Six people were killed in a shooting attack by suspected Palestinian gunmen at a bus stop in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the site, as Palestinian groups praised the attack without claiming responsibility.
More than 1,300 artists, including some Hollywood A-listers, have promised not to work with Israeli film institutions complicit in abuses against Palestinians as Israel intensifies its war on Gaza.
In a pledge released on Monday, the artists – who include Olivia Colman, Ayo Edebiri, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, Tilda Swinton and Javier Bardem – decried the “unrelenting horror” in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians and flattened most of the territory.
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“Inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid who refused to screen their films in apartheid South Africa, we pledge not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions – including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies – that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people,” the statement read.
Examples of being complicit in Israeli rights violations include “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them”, it added.
The pledge cited International Court of Justice rulings that concluded a genocide charge against Israel is plausible and found the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal.
Over the 23 months of the Gaza war, leading academics, rights groups and United Nations experts have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians.
Genocide – defined by the UN as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” – is one of the gravest war crimes.
Palestinian rights advocates have long called for celebrities to use their reach and status to bring awareness to the plight of Palestinians.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mike Lerner, one of the signatories to the statement, said the pledge was a “non-violent tool” to undermine the impunity that Israel enjoys for its conduct against Palestinians.
“It is the responsibility of every independently minded artist to use whatever powers of expression they possess to support the global resistance to overcome this horror,” Lerner said in a statement.
Hollywood has been historically pro-Israel, producing movies like the 1960 film Exodus, which valorised the founding of Israel, and regularly inserting positive references to the country in blockbusters.
But in recent years, many actors and directors have spoken out against Israel’s policies – sometimes to the detriment of their own careers.
For example, in 2023, actor Susan Sarandon, who signed Monday’s pledge, was dropped by her talent agency after attending a Palestine solidarity rally.
After the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Melissa Barrera, who also joined the boycott call, lost her role in the horror franchise Scream over social media posts critical of Israel.
Still, voices sympathetic to Palestinians continue to grow louder in the film industry.
In March, No Other Land, an Israeli-Palestinian film focused on the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank, won the Oscar for best documentary feature.
More recently, The Voice of Hind Rajab, which tells the story of a five-year old Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car with slain family members before Israeli soldiers also killed her, received a 23-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival.
The movie centres on Rajab’s heart-wrenching calls to rescuers while under Israeli fire in Gaza City.
Monday’s pledge comes as Israel pushes to systematically destroy Gaza City, having already levelled most of the besieged enclave.
“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognise the power of cinema to shape perceptions,” the statement said.
United States President Donald Trump has praised a decision by the prestigious military academy West Point to cancel a ceremony honouring Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, a frequent critic of Trump.
Trump, who has sought to purge critics from government institutions and crack down on dissent, celebrated the move in a social media post on Monday.
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“Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Important move!” Trump said. “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!!”
Hanks, who has starred in numerous films set during World War II and been an avid supporter of veterans of the armed services, has been a sharp critic of Trump.
He was set to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award from the West Point Association of Graduates (WPAOG), which is granted to people whose accomplishments further the US national interests and ideals of the military academy.
The famous actor was set to receive the award at a WPAOG ceremony on September 25, and the Washington Post has reported that it is unclear whether Hanks will still receive the award without the accompanying ceremony.
Known for his leading role in the World War II film Saving Private Ryan, Hanks has been at the forefront of efforts to dramatise and commemorate US efforts during that conflict.
He also produced several popular miniseries depicting US forces in various theatres during World War II, such as Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Masters of the Air.
Hanks – who also served as a national spokesperson for the World War II memorial campaign and was chair of the D-day museum capital campaign – had expressed excitement about visiting West Point.
“To have my first ever visit to the Academy be to accept such an honour as the Thayer Award is simply astounding,” a WPAOG statement had quoted Hanks as saying.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has criticised the deployment of United States naval forces to the Caribbean, calling them a source of strain that could undermine peace in the region.
The South American leader expressed concern on Monday over the concentration of US forces, seen by some as a possible prelude to an attack on Venezuela.
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“The presence of the armed forces of the largest power in the Caribbean Sea is a factor of tension,” Lula said during the opening of a virtual BRICS summit.
The US has said its military forces are in the region to counter drug trafficking. But the deployment has been paired with US threats against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom US President Donald Trump’s administration has accused of being closely linked with drug trafficking groups.
The Trump administration has provided no evidence for those claims and has often used vague allegations of connections to drug trafficking or criminal groups to justify extraordinary measures both at home and abroad.
Last week, the US carried out an unprecedented lethal attack on what the Trump administration said was a boat transporting drugs from Venezuela. Analysts have said the extrajudicial strike, which killed 11 people, was likely illegal, but US officials have promised to carry out more attacks in the region.
Maduro has said the deployment is part of an effort to depose his government and called on the military and civilians to make preparations for a possible attack.
As the Trump administration takes aggressive steps to advance its priorities on issues such as trade, immigration and drug trafficking, some countries are seeking to bolster ties with powers like China.
Addressing the virtual BRICS conference via video call on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for more cooperation in areas such as technology, finance and trade, according to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.
“The closer the BRICS countries cooperate, the more confidence, options and effective results they will have in addressing external risks and challenges,” he was quoted as saying.
Officials from India – a country, like Brazil and China, that has become a recent target of the Trump administration’s severe tariff policies – also called for greater collaboration.
“The world requires constructive and cooperative approaches to promote trade that is sustainable,” External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in comments published by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. “Increasing barriers and complicating transactions will not help. Neither would the linking of trade measures to nontrade matters.”
A federal appeals court has refused to throw out an $83.3m jury verdict against US President Donald Trump for damaging the reputation of the writer E Jean Carroll in 2019 when he denied her rape claim.
The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan on Monday rejected Trump’s argument that the January 2024 verdict should be overturned because he deserved presidential immunity from Carroll’s lawsuit.
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“We hold that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s duly rendered damages awards were reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case,” the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote.
Neither the White House nor Trump’s personal lawyers in the case immediately responded to requests for comment.
The Second Circuit court on June 13 upheld Carroll’s separate $5m jury verdict against Trump in May 2023 for a similar defamation and sexual assault suit.
Carroll, 81, a former Elle magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room.
Trump first denied her claim in June 2019, telling a reporter that Carroll was “not my type” and had concocted the story to sell a book called What Do We Need Men For? – a memoir about her life.
Trump essentially repeated his comments in an October 2022 Truth Social post, leading to the $5m verdict, though the jury did not find that he had raped Carroll.
The $83.3m award comprised $18.3m of damages for emotional and reputational harm, and $65m of punitive damages.
In his latest appeal, Trump argued that the US Supreme Court’s July 2024 decision providing him with substantial criminal immunity shielded him from liability in Carroll’s civil case.
He added that he had spoken about Carroll in 2019 in his capacity as president, and that failing to give him immunity could undermine the independence of the executive branch of the US government.
Trump also said US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw both trials, had made other mistakes, including by striking out his testimony that, in speaking about Carroll, “I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly the presidency.”
Days after a federal judge ruled that United States President Donald Trump’s administration cannot unilaterally slash billions in foreign aid funding, the Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
In a court filing on Monday, lawyers for the administration asked for an emergency stay to halt the order issued by the lower court and allow the administration to continue to withhold about $4bn in congressionally approved funds.
Last month, Trump said he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a US president roughly 50 years ago.
Last week, US District Judge Amir Ali ruled that the Republican administration’s decision to withhold the funding was likely illegal.
The money at issue in the case was approved by Congress for foreign aid, United Nations peacekeeping operations and democracy-promotion efforts overseas.
The Justice Department said in its filing on Monday that the administration views the $4bn of disputed foreign aid funding as “contrary to US foreign policy”.
Congress budgeted billions in foreign aid last year, about $11bn of which must be spent or obligated before a deadline of September 30 – the last day of the US government’s current fiscal year – lest it expire.
After being sued by aid groups that expected to compete for the funding, the administration said last month that it intended to spend $6.5bn of the disputed funds. Trump also sought to block $4bn of the funding through an unusual step called a “pocket rescission”, which bypasses Congress.
Ali ruled on Wednesday that the administration cannot simply choose to withhold the money and it must comply with appropriations laws unless Congress changes them.
The judge’s injunction “raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers”, Justice Department lawyers wrote in Monday’s filing, adding that it would be “self-defeating and senseless for the executive branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind”.
Under the US Constitution, the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches are assigned different powers.
Trump budget director Russell Vought has argued that the president can withhold funds for 45 days after requesting a rescission, which would run out the clock until the end of the fiscal year. The White House said the tactic was last used in 1977.
Lauren Bateman, a lawyer for a group of plaintiffs, said on Monday that the administration is asking the Supreme Court “to defend the illegal tactic of a pocket rescission.”
“The administration is effectively asking the Supreme Court to bless its attempt to unlawfully accumulate power,” Bateman said.
In recent months, the Supreme Court has issued a number of decisions in Trump’s favour through the use of emergency rulings – rarely requested by previous administrations but which Trump has sought and received in record number.
From the beginning of his second term in January to early August, Trump had sought 22 emergency rulings, surpassing the 19 requested in all four years of President Joe Biden’s administration and nearly three times as many as the eight requested during each of the presidencies of Barack Obama and George W Bush, both of whom served two terms, or eight years.
The rulings differ from typical cases in that they are often issued in extremely short, unsigned orders that give little in the way of legal reasoning despite the high stakes involved. That lack of transparency has led to criticism from legal scholars as well as rare pushback from federal judges.