or the strength of bernie sanders' campaign. it's hard to use old models to predict next six months. >> woodruff: kelly dittmar, quickly, as we look to the primaries that are remaining in the general election, is there something these candidates need to keep in mind if they hope to appeal to women across the board? >> well, i think one thing is to recognize, as everyone said tonight, that women voters are not a monolithic bloc. when you're trying to appeal to women voters, you have to specify which women you're trying to appeal to. so primary lect rats -- electorates will be different than the general. you need to resonate with republican versus democrat women, or black women versus white women, or married versus unmarried women will be different and candidates do a disservice when they try to target women as a bloc and do things that end up appearing either patronizing or essentialist. so i think candidates need to be looking at th the diversity amog women voters and that's going to get them to the finish line whether in the primary or the general election. >> woodruff: a good reminor as we wrap this up and we'll continue to stay focused on the woment( and)w< men's vote throut the election. thank you all three, ann selzer, rebecca traister and kelly dittmar. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: the rise of so-called micro- scholarships. what's behind the rapid decline of venezuela's economy. and top female soccer players take action against unequal pay. but first, as tensions mount between the united states and china over a number of issues, tensions within china are also rising. hari screenivasan has the story. >> sreenivasan: for the chinese leader, it's a moment on the world stage, on issues ranging from the growing tensions over china's military activity in the south china sea, to beijing's ability to rein in north korea's nuclear efforts. >> ( translated ): especially we want to enhance communication and coordination on the korea nuclear issue and other regional and global issues, and to consolidate and expand our shared interests. >> sreenivasan: but xi's biggest challenge may be back home, where there are signs of growing discontent. partly, it's economic: a stock crash, sliding currency values and the weakest economic growth in a quarter century. outwardly, at least, xi's government has remained upbeat. >> ( translated ): we are fully confident of china's long term economic growth. and open up, china's economy will not suffer a hard landing. >> sreenivasan: but xi has also raised hackles with his crackdown on dissent. last month, he visited state media organizations, warning that asolute loyalty to the party is their highest priority. that drew criticism from real estate magnate ren zhiqiang, among others, and his social media accounts were suspended. this month, a government-run website posted a letter calling for xi's resignation. it was signed: "loyal communist party members." soon after, a number of people, including well-known columnist jia jia, went missing, apparently as part of an investigation into the letter's origin. protesters in hong kong demanded to know his whereabouts. >> i think xi jinping stressed that china should be and will be ruled by law, but what happened in china after he is in power, he threatened, he arrests, kidnapped all kinds of activists from different part of civic society. journalists, lawyer, social worker are all his target. >> sreenivasan: columnist jia has since been released. we explore the internal divisions within china with: christopher johnson. he had a two decade career at the c.i.a. where he focused on china. he's now at the center for strategic and international studies. and andrew nathan is a professor at columbia university. he's the author and editor of many books including "the tiananmen papers." andrew, i want to start with you. how significant are these public letters, these internal dissents? >> i think they are very meaningful because i think the key is that xi is losing the support of the high levels of the chinese communist party. they're not willing to rally around him the way that they did in the mao period. it's a more critical time. they're more independent. he's demanding absolute loyalty, and people are no longer willing to offer that. >> sreenivasan: christopher johnson, do you see this as a significant threat to the leadership of president xi. >> i don't and i would actually strongly disagree with dr. nathan's characterlation of support for xi jinping. number one to focus on are the letters. we've done forensic work to figure out where they came from. our sense is they originated from outside china so the notion there is a core group of elite members of the communist party pushing back on xi jinping and asking him to step down doesn't seem to be the case. i think the other thing to emphasize is historically when we've looked at issues when there is elite fighting the faction that leaks to the outside first especially the western media is usually the one losing the fight and ends up losing the fight. >> sreenivasan: does it matter if it was a homegrown letter versus one sent from outside activists? >> well, there are a number of different documents but certainly it does matter if they're just outside activists hacking these things o on on thb with sites in china it's clever but doesn't signal a split in the leadership. what's very dangerous for the leadership is if there is a split and comes out into the open, that sends a signal to lots of people in china that are dissatisfied. there are many people unhappy because the economy is slowing down and because people are losing jobs. xi jinping is attacking the state-owned enterprises to try to force them to be more efficient. he wants to reorganize the military. he has this big anti-corruption campaign. so we know there are a lot of people who are dissatisfied but they're afraid to do anything. but if they see a split in the leadership, which is what people saw back in 1989, when they view that split in the leadership, there is axd real risk of social disorder in china. so it does matter a great deal whether these documents reflect a real split in the top leadership. i'm not talking about just ordinary party members. >> sreenivasan: christopher johnson, what about the idea, the centralizing of power the president has been engaged in over the past several months is something of concern to people who have had that power taken away from them? is there increased pressure on him to give some of that power back? >> absolutely. i mean, what we see with president xi is a rapid centralization of power. he claims or you know the body language is that he's doing so because there are difficult changes in what happened during his predecessor's ten your that he was overconsensus and they couldn't get anything done and the state-owned enterprises of debt and degradation piled up. xi jinping tried to centralize the power but is that a means to an end that we may all live with in terms of economic reforms or an end that he is a power mad megalomaniac like mao zedong, which i doubt. >> sreenivasan: what about the the idea even if the power is centralized, this is a person the united states or others can deal with, do you see these kind of internal struggles actually creating a threat for him to lose power? >> potentially, it does. i agree with chris that xi was brought into power by the previous leadership because they needed a strong leader to confront all these issues that i mentioned before, and he has been a strong leader, but the trouble is he's responsible for the results, and a lot of the results have displeased people including the slowdown of the economy. i think other chinese top leaders do not accept the idea that the economy slowdown is natural, necessary. necessary. xi said our economy will do great, with you had a clip from the premier saying that and it's not done well. there is bushback against his foreign policy in southeast asia and he's responsible for the results and i think he has a hard job and it's not easy to produce results that satisfy other people. so that's where i think the criticism is coming from. especially from his demand that nobody can criticize him. that's what this dust-up is about. his saying that others in the party, they have to shut up and take what i give them. that's where i think people are no longer willing to put up with it the way they did with mao. >> sreenivasan: christopher johnson, is this par for the course? >> my own sense is that what we have to watch here is there is going to be a major transition in the pullet bureau next fall and xi jinping has a clear agenda as to what he wants to do that, the key indicators of how powerful he will be is will he follow the so-called rules that have been followed in the past with regard to age and will he signal the succession, things like this, this will tell us how significant the pushback is as dr. nathan suggested. >> sreenivasan: christopher johnson, andrew nathan, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: it's hard to overstate just how expensive college can be: more than $40,000 a year for a private school, over $34,000 for an out- of-state public school. many students do qualify for greater financial aid, but a startup has come up with a way to let high school students earn money for college much earlier. economics correspondent paul solman has the story, part of his "making sense" series, which airs thursdays on the newshour. >> reporter: at the engineering classroom of a top public magnet school in miami, terra high school, sebastian rodriguez and his team's entry in a national robot competition. >> you had to pick up a lot of wiffle balls and stack them into this canister here and then be able to propel them upwards into six-foot-tall tubes. >> reporter: turns out this whole school is as competitive as the robot-niks; you need high grades and test scores just to get in. you don't get any extra money for having built a really cool robot, do you? >> no, not at all. just the fun of having to build a robot. >> reporter: and why ask about money? because here, kids get paid for achievements through a college scholarship app called raise.me. senior barbara groh. >> they call them micro- scholarships and it's all based on your portfolio, your profile. so, for different aspects of my profile, i can get different amounts of money from different schools. so these are all my ap classes. >> reporter: are these your grades? >> yes. for getting an a, you can get $25-$1,000, depending on the school. >> reporter: more than 140 colleges and universities already, from florida state to oberlin, penn state to notre dame, use their own formulas to offer money in the form of an eventual merit scholarship for high school achievements, starting in 9th grade and guaranteed, though only if the student applies and is actually admitted. raise.me, a private company funded by venture capital and several foundations, charges the schools annual fees to participate. the scholarships are provided by the schools themselves. take an honors or advanced course. >> participating in an extracurricular activity. taking the p.s.a.t.'s, s.a.t.'s. and also for getting good scores, you can get even more money. >> reporter: more money for immediate achievements, says raise.me's founder preston silverman. >> instead of waiting for four years to find out if you're gonna receive any scholarship, students are getting a short feedback loop, each semester, each grade they get. >> it's a huge pool of money that colleges and universities are giving out to kids after they've applied, after they've gotten in, now goes to kids starting as early as ninth grade. >> reporter: yes, it only goes to them as a promise, contingent on acceptance, says raise.me vice president aneesh ramen, but no matter where they go... >> it motivates them to do better in high school and it prepares them better for college so when they go they actually finish, get a diploma, find a job, live the american dream. that's the idea. >> reporter: senior sabrina rosell is one of terra's typically high achievers. but, like almost all the students here-- 40% of whom qualify for federal school lunch aid-- rosell needs help to attend the college of her choice, nearby florida international. it's relatively inexpensive. but then, she has four siblings. >> it may look like my family doesn't qualify for financial aid, but it doesn't mean that i could just dish out this $6,000 for tuition every single year. >> reporter: the $8,000 she's earned on raise.me thus far represents a fair chunk of that tuition. >> it's almost like a gift in exchange for all of our hard work. >> reporter: rosell's fellow students agree. >> i finally found something that i can get from working hard besides just the good feeling from working hard, you know? >> reporter: but if the students at terra don't need the motivational nudge of financial incentives, even if most need the money, students elsewhere seriously need both, says raise.me founder silverman. >> we spend almost all of our time reaching out to schools and school districts that are serving lower income populations and schools that serve a large percentage of first generation college students, because those are the students that we're most passionate about supporting. >> how many of you want to go to college? >> reporter: okay, so next morning we joined a raise.me reach-out rally at a distinctly non-magnet school, carol city high. >> let's take some guesses on what you can earn for different things on raise. everyone who answers right i'll give you a prize. how much do you guys think you can get for getting an a or a b in class? >> 1,000! >> reporter: carol city is just a few miles away from terra, but in terms of academic motivation, a world apart. so will financial incentives work here? >> yes, i do think people would try harder if they knew, like, the benefits of getting money to go to college and be successful in life. >> reporter: christina derby, carol city high's valedictorian, doesn't need the extra incentive. but she too thinks raise.me will instill and reinforce good habits. >> i think as the money accumulates over time then kids will be like 'i shouldn't fall down and get behind in my work, i should actually work harder and do more things because in the end it will pay off.' >> reporter: but kristin clop- fenstine, who studies the economics of education, worries that for many kids, raise.me will simply fall flat. >> a lot of times kids, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, don't understand the path from here to there. and so just saying, oh, we'll reward you if you pass this test, the kids might get all excited about the incentive, but then they have no idea about how to go about actually achieving that goal. >> reporter: especially with so many other distractions. >> another incident of violence hitting too close to a miami- dade school. >> reporter: just hours after we left carol city, there was a drive-by shooting out front. >> a bunch of kids just started running because i heard like shots like pop, pop. security, everybody just told us to get inside. >> i think those kids face an entirely different situation. where when you're in an advantaged background, from an advantaged background, your time horizon can be much longer, you can be looking forward and planning for two, four years down the road. this is the college i want to go to, this is what i want to be when i grow up. if you talk to kids who are in neighborhoods and schools like you're talking about, 'what do you want to be when you grow up?', sometimes the kids will scratch their heads and, you know, 'i don't think that far away; i may not grow up.' >> reporter: but klopfenstine does have an alternative. >> rewards for intermediate actions that lead to positive outcomes. so for reading books or doing positive study skills and behaviors that will lead to higher grades, i'll give you two dollars for every book you read. that has a tremendous impact on reading comprehension. >> reporter: at nearby florida international, however, an urban public university with 55,000 students, 60% of them hispanic, director of admissions jody glassman says raise.me had already had a positive impact: it has raised hopes for those who might not have otherwise applied. >> there's been so much hype: 'is the cost of a college education worth it? are you going to be gainfully employed when you graduate? are you going to graduate with all of this debt?' raise.me really helps us portray to students that college is affordable. >> reporter: and even to the high-achieving students at the magnet school, it turns out, raise.me has had real value: it's ratcheted up even further the drive that already spurs them. >> we're just always competing with each other so if one of them said, "hey, i have eighty grand to, to this school on raise.me" the other one will say, "well i have eighty-two" and we'll just keep going at it and trying to see what we can add to it. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, economics correspondent paul solman, reporting from miami. >> woodruff: now, to venezuela. the oil-rich south american nation is the throes of a deep economic crisis, as its version of socialism faces the crash in global oil prices, and political turmoil. jeffrey brown has our look. >> brown: a symbolic "burning of the judas," something of an easter tradition in some catholic countries. effigies of unpopular figures are set ablaze. this year in venezuela those figures were politicians, including president nicholas maduro and a local mayor. but president obama wasn't spared the torch, either, the u.s. has long been a favorite target of venezuelan anger, and venezuelans have much to enrage them: the global price of oil, venezuela's main commodity, has fallen dramatically, crushing the government's bottom line. meanwhile, the venezuelan central bank began printing money at record levels. the result: massive inflation in the socialist country. the cost of consumer goods increased 275% last year, according to the international monetary fund. and that number is expected to double in 2016 long lines and empty shelves have come to define life for many, as well as anger at the maduro government. in elections last year, the opposition party won a majority of seats in the national parliament. earlier this month, after weeks without water, protests erupted in this san cristobal neighborhood. meanwhile, in caracas, nurses protested a lack of medicines and equipment, while across town, demonstrators called for the president's resignation. and for a look at the crisis facing venezuela, we welcome scott tong of public radio's marketplace. he recently returned from a reporting trip there and scott, i should say was formerly a colleague of ours here at the newshour. so first, welcome to you, scott. >> thanks, jeff. >> brown: alright so venezuela, we hear about the impact of low oil prices in certain countries out there. you saw it up close. you describe a country in economic free-fall, what does that look like? >> oil is everything there. 96% of their export revenue comes from oil. they hardly do anything else there and that's one level of the problem there. since they got oil 100 years ago, the gusher came and it pushed out a lot of other sectors so they don't make much domestically, so everything has to be imported now. and so now the price of oil has fallen. two years ago, it was over 110, it's around 40 now. and so they don't have dollars to import the things. when you fly there and you get there you, you just see lines, everybody's in line. >> brown: everybody's in line for everything. >> for everything. so i traveled to the western city of maracaibo, which is the original oil city in venezuela, and there i got there around 8:30 into a line, and i ran into two sisters. it was 8:30 in the morning and they're already in back. they said "well, if you want to get in front, you're probably there at 1:00 in the morning, sleeping in line." so what they told me, they make minimum wage and they sell empanadas in the street and make 10,000 bolivars, which is ten us dollars right now per month. and they didn't have anything for lunch, they had to try to find whatever they could at the store. there was no guarantee there was going to be anything on the shelves when they got there but they were just going to see. so i went and i bought a hot dog on the streets of caracas. it's called a pepito. it's this big gastronomic, coronary event with all these things on top of it. the first time i went, it was 900 bolivars and i said, i want to go back and get another one. three days later, it was a 1,050. so the prices just go up like that. and i talked the seller and he said well, the input prices are going up like crazy. either he has to stand in line like everyone else does to buy the ketchup and the other things or he goes to the black market, >> brown: that's where i want to go next, because in many countries when you have these shortages that means the black market flourishes. you've been writing, i've been reading your blog posts about that experience. >> in city maracaibo, it's an actual physical place. it's a physical black market, you go behind the plantains and the other produce and you see the illegal things kind of sitting on these little tables. people are a little careful to sell them but it's everything that you and i find in aisle three of the safeway. toilet paper, pampers, kilo sack of rice, corn flour for breakfast. it's the most basic things. so we did a little math, my translator and i, and we found the average markup was 17 times the government set price. so going back to the people in line who are making minimum wage to buy a big can of milk? that's a week of your salary. >> brown: so what kind of response is there from the government at this point? what are they able to do? what are they doing? >> well the government is split right now. the presidency-the socialist party is the ruling part, it controls the presidency. the opposition won the parliament, won the congress. so the opposition wants to get rid of maduro that's what they keep talking about now. when i was there president maduro gave a speech, a five hour speech, where he said okay we're going to solve some of our problems by increasing the price of gasoline, which is almost free. >> brown: it is truly, it is probably the cheapest in the world. >> it is. here's the math, under the new more expensive gasoline price-- i did the math with my translator-- two tanks of gasoline is one bottle of water. it's free. so these reforms, to most people, are meaningless. because inflation by one estimate, the official estimate is 180%, it could be 400. the i.m.f. says it could be 700 this year. your money just isn't worth anything there. >> brown: how much were you able to tell the impact of what's happening economically on the politics there. will the president, how much pressure is he under, will he survive? >> so the people i asked this to-- there are two big questions for 2016. can the country pay off its debt? and if it does, then it will have hardly any money left to import food and medicine, that's question one. the other question is what happens to president maduro. his predecessor hugo chavez was beloved, he was charismatic. the people in the barrios, the slums, tears come to their eyes sometimes when they talk about him. he was truly a beloved figure. nicolas maduro is charisma-less, he doesn't speak well, and now the economy has just collapsed. the question is can the opposition push through the mechanisms in congress and get the signatures to force him from power, but that seems to be their number one priority now. >> brown: scott tung of marketplace, thanks so much. >> thanks jeff. >> woodruff: when the u.s. women's soccer team won the world cup last year, there were celebrations and acclaim for their achievement. but five members of that team have now filed a complaint with the equal employment opportunity commission and say u.s. soccer is practicing wage discrimination. the filing says even though the women's team generated $20 million more in revenue than the men's team, the women earned four times less. the top women on the team earn a salary of $72,000 dollars, plus bonuses. but the women say the gaps in bonuses and other pay is huge. women, for example, can earn $99,000 dollars if they win at least 20 exhibitions a year. men could earn $263,000 for doing the same thing. the women, including hope solo, carli lloyd and alex morgan, appeared on the today show. i have been on this team a decade and a half and i have been through numerous negotiations and, honestly, not much has changed. we continue to be told we should be grateful just to have the opportunity to play professional soccer and get paid for doing it. in this day and age, you know, it's about equality. it's about equal rights. it's about equal pay. >> woodruff: in a statement, u.s. soccer said it was disappointed. >> woodruff: in a statement, u.s. soccer said it was disappointed. it also said later: "we are committed to and engaged in negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement that addresses compensation." we look at this dispute with a former goalie for the u.s. women's team who's played in three world cups including the championship team in 1999. brianna scurry has long spoken out on these issues and joins me now. welcome back to the program. >> thank you for having me. great to be here. >> woodruff: what's the basis for this? you said this goes back a while. how far? >> this goes back decades. back when i first started being on the team in the late '90s, we had this discussions with the u.s. soccer federation. at that time it was about massage therapists and other things like that and also getting paid at all in general, back then was the issue. but now it seems, obviously, that they want equal pay to the men, but the problem is that u.s. soccer states oftentimes their thing is, hey, we sponsor the women, we support the women better than any other federation in the world, they have been pushed to do that and that is why they do that because we have often had to come to the table and do different things and try to get them to move the bar higher like the women have done today. >> woodruff: i was struck about some of the things women spoke about today about playing on artificial turf when they say you're prior prone to injury in that situation. >> yes. >> woodruff: what are some of the factors of life on the soccer circuit, if you will, for women? >> one of the issues you mentioned just now was artificial turf. the women weren't allowed to have their lawsuit go through about being on the turf. they weren't allowed to give their opinion, even though they found companies willing to replace artificial turf with actual natural grass, they weren't allowed to do that. so that's one of the issues they have had over the years. you know, different things like hotel standards, the hotels aren't as nice as the men play at, and now is equal pay, which is the biggest disparity now. >> woodruff: how long have the women players known their pay is that different from what the men are earning? >> i think they've probably known for a while, but i feel like it's not until recently that they really got to see the numbers. in the past, the issue has always been, well, we don't need to pay you the same as we pay the men because you don't make enough revenue in order to sustain that pay. obviously, now, that is no longer the issue. that is not the case anymore. that is no longer the argument they can give, so, now, i feel they should be allowed to ask and get equal pay. >> woodruff: why do you think -- or why are they resorting to going to the federal equal employment opportunity commission? why not try to resolve this through the league, through u.s. soccer, through their own union? >> i am pretty much certain that they have tried. they have probably exhausted every other avenue they could with the exception of filing a lawsuit or a complaint with the federation. i mean, i'm sure they've gone through several rounds of negotiations and trying to get the u.s. soccer federation to move in the right direction of equal pay for equal play. and they're not moving there. to be honest, they probably had their last opportunity and chance to make this happen and this was it. >> woodruff: again, i was struck by u.s. soccer's statement. they went on to say we are proud of the commitment we've made to building the women's game in the united states over the past 30 years. so as we said, they made a litter statement where they commented on compensation. but what do you make of their reaction? >> it's the standard reaction they've always had. it's unfortunate because the bar is so low for every other federation in the world that they can easily claim, yeah, we're the leading company, we're the leading standard in that. but the problem is is that over the last several decades, we've had -- we meaning myself when i played -- we had to push them to a higher standard, and that's because we were winning olympics, we were winning world cups. so they had to have some sort of equality for the women's team, they really couldn't ignore that. so they had to have a higher standard than every other country out there for the women's teams, and that's not necessarily a feather in their cap. it's more so as something that they were obligated to do. >> woodruff: how do you think this will be resolved? >> i really hope it's resolved after this lawsuit's been filed. i really hope it doesn't come down to the women's team feeling they have to strike in order to get equal pay for equal play. i really hope they can come to the table again hopefully soon and get this all resolved because i'm telling you now none of the players that signed the petition and play on the team want to be dealing with any of this now. they're in the process of training for olympic games and that's what they should be focusing on. >> woodruff: brianna scurry, former goalie for the women's winning u.s. soccer team. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: on the newshour online, springtime in washington is unmistakably "pink," thanks to the city's famous cherry blossoms. we visited the iconic tidal basin recently, where the trees were in peak bloom. and we filmed a 360 degree view. you can watch as the sun rises over the jefferson memorial, and view the magnificent scenery from all sides. find that interactive video on our home page, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention. in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> 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 newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org this is "nightly business report." with tyler mathisen and sue herera. turbulent quarter, ugly start, a calm finish, but there was one sector that stood out during the pasthree months for all the wrong reasons. labor shift. net job growth in the past decade has come from contracting gigs. and that's changing a lot more than just how we work. coming soon. what one movie theater is doing to win you back. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for thursday, marc good evening and welcome. sue herera is off tonight. ball games are never won in the first quarter but they can be lost there. and for the first half of this year's first quarter it sure