wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. ♪ geoff: 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 underway in the world's largest democracy, we examine the ethnic violence that has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands in india. >> 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. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour been provided by -- ♪ the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of the newshour, including kathy and paul anderson and camilla and george smith. >> these are people who are trying to change the world.

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more at kaf.org. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and 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. ♪ geoff: 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. wacs it is a really outrageous crackdown by the university to allow police to arrest students on our own campus. geoff: 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 committe 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. columbia has been the flashpoint 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 say shafik's crackdown has been excessively harsh and squelches free speech. >> the people united will never be defeated. geoff: but some students, particularly jewish students, 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. >> the campus, honestly, it's

full of a lot of hate and disagreement, and it's honestly just sad to see. i've seen some pretty awful things said to not only practicing jews, but, i mean, people that are ethnically jewish, simply for wearing like a star of david. geoff: the anti-defamation league posted a video contending it had become too dangerous, as well. >> two individuals throw a rock at my head, hit me right in the face. i'm calling public safety. nypd, where are you? geoff: but protesters say the crackdown is not justified. ava lyon-sereno is a sophomore at barnard college, which is part of coumbia, majoring in urban studies. she's jewish. >> 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: she also said the administration's approach has backfired. >> 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: for his part, president biden also criticized many of the protests yesterday. >> i condemn the antisemitic protests. i also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the palestinians. geoff: today, just before he went into court, former president trump blamed biden. >> what's going on at the college level, at the colleges, columbia, nyu, and others is a disgrace. and it's a, it's really on biden. he's got the wrong signal, he's got the wrong tone, he's got the wrong word. geoff: 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 safety.

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'll 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. thank you for being with us. we should say that members of the columbia university chapter of your organization are expected to move to center the university president -- censure the university president for her decision to call in the nypd last week to arrest demonstrators. why is that warranted, in your view? >> i think the idea of calling in police in riot gear on

peaceful protesters protesting outside is a remarkably disproportionate and wrongheaded response to the events we are 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 and -- in service of understanding. instead, we saw the suppression of speech and silencing of voices because somebody might not like what they are saying. and that is a real danger to democracy. geoff: how should a university balance the expression of free speech and student safety? >> there is harassment and anti-semitism, it 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. that's where we should go, policies that ensure due process for the students, and then what we are seeing instead is new policies being drafted on time, manner and place of protest, your protest has to be in a roped off area in a tiny space on campus. this is suppression of speech. the idea that if you are suppressing speech in order to keep students safe, that is a false choice. you can do both. geoff: thinking about this from the perspective of jewish students who say that feel -- they feel intimidated, if there's 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? >> 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, people have extremely wrong -- strong positions and these are polarizing times. debates are heated and messy. and so you have to err on the side of free and open inquiry. 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 associational rights for students. geoff: as protests spread to other campuses, what lessons could other college and university administrators take away from what has transpired at columbia? >> they could think about creative ways to respond. they could think about ways to

encourage communication and dialogue in open forums across the 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 columbia and in my josh and nyu is completely unacceptable. the silencing of speech and democracy, if somebody doesn't like it, this is a real danger. geoff: irene, president of the american association of university professors, thank you for your insights. let's turn now to dr. andrew r. marks. he's the chair of the department of physiology and cellular biophysics at columbia university. thank you for being with us. how do you feel about the 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 are sufficient? >> i think she is doing the best that she can. i think that her heart is in the right place. i think it is an incredibly difficult situation, and there are no easy answers. columbia university has had policies in place which i think are capable of dealing with this situation, if they are able to be enforced. geoff: have you witnessed incidents of anti-semitism on campus? >> yes, i have. i've seen anti-semitic slurs being hurled at jewish students, and it has been very painful to watch. i've seen anti-semitic hate language written on walls in the middle of campus and posters hanging that have been very offensive. geoff: what more could columbia be doing, to make jewish students feel safer? >> i think columbia has already

done a lot and has taken steps, and my personal observation is that over the last several days, 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, when you leave campus in either direction, there is a tremendous amount of anti-semitic hate speech being hurled at students and faculty from people outside the campus. geoff: when it comes to what is happening on campus, how should a university balance student safety and student expression? >> i think that students should be allowed to protest, absolutely. and i think that the limit has to be on hate speech. 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: what do you think is informing and influencing the administration response to the ongoing protests? >> again, she has been in an incredibly difficult situation. i'd like to clarify a couple of things, i heard your previous speaker say, first of all, the actions taken again 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. the president 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 would have wanted to negotiate or talk with

students, but she did that because she felt it was necessary to preserve the safety of the jewish community and other people on campus. i was one of the people at the senate executive committee that helped write the event policy, and it is important to note that it was done in complete collaboration, and working very closely with students. while no policy is perfect, we tried to come up with one that was fair. the previous speaker mentioned that we were limiting protest to tiny parts of campus. that is not accurate. there were designated areas and times and place which is common for all universities, and had the students adhered to those guidelines, things would've gone much differently. geoff: dr. marks, chair of physiology and biophysics at columbia, thank you for being

with us. >> thank you for having me. ♪ vanessa: i'm vanessa ruiz, in for stephanie sy with newshour west. here are the latest headlines. the u.s. senate advanced a bill -- is set to pass legislation tonight that will send billions of dollars in aid to ukraine, israel, and taiwan. final -- the bill requires tiktok to divest chinese parent company or face a u.s. ban. in total it contains $95 billion in support, with $61 billion dedicated to ukraine. today, the pentagon clarified where those funds would go. >> 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 will include air defense capabilities as well as artillery ammunition. vanessa: pentagon officials

would first send a $1 billion military aid package to kyiv. 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 non-stop 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. >> i hope that with this with -- with this report, and the measures we will be putting in place, that the last group of donors will get the necessary confidence to come back as a donor and partner of the agency. vanessa: a separate internal u.n. investigation is still looking into israel's allegations that unrwa staffers were involved in the october 7th attacks. a moscow court has rejected the latest appeal from american journalist evan gershkovich, keeping the wall street journal reporter detained in russia through the end of june. the 32-year-old appeared in court today with his lawyers to seek an end to his pre-trial detention. he was arested in march of last year on espionage charges. five migrants died today as they tried to cross the english channel from france to the u.k. among them was a seven-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 warned, the measure will do more harm than good. >> we will not see the boats stop because of this. we will see more deaths. we will see more dangerous risks being taken. but, yeah, it definitely won't act as a deterrent. nothing else has. so i don't know why people are thinking that this will. vanessa: 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, months before the city hosts the summer olympics. in a pre-dawn operation, authorities evicted dozens of teenage boys and young men from west africa. most 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 games. back in this country, the federal trade commission voted today to ban so-called non-compete agreements for most employees. this means companies can no longer bar workers from taking jobs with their competitors. according to the ftc, 30 milllion 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. a new rule finalized today by the biden administration will grant millions of salaried workers overtime, starting july 1. this includes workers in select professional, administrative, and executive roles who were previously exempt from earning pay for more than 40 hours of work. it's the largest expansion to federal overtime eligibility in decades. still to come on the "newshour," the supreme court hears a case that has major implications for labor relations.

congress passes a bill forcing tiktok's chinese parent company to sell up or be banned. and author salman rushdie discusses his new memoir about the murderous knife attack that changed his life. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour from wbt a studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: 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, the former national inquirer publisher 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 with more. the judge now has to rule on mr. trump's behavior outside the courtroom, is that right? william: that's right. 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. a former acting attorney general national security has been following this and all of trump's case is very closely. so nice to see you again. thanks for being here. 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 has violated that 10 different times. what is he accused of doing? >> originally, they sought to have the hearing on contempt, whether he was in contempt of the courts order based on three initial social media post that attacked potential witnesses, like michael cohen 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 very troublesome to the court, attacking jurors. he did this by reposting a different post by jesse waters talking about liberal individuals lying, and then he added to that to get onto this trial. that caused the government to file another motion for contempt. i will note that in today's hearing, prosecutors said we are going to be filing another motion for contempt. based on some even, on the even more. it just keeps going. william: his lawyers argue this is an unconstitutional infringement on his free-speech rights, that he feels the system is rigged and he has every right to say that. what are a defendants rights in this regard? x defendants have constitutional rights, like all people in the united states. but when you are a defendant in a criminal trial, those rights

are absolute not limitless. ,they can be restricted 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. notably, mr. trump has been making this argument about the constitution, not just in this case in the manhattan courtroom, but he made it in the january 6 federal case here in washington dc 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 the judge has basically adopted pretty much the same order that the d.c. circuit had upheld here. he is not bound by the d.c. circuit but he said the questions were resolved by saying the needs for the

administration of justice justify these minimal restrictions. william: russell gold, a law professor at the university of alabama was quoted saying i cannot imagine a defendant posting on social media about a judges family and not being quickly incarcerated. this is in reference to trump attacking the judge's daughter. do you agree that trump has been getting a disposition that other defendants would not get? mary: yes. i cannot say that every defendant would be immediately detained for attacking a member of the judge's family, but we do see repeat violations. he is sanctioned. the judge in the civil fraud trial sanctioned him monetarily, twice. i suspect we will see monetary sanctions in the result of today's trial. i think judges are very reluctant to detain a former president, not only because it

would be immediately branded and attacked as political, and they are trying very hard to maintain that they are being fair and impartial, even though some may say their attempts to be fair and impartial means they are putting a thumb on the scale in favor of mr. trump. but also, logistically, it is incredibly complicated when you are talking about somebody with secret service protection, etc. where would you house that person? i think the judges are conscious of the fact that he is a candidate for president, this is the election season, and i think they're really hesitant to shut down all opportunity for his campaign. which is what it would mean if he were detained. william: i just want to read and excerpt from the gag order where he was talking about the practical implications of this. he wrote that the average observer must now, after hearing the 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: absolutely. i think that is why not only has this judge taken these things seriously, but the d.c. circuit judge. what happens is first of all, threats get made against witnesses and potential jurors, the judges family, the prosecutor's family. jack smith has reported how many millions of they are having to dollars spend for security for the prosecution's team and their families. but also, witnesses might color their testimony because they are worried or scared about what will happen if they testify truthfully. we've already seen one juror pull out after being selected because her own friends were able to identify her just based on the information, not her name. she was worried on her safety and her ability to be impartial. so there are real-world

consequences. the judge knows it and issued the order without explanation. william: mary, thank you so much, as always. ♪ geoff: 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 7 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 for being with us. walk us through the arguments the justices heard today and how this is all linked to the starbucks union dispute. >> when workers unionize, if they are retaliated against by

their employers, the national labor relations board, the federal agency that oversees union rights in the u.s., has the right to go to federal court and ask for immediate relief in the form of forcing a company like starbucks to reinstate fired workers. that is exactly actually what happened a few years ago at the very beginning of the starbucks drive for unionization that has 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 have to reinstate them. starbucks is arguing that that reinstatement should not have happened. they said they fired those workers because they invited a tv crew into their store after hours, against policy and that they were totally within the rights to fire them. starbucks was challenging was

-- the test the federal court used in determining whether they could order the reinstatement of those baristas. the nlrb was defending the authority it is in going to federal courts to ask for the relief and the standard used to grant that relief. geoff: based on the justices questions, do you have a sense of where they are leaning in this case? >> it seemed they were poised to agree with starbucks on this one, they feel like the nlrb has wielded too much power in the memphis case, that there should be a consistent standard that is applied all across all circuit courts in the united states, which there is not right now. seems likely they will change the test or sort of modify the test so it is consistent across courts across the united states, which labor advocates say could have a chilling effect for union

organizing in the united states. it wasn't just one side of the aisle ideologically. the majority of justices with the exception of justice ketanji brown jackson made that point. justice jackson appeared more convinced by the nlrb case that congress bestowed authority on the nlrb to conduct investigations and the weight of their findings should be prioritized by federal courts. geoff: tell us about possibly implications. >> labor activists believe this could have a chilling effect on labor organizing and unionizing in the united states which is having a resurgent moment of popularity. you may have heard about it not just at starbucks, the auto workers unionize last friday in annecy, amazon, rei, trader joe's, and these court orders at the heart of this case are not just

used to reinstate fired workers. they can be used to request bargaining orders that companies must adhere to, to reopen closed stores. all sorts of ways companies retaliate against workers for unionizing. if there is a higher standard, there will be a higher bar for getting back relief for workers, which could make them more afraid to unionize or could cause union campaigns to die out as employers retaliate against workers. geoff: lauren with the washington post. thank you for sharing your reporting with us. the supreme court is back tomorrow with another high stakes case out of idaho, looking at accesss to emergency abortions. we'll have the latest on what's shaping up to be a busy final week of the argument calendar. ♪ geoff: indian prime minister

narendra modi hopes to secure a third term in elections that are now underway. his promise, a rising, united india. but in india's northeast, a state is at war with itself. hundreds are dead, tens of thousands 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. >> 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 check-points controlled by indian security forces and civilian militias. to reach the christian minority stronghold, churachandpur. >> our fathers and forefathers lived together in manipur. but the ethnic conflict in manipur, has been so sudden. >> 31 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. >> 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. >> they did not consider themselves starcrossed, but their love story ended when manipur's faultlines cracked. >> 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, do not worry. at around 11:00 pm, 12:00 am, 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.

>> 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 burnt. 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. >> 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. >> 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 metei 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. >> this is a war crime. this is ethnic cleansing. and plus, this is a religious persecution. >> kim gangte is a kuki women rights activist who has documented sexual crimes. >> most of our women who are they are in the valley, they were being tortured. they were being raped. they were being killed. >> last may, two kuki women were

paraded naked, beaten, and sexually assaulted by a mob of hundreds. one of them was allegedly gangraped. >> 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. >> 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 gangrape. >> 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. >> but for the christian kuki community, that reassurance rings hollow. they no longer believe in living with the hindu meiteis. they want a 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 6 hour wait at a security checkpoint, we were allowed to enter. >> the moment one community sees the other community, they want to kill each other. >> 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. >> there's so much of, divisions or mistrust between the two communities that the two communities cannot live together now. >> 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 meteis have been forced out of their homes and now live in camps restricted to a small corner of the state. >> 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. >> 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. >> she had a cup with 'future doctor' written on it. she wanted to become a doctor to help the underprivileged. >> the last drawing she made, the last book she read, her last father's day card bring pain, tears, and rage. >> prime minister narendra modi did not utter a single word about this case or the violence in manipur all these months. even though the prime minister's so called slogan is save daughter, educate daughter. will they be able to bring back my daughter? >> there is no justice for a father who lost his daughter. and there is no closure for

victims on both sides, who say they've been neglected. for the pbs newshour, in manipur, india i'm zeba warsi. ♪ geoff: tiktok might soon be banned or under new ownership in the u.s. that's with the 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: 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. and some of its users say it is 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. let's start off by how do you ban something used by almost 200 one million people? >> so the mechanism of this bill is simple. it says that app store is run by companies like apple or google couldn't carry. -- couldn't carry tiktok, could not make it available for download. and 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: 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? >> so these are key questions.

it's expected that the app would 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 well. will they sell the algorithm that recommends that endless video feed 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: i've 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? the range? >> i think that analysts have generally estimated yes, at least tens of billions of dollars. >> so then something that expensive, who can buy it? and can it be done within nine months as this law would set out. >> that is the question. and, of course, the senate push 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 by dance its parent company? what amount of time with 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 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 can imagine that some potential buyers, think about big tech companies, could get a lot of scrutiny from the government, and that could slow down the process. >> 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? >> i think questions about the economic effect will come down to how this ultimately nets out -- is there a sale or 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. >> from your perspective. how unprecedented is this by the us government and by congress? some a move like this involving a major business. >> the precedent that the supporters of this bill site are a couple there's one that the u. s generally forbids some foreign ownership of traditional media and that the u.s. force the chinese company to sell grindr the dating app a few years ago. but, of course, grinder is relatively small compared to tiktok, which has about 170 million users in the united states. so the government has not tried to do this with an app of this scope ever. >> congress overwhelmingly supported this idea of the forcing a ban or a sale, but members of congress generally aren't using tiktok. i know i've 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 imct beyond just the sale or ban?

>> well, that's certainly something we're watching. i mean, i think you've 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 people who use this app care about this measure and again that may have to do with this result in a sale to a new company? does it result in a ban? i will know 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 we are tracking is whether some tiktok users might migrate there even if there is a ban. lisa: what about the world reaction? >> 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're tracking going forward as well. lisa: david, thank you.

>> thank you. ♪ geoff: august 12, 2022. salman rushdie, one of the world's best known writers, was attacked and nearly killed by a young man with the knife. now rushdie has written of that harrowing day and all that's followed in a new book. he spoke recently to jeffrey brown for our arts and culture series, canvas. jeffrey: as we sit here a little more than a year and a half after the attack, how are you? >> i'm surprisingly good. the present to myself, certainly, but also actually surprising to quite a lot of the army of doctors that i've been involved with, many of whom have said that the recovery is much in excess of what they would have expected. jeffrey: 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, and, neck, chest and abdomen, and undergrowth 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. >> at its most basic, it's the story of a knife attack, you know? but then i came to think of it in another way, a kind of metaphorical way. i came to think like language is a kind of knife, you know, 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 i think in a funny way, i came to think that the book itself is a knife. but it's my knife. it's a way of fighting back. jeffrey: was this one harder to to write another's?

because it was so personal? >> 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, 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: how did it look? >> well, not great. on the one hand, it was quite prosaic, you know. i was lying there bleeding, and in a completely kind of neutral way, i found myself thinking, oh, this is, i'm dying. but in that kind of tone of voice. nothing dramatic, you know, just that's probably what is happening. and then i, then i felt very lonely because i felt how sad it was to be dying among strangers, you know. and far away from people you

love. jeffrey: 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 lift. -- 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 the islam, issued a fatwa colin firth 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 9 years. he would write about that period

in his first memoir, joseph anton. >> to my surprise, i've 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: but for the past 20 years, knowing new york, he has 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. >> i thought, okay, this, this is behind me. the world moves on. so much else to be, for people to be upset about. i mean, like, this kid, 24, he wasn't even born at the time that that trouble happened. jeffrey: 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 the assassin, the asinine man who made assumptions about me. and, in a very rushdian twist, he imagines a series of talks with his attacker, a fictional section within this very non-fiction book. you clearly had to address him or think about him as person. >> yes. jeffrey: 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? >> yeah. 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 that he, you know, he was very, very young. and one of the things he must have known he was doing was to ruin his life. by, by committing murder, it would also be a 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'll just get a bunch of slogans. and then i thought, let me use what talent i have, you know, which is, as you say, imagination and storytelling. and let me just try and imagine my way into him and try and fill that hole. you know, at least to my satisfaction, i can construct a narrative that feels plausible. jeffrey: now, do you, are you done with him? >> yeah. i kind of dealt with him, as far as i'm concerned. jeffrey: 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? >> yes and kind of, between bigotry and tolerance. between openness and closedness, between humorless

and humor. not a battle that i picked, you know, 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, you know, dictators, tyrants, powerful people can own the present. but i've always believe writers own the future. jeffrey: and for you? >> if you're my kind of writer, what you most want to do is to write books that will endure. you know, you want them to outlast you. i mean my dear friend martin amis, we just, 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, from here to hear, that is me. and i don't know, i have got 22 now. so that's a shelf. jeffrey: 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.

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wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. ♪ pati, voice-over: in searching for hidden gems in new cities, i sometimes let my nose be my guide. today, i'm in the city of linares, nuevo león, an official magic town nestled in the heart of orange country, where i'm following the smoky aroma of texas-style barbeque to the grill of luis rivas. he's preparing his award-winning mex-tex.