Hello and welcome to background briefing, available 24-7 at backgroundbriefing.org, I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with dozens of students protesting the war in Gaza, arrested today at Yale University,

following last week's arrest of over 100 at Columbia University,

and speak with Alexander Salmon, a politics writer at Slate,

who has previously written for Mother Jones, the New Republic, and the American Prospect. We will discuss his latest article at Slate, who has previously written for Mother Jones, the New Republic, and the American

prospect. We will discuss his latest article at Slate, what just happened at Columbia University

inside the student protest that led to more than 100 arrests. Then we'll look into the optics,

rather than the legal issues in today's opening arguments in the New York trial of

Donald Trump, which has the former president off his pedestal reduced to a criminal defendant

confronted with his sleazy behavior of sex with a porn star shortly after his wife gave birth to their son,

and the cover-up of which an underlying went to jail for.

Joining us is Anne Nelson, a research fellow at Columbia University, author and lecturer in the

fields of international affairs, media and human rights, who was the director of the international

program at Columbia School of Journalism, where she created the first curriculum in human

rights reporting.

Her books include Red Orchestra, the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends who resisted

Hitler, and Shadow Network, Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right, now out in an updated

paperback version. The new film, Bad Faith, Christian Nationalism's War on Democracy,

based on her book, Shadow Network,

start streaming on multiple platforms on April the 26th.

Then finally we'll speak with Natalie Foster, the president and co-founder of the Economic Security Project,

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