Student Protests Continue, The Week In Trump Trials, UNRWA Report

Today on the podcast, ongoing demonstrations on college campuses across the country.

We have the latest.

and at the Supreme Court, where his attorneys took some extreme positions.

Stay with us.

We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

Her latest research into the intimate relationships people are having with chatbots.

Technologies that say, I care about you, I love you, I'm here for you, take care of me.

The pros and cons of artificial intimacy.

That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

NPR Music, where we discuss Latinx culture, music, and heritage with the artists that

create it.

Listen now to the Alt Latino podcast from NPR.

First up today, students protest on college campuses across the country.

At schools like Columbia University, Yale, and Harvard, demonstrations of solidarity

with the people of Gaza.

Hundreds have been arrested.

And here is Jasmine Garst, who's been covering the protest and joins us from New York.

Jasmine, thanks for being with us.

That wasn't the case a week ago when NYPD got called in to disperse the encampment and

over 100 students were arrested.

The president of Columbia, Manoush Shafiq, has come under fire for calling the police.

And many Columbia faculty members have condemned the decision.

Earlier this week, I spoke to Professor Thomas Howley.

force has attracted more radical elements that are not part of our student protest community

and don't share the values of our students.

was ultimately ineffective.

She said the university is focusing on negotiating with students.

financial ties to Israel and divest.

Now what's really unprecedented here is that while you expect this type of activism at

schools like, I don't know, UC Berkeley, the protests have also moved into schools

like University of Southern California or Cal Poly, which are not historically associated

with this kind of activism.

A couple of schools have experienced similar aggressive police response.

There were over 100 arrests at the University of Texas in Austin and the University of Southern

California.

Emory University's student newspaper reported that the Atlanta police deployed gas into

a crowd of protesters.

What did you find on campus?

students expressed fear and anger.

Here's Noah Fay.

of my friends and family.

I am not afraid anymore.

So why should the administration be?

She pointed out that one of the leaders of the Columbia encampment in a social media

video called for the death of Zionists.

He's since apologized and been barred from campus.

Now a few days ago, I also had a chance to sit down with Sarah Boris.

She's one of the students who were arrested last week at Columbia.

She's been suspended.

She can't go back on campus.

She herself is Jewish.

And she says the only thing making her feel unsafe right now is the heightened police

presence.

of our campus.

I don't think anyone feels safe on our campus because of the way that Manoush Shafik and

the administration have escalated the situation.

Jew.

So the University of Southern California has canceled its main graduation ceremony.

And speaking to students from different colleges, I've heard of speakers stepping down, venues

canceling.

It's going to be a very different graduation season.

As for Columbia, they're hoping to continue negotiating with the students and getting

that encampment cleared in time for graduation on May 14th.

to mount defenses on a number of fronts.

This week, a tabloid publisher told a New York jury about his efforts to pay off people

with salacious stories about Donald Trump before the 2016 election.

pertaining to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

And PR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson is following all of this.

Carrie, thanks so much for being with us.

How do you read what happened there?

criminal prosecution.

This would be for his efforts to cling to power after the 2020 election.

And Donald Trump's lawyer, John Sauer, took some heat this week for his extreme positions,

things like arguing Trump might be able to use the military to mount a coup attempt or

to kill a Trump rival.

But most of the conservative justices seemed a lot more concerned about tying a future

president's hands than about violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Here's Justice Samuel Alito talking to the government lawyer, Michael Dreeben.

You don't think he's in a special, a peculiarly precarious position?

Roberts, really seem worried about prosecutors hounding a future president, even though the

lawyer for the Justice Department said the country hasn't faced these kinds of questions

since Richard Nixon.

What did some of the more liberal justices say?

into the Constitution, but that they had decided not to do that because they didn't want some

kind of all-powerful monarch.

Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson said she feared giving a president too much power, giving

him a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Here's more from Justice Jackson.

know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.

who's charged with subverting the will of voters while he's running to return to the

White House this year.

Trump, of course, has pleaded not guilty.

January 6 case against Donald Trump.

Carrie, can you venture any inferences from the questioning you heard this week?

wanted to give the president some protection from criminal prosecution.

And they may want to draw some lines between actions that a president takes as a part of

his job and ones that are simply personal.

Now, that kind of opinion could take a long time to write, especially if the justices

want to send the case back to the lower courts for more fact-finding.

The chances for a trial in Washington, D.C., for Donald Trump before the November election

now seem pretty slim to none.

be in New York for his criminal trial.

That jury in Manhattan's been hearing evidence in the case about accounting for hush money

payments.

What did they hear?

That would be former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.

He described himself as a longtime friend to Trump, but he offered some pretty damaging

testimony.

He said he knew about or took part in payoffs to people who had stories to sell about Trump's

personal behavior.

Before the 2016 election, David Pecker said Trump was not worried about his family finding

out, but he was worried about his political standing if stories about his alleged womanizing

got published.

Trump's lawyers tried to suggest Pecker was acting to benefit his own company, not Trump.

be fined for repeatedly violating a gag order and verbally attacking potential witnesses

in the case.

Right now, a money penalty seems to be on the table, but if Donald Trump does not stop

posting negative information about his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, this judge may have

to consider harsher measures.

its accusation that a significant number of employees of a U.N. relief agency in the Gaza

Strip are members of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel last October.

refugees in the Near East.

And the accusation led to a loss of vital international funding at a time when Gaza

is on the brink of famine.

NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam has been following the details of

this story and joins us now.

Hi, Jackie.

with looking into whether UNRWA was ensuring that there was no complicity with Hamas.

And the review started in late January after Israel made accusations of terrorist links

among UNRWA employees.

And, you know, after that, more than a dozen international donors, including the U.S.,

suspended about $450 million in funding.

And, you know, that's money that's desperately needed right now.

UNRWA is the main agency in Gaza providing aid and social services.

And these are critical at this moment when there are dire shortages of, you know, food

and water and sanitary conditions because of the Israeli military campaign.

And, you know, some countries have restored funding, Germany most recently, following

this latest report.

But, you know, Congress has suspended U.S. financial support until at least March 2025.

What are some of the key findings?

its neutrality.

However, it also found some employees had expressed political views and said critical

breaches of neutrality could include the discovery of weapons and tunnels, which the agency always

protests.

I spoke with William Dury, and he heads UNRWA's Washington representative office, and he felt

that the report was fair and balanced.

Here he is here.

Foreign Minister Colonna said, you know, confirmed that we actually have procedures and mechanisms

in place to address neutrality better than any other U.N. agency or NGO.

And that's, as she noted, because of politically challenging part of the world in which we

operate.

But like anyone, you can do better.

And hence the recommendations that she included in the report.

You know, and some of the recommendations include better training, a more robust screening

of employees.

You know, until just recently, Israel received lists of UNRWA employees, but without Palestinian

identification numbers.

And then in March, the list did have ID numbers.

And that's when Israel says a significant number of employees were members of terrorist

organizations.

But, you know, Ayesha, the report said Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of

that.

Israel, for its part, dismissed the findings of the review, saying it doesn't deal with

the, quote, scope of Hamas's infiltration into UNRWA.

What about the other one?

So the other investigation is looking at Israel's claims that about a dozen UNRWA employees actually

took part in the October 7th attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people.

It's being conducted by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services.

And, you know, shortly after Israel made those accusations, UNRWA terminated the contracts

of 10 of those workers.

Another two were confirmed dead.

But no word yet on when that report is due.

Jackie, thank you so much.

I'm Scott Simon.

Michael Ratcliffe directed.

Nisa Hynes, and Jobi Tenseko.

Sarah Oliver is our executive producer.

Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor.

Cascades, and what's behind the moves against TikTok, and more.

Power.

Tacos.

White colloquium.

Green party.

More of the perspectives that make your world a more vibrant place.

All ears.

Find NPR wherever you get your podcasts.

No paywalls.

No profits.

No nonsense.

Download it in your app store today.