Britain, Canada, Australia and Portugal formally declared their recognition of a Palestinian state on Sunday ahead of the United Nations General Assembly. This is Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer: “Today, to revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution, I state clearly, as prime minister of this great country, that the United Kingdom formally recognizes the state of Palestine.”

France and several other countries are expected to recognize Palestine this week, joining the more than 140 countries that now recognize a Palestinian state. Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, spoke on Sunday.

Husam Zomlot: “We realize that the recognition itself will not stop the wheels of colonization and theft of land and oppression of our people. But the question is never 'Why should the U.K. and the rest of the world recognize the state of Palestine?' The question is why the U.K. has not recognized the state of Palestine until now. And the answer is where we are today. Because of the lack of this recognition, because of the lack of this foundational step, things have been left to fester all the way to genocide being committed in full view of the world.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the developments by saying that a Palestinian state “will not happen.” Several members of the Israeli government also called for Israel to annex the occupied West Bank. We will have more on this story later in the program.

In Gaza, Israel is escalating its bombardment of Gaza City as Israel attempts to destroy the entire city. Officials in Gaza say almost half a million Palestinians have now been forcibly displaced from the city. Over the past day, Israel killed at least 61 people as the official death toll tops 65,300.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is seeking to send $6 billion in new weapons to Israel despite a recent United Nations finding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The proposed arms deal includes 30 Apache attack helicopters and over 3,000 infantry assault vehicles.

Meanwhile, unions in Italy have launched a one-day general strike to protest Israel’s war on Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon killed five people Sunday, including three children from the same family along with their father. Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam decried the attack as a “massacre.” Lebanese officials said four of the victims, including the children, were U.S. citizens, but the U.S. State Department has disputed the claim. The Israeli military acknowledged carrying out the attack, saying the target of the strike was a member of Hezbollah.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says recent Israeli strikes on two newspaper offices in Yemen killed 31 journalists and media support workers, making it the deadliest attack on journalists anywhere in the world in 16 years. Twenty-two journalists were also injured in the strikes. CPJ said the attack was the second deadliest attack on the press ever recorded by the organization.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Arizona Sunday for a memorial for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on September 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University. Speakers included Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, who has just become the new head of Turning Point USA.

Erika Kirk: “On the cross, our Savior said, 'Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.' That man, that young man, I forgive him.”
President Trump gave a 40-minute eulogy where he called Charlie Kirk a martyr.

President Donald Trump: “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry. I am sorry, Erika.”

Other speakers included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and White House adviser Stephen Miller, who vowed to quash “enemies” and to “prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil.”

While the Trump administration has threatened to target progressive groups after Kirk’s assassination, NBC is reporting that authorities have found “no evidence” tying the accused assassin to any left-wing groups.

President Trump is escalating his attacks on press freedom and the First Amendment. On Friday, he said it should be illegal for journalists to give his administration negative coverage.

President Donald Trump: “They’ll take a great story, and they’ll make it bad. See, I think that’s really illegal, personally.”

Trump’s comments come just days after ABC, which is owned by Disney, indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s program following FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates. On Friday, a group of writers and actors rallied outside the Disney offices in Manhattan to defend free speech.

Sue Berch: “It’s important for us to stand up together and to fight against censorship. The First Amendment says that the government does not have the right to come in and tell me what I can and cannot write and perform and so on. And this is putting — this is the government putting its thumb on the scale.”

The Pentagon is imposing new restrictions on reporters. Journalists face the risk of losing media credentials unless they sign a pledge stating they will not gather or report on any information that has not been formally authorized for release. The president of the National Press Club, Mike Balsamo, criticized the new rules, saying, “This is a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the U.S. military.”

President Trump has publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute three prominent rivals: former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff. In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “We can’t delay any longer.”

In related news, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned on Friday under pressure from Trump, who publicly criticized Siebert for not bringing criminal charges against Letitia James. Trump said he plans to replace Siebert with Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide who once worked as part of Trump’s personal legal team. Most recently, Halligan has been leading the administration’s efforts to remove what Trump has called “improper ideology” at the Smithsonian museums.

President Trump is overhauling the H-1B visa program, which allows high-skill workers to enter the country to work in the tech industry and other fields. On Friday, Trump signed an executive order imposing a $100,000 fee for the visa. The move set off mass confusion, with many companies ordering noncitizen employees traveling abroad to immediately return to the United States. The White House later clarified that existing visa holders would not be impacted.

MSNBC has revealed that Trump’s border czar Tom Homan was recorded last year accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash from a pair of FBI agents who were posing as business executives. In exchange for the money, Homan reportedly offered to help them secure future government contracts. A bribery probe was opened, but Trump’s Department of Justice recently shut down the investigation.

In Chicago, 10 people were arrested in protests outside an ICE facility on Friday as federal immigration agents fired pepper balls and used tear gas on the crowd. Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was thrown to the ground by ICE agents. People had rallied outside the facility to protest the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has arrested nearly 550 people in a sweeping crackdown on immigrants in the city.

A 42-year-old man has died in ICE custody in Long Island, New York, on Thursday. According to ICE, at least 14 people have died in custody so far this year.

In Louisiana, ICE detainees are on hunger strike to protest their conditions at the infamous Angola prison. According to the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition and the National Immigration Project, the detainees are asking for access to medical and mental healthcare.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law banning law enforcement, including ICE, from wearing masks. Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs, said, “a sanctuary politician is trying to outlaw officers wearing masks to protect themselves from being doxxed and targeted by known and suspected terrorist sympathizers.” Bill Essayli, acting U.S. attorney for Southern California, said on social media, “our agents will continue to protect their identities.”

The Trump administration has ended the U.S.’s annual report on food insecurity and hunger in America. It comes two-and-a-half months after Trump signed into law a tax and spending bill sharply reducing the number of Americans receiving food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it was no longer issuing the annual hunger report, claiming, “The data is rife with inaccuracies.” On social media, Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress said, “This follows the playbook of many non-democracies that cancel or manipulate reports that would otherwise show less-than-perfect news.”

In Sudan, a drone strike by the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces killed at least 85 people worshiping in a mosque in Darfur on Friday. The attack took place in El Fasher, which has been under siege for more than a year as the RSF battles the Sudanese army for control of the city. There have been reports of starvation as hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the fighting. Sudan has been in a state of civil war since April 2023. Here’s United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres sounding the alarm about the situation in Sudan.

Secretary-General António Guterres: “The suffering of the Sudanese people is horrible. So, I think it’s time for the Security Council to be able to take, with the agreement of all the key powers, very tough measures on Sudan.”

In the Philippines, more than 200 protesters were arrested after clashes with police at an anti-corruption demonstration in the capital Manila on Sunday. At least 131 police officers were wounded. More than 33,000 Filipinos rallied against politicians and contractors for corrupt practices in handling flood control projects. Here’s Teddy Casiño, the chairperson of the New Patriotic Alliance.

Teddy Casiño: “The people are very angry, because they have been victims of flooding for all these years, and flooding has made their lives so difficult, and yet the discovery that all the billions of pesos that were supposed to help them, that were supposed to solve the problem, have ended up lining the pockets of all these corrupt politicians, government officials and contractors.”

It comes as thousands have been evacuated as a potentially catastrophic super typhoon, Ragasa, makes landfall in the north of the Philippines.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Brazil to protest a congressional bill that would make it harder to charge lawmakers for alleged crimes and even reduce penalties for individuals involved in former President Jair Bolsonaro’s coup attempt. Bolsonaro was sentenced earlier this month to 27 years in prison for trying to cling to power and for hatching a plan to assassinate his opponent, the current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the 2022 presidential election. Maria Alice Barboza is a student in Rio de Janeiro.

Maria Alice Barboza: “I think this amnesty for Bolsonaro is ridiculous, because these are people who harmed Brazilian society, the Brazilian people. As citizens, we have to be here, fighting, speaking out, showing our faces. People can’t hide if we don’t want to repeat what happened in past generations. As young people, we need to keep this in mind so that people know their rights and can fight for them.”

President Donald Trump has revealed details about a possible deal with China that would give the United States more control over the social video platform TikTok. Trump said the deal could involve the media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, the tech founder Michael Dell and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, a close Trump ally who briefly passed Elon Musk as the world’s richest man. China has not yet confirmed a deal has been reached.