killing

After months of blockade and starvation in Gaza, Israel allowed a new United States venture – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – to distribute food. Branded as a lifeline, its sites quickly became known by Palestinians and dozens of human rights groups as “death traps”.

Fault Lines investigates how civilians seeking aid were funnelled through militarised zones, where thousands were killed or injured under fire.

Through the testimonies of grieving families, a former contractor, and human rights experts, the film exposes how GHF’s operations replaced UNRWA’s proven aid system with a scheme critics say was designed for displacement, not relief. At the heart of this investigation is a haunting question: was GHF delivering humanitarian aid – or helping turn breadlines into killing fields?

United States President Donald Trump has directed the Department of War to prepare for what he called “possible action” to eliminate Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, citing alleged widespread attacks on Christians. The directive, issued through his Truth Social media platform on Saturday, marks one of the most aggressive foreign policy statements by the Trump administration since returning to office.

In the post, President Trump accused the Nigerian government of “allowing” the killing of Christians and threatened to end all U.S. aid and assistance to the country if what he described as “Christian persecution” continued.

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!”

The remarks came barely a day after Washington redesignated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), a status applied to nations accused of tolerating or engaging in severe violations of religious freedom. Nigeria was previously placed on and later removed from the CPC list under the Biden administration. 

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responds cautiously, “Nigeria is a Secular Democracy.” He rejected Trump’s claims and designation, describing them as “ill-informed and unhelpful”, adding that “Nigeria remains a secular democracy anchored on constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and belief.”

The Nigerian presidential office said in a statement from Abuja, “We reject any characterisation that seeks to define our complex security challenges through a single religious lens.” The Nigerian government maintains that ongoing violence in the country’s Middle Belt and northern regions is driven by multiple intersecting factors—including poverty, criminality, land disputes, and weak governance—rather than a campaign of religious persecution.

Security analysts and conflict researchers have similarly warned against oversimplifying Nigeria’s insecurity as a Christian–Muslim conflict. “What we see in places like Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, and Borno are overlapping crises involving ethnic competition, resource scarcity, violent crimes, and terrorism,” said a recent HumAngle report.

The HumAngle analysis titled Nigeria’s Conflicts Defy Simple Religious Labels revealed that communities of both faiths have suffered from terrorism and violent crimes, and that attackers often frame violence around identity to justify or mobilise support for their actions.

While Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), continue to target civilians and security forces in attacks that often include Christian victims, the violence has also claimed thousands of Muslim lives.

HumAngle’s investigations have shown that the narrative of a “Christian genocide” obscures the complex and fluid alliances that define local conflicts. Extremist groups, criminal gangs, and vigilante forces often operate with shifting motives, depending on context.

Analysts say Trump’s statement may reflect both foreign policy posturing and domestic political calculation. With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, evangelical Christian groups have increasingly highlighted claims of Christian persecution across the world, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military carried out three strikes Monday in the waters of the Eastern Pacific against boats suspected of carrying drugs, killing 14 and leaving one survivor.

The announcement made on social media Tuesday, marks a continued escalation in the pace of the strikes, which began in early September spaced weeks apart. This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day.

Hegseth said Mexican search and rescue authorities “assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue” of the sole survivor but didn’t say if that person would stay in their custody or be handed over to the U.S.

In a strike earlier in October which had two survivors, the U.S. military rescued the pair and later repatriated them to Colombia and Ecuador.

Hegseth posted footage of the strikes to social media in which two boats can be seen moving at speed through the water. One is visibly laden with a large amount of parcels or bundles. Both then suddenly explode and are seen aflame.

The third strike appears to have been conducted on a pair of boats that were stationary in the water alongside each other. They appear to be largely empty with at least two people seen moving before an explosion engulfs both boats.

Hegseth said “the four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics.”

The death toll from the 13 disclosed strikes since early September is now at least 57 people.

Los Angeles County prosecutors unsealed an indictment Friday against a former LAPD officer responsible for the 2015 on-duty shooting of an unarmed man in Venice.

The ex-cop, Clifford Proctor, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief hearing in a downtown courtroom.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Proctor, 60, leaned over several times to whisper to his attorney but otherwise said little during the hearing, a portion of which was held behind closed doors. He waived a reading of the indictment. He will remain in custody with no bail, and is expected to return to court for a hearing early next month.

Proctor’s lawyer, Anthony “Tony” Garcia, said he would reserve comment until he’d had a chance to review the case.

But he questioned the timing of the charges, which came more than a decade after the incident in question.

The L.A. County District Attorney’s office reviewed the case when it was fresh and “determined there was nothing to proceed,” Garcia said.

Proctor was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport last week when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents noticed he had an active warrant. Proctor has been living abroad for several years, according to sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the pending case.

Proctor resigned from the LAPD in 2017. While still with the department, he shot and killed Brendon Glenn, a 29-year-old homeless man, after a dispute outside of a Venice bar in 2015. Glenn and his dog had been kicked out of the Bank of Venice restaurant for causing a disturbance.

Proctor and Glenn got into an argument and the officer ordered Glenn to leave the area. Glenn responded by hurling several racial epithets at Proctor. Both men are Black, according to court records.

Glenn then got into an argument with a bouncer outside of a different bar, and Proctor and his partner moved to make an arrest. During the ensuing struggle, Proctor shot Glenn twice in the back. Proctor alleged Glenn reached for his partner’s gun, but footage from the scene appeared to contradict that claim.

Glenn’s hand was never seen “on or near any portion” of the holster, according to a report made by the city’s Police Commission in 2016, and Proctor’s partner never made “any statements or actions” suggesting Glenn was trying to take the gun.

Former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called for Proctor to be charged with manslaughter in the wake of public outrage over the killing, but ex-Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey declined to prosecute. After being elected on a police accountability platform in 2020, her successor, George Gascón hired a special prosecutor to reexamine charges against several L.A. County law enforcement officers in on-duty killings, including Glenn’s death.

Last year, sources told The Times that a warrant had been issued for Proctor’s arrest. Gascón and his chosen special prosecutor, Lawrence Middleton, repeatedly declined to comment on the case.

Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who fired Middleton shortly after taking office last year, has not given updates on the case. Hochman hired another special prosecutor, Michael Gennaco, to oversee Middleton’s pending cases.

Hochman’s appetite to prosecute Proctor is unclear. He was often critical of Gascón’s decision to employ a special prosecutor during the 2024 campaign cycle, and Hochman’s close ties to law enforcement have left some skeptical of his willingness to pursue difficult cases involving on-duty misconduct.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

When news broke last weekend that Diane Keaton had died at age 79, it came as an extraordinary shock because so much of Keaton’s screen presence and persona was rooted in a vitality, a sense of of being very much alive and open to everything.

Revisiting Keaton’s Oscar-winning performance in “Annie Hall” this week, I was struck by how much humor she mined from a hyperawareness of self, often commenting on her own dialogue and behavior as she was still in the act of doing it. She brought a tremendous charge to everything she did.

Jessica Gelt took on winnowing Keaton’s career down to just 10 films, including “Reds,” “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” and the first two parts of “The Godfather.”

Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson in the movie “Something’s Gotta Give.”

(Bob Marshak / Columbia Pictures)

In her appreciation of Keaton, Amy Nicholson called her “the icon who feels like a friend,” adding, “The contradiction of her career is that the things we in the audience loved about her — the breezy humor, the self-deprecating charm, the iconic threads — were Keaton’s attempts to mask her own insecurities. She struggled to love herself. Even after success, Keaton remained iffy about her looks, her talent and her achievements. In interviews, she openly admitted to feeling inadequate in her signature halting, circular stammers.”

There was a very genuine wave of emotion and affection after the news of Keaton’s death. One of the most heartfelt and moving tributes came from screenwriter and director Nancy Meyers, who worked with Keaton on four films, from “Baby Boom” to “Something’s Gotta Give.”

As Meyers said, “She made everything better. Every set up, every day, in every movie, I watched her give it her all.”

Meyers added, “She was fearless. She was like nobody ever. She was born to be a movie star. Her laugh could make your day and for me, knowing her and working with her changed my life.”

AMC Theaters have already announced limited showings of both “Annie Hall” and “Something’s Gotta Give.” Other screenings will certainly happen shortly.

Crispin Glover, still doing his own thing

Crispin Glover in “No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance.”

(Volcanic Eruptions)

Still best known for the eccentric screen presence he brought to movies such as “River’s Edge,” “Wild at Heart,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Back to the Future” and countless others, Crispin Glover is also extremely dedicated to his own filmmaking practice.

His latest project, the creatively punctuated “No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance,” will have its West Coast premiere Saturday and Sunday at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre, with Glover in person and a book signing. Tallulah H. Schwab’s “Mr. K,” a mystery starring Glover, will have its L.A. premiere at the Los Feliz 3 on Tuesday with the actor again appearing in person.

“No! YOU’RE WRONG” is the third feature Glover has made himself. He began developing the screenplay in 2007, started building the sets in 2010, began shooting in 2013 and didn’t commence editing until 2018. He goes at his own pace, though Glover is self-excoriating.

“None of this is acceptable,” he tells me during a recent video call from New York City following the film’s world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art. “I’m not happy that this has taken as long as it’s taken. Every step of this film just took ridiculously long.”

While Glover enjoys talking about the film, he struggles to explain what it’s actually about. Set across five time periods — 1868, 1888, 1918, 1948 and right now — Glover shot for the first time on 35mm and, for some scenes, used a hand-cranked camera that belonged to the Czech animator Karel Zeman. The negative was hand-processed, which can alter how it looks, with some sections then colored by hand to replicate early film techniques.

“It’s almost better for me to talk about the technical aspects because by talking about the the technical aspects, it sort of reveals things about the film itself,” Glover says. “All of my films on some level deal with surrealism in one aspect or another. And part of the way surrealism operates is to have either disparate pieces of information or withholding information so that the audience can make the correlations themselves and become a participant in the art.”

Bruce Glover in the movie “No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance,” directed by his son Crispin Glover.

(Volcanic Eruptions)

Aside from Glover himself, the film includes his father, character actor Bruce Glover, who died in March 2025, as well as his mother, dancer Betty Glover, who died in 2016. Following the death of his father, Glover had to make some changes.

“I don’t want to say too much,” says Glover as he catches himself starting to clarify an aspect of the story. “You’d have to see the film. It’s not good for me to talk about it because the way the film is made and layered, it’s something that people will have different interpretations of. And if I say too much, then it will sway the interpretation. They’ll think, ‘Oh, it’s wrong because the filmmaker said this,’ but it isn’t wrong. What they’re thinking is what’s right for them.”

Points of interest

Cronenberg movies at Brain Dead

Léa Seydoux, left, Viggo Mortensen and Kristen Stewart in the movie “Crimes of the Future.”

(Nikos Nikolopoulos)

Brain Dead Studios has been running a program of David Cronenberg films through October and still has a few titles left to go. And while his films may not fit everyone’s strict definition of Halloween-style spooky, they are reliably unsettling in their examinations of the darker aspects of human existence.

Friday will see a screening of 2022’s “Crimes of the Future,” starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart and Léa Seydoux, Monday will be Cronenberg’s 1991’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch,” Thursday brings 1979’s low-budget horror film “The Brood” and Saturday, Oct. 25 will have 1996’s controversial “Crash.”

I spoke to Cronenberg around the release of “Crimes of the Future,” which at the time felt like something of a summation of the director’s ongoing interests in technology and the body, though he claimed it wasn’t intentional.

“It’s not a self-referential film because I’m not thinking that when I’m writing it or directing it,” Cronenberg said. “But the connections are there because my nervous system, such as it is including my brain, is the substrate of everything I’m doing. So I might even say in the Burroughsian way that all of my work and all of my life is one thing. In which case, it now makes perfect sense that there should be these connections.”

David Fincher’s ‘The Game’

Michael Douglas in the movie “The Game.”

(Tony Friedkin / Polygram Films)

David Fincher’s 1997 thriller “The Game” is somewhat easy to overlook in his filmography, landing between the provocations of “Seven” and “Fight Club” and before fully-formed works like “Zodiac” and “The Social Network.” However, the movie, in which a wealthy man (Michael Douglas) finds his life turned upside in what may be a live-action role-playing game, is strange and unpredictable and among Fincher’s most purely pleasurable movies. It plays at the New Beverly on Friday — a rare chance to catch it in a theater on 35mm.

In his review of the film, Jack Matthews wrote, “Douglas is perfectly cast. Who else can blend moneyed arrogance, power and rank narcissism with enough romantic flair, intelligence and self-deflating humor to make you enjoy his defeats and his victories? What other major star is as much fun to watch when he’s cornered?”

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday posthumously awarded America’s highest civilian honor to Charlie Kirk, the slain activist who inspired a generation of young conservatives and helped push the nation’s politics further to the right.

The ceremony coincided with what would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday. It came just over a month after the Turning Point USA founder was fatally shot while speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University.

In a sign of Kirk’s close ties to the administration, he was the first recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in Trump’s second term. The president also spoke at at Kirk’s funeral in September, calling him a “great American hero” and “martyr” for freedom, while Vice President JD Vance accompanied his body home to Arizona on Air Force Two along with Kirk’s widow, Erika.

“We’re here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I’ve ever seen before, and an American patriot of the deepest conviction, the finest quality and the highest caliber,” Trump said Tuesday afternoon.

Of Kirk’s killing, Trump said: “He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth, for living his faith and relentless fighting for a better and stronger America.”

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established by President Kennedy in 1963 for individuals making exceptional contributions to the country’s security or national interests or to world peace, or being responsible for significant cultural endeavors or public and private initiatives.

Tuesday’s event followed Trump returning to the U.S. in the predawn hours after a whirlwind trip to Israel and Egypt to celebrate a ceasefire agreement in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza that his administration was instrumental in brokering.

Trump joked that he almost requested to move the ceremony because of the trip.

“I raced back halfway around the globe,” Trump said. “I was going to call Erika and say, ‘Erika, could you maybe move it to Friday? And I didn’t have the courage to call. But you know why I didn’t call? Because I heard today was Charlie’s birthday.”

Argentine President Javier Milei, who had been visiting with the president at the White House earlier, stayed to attend the ceremony.

Trump has awarded a string of presidential medals going back to his first term, including to golf legend Tiger Woods, ex-football coach Lou Holtz and conservative economist Arthur Laffer, as well as to New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Mariano Rivera and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, the latter of which came during the 2020 State of the Union. He awarded posthumous medals to Babe Ruth and Elvis.

This term, Trump has also announced his intentions to award the medals to Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a close former advisor, and to Ben Carson, who served as Trump’s first-term secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012. Trump has praised Kirk as one of the key reasons he was reelected.

But Kirk’s politics were also often divisive. He sharply criticized gay and transgender rights while inflaming racial tensions. Kirk also repeated Trump’s false claims that former Vice President Kamala Harris was responsible for policies that encouraged immigrants to come to the U.S. illegally and called George Floyd, a Black man whose killing by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national debate over racial injustice, a “scumbag.”

Trump wrote in a social media post hours before the event that he was moving the ceremony from the White House’s East Room to the Rose Garden to accommodate a crowd he said would be “so big and enthusiastic.”

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

The US has struck another vessel off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people, President Donald Trump has said.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the vessel belonged to “narcoterrorists” and that it was “trafficking narcotics.”

This is the fifth strike of its kind by the Trump administration on a boat accused of trafficking drugs on international waters since September. In total, 27 people have been reported killed, but the US has not provided evidence or details about identities of the vessels or those on board them.

Some lawyers have accused the US of breaching international law, and neighbouring nations like Colombia and Venezuela have condemned the strikes.

In his Truth Social post, Trump said “intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known” route for smuggling.

He also posted an aerial surveillance video showing a small boat on water that is struck by a missile and explodes.

Trump did not specify the nationality of those on board, or what drug smuggling organisation they are suspected of belonging to. He added that no US military personnel were injured.

The strike comes after a recent leaked memo sent to Congress, and reported on by US media, that said the administration determined the US was in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.

The US has positioned its strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels as self-defence, despite many lawyers questioning their legality.

WASHINGTON — The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Trump said on Tuesday.

Those who died in the strike were aboard the vessel, and no U.S. forces were harmed, Trump said in a social media post. It’s the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump’s administration has asserted it’s treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike Tuesday morning, said Trump, who released a video of it, as he had in the past. Hegseth later shared the video in a post on X.

Trump said the strike was conducted in international waters and “Intelligence” confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with “narcoterrorist networks” and was on a known drug trafficking route.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press seeking more information on the latest boat strike.

Frustration with the Trump administration has been growing on Capitol Hill among members of both major political parties. Some Republicans are seeking more information from the White House on the legal justification and details of the strikes. Democrats contend the strikes violate U.S. and international law.

The Senate last week voted on a war powers resolution that would have barred the Trump administration from conducting the strikes unless Congress specifically authorized them, but it failed to pass.

In a memo to Congress that was obtained by The Associated Press, the Trump administration said it had “determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations” and that Trump directed the Pentagon to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict.”

The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats targeted by the U.S. military in a series of fatal strikes were in fact carrying narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The strikes followed a buildup of U.S. maritime forces in the Caribbean unlike any seen in recent times.

Last week, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino told military leaders that the U.S. government knows the drug-trafficking accusations used to support the recent actions in the Caribbean are false, with its true intent being to “force a regime change” in the South American country.

He added that the Venezuelan government does not see the deployment of the U.S. warships as a mere “propaganda-like action” and warned of a possible escalation.

“I want to warn the population: We have to prepare ourselves because the irrationality with which the U.S. empire operates is not normal,” Padrino said during the televised gathering. “It’s anti-political, anti-human, warmongering, rude, and vulgar.”

Price and Toropin write for the Associated Press. AP writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.

A FOOTBALLER has been arrested on suspicion of killing an opponent more than a year after the brutal brawl.

Luis Torres was killed following an alleged attack by Moisés Pulido on 9 September 2024.

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The incident happened during a seven-a-side amateur football match between Torres’ Viper 3.0 and Pulido’s Deportivo Esmeralda on a synthetic pitch in Guadalajara, north west of Mexico City, Mexico.

Torres, 16, is said to have been charging through the midfield in the second half when he laid the ball off before having a go at a rival for a mistimed tackle.

Pulido, 25, is then reported to have rushed over and punched the teen in the face multiple times during the Cannán League game.

After Torres fell to the ground, Pulido allegedly carried on striking him in the back of the head, which caused fatal trauma.

Emergency services were called to the scene but Torres had died by the time they arrived after he was seen convulsing.

Pulido is then said to have fled the scene.

He was arrested on Friday, October 10 after a court order was issued for him to be tracked down.

A court judge charged him with intentional homicide, and he remains in police custody as the investigation continues.

In a statement the Public Prosecutor’s Office said: “On the night of 9 September 2024, Moisés ‘N’ was taking part in a soccer game with the victim on opposing teams.

“At one point, the suspect allegedly hit the victim in the face and then continued to hit him on the back of his head.”

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

This has turned into one of those weeks when there are just way too many movies opening. From titles that premiered earlier in the year, to films that popped up only recently, distributors have decided that today is the time to drop them in theaters. It can make for some tough calls as a moviegoer but hopefully ones with pleasant returns. Here’s some intel.

Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” was a standout at Sundance in January and remains one of the most powerful films of the year. Rose Byrne gives a knockout performance as Linda, a mother struggling to hold onto her own unraveling sense of self as she cares for her ill daughter.

Rose Byrne in the movie “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”

(Logan White / A24)

In his review Glenn Whipp said, “Linda makes dozens of bad decisions in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,’ many of them seemingly indefensible until you realize that just how utterly isolated she feels. … Bronstein demands you pay attention to her, and with Byrne diving headfirst into the character’s harrowing panic, you will find you have no other choice.”

Speaking to Esther Zuckerman for a wide-ranging feature, Byrne said of the part: “Anything dealing with motherhood and shame around motherhood, whether it’s disappointment, failure — she’s got this line in the movie, ‘I wasn’t meant to do this’ — these are pretty radical things to say. People aren’t comfortable with that. So performance-wise, that was the hardest part because it was like a tightrope, the tightrope of this woman.”

Another Sundance premiere hitting theaters this week is director Bill Condon’s adaptation of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” starring Diego Luna, Tonatiuh and Jennifer Lopez. Already a novel, a movie and a Broadway show, the story involves two men imprisoned in an Argentine jail for political crimes during the 1980s, with Lopez playing a fantasy film star who exists in their imaginations — a reverie to which they can escape.

Tonatiuh in the movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

(Roadside Attractions)

For our fall preview, Carlos Aguilar spoke to Tonatiuh, a native of L.A.’s Boyle Heights, whose performance is a true breakout.

“When I first met Jennifer, I was like, ‘Oh, my God — that’s Jennifer Lopez. What the hell?’ ” he recalled, with the enthusiasm of a true fan. “I must have turned left on the wrong street because now I’m standing in front of her. How did this happen? What life am I living?”

After praising both Lopez and Tonatiuh in her review of the film, Amy Nicholson wrote, “Still, my favorite performance has to be Luna’s, whose Valentin is at once strong and vulnerable, like a mutt attempting to fend off a bear. He’s the only one who doesn’t need to prove he’s a great actor, yet he feels like a revelation. Watching him gradually turn tender sends tingles through your heartstrings.”

Among the other new releases this week is “Urchin,” the directing debut from Harris Dickinson, and the documentary “Orwell: 2+2=5,” directed by Raoul Peck. There’s also Derek Cianfrance’s true-crime comedy “Roofman,” Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear-war thriller “A House of Dynamite” and Luca Guadagnino’s campus-set cancel culture drama “After the Hunt.”

Rebecca Miller retro and ‘Mr. Scorsese’

Robert De Niro, left, and Martin Scorsese in an undated photo from Rebecca Miller’s documentary series “Mr. Scorsese.”

(Apple TV+)

The American Cinematheque is celebrating filmmaker Rebecca Miller this weekend with a four-title retrospective plus a preview of her documentary series “Mr. Scorsese,” a five-part portrait of the life and career of Martin Scorsese.

Miller will introduce a Saturday screening of her 2023 rom-com “She Came to Me,” starring Anne Hathaway and Peter Dinklage, then do a Q&A for the first two episodes of the Scorsese project on Sunday. Also screening in the series will be 2016’s “Maggie’s Plan,” starring Julianne Moore, Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig; Miller’s 2002 Sundance grand jury prize winner “Personal Velocity”; and 2005’s “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” starring Miller’s husband Daniel Day-Lewis, screening with an introduction from co-star Camilla Belle.

Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig in “Maggie’s Plan,” written and directed by Rebecca Miller.

(Sony Pictures Classics)

I spoke to Miller this week about the retrospective and her new Scorsese project, which premieres Oct. 17 on Apple TV+. Along with extensive interviews with Scorsese himself, the series includes insights from collaborators such as Robert De Niro, Paul Schrader and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker as well as childhood friends, Scorsese’s children, ex-wives and fellow filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Ari Aster, Benny Safdie and Spike Lee.

“It feels like such an honor and so weird in a way,” said Miller of the notion of having a retrospective. “You feel like you’re just in the middle of making everything, but then you realize, no, I’ve been making these films for 30 years. And it’ll be really interesting to see how the films play now for people. It’s exciting to have them still be sort of alive.”

When you look back on your own movies, what comes to mind for you?

Funnily enough, there is a connection between “Personal Velocity” and Martin Scorsese, which is that when I was about to shoot personal “Velocity,” I was in Rome, on the set of “Gangs of New York,” and I was watching the snack trolley go by and thinking my entire budget is probably the same as their snack budget. And thinking: What am I doing? What was I thinking? How am I going to do this? But talking to [“Gangs” cinematographer] Michael Ballhaus, I told him how long we had to shoot everything, and he said, “Oh, I envy you. We shot ‘The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant’ in 10 days.” He was looking back on his days with Fassbinder as the good old days.

Then Marty gave me some advice on films with voiceovers to watch, and he ended up watching “Personal Velocity.” It was the first of my films that he saw, which then led probably to this [doc series] because he knew my films quite well. He watched them as time went on.

What interested you in Scorsese as a subject?

I knew that he was Catholic, that there was a strong spiritual element to his films. But I was interested in how that Catholicism kind of jogged with his fascination, or apparent fascination, with violence. Who is that person? How do those two things go together? And I thought that could be part of my exploration. I had a sense that all his work has a spiritual undercurrent in it, which I think it does. And I think that’s one of the things that I try to explore in the documentary. I felt I had something a little bit different to offer, for that reason.

The big questions that he’s asking: Are we essentially good? Are we essentially evil? And his immense honesty with himself about who he really is, the darkness of his own soul. I don’t think that people are usually that honest with themselves. And you realize that part of his greatness has to do with his willingness to look at himself.

Martin Scorsese in an undated photo from Rebecca Miller’s documentary series “Mr. Scorsese.”

(Apple TV+)

As much as we think we know about Scorsese, he seemed so candid about some of the darkest moments of his life, especially when he talks about his drug overdose and hospitalization in the late 1970s or about some of his issues with Hollywood, especially around “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Were you ever surprised that he was so willing to go there with you?

Oh, yeah, I was. I really didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t have an agenda. I had the scaffolding of the films themselves and a strong sense that this was a man that you can’t separate from the films. So the thing is like a dance, it’s like a permanent tango between those two things. You’re not going to pry them apart. I didn’t know about the addiction. I didn’t know a lot of these things. My questions are totally genuine, there’s no manipulation. It’s all me. I was very prepared in terms of the films. But in terms of the chronology and the connective tissue of his life, I was really right there discovering it.

Martin Scorsese at work on his film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” as seen in Rebecca Miller’s documenary series “Mr. Scorsese.”

(Apple TV+)

You’re catching him such a remarkable point in his life and career. He seems very happy and settled in his personal life and yet he still makes something like “Killers of the Flower Moon,” full of passion and fire. What do you make of that?

[Screenwriter] Jay [Cocks] says he’s learned that he can be selfish in his art, but he doesn’t have to be selfish in his life. Even if your outside is regular, your inside can be boiling. And I think Marty’s inside is always going to be boiling. The seas are not calm in there and never will be.

‘They Live’ and ‘Josie and the Pussycats,’ together at last

Roddy Piper in John Carpenter’s 1988 thriller “They Live.”

(Sunset Boulevard / Corbis )

There’s a real art to putting together a double bill. Sure, you can just program movies that have the same director or share the same on-screen talent. But what about deep, thematic links that might not otherwise be noticed?

The New Beverly has put together an inspired double bill playing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of John Carpenter’s 1988 “They Live” and Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont’s 2001 “Josie and the Pussycats.” Though one is a rough-and-tumble sci-fi action picture and the other a satirical teen-pop fantasia, they both use the idea of subliminal messages to explore how consumer culture can be a means of control.

In “They Live,” wrestler-turned-actor “Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays a drifter who lands in Los Angeles and discovers a secret network fighting against an invasion of aliens living among us.

In Michael Wilmington’s original review, after joking the movie could be called “Invasion of the Space Yuppies,” he adds, “You can forgive the movie everything because of the sheer nasty pizzazz of its central concept. … The movie daffily mixes up the paranoia of the Red Scare monster movies of the ’50’s with a different kind of nightmare: the radical’s belief that everything is tightly controlled by a small, malicious ruling elite. Everything — the flat lighting, the crazily protracted action scenes, the monolithic beat and vamp of the score — reinforces a mood of murderous persecution mania.”

Rosario Dawson, from left, Rachael Leigh Cook and Tara Reid in the movie “Josie and the Pussycats.”

(Joseph Lederer / Universal Studios)

In “Josie and the Pussycats,” a small-town rock ‘n’ roll band (Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid and Rosario Dawson) are plucked from obscurity when they are signed to a major record label and all their dreams of stardom seem to come true. But they come to realize the company’s executives (a brilliant pairing of Parker Posey and Allan Cumming) are using them for their own nefarious purposes.

Aside from some very hummable songs, the film has a truly epic amount of corporate logos and branding that appears throughout. Many reviewers at the time brought this up, including the L.A. Times’ own Kenneth Turan, who noted, “It’s a potent reminder that no matter how innocent a film may seem, there’s a Hollywood cash register behind almost every frame.” In subsequent interviews, Kaplan and Elfont confirmed these were not instances of paid product placement and, in fact, the production had to fight to get them all on-screen.

Points of interest

‘Eight Men Out’ in 35mm

Charlie Sheen, center, in a scene from the film “Eight Men Out.”

(Archive Photos / Getty Images)

Writer-director John Sayles has been so consistently good for so long that it is easy to take his work for granted. Case in point: 1988’s “Eight Men Out,” which tells the story of the infamous “Black Sox” scandal, when players from the Chicago White Sox were accused of intentionally throwing the 1919 World Series in league with underworld gamblers. The movie is playing on Sunday at Vidiots in 35mm.

The film captures much of what makes Sayles so special, particularly his unique grasp of the interplay between social and economic dynamics — a sense of how things work and why. He also fully grasps the deeper implications of the forces of greed and money setting themselves upon such an unassailable symbol of wholesome Americana as baseball. It’s also what makes the movie particularly worth a revisit now. With a phenomenal cast that includes John Cusack, David Straithairn, D.B. Sweeney, Charlie Sheen, John Mahoney, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Lerner and Sayles himself, the film was a relatively early effort from cinematographer Robert Richardson, who would go on to work repeatedly with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino.

In a review at the time, Sheila Benson wrote, “ ‘Eight Men Out’ is not a bad movie for an election year. Everything that politicians cherish as ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘American’ is here. The Grand Old Game. Idealistic little kids. Straw hats and cat’s-whisker crystal sets. And under the slogans and the platitudes, a terrifying erosion and no one to answer for it. No wonder Sayles, hardly an unpolitical animal, found it such a relevant story nearly 70 years later.”

‘The Sound of Music’ in 70mm

Julie Andrews, center, in the 1965 musical “The Sound of Music.”

(20th Century-Fox)

On Sunday the Academy Museum will screen Robert Wise’s “The Sound of Music” in 70mm, a rare opportunity to see this classic in the premium format on which it was originally released. Based on the stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein , the film would eventually win five Oscars, including director and best picture.

Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, it’s the story of the singing Von Trapp family, eventually forced to flee their native Austria as the Nazis take power.

In a Times review from March 1965, Philip K. Scheuer wrote of Wise and his collaborators, “They have taken this sweet, sometimes saccharine and structurally slight story of the Von Trapp Family Singers and transformed it into close to three hours of visual and vocal broilliaance, all in the universal terms of cinema. They have invested it with new delights and even a sense of depth in human relationships — not to mention the swooning beauty of Salzburg and the Austrian Alps, which the stage, of course, could only suggest.”

Even notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper liked the movie, presciently writing, “The picture is superb — dramatically, musically, cinematically. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer were born for their roles. … All children — from 7 to 90 — wil love it. The following morning I woke up singing. Producer-director Bob Wise did a magnificent job and 20th [Century Fox] will hear nothing but the sound of money for years to come.”

GEN Z are killing off terms like ‘grub,’ ‘sarnie,’ and ‘pop’ – in favour of ‘scran,’ ‘sub,’ and ‘soda.’

A poll of 2,000 adults has revealed how younger adults are driving a generational shift in food language – from breakfast to dinner.

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Using ‘tea’ to refer to the evening meal, ‘nosh’ to talk about food generally, and ‘cuppa’ for a hot drink are also out of favour among under-29s, along with ‘squash.’

While the term ‘sandwich’ is also in decline, with younger adults adopting American-inspired terms such as ‘hoagie’ and ‘hero’ Instead.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s UK&I, which commissioned the research to mark the launch of its new RSPCA assured pork patty Sausage Sandwich on the Saver Menu, said: “Language is constantly evolving, and food slang is no exception.”

The study also found the biggest influence on Gen Z’s food language is their family, which holds greater sway than the local area they grew up in and social media, which came second and third respectively.

Interestingly, more than any other age group, 49% of Gen Z also believe they use a greater number of regional food words than other generations do.

With nearly half (49%) claiming to use them ‘very often’ or ‘often.’

Across all ages, the main barriers to using regional slang include not hearing it enough in conversation (28%) or believing others won’t understand (17%).

However, 40% are curious to know what unfamiliar regional food terms mean, with 18% looking them up online.

Overall, the research, carried out through OnePoll, found 70% believe regional food terms – whether they relate to breakfast, lunch, dinner, or specific foods or drinks – should be preserved as part of cultural heritage, even if they are declining in popularity.

One of the biggest regional variations was what people call a bread roll.

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While the term was number one for all regions, ‘cob’ is popular among those living in the West and East Midlands (21% and 42%).

And ‘Barm’ is commonplace in the North West (26%), with Fam‘teacake’ frequently used in Yorkshire and Humber (18%).

The spokesperson for McDonald’s added: “Our Sausage Sandwich is already sparking its own naming debates – burger or sandwich.”

Although the research suggests a strong preference – when shown an image of this menu item, 76% of those polled described it as a ‘burger,’ with just 24% opting for ‘sandwich.’

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New footage appears to show the man responsible for an attack at a Manchester synagogue, minutes before he drove his car into worshippers on Yom Kippur.

Two people were killed, when Jihad Al-Shamie carried out, what Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have described as a terror attack in Crumpsall on Thursday.

Footage of a street nearby marked 09:22 BST appears to show a man matching the description by witnesses of the attacker, walking back after an earlier confrontation at the synagogue where he was told to leave.

The doorbell camera then shows a black Kia Picanto, matching the car driven by Al-Shamie, heading back towards the synagogue at 09:26 BST. GMP were called to the scene at 09:31.

The black Kia Picanto also matches the car driven through the gates at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue and at worshippers.

As with the car used in the attack, the back right hub cab can be seen missing from the vehicle in the footage.

Two Jewish men Melvin Cravitz, 53, and Adrian Daulby, 66, died in the attack, the latter believed to have been hit by police gunfire as firearms officers shot Al-Shamie.

Three people remain in hospital, while police have detained four people on suspicion of terror offences.

On Sunday, counter terror police were granted more time to hold them in custody, while inquiries are under way to establish “the full picture” into what was happened, a spokesman for Counter Terrorism Policing North West said.

Two other people, a man and a woman, were released without charge after they were arrested on the day of the attack.

Israel and Hamas are preparing for indirect negotiations in Egypt, amid hopes for a possible agreement on ending the Gaza war based on Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan.

Palestinian group Hamas said on Sunday that its delegation, headed by Khalil al-Hayya, had arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh and would begin the negotiations on Monday “on the mechanisms for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of [Israeli] occupation forces and a prisoner exchange”.

The Israeli delegation, led by top negotiator Ron Dermer, will leave on Monday for the talks, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Hopes for a possible ceasefire in Gaza grew after Netanyahu said on Friday that he was hopeful a deal to release all the remaining captives could be announced this week.

United States President Trump said the talks were advancing quickly. “These talks have been very successful, and proceeding rapidly. The technical teams will again meet Monday, in Egypt, to work through and clarify the final details,” he said in a social media post on Sunday. “I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST.”

Despite a call from Trump for Israel to pause its Gaza offensive, the Israeli army has continued its bombing campaign. At least 24 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops on Sunday, sources told Al Jazeera Arabic. Among the victims were four asylum seekers who were shot near an aid distribution centre north of Rafah, the Nasser Medical Complex said.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from the town of az-Zuwayda in central Gaza, said attacks were continuing both in the areas where people have been displaced to and in Gaza City, where the majority of Israeli military assaults and the ground offensive have taken place in recent weeks.

“The Palestinians were hoping for a good night’s sleep, but that didn’t happen,” Mahmoud said.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said more than 2,700 families, comprising more than 8,500 people, have been wiped off the civil registry in two years of conflict. At least 1,015 children under one year old have been killed, along with 1,670 medical staff, 254 journalists, and 140 civil defence rescue workers.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that the war in Gaza had not yet ended despite the situation being “the closest we’ve come to getting all of the hostages released”.

Rubio urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza ahead of the discussions in Egypt. “You can’t release hostages in the middle of strikes, so the strikes will have to stop,” he told US broadcaster CBS. “There can’t be a war going on in the middle of it.”

According to Trump’s plan, Hamas would release the remaining captives and Israel would pull back troops in Gaza to the “yellow line”, where it was in August.

Despite the terms of the deal clearly stipulating Israel’s withdrawal, Israeli media quoted Defence Minister Israel Katz, saying that Israel would remain in control of the Strip. “Hamas will be disarmed, the Gaza Strip will be demilitarised, and the [Israeli army] will remain in controlling areas to protect the communities,” he said.

Arab backing for Hamas in negotiations

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates issued a joint statement on Sunday, in which they welcomed the steps taken by Hamas on Trump’s Gaza plan, including the release of all Israeli captives and the immediate launch of negotiations on implementation mechanisms.

“The Foreign Ministers also welcomed President Trump’s call on Israel to immediately stop the bombing and to begin implementation of the exchange agreement, and they expressed appreciation for his commitment to establishing peace in the region,” the joint statement said.

They also welcomed Hamas for stating “its readiness to hand over the administration of Gaza to a transitional Palestinian Administrative Committee of independent technocrats”.

Izzat al-Risheq, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the statement marked an “important support” for efforts to end the war. He also welcomed the “clear backing for the Palestinian position in the negotiations, [which] strengthens the chances of reaching a lasting ceasefire agreement”.

“We look forward to further Arab and Islamic support in order to stop the aggression and genocide being inflicted on our people in the Gaza Strip, leading to an end of the occupation and the realisation of our Palestinian people’s aspirations to establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital,” al-Risheq said.

Trump has dispatched two envoys to Egypt, according to the White House, sending his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his main Middle East negotiator, Steve Witkoff.

The US president has told Hamas that once it agrees to Israel’s initial military withdrawal line in Gaza, an immediate ceasefire would be triggered.

The talks are being held after Hamas agreed to release the Israeli captives and accept some other terms in Trump’s Gaza plan, but questions surround vexing issues, such as Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip and Hamas’s disarmament.

Asked by reporters whether there was any flexibility on his 20-point Gaza plan, Trump suggested on Sunday that some changes would still be possible. “We don’t need flexibility because everybody has pretty much agreed to it. But there’ll always be some changes,” he said.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Among the week’s new releases is “The Smashing Machine,” written and directed by Benny Safdie and starring Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, an early mixed-martial-arts fighting champion who saw his career flame out before the sport became a lucrative cultural phenomenon.

Safdie is known for the movies he made with his brother Josh, such as “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems,” and more recently created the series “The Curse” with Nathan Fielder. Safdie won the directing prize at the Venice Film Festival for “The Smashing Machine,” his first solo feature.

Dwayne Johnson in the movie “The Smashing Machine.”

(A24)

In her review of the film, Amy Nicholson wrote about Safdie and Johnson, noting, “These two high-intensity talents, each with something to prove, seem to have egged each other on to be exhaustingly photorealistic. Johnson, squeezed into a wig so tight we get a vicarious headache, has pumped up his deltoids to nearly reach his prosthetic cauliflower ears. And Safdie is so devoted to duplicating the earthy brown decor of Kerr’s late-’90s nouveau riche Phoenix home that you’d think he was restoring Notre Dame.”

I spoke to Safdie earlier this week. He explained how he and Kerr held each other’s hands during the film’s emotional premiere screening at Venice and what it has meant for them to go through the process of seeing through the project together.

“I wanted him to feel some kind of ownership of the movie and his life. And it was very meaningful to me,” says Safdie of Kerr. “Now I hear him talk about it and it’s very interesting because he can say, ‘Oh, I see where I made mistakes in that relationship.’ And he can take ownership of them. And part of it is I wanted to make a movie about somebody’s perspective on life changing.”

A celebration of Jafar Panahi

A scene from the movie “It Was Just an Accident.”

(Neon)

The American Cinematheque is launching a tribute series to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi this week. Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for the dramatic thriller “It Was Just an Accident,” Panahi has become Iran’s most high-profile dissident filmmaker, having been repeatedly jailed, placed under house arrest and officially banned from making films.

Yet none of that has stopped him. Panahi is now one of only four filmmakers ever to win the Palme d’Or, Berlin’s Golden Bear and Venice’s Golden Lion, alongside such giants as Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Altman and Henri-Georges Clouzot. And “Accident” has been selected to be France’s entry for the international feature Oscar race.

Panahi was scheduled to appear at three events in Los Angeles next week as part of the tribute, but he may not make it. His appearances at the New York Film Festival (now in progress), including a scheduled talk with Martin Scorsese, had to be canceled due to a delay in Panahi receiving his visa to enter the country, reportedly a result of the federal government shutdown.

Even if Panahi does not make it to L.A., his films will play on and deserve to be seen. “Accident” will screen in a double-bill with 2003’s “Crimson Gold” at the Aero on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Panahi’s 1995 debut feature “The White Balloon,” co-written with Abbas Kiarostami, will play in 35mm at the Los Feliz 3. Later on Wednesday at the LF3, Panahi’s 2000 drama “The Circle” will screen in a 35mm print from the Yale Film Archive, along with the 2010 short “The Accordion.”

In 1996, Kenneth Turan had this to write about “The White Balloon”: “A completely charming, unhurried slice of life, it is both slow and sure-handed as it follows a small but fearsomely determined little girl on her amusing search for just the right ceremonial goldfish for her family’s new year’s celebration.”

Discussing “The Circle” in 2001, Turan said, “Restrained yet powerful, devastating in its emotional effects, ‘The Circle’ is a landmark in Iranian cinema. By combining two things that are relatively rare in that country’s production — unapologetically dramatic storytelling and an implicit challenge to the prevailing political ideology — this new film by producer-director Jafar Panahi creates a potent synthesis.”

With or without Panahi in attendance, these are deeply necessary films that speak to their respective moments — and all too much to our current one.

‘All the President’s Men’ and remembering Robert Redford

Robert Redford, right, and Dustin Hoffman in the movie “All the President’s Men.”

(Sunset Boulevard / Corbis via Getty Images)

Screenings have already begun to pop up in tribute to Robert Redford, who died recently at age 89. On Friday, Vidiots will screen Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 political thriller “All the President’s Men” in 35mm along with Phil Alden Robinson’s 1992 caper comedy “Sneakers.” On Sunday, Vidiots will also show Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romantic drama “The Way We Were.” (The Academy Museum will screen “The Way We Were” on Oct. 26.)

The American Cinematheque will also be a launching a Redford tribute series starting on Monday with a screening of Tony Scott’s 2001 thriller “Spy Game.” Other films currently scheduled include “Jeremiah Johnson,” “The Sting,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Indecent Proposal,” “Sneakers” and a 35mm showing of “All the President’s Men.” That barely scratches the surface of Redford’s work as an actor, let alone as a director, so more events are likely to come.

Redford was deeply involved in bringing “All the President’s Men” to the screen as quickly as possible following the Watergate scandal. Writing about “All the President’s Men” in 1976, Charles Champlin said the film has “a clarity born of historical perspective but also a newly quickened feeling of national concern. The central drama and suspense of ‘All the President’s Men’ is a reminder of the narrow margin of our safety and how close the coverup came to working. … The film invites no comfort. It was a narrow and almost accidental escape and the weight of a corrupted government had been tilted against the truth as never before. But never again? The movie makes no preachment but you are bound to think anew that forgiveness and forgetfulness ought to be two starkly different commodities.”

Points of interest

‘Rosemary’s Baby’ in 35mm

Mia Farrow in the 1968 horror landmark “Rosemary’s Baby.”

(Criterion Collection)

“Rosemary’s Baby,” a 1968 adaptation of the novel by Ira Levin written and directed by Roman Polanski (and produced by exploitation impresario William Castle), is still considered one of the creepiest movies of all time. The film stars Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse, who has moved into a grand old apartment building in New York City with her actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes). After she becomes pregnant, it begins to seem as if her nosy neighbors have been part of a coven of witches scheming to give birth to the son of Satan. Ruth Gordon won a supporting actress Oscar for her role as one of the neighbors. The movie plays in 35mm Tuesday through Thursday at the New Beverly.

Even back in 1968, the film touched off a nerve with reviewers, including our own. In his original June 1968 review, Champlin wrote, “Having paid my critical respects, I must then add that I found ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ a most desperately sick and obscene motion picture whose ultimate horror — in my very private opinion — was that it was made at all. It seems a singularly appropriate symbol of an age which, believing in nothing, will believe anything. … It is also all so sleazy and sick at heart. And the horror is that it presumes we are too indifferent to perceive what its horrors really are.”

‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’

An image from Luis Buñuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.”

(Rialto Pictures)

Winner of the Oscar for international feature film and nominated for original screenplay, 1972’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” was directed by Luis Buñuel, who wrote the script with Jean-Claude Carrière. Screening at the Academy Museum as part of a series dedicated to Buñuel, the film is a bold satire of societal conventions — one that still largely holds up, as a group of friends meets for a series of meals.

In a November 1972 review, Charles Champlin wrote, “Watching a Buñuel film is a special experience because he creats a special world, somewhere west of hard reality but dealing — mockingly — with social reality and always reflecting Buñuel’s almost puritanical rage at any misuse of power, fiscal, political, ecclesiastical, military, social. … The surrealist attack sometimes makes him sound more formidable that he is. In fact he’s a sly humanist who has here created one of his most easily enjoyable works.”

In other news

PTA, ranked

Joaquin Phoenix in the movie “Inherent Vice.”

(Wilson Webb / Warner Bros.)

Last week, we mentioned Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which Amy Nicholson declared “fun and fizzy.” So this week, I set about the popular task of placing the new film within a ranking of Anderson’s 10 feature films, from his 1996 feature debut “Hard Eight” onward.

As I noted in the introduction, “More so than with other directors, it’s always tempting to overly psychologize Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, looking for traces of his personal development and hints of autobiography: the father figures of ‘Magnolia’ or ‘The Master,’ the partnership of ‘Phantom Thread,’ parenthood in the new ‘One Battle After Another.’ Yet two things truly set his work apart. There’s the incredibly high level of craft in each of them, giving each a unique feel, sensibility and visual identity, and also the deeply felt humanism: a pure love of people, for all their faults and foibles.

“Anderson is an 11-time Academy Award nominee without ever having won, a situation that could rectify itself soon enough, and it speaks to the extremely high bar set by his filmography that one could easily reverse the following list and still end up with a credible, if perhaps more idiosyncratic ranking. Reorder the films however you like — they are all, still, at the very least, extremely good. Simply put, there’s no one doing it like him.”

Would you have a different title at No. 1? Let us know in the comments.

Israeli attacks across the besieged Gaza Strip have killed at least 61 Palestinians, medical sources said, despite calls from United States President Donald Trump for Israel to stop its bombardment after Hamas said it had accepted some elements of Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s war.

At least 45 of the victims killed in bombardments and air strikes on Saturday were in the famine-struck Gaza City, where the Israeli army has been pressing an offensive in recent weeks, forcing some one million residents to flee to the overcrowded south.

Eighteen people were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential home in the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City, medics said. The attack also damaged several buildings nearby.

In a statement shared on Telegram, Gaza’s civil defence agency said seven children between the ages of two months and eight years old were among those killed.

Israeli forces also targeted a displacement camp in al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, killing two children and wounding at least eight others.

Al-Mawasi is a so-called safe humanitarian zone that the Israeli army has been ordering Palestinian families to evacuate to. But the area has been repeatedly targeted over the last few weeks and months.

There have also been air raids on other areas, including in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from az-Zawayda.

“Hospitals are unable to treat all of these Palestinians,” she said, referring to the handful of battered medical facilities that remain functional in the north amid a severe fuel shortage.

“What is happening on the ground doesn’t show that there is any type of ceasefire,” she said.

Trump demands urgency

On Saturday, Trump urged Hamas to move quickly to release captives and finalise negotiations over his plan to end the war, “or else all bets will be off”.

“I will not tolerate delay, which many think will happen, or any outcome where Gaza poses a threat again. Let’s get this done, FAST. Everyone will be treated fairly!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

In a separate post later on Saturday, Trump said Israel had agreed to an initial “withdrawal line” and that it was also shared with Hamas.

“When Hamas confirms, the Ceasefire will be IMMEDIATELY effective, the Hostages and Prisoner Exchange will begin, and we will create the conditions for the next phase of withdrawal,” he wrote.

Hamas had agreed to certain key parts of Trump’s 20-point proposal, including Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners. But the group has left some questions unanswered, such as whether it would be willing to disarm.

Trump will be sending his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Egypt to finalise the technical details of the captive release and discuss a lasting peace deal, according to a White House official. Egypt will also host delegations from Israel and Hamas on Monday to discuss things further, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The first phase of Trump’s proposal includes the return of all captives, dead and alive, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Speaking to reporters from Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed negotiators will be working on a timeline for the release of the remaining captives under Trump’s Gaza plan in Egypt.

He also reiterated that the US proposal includes the demilitarisation of Hamas.

That will be achieved either through Trump’s proposal or through Israeli military action, he said. He added he hoped to announce the return of the captives, all while the Israeli military remained deep in Gaza.

Adnan Hayajneh, a professor of international relations and US foreign policy at Qatar University, said Hamas wants guarantees that if it releases the Israeli captives, there will be implementation of the rest of Trump’s 20-point plan. This includes a clear picture of what the future governance of Gaza will look like.

“There’ll be a long negotiation, and Hamas will take part in it,” Hayajneh told Al Jazeera.

Arab leaders also aired some reservations about the plan to Trump, “but most of the reservations were not taken into consideration regarding the governance of Gaza, the military forces … the future of arms,” said the professor.

“If you look at the plan, it’s almost a surrender for Hamas,” he added. “I think they’re leaving that bargaining chip, which is very important, the hostages, for the last minute.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 67,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and experts believe the actual toll could be as much as three times higher.

TENS of thousands are without power as Storm Amy’s 90mph gusts and torrential rain lash Britain leaving one dead.

The first named storm of the season has swept into the country with yellow weather warnings covering the whole of Britain on Saturday.

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Irish Police confirmed on Friday that a man in his 40s had died following a “weather related incident”.

While 234,000 homes were also left without power across the island of Ireland as Storm Amy brings widespread disruption.

The highest wind speeds so far have been recorded in the Hebrides Islands, Scotland, at 96mph with 92mph gusts recorded in Co Londonderry in Northern Ireland, say the Met Office.

An amber wind warning has been issued for the north of Scotland until 9pm on Saturday with yellow warnings covering the whole of Scotland, the north of England and north Wales until the end of the day.

A yellow wind warning will run until 7pm for the rest of England and Wales.

Additionally, yellow warnings for rain are in place in north and west Scotland until midnight and in Northern Ireland until noon.

Travel chaos has also been sparked across the country with road closures and disruption to public transport.

Train operator, Avanti West Coast, warned of “short notice changes” on Saturday and “strongly recommended” customers making journeys north of Preston to check updates before travelling.

In Scotland, ScotRail suspended services on Friday night and anticipated the disruption would extend in Saturday and possibly Sunday.

Network Rail Scotland route director Ross Moran said more than 60 incidents of flooding, fallen trees and debris on the tracks were reported across the network in the first two hours of the storm.

“Storm Amy has hit parts of the country much harder and more quickly than expected,” he said.

National Rail is carrying out safety checks for obstructions on the line and damage to infrastructure, warning of possible disruptions throughout the UK on Saturday.

Elsewhere, CalMac Ferries also said it expect many services to be disrupted on Saturday into Sunday with many routes already cancelled.

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The iconic Severn Bridge between Gloucestershire and Wales was also forced to close overnight due to strong winds.

While parts of the A19 Tees Viaduct, the A66 in Cumbria and the A628 near Manchester were all closed to high-sided vehicles.

Traffic Scotland has also reported a long list of road closures with Forth Road Bridge closed in both directions.

The Skye Bridge, Queensferry Crossing and Clackmannshire Bridge were also closed to high-sided vehicles.

They also reported a number of road closures due to falling debris and overnight flooding including the M9 eastbound near Stirling.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency had 30 flood warnings in place on Saturday with the Environment Agency issuing six in the north of England one in north Wales from Natural Resources Wales.

Belfast International Airport said it was expecting delays on Saturday and advised passengers to check with their airlines.

All eight of London’s royal parks, including Hyde Park and Richmond Park, will also be closed on Saturday due to the strong winds.

In a statement on its website, the Royal Parks said: “Due to severe wind gusts caused by Storm Amy, all of the royal parks, plus Brompton Cemetery and Victoria Tower Gardens will be closed on Saturday October 4.

“This closure includes all park roads and cycleways, cafes and kiosks, parks sports venues, the Serpentine lido and boating lake, and the royal parks shop.”

“The safety of visitors and staff is our top priority,” the Royal Parks added.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience that these closures may cause.”

It said opening times on Sunday will be delayed because of safety inspections.

The Met Office said wind and rain was expected to ease throughout the evening for much of the country, but severe gales are forecast to continue in north east Scotland with a yellow warning for wind in place from midnight until 9am on Sunday.

Sunday is expected to turn dry and less windy with sunny spells for most areas, but outbreaks of rain developing in the north west.

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Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

The 13th edition of Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque has already begun but lasts until Oct. 8, so there is still plenty of excitement on the way.

Japanese icon Meiko Kaji will make a series of appearances during her first time visiting the U.S. A double-bill of 1973’s “Lady Snowblood” and 1974’s “Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance” will feature a Q&A with the actor moderated by Jen Yamato, while another Q&A will be moderated by “Anora” Oscar winner Sean Baker.

Other upcoming screenings include “The Testament of Ann Lee” in 70mm, “The Secret Agent” with filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, “It Was Just an Accident” with filmmaker Jafar Panahi, a Guillermo del Toro retrospective, Mike Nichols’ 1973 sci-fi thriller “The Day of the Dolphin” in 4K and a 10th anniversary screening of “The Invitation” with filmmaker Karyn Kusama, screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi and actor Logan Marshall-Green.

Meiko Kaji in the movie “Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion.”

(Arrow Films / Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque)

Saturday will see screenings of “Manhunter” and “To Live and Die in L.A.” with star William Petersen in attendance. I spoke to Petersen this week about going from being a Chicago theater actor to starring in two now-classic ’80s crime thrillers in the span of one year.

“It was never my intention to make any movies, it wasn’t like I was seeking them out,” Petersen said. “They kind of just came and found me.”

I also spoke to some of the team behind the festival about how they manage to harness the energy of L.A’s rep-house scene and point it toward an eclectic mix of new and old titles that increasingly includes legitimate prestige titles, including awards winners from the international festival circuit.

“It’s not just all about the films — it’s about the theatrical experience, seeing it all together,” said Grant Moninger, co-founder of Beyond Fest and artistic director of the American Cinematheque. “This does not happen online. You’re not watching a screener with a watermark at your house. You’re all together, you’re just celebrating cinema and going through all the emotions together. We put on a show every year at all these theaters because we’re thankful that everyone’s coming together and we’re going to try to give them as much as we can give them.”

‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ at 50

Tim Curry, center, as Frank-N-Furter in the movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

(20th Century Fox)

Tonight the 50th anniversary of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will be celebrated at the Academy Museum with a screening of new 4K restoration and an appearance by star Tim Curry. The screening will include “a full-blown audience participation and shadow cast experience,” capturing some the feeling of the riotous fan-fueled midnight shows that made the film a sensation over decades. There will be additional screenings of the film Oct. 4 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Oct. 15 at the Grammy Museum.

Directed by Jim Sharman, who also mounted the original stage show, from a story and songs by Richard O’Brien (who also plays Riff-Raff), the film is said to have the longest theatrical release in cinema history, thanks to its ongoing life as a cult object.

Steve Appleford interviewed the film’s star, Tim Curry at the Roxy, where the original stage show was first performed in L.A. In the film, Curry’s character, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, is a singing scientist in fishnets and high heels who introduces a young couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) to a world of new experiences.

“It was part of the sexual revolution, really,” said Curry. “Experiment was in the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they discovered they wanted to be. I’m proud of that.”

Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick do “The Time Warp” (again) in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

(John Jay / Disney)

The Times identified the “Rocky Horror” phenomenon from the very start. Gregg Kilday interviewed Curry for an article published in March 1974 as the stage show transferred from London to L.A. The feature follows Curry, then only 27, from the Roxy to Musso & Frank and on to the Chateau Marmont, a pretty enviable tour of the city.

Curry described the character at the time by saying, “He says he’s a transvestite transexual, whatever that means. I don’t play him as a transexual. But he’s a fairly complex guy. He just takes anything he can get. He’s not fussy, really. Though I think he’s something of a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.”

In his original review of the film from Sept. 26, 1975, critic Kevin Thomas (of course, it was reviewed by Kevin Thomas) said, “All of this plays less depraved than it sounds. … This Richard O’Brien musical is simply too exuberant and too funny to be seriously decadent. Indeed, there’s an underlying quality of tenderness and even innocence in this loving send-up of horror and sci-fi flicks and celebration of post-graduate sexuality.”

The format wars of ‘One Battle After Another’

Teyana Taylor in the movie “One Battle After Another.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

The new film from Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another,” features another of the filmmaker’s impressive ensembles, one that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, Alana Haim, Sean Penn, newcomer Chase Infiniti and Benicio del Toro.

The film is playing in a variety of film formats, and Los Angeles is lucky to be one of only four cities in the world to be screening the movie in VistaVision. (Appropriately enough, it will be at the Vista.) The film is also in Imax 70mm at the Universal Citywalk and in Imax at multiple locations including the TCL Chinese and in 70mm at the CGV by Regency in Buena Park. (Plus, it’ll be in more conventional digital formats at many other theaters.)

A politically minded action-comedy based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland,” the film stars DiCaprio as a former bomb-making revolutionary who has gone underground to protect his daughter (Infiniti). When a power-mad military man (Penn) comes after them, Bob must spring into action in ways he is not ready for.

Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “One Battle After Another.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

In her review, Amy Nicholson wrote, “Paul Thomas Anderson’s fun and fizzy adaptation views its Molotov cocktail as half-full. Yes, it says, the struggle for liberation continues: ideologues versus toadies, radicals versus conservatives, loyalists versus rats. But isn’t it inspiring that there are still people willing to fight?”

Glenn Whipp spoke to Anderson in his first solo interview for the film. Despite the fact that the movie opens with a raid on a government immigration detention center, Anderson was reluctant to directly connect it to the current political moment.

“The biggest mistake I could make in a story like this is to put politics up in the front,” Anderson said. “That has a short shelf life. To sustain a story over two hours and 40 minutes, you have to care about the characters and take those big swings in terms of the emotional arcs of people and their pursuits and why you love that person and why you hate this person. That’s not a thing that ever goes out of fashion. But neither does fascism and neither does people doing bad s— to other people. Unfortunately, that doesn’t go out of style, either. That’s just how we humans are.”

Points of interest

‘A Scanner Darkly’ in 35mm

Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder in director Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly,” based on the Philip K. Dick novel.

(Warner Independent Pictures)

On Friday night, Brain Dead Studios will host a 35mm screening of Richard Linklater’s 2006 animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly.” A comic, deeply paranoid tale of identity, the rotoscoped film features a cast that includes Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr.

Reviewing the film, Carino Chocano wrote, “As the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that everybody isn’t out to get you. In the dismal near-future of the film, when large-scale government spying has taken the next logical step into thought-surveillance, questioning the effect of shadowy forces no longer requires an overactive imagination. It doesn’t even require a drug habit (though, of course, it helps to have one). The dropouts and burnouts of ‘Scanner’ don’t have to wonder if they’re being watched; they are in every sense part of the program. … The brilliance of ‘A Scanner Darkly’ is how it suggests, without bombast or fanfare, the ways in which the real world has come to resemble the dark world of comic books.”

Much as Linklater has recently made “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague” in short order, in 2006 he had both “A Scanner Darkly” and “Fast Food Nation,” a fictional adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s nonfiction book.

“I make the joke that I’m like that British bus,” Linklater said at the time. “You wait forever and then two show up at the same time.”

Terence Stamp x2

Terence Stamp in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Teorema.”

(Criterion Collection)

The Eastwood Performing Arts Center will feature a program of two films starring Terence Stamp on Friday and Saturday, with “Teorema” and “Toby Dammit.”

Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Teorema” captures Stamp’s otherworldly beauty as a mysterious stranger who seduces all the members of a wealthy family in Milan (played by Massimo Girotti, Silvana Mangano, Laura Betti and Anne Wiazemsky) and then disappears from their lives as suddenly as he appeared, leaving them all in spiritual crisis.

“Toby Dammit,” directed by Federico Fellini, was one section of the anthology film “Spirits of the Dead,” with the other sections directed by Roger Vadim and Louis Malle. Stamp plays a fading alcoholic actor who makes a deal to shoot a film in Rome in exchange for a new Ferrari. He begins to suffer from terrifying visions.

Writing about the anthology in 1969, Kevin Thomas noted the film’s “swirling, shimmering worlds of fantasy populated by decadent Roman society,” adding that they only paled in comparison to Fellini’s previous triumphs “La Docle Vita,” “8½” and “Juliet of the Spirits.”

In other news

Henry Jaglom dead at 87

Henry Jaglom, arriving at a premiere in Los Angeles in 2009.

(Chris Pizzello / Associated Press)

An insistently independent filmmaker, Henry Jaglom died this week at age 87. His deep love of actors led him to a loose, improvisatory style that gave freedom to his performers. Often drawing story ideas from his own life (and casts from his wide circle of friends), his films included 1976’s “Tracks,” 1985’s “Always,” 1994’s “Babyfever” and 2007’s “Hollywood Dreams.” A new restoration of Jaglom’s 1983 film “Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?” is premiering this weekend as part of the New York Film Festival.

I visited with Jaglom once at the offices he long kept on Sunset Boulevard, a warren of rooms stuffed with the accumulated memorabilia of a life dedicated to movies. In a corner was an editing machine he said belonged to John Cassavetes.

Jaglom well understood his own privilege in life and equally understood that there were those who would not respond to his work.

“I enjoy, even if I’m being attacked, knowing I’ve had an impact,” Jaglom told me. “People are looking at it, talking about it, thinking about it. And that some people are moved, feel better. It’s reaching out and trying to touch people. It’s what film can do. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Ladakh, a high-altitude cold desert region in the Himalayas that has been at the heart of recent India-China tensions, was rocked on Wednesday by violent Gen Z-led protests as youth torched the regional office of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

As protesters, including school students, clashed with the police in Leh, the regional capital, at least four of them were killed and dozens were injured, protest coordinators told Al Jazeera, following additional deployment of the armed forces. Authorities said dozens of security forces were also injured in the clashes.

For the past six years, thousands of people in Ladakh, led by local civic bodies, have taken out peaceful marches and gone on hunger strikes demanding greater constitutional safeguards and statehood from India, which has governed the region federally since 2019. They want the power to elect a local government.

On Wednesday, however, groups of disillusioned youth broke with those peaceful protests, said Sonam Wangchuk, an educator who has been spearheading a series of hunger strikes.

“It was an outburst of youth, a kind of Gen-Z revolution, that brought them on streets,” Wangchuk said in a video statement, referring to recent uprisings in South Asian countries, including in Nepal earlier this month, that led to the overthrow of the government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.

So, what’s happening in Ladakh? What are their demands? How did the Himalayan region get to this point? And why does the crisis in Ladakh matter so much?

What triggered clashes in Ladakh?

On Wednesday morning, a hunger strike by local Ladakhi activists, led by the Ladakh Apex Body, an amalgam of socio-religious and political organisations, entered its 15th day.

Two activists, aged 62 and 71, had been hospitalised the previous evening after two weeks of hunger strike, leading to a call by organisers for a local shutdown. The protesters were also angry with the Modi government for delaying talks with them.

These issues led the youth to believe that “peace is not working”, Wangchuk said on Wednesday evening in a virtual press meeting, during which he appeared frail.

Then the youth-led groups broke away from the protest site in Leh at the Martyrs’ Memorial Park and moved towards local official buildings and a BJP office, raising slogans, leading to clashes with the police. Four were killed and another remains critical, while dozens were injured.

“This is the bloodiest day in the history of Ladakh. They martyred our young people – the general public who were on the streets to support the demands of the strike,” said Jigmat Paljor, the coordinator of the apex body behind the hunger strikes.

“The people were tired of fake promises for five years by the government, and people were filled with anger,” Paljor told Al Jazeera. Amid the violence, he said, his organisation withdrew the hunger strike, calling for peace.

In a statement, India’s home ministry said that clashes “unruly mob” had left over 30 forces personnel injured — and that “police had to resort to firing” in self defence, leading to “some casualties”.

The government said that “it was clear that the mob was incited by [Wangchuk]”, adding that the educator was “misleading the people through his provocative mention of Arab Spring-style protest and references to Gen Z protests in Nepal.” Wangchuk has been warning that youth sentiments could turn to violence if the government does not pay heed to the demands of peaceful protesters — but insists he has never advocated violence himself.

What do protesters want?

In 2019, the Modi government unilaterally stripped the semi-autonomous status and statehood that Indian-administered Kashmir had previously enjoyed under the Indian constitution.

The state had three regions – the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Hindu-majority Jammu, and Ladakh, where Muslims and Buddhists each form about 40 percent of the population.

Then, the Modi government bifurcated the erstwhile state into two territories: Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature, and Ladakh without one. While both are federally governed and neither has the powers of other states in India, Jammu and Kashmir’s legislature at least allows its population to elect local leaders who can represent their concerns and voice them to New Delhi. Ladakh, locals argue, doesn’t even have that.

Kashmir is a disputed region between India, Pakistan and China – the three nuclear-armed neighbours each control a part. India claims all of it, and Pakistan claims all except the part held by China, its ally. Indian-administered Kashmir borders Pakistan on the west, and Ladakh shares a 1,600km (994-mile) border with China on the east.

Since the end of statehood, Ladakhis have found themselves under the rule of bureaucrats. More than 90 percent of the region’s population is listed as Scheduled Tribes. That status has prompted a demand for Ladakh to be included under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which provides autonomous administrative and governance structures to regions where recognised Indigenous communities dominate the population. There are currently 10 regions in India’s northeastern states that are listed under the schedule.

However, the Modi government has so far resisted both statehood and the protections of the Sixth Schedule for Ladakh.

The separation of Jammu and Kashmir from Ladakh has meant that it is harder for Ladakhis to find work in Jammu and Kashmir, where most jobs in the previously unified region were. Since 2019, locals have also accused the Indian government of not putting in place clear policies for hirings to public sector jobs.

“[The young protesters] are unemployed for five years, and Ladakh is not being granted [constitutional] protections,” Wangchuk said on Wednesday. “This is the recipe of social unrest in society: keep youth unemployed and then snatch their democratic rights.”

Ladakh has a 97 percent literacy rate, well above India’s national average of about 80 percent. But a 2023 survey found that 26.5 percent of Ladakh’s graduates are unemployed – double the national average.

On Wednesday, the anger tipped over.

“What’s happening in Ladakh is horrific,” said Siddiq Wahid, an academic and political analyst from Leh. “It is scary to see Ladakh sort of pushed to this edge.”

“In the last six years, Ladakhis have realised the dangers that their identity faces,” he said, adding that the people have been “adamant about the need to retrieve their rights since they were snatched away six years ago”.

“The youth anger is a particularly worrisome angle because they’re impatient. They’ve been waiting for a resolution for years,” said Wahid. “Now, they are frustrated because they don’t see a future for themselves.”

Have there been protests earlier in Ladakh?

Yes. Since the abrogation of the region’s semi-autonomous status and the removal of statehood, several local civic groups have staged protest marches and at times gone on hunger strikes.

Wangchuk, the educator, has led five hunger strikes in the last three years, demanding constitutional protections for Ladakh. He is also the most well-known face of the protests in Ladakh – having a wider reach due to his past sustainability innovations. Wangchuk’s life has also inspired a Bollywood blockbuster movie that has also gained legions of fans in China.

The site of the hunger strike, the Martyrs’ Memorial Park, is also dedicated to three Ladakhis who were killed in August 1989 in a firing incident during protests. At the time, the protests were over anger about perceived Kashmiri dominance in the unified state that Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir belonged to.

The site also honours two other protesters who were killed in January 1981 during an agitation demanding Scheduled Tribe status for Ladakhis.

But Wednesday’s protest marked the deadliest day in Ladakh’s political history.

Sajad Kargili, a civil member of a committee constituted by the Modi government to speak with the protesting activists, said that the violence in Ladakh “highlights the frustration of our youth”.

“The government needs to understand that there are young people here who are angry and not opting to sit on a hunger strike,” Kargili said. “The Modi government should not turn its back on these calls.”

Why Ladakh is so significant

Ladakh sits at India’s Himalayan frontier, bordering China.

The region also connects to vital mountain passes, airfields, and supply routes that are critical for India’s military in the event of a conflict with China. In 2020, the Indian and Chinese forces clashed in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), following a Chinese incursion.

At least 20 Indian forces personnel were killed alongside four Chinese. The confrontation triggered the mobilisation of tens of thousands of troops on both sides, with heavy weaponry and infrastructure being rushed to high-altitude posts.

Since then, Ladakh has remained the nerve centre of India-China border tensions. Multiple rounds of military and diplomatic talks have led to a thaw since late last year.

Now, Wahid, the political analyst, said that the Modi government’s actions in 2019 are returning to haunt India with a new threat in Ladakh – an internal one. Indian authorities, he pointed out, have long had to deal with Kashmir as a “centre of discontent”. Now, they have Ladakh to contend with, too.

No official word yet on the killing of 24 people, including 14 fighters, in tribal area as opposition blames the military for explosions.

At least 24 people, including children, have been killed in explosions in a remote area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan, triggering calls for an investigation into the incident.

A local police official said bomb-making material allegedly stored at a compound run by Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, exploded in the Tirah Valley region early on Monday, killing fighters and civilians.

But many local opposition figures and other authorities accused the Pakistani military of carrying out night-time air raids as part of a “counterterror operation” to take out fighters in mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan.

An official statement has yet to be released by the Pakistani government or armed forces.

Local police officer Zafar Khan was quoted as saying by The Associated Press news agency that at least 10 civilians, including women and children, were killed, along with at least 14 fighters, two of whom were TTP commanders.

Security forces are carrying out operations against the Pakistan Taliban in Khyber, Bajaur and other parts of the northwest. The outlawed group has been waging an armed rebellion against Pakistan’s government since its emergence in 2007. It is different from the Taliban that has been in power in Afghanistan, though the organisations have common ideological roots.

‘An attack on unarmed civilians’

Iqbal Afridi – an opposition member of the National Assembly whose constituency covers Tirah, which sits near the border with Afghanistan – told the AFP news agency that warplanes of Pakistani forces conducted air strikes that caused the explosions.

Speaking in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly on Monday afternoon, lawmaker Sohail Khan Afridi also blamed the military for the attack.

“This assault by the security forces is nothing less than an attack on unarmed civilians,” he said.

Both politicians are members of the party led by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, which governs the province.

Babar Saleem Swati, the provincial assembly speaker, wrote in a post on X that civilians were killed and homes were destroyed “due to bombardment by jet aircraft” and said this will have negative consequences for the future of the country.

“When the blood of our own people is made so cheap and bombs are dropped on them, it is a fire that can engulf everyone,” Swati said, calling on federal and provincial governments to conduct a transparent investigation and compensate affected families.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent monitor, said it was “deeply shocked” to learn that children and civilians were killed in the attack.

“We demand that the authorities carry out an immediate and impartial inquiry into the incident and hold to account those responsible. The state is constitutionally bound to protect all civilians’ right to life, which it has repeatedly failed to secure,” it said in a statement.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on Monday accused Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr of unlawfully intimidating television broadcasters into toeing a conservative line in favor of President Trump, and urged him to reverse course.

In a letter to Carr, Bonta specifically cited ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air after Kimmel made comments about the killing of close Trump ally Charlie Kirk, and Carr demanded ABC’s parent company Disney “take action” against the late-night host.

Bonta wrote that California “is home to a great many artists, entertainers, and other individuals who every day exercise their right to free speech and free expression,” and that Carr’s demands of Disney threatened their 1st Amendment rights.

“As the Supreme Court held over sixty years ago and unanimously reaffirmed just last year, ‘the First Amendment prohibits government officials from relying on the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech,’” Bonta wrote.

Carr and Trump have both denied playing a role in Kimmel’s suspension, alleging instead that it was due to his show having poor ratings.

After Disney announced Monday that Kimmel’s show would be returning to ABC, Bonta said he was “pleased to hear ABC is reversing course on its capitulation to the FCC’s unlawful threats,” but that his “concerns stand.”

He rejected Trump and Carr’s denials of involvement, and accused the administration of “waging a dangerous attack on those who dare to speak out against it.”

“Censoring and silencing critics because you don’t like what they say — be it a comedian, a lawyer, or a peaceful protester — is fundamentally un-American,” while such censorship by the U.S. government is “absolutely chilling,” Bonta said.

Bonta called on Carr to “stop his campaign of censorship” and commit to defending the right to free speech in the U.S., which he said would require “an express disavowal” of his previous threats and “an unambiguous pledge” that he will not use the FCC “to retaliate against private parties” for speech he disagrees with moving forward.

“News outlets have reported today that ABC will be returning Mr. Kimmel’s show to its broadcast tomorrow night. While it is heartening to see the exercise of free speech ultimately prevail, this does not erase your threats and the resultant suppression of free speech from this past week or the prospect that your threats will chill free speech in the future,” Bonta wrote.

After Kirk’s killing, Kimmel said during a monologue that the U.S. had “hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Carr responded on a conservative podcast, saying, “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Two major owners of ABC affiliates dropped the show, after which ABC said it would be “preempted indefinitely.”

Both Kirk’s killing and Kimmel’s suspension — which followed the cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” by CBS — kicked off a tense debate about freedom of speech in the U.S. Both Kimmel and Colbert are critics of Trump, while Kirk was an ardent supporter.

Constitutional scholars and other 1st amendment advocates said the administration and Carr have clearly been exerting inappropriate pressure on media companies.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, said Carr’s actions were part of a broad assault on free speech by the administration, which “is showing a stunning ignorance and disregard of the 1st amendment.”

Summer Lopez, the interim co-chief executive of PEN America, said this is “a dangerous moment for free speech” in the U.S. because of a host of Trump administration actions that are “pretty clear violations of the 1st Amendment” — including Carr’s threats but also statements about “hate speech” by Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and new Pentagon restrictions on journalists reporting on the U.S. military.

She said Kimmel’s return to ABC showed that “public outrage does make a difference,” but that “it’s important that we generate that level of public outrage when the targeting is of people who don’t have that same prominence.”

Carr has also drawn criticism from conservative corners, including from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC. He recently said on his podcast that he found it “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”

Cruz said he works closely with Carr, whom he likes, but that what Carr said was “dangerous as hell” and could be used down the line “to silence every conservative in America.”