April 23, 2024 - PBS NewsHour full episode
04/23/2024 | 57m 46s | Video has closed captioning.
April 23, 2024 - PBS NewsHour full episode
Aired: 04/23/24
Expires: 05/23/24
Problems Playing Video? | Closed Captioning
04/23/2024 | 57m 46s | Video has closed captioning.
April 23, 2024 - PBS NewsHour full episode
Aired: 04/23/24
Expires: 05/23/24
Problems Playing Video? | Closed Captioning
GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.
I'm Geoff Bennett.
Amna Nawaz is away.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: Hundreds are arrested, as more pro-Palestinian protests spread across college campuses.
A key witness takes the stand in Donald Trump's hush money trial after the judge holds a hearing into whether the former president violated his gag order.
And with national elections under way in the world's largest democracy, we examine the ethnic violence that has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands in India.
ICHAN LUNGINLAL, Churachandpur, India, Resident (through translator): The mob killed my husband after brutally assaulting him like an animal.
I don't think even animals are subject to such levels of violence.
(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "NewsHour."
College campuses in several parts of the country are struggling tonight with just where to draw the line between allowing protests and free speech and preventing antisemitism and intimidation.
As the school year nears its end, Columbia University announced it would stay on a hybrid schedule until the end of the spring semester next week.
And students were arrested at New York University last night.
Police arrested more than 100 people at NYU, as the turmoil that has roiled Columbia over the past week spreads to other schools.
PROTESTER: It's a really, really outrageous crackdown by the university to allow the police to arrest students on our own campus.
GEOFF BENNETT: Police said they were called in by University officials, who said protesters breached barricades and behaved in a -- quote -- "disruptive and antagonizing manner."
Some faculty disputed that characterization by the school.
It came as a wave of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments have spread in the past week since Columbia University President Minouche Shafik testified before a congressional committee about antisemitism on campus.
Many are students, but not all are from the respective school where they are protesting.
Earlier in the day, at least 60 people were arrested at Yale.
There have been similar protests at Emerson, MIT, Boston University, the University of Michigan, and the University of California.
PROTESTERS: Free, free, free Palestine!
GEOFF BENNETT: Columbia has been the flash point for a week now.
Hundreds of students have turned out for protests.
On Thursday, Shafik called the New York Police Department to break up tent encampments, and more than 100 protesters were arrested.
Many students and faculty felt Shafik's crackdown has been excessively harsh in squelching free speech.
PROTESTERS: The people united will never be defeated!
GEOFF BENNETT: But some students, Jewish students, in particular, as well as some alumni and faculty, say there's too much hostility on campus, leading some to feel threatened for their safety.
Michael D'Agostino is a junior at the engineering school.
He's not Jewish, but says he's watched what's happened too often.
MICHAEL D'AGOSTINO, Student, Columbia University: The campus, honestly, it's full of a lot of hate and disagreement.
And it's honestly just sad to see.
It seems a pretty awful thing said to not only practicing Jews, but, I mean, people that are ethnically Jewish, simply for wearing like a Star of David.
GEOFF BENNETT: The Anti-Defamation League posted a video, contending it had become too dangerous as well.
MAN: Two individuals threw a rock at my head, hit me right in the face.
I'm calling public safety.
NYPD, where are you?
GEOFF BENNETT: But protesters say the crackdown is not justified.
Aya Lyon-Sereno is a sophomore at Barnard College, which is part of Columbia, majoring in urban studies.
She's Jewish.
AYA LYON-SERENO, Student, Barnard College: Barnard students have been evicted from dorms they're paying for, have been given 15 minutes to gather any belongings and are not allowed to eat in any dining halls, are not allowed to, like, use their meal plans and have been really, really criminalized.
GEOFF BENNETT: She also said the administration's approach has backfired.
AYA LYON-SERENO: The atmosphere on campus has been really tense, and I and many other students attribute that to the administration's actions, that people are feeling like it's tense on campus, people are feeling unsafe because there's a ton of cops in riot gear here.
GEOFF BENNETT: For his part, President Biden also criticized many of the protests yesterday.
JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: I condemn the antisemitic protests.
I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians.
GEOFF BENNETT: And, today, before he went into court, former President Donald Trump blamed President Biden.
DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: What's going on at the college level, at the colleges, the Columbia, NYU and others, is a disgrace.
And it's a -- it's really on Biden.
He has the wrong signal.
He's got the wrong tone.
He's got the wrong words.
GEOFF BENNETT: The situation is also starting to affect the commencement season.
The University of Southern California canceled all outside speakers, it says, out of concern for public.
That followed a much-criticized decision to cancel the remarks of valedictorian Asna Tabassum, a Muslim student, over unspecified safety concerns.
While Columbia University's administration has faced criticism for how it's handled the events and the arrest of students, concerns remain about the safety of Jewish staff and students on campus.
We will get both of these perspectives first from Irene Mulvey, President Of The American Association of University Professors.
She spent 37 years teaching mathematics at Fairfield University before retiring.
Dr. Mulvey, thank you for being with us.
And we should say that members of the Columbia University chapter of your organization are expected to move to censure the university president for her decision to call in the NYPD last week to arrest demonstrators.
Why?
Why is that warranted, in your view?
IRENE MULVEY, President, American Association of University Professors: Well, I think the idea of calling in police in riot gear on peaceful protesters protesting outside is a remarkably disproportionate and wrong-ended response to the events we're seeing on campus, because higher education is founded on listening, learning, discussion, debate, free and open inquiry.
We challenge students to challenge their most deeply held beliefs in order to justify them to themselves and to others.
Our goal is communication in service of understanding.
Instead, we saw the suppression of speech and silencing of voices because somebody might not like what they're saying.
And that is a real danger in a democracy.
GEOFF BENNETT: Well, how should a university balance the expression of free speech and student safety?
IRENE MULVEY: There's genuine -- there's - - harassment and antisemitism has -- is not new.
It's not the first time hate speech has reared its ugly head on campus.
There are policies in place to deal with these kinds of things.
And that's where we should go, policies that ensure due process for the students.
And then what we're seeing instead is new policies being drafted on time, manner and place of protest.
So, your protest has to be over in a roped-off area in a tiny space on campus.
This is suppression of speech.
So the idea of, if you're suppressing speech in order to keep students safe, that's a false choice.
You can do both.
GEOFF BENNETT: Well, thinking about this from the perspective of Jewish students who say they feel intimidated, if there is a climate of harassment on campus, isn't the administration morally compelled and also compelled by law, by Title IX, to address it and shut it down?
IRENE MULVEY: The institution is required to allow for the most free and open expression, while also ensuring that conversations are civil and dialogue is respectful.
But in situations like this, these are -- people have extremely strong positions, and these are polarizing times, that debates are heated and messy.
And so you have to err on the side of free and open inquiry.
There -- hate speech, antisemitism has no place on campus or anywhere and there are policies to deal with that.
But in higher education, our primary focus should be academic freedom, free speech, and -- free speech and associational rights for students.
GEOFF BENNETT: As protests spread to other campuses, what lessons could other college administrators, university administrators take away from what's transpired at Columbia?
IRENE MULVEY: They could think about creative ways to respond.
They could think about ways to encourage communication and dialogue in open forums across their campus and engaging all students, so that all students have an opportunity to hear other points of view, to understand other points of view, to question other points of view.
They should figure out creative ways to respond, because what happened at NYU and Columbia is completely unacceptable.
The silencing of speech in a democracy because somebody doesn't like it, this is a real danger.
GEOFF BENNETT: Irene Mulvey is president of the American Association of University Professors.
Thank you for your insights.
IRENE MULVEY: Thank you.
GEOFF BENNETT: Let's turn now to Dr. Andrew Marks.
He's the chair of the department of physiology and cellular biophysics at Columbia University.
Thank you for being with us.
DR. ANDREW R. MARKS, Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics Chair, Columbia University: Thanks for having me.
GEOFF BENNETT: So how do you feel about Dr. Shafik's handling of the ongoing demonstrations at Columbia?
And what do you make of this view that the old policies in place to deal with student demonstrations were sufficient?
DR. ANDREW R. MARKS: I think she's doing the best that she can.
I think that her heart is in the right place.
I think it's an incredibly difficult situation and there are no easy answers.
The university, Columbia University, has had policies in place which I think are capable of dealing with this situation if they're able to be enforced.
GEOFF BENNETT: Have you witnessed incidents of antisemitism on campus?
DR. ANDREW R. MARKS: Yes, I have.
I have seen antisemitic slurs being hurled at Jewish students.
And it's been very painful to watch.
I have seen antisemitic hate language written on the college walk in the middle of campus and posters hanging that have been very offensive.
GEOFF BENNETT: What more should Columbia be doing?
What more could Columbia be doing to make Jewish students feel safer?
DR. ANDREW R. MARKS: Well, I think Columbia has already done quite a lot and taken steps.
And my personal observation is that, over the last several days, the hate speech has been toned down on campus.
The problem is that, as you know, Columbia's campus is in the middle of New York City.
And when you leave campus either -- in either direction, there's a tremendous amount of antisemitic hate speech being hurled at students and faculty from people outside the campus.
GEOFF BENNETT: When it comes to what's happening on campus, how should a university balance student safety and student expression?
DR. ANDREW R. MARKS: Well, I think that students should be allowed to protest, absolutely.
And I think that the limit has to be on hate speech.
So I think that, as long as the protests are civil and respectful of other members of the community, that needs to be protected and encouraged.
When it drifts over to hate speech, then it becomes offensive and I think threatening to the Jewish community at the university.
GEOFF BENNETT: What do you think is informing and influencing Dr. Shafik's response to these ongoing protests?
DR. ANDREW R. MARKS: Again, she's been in an incredibly difficult situation.
And I wanted to clarify a couple of things I heard your previous speaker say.
First of all, there -- the actions taken against students had nothing to do with the content of their speech, except when it comes to hate speech, of course, but in terms of what they were protesting.
It really had to do with them breaking the existing rules of the university.
And President Shafik is responsible for the safety of all students.
And she took an action, which I was not in favor of, bringing in the police.
I wanted to negotiate or talk to the students some more before that.
But she did that because she felt it was necessary to preserve the safety of the Jewish community on the campus and other people on campus.
I was one of the people in the Senate Executive Committee that helped write the event policy.
And it's important to note that that was done in complete collaboration and working very closely with students.
And while no policy is perfect, we tried to come up with one that was fair.
Your previous speaker mentioned that we were limiting protests to tiny parts of campus.
That's not accurate.
There were designated areas and times and place, which is common for all university campuses.
And had the students adhered to those guidelines, things would have gone much differently.
GEOFF BENNETT: Dr. Andrew R. Marks is chair of the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University.
Thank you for being with us.
DR. ANDREW R. MARKS: Thank you for having me.
GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: The U.S. Senate advanced a bill this afternoon to send billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Final passage is expected later tonight or tomorrow.
In all, it contains $95 billion in support, with $61 billion dedicated to Ukraine.
Today, the Pentagon clarified where those funds would go.
MAJ. GEN. PATRICK RYDER, Pentagon Press Secretary: This security assistance package will be based on Ukraine's most urgent needs.
Again, without getting into details, I think it's a good assumption to expect that it'll include air defense capabilities, as well as artillery ammunition.
GEOFF BENNETT: The Associated Press is reporting that Pentagon officials stand ready to send an initial $1 billion military aid package to Kyiv.
That will happen as soon as the broader measure goes through.
Israel ordered new evacuations of Northern Gaza today as it carried out a wave of strikes throughout the strip.
Smoke was seen rising over central and southern areas of Gaza as residents reported nonstop bombardments.
Separately, the Israeli military released footage of what it claims were strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
The Iran-backed group has clashed with Israel since the start of the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah, in turn, says it launched a drone attack 10 miles inside Israel, its deepest incursion to date.
Norway is calling on international donors to resume payments to UNRWA.
That's the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
It comes after an independent review released yesterday found that Israel provided no evidence to support accusations that UNRWA employees were linked to terrorist groups.
UNRWA officials say those findings should be enough for countries to end the freeze on funding.
PHILIPPE LAZZARINI, Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East: I hope that, with this report and the measure we will be putting in place, that the last group of donors will get necessary confidence to come back as a donor and partner of the agency.
GEOFF BENNETT: A separate internal U.N. investigation is still looking into Israel's allegations that UNRWA staffers were involved in the October 7 attacks.
The U.S. is among those who paused funds to the agency back in January.
A Moscow court has rejected the latest appeal from American journalist Evan Gershkovich.
That means The Wall Street Journal reporter will remain in Russian detention through the end of June.
Gershkovich appeared in court today with his lawyers to seek an end to his pretrial detention.
He was arrested in March of last year on espionage charges.
The 32-year-old was seen to be in good spirits, at one point making a heart-shaped gesture with his hands.
Gershkovich denies the allegations against him.
Five migrants died today as they tried to cross the English Channel from France to the U.K.
Among them was a 7-year-old girl.
Officials say their overcrowded boat hit a sandbank off the coast of Northern France.
Their deaths came hours after the British Parliament approved a bill to deport migrants who enter the U.K. illegally to Rwanda.
Aid groups warn the measure will do more harm than good.
KAY MARSH, Samphire Migrant Aid Charity: We will not see the boat stop because of this.
We will see more deaths.
We will see more dangerous risks being taken.
But, yes, it definitely won't act as a deterrent.
Nothing else has.
So I don't think -- I don't know why people are thinking that this will.
GEOFF BENNETT: More than 6,000 people have made the perilous journey to Britain so far this year on small, often overloaded boats.
Police in France today cleared migrants from a makeshift camp in Paris less than 100 days before the Summer Olympics get under way there.
In a predawn operation, authorities evicted dozens of teenage boys and young men from West Africa.
Many of them were in the process of seeking official residency.
Aid groups say officials are ramping up what they call a social cleansing campaign ahead of the Olympics.
ELIAS HUFNAGEL, Utopia 56 Migrant Charity: All the encampments in Paris are getting evacuated by the police because they want to have a clean place for the Olympic Games, for the tourists.
They don't want to see Paris as a city that is full of migrants.
GEOFF BENNETT: Last week, police evicted hundreds of migrants from France's biggest squatter camp south of the capital.
The Federal Trade Commission voted today to ban so-called noncompete agreements for most employees.
That means companies can no longer bar workers from taking jobs with their competitors.
According to the FTC, 30 million people, or one in five workers, are currently subject to such restrictions.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said it will sue to block the measure.
On Wall Street today, markets closed higher after some strong corporate earnings.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 263 points to close at 38503.
The Nasdaq jumped 245 points.
The S&P 500 added nearly 60.
And still to come on the "NewsHour": the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case that has major implications for labor relations; Congress passes a bill forcing TikTok's Chinese parent company to sell or be banned; and author Salman Rushdie discusses his new memoir about the murderous knife attack that changed his life.
It was the second day of testimony in former President Trump's criminal hush money trial in New York City.
On the witness stand today, former "National Enquirer" publisher David Pecker, who described a 2015 agreement with Donald Trump to try to kill negative stories about him and run negative stories about his political rivals.
William Brangham joins us now with more.
So, William, the judge now has to rule on Mr. Trump's behavior outside the courtroom; is that right?
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Geoff.
Today began with a very tense hearing over whether the former president has been violating the gag order that was imposed on him after Trump criticized witnesses, the judge and the judge's daughter.
Georgetown University's Mary McCord is a former acting attorney general for national security, and she has been following this and all of Trump's cases very closely.
Mary, so nice to see you again.
Thanks for being here.
So, this hearing, whether Trump was violating the gag order, that gag order prohibits him from making statements about the witnesses and certain members of the court and jurors.
Prosecutors alleged he's violated that 10 different times.
What is he accused of doing?
MARY MCCORD, Former Justice Department Official: Well, he's violated it in a number of ways.
Originally, they sought to have this hearing on contempt, whether he was in contempt of the court's order, based on three initial social media posts that attacked witnesses, potential witnesses, people he had reason to believe would be witnesses, like Michael Cohen, right, and Stormy Daniels herself.
Then, after they filed that motion for contempt, Mr. Trump posted seven more posts, sometimes attacking Mr. Cohen, calling him a serial perjurer, but also, and I think very troublesomely to the court, attacking jurors, saying -- he did this by reposting a different post of Jesse Watters that talked about liberal individuals lying, and then he added to that to get onto this trial.
And so that caused the government to file another motion for contempt.
And I will note that, in today's hearing, the prosecutor said, we're actually going to be filing yet another motion for contempt based on some even more recent... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Because it just keeps going.
MARY MCCORD: It just keeps going.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Trump argues and his lawyers argue that this is an unconstitutional infringement on his free speech rights, that he feels that this is a rigged system against him, and he has every right to say that.
What are defendants' rights vis-a-vis the First Amendment in this regard?
MARY MCCORD: Sure.
Defendants do have constitutional rights, like all people in the United States.
But when you are a defendant in a criminal trial, those rights are not absolute.
They're not limitless.
They can be restricted when things that you are saying, when your speech has an impact negatively on the administration of justice, meaning that the court cannot properly enforce the rule of law and administer justice in the courtroom because of your speech.
And, notably, Mr. Trump's been making this argument about the Constitution, not just in this case in the Manhattan courtroom, but he made it before Judge Chutkan in the January 6 federal case here in Washington, D.C. That went all the way up to the D.C.
Circuit, which upheld the restrictions, made some modifications to them and upheld them.
And then Judge Merchan has basically adopted pretty much the same order that the D.C.
Circuit had upheld here.
Now, he's not bound by the D.C.
Circuit, yet he said, look, that's a court who looked at these First Amendment questions and resolved them by saying the needs for the administration of justice justify these minimal restrictions.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Russell Gold, who's a law professor at the University of Alabama, was quoted in a piece in Politico, saying -- quote -- "I can't imagine any other defendant posting on social media about a judge's family and not being very quickly incarcerated."
This is reference to Trump attacking Judge Merchan's daughter.
Do you agree that Trump has been getting a disposition that other defendants would not get?
MARY MCCORD: Yes.
You know, I can't say that every defendant would be immediately detained for attacking a member of the judge's family, but we do see repeat, repeat violations.
And he is sanctioned.
Judge Engoron in the civil fraud trial sanctioned him twice monetarily.
I suspect we are going to see monetary sanctions as a result of today's hearing.
The judge did not make a decision today.
I think judges are very reluctant to detain a former president, not only because it will be immediately branded and attacked as political, and they're trying very hard to maintain that they're being fair and impartial, even though some people may say their attempts to be fair and impartial mean they actually are putting a thumb on the scale in favor of Mr. Trump.
But also, logistically, it's incredibly complicated, right, when you're talking about somebody with Secret Service protection, and where would you house that person, et cetera?
And I think the judges are really conscious of the fact that he is a candidate for president.
This is the election season.
And I think they really are hesitant to shut down all opportunity for him to campaign, which is what it would mean if he were detained.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.
Lastly, I just want to read an excerpt from Merchan's gag order, where he was talking about the practical implications of this.
He wrote that: "The average observer must now, after hearing defendant's recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well.
Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the rule of law itself."
Do you agree with that?
MARY MCCORD: Absolutely.
And I think that's why not only has Judge Merchan taken these things so seriously, but Judge Chutkan, the D.C.
Circuit, Judge Engoron.
What happens is, first of all, threats get made against witnesses, threats get made against potential jurors, judge's family.
We just were talking about that, prosecutors' family.
I know Jack Smith has reported how many millions of dollars they're having to spend for security for the prosecution's team and for their families.
But, also, witnesses might color their testimony because they're worried or scared about what will happen if they testify truthfully.
Jurors -- we have already seen one juror pull out after being selected... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.
MARY MCCORD: ... because her own friends were able to identify her just based on the information, not her name, and she was worried for her safety and her ability to be impartial.
And so there are real-world consequences.
Judge Merchan knew it, and he issued that order with that explanation.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Mary McCord of Georgetown, thank you so much, as always.
MARY MCCORD: My pleasure.
GEOFF BENNETT: The U.S. Supreme Court today heard arguments in a case that could have major implications for labor rights.
The court looked at a challenge brought by Starbucks against a lower court decision to reinstate seven baristas in Memphis who were fired by the company after they announced plans to unionize.
Washington Post labor reporter Lauren Kaori Gurley is with us.
She was at the court today and has been following this case.
Thanks so much for being with us.
So, Lauren, walk us through the arguments that the justices heard today and how this is all linked to the Starbucks union dispute.
LAUREN KAORI GURLEY, The Washington Post: When workers in the United States unionize, if they are retaliated against by their employers, the National Labor Relations Board, the agency -- the federal agency that oversees workers union rights in the United States, has the right to go to a federal court and ask for immediate relief in the form of forcing a company like Starbucks to reinstate fired workers.
So that's exactly actually what happened a few years ago at the very beginning of this Starbucks union drive that has now sort of spread like wildfire across the country.
There are more than 400 union stores now.
Starbucks fired seven union activists at a Memphis store.
And a court ordered that they had to reinstate them.
Now, Starbucks is arguing that that reinstatement should not have happened.
They said that they fired those workers because they had invited a TV crew into their store after hours, which was against their policy, and they said it was totally within their right to fire those baristas.
So what Starbucks was challenging today at the Supreme Court was the test that the federal court used in sort of determining whether they had to - - whether they could order the reinstatement of those baristas.
And so the NLRB was sort of defending sort of the authority that it has in going to the federal courts to ask for that relief and the standard that's used to grant that relief.
GEOFF BENNETT: Mm-hmm.
And based on the justices questions, do you have a sense of where they're leaning in this case?
LAUREN KAORI GURLEY: It very much seemed like they were poised to agree with Starbucks on this one that the NLRB -- they feel like the NLRB has wielded too much power in that Memphis case, that there should be a consistent standard that's applied all -- across all circuit courts in the United States, which there is not right now.
And so it seems likely that they will change this test, which -- or sort of modify this test, so it's more consistent across courts, across the United States, which labor advocates say could really have a chilling effect for union organizing in the United States.
And I will say it wasn't just one side of the ideological spectrum.
The majority of the justices, with the exception of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, really made that point.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared sort of more convinced by the NLRB's case that Congress sort of bestowed authority in the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, to conduct investigations, and that the weight of their findings should be prioritized by federal courts.
GEOFF BENNETT: Well, tell us more about the possible implications of this case.
LAUREN KAORI GURLEY: Labor activists really believe this could have a chilling effect on labor organizing and union organizing in the United States, which is having this sort of resurgent moment of popularity.
You may have heard about it, not just at Starbucks, but at the autoworkers who unionized last Friday in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at Amazon, at REI, at Trader Joe's.
And these sort of -- these court orders that sort of are at the heart of this case, they're not just used to reinstate fired workers.
They also can be used to sort of request bargaining orders that companies must adhere, to reopen to close stores, all sorts of ways in which companies retaliate against workers for unionizing.
So I think, if there is a higher standard, which seems likely that the court will do, there will be a much higher bar for getting that sort of relief for workers, which could make them more afraid to unionize or which could cause union campaigns to sort of die out if employers retaliate against workers.
GEOFF BENNETT: Lauren Kaori Gurley with The Washington Post, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us.
LAUREN KAORI GURLEY: Thank you.
Appreciate it.
And the Supreme Court is back tomorrow with another high-stakes case out of Idaho looking at access to emergency abortions.
We will have the latest on what's shaping up to be a busy final week of the court's argument calendar.
GEOFF BENNETT: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to secure a third term in elections that are now under way, his promise, a rising united India.
But, in India's northeast, a state is at war with itself.
Hundreds are dead, tens of thousands are displaced, and the central government is accused of looking the other way.
Producer Zeba Warsi got rare access to the deeply divided state of Manipur.
And a warning: Some details in her report are disturbing.
ZEBA WARSI: It feels like a militarized border between two warring countries.
But it's a road between two districts in an Indian state.
Across 40 miles, we crossed a dozen checkpoints controlled by Indian security forces and civilian militias to reach the Christian minority stronghold Churachandpur.
ICHAN LUNGINLAL, Churachandpur, India, Resident (through translator): Our fathers and forefathers lived together in Manipur.
But the ethnic conflict in Manipur has been so sudden.
ZEBA WARSI: Thirty-one-year-old Ichan Lunginlal is a Hindu from the majority Meitei Tribe who was married to Lalneo Lunginlal, a Christian of the minority Kuki tribe.
They fell in love as teenagers.
Their youngest daughter is 6-year-old Lamkholhing.
ICHAN LUNGINLAL (through translator): We could not spend even one day apart.
It felt like a love straight out of a movie.
It was difficult for us to spend any time away from each other.
ZEBA WARSI: They did not consider themselves star-crossed, but their love story ended when Manipur's fault lines cracked.
ICHAN LUNGINLAL (through translator): I spoke to him and asked, how is the situation right now?
He responded and said the situation has become tense now.
I could also hear his voice shaking, but he still consoled me and said: "Don't worry."
At around 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., I received a call from my husband, and I could hear him shouting: "Ichan, Ichan, they have found me and they are going to kill me."
ZEBA WARSI: What began last may as a protest over political participation and state benefits turned into an armed conflict between two tribes and religions that engulfed the state in flames.
Entire villages were razed and hundreds of churches burned.
The bulk of the dead and missing belong to the Christian Kuki minority, including Lalneo Lunginlal.
He was last seen in this video with two other Christian Kuki men left to bleed on the street.
ICHAN LUNGINLAL (through translator): The mob killed my husband after brutally assaulting him like an animal.
I don't think even animals are subject to such levels of violence.
ZEBA WARSI: At the wall of remembrance, Kukis display death, empty coffins in a line, one for every life lost.
This wall bears the human cost of this conflict.
The Kuki community calls it state-sponsored ethnic cleansing, and they tell us each picture on this wall has its own story to tell.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi portrays India's future as strong and united.
But Election Day in Manipur was marred by violence.
The Hindu majority Meitei militia allegedly captured polling booths.
They are heavily armed and throughout the conflict accused of killing with impunity.
Civil rights advocates accuse the state government run by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, of protecting the perpetrators, and exploiting ethnic divisions.
KIM GANGTE, Kuki Women's Human Rights Network: This is a war crime.
This is ethnic cleansing.
And, plus, this is a religious persecution.
ZEBA WARSI: Kim Gangte is a Kuki women rights activist who has documented sexual crimes.
KIM GANGTE: Most of our women who are there in the valley, they were being tortured.
They were being raped.
They were being killed.
ZEBA WARSI: In May last year, two Kuki women were paraded naked, beaten, and sexually assaulted by a mob of hundreds.
One of them was allegedly gang-raped.
KIM GANGTE: We are very much Indian.
We are very much the daughters and sons of India.
We really wonder why the central government is still keeping silent.
ZEBA WARSI: Repeated requests for an interview with state government officials were ignored.
After months of silence, Modi addressed the turmoil in Manipur only after the report of a gang-rape.
NARENDRA MODI, Indian Prime Minister (through translator): In this country, in any corner of this country, in any state government rising above politics, law and order and respect for women is important.
I want to assure the countrymen that no culprit will be spared.
ZEBA WARSI: But for the Christian Kuki community, that reassurance rings hollow.
They no longer believe in living with the Hindu Meiteis.
They want separate union territory, as we saw in the hillside town of Moreh.
Last year, this local economic hub was engulfed in flames.
Today, it is heavily guarded by Indian armed forces and nearly inaccessible to anyone outside.
After a six-hour wait at a security checkpoint, we were allowed to enter.
DAVID WAPEI, Kuki Student Organization: The moment one community sees the other community, they want to kill each other.
ZEBA WARSI: David Wapei is a Kuki activist in Moreh.
He says there is an invisible boundary between these hillside towns and the capital forged on hate.
DAVID WAPEI: There's so much of divisions or mistrust between the two communities that the two communities cannot live together now.
ZEBA WARSI: But Manipur's violence is on both sides.
During our visit, an angry Kuki mob set the police station on fire.
And more Hindu majority Meiteis have been forced out of their homes and now live in camps restricted to a small corner of the state.
HIJAM KULAJIT, Imphal, India Resident (through translator): On that day I couldn't take her to her private tutor, as I usually could, as there was pain in my eye.
This thought haunts me to this day.
ZEBA WARSI: Hijam Kulajit, a Hindu Meitei, is still to bury his 17 year old daughter with dignity.
She was last seen with a classmate after they were abducted by Kuki militias.
After weeks of outrage and protests, the accused were arrested, but her body was never found.
Kulajit has made a shrine of memories of his daughter, who had big dreams.
HIJAM KULAJIT (through translator): She had a cup with future she had a cup with "Future Doctor" written on it.
She wanted to become a doctor to help the underprivileged.
ZEBA WARSI: The last drawing she made, the last book she read, her last Father's Day card bring pain, tears, and rage.
HIJAM KULAJIT (through translator): Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not utter a single word about this case or the violence in Manipur all these month, even though the prime minister's so called slogan is save daughter, educate daughter.
Will they be able to bring back my daughter?
ZEBA WARSI: There is no justice for a father who lost his daughter.
And there is no closure for victims on both sides, who say they have been neglected.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Zeba Warsi in Manipur, India.
GEOFF BENNETT: TikTok might soon be banned are under new ownership in the U.S. That's what the U.S. Senate expected to approve legislation as part of a $95 billion foreign aid package.
But TikTok doesn't plan to go down without a fight.
Lisa Desjardins has more.
LISA DESJARDINS: Geoff, this bill is unprecedented in scope.
The legislation forces TikTok, whose parent company is headquartered in Beijing, to either sell within nine months or face a ban within the United States.
The idea won wide support in Congress based on what they say are real national security concerns about China.
But TikTok says it has spent billions to wall off U.S. data and that this is an unconstitutional violation of free speech.
Some of its users say it's xenophobic.
President Joe Biden plans to sign the law.
What's it mean?
To drill down, I'm joined by David McCabe, who covers technology policy for The New York Times.
And, David, let's start off by, how do you ban something used by almost 200 million people?
DAVID MCCABE, The New York Times: So, the mechanism of this bill is simple.
It says that app stores run by companies like Apple or Google couldn't carry TikTok, couldn't make it available for download, and that the same is true of Web hosting companies.
Think about the sort of invisible infrastructure of the Internet, of servers that host apps and help maintain them.
LISA DESJARDINS: Now, there's also the sale aspect about this.
How much do you estimate or how much do people think TikTok could be worth?
And we know there's an issue with its algorithm, that perhaps the parent company might not have to sell the algorithm.
How does all that play in here?
DAVID MCCABE: So, these are key questions.
It's expected that the app will be extremely expensive, which would limit the pool of potential buyers to companies that have a lot of cash or groups of investors, like private equity firms, that could pull capital together.
And then there is this question of, will they sell the algorithm that recommends that endless video of feed -- that endless feed of videos to users?
Will they sell that along with the app?
It's obviously a very important feature.
It's also something that the Chinese government has suggested they might want to restrict leaving the country.
LISA DESJARDINS: I have read someone compare that to buying Coca-Cola without actually getting the recipe for the soda itself.
You said extremely expensive.
I am curious.
What are we talking about here?
Tens of billions of dollars?
What's the range?
DAVID MCCABE: I think that analysts have generally estimated, yes, at least tens of billions of dollars.
LISA DESJARDINS: So, then something that expensive, David, who actually can buy it, and can that be done within nine months, as this law would set out?
DAVID MCCABE: So that is the question here.
And, of course, the Senate pushed to extend the deadline in this bill to give them a little bit more time to play with to bring about a sale.
And there are questions here, right?
How would they separate TikTok from ByteDance, its parent company?
What amount of time would that take, even if they could find a buyer quickly?
And then there are questions about, could a sale survive antitrust review?
The Biden administration has, of course, been very aggressive in trying to stop corporate consolidation and growth through these antitrust agencies, like the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission.
So you could imagine that some potential buyers - - think about the big tech companies -- could get a lot of scrutiny from the government, and that could slow down the process as well.
LISA DESJARDINS: TikTok itself, in a statement, has said that this tramples on the free speech rights of this country and would devastate businesses and the economy.
What do we know exactly about the potential economic effect?
How much of there is one?
DAVID MCCABE: So I think questions about the economic effect will come down to how this ultimately nets out, right?
Is there a sale?
Is there a ban?
Obviously, though, a lot of people do make a living on TikTok as creators or by advertising their small businesses.
So the question about what happens to them is certainly one that people have and one that TikTok has tried to focus on to say, this isn't about a big company, this isn't about the Chinese government, it's about these small businesses that use the app.
LISA DESJARDINS: From your perspective, how unprecedented is this by the U.S. government, by Congress, some -- a move like this involving a major business?
DAVID MCCABE: The precedents that the supporters of this bill cite are a couple.
There's one that the U.S. generally forbids some foreign ownership of traditional media, and that the U.S. forced a Chinese company to sell Grindr, the dating app, a few years ago.
But, of course, Grindr is relatively small compared to TikTok, which says it has about 170 million users in the United States.
So the government has not tried to do this with an app of this scope, as far as we can tell, ever.
LISA DESJARDINS: Now, as I mentioned, Congress overwhelmingly supported this idea of forcing a ban or a sale.
But they generally, members of Congress, aren't using TikTok.
I know.
I have asked them, as opposed to young people who are using TikTok who oppose this and think this is an infringement on their rights.
Can you talk about the generational divide here?
And could there be cultural impact beyond just the sale or ban?
DAVID MCCABE: Well, that's certainly something we're watching.
I mean, I think you have seen President Biden, his campaign got on TikTok.
They want to reach those young voters.
But they're also fully supporting, the administration is also fully supporting this effort.
So I think the big question is, how much do young people who use this app care about this measure?
And, again, that may have to do with, does this result in a sale to a new company?
Does it result in a ban?
I will note that there are other products that, of course, have tried to capture some of TikTok's energy.
Think about YouTube or Instagram.
So a question that is worth tracking is whether or not some TikTok users might migrate there, even if there is a ban.
LISA DESJARDINS: David, what about the world reaction here?
DAVID MCCABE: We spent some time reporting in recent weeks with digital rights activists around the world.
And a lot of them say that they are worried that this measure could impact the United States' ability to make the case abroad for a free and open Internet.
So that is something we are tracking going forward as well.
LISA DESJARDINS: David McCabe of The New York Times, thank you.
DAVID MCCABE: Thank you.
GEOFF BENNETT: August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie, one of the world's best-known writers, was attacked and nearly killed by a young man with a knife.
Now Rushdie has written of that harrowing day and all that's followed in a new book.
And he recently spoke to our Jeffrey Brown for our arts and culture series, Canvas.
JEFFREY BROWN: As we sit here, a year, or a little more than a year-and-a-half after the attack, how are you?
SALMAN RUSHDIE, Author, "Knife": I'm surprisingly good, surprising to myself, certainly, but also actually surprising to quite a lot of the army of doctors that I have been involved with, many of whom have said that the recovery is much in excess of what they would have expected.
JEFFREY BROWN: The knife attack, 15 stabs, came at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York during a public talk on, of all things, the importance of keeping writers safe.
It left Salman Rushdie near death.
He would lose the use of his right eye and suffer numerous other injuries to his hand, neck, and chest and abdomen, and undergo multiple surgeries, numerous setbacks, a painful, slow recovery.
When he decided to write about it, he says now the first word that came, the title, "Knife."
SALMAN RUSHDIE: At its most basic, it's the story of a knife attack.
But then I came to think of it in another way, a kind of more metaphorical way.
I came to think, like, language is a kind of knife.
It's a kind of -- also a sort of tool which you could use to cut through things to the truth.
And I thought, well, that's my knife.
You know, I don't -- I don't -- and if you're going to be in a knife fight, you may as well have a knife.
So, in a funny way, I came to think that the book itself is a knife, but it's my knife.
It's my way of fighting back.
JEFFREY BROWN: Was this one harder to write than others, because it was so personal?
SALMAN RUSHDIE: I'll tell you what.
The first chapter was very hard to write.
The first chapter, which actually details the attack itself, that was really hard to write, to go back into that moment, and to try and be as honest and truthful about it as I could be, to get such a good look at the end.
You know?
I mean, I had a really good look at it.
JEFFREY BROWN: How did it look?
SALMAN RUSHDIE: Well, not great.
(LAUGHTER) SALMAN RUSHDIE: On the one hand, it was quite prosaic, you know?
I was lying there bleeding, and I -- in a completely kind of neutral way, I found myself thinking, oh, I'm -- this is -- I'm dying, but like in that kind of tone of voice, nothing dramatic, because that's probably what's happening.
And then I felt very lonely, because I felt how sad it was to be dying amongst strangers, and... JEFFREY BROWN: You weren't at home.
SALMAN RUSHDIE: ... and far away from people you love.
JEFFREY BROWN: Most of all, his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, a poet and novelist with whom he's been together since 2017.
"Knife," he wants us to know, is also a love story.
Meeting us at the office of his longtime agent, Andrew Wylie, Rushdie, now 76, is still quick with jokes and wit.
He's happy with his weight loss, he says, but doesn't recommend the route he took to drop the pounds.
He also showed us a photo on the wall from another dramatic time in his life, the publication of his novel "The Satanic Verses" in 1988.
Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, denouncing the book as an insult to Islam, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death.
There were violent demonstrations in the Muslim world, and the book's Japanese translator was murdered in 1991.
Rushdie himself, then living in London, went into hiding with police protection for nine years.
He would write about that period in his first memoir, "Joseph Anton."
SALMAN RUSHDIE: To my surprise, I have now written two autobiographical books.
When I became a writer, I had zero interest in autobiography.
But then I acquired the problem of an interesting life.
JEFFREY BROWN: But for the past 20 years, now in New York, he's lived a fairly normal life, often in public, including with us on the Staten Island Ferry when we talked of his 2015 novel, "Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights."
He had moved on.
SALMAN RUSHDIE: And I thought, OK, this is behind me, and the world moves on, and so much else for me -- for people to be upset about.
And, I mean, like this kid, 24, he wasn't even born at the time that that trouble happened.
JEFFREY BROWN: This kid, Hadi Matar, born in California, living in New Jersey before the attack, now awaiting trial for attempted murder.
In his book, Rushdie chose not to name him, calling him "the A" for "my assailant, my would-be assassin, the asinine man who made assumptions about me."
And in a very Rushdien twist, he imagines a series of talks with his attacker, a fictional section within this very nonfiction book.
You clearly had to address him or think about him as a person.
SALMAN RUSHDIE: Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: But you also clearly, I think, had to make a decision how much of a character in your life, in your book, in your story?
SALMAN RUSHDIE: Yes, I mean, I think he obviously is a character in it.
But the reason I wanted to think about him imaginatively is that I think there's sort of a puzzle about him, which is that he was very, very young.
And one of the things he must have known he was doing was to ruin his life by committing murder.
It would also be terrible catastrophe in his life, not just in mine.
And why would somebody so young be so willing to sacrifice their own freedom and future?
Initially, I wanted to meet him to ask him.
Then I thought, I'm not going to get anything useful out of that.
I will just get a bunch of slogans.
And then I thought, let me use what talent I have, which is, as you say, imagination and storytelling.
Let me just try and imagine my way into him and try and fill that hole, so at least, to my satisfaction, I can construct a narrative that feels plausible.
JEFFREY BROWN: Now do you - - are you done with him?
SALMAN RUSHDIE: Yes, I kind of dealt with him as far as I'm concerned.
JEFFREY BROWN: You know, you write at one point: "I understood that the strangenesses of my life had put me at the heart of a battle."
And that battle is between the book and the bomb, the word and now the knife?
SALMAN RUSHDIE: Yes, and kind of -- and just between bigotry and tolerance, between openness and closedness, between humorlessness and humor.
I mean, it's not a battle that I picked.
But given that I'm in it, it's the right battle.
In the end, that's what writers can do.
They can tell the story.
And dictators, tyrants, powerful people can own the present, but I have always believed writers own the future.
JEFFREY BROWN: And for you?
SALMAN RUSHDIE: I think, if you're my kind of writer, what you most want to do is to write books that will endure.
You want them to outlast you.
I mean, my dear friend Martin Amis, we just lost, used to say that what you hope to leave behind you is a shelf of books.
You want to be able to say, like from here to here, it's me, you know?
And I would like -- I mean, I have got 22 now, so that's a shelf.
JEFFREY BROWN: That's a good shelf.
And now, for Salman Rushdie, no doubt a shelf that will continue to grow.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in New York.
GEOFF BENNETT: And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Geoff Bennett.
For all of us here at the "PBS NewsHour," thanks for joining us, and have a good evening.