Ukraine Ceasefire Talks, Stock Market Slide, Columbia University Arrest Latest
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Ukraine tries another round of negotiations today, not with Russia, but with its ally, the United States. Which paused its aid. So what does the U.S. want from Ukraine? What are the Ukrainians able to offer? I'm E. Martinez, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is a first from NPR News. The stock markets had their worst day of the year. The fear is that the president's repeated tariff changes may cause recession. There is a period of transition.

Because what we're doing is very big. Why did the president's response make investors even more concerned? Also, the Department of Education, not yet abolished, is telling 60 universities they may face penalties. The department describes last year's protests over Gaza as, quote, relentless anti-Semitic eruptions. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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To learn more, go to s-double-a-t-v-a-dot-com-slash-n-p-r. Ukraine struck Russia today. It was the biggest ever drone attack on Moscow. According to Russian officials, the drone strikes hit a warehouse, killed and injured people, and briefly shut down the airports. It was a sign that Ukraine still has some striking power, even though it has lost some vital American support.

Today, U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators meet to discuss that and much more. This meeting is happening in Saudi Arabia, and the talks do come with some urgency attached to them. The Trump administration is withholding both military aid and intelligence from a country that, up until now, has been a U.S. ally. President Trump has also talked of sanctions against Russia, but unlike with Ukraine, he has yet to announce a penalty.

NPR Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis is covering all this from Kiev. Hi there, Joanna. Good morning. Let's just remember the backdrop here. Ukrainians and Americans met at the White House. Last time they met, it was Volodymyr Zelensky who argued with Trump and Vance, President Trump and Vice President Vance, and they then berated him. So what does Ukraine hope for this time?

Well, Steve, Ukrainians really hope the White House will change its tone after this meeting and its actions because the past couple of weeks have really unsettled everyone I've spoken to here, including Roman Kostenko. He's a military commander and lawmaker, and he said Ukraine has no choice but to work with the Trump administration because Ukraine will struggle to defend itself without U.S. support.

He's saying we have no way out. We have to manage or we will die. It's not even a choice. Okay, so they have no choice but to come back to the table. Here they are. President Trump spoke with reporters over the weekend and he said of Ukrainians, quote, I want them to want peace. Although it is not clear at all what more the president wants than they have offered. So what's on the agenda for this meeting?

Well, Steve, no final decisions are set to be made today. Zelensky's in Saudi Arabia on a state visit, but he said he isn't planning to attend this meeting and Trump won't be there either. The Ukrainian team includes Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Germak, as well as Ukraine's foreign and defense ministers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading the U.S. delegation. Rubio did say on Monday that he wants Ukraine to show that it's serious about ending the war. He talked about Ukraine making concessions like giving up land taken by Russia.

Now, Ukraine has said repeatedly that it's always been serious about ending this war and it wants a peace deal with security guarantees so Russia does not rearm and attack again. So just a reminder, at this point, we're only talking about concessions by Ukraine. So what sort of concessions might the Ukrainians be willing to make?

Well, Zelensky has already proposed a partial ceasefire covering aerial attacks in the Black Sea. Not sure if Russia would agree to this, but Rubio seemed to welcome the move. And public opinion polls show between 20 and 30 percent of Ukrainians would consider giving up occupied territory in return for protracted.

I'm the person who survived dozens of truce events.

So Kostenko is saying, I'm a person who has experienced dozens of truces and all were violated by Russia. So everyone needs to understand that when negotiating this truce. I guess the Ukrainians want to persuade the Trump administration that a peace deal isn't going to last if it's too easy on Russia. Is that it?

Well, yeah, everyone, every Ukrainian I've spoken to is trying to convince the Trump administration that it's in the U.S.'s interest to support Ukraine. Here's Ivana Klimpush-Tinsada. She's a member of Ukraine's parliament. Is it in the interest of the United States to look weak? Because I think Ukrainian defeat would be a direct defeat of the United States. It's not about make America great again. It's about make America weak.

And she said, look, it's not clear this argument will work, but President Trump does not like looking weak. NPR's Joanna Kikisis, always strong. Thanks so much. You're welcome.

President Trump's tariffs and his remarks about a recession led to the worst day for the stock markets this year. Now, the Dow tracks 30 major U.S. companies. It fell 2%, almost 900 points. The broader Nasdaq and S&P 500 are also sharply down. Now, these things always move up and down, but the markets overall have given back all their gains since last November's election and then some. And NPR financial correspondent Maria Aspin is following all of this. Good morning. Good morning. Okay, so why was there such a big drop yesterday?

Well, President Trump has done and said a lot of different things about tariffs in the past week, and investors have been feeling the whiplash. Just to recap, Steve, Trump's new 25% taxes on imports from Canada and Mexico went into effect last week. Then he started giving out reprieves, first to automakers, then to Mexico, then to Canada. But the fact that Trump actually let the tariffs go into effect was a big deal and showed they might be more than just a negotiating tactic.

And he's continuing to talk about them happening long term, despite all the warnings about how much they could hurt the U.S. economy. This all really hit home on Sunday. Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo aired an interview with Trump, and this was the bit that got everyone worried. Are you expecting a recession this year? I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition.

Because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. So Trump didn't rule out the possibility of a recession. Now, it's important to note that his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, did. He told NBC News in a different interview that there's, quote, no chance of a recession. But yesterday, Wall Street seemed to be listening to Trump, not Lutnick.

I guess we should just state the reality. There's always a chance of a recession. You would hope it would be in the future, but you don't know. I'm also thinking about the narrative that you lay out there, Maria, and it's not solely the threat of Trump's, but also the unpredictability. They're on, they're off, they're sideways. You just don't know. So how concerned should investors be?

Well, one of the big concerns over tariffs is that they could really hike the prices consumers pay for everything from cars to groceries. That'll contribute to inflation and hurt the wider economy. And we've seen companies, including Target and Best Buy, warn that, yeah, tariffs are going to lead to higher prices. So that's a huge consideration for consumers and for consumer-facing businesses.

And then, as you point out, Steve, all of the back and forth with tariff policy has created a lot of swings in the stock market. And that volatility makes it hard to plan for both consumers and investors. I talked about this last week with Ana Tavis. She's a management professor at NYU where she talks to executives across corporate America. Businesses don't like uncertainty. Right.

And now we're starting to see that uncertainty creeping across our economy. For example, yesterday, Delta Airlines cut its forecast, citing reduced consumer and corporate confidence and economic uncertainty. I noticed that some stocks are doing worse than others. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had its worst day in years. Is something else going on in the economy we should worry about?

So tech companies like Apple and Nvidia are some of the hottest stocks, so they're also the most expensive, and some of their losses may have just been investors realizing we're spending too much for what we're getting. But Trump's comments over the weekend really seem to signal a shift in how he thinks about the market. He used to really rely on the market's performance as a kind of proxy approval rating, and now he seems to be signaling that he's more focused on tariffs. He's

even if the market is unhappy and even if they cause more immediate economic pain. And, Pierce, Maria Aspin, thanks for your insights. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Some other news now. A federal judge in New York ordered the government...

not to deport a college protest leader who was arrested by immigration officers over the weekend. Mahmoud Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the United States, a recent graduate of Columbia University. He was sent to a detention center in Louisiana to await deportation after his arrest at his university housing on Saturday. NPR's Ryland Barton has been following the story and joins us now. Good morning. Good morning. I'm just getting my brain around the idea that he was taken out of New York and taken all the way to Louisiana. So what all's going on here?

Right. So Khalil's attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court in New York. They're challenging his arrest. And we now know there will be a hearing on that on Wednesday. As you said, he's still in detention in Louisiana. His lawyers are trying to get him back to New York. They say that his transfer down there undermines his ability to access legal counsel and his family. President Trump wrote on social media that Khalil's arrest was the first arrest of many to come.

He said there are students at Columbia and other universities engaged in, quote, pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity. Khalil's attorneys say the Trump administration is using him as an example to stifle lawful dissent, which violates the First Amendment. Khalil's wife, who's pregnant, also issued a statement asking for help to bring him back

home. She described him as a loving husband and the future father of their baby and someone who's always willing to stand up for the oppressed. Since you brought up the First Amendment, what does the law say about how that applies specifically to a green card holder? And how does all that match up with the facts of this case?

So green card holders have many of the same protections that U.S. citizens have, but they can be deported for certain reasons, committing crimes, not updating immigration officials on their whereabouts, for example. The administration says that since Khalil was one of the student leaders active in those protests opposing Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, he violated the administration's ban on anti-Semitism and supported a group considered to be a terrorist organization by the U.S., and that's grounds for deportation to them.

Khalil's attorney says immigration officials arrested him in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, initially telling him that his student visa had been canceled, but he's not on a visa. He's a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder, and they eventually told him that his lawful permanent residency had been revoked.

Trump officials have made several statements about this over the week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media that the administration would revoke the visas or green cards of Hamas supporters so that they can be deported. How does this fit with the larger policies of the administration? The U.S. Education Department, I know, is telling dozens of universities they're under investigation for anti-Semitism as the administration sees it.

Right. The department's new secretary, Linda McMahon, told 60 colleges and universities they could lose funding depending on the outcome of investigations they've launched into anti-Semitism on their campuses. The letter also this letter they sent out to them also warned that they could lose federal funding if they don't do more to combat anti-Semitism.

This list includes a wide range of Ivy League schools like Yale, state schools like Arizona State, small liberal arts colleges like Middlebury College in Vermont. And it comes after the administration canceled almost $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, accusing it of allowing persistent harassment of Jewish students. NPR's Ryland Barton, thanks so much. Thank you.

And that's a first for this Tuesday, March 11th. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Amy Martinez. There is an easy way to stay connected to news and podcasts from the NPR Network, the NPR app. You can hear community coverage from your local stations, stories from around the world, and podcast suggestions based on what you've heard.

like. So download the NPR app in that app store. Today's Up First was edited by Kevin Drew, Rafael Nam, Ryland Barton, Alice Wolfley, and Mohamed El-Bardisi. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hainas, and our technical director is Stacey Abbott. Join us tomorrow.

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