prevention like i can give for my dogs, because it's an issue for people and their pets alike. >> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.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. >> woodruff: senate republican leaders have spent this day behind closed doors, trying to win over more of their own members in the health care reform fight. majority leader mitch mcconnell has delayed any action until after the fourth of july recess, but a spokesman says he hopes to have a revised bill as soon as friday. at the white house, president trump suggested the effort is "working along very well," despite the obstacles. >> it's very tough. every state is different, every senator is different. but i have to tell you, the republican senators had a really impressive meeting yesterday at the white house. i think we're going to get at least very close, and i think we're going to get it over the line. >> woodruff: later, the president told reporters, "we're going to have a big surprise" on health care. he did not say what that meant. we will hear about all of this from republican senator john thune, after the news summary. the president's former campaign chairman has registered, retroactively, as a foreign agent. paul manafort filed papers tuesday that show his firm was paid more than $17 million by a pro-russian party in ukraine. he resigned from the campaign last august, when word of his consulting work leaked. in march of this year, michael flynn, who had been fired as national security adviser, also registered as a foreign agent. businesses and governments around the globe spent a second day battling a cyber attack. the so-called ransomware assault eased some today, but in the u.s., a subsidiary of fedex was disrupted, and a cadbury chocolate factory in australia had to shut down. in london, british defense secretary michael fallon said is verging on an act of war. >> state or non-state entities, lurking behind a veil of encryption, targeting our national infrastructure, as we saw with the recent cyber strike on parliament itself. that isn't a cold war, that's a grey war, permanently teetering on the edge of outright hostility, hovering around the >> woodruff: the outbreak began in ukraine, where it has done the most damage so far. we will take a closer look, later in the program. the months-long unrest in venezuela took a dramatic turn overnight. the government says a police helicopter opened fire on the nation's supreme court and interior ministry. amateur video captured images of the helicopter, before it disappeared. officials charged the mastermind of the plot was a rogue police pilot and actor. opponents of socialist president nicolas maduro suggested the raid could be a government ploy to justify increased repression. former members of colombia's largest rebel group now face the challenge of re-integrating into society. the one-time fighters of the farc surrendered their weapons at a disarmament camp on tuesday. u.n. inspectors supervised the ceremony. the rebels reached a peace agreement last year, after decades of fighting. in liverpool, england, six people-- most of them police officials-- were charged today in a 1989 soccer stadium disaster. they are accused of offenses ranging from negligence to manslaughter, in the deaths of 96 people. the victims were crushed, when thousands of people pushed into a crowded section of a stadium. police blamed rowdy fans, but the families finally won a new investigation. >> i mean, there are no winners in this. it doesn't bring anybody back from the disaster. but what it does do, is it sends a message out of accountability, as we keep saying that nobody, but nobody, is above the law, be it the police or anybody else. >> woodruff: the accused include the man who was leading police operations at the stadium that day. back in this country, the homeland security department announced that it's stepping up security measures for flights coming into the u.s. they include "enhanced" screening of electronic devices and passengers. airlines that comply could be exempt from an earlier ban on carry-on laptops. those that don't comply may face a total ban on electronic devices. wall street rallied today behind financial and tech stocks. the dow jones industrial average gained nearly 144 points to close at 21,454. the nasdaq rose 87, and the s&p 500 added 21. and michael bond, the creator of the beloved children's literary character, "paddington bear," has died. bond first wrote "a bear called paddington" in 1958. the globe-trotting teddy eventually starred in more than 20 books, several tv shows and a 2014 movie. michael bond was 91 years old. still to come on the newshour: republican senators speed up their efforts to revise the g.o.p.'s health care bill. new poll numbers reveal what the nation thinks about that, and the president. a massive cyber attack spreads throughout the globe. and, much more. >> woodruff: here's a question, what's next in the republican effort to repeal and replace obamacare? i spoke earlier with one of the senators who helped write the now-delayed bill, john thune of south dakota. he is chairman of the republican conference, making him the third-ranking republican in the senate. senator thune, thank you for joining us. i want to start out asking you where the negotiations stand this afternoon. the president acknowledged today that it's going to be very tough, but then he went on to say there's a big surprise coming. do you know what he was talking about? >> well, i'm not sure what that is, judy, but thank you. it's nice to be with you. i think the state of negotiations at the moment are we're still having conversations and working through the issues that right now are, i think, keeping us from getting to a consensus, and i hope that eventually we'll be able to work through those. but that's the next few days. and i think the goal is, as much as we khave at least sort of a framework in place by the end of the week that we can send to the congressional budget office to get scoring back so that when we come back after the fourth of july break next week, the following week, we can move a bill to the floor, get it up and get to work on it and open up the amendment process and hopefully eventually pass it. >> woodruff: what is the bigger challenge, senator? is it appealing to the moderates who believe that the cuts in medicaid and other parts of the bill are too hard on those of lower income, or is it the more conservative members who want a bigger repeal of obamacare? >> it's kind of a combination. and it's really-- you know, there are some things, judy, in this process that you can dial back and forth. and we've been trying to turn those dials as much as we can to bring people on board. but we do have the more conservative members in our conference who have specific things that they want to see dreesed in this bill. and then we've got more moderate members who, as you mentioned, are concerned about medicaid and trying to put, you know, the final touches on that. >> woodruff: well, let me pick up on the medicaid point because we are hearing today from more health care experts who say these medicaid changes would force the states to make some very tough decisions about what they're going to pay for. they talk about things like in-home services for the elderly, for people with disabilities. and they say those could be in very serious jeopardy. >> well, look, i think the thing with med choir and a lot of-- i should say, with medicaid, and this is going to depend-- states are going to be in a position to have a lot of flexibility. what this does is allow them to choose the two base years they calculate their reimbursement levels on. and there's a separate reimbursement for elderly, so for nursing home resimulates, another one for the blind and disabled, another one for children, and yet another one for able-bodied adults, and they value per-cap taallotments. and those are inflated over the years, the next decade, increased at the rate of inflation. so they have to figure out how to take those dollars and put them to the best use in the state. >> woodruff: speaking of state by state, the center for american progress took those c.b.o. numbers, they broke those down by state. they looked at south dakota, your home state, and they determined almost scir,000 fewer south dakotans would be covered by the senate plan in 2026, than in the a.c.a. remained in effect, and that includes something like 40,000 on medication caid, 24,000 on the individual market. how would you deal with that? >> i don't know how they would-- how they came up with that number? in my state, we weren't in the expansion state. and we managed the medicaid program in a cost-effective way. people in the individual marketplace should have more options. the discussion we have out there today, which is in the process, of course, of being modified, actually opens up for people who are 0% to 100% of the federal poverty level, not eligible for med quaid, would open up the opportunity for them to purchase insurance with help from the federal government. and in my state, that's 37,000 people. so there are 37,000 people today who don't have access to health insurance that would, under the proposal that the discussion draft at least that is out there today. >> woodruff: another subject, senator, a lot of reporting in the last few days about president trump's role in all this. a number of reports saying the president is not as steeped in the details as he might otherwise be, and that he doesn't have a strong view of how this should come out, that mainly his view is he just wants to see something passed. what is your-- how would you describe the president's role? >> i think he does want a reresult. he clearly, in the meeting that we had about him yesterday, was trying to sort of push the process along, realizing that the senate has a role to play and that there are differences of opinion. and i think he got a flavor yesterday for what we've been hearing in our meetings with republican senators because some of those differences came out. but i think the president is engaged. he's, obviously, talking to individual senators about their specific concerns. he's talking to groups of senators. he had all of us down there yesterday. so i think he wants to get a result, judy. and he wants it to be a health care plan proposal that we can go out there and defend and that he can defend and argue for to the american people. and i still think we're going to get there. >> woodruff: last weekend, i'm sure you know, there was a pro-trump political action commit they ran an attack ad, essentially, against senator dean heller of nevada, who was at that point expressing concerns about the health care bill. and the reporting is that leader mcconnell called the white house, said that this was stupid to do. is this something that you and other republicans have let the white house know you don't want them to do? i mean, what are you saying to the white house about this? >> i think it's been conveyed in pretty uncertain-- i should say certain terms that, that's a bad idea. you know, particularly in the middle of a discussion where you're trying to get to a result on a major consequential issue like, this you don't want to have one of your own members being attacked. we need to get to 50, but that works a lot better if members are allowed to be able to discuss it with their colleagues, with their constituents, and not have the threat of a political campaign hanging out there over their head. >> woodruff: and finally, just quickly, senator thune, any serious discussion of including democrats in these deliberations? >> it's my preferred working style here is to have bipartisan legislation. i think what the democrats have made clear is that they don't want to deal with anything that repeals and i think they wouldn't want to do anything that gets rid of the mandates, which is a big part of our proposal, getting rid of the individual employer mandates. they would want to keep the taxes, and we want to do away with taxes that are driving up the costs of premiums. so i think it would be hard to see a scenario where democrats would be willing to come to the table in good faith and actually work with us on a solution that meets those-- you know, those requirements. >> woodruff: senator john thune, a member of the republican leadership, thank you very much. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: the newshour, in partnership with the marist institute for public opinion and npr, is out with a new poll that looks at americans' opinions on president trump, healthcare, the economy and more. joining me now to dig into the results are lee miringoff of marist, and amy walter of the cook political report. welcome to both of you. lee, i'm going to start with you. let's look at one of the questions, first, about the republican health care plan. >> sure. >> woodruff: in the senate. this is the plan the president is pushing for. you asked people their assessment of the senate plan. what did you find? >> well, it was very poor in terms of public opinion. and what's fascinating in the numbers is even a plurality of republicans around the nation are unsure on terms of the senate health care plan. so the republicans took a very big risk going forward with something when they didn't even have their core following soledly behind them. and i think the proof is in the results. the democrats, obviously, were opposed. independents have been scurrying away from the republicans and questioning president trump and republicans in congress in greater numbers. so as far as the health care proposal is concerned, it clearly did not have the kind of support that you would want to go forward with if you're trying to make such a major change. >> woodruff: just to quickly go over the numbers, approval overall, 17% of the senate plan, disapproval 55%. and then when you ask people if they approved of the way republicans in congress are handling health care, it was 21% approval, 65% disapproval. amy, what does all this tell you? >> yeah. well, lee makes a very good point. it's that even among republicans, there's not a tremendous amount of support, not only for the bill, but for the way that republicans in congress are handling it. i think a very small plurality of republicans said they like the job that republicans in congress are doing on this. quite frankly, republicans have not done a very good job shaping and defining this bill. it's being defined by what it isn't as much as by what it is. and that's pretty scheer in the polling data that we're seeing here. the other interesting thing they found in the poll was when they asked the question request b, "who would you blame if this all falls apart, if there's no repeal of obamacare?" and most americans-- this is true of democrat, republican, ?pped-- they don't blame donald trump. they either blame republicans-- independents and democrats say they blame republicans in congress-- republicans blame democrats. but trump gets very little blame. >> even though obamacare doesn't really have a champion right now, most of the talk has been how to replace and repeal, it remains popular with americans, and i think the republica proposal not only wasn't well organized, it really flew in the face of what public opinion is, really going uphill on this, and i think that's why they've had such a difficult time with it. >> woodruff: so, lee, you also asked the generic question, what do people think of the job the president is doing? and i think not surprising along party lines, large majority of republicans like what he's doing. a large majority of democrats dislike it. but among independents, some interesting results. >> yeah, the independents are the group, of course, in the middle, and, you know, they're much more like democrats right now than republicans in terms of their attitude. and they have grown in their disapproval of president trump since the first poll right after he took office. and now, almost 60% of independents have a negative view of him. and those numbers have gone up, the negative ?rbz. so there's a real question on their part about the direction the country is going in and a lot of other concerns that they have on an issue-by-issue basis, health care being one, but others of concern to independents as well. they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt initially, but that has certainly evaporated and whatever political capital he had with this group, that's been well spent or has been spent, i should say. >> woodruff: amy what, do you see in these numbers, especially among independents? >> lee framed it perfectly, which is whatever benefitted the doubt, they may have been giving the president in january, and it was a very thin benefit, it's been dried up pretty well by now. but you're also looking, if you just think historically or look historically, what it means to have support for independents this low, and if you look at the last midterm elections where a president had low approval ratings with independents that the number, somewhere between 30%, 35% approval rating among independents, they went-- to lose a very large number of seats in that midterm election. and that really could be the tipping point for a lot of these republicans, too, who are up in 2018. they may sit in districts that a republican carried or are republican leaning, but they couldn't on independents coming over and support offin supportin the november election. if those independents are feeling dissatisfied or feeling disspirited, or, quite frankly, they're feeling angry-- that's the other important thing to note about this poll. it's not just that independents felt like they didn't approve of donald trump. their strong disapproval ratings of donald trump are somewhere-- president trump-- are somewhere in the 40% range versus just i think it's in the teens that strongly support him. so that intensity of disapproval say real-- should be a real warning sign for all republicans, especially those who up in 2018. >> woodruff: very quickly, lee, you also asked a question i hadn't seen before, and that was comparing who was a more effective leader, president trump or former president obama. 34%, pau president trump. 58%, president obama. >> former presidents always look better after they've completed their term in office, but at this point in president obama's administration, in '09, his numbers were in the mid-50s. contrast that with low to mid-30s with donald trump, and you see the the answer to the question why is this president having such a difficult time in the court of public opinion? >> woodruff: all right, fascinating numbers. there's more there. i know everybody will want to big in. you can find it on our website. in the meantime, lee miringoff of marist, amy walter of the cook political report, thank you, both. >> you're welcome, judy. >> woodruff: and just one more of the poll's findings-- when asked about the president's financial dealings, 33% of those polled believe he has done something illegal. 28% feel he has done something unethical, but not illegal. and 31% believe he has done nothing wrong. our correspondent john yang takes a closer look at ethical concerns over the president's business interests and his unprecedented early re-election run. >> reporter: the day president trump took the oath of office, he did something no chief executive before him had ever done on inauguration day-- filed the paperwork to be an official candidate for re-election. the move allows him to raise money-- more than $13 million in the first three months of the year-- and hold rallies paid for by his campaign, like this one last week in cedar rapids, iowa. >> we're not even campaigning, and look at the crowd. >> reporter: but he is campaigning. his first re-election event was just 29 days into his presidency. all his five campaign-paid rallies have been in states he won in last year's election: florida, kentucky, tennessee, pennsylvania and iowa. campaign events give him greater flexibility, like being able to sell "make america great again" merchandise. >> this is an opportunity for the president to spread his message directly to his most active and energized supporters. it's also an opportunity to raise money, to sell merchandise. in some cases, like the fundraiser here in washington, it's an opportunity to patronize his own business establishments. >> and i am here to tell you about our incredible progress in make america great again. >> reporter: they've been vintage donald trump. >> we are going to start taking care of our country. >> reporter >> reporter: and they seem to boost mr. trump's mood-- getting him out of washington and in front of enthusiastic crowds. tonight, here at the trump international hotel, just five blocks away from the white house, the first big fundraiser of the 2020 campaign. it's benefiting both the trump campaign and the republican national committee. the top ticket is $35 thousand a head. the choice of venue highlights the flow of campaign cash into trump organization businesses-- a practice, which is legal, of his first run, that continues in his bid for re-election. the trump campaign declined a request to comment for this story. but, deputy campaign manager michael glassner told the associated press that they chose the trump hotel because it's a "premier and convenient location." the president has walked away from day-to-day management of his hotels, golf courses and other businesses, placing all his assets into a trust-- of which he's the sole beneficiary. ethics lawyer kenneth gross says he's never seen a candidate pay so much money to his own businesses. >> what we saw during the campaign is, the campaign committee paying trump facilities, whether it's the trump hotel or mar-a-lago, or renting space from the trump tower in new york, which it did, for the campaign headquarters. buying trump steaks, trump vodka, trump wine, trump ice. all this is money from the campaign that eventually goes to fatten the wallets of trump inc. i don't know anything illegal about having a campaign do a campaign visit at your own owned facility, as long as it's arms length. and i think from an appearance standpoint, it's not great. >> reporter: the re-election campaign spent $6.3 million in the first three months of the year-- more than $450,000 of it to trump businesses, including rent at the trump tower in new york and trump hotels in new york and las vegas, catering from trump restaurants, and thousands of dollars for trump bottled water. critics say holding campaign events at trump properties also gives them free publicity and added prestige. a lawsuit from the democratic attorneys general of maryland and the district of columbia alleges, since mr. trump took office, "goods and services sold by various trump businesses have sold at a premium." it said room rates at his d.c. hotel have gone up "hundreds of dollars." >> never in the history of this country have we had a president with these kinds of extensive business entanglements. or a president who refused to adequately distance themselves from his holdings. >> reporter: white house press secretary sean spicer called the suit "partisan politics." tonight, at the trump hotel fundraiser, the only politics on anybody's mind is likely to be the 2020 campaign, as the man who re-wrote the book on running for president appears to be trying to re-write the book on running for re-election. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang in washington. >> woodruff: as we reported earlier, governments and industries the world over are trying to deal with effects of the latest in a series of cyber attacks. the so-called ransomware assault is the second such strike in the last six weeks. hari sreenivasan in new york has more. >> sreenivasan: this ransomware attack originated yesterday in ukraine, and rapidly spread through europe, and beyond. the virus is called petya, and it takes over infected computers, effectively locking out users. a payment is required to return control of the machine and data. in early may, a similar virus called wanna cry spread to over 150 countries. this new attack shows signs of greater technical sophistication, but both apparently used, in part, a tool developed by the u.s. national security agency, a tool that was leaked into the open last year. with me now for more on this is rodney joffe. he is the senior vice president and national security executive for neustar, a cyber-security firm. rodney, it seems that we have not learned that much from what happened two months ago, but it seems that the attackers have learned a little bit more. >> there's no question that this is more sophisticated. when we look at the code, when we look at the mechanism that was used, this one is much more sophisticate. it actually uses three different vectors we've seen so far. the verkt you're talking about that was used in wanna cry, is the third option that is used by this one. it uses two others, but the damage is much more significant in this case. this is not looking like a-- so much like ransomware anymore but it's starting to look like it's a deliberate attempt to cause havoc by destroying machines. >> sreenivasan: is this something that a hacker collective would do, or is this something that a state government would be interested in doing, destabilizing ukraine from all of these companies that do business with it or pay taxes to it? >> you know, it's real tough these days to tell where the dividing line is between the criminals and nation states, and they really do work hand in hand, especially in eastern europe. but if you look at-- the criminals are obviously out there for financial gain. this was set up in such a way that there's very little chance of much in terms of financial gain. i think as of last evening, by the way, there was $10,500 that had actually paid into this wallet. and i have to tell you the effort that went into writing the code and distributing tclearly cost a lot more than $10,500. >> sreenivasan: what is the measurable impact on ukraine going forward? >>ening that the biggest problem that they're going to be facing is the fact that the ability to pay taxes to the state is seriously affected. we've seen images that were tweeted of things like supermarkets where the checkout systems had been compromised and were showing the screen. we also see-- obviously, the multinational shipping line that has now been affected. so it looks like a deliberate attempt to cause some kind of significant financial impact, not just on the citizens of ukraine, but on ukraine itself. >> sreenivasan: you know, when you said you noticed differences in the design between wanna cry and this, do we have any indication that paying these people off actually get you your dat back or was it not designed to do that? >> theoretically, it was designed to do, that but it's clear so far that the mechanism to put in place to actually collect ransom is nowhere near the sophistication of the malware itself. and you don't think that someone would have made that kind of mistake, built something that was very, very effect toif compromise, and no real ability to collect. we haven't seen or heard of anyone so far who has been able to decrypt it. and what we also know is within a very short time, after the malware was discovered, the single email address that was needed to communicate with was actually shut down by the provider. so that's one reason that i believe that no one is going to be able to easily get their data back. the second thing is that there are reports that are surfacing now, as folks have looked at the code, that there is at least one bug in the code that actually makes it so the encryption is not possible. >> sreenivasan: are the rest of us basically collateral damage when it comes to what's happening, say, between ukraine and russia? this is falling on the day now where this is constitution day for ukraine. they're celebrating their independence from russia 21 years ago. >> we clearly are collateral damage. this was, obviously, targeted at ukraine. but it is affecting others. however, one of the things that we've learned in the past is that in many ways, the people behind a lot of the malware don't care about the collateral damage. they have a single target or single objective, and they don't really seem to care. we've seen that for years, this is no different. >> sreenivasan: rodney joffe joining us from washington, d.c. tonight. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: why there is still no vaccine for lyme disease. and from the newshour bookshelf, best-selling author scott turow and his latest legal thriller, set after the bosnian war. but first, britain's prime minister theresa may has promised a national investigation into the exterior paneling, called cladding, used on high-rise buildings. this, in the wake of the london apartment fire two weeks ago that left at least 80 dead. testing shows that the paneling is highly flammable, and is found on apartment blocks around britain. it is thought to have accelerated the fire. the disaster at grenfell tower has seriously undermined confidence in may's conservative, minority government. many believe the tragedy could mark a turning point in how britain cares for its poorest citizens. from london, malcolm brabant reports. >> reporter: the faces of grenfell tower haunt the streets of north kensington. hope that the missing will ever be found has long expired. two weeks on, the official death toll remains at 79. this traumatized community is convinced at least 100 perished, if not more, in what was a high rise crematorium. >> grenfell is a monumental disaster on a scale that we've not seen for a generation. it raises huge issues about how britain cares for people who are poorer in our social housing in particular, who need the state to house them. it's absolutely clear that what we've seen is gross negligence or corporate manslaughter. >> reporter: the memorials proffer silent protests and demand reform. lawmaker david lammy, who lost a friend in the fire, is leading the charge. >> at its heart, brits like to see themselves as fair and as tolerant. what they saw in grenfell has alarmed them. they really saw the face of a welfare state that has largely disappeared. i do believe grenfell is a turning point. it's a hurricane katrina moment. >> reporter: during urgent safety spot checks in 120 public housing blocks across britain, cladding in every single case failed fire resistance tests. in the london borough of camden, the risk to tenants was compounded by other inadequate fire protection measures and considered so severe that the council ordered the immediate evacuation of 4,000 people over last weekend. >> i think they're behaving ridiculous, to be quite honest with you. because they've known for seven years about all this stuff. >> the system is broken, it's cracking up, and it's evident to see for everybody. >> reporter: as refugees from the wars of former yugoslavia alen and andrea kevric are used to leaving home in a hurry. the council gave them $7,500 for temporary accommodation during repairs, but a private rental agency rejected them. >> they actually realized who we are-- that we are plebs from social housing. and they don't want us there. this is reality about how people are treated in this country. >> reporter: according to local council officials, the fire department recommended evacuation, but hundreds of residents refused to move. the kevics, who have four children, are uncertain about their immediate future in a country that has become their home. in common with many immigrants, they have low-paid jobs and are priced out of london's expensive housing market. >> to make some kind of decent living, i have to be in social housing, which i'm very lucky to be in because it's so rare and hard to come by. i was lucky to get it and my rent is considerably reduced, but even with that, we just make ends meet. >> the divide between rich and poor unfortunately only gets exposed with the worst kind of disasters. history will teach us as well that's the only way we can actually ask for change. >> reporter: this crisis coincides with a slew of reports highlighting poverty in britain. the u.n. children's agency unicef says britain has some of the highest levels of hunger and deprivation amongst the world's richest nations. it claims that one in three british children experience poverty in terms of food, clothing and social activities. the housing charity shelter warns a million families could be made homeless by 2020. volunteers at this food bank in the heart of london are taking delivery of donations that will help sustain 50 people. the food bank charity trussell trust is reporting today that four in five of its clients are going hungry for days at a time. >> a big group of those are not receiving their benefits, benefit delays. the next biggest group are low income. and these are people who are just managing. and one crisis, a cancelled day's work, an additional bill, a sick child, any of those issues can tip them into desperately needing more assistance. >> reporter: dr. youssef el gingihy, a general practitioner and author who has campaigned against cuts in the national health service, believes britain's political tide is turning irrevocably. >> austerity kills. this terrible tragedy with the grenfell tower fire has unfortunately become this grim monument, this rather ghastly memorial for this conservative government's austerity regime of massive cuts to public spending, particularly on public services. >> reporter: the argument about austerity erupted in parliament today. >> questions for the prime minister, jeremy corbyn? >> this disregard for working class communities, the terrible consequences of deregulation and cutting corners-- i urge the prime minister to come up with the resources needed to test and remove classing, retrofit sprinklers, properly fund the fire service and the police so that all our communities can truly feel safe in their own homes. >> the cladding of tower blocks did not start under this government. it did not start under the previous coalition government. the cladding of tower blocks began under the blair government. >> reporter: it's been ten years since tony blair was prime minister. under corbyn, labour has returned to its socialist roots, and a rock star welcome at last weekend's glastonbury music festival showed his popularity amongst young people. >> is it right that so many people in our country have no home to live in, and only a street to sleep on? >> no! >> is it right that so many people live in such poverty in a society surrounded by such riches? no, it, obviously, is not. >> did you like it? >> >> reporter: conservatives like camden councilor claire-louise leyland are fighting a rearguard action against corbyn's portrayal of the conservatives as uncaring. >> it's duplicitous and unhelpful for people dealing with trauma to try to turn this into such a simple argument. difficult choices were made. things happened that shouldn't have happened, and we need to really explore what went wrong. >> reporter: as the politicians fight for the moral high ground over grenfell, yet another report on divided britain has come out today by a commission which says that over the past two decades, consecutive labour and conservative governments have failed to reduce the gap between the have's and have not's. the study by the social mobility commission warns that without radical and urgent reform, the social and economic divisions in british society will widen even further, threatening community cohesion and economic prosperity. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in london. >> woodruff: this is peak season in the united states for lyme disease, as people spend more time outdoors and can be at risk for tick bites. each year, at least 30,000 cases are reported, and researchers believe those estimates are low. given its debilitating effects on some people, and given years of research, it begs the question: why is there still no vaccine people can get to prevent lyme disease? miles o'brien has been exploring that for his weekly reports on "the leading edge" of science and technology. >> why don't you have a seat there? >> sure. >> reporter: it looks like a routine medical visit, but dr. linden hu of tufts university is prepping a patient for a procedure that would tick me off. >> so now, we're going to just put the ticks in there. they move really fast, so you keep an eye, too. >> reporter: he is placing 28 larval ticks on a volunteer's arm, hoping they will help solve some of the mysteries of lyme disease. >> i'm nervous. i'm not particularly thrilled having 30 ticks in my arm. >> reporter: kyran romanowski was diagnosed with lyme disease in june of 2016. his symptoms: achy joints, fatigue and memory recall lapses have persisted long after he stopped taking antibiotics. >> why am i still having these symptoms, when i had all these courses of treatment? you know, is the bacteria still in my body? i don't know. >> reporter: neither do doctors. about 10% to 15% of people who get lyme report stubborn symptoms for months, even years, even after antibiotic treatment. is it lingering damage from lyme? are the body's natural defenses stuck in attack mode? or is it something else? >> another possibility is that the bacteria persist, and they haven't been eradicated by the antibiotic treatment, and that the immune system may still be recognizing them and fighting them and causing symptoms of inflammation and infection. >> reporter: could the lyme disease bacteria, borrelia burgdorferi, be cleverly hiding inside the human body? doctors cannot detect the organisms using existing blood tests, but dr. hu hopes borrelia and ticks are like magnet and steel. >> the bacteria are so well adapted to their natural vector, the tick, that they're able to sense the tick, and the tick acts as a concentrating vessel to allow you to better sample what's in the host. >> reporter: after removing these ticks, dr. hu will grind them up and test them for the lyme bacteria. the ticks have been bred in the lab, under sterile conditions, so if borrellia is there, it can only have come from the patient. deploying ticks as bacteria detectors may seem far from a practical test, but it could give researchers some ideas on how to devise one. rheumatologist allen steere and his team at massachusetts general hospital are working on better tests and treatments as well. his lab is filled with more than 40 years of blood, cells and tissues samples from lyme sufferers. in 1975, steere was the investigator who first connected the dots between a cluster of children with symptoms of arthritis in lyme, connecticut, and what came to be known as lyme disease. >> my career has largely been focused on the elucidation of lyme disease in human patients, what it's like clinically, development of diagnostic test and treatment strategies with various courses antibiotic therapy but then also prevention of the disease by vaccination. >> reporter: the lyme disease vaccine which he helped develop is a sore subject. sold under the brand name lymerix, by smithkline beecham, now glaxo smithkline, it was first prescribed in 1998. it was 80% effective at stemming the disease. but, hundreds of recipients claimed the vaccine made their lyme symptoms worse. federal investigators found no scientific proof the vaccine was the cause of their complaints, but anti-vaccine advocacy groups threatened class action lawsuits, and sales plummeted. in 2002, smithkline took lymerix off the market. >> i think the time has come to reconsider the decision. lyme disease is the only infection that i know of for which there is an effective vaccine, but it's not available to the public. >> reporter: unless you happen to be a dog. giselle, the miniature dachshund, is getting her lyme vaccine shot at the angell animal medical center run by the massachusetts society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. her owner is veterinarian susan o'bell. >> i just feel very fortunate that there are several lyme vaccine options for dogs. although, i have to say, when i pull ticks off of my children, i wish that i had some easy options like vaccination or prevention like i can give for my dogs, because it's an issue for people and their pets alike. it sure seems like something we should be working on to prevent, one way or another. >> reporter: and in fact, the french biotech firm valneva is in the first phase of u.s. food and drug administration testing of a new vaccine that is similar to lymerix. in the 15 years since the vaccine was pulled off the market, lyme has exploded into an epidemic. 300,000 people get it every year. kyran romanowski hopes his five-day stint of tick hosting will in some way help reduce that number. >> some people are grossed out"" why would you do that?" and i told someone, they freaked out." you don't put 30 ticks on you! are you crazy?" >> reporter: he may not be squeamish, but he was pretty happy when dr. hu took them off. >> glad to see him go, mr. romanowski? >> i am ecstatic. >> reporter: dr. hu would share that emotion, if his results would stop this raging, uncontrolled epidemic. for the pbs newshour, i'm miles o'brien in boston. >> woodruff: now, a best-selling novelist takes on war crimes. jeffrey brown has our latest addition to the "newshour bookshelf." >> brown: in 2004, 400 people were rounded up from their homes in a village in bosnia, and buried alive in an old coal mine. but, did this mass killing really happen? and if so, who were the perpetrators? those questions must be decided at the international criminal court in the netherlands. it's the setting for a new legal thriller titled, "testimony" and a new setting for acclaimed author scott turow, the attorney and writer whose work has sold more than 30 million copies since his debut novel, "presumed innocent." i'm not going to name all the other best-sellers, but it's nice to talk to you here. >> jeff, it's nice to talk to you. >> brown: you have left behind the fictional kindle county, the setting that many of us are familiar with. the place that's sort of familiar to, similar to chicago. for a much broader palette. why? >> right, well, bill ten boom is you know, i just sort of accumulated a writer's bucket list and one of the things, years ago, i decided i would write about at some point, is the international criminal court and the hague, just because i'd never read anything set there. >> brown: so you started with the idea of the court. >> i did, for sure. >> brown: something intrigued you about those kinds of trials? >> i had been in the hague in the year 2000, and found myself at a party surrounded by american lawyers who were saying, "you've got to write about this place." and unlike most times when, you know, people have ideas about aunt tilly's watch, or their divorce, this sounded like it could actually make an interesting setting. >> brown: you have the legal background, you're an attorney. how much research goes into all of these stories that you write? >> a lot. i'm a year off my usual cycle in this case, because i went to the netherlands twice; i went to bosnia once. i had a lot to learn about first the court, even more to learn about the roma people. and of course, the bosnian conflict, about which i was inexcusably ignorant. >> brown: so this is set in the aftermath of the bosnian war. >> right. >> brown: it's about a group of roma, often known as gypsies. >> right. >> brown: who are still living there. >> right. >> brown: but resettled there. >> yeah. we settled in the fictional world, resettled after the bosnian war, driven out of kosovo and have chosen to live right near the american nato bases in bosnia, which were there for a decade after the war, sort of to keep the peace. >> brown: so you have this big story, you have this history. but the way in, as always, is a particular character. in this case, a lawyer from kindle county. >> from kindle county. >> brown: yeah. >> the former u.s. attorney in kindle county. >> brown: a very successful man, but who is unfulfilled. >> right. thrown his life up for grabs, says that he has never felt fully at home with himself. and that helps explain why he'd be willing to leave the united states to work overseas. >> brown: and is that the way in for you, really? >> what interested me was when i found that the united states congress had passed a law called the u.s. service members protection act, which says that the president has authority to forcibly rescue anybody-- any american serviceman charged before the international criminal court. so of course, the novelist says, "ah, good, conflict." and so the idea of an american prosecutor investigating, among other suspects, american service members, was immediately interesting. >> brown: we can't go into all the details of this plot here but, i mean, it's fair to say that the book continues what, i think i can call, your own complicated relationship to the law? >> yeah, i think so. >> brown: you know, as a kind of a both noble calling, but also the-- what's the word? --tawdriness, in some ways, of the law. >> there cannot be any greater challenge to the law than trying to adjudicate mass crimes like war crimes. >> brown: yeah. i keep thinking, in your work and in this one, that most of us see the legal system as a way to get at the truth. do you think of it as that, or as a way to get at a truth, or what's going on there and what is it that helps-- translates for you as a novelist? >> well, you know, i really think of a trial of a lawsuit as an exercise in history. and people are offering competing visions of what happened in the past. and the justice system is willing to accept either of those competing visions and to impose consequences as a result. when you think of it that way, it's a little bit startling, because we want to believe that there is one truth and therefore, one justice. whereas, if you've practiced law as long as i have, you realize that there is actually a range of acceptable outcomes. >> brown: yes. of course, these days, truth is kind of a fraught... >> yes, it's-- >> brown: but it always-- it sounds like it always has been for you. >> well, it is in the courtroom. and it was frustrating for me as a prosecutor, when i wrote "presumed innocent." originally, i didn't say who had committed the crime. and i had a long heart-to-heart with myself about the purpose of the mystery. and one thing that the mystery does is deliver to us a certainty that life and the courtroom very often can't. >> brown: has that continued? because i actually saw an interview where you said, "i'm a big believer in the fact that all authors really write only one book." >> right. i think that's true. the older i get, the more i'm trying to figure out what the book is and why. i know that in a book like "testimony," issues like identity are enormously important. no character is fully at home. and i have a hard time isolating what it is in myself that makes me so fascinated with that theme, because i came from a normal upper middle class family. and yet, as i look back at my books, the uses of power, issues of identity-- it's recurrent. it happens again and again. >> brown: well, many people continue to read your one book in its many forms. >> fortunately for me! >> brown: good for you. >> i'm grateful to all of them. >> brown: the new one is "testimony." scott turow, nice to talk to you. thanks. >> jeff, it's good to talk to you, too. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now: a new biography of prince charles reveals a side of the heir to the british throne that most haven't seen before. you can watch margaret warner's full interview with author sally bedell smith on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again right here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the wellbeing of humanity around the world, by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at www.rockefellerfoundation.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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org is brought to you by: the university of central florida- by: kroll incorporated and by: a complete list of funders is available at: (chuck woods) they were calling in students as well as faculty and staff, and harassing them. (rev. jensen-forbell) they questioned me for 15, 16, 17 hours. i was there all night, till the next day. (chuck woods) i was terrified when they called me in there, i just didn't know what to expect. i denied everything, and that, that was the end of it.

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