Chaos erupted when conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during an event on the Utah Valley University campus.

Some prominent Hollywood names are among the filmmakers and industry figures who've signed a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions — including festivals, broadcasters and production companies — that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”.

The group Film Workers for Palestine posted an open letter today, including signatures from Hollywood luminaries like Emma Stone, Ayo Edebiri, Mark Ruffalo Olivia Colman, John Cusack, Riz Ahmed, Rob Delaney, Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and Cynthia Nixon among many others. The group said it had collected more than 3000 industry signatures since the pledge was made public.

“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions,” the open letter says. “In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”

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Film Workers for Palestine — a group of film professionals based in various countries formed in early 2024 — said their pledge was inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, who refused to screen their films in apartheid South Africa.

“We pledge not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies — that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people,” the letter says.

The group has not called for a boycott on all Israeli film institutions. It claims on its website that Israel’s public and private broadcasters “have decades-old and ongoing involvement in whitewashing, denying and justifying Israel’s war crimes” and also says Israel’s major film festivals — including the Jerusalem Film Festival, Haifa International Film Festival and others — “continue to partner with the Israeli government while it carries out what leading experts have defined as genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

But it says that it does not consider all film institutions in Israel complicit, and advises people to ask questions and “seek guidelines set by Palestinian civil society.”

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The Jerusalem Film Festival did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The pledge also specifies that it is targeting institutions and not individuals: “The call is for film workers to refuse to work with Israeli institutions that are complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses against the Palestinian people. This refusal takes aim at institutional complicity, not identity.”

A representative of the Israeli film and television industry called the boycott “misguided.”

“We are the industry that (has been) struggling for years, making efforts for decades to promote discussion,” working with Palestinians and Israelis to tell the story of the conflict from all sides, said Tzvika Gottlieb, CEO of the Israeli Film & TV Producers Association, in an interview.

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Gottlieb said his industry “has consistently maintained a critical stance toward government policies, and is very vocal in criticism of this administration’s current actions. We urgently call for an immediate end to the violence, an end to the suffering, and the release of all hostages right now.”

His group added in official remarks that “this call for a boycott is profoundly misguided. By targeting us — the creators who give voice to diverse narratives and foster dialogue — these signatories are undermining their own cause and attempting to silence us.”

In response, Film Workers for Palestine issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying their initiative is “rooted in historic struggles," in particular "the successful international movement to end the apartheid regime of South Africa.”

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“Should Israeli film institutions wish to continue working with pledge signatories, their choice is clear: end complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid, and endorse the full rights of the Palestinian people under international law, in line with Palestinian civil society guidelines," the statement said. "To date, almost none has.”

The pledge comes after a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the recent Venice International Film Festival drew an estimated 10,000 participants. That followed a call by a group called Venice4Palestine for the festival to condemn the destruction in Gaza.

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Indonesian rescuers have recovered the bodies of at least 11 people but 13 people are still missing after flash floods struck two provinces of the island nation, authorities say.

Torrential rains beginning on Monday caused flooding and landslides in East Nusa Tenggara province and on the tourist island of Bali.

Three members of a family were found dead after their house was swept away and five people were missing on Wednesday in the Nagekeo district of East Nusa Tenggara, officials said.

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In Bali, rescuers retrieved eight bodies from several areas and eight residents were missing on Wednesday, according to Muhammad Iqbal Simatupang, the police chief in Bali's provincial capital of Denpasar.

Rain has caused rivers to burst their banks, tearing through nine cities and districts in Bali.

Mud, rocks and trees tumbled onto mountainside hamlets and rising rivers submerged at least 112 neighbourhoods and resulted in several landslides, Bali's Disaster Mitigation Agency said in a statement.

Four people were in a building that collapsed and was swept away in the Kumbasari market area of South Denpasar, said Nyoman Sidakarya, the head of Bali's Search and Rescue Agency.

Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed cars floating in muddy waters while soldiers and rescuers in rubber boats helped children and older people who were forced onto the roofs of flooded homes and buildings.

Severe flooding inundated thousands of homes and buildings in residential areas and tourist spots.

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Authorities have cut electricity and water, prompting hotels, restaurants, hospitals and other public facilities to use generators, Bali Governor Wayan Koster said.

There have been landslides in 18 neighbourhoods of Karangasem, Gianyar and Badung districts and flooding swept through at least 15 shops and houses and damaged several roads and bridges, he said.

"This disaster also caused material losses for traders and tourism businesses," Koster said, adding that more than 800 people were in temporary shelters after floodwater reached up to 2.5 metres in places.

National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said flash floods in Nagekeo swept away villagers and vehicles passing through devastated villages and triggered a landslide that blocked three roads, killing at least three villagers and four people were missing.

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The severe weather and rugged terrain hampered rescue efforts, he said, noting that the flooding in Nagekeo also destroyed two bridges, two government offices, a plantation, rice fields and livestock, Muhari said.

Heavy seasonal rain from about September to March frequently causes flooding and landslides in Indonesia.

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Kim Dotcom has fought extradition since the US request was lodged in 2012.

Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has resigned from the shadow ministry at the request of Sussan Ley after refusing to apologise for comments she made about Indian Australians and failing to publicly back the opposition leader.

Price, who only joined the Liberal party room from the Nationals after the May federal election, had walked back last week's "incorrect" statement that the federal government was allowing more migrants in from India to skew votes towards Labor.

However, she has continued to ignore calls to apologise for the remarks, including at a short press conference this afternoon called to address the saga.

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She also failed to publicly back her party leader, saying only that "those matters are for our party room" when asked if she had confidence in Ley's leadership.

Price has since spoken with Ley, who asked her to step down from the shadow ministry to the backbench this evening.

"I have accepted the leader's decision. And I reiterated my regret in not being clearer in my comments on the ABC last Wednesday," Price said in a statement.

"This has been a disappointing episode for the Liberal Party. I will learn from it. I'm sure others will too.

"No individual is bigger than a party. And I'm sure events of the past week will ultimately make our party stronger.

"Although my time as the shadow minister for defence industry and defence personnel has been cut short, it has been an honour to serve in the shadow defence portfolio."

Price was elevated to the shadow ministry after she defected from the Nationals to sit with the Liberal Party after the opposition's historic loss at the federal election

She planned to run on the ticket with former shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, in his bid to contest the party leadership, but failed to submit herself after he lost.

She was handed the defence industry and defence personnel portfolio after Ley was elected as Liberal leader.

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Earlier today, Price had called a press conference to address the fallout from her comments about Indian migrants.

"My comments were certainly clumsy," she said.

"The issue that's of great concern, which I won't be silenced on, is the issue of mass migration in our country, and that was the prime issue that I was talking about and continue to talk about.

"We should all be focused on that."

Price's refusal to apologise has spurred infighting — as her colleagues and the prime minister call on her to say sorry — while Liberal MP Julian Leeser has publicly apologised on her behalf.

It has also put pressure on Ley, who promised to rebuild the party's relationships with multicultural communities and women and tried to minimise damage by touring Little India in Sydney and meeting with members of the community.

Price declined to explain how she would repair the party divide caused by her comments, instead saying, "Those matters in terms of our party are for our leadership."

"I would love to be able to move forward from this, because there are issues we've been elected by the Australian people to stand up as the opposition to address the failures of the Albanese government, and that's what I would love to encourage, certainly my colleagues, to be focused on moving forward," she said.

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Last week during an interview with the ABC, Price accused the federal government of allowing more migrants in from "particular countries over others" to skew votes and singled out the Indian community.

She later walked back her statement and said: "Australia maintains a longstanding and bipartisan non-discriminatory migration policy. Suggestions otherwise are a mistake."

Her remark came days after anti-immigration rallies, some of which targeted Indian Australians, were held across the country on August 31. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as well as colleagues including Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie and senior Liberal MP Alex Hawke, have urged her to apologise for the harm caused by her incorrect remark.

Leeser has apologised to the Indian community on Price's behalf during an event at a Hindi language school in his north-west Sydney electorate of Berowra over the weekend.

"I wanted just to say something, and it pains me to say it, but I feel I have to say it," he said in a video posted to social media on Monday.

"My colleague, Jacinta Price, said something this week that I want to apologise unreservedly for.

"As my leader, Sussan Ley, said, she was wrong to say it, and she has walked back those remarks, and I am pleased that she has."

Ley has said Price was wrong to make those remarks, but remained tight-lipped on whether she spoke to her or asked her to apologise.

She has also declined to apologise on her behalf.

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Price also accused Hawke of "cowardly and inappropriate conduct" when he called her office to advise her to apologise, by berating her staff and threatening her position within the Liberal Party.

"If people want to talk about a so-called 'woman problem' in the Liberal Party, then it's this: we don't stand up for women when they are mistreated by our own colleagues," she wrote in a fiery statement on Sunday.

Hawke has denied the claims.

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Phillips’ family and the children’s mother have condemned the project publicly.

Court heard he wanted to activate them if he came across a car accident or a fallen tree.

A day after a strategic setback in the Pacific, the federal government has received a major boost, with talks under way for an improved security agreement between Australia and Fiji.

While the two countries already have formal economic and security ties, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed today that work has begun to take the relationship "to the next level".

"Preliminary discussions have been about increased security agreements or an upgrade in our security relationship," he said on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum in the Solomon Islands today.

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"That could range from increased interoperability, the sort of training we are seeing with the policing initiative being expanded to increase engagement between our defence forces."

The development comes just a day after Albanese was expected to sign a bilateral agreement with Vanuatu, only for that $500 million deal to stall over concerns from Port Vila that it would prevent the Pacific nation from getting critical infrastructure funding from China.

Albanese and Vanuatu counterpart Jotham Napat both said yesterday that they remained confident the agreement would still be signed.

Beijing has been seeking to gain a security foothold in the South Pacific in recent years, including by signing an agreement with the Solomon Islands in 2022 that raised concerns about a possible People's Liberation Army Navy base in one of Australia's closest neighbours.

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Today, Albanese announced Australia would invest $100 million in the Pacific Resilience Facility – a fund to help nations in the region mitigate and respond to climate change and the natural disasters it causes.

"This is more than a fund, it's a promise to Pacific communities they will not face climate threats alone," he said.

Albanese said he wouldn't pre-empt the discussions the government is having with Fiji, but said Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka was a "good friend of Australia".

He also flagged a further announcement with Papua New Guinea would be made next week.

"Certainly the relationship with Fiji is an important one, Fiji has a very significant position in the Pacific," Albanese said. 

"We'll have more to say about the relationship with Papua New Guinea next week, which is, of course, a very important one."

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The sacked Labour Cabinet Minister later apologised on LinkedIn for his comments.

Luxon also got to experience being charged at by boys wielding axes and whips.