A Forever War is a potent investigation into the Gaza war, which raises questions about Israel’s response to the Hamas-led bombings of October 2023.
Around the UN, where many states continued to refer to Israel’s occupation of Gaza as “genocide,” recently a global outcry was heard. Israel has largely ignored international opinion, even American pressure.
This movie examines what Australian journalist John Lyons describes as “one of the most brutal wars of modern times,” with a ceasefire now on the table just days before the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023. Lyons questions Israeli officials’ motivations and questions whether there was no other way to kill more than 66, 000 Palestinians, including over 20 000 children. Israel’s actions are seen as self-defense, according to a current cabinet member, a former foreign minister, and former prime minister Ehud Barak.
The Palestinian perspective is defended by Abdaljawad Omar of Birzeit University, Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence, and Amira Hass of Haaretz.
More than 100 years after German colonial powers robbed them, a Tanzanian family tries to reclaim the remains of their ancestors.
John Mbano, an attorney, has a mission. In 1906, Songea Mbano, a leader of the Ngoni people in southern Tanzania, was executed by the German colonial army. His head was then transported to Germany for racist scientific analysis.
This trauma has remained a constant throughout generations of the family. In search of their ancestor’s skull, John and his wife Cesilia, a history teacher, hope to have it buried with dignity in their native country of Berlin.
In 2013, then-businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump shared his vision on Fox News about the role a United States president should play in a government shutdown: “You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and cajole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal.”
Now, as president, Trump has taken a different approach. After failing to reach a bipartisan agreement, he mocked Democrats by posting an expletive-laced video generated by artificial intelligence and set to mariachi music, falsely showing US Representative Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and US Senator Chuck Schumer saying that “nobody likes Democrats any more”, so the party is seeking favour with “illegal aliens”.
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Welcome to the 2025 US government shutdown.
At PolitiFact, we have fact-checked lawmakers’ and pundits’ statements about government shutdowns for more than a decade. When Congress can’t reach a funding agreement, both sides of the political aisle whip up talking points about what a shutdown means for the economy, immigration, worker paycheques, disaster response and services for low-income families. The blame is nearly always placed on the other party.
A reminder: Republicans control the presidency and both chambers of Congress. But passing legislation to extend government funding at current levels would require, under longstanding rules, more than half a dozen Democrats to side with Republicans in order to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance to a vote. This gives Democrats some negotiating leverage, which they are seeking to use in the spending fight.
Social services
Women, Infants, and Children programme will ‘not be funded’
House Speaker Mike Johnson, in September 29 remarks to reporters.
Johnson omits that enrollees will still likely get services, at least initially. But much depends on how long the shutdown lasts.
The Agriculture Department’s shutdown plan said its Women, Infants and Children nutrition programme, which provides food to low-income families, shall continue operations “subject to the availability of funding”. The WIC has 6.9 million participants.
WIC should be able to continue for at least one week, said Alison Hard, National WIC Association policy director. After that, operations will vary by state, depending on their funds.
During a shutdown, state WIC programmes have options to temporarily fill the funding gap, including various USDA sources, state money and requesting early rebate payments from their contracted infant formula manufacturers.
Past shutdowns
‘Back in 2013, Trump said it was the President’s job to negotiate and avoid a shutdown’
Senator Jeff Merkley, in a September 29 X post
That’s an accurate paraphrase of Trump’s remarks.
In an October 7, 2013, interview with then-Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, Trump criticised then-President Barack Obama for not being a dealmaker during the shutdown. In full, he said: “You have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader. The president has to lead. He has to get [the Speaker of the House] and everybody else in a room, and they have to make a deal. You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and cajole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal.”
Trump made similar remarks in a September 2013 Fox & Friends phone interview: “Problems start from the top, and they have to get solved from the top, and the president’s the leader, and he’s got to get everybody in a room, and he’s got to lead.”
A tourist photographs a sign announcing that the Library of Congress is closed, on the first day of a partial government shutdown, on Wednesday, October 1, 2025, in Washington [AP]
Healthcare
Republicans are spiking health insurance premiums by 75 percent for everyday Americans if they don’t extend enhanced ACA subsidies
Representative Katherine Clark, in a September 12 X post.
This is mostly true.
If the Republican-controlled Congress does not extend Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies before they expire at the end of this year, enrollees will have to pay more.
A KFF analysis of federal data found that the average increase in out-of-pocket coverage cost for enrollees would be 79 percent, with state-by-state average increases ranging from 49 percent to 195 percent.
This cost increase would come from a combination of insurance premium increases and the disappearance of subsidies, rather than from “spiking health insurance premiums” alone.
More than two weeks after Clark’s statement – and after we published the fact check – KFF produced a revised figure for average increases based on new data: 114 percent.
‘Democrats so-called proposal is a partisan wish list with a $1.5 trillion spending increase tacked onto a four-week funding bill’
House Speaker Mike Johnson, in a September 29 news release.
The Republican talking point misses the context of the Democrats’ proposal.
The September 17 Democratic proposal latches government funding up until October 31, known as a “continuing resolution”, to some Democratic priorities, including healthcare assistance and limiting Trump’s ability to claw back funds previously approved by Congress.
The bill calls for permanently extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that were passed in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic and extended in 2022. Those are set to expire on December 31 this year. The Democratic bill would also reverse cuts to Medicaid and other health programmes that Republicans enacted in their signature tax and spending legislation.
The Democrats’ measure would restore funding for public broadcasting that Republicans nixed in July and includes at least $320m for security for lawmakers, the executive branch and the Supreme Court. (Republicans have proposed $88m in security funding in their resolution bill.)
The bill also contains mandates for how the Trump administration can spend money and would hinder the White House’s recent attempt to cancel almost $5bn in foreign aid.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that’s hawkish on the deficit, said in a September 18 news release that Democrats’ proposal in its entirety would add $1.5 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
“The [continuing resolution] itself – the part that funds the government – would not add $1.5 trillion to the debt, but the bill that Democrats have proposed includes other provisions that would,” Chris Towner, the group’s policy director, wrote in an email. “The bill repeals the health spending cuts that were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would cost about $1.1 trillion over a decade to repeal.”
Towner also said the Democrats’ provision to make the enhanced ACA subsidies permanent would cost about $350bn over a decade.
People take photos with a sign announcing that the Library of Congress is closed, on the first day of a partial government shutdown, on October 1, 2025, in Washington [AP]
If enhanced subsidies are not extended, people with insurance through the Affordable Care Act will see their premiums rise ‘twice as much in the rural areas’
Senator Amy Klobuchar, in a September 28 interview on CBS’s Face the Nation
This is mostly true.
There are at least two ways to interpret Klobuchar’s statement: that she was comparing rural enrollees’ costs with people living elsewhere, or comparing their costs with what they paid before.
Klobuchar’s office told PolitiFact that the senator was referring to rural enrollees seeing increases that were double what they had paid before, and that interpretation aligns with what Klobuchar has said in other settings.
An analysis by the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, found that out-of-pocket insurance costs would increase on average in rural counties from $713 to $1,473 – a 107 percent increase, or slightly more than a doubling.
Comparing rural enrollees’ cost increases with people elsewhere, it amounts to a disproportionately large increase for rural areas, but it’s not twice as much.
Enrollees in rural counties would see average out-of-pocket losses of $760 from expiring enhanced subsidies, compared with $624 for all counties and $593 for urban counties. That’s 22 percent more for rural enrollees compared with all others, and 28 percent more compared with urban enrollees.
Government workers
‘If the government shuts down, members of Congress still get paid. The janitors never get paid’
Daniel Koh, on The People’s Cabinet podcast episode, September 29.
This is mostly true.
Members of the House and Senate continue to get paid during a shutdown. Federal law says federal employees get back pay, but the law does not extend to contractors, a group that includes many janitors. Some private employers with federal contracts may find ways to pay their employees, but there is nothing in federal law that requires it.
The US Capitol dome and a traffic turn signal are seen from Pennsylvania Avenue, on October 1, 2025, in Washington [AP]
‘FEMA won’t be funded’ during hurricane season because of the shutdown
House Speaker Mike Johnson, in September 29 remarks to reporters
Johnson was correct that Congress had not agreed on Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding, but a Department of Homeland Security shutdown procedures plan estimates that 84 percent of FEMA employees will continue working. (The DHS oversees FEMA.)
“Bottom line: hurricanes don’t care about politics. FEMA will still respond. But recovery will stall if Congress can’t do its job,” said Craig Fugate, who led FEMA during President Barack Obama’s administration after leading Florida’s emergency management under then-Republican Governor Jeb Bush. “This isn’t new – both parties own the blame.”
The agency’s recovery efforts are most at risk, Fugate said, because they depend on how much money remains in the Disaster Relief Fund. “Those dollars aren’t tied to the shutdown, but they usually run low this time of year. Normally, Congress passes a continuing resolution to add money. A shutdown means that doesn’t happen. That slows recovery projects, not the immediate response.”
In a continuing privacy row that has sparked concerns among civil liberties campaigners, the British government has mandated that Apple provide customer data to the cloud for the second time this year.
Following a previous attempt that included customers in the United States that included customers in the United Kingdom, a report released on Wednesday by The Financial Times demanded that the tech behemoth create a so-called back door that would allow the authorities to access private data uploaded by the behemoth.
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The US, which disapproves of foreign entities seeking to regulate Silicon Valley, faced a significant backlash from a previous technical capability notice (TCN) issued early this year. The UK was eventually forced to resign by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Tulsi Gabbard, the head of US intelligence, stated in August that the administration wanted to “ensure that our constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected while Americans’ private data remains private.”
The most recent order allowing access to encrypted data caused alarm among civil liberties activists in the UK. The UK government will likely issue similar orders to other businesses as well, according to London-based Privacy International, according to Privacy International, a company based in London.
The UK government, which was proposing to use the measure to safeguard national security, “risikoed everyone’s security,” according to the statement.
The UK government will likely issue similar orders to other businesses as well if this new order isn’t halted.
The Home Office’s statement, “We do not comment on operational matters,” was quoted by the FT as saying: “We do not comment on any matters, including, for example, verifying or refuting the existence of any such notices.”
Tech platforms, which have long seen granting access to law enforcement as a red line, have a major selling point.
Apple stated on Wednesday that it had never, and never will, created a “master key” or backdoor for any of its goods or services. The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which the company received in April, confirmed that it had filed an appeal against the earlier TCN.
However, it discontinued all end-to-end encryption, known as Advanced Data Protection, for UK users in February. Users of iPhone and Mac can now be sure that only they, and not even Apple, can access the cloud’s storage.
Current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature, according to Apple, the California-based company, which is still unable to offer Advanced Data Protection to new users in the United Kingdom.
The business said it had a strong desire to provide its customers with the best security possible in the future and that it would be able to do so in Britain.
A growing outcry over government plans to issue digital identity cards in response to threats from the right-wing Reform UK party comes amid the controversy surrounding official attempts to spy on Apple users.
In a case that they are treating as a terrorist attack, British police say they shot a man who they thought was stabbing him at a synagogue and ramming people with a car in the north of Manchester.
A member of the public called the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall shortly after 9.30am (08:30 GMT), who claimed he had witnessed a car being driven at people and that one man had been stabbed, and in a series of posts on X.
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At 9:38 a.m., police reported that firearms officers fired shots. One post read, “One man has been shot, believed to be the offender.” Paramedics arrived at the scene by 9.41 a.m., treating four people who had been injured by both the car and stab wounds.
Police claimed on X that they had “declared Plato,” the national term for what emergency services use to respond to what they call a “marauding terror attack.”
A UK official confirmed to AFP that Keir Starmer would leave the European Political Community summit early after the incident.
The prime minister announced that more police would be stationed at synagogues throughout the UK before his return home.
According to Al Jazeera, the Prime Minister will be present at a Cobra meeting, a gathering of senior government officials set up for emergencies.
According to Rory Challands, a journalist for Al Jazeera from London, “that suggests that Keir Starmer and the UK government believed this to be a significant threat, a terrorist incident, or something else along those lines,”
He said, “It seems that the British government is seriously considering this situation.”
The attack at a synagogue in Crumpsall, which occurred on Yom Kippur, the most holy day in the Jewish calendar, makes it even more obscene. Starmer previously stated on X: “I’m appalled by the attack at a synagogue in Crumpsall.
“My thoughts are with all the loved ones of all those who have been affected, and I want to thank everyone who came first in the first place.”
The synagogue attack in Crumpsall has shocked me.
This is even more incredibly horrible because it happened on Yom Kippur, the most holy day in the Jewish calendar.
My thoughts are with all those who have been affected, and I extend my condolences to the emergency…
Jewish calendar’s most holy day is attacked.
Although the information was not yet confirmed, the offender was reportedly believed to be deceased, according to Mayor of the Greater Manchester area, Andy Burnham.
He claimed in a conversation with BBC Radio Manchester that “there can be some degree of reassurance that this is not a developing, ongoing, incident.”
Police officers allegedly aimed guns at someone lying on the ground outside the synagogue in a video that was shared on social media. The armed officers yelled “get back” and “move on” at the crowd.
Before a gunshot audible, the video showed the person on the ground attempting to climb up. Then, the victim fell to the ground. According to UK news agency PA, another person was spotted lying motionless on the ground near the synagogue gates while their head was bleeding.
Inside the synagogue, police officers could be seen carrying machineguns and combat fatigues in black. The force helicopter hovered overhead, according to PA, and the area was swarmn with numerous police vehicles, along with fire and ambulance personnel.
On October 2, 2025, members of the Crumpsall, North Manchester, community [Paul Currie/AFP]
The Jewish community is observed Yom Kippur, which is the Jewish calendar’s most holy day and when synagogues are typically particularly busy, as a result of the reported stabbings.
The day is marked by solemnity and fasting rather than celebration, according to Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that tracks anti-Semitism in the UK.
According to officials, the central Philippines’ death toll from the magnitude 6.9 earthquake reached 72.
Authorities on Thursday changed their focus from conducting search operations to helping the injured and the displaced, according to National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) spokesman Junie Castillo.
Three more bodies were found overnight in a hotel in Bogo City, close to the epicentre, from rescue teams. Some rescue organizations in Cebu province have been given the directive to “demobilize” after all victims have been found.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made plans for a “tent city” to accommodate residents from the 600 destroyed homes and the tens of thousands who fear returning to their intact homes as a result of ongoing aftershocks during his Thursday visit to the disaster zone. He promised to build a tent city that can be constructed quickly and quickly and will protect residents from rain, according to his promise to reporters.
In northern Cebu, the government has documented 294 injuries and about 20 000 evacuees, many of whom are sleeping outside. More than 110, 000 people in 42 different communities will need assistance in rebuilding their homes and restoring their lives, according to regional civil defense officials.
Marcos pledged to provide 10, 000 pesos ($171) to each family that lost their home by day’s end and to restore electricity to the city of 90,000 in Bogo. Eight bodies were discovered at a construction site that was originally constructed for 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan survivors, during his visit.
Diane Madrigal, 18, expressed her ongoing fear in a village chapel that is currently a shelter: “I’m still scared of the aftershocks right now; it feels like we have to run again.”
Lucille Ipil, 43, lamented that the earthquake had truly ruined our lives while waiting for water nearby. We have no choice but to eat, drink, and take a bath.
Marcos later disclosed that government engineers had declared the facility safe for patients to return to after a number of patients are still sleeping outside the provincial hospital.
