--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hi there, it's Gideon. Before we get into today's episode, we have a quick request. Pretty soon on Apple News and Conversation, we're talking with an expert about what it takes to be self-employed. So if you've thought about quitting your job and becoming your own boss, we want to hear from you. What questions do you have about taking that leap? If that's something that interests you, just use your iPhone's voice memo app to record yourself. All you have to do is tell us your name, where you're from, and your question, and then send it to us at AppleNewsToday at Apple.com. Again, that's Apple News Today at Apple.com. You might hear our guests answer your question on the show. Thanks so much. Good morning. It's Tuesday, April 30th. I'm Gideon Resnick, in for Shemitah Besu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Coming up, Inside Trump's New York criminal trial, which resumes today. How Israel marked Passover during war. And the college reunion powering the New York Knicks. But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories that are in the news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In the Middle East, there's a new deal on the table for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. Israel is reportedly lowering the amount of hostages Hamas must release. This deal would include a pause in fighting and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During his visit to Saudi Arabia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Palestinian leaders to accept the offer. Hamas has beforeed a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel. And in this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas. They have to decide, and they have to decide quickly.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here in the U.S., Columbia University's anti-war demonstrators occupied a campus building just after midnight. It's the same place that anti-war and civil rights protesters occupied in a 1968 protest we talked about on the show before. This follows a move by the university to start suspending students who refused to clear a protest encampment ahead of a deadline yesterday afternoon. Serda Polat was one of the Columbia protest leaders speaking out against the suspensions.
--:-- Serda Polat: Losing access to their housing, losing access to campus, losing access to healthcare on campus, and losing their right to graduation if they are a graduating student. Essentially, these are attempts to stifle the student movement
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There have also been more protests at other campuses from Boston to Chicago to Austin and Los Angeles. Now to North Carolina. Four law enforcement officers are dead in Charlotte. They were shot and killed while trying to serve a warrant. Four more were wounded in what the local police chief called the most tragic event of his more than 30-year career. This is a developing story, and you can follow the latest on the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York is now back underway. Today, the judge in the case fined Trump $9,000 for repeated violations of a gag order. He also told Trump to take down several social media and campaign website posts. There will be more witness testimony later. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he falsified business records. It's in connection with a payment before the 2016 election to an adult film actress who claimed to have a sexual encounter with him. Trump has denied having an affair. Every day the court is in session, Trump is required to be there. The high-profile case is being heard from a drab Manhattan County court building, where Trump occasionally stops and talks to reporters. Ben Feuerherd is one of them. He's been covering the trial for Politico.
--:-- Ben Feuerherd: I've been in the hallway pool, like a pool of a couple of reporters who send out notes to the other members of the press because there's only a handful who are allowed into the hallway when he walks in and out. So it's sort of, you know, it's strange to see him when he addresses the cameras. He like stands in this little, I've called it in my pool notes, a pen of waste time metal barricades near a men's bathroom.
--:-- Ben Feuerherd: Last week was the first week of testimony. The jury heard from David Pecker, the former CEO of the publisher of the National Enquirer and other tabloids. He testified across four days about a phrase you've probably heard by now, catch and kill. Pecker described helping Trump and his 2016 campaign catch potentially damaging stories and kill them before they went public. Paying for the exclusive rights, but never actually running those stories. He said under oath last week that he still views Trump as a friend and views him as a mentor. And so in a perhaps surprising way, that sort of probably plays into the prosecutor's benefit because it shows that he's not this disgruntled former friend of Trump. He still views Trump very positively and still looks at him as a friend.
--:-- Ben Feuerherd: The jury also heard from Gary Farrow a former banker who testified about his relationship with Trump former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen Farrow told the jury he helped Cohen create an account to allegedly make hush money payments Farrow is expected to take the stand again today. The prosecutors have laid this foundation of the conspiracy, and now we're getting to the point where the alleged crimes that they charged are going to be at the forefront very soon, I think.
--:-- Ben Feuerherd: Fear Heard says no one knows when key witnesses in the case, like Michael Cohen and Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, will take the stand.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Today marks the end of Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the liberation of enslaved Israelites and their exodus from ancient Egypt. This year in Israel, as families and communities gathered, the holiday looked very different. Families with loved ones who are still being held hostage by Hamas had empty chairs at their seder tables. And before the holiday, religious leaders encouraged all Israeli families to leave a seat open to honor the hostages. Many people were forced to spend Passover away from home, either driven out by fighting or ordered to leave by the government for their own safety. Over 160,000 Israelis are displaced.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: PBS NewsHour spent part of the holiday in Matula, an almost ghost town in North Israel that borders Lebanon on three sides. Daily rocket fire from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah put residents in danger, and hundreds of people had to evacuate. A few did choose to stay behind to guard the town, including David Azuli, Matula's head of council.
--:-- David Azuli: (through a translator) None of what they're living through is normal. It's very sad. It shouldn't be this way. It's very apocalyptic.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Another resident who stayed behind said they still tried to honor the holiday.
--:-- Resident: I'm not going to be with my family. My family doing Passover far away from here. I am now going to do Passover with our new family, all the guys that lives in Metula and decided to stay here and defend our homes and the village.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Many of those who left Metula ended up about 40 miles south in Tiberias, where they've been living in hotels. That includes Rabbi Israel Pachter, who fled with his wife and 11 children. During Passover, he led Seder for members of the community and told PBS that he tried to focus on keeping spirits high.
--:-- Rabbi Israel Pachter: Part of the winning is to keep our morality up.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Seder dinner included familiar rituals like candle songs and the reading of the story of the Exodus from ancient Egypt. This year though Pachter added a prayer for the hostages in Gaza. And several people wore sunglasses to symbolize how the men, women, and children taken by Hamas had been kept in darkness for over 200 days.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's Pachter's wife, Sarah.
--:-- Sarah Pachter: I feel like all the world just get up and scream and get those hostages out. It breaks my heart.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Do you remember your freshman year college roommate? NBA stars Jalen Brunson and Dante DiVincenzo certainly do. They were roommates at Villanova, and now they're in the playoffs as teammates on the New York Knicks. If you're a Knicks fan or you have one in your life, the dorm room history between Brunson and DiVincenzo is not new information. But ESPN has the full backstory on how these friends first got to know each other at Villanova University, where they won two national titles. And that includes some rocky moments with another player.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Funnily enough, as the story goes, they bonded early on talking about how annoying one particular Villanova teammate was. That was Josh Hart. And now he is on the Knicks as well. The coincidence has earned the team the nickname of the Nova Knicks. And the three former Wildcats have played a huge role in elevating the team to the number two seed in the East.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As ESPN details, playing together requires putting aside some old fights. At one point in the college gym, Hart delivered an insult so fierce that DiVincenzo swung a 10-pound weight at him. Despite some past rockiness, DiVincenzo says he's come to appreciate Hart over the years. And now he has to. If these players want a shot at getting the Knicks into the NBA Finals for the first time in over two decades, they'll have to continue working together, starting with beating the Philadelphia 76ers tonight.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening to the News app right now, we have a narrated article coming up next from Texas Monthly. It's about a cheerleading coach who rocketed to viral fame. In 2020, the Netflix docu-series Cheer followed Monica Aldama and her squad at Navarro College. Then came a series of sexual abuse scandals on the squad, including a civil suit that named Aldama. She denied the allegations and was eventually dismissed as a defendant. She opens up about how she's tried to deal with life in the national spotlight.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
