The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen says that 13 civilians were injured in attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthis on the Saudi cities of Khamis Mushait, Abha and Taif on Monday.
Robert Kraft, the Jewish and pro-Israel billionaire, takes credit Monday for helping to pressure Ed Sheeran to drop pro-Palestinian rapper Macklemore from his tour.
Kraft, who owns one of the stadiums where Macklemore was scheduled to perform, confirmed the rapper’s own account of the businessman’s involvement in a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech,” Kraft says.
His statement continued, “Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.”
The controversy stemmed from a recent show at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where Macklemore upset some Jewish and pro-Israel groups by accusing Israel of genocide and saying “Free Palestine” onstage while showing images of the war in Gaza.
Patriots owner Bob Kraft has released a statement addressing his decision to block Macklemore from performing with Ed Sheeran at Gillette Stadium, a move that ultimately led Sheeran to drop Macklemore from his tour. pic.twitter.com/ubNQ6Ovyhe
— CONSEQUENCE (@consequence) September 14, 2026
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky returns to the Senate to vote on Monday for the first time in three months, noticeably more frail after he was hospitalized for a June fall in his home.
McConnell’s lengthy absence from the Senate generated a flood of criticism and online speculation, as he initially remained quiet for weeks about his condition. The 84-year-old senator eventually disclosed that he had been “briefly unconscious” due to the fall and had also been treated for mild pneumonia in the hospital.
He briefly addresses reporters from a wheelchair outside the Senate chamber ahead of the vote, smiling but speaking slowly and with some difficulty. McConnell jokes that he wasn’t sure how many reporters would be there after dodging so many questions during his almost two decades as leader.
He says he was back in the Senate to work on a pending farm bill and because he has an ongoing interest in NATO and “backing up our good friends who are totally in the fight against the Russians.”
Reporters and photographers were told by Senate staff not to take video of his remarks in the second-floor hallway, even though video is often permitted in that area. Still images were allowed.
In a statement issued before his remarks, McConnell said that “my recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven’t made it any easier.”
“I’m still not quite back to 100%, but I’ve assured Leader Thune that, as I continue with physical therapy on the advice of my doctors, I will do my best to be present for tough votes when our conference needs me.”
US President Donald Trump has nominated Texas Republican Representative Wesley Hunt to be ambassador to Saudi Arabia, which would fill a position vacant since Trump began his second term in January 2025.
Hunt, a US Army veteran once deployed to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, is not running for re-election to the House, after making an unsuccessful bid for the US Senate.
If his nomination is approved by the US Senate, Hunt would go to Riyadh at a time when months of war on Iran have raised fears of wider conflict and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have launched attacks on Saudi Arabia.
A federal judge has blocked US President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing a new rule that would limit how long foreign students and journalists can remain in the U.S. without applying for extensions.
US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston rules in favor of a coalition of unions and advocacy groups just a day before the US Department of Homeland Security’s rule was set to take effect.
A Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin paid for celebrations after the wedding of President Donald Trump’s eldest son and his new bride, the couple confirms.
Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Trump say in a jointly signed post on Bettina’s Instagram account that their “dear friend” Umar Kremlev “very generously hosted two incredible nights” of festivities in the Bahamas in May.
The confirmation came after the ProPublica investigative website reported that Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the parties.
“It was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend, and something for which we were and remain incredibly grateful,” says the post by Bettina and Don Jr.
President Trump did not attend the wedding or the festivities, saying he had to stay in Washington during talks on the Iran war.
Kremlev is head of the International Boxing Association (IBA), with which the International Olympic Committee severed links after repeated warnings over financial governance and ethical concerns.
Bettina Trump defends letting Putin-linked Russian oligarch pay for Don Jr. wedding celebrations: 'Fortunate to have wonderful friends' https://t.co/MhTBbrdVhu pic.twitter.com/44KwD7iqpy
— New York Post (@nypost) September 14, 2026
Einav Zangauker, mother of former hostage Matan Zangauker and one of the most outspoken advocates for the captives’ release from Gaza, says in an interview with Channel 13 that she felt “betrayed” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following their first meeting.
Her son, Matan, was taken captive in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught. Before the massacre, she tells the network, she “was a prisoner to an extreme right-wing ideology.”
She says that at first, the IDF could not give her accurate information regarding Matan’s whereabouts and estimated that there was a 60 percent chance he had been killed.
She recalls being disillusioned with Netanyahu and his wife Sara when they met with families of hostages. She says that Sara Netanyahu came to the meeting with her stylist.
“The prime minister focused, for the whole meeting, on talking about how great he was, how great of a fighter he was,” she says. “He spoke of his brother Yoni [who was killed in the 1976 raid on Entebbe] and his heroism.”
"עשה יח"צ על גבנו, הרגשתי נבגדת": עינב צנגאוקר על היחסים עם נתניהו, שיתוף הפעולה עם גופי המודיעין – והשריון שבוטלhttps://t.co/Ff57iXZ1LW@shamambo pic.twitter.com/V3y78Nv4JK
— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) September 14, 2026
“I saw the disrespect of the prime minister and his wife. This crazy PR stunt that was being done on the backs of the [hostage] families. It wasn’t easy to realize that [this was] the person I believed in and thought of as ‘Mr. Security.’ I felt betrayed.”
She adds that at one point, the Shin Bet recorded a message from her in Arabic, in which she was to speak directly to Matan’s captors.
He was released in October, one of the last 20 living hostages to go free.
This year, Zangauker had expected to be given a reserved spot on the slate of the left-wing Democrats party, but chair Yair Golan announced that he would forgo his ability to choose candidates for the slate, leaving Zangauker off the list. She says it was his decision and that she was “obviously disappointed.”
“I understood during my and the families’ entire struggle that only elected officials change policy,” she says. “They make the decisions. They determine the policy. Only entering politics can bring change.”
Yuval Abraham, the Israeli co-director of the documentary ‘NAZA,’ which alleges that Israel used AI-powered strikes to kill civilians in Gaza, defends the film’s claims and its framing in an interview on Israeli Channel 13.
He also says that he is working to screen the film in Israel and that he hopes to return there.
In the interview, which frequently turns tense, journalist Raviv Drucker repeatedly casts doubt on how Abraham and co-director Rachel Szor could have verified the film’s allegations, made by 24 anonymous IDF Intelligence Corps soldiers.
Drucker is one of the few Israelis to have seen the film in its entirety. The IDF has denied claims contained in the film’s promotional materials, and has requested a screening, but its leaders have not seen the film.
Drucker casts doubt on allegations including IDF approvals of strikes killing hundreds of civilians, or that the IDF killed hundreds of noncombatants who did not evacuate their neighborhoods, even in the absence of a Hamas target. He says that on multiple occasions, when he would report on soldiers’ testimonies, he found himself unable to verify them or discovered they were inaccurate.
Abraham says the allegations were verified, noting that he produced the film in partnership with the British publication, “The Guardian,” and that the film’s creators had to take steps to protect the identities of the soldiers.
“This is a ‘Guardian’ film, made in cooperation with a leading publication, with a staff of editors who had access to the raw materials,” Abraham says. “The identities of the people were verified, the cases they discussed were verified.”
Asked why the film does not spend more time on the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that launched the war, or the mistreatment of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, Abraham responds that it did include those topics, and repeatedly challenges Drucker to do more investigative journalism about Gaza.
“Why didn’t you broadcast?” he asks Drucker. “Three years, in the [Israeli TV news] investigative programs, there wasn’t even one item, if I’m not mistaken, that dealt with the rules of engagement in Gaza, that dealt with the collateral damage policy, that researched in-depth the damage to innocent Palestinians’ lives in the Strip.”
He continues, “You say, ‘It wasn’t complex enough. Okay. So why didn’t you broadcast something complex yourself?”
Asked whether he hopes to screen the movie in Israel, Abraham says, “That’s the goal. We really want to. We’ll do everything possible so that it’s broadcast as widely as possible in Israel.”
Abraham and Szor now face threats of legal action in Israel, including a threat to have their citizenship revoked, and condemnation across the political spectrum. But Abraham says he still considers Israel his home.
“Israel is my home, it’s the place where I want to live, the place that’s so important to me,” he says. “So of course I’m scared that I won’t be able to return. Like, what will I do here, abroad?”
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