rules

May 22 (UPI) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of President Donald Trump‘s firing of two Democratic board members of independent oversight agencies as litigation over their removal continues.

The conservative-leaning high court ruled 6-3 in support of the government’s request for an emergency order staying several lower-court rulings that had ordered the reinstatement of Gwynne Wilcox to the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

All three liberal justices dissented.

Wilcox was removed from the labor board by President Donald Trump on Jan. 27, with no cause given. Harris was fired by the president on Feb. 10, also without reason.

Both sued the government in response. District courts ruled that they were unlawfully dismissed by the president, arguing Trump exceeded his power in doing so. The courts pointed to a 1935 Supreme Court decision, Humphrey’s Executor, that permits Congress to limit the president’s ability to fire officials from independent agencies.

Both Wilcox and Harris were appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate. Wilcox has three years remaining in her term, and Harris has four. The boards were also created by Congress as bipartisan and independent.

They were removed as Trump fired thousands of government workers, including heads of independent agencies, in a federal government overhaul to consolidate power under the executive branch.

In the majority ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court cited the Constitution, which vests executive powers in the president, including the authority to remove officers without cause who “exercise considerable executive power.”

The justices did not rule on the merits of the case, explaining that their stay is does not determine whether either the NLRB or MSPB exercise executive power, and that question is better left to ongoing litigation in the case.

The ruling added that the government faces “greater risk of harm” by allowing the fired board members to resume their positions and exercise executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being denied reinstatement.

“A stay is appropriate to avoid the disruptive effect of the repeated removal and reinstatement of officers during the pendency of this litigation,” the majority wrote.

The Supreme Court also cooled concerns raised by Wilcox and Harris in the case about implications their removals might have on removal protections for other independent agencies, specifically the Federal Reserve Board of Governors or the Federal Open Market Committee.

“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” the majority said.

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, writing on behalf of the other two liberal justices, accused the president of effectively disregarding Humphrey’s, saying he either wants it overruled or confined and is acting on that belief by taking the law into his own hands.

“Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a President, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency — a multi-member, bipartisan commission exercising regulatory power whose government statute contains a for-cause provision,” she wrote.

“Yet now the President has discharged, concededly without cause such officers, including a member of the NLRB (Gwynne Wilcox) and a member of the MSPB (Cathy Harris). Today, this court effectively blesses those deeds. I would not.”

She continued by stating that the decision in this case was an easy one to make, and was made correctly by the lower courts.

Trump, she said, has no legal right to relief, and Congress, by statute, has protected members of the NLRB and MSPB from removal by the president except for good cause.

To fire Wilcox and Harris without good cause is to upend Humphrey’s, she argued.

“For that reason, the majority’s order granting the President’s request for a stay is nothing short of extraordinary,” she said.

“And so the order allows the President to overrule Humphrey’s by fiat.”

May 20 (UPI) — The U.S. House Rules Committee, after 22 hours of proceedings, late Wednesday advanced President Donald Trump‘s legislative agenda that experts say would add $3 trillion to the federal deficit and negatively affect the poorest of Americans.

Debate on the full House floor began early Thursday.

The House Rules Committee adopted the bill in an 8-4 vote along party lines. They first met shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday to consider the 1,116-page budget that is roughly $7 trillion

The Finance Committee late Sunday approved the legislation 17-16 along party lines with four Republicans who rejected the bill the first time on Friday voting present: Ralph Norman of Oklagoa, Chip Roy of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma.

“What the hell are you guys so scared of, that you guys are holding this hearing at 1 in the morning?” Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said. “If Republicans are so proud of what is in this bill, then why are you trying to ram it through in the dead of the night?”

The full House must also vote to adopt the rule first before taking up the underlying bill. Republicans hope to move the House bill, with no support from Democrats, to the Senate by Memorial Day on Monday.

With the GOP holding a slim majority of 220-212, House Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose more than three GOP votes. Party hardliners and moderates from vulnerable districts have failed to agree on key issues that include Medicaid, federal clean energy programs and tax breaks to states.

Three House seats were held by Democrats who died, including Gerry Connolly of Virginia on Wednesday.

At least five House GOP members considered vulnerable in the 2026 midterm elections — including Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y. — have vowed to vote against the bill unless it ups the proposed state and local tax deduction from the current proposed $30,000.

The bill contains a massive overhaul of the tax code and deep spending cuts.

An amendment included speeding up work requirements for Medicaid to the end of 2026 rather than 2029.

It also tightens the definition of a “qualified alien” eligible for the program.

There is a new incentive for states that hadn’t expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. It allows those states to pay 110% of Medicare rates for state directed payments as a way to finance Medicaid.

The Center on Budget and Policies Priorities estimates 36 million Medicaid enrollees could be at risk of losing coverage because of potential work requirements and other factors.

In December, there were 78,532,341 on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.

Also, the bill formalizes the so-called SALT cap, which would allow people to deduct state and local income taxes up to $40,000 for certain income groups. GOP leaders initially wanted cap of $30,000 but key New York, New Jersey and California Republicans vulnerable in the 2026 election, had refused to support it.

Republicans opted to phase out Biden energy tax credits sooner than planned. New projects must break ground within 60 days or be “in service” by the end of 2028 to qualify for the credits.

Earlier, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas,, a holdout, told CNN’s Manu Raju he was “still looking to review more provisions and have more conversations.”

“Yeah, I’m going to vote for it,” Rep. Andy Biggs ,of Arizona, told CNN.

Medicaid changes and a $4 trillion debt limit increase, among other provisions.

The bill includes a $4 trillion debt limit.

Budget plan’s analysis

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released data Tuesday that the House Republican’s budget proposal and its tax provisions would cut federal revenue by around 10% of America’s current national debt over the next decade.

The GOP bill proposal could cost American taxpayers $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years, according to a report this month by the Joint Committee on Taxation, which looked at the effect of tax policies versus spending cuts.

“This bill does not add to the deficit,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed Monday during a press briefing.

On Friday, Moody’s Ratings downgraded the U.S. debt citing the GOP proposal that Moody’s says will tack on $4 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

As proposed, the bill would extend Trump’s tax cuts largely to the wealthiest Americans and cut personal income tax rates. It also establishes fresh tax reductions on tips, Social Security, overtime payments and loan interest on automobiles produced in the United States.

An analysis Monday by the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton school projects that under the Republican plan, the lowest-income American citizens would end up paying more.

Leavitt said the Trump administration’s Council of Economic Advisers claim that there’s $1.6 trillion worth of savings in the GOP bill.

“That’s the largest saving for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation’s history,” Leavitt continued.

On Tuesday, the president was on Capitol Hill to meet with Johnson and lawmakers in order to push his legislative agenda.

“While I respect President Trump and understand the importance of passing this legislation, I will not do so at the expense of my district,” Lawler posted on X Tuesday afternoon.

Lawler noted that his district was one of only three kept by a Republican that then-Vice President Kamala Harris had won in November’s presidential election in a heavily-taxed Congressional district.

“For over two years, I have been abundantly clear to everyone from the President to House Leadership about the importance of lifting the cap on SALT,” he said about state and local tax deduction caps.

Supreme Court finds no factual basis for Ronen Bar’s dismissal, highlighting irregularities and lack of formal hearing.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government’s decision to fire domestic security chief Ronen Bar was “unlawful”, marking the latest twist in a bitter power struggle between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the country’s justice system.

The top court “ruled that the government’s decision to terminate the head of the Shin Bet’s tenure was made through an improper and unlawful process,” its ruling said on Wednesday.

It also said that Netanyahu had a conflict of interest in moving to get Bar fired, as the Shin Bet was also conducting a probe into alleged ties between the prime minister’s close aides and Qatar.

The two men have traded accusations and barbs over deep-seated security failures surrounding the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

Netanyahu first said he would fire Bar due to a breakdown in “trust”, suggesting it was linked to October 7, which then led to the Gaza war. But Bar said Netanyahu’s decision was motivated by a series of events between November 2024 and February 2025.

In the unclassified part of the court submission, Bar said Netanyahu had told him “on more than one occasion” that he expected Shin Bet to take action against Israelis involved in anti-government demonstrations, “with a particular focus on monitoring the protests’ financial backers”.

The Shin Bet head also said he had refused to sign off on a security request aimed at relieving Netanyahu from testifying at an ongoing corruption trial in which he faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of public trust.

The court said the decision to dismiss Bar was made without “a factual basis” and without giving him a formal hearing before firing him, according to a report by the Times of Israel.

Wednesday’s ruling noted “irregularities” in the process that led to Bar’s sacking, as well as “a disregard for fundamental principles regarding internal security.”

The Israeli cabinet voted to dismiss Bar in March, triggering mass protests and accusations of autocratic pursuits by the far-right government.

The High Court of Justice halted the decision until a hearing could be held. Several groups, including opposition politicians, had filed petitions with the court against the government’s decision.

In April, the government revoked the decision to fire Bar a day after he said he would step down.

Following Bar’s decision to quit the job, Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling said that “this announcement puts an end to the [legal] procedure.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Annual COVID-19 shots for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved under a major new policy shift unveiled Tuesday by the Trump administration.

Top officials for the Food and Drug Administration laid out new requirements for yearly updates to COVID shots, saying they’d continue to use a streamlined approach that would make vaccines available to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one health problem that puts them at higher risk.

But the FDA framework urges companies conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people. In a framework published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, agency officials said the approach still could keep annual vaccinations available for between 100 million and 200 million adults.

The upcoming changes raise questions about people who may still want a fall COVID-19 shot but don’t clearly fall into one of the categories.

“Is the pharmacist going to determine if you’re in a high-risk group?” asked Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The only thing that can come of this will make vaccines less insurable and less available.”

The framework, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the culmination of a series of recent steps scrutinizing the use of COVID shots and raising major questions about the broader availability of vaccines under President Trump.

For years, federal health officials have told most Americans to expect annual updates to COVID-19 vaccines, similar to the annual flu shot. Just like with flu vaccines, until now the FDA has approved updated COVID shots when manufacturers provide evidence that they spark just as much immunity protection as the previous year’s version.

But FDA’s new guidance appears to be the end of that approach under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, who has filled the FDA and other health agencies with outspoken critics of the government’s handling of COVID shots, particularly their recommendation for young, healthy adults and children.

Tuesday’s update, written by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and FDA vaccine chief Vinay Prasad, criticized the United States’ “one-size-fits-all” approach and states that the U.S. has been “the most aggressive” in recommending COVID boosters, when compared with European countries.

“We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had COVID-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a COVID-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose,” they wrote.

Outside experts say there are legitimate questions about how much everyone still benefits from yearly COVID vaccination or whether they should be recommended for people at increased risk. An influential panel of advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to debate that question next month.

The FDA framework announced Tuesday appears to usurp that advisory panel’s job, Offit said. He added that CDC studies have made clear that booster doses do offer protection against mild to moderate illness for four to six months after the shot even in healthy people.

Perrone and Neergaard write for the Associated Press. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Trump administration may seek to deport nearly 350,000 Venezuelans who were granted “temporary protected status” under the Biden administration to live and work in the United States.

In a brief order, the justices granted a fast-track appeal from Trump’s lawyers and set aside the decision of a federal judge in San Francisco who had blocked the repeal announced by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voted to deny the appeal.

Trump’s lawyers said the law gave the Biden administration the discretion to grant temporary protection to Venezuelans, but also gave the new administration the same discretion to end it.

The court’s decision does not involve the several hundred Venezuelans who were held in Texas and targeted for speedy deportation to El Salvador because they were alleged to be gang members. The justices blocked their deportation until they were offered a hearing.

But it will strip away the legal protection for an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans who arrived by 2023 and could not return home because of the “severe humanitarian” crisis created by the regime of Nicolas Maduro. An additional 250,000 Venezuelans who arrived by 2021 remain protected until September.

“This is an abuse of the emergency docket,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor who is representing the Venezuelan beneficiaries of the temporary protected status, or TPS.

He added: “It would be preposterous to suggest there’s something urgent about the need to strip immigration status of several hundred thousand people who have lived here for years.”

It was one of two special authorities used by the Biden administration that face possible repeal now.

Last week, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to also revoke the special “grant of parole” that allowed 532,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to legally enter the United States on personally financed flights.

A judge in Boston blocked Noem’s repeal of the parole authority.

The Biden administration granted the TPS under a 1990 law. It said the U.S. government may extend relief to immigrants who cannot return home because of an armed conflict, natural disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

Shortly before leaving office, Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, extended the TPS for the Venezuelans for 18 months.

While nationals from 17 countries qualify for TPS, the largest number from any country are Venezuelans.

The Trump administration moved quickly to reverse course.

“As its name suggests,” TPS provides “temporary — not permanent — relief to aliens who cannot safely return to their homes,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his appeal last week.

Shortly after she was confirmed, Noem said the special protection for the Venezuelans was “contrary to the national interest.”

She referred to them as “dirtbags.” In a TV interview, she also claimed that “Venezuela purposely emptied out their prisons, emptied out their mental health facilities and sent them to the United States of America.”

The ACLU Foundations of Northern and Southern California and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law filed suit in San Francisco. Their lawyers argued the conditions in Venezuela remain extremely dangerous.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen agreed and blocked Noem’s repeal order from taking effect nationwide. He said the “unprecedented action of vacating existing TPS” was a “step never taken by any administration.”

He ruled Noem’s order was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because it did not offer a reasoned explanation for the change in regulations. It was also “motivated by unconstitutional animus,” he said.

The judge also found that tens of thousands of American children could be separated from their parents if the adults’ temporary protected status were repealed.

When the 9th Circuit Court refused to lift the judge’s temporary order, the solicitor general appealed to the Supreme Court on May 1.

Last week, the State Department reissued an “extreme danger” travel advisory for Venezuela, urging Americans to leave the country immediately or to “prepare a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney.”

“Do not travel to or remain in Venezuela due to the high risk of wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure,” the advisory states.

Trump’s lawyers downplayed the impact of a ruling lifting TPS. They told the justices that none of the plaintiffs is facing immediate deportation.

Each of them “will have the ability to challenge on an individual basis whether removal is proper — or seek to stay, withhold or otherwise obtain relief from any order of removal — through ordinary” immigration courts, he said.

Arulanantham said the effect will be substantial. Many of the beneficiaries have no other protection from deportation. Some have pending applications, such as for asylum. But immigration authorities have begun detaining those with pending asylum claims. Others, who entered within the last two years, could be subject to expedited deportation.

Economic harm would be felt even more immediately, Arulanantham said. Once work permits provided through TPS are invalidated, employers would be forced to let workers go. That means families would be unable to pay rent or feed their children, as well as result in economic losses felt in communities across the country.

BRITS heading to Europe could soon find it much easier thanks to new plans allowing holidaymakers to use airport e-gates.

Since the UK left the EU, British tourists have faced huge queues at the airport across Europe after being forced to use the standard passport gates.

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However, the UK government has revealed plans of a deal that would allow UK holidaymakers to use the much faster e-gates when visiting Europe.

The talks, part of the UK-EU summit taking place today, suggest Brits would join other EU tourists in the shorter queues, The Guardian reports.

EU relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said he backed the potential rule change.

He told Sky News: “I would love to see you being able to go through the border more quickly in that way.

“That’s certainly something we’ve been pushing with the EU and I think that will be something that will be very helpful to British people.

“I think we can all agree that not being stuck in queues and having more time to spend, whether it’s on holiday or work trips, having more time to do what you want, would be a very sensible objective.”

Plans to allow Brits to use e-gates in European countries were put forward back in 2023 by then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak although never came into fruition.

Last summer, some Brits even missed their flights when travelling through Spain due to long passport queues while waiting to get them stamped.

Another Brit wrote on Tripadvisor: “My lunchtime arrival at Oslo left me with an hour and a half wait to get through manual passport control.”

Another agreed: “The queue was horrendous, people couldn’t even get into the passport hall. Took just over 90 minutes to get through.”

However, the new rules could cause problems with passport stamping, which is still required from Brits entering and exiting Europe.

This is because of the new rules which only allow Brits to visit for 90 days in an 180 day period.

Anyone without an outgoing stamp could be mistakenly seen to have overstayed in Europe and even be banned from entering – which happened to a British tourist in Majorca back in 2022.

But it comes ahead of the constantly-delayed Entry/Exit System (EES) which will scrap the need for passport stamping entirely.

First announced in 2016, it finally hopes to be rolled out from October this year.

Instead of manual passport stamping, new biometric checks will take place instead.

And next year will see the roll out of the ETIAS – a visa waiver that Brits will need to visit Europe.

Costing around €7 and lasting three years, it will be similar to the current ESTA Brits need when visiting the US.

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HUGE changes to Buy Now Pay Later rules that will help protect customers have been confirmed by the government.

The new Labour government has published its response to a consultation on proposals to tighten up rules in the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) sector.

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BNPL is a type of credit scheme that allows shoppers to purchase items and spread the payments over a set period and is used by 10million Brits.

While the schemes are popular, they have remained largely unregulated, which has raised concerns about people falling into debt.

The government has now said that from next year BNPL firms will need to follow “consistent standards,” so shoppers know exactly what they’re signing up for.

This means firms will have to be clear and transparent about any late fees or if they could affect customers’ credit ratings and how.

They should also signpost customers towards debt help in any correspondence.

For consumers, that could look like upfront credit checks to make sure people can repay what they borrow.

Also, customers will have quicker access to refunds and the right to complain to the Financial Ombudsman.

The plans will bring the products under FCA regulation while ensuring they also adhere to a large proportion of the Consumer Credit Act and Section 75, which give shoppers various rights.

Lisa Webb, Which? Consumer Law Expert, said that research shows that many users “do not realise they are taking on debt or consider the prospect of missing payments.”

She added: “It’s good to see the government taking action to regulate BNPL firms and introducing affordability checks.

“The government also needs to ensure this includes greater marketing transparency and information about the risks of missed payments and credit checks.”

Proposals to regulate BNPL products were first touted in 2021 but faced repeated delays.

Last year, The Sun revealed the previous Conservative government had paused the plans over fears that it would drive BNPL firms out of the market during a tough cost of living crisis.

Then in October, the Treasury Tulip Siddiq exclusively told The Sun that the government had finalised its “bespoke” plans and intended to pass the legislation “as soon as possible” in early 2025.

The legislation bringing BNPL into regulation is set to be laid in Parliament today, May 19.

A consultation on the findings is set to take place with the rules expected to come into force next year.

How can I use BNPL without losing out?

The hope is that this new regulation will prevent people from being able to take on more than they can realistically afford to pay back.

But when used correctly, BNPL plans can be a useful way of managing your finances.

The products work in a similar way to other types of credit. The main difference is that they don’t charge interest.

You usually have to make payments by set deadlines over a period of time.

If you meet these repayment deadlines, you shouldn’t be charged any extra fees.

May 15 (UPI) — A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration unconstitutionally retaliated against the American Bar Association when it abruptly canceled millions in grants awarded to the world’s largest association of lawyers and legal professionals.

Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction against the cancelation of the five grants and ordered the Justice Department to fully pay out the $3.2 million previously allocated to the ABA. The grants were intended to train lawyers and judges who work with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

“The ABA has made a strong showing that Defendants terminated its grants to retaliate against it for engaging in protected speech,” the President Barack Obama-appointed judge wrote in his ruling.

The Trump administration has been accused of retaliating against President Donald Trump‘s perceived political opponents, including law firms associated with Democrats and judges who have ruled against his policies.

The ABA is among those who have described such attacks as threats to the judiciary, and in February, it joined a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s freeze of international development grants to the U.S. Agency for international Development.

In April, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum calling out ABA over its lawsuit against the government and support for “activist causes,” essentially severing the Justice Department’s interactions with the organization. The department then canceled the grants the next day

The organization filed its lawsuit against the Trump administration on April 23, accusing it of unlawful retaliation for exercising its First Amendment right to petition the courts.

“This lawsuit is necessitated by DOJ’s undisguised efforts to retaliate against the ABA for taking positions that the current Administration disfavors,” the lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of ABA stated.

In his ruling Wednesday, Cooper said the government does not have any “meaningful” arguments to contest ABA’s claims, stating it points to deficiencies in the organization’s performance of its grant obligations while conceding that similar grants administered to other organizations remain in place.

“The government claims that it had a non-retaliatory motive for terminating the grants: They no longer aligned with DOJ’s priorities. But the government has not identified any non-retaliatory DOJ priorities, much less explained why they were suddenly deemed inconsistent with the goals of the affected grants,” he said, adding that similar grants to other organizations continue without the government explaining why those are still being maintained.

“The government’s different treatment of other grantees suggests this justification is pretextual.”

Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman celebrated the ruling in a statement, saying it is “welcome news” for survivors of domestic and sexual violence and for their families.

“For decades, the American Bar Association has provided critical training to lawyers to enable the provision of essential legal services to survivors. The court recognized today that the ABA is being unconstitutionally targeted by the Department of Justice because of their longstanding and unchanged stance on the importance of the rule of law and our Constitution,” Perryman said.

The BBC’s boss has reminded stars to follow the corporation’s rules and avoid damaging “mistakes”, after Gary Lineker attracted renewed criticism for his use of social media.

On Tuesday, the Match of the Day host deleted an Instagram story post he shared from the group Palestine Lobby, which said: “Zionism explained in two minutes” and featured an illustration of a rat.

A rat has historically been used as an antisemitic insult, referring to language used by Nazi Germany to characterise Jews. His representatives said he was not aware of the connection.

Asked whether the post had broken BBC guidelines, director general Tim Davie said: “The BBC’s reputation is held by everyone, and when someone makes a mistake, it costs us.”

He added: “I think we absolutely need people to be exemplars of the BBC values and follow our social media policy. It’s as simple as that.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said it was submitting a complaint to the BBC, adding that Lineker’s “continued association with the BBC is untenable”.

The charity posted on X: “Nothing to see here. Just Gary Lineker’s Instagram account sharing an anti-Israel video misrepresenting Zionism, complete with a rat emoji.”

A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews said “the BBC should ask him to leave now rather than allowing him to dictate his own terms”.

“He has caused great offence with this video – particularly with his egregious use of a rat emoji to illustrate Zionists.”

Lineker’s agent said: “Whilst viewing and reposting a video, Gary did not notice a rodent emoticon added by the author of the post. Although if he had, he would not have made any connection. The repost has been removed.”

Zionism refers to the movement to create a Jewish state in the Middle East, roughly corresponding to the historical land of Israel, and thus support for the modern state of Israel.

The BBC, when asked on Tuesday if it had any comment on Lineker’s now-removed post, responded by referring to its guidance on personal use of social media.

The former England striker has attracted criticism before for his posts on social media in the past.

He was temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023 after an impartiality row over a post in which he said language used to promote a government asylum policy was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.

The BBC’s social media rules were then rewritten to say presenters of flagship programmes outside news and current affairs – including Match of the Day – have “a particular responsibility to respect the BBC’s impartiality, because of their profile on the BBC”.

In November 2024, Lineker announced his departure from Match of the Day, but he will remain with the BBC to front FA Cup and World Cup coverage.