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As California voters went to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballot on a measure that could block President Trump’s national agenda, state officials ridiculed his unsubstantiated claims that voting in the largely Democratic state is “rigged.”

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump said on Truth Social just minutes after polling stations opened Tuesday across California.

The president provided no evidence for his allegations.

“All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review,” the GOP president wrote. “STAY TUNED!”

Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed the president’s claims on X as “the ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE.”

His press office chimed in, too, calling Trump “a totally unserious person spreading false information in a desperate attempt to cope with his failures.”

At a White House briefing Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed, without providing examples, that California was receiving ballots in the name of undocumented immigrants who could not legally vote.

“They have a universal mail-in voting system, which we know is ripe for fraud,” Leavitt told reporters. “Fraudulent ballots that are being mailed in in the names of other people, in the names of illegal aliens who shouldn’t be voting in American elections. There’s countless examples and we’d be happy to provide them.”

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for more details.

Political tension across the nation is high as California voters cast ballots on Proposition 50, a plan championed by Newsom to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 election to favor the Democratic Party. The measure is intended to offset GOP gerrymandering in red states after Trump pressed Texas to rejigger maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority.

California’s top elections official, Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, called Trump’s allegation “another baseless claim.”

“The bottom line is California elections have been validated by the courts,” Weber said in a statement. “California voters will not be deceived by someone who consistently makes desperate, unsubstantiated attempts to dissuade Americans from participating in our democracy.”

Weber noted that more than 7 million Californians have already voted and encouraged those who had yet to cast ballots to go to the polls.

“California voters will not be sidelined from exercising their constitutional right to vote and should not let anyone deter them from exercising that right,” Weber said.

Of the 7 million Californians who have voted, more than 4.6 million have done so by mail, according to the secretary of state’s office. Los Angeles residents alone have cast more than 788,000 mail-in ballots.

Leavitt told D.C. reporters Tuesday that the White House is working on an executive order to combat so-called “blatant” election fraud.

“The White House is working on an executive order to strengthen our election in this country,” Leavitt said, “and to ensure that there cannot be blatant fraud, as we’ve seen in California with their universal mail-in voting system.”

Trump has long criticized mail-in voting. As more Democrats opted to vote by mail in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the president repeatedly made unproven claims linking mail in voting with voter fraud. When Trump ultimately lost that election, he blamed expanded mail-in voting.

In March, Trump signed an executive order requiring that Attorney General Pam Bondi “take all necessary action” against states that count absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day. Most states count mail-in or absentee ballots as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

Over the last month, the stakes in the California special election have ratcheted up as polls indicate Proposition 50 could pass. More than half of likely California voters said they planned to support the measure, which could allow Democrats to gain up to five House seats.

Last month, the Justice Department appeared to single out California for particular national scrutiny: It announced it would send federal monitors to polling locations in counties in California as well as New Jersey, another traditionally Democratic state that is conducting nationally significant off-year elections.

The monitors, it said, would be sent to five California counties: Los Angeles, Kern, Riverside, Fresno and Orange.

While Trump is often a flame-thrower on social media, he has largely been silent on Proposition 50, aside from a few Truth Social posts.

In late October, the president voiced skepticism with California’s mail-in ballots and early voting — directly contradicting efforts by the state’s GOP leaders to get people to vote.

“No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”

Over the weekend, Trump posted a video purporting to show a member of the San Joaquin County’s Sheriff Dept. questioning election integrity in California.

Times Staff Writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report

New York City’s mayoral candidates are making a final push Monday to get voters to the polls, as the race to lead America’s biggest city nears its finale.

Ahead of Election Day on Tuesday, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa have all spent the race’s final stretch campaigning at a frenetic pace across the city’s five boroughs as they make their case to succeed outgoing Mayor Eric Adams.

In recent days, Mamdani went dancing with seniors on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Cuomo dined in the Eastern European enclave of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and Sliwa went to a mosque in the Bronx.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, jolted the political world when he defeated Cuomo in the primary with an energetic campaign focused on making the city a more affordable place to live.

As the race approaches the finish line, he’s continued to post viral social media videos and run a relentless ground game, while warning his progressive fan base not to become complacent and to send as many supporters to the polls as possible.

Cuomo is trying to make his return to political office after resigning as governor four years ago following a barrage of sexual harassment accusations that he denies. Now running as an independent, the 67-year-old has in recent days shifted to wooing Republican voters to bolster his centrist base, pitching himself as the only candidate who can stop Mamdani.

Sliwa, the creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group and a longtime fixture on New York’s airwaves, seeks to spoil both Democrats’ chances. He’s been heavily canvassing the streets and subways in his signature red beret to spread his message of public safety.

Early voting in the city ended Sunday, and election officials say more than 735,000 ballots were cast.

In last year’s general election, there were 1,089,328 early, in-person votes cast. But in the 2021 mayoral general election, only 169,879 in-person early voting ballots were cast.

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press.

Catatumbo, Colombia – The Catatumbo region, which stretches along the border with Venezuela in the department of Norte de Santander, is Colombia’s most volatile frontier.

Endowed with oil reserves and coca crops but impoverished and neglected, this border area has historically been a site of violent competition between armed groups fighting for territorial control.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla force, maintains a strong and organised presence, operating across the porous border with Venezuela.

It is there that some of their fighters pick up an Al Jazeera reporting team and drive us to meet their commanders.

Tensions remain high in this region. In January, thousands of people were displaced because of the fighting between the ELN and a dissident faction from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that continues to operate in some parts of the country in spite of peace agreements brokered in 2016.

The fight is over control of the territory and access to the border with Venezuela, which is a crucial way to move drugs out of the country.

Entering the area, it’s immediately apparent that the ELN is in total control here. There is no evidence of the country’s military. ELN flags decorate the sideroads, and the signs give a clear message of the way the group’s members see Colombia right now.

“Total peace is a failure,” they say.

There is also no mobile phone signal. People tell the Al Jazeera team that telephone companies do not want to pay a tax to the armed groups controlling the territory.

When President Gustavo Petro took office, he promised to implement a total peace plan with Colombia’s armed groups. But the negotiations have not been easy, especially with the ELN.

Government offcials suspended the peace talks because of the fighting in Catatumbo, but now say they are ready to reinitiate talks.

Al Jazeera meets with Commander Ricardo and Commander Silvana in a small house in the middle of the mountains. The interview has to be fast, they say, as they are concerned about a potential attack and reconnaissance drones that have been circulating in the area.

The commanders are accompanied by some of their fighters. Asked how many they have in the area, they respond, “We are thousands, and not everyone is wearing their uniforms. Some are urban guerrillas.”

The government estimates the ELN has around 3,000 fighters. But the figure could be much higher.

Commander Ricardo, who is in charge of the region, says he believes there could be a chance for peace.

“The ELN has been battling for a political solution for 30 years with various difficulties,” he says. “We believed that with Petro, we would advance in the process. But that did not happen. There’s never been peace in Colombia. What we have is the peace of the graves.”

The group and the government had been meeting in Mexico prior to the suspension of the talks. “If the accords we had in Mexico are still there, I believe our central command would agree [it] could open up the way for a political solution to this conflict”, Commander Ricardo tells Al Jazeera.

US drugs threat

But it’s not just the fight with the Colombian state that has armed groups here on alert. The United States military campaign against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific – and the US’s aggressive posture towards the government of neighbouring Venezuela – have brought an international dimension to what was once an internal Colombian conflict.

The administration of US President Donald Trump refers to these people not as guerrillas but “narco-terrorists”, and has not ruled out the possibility of attacking them on Colombian soil.

The US operation, which began in early September, has killed more than 62 people, including nationals from Venezuela and Colombia, and destroyed 14 boats and a semi-submersible.

Some of the commanders have an extradition request from the US, and the government says they are wanted criminals.

The US strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and the military build-up in the region to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are seen by the ELN as another act of US imperialism.

The US government claims one of those boats belonged to the ELN. “Why don’t they capture them and show the world what they captured and what they are they trafficking?” Commander Ricardo asks. “But no, they erase them with a bomb.”

He also warns about the possibility of the ELN joining in the fight against the US. “In the hypothesis that Trump attacks Venezuela, we will have to see how we respond, but it’s not just us,” he says. “[It’s] all of Latin America because I am sure there are going to be many, many people who will grab a weapon and fight because it’s too much. The fact that the United States can step over people without respecting their self-determination has to end.”

The ELN was inspired by the Cuban revolution. But over the years, it has been involved in kidnappings, killings, extortion, and drug trafficking.

Commander Silvana, who joined the group when she was a teen, says the ELN is not like other armed groups in the country.

“Our principles indicate that we are not involved in drug trafficking,” she says. “We have told this to the international community. What we have is taxes in the territories we have been controlling for over 60 years. And if there is coca, of course, we tax it, too.”

Colombia has been a crucial US ally in the region over the decades in the fight against drug trafficking. But Petro has increasingly questioned the US policy in the Caribbean, arguing that Washington’s approach to security and migration reflects out-of-date Cold War logic rather than the region’s current realities.

He has criticised the US military presence and naval operations near Venezuela, warning that such tactics risk increasing tensions instead of promoting cooperation.

Trump has accused Petro, who is a former guerrilla, of being a drug trafficker himself.

Petro responded angrily, writing on X, “Colombia has never been rude to the United States. To the contrary, it has loved its culture very much. But you are rude and ignorant about Colombia.”

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry also condemned Trump’s remarks as offensive and a direct threat to the country’s sovereignty, and vowed to seek international support in defence of Petro and Colombian autonomy.

The belligerent US approach to Venezuela and Colombia, both led by leftist presidents – and the heightened possibility of a US military intervention – risk turning a local Colombia conflict into a broader regional one.

Everyone on the ground is now assessing how they will respond if the US government gives its military the green light to attack Venezuela.

WASHINGTON — The hurried push to revise California’s congressional districts has drawn national attention, large sums of money, and renewed hope among Democrats that the effort may help counter a wave of Republican redistricting initiatives instigated by President Trump.

But if Democrats succeed in California, the question remains: Will it be enough to shift the balance of power in Congress?

To regain control of the House, Democrats need to flip three Republican seats in the midterm elections next year. That slim margin prompted the White House to push Republicans this summer to redraw maps in GOP states in an effort to keep Democrats in the minority.

Texas was the first to signal it would follow Trump’s edict and set off a rare mid-decade redistricting arms race that quickly roped in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom devised Proposition 50 to tap into his state’s massive inventory of congressional seats.

Californians appear poised to approve the measure Tuesday. If they do, Democrats potentially could gain five seats in the House — an outcome that mainly would offset the Republican effort in Texas that already passed.

While Democrats and Republicans in other states also have moved to redraw their maps, it is too soon to say which party will see a net gain, or predict voter sentiment a year from now, when a lopsided election in either direction could render the remapping irrelevant.

GOP leaders in North Carolina and Missouri approved new maps that likely will yield one new GOP seat in each, Ohio Republicans could pick up two more seats in a newly redrawn map approved Friday, and GOP leaders in Indiana, Louisiana, Kansas and Florida are considering or taking steps to redraw their maps. In all, those moves could lead to at least 10 new Republican seats, according to experts tracking the redistricting efforts.

To counter that, Democrats in Virginia passed a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would give lawmakers the power and option to redraw a new map ahead of next year’s election. Illinois leaders are weighing their redistricting options and New York has filed a lawsuit that seeks to redraw a GOP-held district. But concerns over legal challenges already tanked the party’s efforts in Maryland and the potential dilution of the Black vote has slowed moves in Illinois.

So far, the partisan maneuvers appear to favor Republicans.

“Democrats cannot gerrymander their way out of their gerrymandering problem. The math simply doesn’t add up,” said David Daly, a senior fellow at the nonprofit FairVote. “They don’t have enough opportunities or enough targets.”

Complex factors for Democrats

Democrats have more than just political calculus to weigh. In many states they are hampered by a mix of constitutional restrictions, legal deadlines and the reality that many of their state maps no longer can be easily redrawn for partisan gain. In California, Prop. 50 marks a departure from the state’s commitment to independent redistricting.

The hesitancy from Democrats in states such as Maryland and Illinois also underscores the tensions brewing within the party as it tries to maximize its partisan advantage and establish a House majority that could thwart Trump in his last two years in office.

“Despite deeply shared frustrations about the state of our country, mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined,” Bill Ferguson, the Maryland Senate president, wrote in a letter to state lawmakers last week.

In Illinois, Black Democrats are raising concerns over the plans and pledging to oppose maps that would reduce the share of Black voters in congressional districts where they have historically prevailed.

“I can’t just think about this as a short-term fight. I have to think about the long-term consequences of doing such a thing,” said state Sen. Willie Preston, chair of the Illinois Senate Black Caucus.

Adding to those concerns is the possibility that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority could weaken a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act and limit lawmakers’ ability to consider race when redrawing maps. The outcome — and its effect on the 2026 midterms — will depend heavily on the timing and scope of the court’s decision.

The court has been asked to rule on the case by January, but a decision may come later. Timing is key as many states have filing deadlines for 2026 congressional races or hold their primary election during the spring and summer.

If the court strikes down the provision, known as Section 2, advocacy groups estimate Republicans could pick up at least a dozen House seats across southern states.

“I think all of these things are going to contribute to what legislatures decide to do,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice. The looming court ruling, he added, is “an extra layer of uncertainty in an already uncertain moment.”

Republican-led states press ahead

Support for Prop. 50 has brought in more than $114 million, the backing of some of the party’s biggest luminaries, including former President Obama, and momentum for national Democrats who want to regain control of Congress after the midterms.

In an email to supporters Monday, Newsom said fundraising goals had been met and asked proponents of the effort to get involved in other states.

“I will be asking for you to help others — states like Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and more are all trying to stop Republican mid-decade redistricting efforts. More on that soon,” Newsom wrote.

Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called a special session set to begin Monday, to “protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair.”

In Kansas, the GOP president of the state Senate said last week that there were enough signatures from Republicans in the chamber to call a special session to redraw the state’s maps. Republicans in the state House would need to match the effort to move forward.

In Louisiana, Republicans in control of the Legislature voted last week to delay the state’s 2026 primary elections. The move is meant to give lawmakers more time to redraw maps in the case that the Supreme Court rules in the federal voting case.

If the justices strike down the practice of drawing districts based on race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has indicated the state likely would jump into the mid-decade redistricting race.

Shaniqua McClendon, head of Vote Save America, said the GOP’s broad redistricting push underscores why Democrats should follow California’s lead — even if they dislike the tactic.

“Democrats have to be serious about what’s at stake. I know they don’t like the means, but we have to think about the end,” McClendon said. “We have to be able to take back the House — it’s the only way we’ll be able to hold Trump accountable.”

In New York, a lawsuit filed last week charging that a congressional district disenfranchises Black and Latino voters would be a “Hail Mary” for Democrats hoping to improve their chances in the 2026 midterms there, said Daly, of FairVote.

Utah also could give Democrats an outside opportunity to pick up a seat, said Dave Wasserman, a congressional forecaster for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. A court ruling this summer required Utah Republican leaders to redraw the state’s congressional map, resulting in two districts that Democrats potentially could flip.

Wasserman described the various redistricting efforts as an “arms race … Democrats are using what Republicans have done in Texas as a justification for California, and Republicans are using California as justification for their actions in other states.”

‘Political tribalism’

Some political observers said the outcome of California’s election could inspire still more political maneuvering in other states.

“I think passage of Proposition 50 in California could show other states that voters might support mid-decade redistricting when necessary, when they are under attack,” said Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School where he directs the New York Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute. “I think it would certainly provide impetus in places like New York to move forward.”

Similar to California, New York would need to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment, but that could not take place in time for the midterms.

“It might also embolden Republican states that have been hesitant to redistrict to say, ‘Well if the voters in California support mid-decade redistricting, maybe they’ll support it here too,’” Wice said.

To Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communications & Public Policy at Northwestern University, the idea that the mid-decade redistricting trend is gaining traction is part of a broader problem.

“It is a symptom of this 20-year trend in increasing polarization and political tribalism,” he said. “And, unfortunately, our tribalism is now breaking out, not only between each other, but it’s breaking out between states.”

He argued that both parties are sacrificing democratic norms and the ideas of procedural fairness as well as a representative democracy for political gain.

“I am worried about what the end result of this will be,” he said.

Ceballos reported from Washington, Mehta from Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump has thrown himself into the ongoing debate over the United States government shutdown, calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster and reopen the government.

But that idea was swiftly rejected on Friday by Republican leaders who have long opposed such a move.

The filibuster refers to a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections. Currently, that rule gives the minority Democrats a check on Republican power in the Senate.

In the chamber that’s currently split 53 to 47, Democrats have had enough votes to keep the government closed while they demand an extension of healthcare subsidies. Yet, neither party has seriously wanted to nuke the rule.

“THE CHOICE IS CLEAR – INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER,” Trump said in a late-night social media post Thursday.

Trump’s sudden decision to assert himself in the now 31-day-long shutdown – with his highly charged demand to end the filibuster – is certain to set the Senate on edge. It could spur senators towards their own compromise or send the chamber spiralling towards a new sense of crisis. Or, it might be ignored.

Republican leaders responded quickly, and unequivocally, setting themselves at odds with Trump, a president few have dared to publicly counter.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has repeatedly said he is not considering changing the rules to end the shutdown, arguing that it is vital to the institution of the Senate and has allowed Republicans to halt Democratic policies when they are in the minority.

The leader’s “position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged”, Thune spokesman Ryan Wrasse said Friday.

A spokeswoman for Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the number-two Republican, said his position opposing a filibuster change also remains unchanged.

And former Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who firmly opposed Trump’s filibuster pleas in his first term, remains in the Senate.

House Speaker Mike Johnson also defended the filibuster Friday, while conceding “it’s not my call” from his chamber across the Capitol.

“The safeguard in the Senate has always been the filibuster,” Johnson said, adding that Trump’s comments are a reflection of “the president’s anger at the situation”.

Even if Thune wanted to change the filibuster, he would not currently have the votes to do so in the divided Senate.

“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah posted on the social media platform X on Friday morning, responding to Trump’s comments. “Power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t. I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”

Debate has swirled around the legislative filibuster for years. Many Democrats pushed to eliminate it when they had full power in Washington, as the Republicans do now, four years ago.

But ultimately, enough Democratic senators opposed the move, predicting such an action would come back to haunt them.

Trump’s demand comes as he has declined to engage with Democratic leaders on ways to end the shutdown, on track to become the longest in history.

He said in his post that he gave a “great deal” of thought to his choice on his flight home from Asia, and that one question that kept coming up during his trip was why “powerful Republicans allow” the Democrats to shut down parts of the government.

But later Friday, he did not mention the filibuster again as he spoke to reporters departing Washington and arriving in Florida for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home.

While quiet talks are under way, particularly among bipartisan senators, Trump has not been seriously involved.

Democrats refuse to vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension to the healthcare subsidies. The Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on CNN that Trump needs to start negotiating with Democrats, arguing the president has spent more time with global leaders than dealing with the shutdown back home.

From coast to coast, fallout from the dysfunction of the shuttered federal government is hitting home. SNAP food aid is scheduled to shut off. Flights are being delayed. Workers are going without paychecks.

And Americans are getting a first glimpse of the skyrocketing healthcare insurance costs that are at the centre of the deadlock.

“People are stressing,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as food options in her state grow scarce. “We are well past time to have this behind us.”

Islamabad, Pakistan – After three days, talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan in Istanbul, aimed at ending a tense and violent standoff between the South Asian neighbours, appeared to have hit a wall in Istanbul on Tuesday.

Mediated by Qatar and Türkiye, the negotiations followed an initial round of dialogue in Doha, which produced a temporary ceasefire on October 19 after a week of fighting that left dozens dead on both sides.

But even though officials and experts said that “last-ditch” efforts were expected to continue to try to pull the two countries back from a full-fledged conflict, the prospects of new hostilities between them loom large after their inability, so far, to build on the Doha truce, analysts say.

Pakistani security officials said that on Monday, talks went on for nearly 18 hours. But they accused the Afghan delegation of changing its position on Islamabad’s central demand – that Kabul crack down on the Pakistan Taliban armed group, known by the acronym TTP. One official, speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the dialogue, alleged that the “instructions received from Kabul” for the Afghan team were complicating negotiations.

Kabul, however, blamed the Pakistani delegation for a “lack of coordination,” claiming the Pakistani side was “not presenting clear arguments” and kept “leaving the negotiating table”, Afghan media reported.

The Afghan team is being led by the deputy minister for administrative affairs at the Ministry of Interior, Haji Najib, while Pakistan has not publicly disclosed its representatives.

Recent cross-border attacks between the militaries of the two countries have killed multiple people, troops and civilians, and injured many more in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

United States President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly sought credit for resolving global conflicts, also waded in, saying he would “solve the Afghanistan-Pakistan crisis very quickly”, while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia earlier in the week.

Yet, any long-term settlement appears difficult due to the two nations’ “profound mutual distrust and conflicting priorities”, said Baqir Sajjad Syed, a former Pakistan fellow at the Wilson Center and a journalist who covers national security.

Syed added that their historical grievances and Pakistan’s past interventions in Afghanistan make concessions politically risky for the Afghan Taliban.

“In my view, the core issue is ideological alignment. The Afghan Taliban’s dependence on TTP for dealing with internal security problems [inside Afghanistan] makes it difficult for them to dissociate from the group, despite Pakistani concerns,” he told Al Jazeera.

A fraught friendship

Historically, Pakistan was long perceived as the primary patron of the Afghan Taliban. Many in Pakistan publicly welcomed the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 after the withdrawal of US forces.

But relations have sharply deteriorated since, largely over the TTP, an armed group that emerged in 2007 during the US-led so-called “war on terror”, and which has waged a long campaign against Islamabad.

The TTP seeks the release of its members imprisoned in Pakistan and opposes the merger of Pakistan’s former tribal areas into its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Although independent from the Afghan Taliban, the two groups are ideologically aligned.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of providing sanctuary not only to the TTP but to other groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army and the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in Khorasan Province (ISKP), charges Kabul denies.

The Afghan Taliban have insisted that the TTP is a Pakistani problem, repeatedly arguing that insecurity in Pakistan is a domestic matter. And the Taliban have themselves long viewed the ISKP as enemies.

Mullah Yaqoob, Afghanistan’s defence minister who signed the ceasefire in Doha with his Pakistani counterpart, Khawaja Asif, last week, said in an interview on October 19 that states sometimes used the label “terrorism” for political ends.

“There is no universal or clear definition of terrorism,” he said, adding that any government can brand its adversaries as “terrorists” for its own agenda.

Meanwhile, regional powers including Iran, Russia, China, and several Central Asian states have also urged the Taliban to eliminate the TTP and other armed groups allegedly operating from Afghanistan.

That appeal was renewed in Moscow in early October, in consultations also attended by Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Rising toll, rising tensions

In recent days, several attacks have killed more than two dozen Pakistani soldiers, including officers.

The year 2024 was among Pakistan’s deadliest in nearly a decade, with more than 2,500 casualties recorded, and 2025 is on track to surpass that, analysts say.

Both civilians and security personnel have been targeted, with most attacks concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. TTP operations have increased sharply in both frequency and intensity.

“Our data show that the TTP engaged in at least 600 attacks against, or clashes with, security forces in the past year alone. Its activity in 2025 so far already exceeds that seen in all of 2024,” a recent Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) report said.

Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, an Islamabad-based security analyst, says that Pakistani negotiators must recognise that ties between the Taliban and the TTP are rooted in ideology, making it hard for Afghanistan’s government to give up on the anti-Pakistan armed group.

Journalist Sami Yousafzai, a longtime observer of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, agreed, saying that the prospects of a détente now look increasingly remote.

Both Mehsud and Yousafzai pointed to the Taliban’s history of sticking by allies even in the face of international pressure, and even military assault.

“We have seen this same attitude from the Afghan Taliban in 2001, when, after the 9/11 attacks, they continued to remain steadfastly with Al al-Qaeda,” Mehsud said.

According to Yousafzai, “the Afghan Taliban are war veterans, and they can withstand military pressure”.

Failed diplomacy?

In recent months, both sides have pursued diplomacy, nudged also by China, which has mediated talks between them, in addition to Qatar and Turkiye.

Yet, analysts say Islamabad might soon conclude that it has few nonmilitary options to address its concerns.

Syed pointed to Pakistani Defence Minister Asif’s recent threat of an “open war” and said that these comments could presage targeted air strikes or cross-border operations against alleged TTP sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

“That said, mediators, particularly Qatar and Turkiye, are expected to make a last-ditch push to revive dialogue or shift it to another venue. There is also a small possibility of other countries joining in, especially after President Trump’s latest signal of readiness to step in and de-escalate the crisis,” he said.

Syed said that economic incentives, including aid, in exchange for compliance with ceasefire provisions could be one way to get the neighbours to avoid a full-fledged military conflict.

This is a tool Trump has used in recent months in other wars, including in getting Thailand and Cambodia to stop fighting after border clashes. The US president oversaw the signing of a peace deal between the Southeast Asian nations in Kuala Lumpur last weekend.

Unintended consequences

While Pakistan has far superior military capabilities, the Taliban has advantages, too, say analysts, cautioning against overconfidence on the part of Islamabad.

Yousafzai argued that the crisis with Pakistan had helped bolster domestic support for the Taliban, and military action against it could further elevate sympathy for the group.

“The response by the Afghan Taliban of attacking the Pakistani military on [the] border was seen as a forceful response, increasing their popularity. And even if Pakistan continues to bomb, it could end up killing innocent civilians, leading to more resentment and anti-Pakistani sentiment in [the] public and among [the] Afghan Taliban,” he said.

This dynamic, according to Yousafzai, should be worrying for Islamabad, particularly if the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, steps in.

“If Akhunzada issues an edict, declaring Jihad against Pakistan, many young Afghans could potentially join the ranks of [the] Taliban,” Yousafzai warned. “Even if it will mean a bigger loss for Afghans, the situation will not be good for Pakistan.”

The only beneficiary, he said, would be the TTP, which will feel even more emboldened “to launch attacks against the Pakistani military”.

For most of President Trump’s second term, Republicans have bent to his will. But in two Midwestern states, Trump’s plan to maintain control of the U.S. House in next year’s election by having Republicans redraw congressional districts has hit a roadblock.

Despite weeks of campaigning by the White House, Republicans in Indiana and Kansas say their party doesn’t have enough votes to pass new, more GOP-friendly maps. It’s made the two states outliers in the rush to redistrict — places where Republican-majority legislatures are unwilling or unable to heed Trump’s call and help preserve the party’s control on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers in the two states still may be persuaded, and the White House push, which has included an Oval Office meeting for Indiana lawmakers and two trips to Indianapolis by Vice President JD Vance, is expected to continue. But for now, it’s a rare setback for the president and his efforts to maintain a compliant GOP-held Congress after the 2026 midterms.

Typically, states redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts every 10 years, based on census data. But because midterm elections typically tend to favor the party not in power — and the GOP holds a razor-thin majority in the House — Trump is pressuring Republicans to devise new maps that favor their candidates.

Democrats need to gain only three seats to flip House control, and the fight has become a bruising back-and-forth.

With new maps of their own, multiple Democratic states including California are moving to counter any gains made by Republicans. The latest, Virginia, is expected to take up the issue in a special session starting Monday.

Opposition to gerrymandering has long been a liberal cause, but Democratic states are now calling for redistricting in response to Trump’s latest effort, which they characterize as an unprecedented power grab.

Indiana

Indiana, whose U.S. House delegation has seven Republicans and two Democrats, was one of the first states on which the Trump administration focused its redistricting efforts this summer.

But a spokesperson for state Senate Leader Rodric Bray’s office said Thursday that the chamber lacks the votes to redraw Indiana’s congressional districts. With only 10 Democrats in the 50-member Senate, that means more than a dozen of the 40 Republicans oppose the idea.

Bray’s office did not respond to requests for an interview.

The holdouts may come from a few schools of thought. New political lines, if poorly executed, could make solidly Republican districts more competitive. Others say they believe it is simply wrong to stack the deck.

“We are being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade — but any time it fears the consequences of an approaching election,” state Sen. Spencer Deery, a Republican, said in a statement in August.

Deery’s office did not respond to a request for an interview and said the statement stands.

A common GOP argument in favor of new maps is that Democratic-run states such as Massachusetts have no Republican representatives, while Illinois has used redistricting for partisan advantage — a process known as gerrymandering.

“For decades, Democrat states have gerrymandered in the dark of the night,” Republican state Sen. Chris Garten said on social media. “We can no longer sit idly by as our country is stolen from us.”

Republican Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, who would vote to break a tie in the state Senate if needed, recently called on lawmakers to forge ahead with redistricting and criticized the holdouts as not sufficiently conservative.

“For years, it has been said accurately that the Indiana Senate is where conservative ideas from the House go to die,” Beckwith said in a social media post.

Indiana is staunchly conservative, but its Republicans tend to foster a deliberate temperance. And the state voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

“Hoosiers, it’s very tough to to predict us, other than to say we’re very cautious,” former GOP state lawmaker Mike Murphy said. “We’re not into trends.”

The party divide reflects a certain independent streak held by voters in Indiana and Kansas and a willingness by some to break ranks.

Writing in the Washington Post last week, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, urged Indiana lawmakers to resist the push to gerrymander. “Someone has to lead in climbing out of the mudhole,” he said.

“Hoosiers, like most Americans, place a high value on fairness and react badly to its naked violation,” he wrote.

Kansas

In Kansas, Republican legislative leaders are trying to bypass the Democratic governor and force a special session for only the second time in the state’s 164-year history. Gov. Laura Kelly opposes mid-decade redistricting and has suggested it could be unconstitutional.

The Kansas Constitution allows GOP lawmakers to force a special session with a petition signed by two-thirds of both chambers — also the supermajorities needed to override Kelly’s expected veto of a new map. Republicans hold four more seats than the two-thirds majority in both the state Senate and House. In either, a defection of five Republicans would sink the effort.

Weeks after state Senate President Ty Masterson announced the push for a special session, GOP leaders were struggling to get the last few signatures needed.

Among the holdouts is Rep. Mark Schreiber, who represents a district southwest of Topeka. He told the Associated Press that he “did not sign a petition to call a special session, and I have no plans to sign one.” Schreiber said he believes redistricting should be used only to reflect shifts in population after the once-every-10-year census.

“Redistricting by either party in midcycle should not be done,” he said.

Republicans would probably target U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the Democrat representing the mostly Kansas City-area 3rd Congressional District, which includes Johnson County, the state’s most populous. The suburban county accounts for more than 85% of the vote and has trended to the left since 2016.

Kansas has a sizable number of moderate Republicans, and 29% of the state’s 2 million voters are registered as politically unaffiliated. Both groups are prominent in Johnson County.

Republican legislators previously tried to hurt Davids’ chances of reelection when redrawing the district, but she won in 2022 and 2024 by more than 10 percentage points.

“They tried it once and couldn’t get it done,” said Jack Shearer, an 82-year-old registered Republican from suburban Kansas City.

But a mid-decade redistricting has support among some Republicans in the county. State Sen. Doug Shane, whose district includes part of the county, said he believes his constituents would be amenable to splitting it.

“Splitting counties is not unprecedented and occurs in a number of congressional districts around the country,” he said in an email.

Volmert and Hanna write for the Associated Press. Volmert reported from Lansing, Mich., and Hanna from Topeka, Kan. AP writer Heather Hollingsworth in Lenexa, Kan., contributed to this report.

The electric carmaker had unveiled chief Elon Musk’s proposed $1 trillion compensation plan in September.

Tesla’s proposed $1 trillion pay package for CEO Elon Musk has come under renewed scrutiny after proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) urged investors to vote against what could be the largest compensation plan ever awarded to a company chief.

ISS’s comments on Friday marks the second consecutive year that it has urged shareholders to reject a compensation plan for Musk.

Proxy advisers often sway major institutional investors, including the passive funds that hold large stakes in Tesla.

The ISS recommendation adds pressure on Tesla’s board before a closely watched November 6 shareholder meeting and renews scrutiny of Musk’s compensation after a Delaware court earlier voided his $56bn pay package.

Musk’s record Tesla pay plan could still hand him tens of billions of dollars even if he falls short of most of its ambitious targets, however, thanks to a structure that rewards partial achievement and soaring share prices.

Last month, Tesla’s board proposed a $1 trillion compensation plan for Musk in what it described as the largest corporate pay package in history, setting ambitious performance targets and aiming to address his push for greater control over the company.

ISS said that while the board’s goal was to retain Musk because of his “track record and vision”, the 2025 pay package “locks in extraordinarily high pay opportunities over the next ten years” and “reduces the board’s ability to meaningfully adjust future pay levels.”

Tesla’s shares rose after the compensation plan was unveiled last month, as investors believe the pay package would incentivise Musk to focus on the company’s strategy.

“Many people come to Tesla to specifically work with Elon, so we recognise that retaining and incentivising him will, in the long run, help us retain and recruit better talent,” Director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson said in a video posted to Tesla’s X handle on Friday.

Unlike the 2018 pay deal, Musk will be allowed to vote using his shares this time, giving him about 13.5 percent of Tesla’s voting power, according to a securities filing last month. That stake alone could be enough to secure approval.

The proxy adviser cited the “astronomical” size of the proposed grant, design features that could deliver very high payouts for partial goal achievement and potential dilution for existing investors.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency.

ISS valued the stock-based award at $104bn, higher than Tesla’s own estimate of $87.8bn.

The grant would vest only if Tesla reaches market capitalisation milestones up to $8.5 trillion and operational targets, including delivery of 20 million vehicles, one million robotaxis and $400bn in adjusted core earnings.

The proxy adviser’s guidance on Musk’s pay was part of a wider set of voting recommendations issued on Friday.

As of 3:45pm in New York (19:45 GMT), Tesla’s stock was up 2.4 percent.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is scheduled to speak with Russia’s Vladimir Putin Thursday as he considers Ukraine’s push for long-range missiles, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment on the private call and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The call comes ahead of Trump’s meeting on Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory.

Zelensky has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations between the Russia and Ukraine to end the war more seriously.

With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage deal holding, Trump has said he’s now turning his attention to bringing Russia’s war on Ukraine to an end and is weighing providing Kyiv long-range weaponry as he looks to prod Moscow to the negotiating table.

Ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza was central to Trump’s 2024 reelection pitch, in which he persistently pilloried President Joe Biden for his handling of the conflicts. Yet, like his predecessor, Trump also has been stymied by Putin as he’s unsuccessfully pressed the Russian leader to hold direct talks with Zelensky to end the war that is nearing its fourth year.

But fresh off the Gaza ceasefire, Trump is showing new confidence that he can finally make headway on ending the Russian invasion. He’s also signaling that he’s ready to step up pressure on Putin if he doesn’t come to the table soon.

“Interestingly we made progress today, because of what’s happened in the Middle East,” Trump said of the Russia-Ukraine war on Wednesday evening as he welcomed supporters of his White House ballroom project to a glitzy dinner.

Earlier this week in Jerusalem, in a speech to the Knesset, Trump predicted the truce in Gaza would lay the groundwork for the U.S. to help Israel and many of its Middle East neighbors normalize relations. But Trump also made clear his top foreign policy priority now is ending the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

“First we have to get Russia done,” Trump said, turning to his special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has also served as his administration’s chief interlocutor with Putin. “We gotta get that one done. If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia first. All right?”

Trump weighs Tomahawks for Ukraine

Trump is set to host Zelensky for talks Friday, their fourth face-to-face meeting this year.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump has said he’s weighing selling Kyiv long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which would allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory — if Putin doesn’t settle the war soon. Zelensky, who has long sought the weapons system, said it would help Ukraine put the sort of pressure on Russia needed to get Putin to engage in peace talks.

Putin has made clear that providing Ukraine with Tomahawks would cross a red line and further damage relations between Moscow and Washington.

But Trump has been undeterred.

“He’d like to have Tomahawks,” Trump said of Zelensky on Tuesday. “We have a lot of Tomahawks.”

Agreeing to sell Ukraine Tomahawks would be a splashy move, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. But it could take years to supply and train Kyiv on the Tomahawk system.

Montgomery said Ukraine could be better served in the near term with a surge of Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles and Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS. The U.S. already approved the sale of up to 3,350 ERAMs to Kyiv earlier this year.

The Tomahawk, with a range of about 995 miles (1,600 kilometers), would allow Ukraine to strike far deeper in Russian territory than either the ERAM (about 285 miles, or 460 km) or ATACMS (about 186 miles, or 300 kilometers).

“To provide Tomahawks is as much a political decision as it is a military decision,” Montgomery said. “The ERAM is shorter range, but this can help them put pressure on Russia operationally, on their logistics, the command and control, and its force disbursement within several hundred kilometers of the front line. It can be very effective.”

Signs of White House interest in new Russia sanctions

Zelensky is expected to reiterate his plea to Trump to hit Russia’s economy with further sanctions, something the Republican, to date, has appeared reluctant to do.

Congress has weighed legislation that would lead to tougher sanctions on Moscow, but Trump has largely focused his attention on pressuring NATO members and other allies to cut off their purchases of Russian oil, the engine fueling Moscow’s war machine. To that end, Trump said Wednesday that India, which became one of Russia’s biggest crude buyers after the Ukraine invasion, had agreed to stop buying oil from Moscow.

Waiting for Trump’s blessing is legislation in the Senate that would impose steep tariffs on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports in an attempt to cripple Moscow economically.

Though the president hasn’t formally endorsed it — and Republican leaders do not plan to move forward without his support — the White House has shown, behind the scenes, more interest in the bill in recent weeks.

Administration officials have gone through the legislation in depth, offering line edits and requesting technical changes, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions between the White House and the Senate. That has been interpreted on Capitol Hill as a sign that Trump is getting more serious about the legislation, sponsored by close ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

A White House official said the administration is working with lawmakers to make sure that “introduced bills advance the president’s foreign policy objectives and authorities.” The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said any sanctions package needs to give the president “complete flexibility.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the administration is waiting for greater buy-in from Europe, which he noted faces a bigger threat from Russian aggression than the U.S. does.

“So all I hear from the Europeans is that Putin is coming to Warsaw,” Bessent said. “There are very few things in life I’m sure about. I’m sure he’s not coming to Boston. So, we will respond … if our European partners will join us.”

Madhani and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writers Fatima Hussein, Chris Megerian and Didi Tang contributed to this report.

Authors, readers and publishing industry experts lament the underrepresentation of Hispanic stories in the mainstream world of books, but have found new ways to elevate the literature and resolve misunderstandings.

“The stories now are more diverse than they were ten years ago,” said Carmen Alvarez, a book influencer on Instagram and TikTok.

Some publishers, independent bookstores and book influencers are pushing past the perception of monolithic experience by making Hispanic stories more visible and discoverable for book lovers.

The rise of online book retailers and limited marketing budgets for stories about people of color have been major hurdles for increasing that representation, despite annual celebrations of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 in the U.S. There’s been a push for ethnically authentic stories about Latinos, beyond the immigrant experience.

“I feel like we are getting away from the immigration story, the struggle story,” said Alvarez, who is best known as “tomesandtextiles” on bookstagram and booktok, the Instagram and TikTok social media communities. “I feel like my content is to push back against the lack of representation.”

Latinos in the publishing industry

Latinos currently make up roughly 20% of the U.S. population, according to Census data.

However, the National Hispanic Media Coalition estimates Latinos only represent 8% of employees in publishing, according to its Latino Representation in Publishing Coalition created in 2023.

Brenda Castillo, NHMC president and CEO, said the coalition works directly with publishing houses to highlight Latino voices and promote their existing Latino employees.

The publishing houses “are the ones that have the power to make the changes,” Castillo said.

Some Hispanic authors are creating spaces for their work to find interested readers. Award-winning children authors Mayra Cuevas and Alex Villasante co-founded a book festival and storytellers conference in 2024 to showcase writers and illustrators from their communities.

“We were very intentional in creating programming around upleveling craft and professional development,” Cuevas said. “And giving attendees access to the publishing industry, and most importantly, creating a space for community connection and belonging.”

Villasante said the festival and conference allowed them to sustain themselves within the publishing industry, while giving others a road map for success in an industry that isn’t always looking to mass produce their work.

“We are not getting the representation of ourselves,” Villasante said. “I believe that is changing, but it is a slow change so we have to continue to push for that change.”

Breaking into the mainstream

New York Times bestselling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a Mexican-Canadian novelist known for the novels “Mexican Gothic” and “The Daughter of Doctor Moreau,” is one of few Hispanic authors that has been able to break to mainstream. But she said it wasn’t easy.

Moreno-Garcia recalled one of her first publisher rejections: The editor complimented the quality of the story but said it would not sell because it was set in Mexico.

“There are systems built within publishing that make it very difficult to achieve the regular distributions that other books naturally have built into them,” Moreno-Garcia said. “There is sometimes resistance to sharing some of these books.”

Cynthia Pelayo, an award-winning author and poet, said the marketing campaign is often the difference maker in terms of a book’s success. Authors of color are often left wanting more promotional support from their publishers, she said.

“I’ve seen exceptional Latino novels that have not received nearly the amount of marketing, publicity that some of their white colleagues have received,” Pelayo said. “What happens in that situation (is) their books get put somewhere else in the bookstore when these white colleagues, their books will get put in the front.”

Hispanic Heritage Month, however, helps bring some attention to Hispanic authors, she added.

Independent bookstores

Independent bookstores remain persistent in elevating Hispanic stories. A 2024 report by the American Booksellers Association found that 60 of the 323 new independent bookstores were owned by people of color. According to Latinx in Publishing, a network of publishing industry professionals, there are 46 Hispanic-owned bookstores in the U.S.

Online book retailer Bookshop.org has highlighted Hispanic books and provided discounts for readers during Hispanic Heritage Month. A representative for the site, Ellington McKenzie, said the site has been able to provide financial support for about 70 Latino bookstores.

“People are always looking to support those minority owned bookstores which we are happy to be the liaison between them,” McKenzie said.

Chawa Magaña, the owner of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore in Phoenix, said she was inspired to open the store because of what she felt was a lack of diversity and representation in the books that are taught in Arizona schools.

“Growing up, I didn’t experience a lot of diversity in literature in schools.” Magaña said. “I wasn’t seeing myself in the stories that I was reading.”

Of the books for sale at Palabras Bilingual, between 30% to 40% of the books are Latino stories, she said.

Magaña said having heard people say they have never seen that much representation in a bookstore has made her cry.

“What has been the most fulfilling to me is able to see how it impacts other people’s lives,” she said. “What motivates me is seeing other people get inspired to do things, seeing people moved when they see the store itself having diverse books.”

Figueroa writes for the Associated Press.

The October 13, 2023, attack in southern Lebanon killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six other reporters.

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Lebanon to continue its pursuit of justice over a deadly Israeli strike two years ago that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six other reporters.

The rights group said in a statement on Monday that it welcomed a move by Lebanon’s Ministry of Justice to investigate legal options to press charges against Israel for crimes against journalists.

Reporters Without Borders also welcomed that “Lebanon is finally taking action” as Israel is accused of targeting a large number of journalists during its military aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.

Issam Abdallah, a videographer for the Reuters news agency, was killed in the October 13, 2023, attack by an Israeli tank on southern Lebanon near the Israeli border. Two Al Jazeera reporters were among those injured.

HRW said Lebanon’s announcement last week that it was looking at legal options to pursue the matter presented a “fresh opportunity to achieve justice for the victims”.

Ramzi Kaiss, the NGO’s Lebanon researcher, said the country’s action to hold Israel accountable is overdue.

“Israel’s apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdallah should have served as a crystal clear message for Lebanon’s government that impunity for war crimes begets more war crimes,” he said.

“Since Issam’s killing, scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes,” Kaiss asserted.

‘War crime’

The October 2023 attack wounded Al Jazeera cameraman Elie Brakhia and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, and the AFP news agency’s Christina Assi and Dylan Collins.

Assi was seriously wounded and had to have her right leg amputated.

HRW said an investigation by the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had found that an Israeli Merkava tank had fired two 120mm rounds at the group of clearly identifiable journalists.

The journalists were removed from the hostilities and had been stationary for more than an hour when they came under fire, the report said. No exchange of fire had been recorded across the border for more than 40 minutes before the attack.

The NGO said it had found no evidence of a military target near the journalists’ location and, because the incident appeared to be a deliberate attack on civilians, it constituted a war crime.

‘Premeditated, targeted attack’

Morris Tidball-Binz, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said on Friday that the attack was “a premeditated, targeted and double-tapped attack from the Israeli forces, a clear violation, in my opinion, of [international humanitarian law], a war crime”.

Reporters Without Borders urged Beirut to refer the case to the International Criminal Court, saying on Friday: “Lebanon is finally taking action against impunity for the crime.”

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists said a record 124 journalists had been killed in 2024 and Israel was responsible for more than two-thirds of those deaths.

A judge temporarily blocked California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s attempt to take over Los Angeles County’s beleaguered juvenile halls on Friday, finding that despite evidence of a “systemic failure” to improve poor conditions, Bonta had not met the legal grounds necessary to strip away local control.

After years of scandals — including frequent drug overdoses and incidents of staff violence against youths — Bonta filed a motion in July to place the county’s juvenile halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed monitor would manage the facilities, set their budgets and oversee the hiring and firing of staff. An ongoing staffing crisis previously led a state oversight body to deem two of L.A. County’s halls unfit to house children.

L.A. County entered into a settlement with the California Department of Justice in 2021 to mandate improvements, but oversight bodies and a Times investigation earlier this year found the Probation Department was falling far short of fixing many issues, as required by the agreement.

On Friday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez chastised Bonta for failing to clearly lay out tasks for the Probation Department to abide by in the 2021 settlement. Hernandez said the attorney general’s office’s filings failed to show that a state takeover would lead to “a transformation of the juvenile halls.”

The steps the Probation Department needs to take to meet the terms of the settlement have been articulated in court filings and reports published by the L.A. County Office of the Inspector General for several years. Hernandez was only assigned to oversee the settlement in recent months and spent much of Friday’s hearing complaining about a lack of “clarity” in the case.

Hernandez wrote that Bonta’s motion had set off alarm bells about the Probation Department’s management of the halls.

“Going forward, the court expects all parties to have an ‘all-hands’ mentality,” the judge wrote in a tentative ruling earlier this week, which he adopted Friday morning.

Hernandez said he would not rule out the possibility of a receivership in the future, but wanted more direct testimony from parties, including Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa and the court-appointed monitor over the settlement, Michael Dempsey. A hearing was set for Oct. 24.

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The Department remains fully committed to making the necessary changes to bring our juvenile institutions to where they need to be,” Vicky Waters, the Probation Department’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. “However, to achieve that goal, we must have both the authority and support to remove barriers that hinder progress rather than perpetuate no-win situations.”

The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper educational and therapeutic programming and detaining youths in solitary confinement for far too long.

Bonta said in July that the county has failed to improve “75%” of what they were mandated to change in the 2021 settlement.

A 2022 Times investigation revealed a massive staffing shortage was leading to significant injuries for both youths and probation officers. By May of 2023, the California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar shuttered due to unsafe conditions. That same month, an 18-year-old died of an overdose while in custody.

The county soon reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, but the facility quickly became the site of a riot, an escape attempt and more drug overdoses. Last year, the California attorney general’s office won indictments against 30 officers who either orchestrated or allowed youths to engage in “gladiator fights.” That investigation was sparked by video of officers allowing eight youths to pummel another teen inside Los Padrinos, which has also been deemed unfit to house youths by a state commission.

In court Friday, Laura Fair, an attorney from the attorney general’s office, said that while she understood Hernandez’s position, she expressed concern that teens are still in danger while in the Probation Department’s custody.

“The youth in the halls continue to be in grave danger and continue to suffer irreparable harm every day,” she said.

Fair told the court that several youths transferred out of Los Padrinos under a separate court order in recent weeks showed up at Nidorf Juvenile Hall with broken jaws and arms.

She declined to comment further outside the courtroom. Waters, the Probation Department’s spokesperson, said she was unaware of the situation Fair was describing but would look into it.

Despite the litany of fiascoes over the last few years, probation leaders still argued in court filings that Bonta had gone too far.

“The County remains open to exploring any path that will lead to better outcomes. But it strongly opposes the DOJ’s ill-conceived proposal, which will only harm the youth in the County’s care by sowing chaos and inconsistency,” county lawyers wrote in an opposition motion submitted last month. “The DOJ’s request is almost literally without precedent. No state judge in California history has ever placed a correctional institution into receivership.”

Under the leadership of Viera Rosa, who took office in 2023, the Probation Department has made improvements to its efforts to keep drugs out of the hall, rectify staffing issues and hold its own officers accountable for misconduct, the county argued.

The department has placed “airport-grade” body scanners and drug-sniffing dogs at the entrances to both Nidorf and Los Padrinos in order to stymie the influx of narcotics into the halls, according to Robert Dugdale, an attorney representing the county.

Dugdale also touted the department’s hiring of Robert Arcos, a former high-ranking member of the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County district attorney’s office, to oversee security in the facilities.

The motion claimed it was the Probation Department that first uncovered the evidence that led to the gladiator fight prosecutions. Bonta said in March that his office launched its investigation after it reviewed leaked footage of one of the incidents.

Islamabad, Pakistan – A series of explosions and bursts of gunfire rattled Afghanistan’s capital late Thursday evening, according to local media. The cause of the blasts and the extent of casualties remain unclear.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that an explosion had been heard in Kabul, saying the cause was under investigation.

“An explosion was heard in Kabul city,” he posted on social media platform X in Pashto. “But don’t worry, it’s all good and well. The accident is under investigation, and no injuries have been reported yet. So far there is no report of any harm done.”

The incident came amid worsening relations between Afghanistan and its western neighbour Pakistan, which has accused the Taliban government – in power since August 2021 – of providing safe havens to armed groups, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which Islamabad blames for a surge in attacks on its security forces.

The explosions also coincided with the arrival of the Taliban administration’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in India for a six-day visit, the first such trip since the Taliban’s return to power.

Following the Kabul explosions, speculation swirled on social media that Pakistan was behind the attack, allegedly targeting senior TTP leaders, including its chief, Noor Wali Mehsud.

However, the Taliban have not levelled any accusations yet. Pakistani security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to the media, neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the Kabul explosions. “We have seen the media reports and statements from Afghan officials about explosions in Kabul. However, we have no further details on this,” one official told Al Jazeera.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also did not respond to Al Jazeera’s queries.

While neither the Taliban nor the TTP has commented on Mehsud and whether he is safe, Mujahid’s comments suggest that no one was killed in the explosions.

Once seen as heavily backed by Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban have been trying to recalibrate their foreign policy, engaging regional powers such as India, their former adversary, in a bid to secure eventual diplomatic recognition.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has accused India of supporting armed groups operating on its soil, a charge New Delhi denies.

Fragile thaw between Kabul and Islamabad

After a bloody 2024, one of Pakistan’s deadliest years in nearly a decade, with more than 2,500 people killed in violence, both countries tried to reset their relationship.

Pakistan’s deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar visited Kabul in April, with senior leadership on both sides holding a series of meetings, often mediated by China. That process led to upgraded diplomatic ties and a brief lull in violence over the summer.

Yet, according to the Pakistan Institute of Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based think tank, violence in the first three quarters of 2025 nearly matched the entire toll of 2024.

TTP remains the singular cause for the increasing attacks since 2021, according to US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED).

“Our data show that the TTP engaged in at least 600 attacks against, or clashes with, security forces in the past year alone. Its activity in 2025 so far already exceeds that seen in all of 2024,” a recent report by the ACLED pointed out.

And in recent days, Pakistan has witnessed a further escalation in violence. A string of assaults has killed dozens of soldiers, mostly in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which shares a long and porous border with Afghanistan. The Pakistani military on Friday said it killed more than 30 fighters involved in a recent attack in the tribal district of Orakzai.

In September alone, at least 135 people were killed and 173 injured. After visiting wounded soldiers following raids that killed 19 personnel, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a stark warning to Afghanistan.

“Choose one of two paths. If they wish to establish relations with Pakistan with genuine goodwill, sincerity and honesty, we are ready for that. But if they choose to side with terrorists and support them, then we will have nothing to do with the Afghan interim government,” Sharif said on September 13.

On Thursday, Defence Minister Khwaja Asif also accused Afghanistan of enabling violence in Pakistan while speaking on the floor of the parliament

“Despite years of negotiations with the Afghan government and delegations coming and going to Kabul, the bloodshed in Pakistan has not stopped. Daily funerals of military personnel are being held. We are paying the price of 60 years of hospitality to 6 million Afghan refugees with our blood,” he said.

Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghan refugees since the 1980s, first after the Soviet invasion, then during the Taliban’s initial rule in the 1990s, and again after their 2021 takeover.

Since November 2023, Islamabad has been carrying out a mass expulsion campaign, forcing Afghans – many of whom have lived in Pakistan for decades – to return home. Government figures say nearly a million have been sent back so far.

Deepening mistrust

The tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban in recent years have also escalated into military clashes.

The Pakistani military has previously conducted airstrikes inside Afghan territory, the most recent one in December 2024.

Analysts say that if the latest explosions were indeed linked to Pakistan, the implications could be serious.

Tameem Bahiss, a security analyst based in Kabul, said the Taliban have consistently denied harbouring TTP fighters, and any formal acknowledgement of strikes inside the capital could inflame tensions.

“We’ve seen before those previous Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan yielded no concrete results. Instead, they only deepened mistrust and made cooperation on countering the TTP more difficult. This latest incident will likely harden positions further, making dialogue and coordination even more complicated,” he told Al Jazeera.

The last major targeted strike in Kabul took place in 2022, when al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone attack.

Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said that if Pakistan was involved in the attacks, they may have been intended as a warning following recent attacks on Pakistani soil.

Mehsud, who co-founded The Khorasan Diary, a security-focused news outlet, said the explosions could signal Pakistan’s intent to pursue high-value targets across the border.

“Pakistan could try and target individuals in Kabul, which is the political capital, as well as those in Kandahar, which is seen as the spiritual capital of Taliban, in case security situation in Pakistan remains dire and Afghan Taliban don’t rein in the TTP,” he cautioned.

Bahiss, however, warned that any cross-border strikes could backfire.

“If Pakistan continues to expand its strikes inside Afghanistan, more Afghans may begin to sympathise with the TTP. This sympathy could translate into new recruits, funding, and possibly even quiet support from some segments within the Afghan Taliban,” he said.

He added that if Pakistan indeed was targeting TTP leaders inside Afghanistan, that could provoke the group into escalating attacks inside Pakistan.

“If TTP leaders have indeed been targeted or killed inside Kabul, that would also serve as a warning to the group, showing that they are not safe even in the capital,” Bahiss said. “The TTP will likely adapt by tightening its security measures, relocating its leadership, and possibly retaliating through more aggressive attacks in Pakistan.” 

Abba Ali says he was there when Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau blew himself up to avoid capture by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in May 2021. 

He survived, but his life changed forever. The road to that experience stretched back to 2015, when Boko Haram stormed his hometown of Bama and abducted him at the age of six.

That day, Abba and his four-year-old brother were taken to the forest by the terrorists. His younger brother succumbed to the harsh conditions in Sambisa Forest, the terror group’s enclave in Borno State, North East Nigeria, but Abba survived. 

In the forest, he lived among other children in a village called Njimiya and was later taken to Shekau’s enclave by one of his two elder brothers, who had joined Boko Haram two years before Bama fell. That brother also later died, leaving Abba in the custody of Shekau’s household and his other elder brother.

By then, he had turned ten and had started combat training at Bula Sa’Inna in Sambisa Forest, where the deceased Boko Haram leader lived and conducted his operations. For two years, he was drilled until he became a sniper. When the training ended, he was assigned to guard checkpoints around Shekau’s camp. 

Abba stayed at one of these posts for years, often seeing Shekau, who, though calm and playful with the boys, was ruthless when betrayed.

There, he repelled countless attacks and fought against splinter groups like ISWAP.

After Shekau’s death, ISWAP held him for two months, until his uncle, once the fourth in command under Shekau, saw a chance to escape. After three failed attempts, they succeeded. Together, they rode in the night, dodging rival factions until they reached the outskirts of Bama. Abba couldn’t recognise his hometown; his childhood memories were gone.

“I only knew it was Bama when I was told,” he said.

Now 19, Abba lives in Maiduguri with his mother and stepfamily, who continue to care for him. When he first returned, he surrendered to the authorities. He was held briefly for a day before being taken to an internally displaced persons’ camp at Government Day Senior Science Secondary School, Bama. There, he was given a food ration card and shelter until he reunited with his family. 

Unlike the others who surrendered at the same time, Abba was not enrolled in Operation Safe Corridor, the federal programme launched in 2016 to provide psychosocial support, vocational training, and business starter packs for the reintegration of surrendered terrorists. He did not disclose why he was excluded. 

Over 500,000 insurgents and their families have laid down their arms through the programme, while others have deliberately avoided it. Abba, however, did not evade but was excluded for reasons he did not disclose. 

“We were told there would be help, but nothing came. Sometimes I feel like going back to Sambisa,” he told HumAngle. “I only feel like going back when I am hungry. I wish I had something to do.” 

Fighting on the right side

While Abba battles hunger and memories of Sambisa, other surrendered insurgents, such as Musa Kura, have returned to the battlefield, but on the government’s side. 

He recalls how Boko Haram preached to him until their ideology seemed the only truth. At 18, in 2013, he followed willingly into the bush. But after Shekau died, Musa saw ISWAP as traitors, and the government’s amnesty offer felt like a lifeline. He fled with his wife and children and surrendered to the authorities. 

Musa passed through Operation Safe Corridor, and it was there, he says, that the military recruited him. He works as a civilian security guard in Konduga, but he is struggling. 

“The payment is poor. Our children are not in school, and what we are given is not enough to care for our families. The only reason we stay is because we swore not to go back to our old ways,” he told HumAngle. They are paid ₦30,000 per month. 

“I don’t know anything apart from fighting, so that is what I do,” he added. 

Others, however, have chosen to disappear from the battlefield entirely. Isa Gana, another former Boko Haram member, chose a different path. After surrendering, he was given ₦100,000 in “startup support”. However, people never quite trusted him in his community. 

Isa left Borno for Lagos, where he now works menial jobs. For him, anonymity is better than suspicion, and poverty in a city far from the battlefield feels safer than returning to violence.

“It is better this way,” he said. “I don’t want to fight for Boko Haram, and I don’t want to fight for the government.”

Yet, for some, even leaving the battlefield behind does not bring peace. Twenty-four-year-old Bakura Abba, who also surrendered after Shekau’s death and underwent the Operation Safe Corridor programme, said: “Survival in this new life is almost impossible. We have no housing, and we are jobless.”

Bakura was 17 when he was captured while working on the farm. Faced with the threat of execution, he chose to join Boko Haram and was trained as a fighter. 

The frustration voiced by all those who spoke to HumAngle highlights a larger problem in Nigeria’s reintegration programme. Ahmad Salkida, the CEO of HumAngle and a security expert who has spent decades researching and reporting on the Boko Haram insurgency, said the sustainability of the reintegration programme rests on credibility. 

The managers, he stressed, must be able to keep their promises to beneficiaries while also designing a framework that ensures the safety of the communities where defectors will eventually be resettled. According to him, the only way to achieve this is through a robust deradicalisation process, something that is currently missing. 

“If a person is used to violence for over a decade and he is back in society, and is not engaged in other forms of livelihood or any skills, the likelihood of them going back, or even committing crimes in the community, is very high,” Salkida warned. 

He added that the government’s best chance of success is to establish trust by handing the process to an independent civil society group, interfaith organisations, and mental health professionals, with communities fully involved, rather than leaving it in the hands of the Nigerian Army. 

So far, however, there has been little meaningful support for communities most devastated by the insurgency, while considerable resources have gone instead to the perpetrators. This imbalance, Salkida warns, fuels the perception that deradicalisation is a reward for violent crimes — a perception that must change if trust is to be built between defectors, communities, and the government.

Official claims of success stand in sharp contrast to the lived reality. The deradicalisation programme suffers from a shortage of specialised trainers, poor physical infrastructure, and a lack of effective systems to monitor participants after reintegration. 

The credibility gap is most visible in the mismatch between promises and delivery. Earlier in 2025, Borno State alone allocated ₦7.46 billion for the reintegration of surrendered combatants, one of its largest capital projects. But, as beneficiaries reveal, this investment is only heavy on paper, not in impact.

Sept. 24 (UPI) — The FCC is prohibited from influencing network content but Chairman Brendan Carr and President Donald Trump have used pressure campaigns on ABC and others to test those limits.

The Trump administration’s attempt to push Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air worked, briefly. While consumer backlash convinced Disney and ABC to reverse course, the alarm has been sounded over the weaponization of federal authority to suppress free speech.

Kimmel returned to ABC on Tuesday, lamenting the importance of standing up for free speech in his opening monologue, calling attempts to take shows like his off the air for sharing dissenting opinions “un-American.”

“Ten years ago this sounded crazy: Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, telling an American company ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ and ‘These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,'” Kimmel said. “In addition to being a direct violation of the First Amendment, it is not a particularly intelligent threat to be made in public.”

Section 326 of the Communications Act states that the commission cannot interfere with the right to exercise free speech.

Former FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler, who served during the Obama administration, told UPI Carr is bringing the commission into “uncharted territory.”

“The FCC is approaching 100 years old,” Wheeler said. “Over that period, one of its primary purposes has been to make sure when it comes to broadcasters using the people’s airwaves that there is a diversity of voices and a diversity of ownership.”

“That’s something that has held true until today, when we see the chairman of the FCC attempting to influence what people hear and we hear the president of the United States saying that he wants to consider yanking the broadcast licenses for those who don’t agree with him,” he continued.

One of the FCC’s chief responsibilities is licensing. It is responsible for ensuring that licenses are distributed and used in the public’s interest, convenience and necessity. The statute does not go on to define what public interest means, leaving it up to the heads of the FCC to determine this over the years.

Throughout its history, according to Wheeler, FCC chairmen have taken seriously the importance of fulfilling their duties in a neutral and independent way.

The FCC operations manual refers to Section 326 of the Communications Act and the First Amendment, stating that both “expressly prohibit the commission from censoring broadcast matter. Our role in overseeing program content is very limited.”

“Those are pretty explicit,” Wheeler said of the First Amendment and Section 326. “The public interest definition ought to presumably fall within the four corners of those kinds of descriptions.”

The FCC’s role in overseeing content may be limited, as its manual acknowledges, but it still has influence.

Networks are required to renew their licenses every eight years. This applies to all networks, including major networks like ABC and local companies.

The FCC must also approve the transfer of licenses when companies merge. For example, when Disney bought ABC, the ownership of its licenses needed to reflect this transfer of ownership. This is also true for companies like Sinclair and Nexstar purchasing local networks.

Nexstar has an agreement in place to purchase Tegna for $6.2 billion. If the deal is approved, Nexstar would own 265 stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia, including 132 of the top 210 TV markets in the country, expanding its reach to 80% of U.S. households.

The FCC has a 39% cap on how many households a network group can reach. It is called the National Television Ownership rule and its purpose is to maintain diversity, competition and localism by preventing a small number of companies from controlling the airwaves.

In June, the FCC Media Bureau filed a public notice that it seeks new public comments to refresh the record on television network ownership rules. It is looking for input on whether it should retain, modify or eliminate the 39% cap on network ownership. It last did this in 2017.

“The FCC has an economic lever over those that it regulates,” Wheeler said. “There’s economic leverage that Brendan Carr has been very successful in playing up.”

Nexstar owns 32 ABC affiliate networks and Sinclair owns more than 30. Both announced Tuesday that they will not air Jimmy Kimmel Live! despite ABC electing to bring it back.

The licenses held by networks permit them to use the public’s airwaves to broadcast content. It does not give them ownership of those airwaves. They belong to the public.

The licensing renewal process is usually straightforward and without much controversy, Gigi Sohn, Benton Institute senior fellow and public advocate, told UPI.

“Throughout almost the entire history of the FCC there has been one time and one time only that the FCC has denied a license renewal based on the content of programming,” Sohn said. “That was in the ’60s when a Mississippi radio and TV station refused to run any news program or any program of any kind about the Civil Rights movement and instead ran racist programming.”

Sohn added that the FCC, in that instance, did not tell the station it could not run one program and had to run another or had to change how it edited its programs. Instead, it determined the station was not serving the public interest because it was not giving its audience access to all the information related to the stories it was broadcasting.

“That is something that the FCC has the right to do when it looks at the overall programming of a broadcaster,” Sohn said. “What it doesn’t have the right to do is bully a network — into dropping one program because he made a joke about, not even about the president, not about Charlie Kirk, but about the way the president’s followers were reacting to the Kirk murder.”

After Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on his late-night show about the late Charlie Kirk, the FCC chairman threatened to take action against ABC and parent company Disney. Media companies Nexstar and Sinclair quickly followed with statements that were critical of Kimmel’s comments.

Within hours of Carr’s threats, ABC announced Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be preempted indefinitely.

According to Sohn and Wheeler, Carr wielded his regulatory power in this instance to influence ABC to remove Kimmel’s show from the airwaves due to his longtime criticism of the president. They add that it is not the first time Carr has done something like this since becoming chairman earlier this year.

A pending merger between Skydance and Paramount remained under scrutiny by Carr and the FCC for months before being approved in July. During the hold up, Carr investigated CBS News over its editorial decisions.

Trump meanwhile had an open lawsuit against CBS, seeking $20 billion over allegations that 60 Minutes edited an interview with former presidential candidate Kamala Harris in a way that was favorable to her and her candidacy. On July 2, it was reported that Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, settled with Trump for $16 million.

The FCC approved the Skydance-Paramount merger on July 24. As conditions of the merger, Skydance agreed to Carr’s demands that the company will end or not establish any diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

It also agreed to hire an ombudsman to oversee CBS News editorial decisions. The ombudsman, Kenneth Weinstein, is the former president and CEO of conservative think tank the Hudson Institute.

Harold Feld, senior vice president of Public Knowledge, told UPI a bad precedent is being set by networks like ABC and CBS as they give into pressure from the FCC and the president.

“Not only does it show the administration that these guys are going to cave and therefore we can keep pushing them, but it also means we won’t get coverage when the administration does this to other companies,” Feld said. “If the news has been cowed into submission it means the administration is free to do this to anyone and nobody will find out about it.”

Former FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez issued a statement after the suspension of Kimmel’s program was reinstated.

“As this FCC considers steps that would let the same billion-dollar media conglomerates that caved in to government pressure grow even bigger, we must combat these efforts to stifle free expression,” Gomez said.

.

Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Tuesday as they pounded Gaza from the air and ground, as world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York demanded an end to the two-year war.

Residential buildings continue to be flattened as Israel presses ahead with its plan to seize the enclave’s largest city.

Satellite imagery analysed by Al Jazeera shows Israeli army vehicles tightening a stranglehold around Gaza City, surrounding it from several directions. Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows tanks pushing into the Nassr neighbourhood, barely a kilometre from al-Shifa Hospital.

This destruction forms part of a pattern that a UN commission says amounts to genocide.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday warned that Israel’s military actions are “inflicting terror on the Palestinian population of Gaza City and forcing tens of thousands to flee”.

The suffering of Palestinians has drawn the attention of the global leaders, who have used the UNGA platform to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Addressing the UNGA, US President Donald Trump said that the Gaza war should stop “immediately” but dismissed the recognition of a Palestinian state by several Western countries, calling it a “reward” for Hamas.

The US president met leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Indonesia and Pakistan on the sidelines of the UNGA. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the meeting was “very fruitful,” adding that a joint declaration from the meeting would be published.

‘Stuck under the rubble’

Israeli strikes have hit civilians across Gaza. One man was killed and others wounded in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, while another strike hit Palestinians queueing for water in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, sources told Al Jazeera.

Medical infrastructure is also being dismantled. Israeli shelling destroyed the main medical centre in Gaza City, injuring at least two medical workers, according to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society.

The charity said that troops prevented the evacuation of equipment and supplies, even as the facility served the wounded, cancer patients and blood donors. Other clinics in Tal al-Hawa and the Shati refugee camp have also been destroyed or besieged.

Hind Khoudary, reporting for Al Jazeera from az-Zawayda, described the devastation: “The situation continues to deteriorate, especially in the heart of Gaza City, where Israeli forces have been using artillery shelling and quadcopters to push more Palestinians to evacuate to the south and central areas.

“There have been endless appeals from Palestinian families saying their relatives are stuck under the rubble, but no one can reach them.”

No safe zones

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Gaza City have ended up in the central and southern areas of the enclave, which are under constant bombardment. The Israeli-designated “safe zone” of al-Mawasi has itself been attacked repeatedly, with health officials warning that it lacks the basic necessities of life, including water, food [and] health services, while disease spreads through overcrowded camps.

Experts say the forced movement is itself part of the machinery of genocide: driving families into displacement under fire and stripping them of shelter, food and dignity.

At Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, doctors report that three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces near the supposed safe zone further south. Three children died from malnutrition in southern Gaza, according to hospital sources.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared that famine was under way in northern Gaza and would spread south. Gaza’s Ministry of Health warns that hospitals are now “entering an extremely dangerous phase” due to fuel shortages.

This collapse of health services and the deliberate obstruction of food and fuel deliveries has led to UN experts accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.

West Bank under attack

While global attention remains fixed on the destruction in Gaza, events in the occupied West Bank may carry even deeper implications for the future of the conflict.

Israel has threatened to accelerate annexation plans in the West Bank in the wake of recognition of Palestinian statehood by several Western countries, including France and the United Kingdom.

On the ground, violence has intensified. Armed settlers shot dead Saeed Murad al-Nasan in the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Israeli forces raided multiple towns around Nablus and ordered the indefinite closure of the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge, the only gateway for goods and people between the West Bank and Jordan.

The tightening of settlements, killings and closure of borders are not isolated incidents. Together, they form part of what a UN report on Tuesday described as a systematic effort to secure permanent Israeli control over Gaza and entrench a Jewish majority in the West Bank.

It comes after a UN commission concluded last week that Israel’s policies – forced displacement, denial of return, destruction of infrastructure and the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon – meet the legal definition of genocide.

Eight months into his second term, President Trump’s long-standing pledge to take on those he perceives as his political enemies has prompted debates over free speech, media censorship and political prosecutions.

Trump has escalated moves to consolidate power in his second administration and target those who have spoken out against him, including the suspension of late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show, Pentagon restrictions on reporters and an apparent public appeal to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to pursue legal cases against his adversaries.

In a post on social media over the weekend addressed to Bondi, Trump said that “nothing is being done” on investigations into some of his foes.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he said. Referencing his impeachment and criminal indictments, he said, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Criticizing investigations into Trump’s dealings under Democratic President Biden’s Justice Department, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that “it is not right for the Trump administration to do the same thing.”

Directive to Bondi

Trump has ratcheted up his discussion of pursuing legal cases against some of his political opponents, part of a vow for retribution that has been a theme of his return to the White House. He publicly pressed Bondi over the weekend to move forward with such investigations.

Trump posted somewhat of an open letter on social media Saturday to his top prosecutor to advance such inquiries, including a mortgage fraud investigation of New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and a possible case against former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump accuses of threatening him.

The president posted that he had “reviewed over 30 statements and posts” that he characterized as criticizing his administration for a lack of action on investigations.

“We have to act fast — one way or the other,” Trump told reporters later that night at the White House. “They’re guilty, they’re not guilty — we have to act fast. If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty or if they should be charged, they should be charged. And we have to do it now.”

Trump later wrote in a follow-up post that Bondi was “doing a GREAT job.”

Paul, a frequent Trump foil from the right, was asked during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about the propriety of a president directing his attorney general to investigate political opponents. The senator decried “lawfare in all forms.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said it was “unconstitutional and deeply immoral for the president to jail or to silence his political enemies.” He warned that it could set a worrisome precedent for both parties.

“It will come back and boomerang on conservatives and Republicans at some point if this becomes the norm,” Murphy said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump is turning the Justice Department “into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not, and most of them are not guilty at all, and that helps his friends. This is the path to a dictatorship. That’s what dictatorships do.”

The Justice Department did not respond Sunday to a message seeking comment.

Letitia James investigation

Each new president nominates his own U.S. attorneys in jurisdictions across the country. Trump has already worked to install people close to him in some of those jobs, including former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in the District of Columbia and Alina Habba, his former attorney, in New Jersey.

Trump has largely stocked his second administration with loyalists, continuing Saturday with the nomination of a White House aide as top federal prosecutor for the office investigating James, a longtime foe of Trump.

The president announced Lindsey Halligan to be the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia on Saturday, just a day after Erik Siebert resigned from the post and Trump said he wanted him “out.”

Trump said he was bothered that Siebert had been supported by the state’s two Democratic senators.

“There are just two standards of justice now in this country. If you are a friend of the president, a loyalist of the president, you can get away with nearly anything, including beating the hell out of police officers,” Murphy said, mentioning those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and insurrection at the U.S. Capitol pardoned by Trump as he returned to office. “But if you are an opponent of the president, you may find yourself in jail.”

New restrictions on Pentagon reporters

Trump has styled himself as an opponent of censorship, pledging in his January inaugural address to “bring free speech back to America” and signing an executive order that no federal officer, employee or agent may unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.

Under a 17-page memo distributed Friday, the Pentagon stepped up restrictions on the media, saying it will require credentialed journalists to sign a pledge to refrain from reporting information that has not been authorized for release, including unclassified information. Journalists who don’t abide by the policy risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon.

Asked Sunday whether the Pentagon should play a role in determining what journalists can report, Trump said, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Nothing stops reporters. You know that,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for slain activist Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.

Trump has sued numerous media organizations over negative coverage, with several settling with the president for millions of dollars. A federal judge in Florida tossed out Trump’s $15-billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times on Friday.

Jimmy Kimmel ouster and FCC warning

Perhaps the most headline-grabbing situation involves ABC’s indefinite suspension Wednesday of veteran comic Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show. What Kimmel said about Kirk’s killing had led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show and provoked some ominous comments from a top federal regulator.

Trump celebrated on his social media site: “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

Earlier in the day, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, who has launched investigations of outlets that have angered Trump, said Kimmel’s comments were “truly sick” and that his agency has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) argued that Kimmel’s ouster wasn’t a chilling of free speech but a corporate decision.

“I really don’t believe ABC would have decided to fire Jimmy Kimmel over a threat,” he said Sunday on CNN. “ABC has been a long-standing critic of President Trump. They did it because they felt like it didn’t meet their brand anymore.”

Not all Republicans have applauded the move. On his podcast Friday, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a former Trump foe turned staunch ally, called 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.”

Trump called Carr “a great American patriot” and said Friday that he disagreed with Cruz.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

Under the scorching sun, away from their makeshift tent of thatch, bamboo, and a trampoline sheet used as roofing, Pwanabeshi Job* washes clothes with a three-month-old baby strapped to her back. Her two-year-old son plays nearby, while her eldest fans the burning coal to ensure lunch can be ready. Her husband was out.

Before resorting to life on the streets of Imburu, a community in Numan Local Government Area, Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, the family of five lived under a proper roof.

However, by early August, they, like many others in the Numan and Lamurde areas, grew anxious, knowing that from mid-August through September, their houses are usually flooded.

Each year, as the Benue River, one of West Africa’s largest rivers, swells, it pushes into homes and farms across Numan, where it meets with the Gongola River. The rising waters, which carved through the fertile Benue Valley, a region long prized for farming, leave communities across the area, such as Imburu, Hayin Gada, Ngbalang, Lure, and Opalo, quickly submerged. 

Some residents migrate to neighbouring communities, while others, like Pwanabeshi, gather mats, chairs, cooking utensils, clothes, and other essentials to settle on the street. There, on higher ground beyond the reach of the floodwaters, they remain for about two months. For many, this has become a way of life since 2022. 

Cycle of displacement 

Locals told HumAngle that flooding was first recorded on a large scale in Adamawa in 2012, especially in the Benue Valley. For the next decade, no incident of that scale was recorded. But in 2022, another devastating flood displaced more than 130,000 people across 153 communities. Twenty-five lives were lost, and properties were severely damaged. Heavy rains, dam spillover, and river overflow were said to be the causes of the incident.  

Flooding returned the following year. In 2023, unusually heavy seasonal rain combined with the occasional release of water from the Lagdo Dam in Cameroon led to floods that destroyed homes and infrastructure in Fufore, Demsa, Shelleng, and other local government areas.

By August 2024, communities such as Kwakwambe, Lure, and Imburu were again affected by a flood, this time linked to overflow from the Kiri Dam in Shelleng. In Madagali, floods struck due to the upstream flow of water from the Cameroonian highlands. 

Most recently, in July 2025, a violent flood ravaged communities in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, claiming lives and properties. By August, communities around the Benue Valley began to migrate after water levels rose and flooded their homes. 

A study identified the opening of dams, excessive rainfall, rising water levels, and poor drainage, among other factors, as the major drivers of floods in Adamawa State. It also noted that many residents fail to heed early flood warnings.

Lives under water 

On the streets of Imburu, affected residents like Pwanabeshi make do with thatch shelters, each separate but stretched along a street so long that it takes about thirty minutes to walk from one end to the other. They sleep, cook, and carry out domestic chores. With no bathrooms and toilets, they bathe and relieve themselves in nearby bushes, usually before dawn or at night. 

While every household is trying to continue their normal life on the streets, things are tough. The trampoline that covers Pwanabeshi’s shelter leaves gaps, so rain seeps in, soaking the mud floor and chilling the family. “The weather is cold, the mosquito nets we have are not enough, and we are many here, including children,” she said. 

Others face similar struggles. Dati John, a mother of six, keeps a plastic container in the middle of her tent to catch dripping water when it rains.

“I’ve been staying here for over three weeks,” she told HumAngle.

Within this period, Dati said that her children have fallen ill several times, but she could only afford paracetamol until workers from the local primary healthcare centre distributed drugs on Sept. 14. “My basic concern is proper shelter and drugs for our children. If we can get those waterproof tents and mosquito nets, then it’ll go a long way for all of us here,” she said.

According to Dennis Sarka, the community leader of Hayin Gada, about thirty households have been flooded in his community so far. He is unsure of the total number of affected households in Imburu, but he says they are the most affected.

The hardship in these communities goes beyond shelter. The floodwaters have also wiped out the residents’ main source of livelihood—farmlands. Talegopwa John said he lost his entire farm, unable to estimate the hectares submerged or the worth of what was destroyed.

“Some people cultivated large hectares of maize and soya beans, but the flood destroyed everything,” he said. Although the residents were informed about the looming flood months ago, they did not have anywhere else to cultivate their farm, so they clung to hope. 

“That is why I no longer cultivate rice or maize, because the rain washes them away easily. Now, I only farm millet, which can withstand the flood,” said Ramson Mandauna, a retired civil servant and full-term farmer who lives in Imburu. 

The 69-year-old said he didn’t experience flooding as a child living in the community. But over the past four years, he has lost his farmland repeatedly and has been forced to live on the streets each rainy season.

“What we need now is food and how to bring an end to the flooding,” Talegopwa said. 

For children and educators in Imburu, the crisis is not just about lost shelter or farmland; it is also about lost education. September marks the start of a new academic year, but pupils cannot attend classes because Kwakwambe Primary School, located in Hayin Gada within the Benue Valley, is submerged. Locals have nicknamed it the ‘Marine Academy’. 

Each year since 2022, the school, which has a population of about 100 pupils, has been forced to close from mid-August through September, leaving children from Imburu, Hayin Gada, and neighbouring communities at home until the water recedes and classes resume in October. 

Dennis told HumAngle that a non-governmental organisation recently surveyed the area with plans to build another school in a location that is not prone to flooding. “We have provided them with land, and we are expecting work to begin soon,” he said. 

These days, some of the out-of-school children spend their days swimming in the flooded areas.

‘Dredge the Benue River’

Agoso Bamaiyi, an environmental scientist from Adamawa State, says the overflowing of the Benue River through its tributary, the Gongola, is the main driver of flooding in the region. While climate change and global warming contribute to the rising frequency and intensity of floods worldwide, he argues that the Benue’s overflooding remains the central cause in Adamawa.

“The release of huge volumes of water from the Lagdo Dam and the fact that the Benue trough is silted so much that it cannot hold the resultant runoff anymore a major reasons,”  he stated, adding that the situation worsens each year. 

Agoso believes the suffering can be significantly reduced if the Benue is dredged and a reservoir dam is constructed. He said the dam, which could be completed within four to five years, would store excess water released from Lagdo, provide irrigation and electricity, and release water back into the Benue at a natural flow. “If this is done, the flooding caused downstream would be averted,” he said, stressing that dredging would restore the depth and banks of the river, allowing it to carry more water away from farmlands and communities.

“This will also restore year-round navigability and the economic benefits thereof,” he added. 

*Asterisked names have been changed to preserve the identity of the sources.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper says she has warned Israel not to annex parts of the West Bank in retaliation for the UK’s recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Cooper was speaking to the BBC before attending a conference on Monday at the UN in New York where France and other European states are due to make a similar announcement.

In what was a significant change in policy, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced the UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state on Sunday, along with Canada, Australia and Portugal.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the moves, saying they give “a huge reward to terrorism”.

Asked by the BBC if she was concerned Israel would take this declaration as a pretext for annexing parts of the West Bank, Cooper said she had made it clear to her Israeli counterpart that he and his government must not do that.

She said: “We have been clear that this decision that we are taking is about the best way to respect the security for Israel as well as the security for Palestinians.

“It’s about protecting peace and justice and crucially security for the Middle East and we will continue to work with everyone across the region in order to be able to do that.”

Cooper said extremists on both sides were seeking to abandon any prospect of a two-state solution, which the UK had a moral obligation to revive.

“The easy thing to do would be to just walk away and to say well it is all just too hard,” Cooper said. “We just think that is wrong when we’ve seen such devastation, such suffering.

“Just as we recognise Israel, the state of Israel … so we must also recognise the rights for the Palestinians to a state of their own as well.”

She did not say when the UK’s Consulate General in East Jerusalem would become a full embassy, saying it would continue while a diplomatic process began with the Palestinian Authority.

The foreign secretary was speaking in New York, where the UN General Assembly is convening this week.

Cooper will push to build international consensus on a framework for peace in the Middle East, the Foreign Office has said.

France will co-chair a meeting alongside Saudi Arabia addressing the path to a two-state solution to the conflict, after it pledged to recognise Palestinian statehood in July. Belgium is also expected to follow France’s declaration at the meeting.

Making the announcement on Sunday, Sir Keir said he wanted to “revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying that Palestinian statehood “will not happen”.

The US joined him in describing the move as a diplomatic gift to Hamas after it attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.

Sir Keir stressed this was not the case as the terms of the recognition mean Hamas can have “no future, no role in government, no role in security”.

This message was echoed in a statement from the Foreign Office, which said the foreign secretary would use the UN meeting to “ensure violent terrorists like Hamas have no role to play in the future of a Palestinian state”.

The prime minister added that the decision was instead a “pledge to the Palestinian and Israeli people that there can be a better future”, saying the “starvation and devastation [in Gaza] are utterly intolerable”.

Sir Keir, who has repeatedly said Hamas can have no role in the future governance of a Palestinian state, said during his announcement that the UK had already proscribed and sanctioned Hamas and that he had directed work to sanction further Hamas figures in the coming weeks.

Hamas on Sunday welcomed the recognition as an “important step in affirming the right of our Palestinian people to their land and holy sites” but said it must be accompanied by “practical measures” that would lead to an “immediate end” to the war.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, the Conservatives’ deputy chair Matt Vickers said that the prime minister was “rewarding Hamas”.

“Hamas has already said this is a victory for them and the evil things they did on October 7”, he said.

“This is not the way you play the game, this not what you do if you want to get a two state solution. Everyone is devastated by what they see in Gaza, everyone is devastated by what they saw on 7 October. We need to work with the US to make sure those hostages come home.”

Last week, a UN commission of inquiry said that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

Across a three-page resolution, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) presented a litany of actions undertaken by Israel throughout the 22-month-long war that it recognises as constituting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Around 65,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza in the nearly two-year war.

UN-backed health experts have also declared a famine in Gaza City.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the genocide report was based on “Hamas lies” and poor research, calling it an “embarrassment to the legal profession”.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza and has said that where there is hunger, it is the fault of aid agencies and Hamas.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the UK’s decision, saying it would help pave the way for the “state of Palestine to live side by side with the state of Israel in security, peace and good neighbourliness”.

Palestine is currently recognised as a state by around 75% of the UN’s 193 member states, but has no internationally agreed boundaries, capital or army – making recognition largely symbolic.

The two-state solution refers to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, broadly along the lines that existed prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Due to Israel’s military occupation in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority, set up in the wake of peace agreements in the 1990s, is not in full control of its land or people. In Gaza, where Israel is also the occupying power, Hamas has been the sole ruler since 2007.

UK ministers have highlighted the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, as a key factor in the decision to recognise Palestinian statehood.

Mohammed Jarrar, mayor of the West Bank city of Jenin, told the BBC that “this Israeli government wants to annex the West Bank” – but stressed that recognition was important as “it confirms the fact that the Palestinian people possess a state, even if it is under occupation”.

Netanyahu repeated his intentions on Sunday, saying “we doubled Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and we will continue on this path”.

Far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir responded to the news by calling for Israel to annex the West Bank and dismantle the Palestinian Authority.

United States President Donald Trump appears to be relishing in the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel after the late-night comedian’s popular talk show was taken off air over comments he made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“He made a total FOOL of himself,” President Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday evening, reposting a clip from last year’s Academy Awards in which Kimmel spontaneously took aim at the US leader.

Earlier in the day, Trump said Kimmel was fired because he said a “horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk”.

Trump told reporters on his return from visiting the United Kingdom that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – which regulates all broadcasts in the US – should consider removing the licences of broadcasters who “hit Trump”.

“I would think maybe their licence should be taken away,” Trump said, though federal law prohibits the FCC from revoking a broadcaster’s licence for negative coverage or speech disliked by the government.

“It will be up to [FCC Chair] Brendan Carr,” Trump added.

The Disney-owned ABC network removed the Jimmy Kimmel Live show from programming indefinitely on Wednesday after an opening monologue by Kimmel in which he said “the MAGA gang” was trying to “score political points” from Kirk’s death.

Disney made the move after the FCC’s Carr – a Trump appointee – appeared to imply on a right-wing podcast that Kimmel’s remarks had put Disney’s licence in jeopardy.

“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said.

“They have a licence granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.”

Kimmel was due to meet with three Disney network executives to discuss the fate of his show, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

The comedian is the latest in a growing list of media figures, journalists and news organisations to face Trump’s wrath in the form of lawsuits and personal vendettas.

In July, CBS said The Late Show with Stephen Colbert would go off air in 2026, days after Colbert criticised CBS’s parent company Paramount for a $16m settlement in a case with Trump.

ABC News also agreed to pay $15m over inaccurate on-air comments made by an anchor that Trump had been found “liable for raping” writer E Jean Carroll. Trump had, in fact, been found liable for sexual abuse. More recently, Trump is bringing a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for their coverage of his relationship with high-flying financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In another Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump seemed to suggest further suspensions of late-night comedians, namely two popular NBC hosts.

“That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC,” the president said, referring to Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

“Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”

Democratic Party lawmakers are now pushing to pass a new bill, called the No Political Enemies Act, which they in part credited to Kimmel’s suspension.

The bill aims to deter officials from retaliating against free speech and provides tools for those targeted by the government, according to a legislative summary, though it is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Congress.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has also called for Carr’s resignation from the FCC in a social media post on Thursday, before railing against the Trump administration in a news conference announcing the bill.

“First, let’s be very clear: Political violence has no place in America,” Schumer said.

“But let’s also be clear: The Trump administration campaign of threats against civil society and free speech … is an assault on everything this country has stood for since the Constitution was signed,” Schumer said.

“There’s an assault on democracy coming out of the White House and their allies, and we see more evidence of it every day,” he said.

Brendan Carr should resign immediately, or Trump should fire him. pic.twitter.com/bow6H1ZsFY

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 18, 2025