First Thing: Dozens arrested at Yale and NYU as pro-Palestine student protests spread

Police broke up encampments at a further two US universities on Monday. Plus, a charity says pedophiles are creating nude AI images of children to blackmail them

Good morning.

Police have arrested dozens of pro-Palestine protesters at Yale University in Connecticut and Manhattan’s New York University as demonstrations over the Gaza war continue to unfold across US campuses.

The arrests came after Columbia University canceled in-person classes on Monday after protesters erected tent encampments on campus last week.

Students at Yale and New York University were calling for the institutions to divest from military weapons manufacturers. They defied warnings from the universities to vacate the area or face law enforcement and disciplinary action.

How many were arrested? At least 47 protesters on Yale campus; police in New York said the number of arrests would not be known until later.

What about at Columbia? More than 100 students were arrested on Thursday – but a new encampment has sprung up, hundreds of faculty members have held a mass walkout in protest to the university’s response, and it has triggered a wave of demonstrations in solidarity.

Trump’s hush-money trial resumes with National Enquirer publisher testimony

Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial in Manhattan continues on Tuesday morning – but before it does, the judge will consider prosecutors’ arguments that the former president has violated a gag order preventing him from publicly attacking witnesses and the jury.

The trial will continue with further testimony from David Pecker, a Trump ally and former publisher of the National Enquirer, whom prosecutors argue was key to illicit catch-and-kill efforts and the plan to bolster Trump’s odds in the 2016 election.

The prosecutor Matthew Colangelo argued on Monday that after announcing his presidential bid in 2015, Trump met with then lawyer Michael Cohen and Pecker to discuss a plot whereby Pecker would kill damaging stories about Trump.

What examples did prosecutors give of catch-and-kill tactics? They said it included AMI’s $150,000 payoff to the Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with Trump.

Pedophiles create nude AI images of children to extort from them, says charity

Pedophiles are advising each other on how to use artificial intelligence to create nude images of children to blackmail them into sharing more graphic material, a child abuse charity has said.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which finds and removes child sexual abuse material online, said an almost 200-page manual discovered on the dark web contained a section encouraging criminals to use “nudifying” tools to remove clothing from pictures children sent of themselves in their underwear.

The IWF said the edited image could then be used to extort the child into sharing more extreme content. “This is the first evidence we have seen that perpetrators are advising and encouraging each other to use AI technology for these ends,” the charity said.

How is this threat to children developing? 2023 was the most extreme year on record, the IWF said. The charity found a record number of webpages last year, more than 275,000, showing child sexual abuse with the highest levels of the most severe content.

In other news …

The UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill passed on Monday night. The bill – which has been condemned by the Council of Europe’s human rights watchdog – will allow asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by irregular means to be deported to the Rwandan capital of Kigali.

The leading designer Nancy Gonzalez has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of smuggling crocodile handbags from Colombia, in breach of US wildlife laws.

A California district attorney’s office is reviewing more than 30 death penalty cases after records were discovered suggesting prosecutors purposefully excluded Jewish and Black jurors from capital trials.

The World Bank has immediately suspended funding for the development of Ruaha national park in southern Tanzania after allegations of killings, rape and forced evictions.

Stat of the day: 865 workers died due to falls, slips and trips in US workplaces in 2022

Construction workers are calling for safer conditions, amid figures that show the high rates at which fatalities occur in workplace accidents. Of the 865 fatalities due to falls, slips and trips recorded in workplaces in 2022, more than 400 were construction workers, according to the Center for Construction Research and Training.

Don’t miss this: doctors brace for US supreme court verdict on emergency abortions

After post-Roe abortion laws, doctors in states such as Idaho have made use of a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (Emtala). The law requires hospitals in receipt of Medicare funding to stabilize patients who present in a medical emergency – and send them to another facility if they are unable to, allowing them to transport patients to other states. With Emtala now facing a supreme court case, the Guardian’s Carter Sherman speaks to doctors from states with restrictive abortion laws about what the future looks like if this tool is also taken away.

Climate check: Electric and hybrid car sales to rise to new global record in 2024

Global sales of electric and hybrid vehicles will rise to a record high in 2024, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts, with an increase of more than 20% expected on 2023 figures. In the first quarter of 2024, more electric and hybrid cars were sold than in the whole of 2020, the IEA said.

Last Thing: Belgian man whose body makes its own alcohol cleared of drunk-driving

A Belgian man has been acquitted of drunk-driving due to having a highly unusual condition called auto-brewery syndrome (ABS) where the body makes its own alcohol, his lawyer has said. While his condition was independently confirmed by three doctors, Anse Ghesquiere said it was “another unfortunate coincidence” that her client was employed by a brewery.

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