‘Kite Runner' star says London police questioning him after pro-Palestine rally
The star of 'The Kite Runner' says police in London are requesting a 'formal interview' with him following his participation in a pro-Palestinian rally.
Khalid Abdalla, who also played Dodi Fayed in Netflix's 'The Crown,' wrote in a Monday statement posted on social media that he received a letter from Metropolitan Police 'summoning me to attend 'a formal interview' in relation to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign protest of Jan. 18th.'
'It remains to be seen if this will result in charges,' the 44-year-old British performer said.
'The right to protest is under attack in this country and it requires us all to defend it.'
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told ITK that authorities invited 'eight people to be interviewed under caution at a police station' as part of its 'ongoing investigation into alleged breaches of Public Order Act conditions' at the January protest. The rally came shortly after the announcement of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas following 15 months of war.
'While we are aware of names being attributed to those who have been invited for interview, we do not confirm the identity of anyone under investigation,' the statement said.
According to Metropolitan Police, Public Order Act conditions were communicated to organizers in advance and arrests were made after a group of rallygoers attempted to go further than the area designated for the protest. Twenty-one people have been charged.
In his X post, Abdalla wrote, 'While there is an alarming rise in attempts to censor voices that stand up for Palestine, even as it faces open calls for ethnic cleansing, it will not work. The days of silencing after intimidation are gone.'
Abdalla cited the recent win in the best documentary category at the Academy Awards for 'No Other Land,' which follows activist Basel Adra as he documents the destruction of his hometown at the southern edge of the West Bank, which Israeli soldiers are tearing down to use as a military training zone.
'The stakes are too high, and as we can see today with No Other Land winning at the Oscars, momentum is on the side of justice, and shared humanity,' Abdalla said.
Abdalla said while he wouldn't comment further 'for legal reasons,' he 'will continue to put my energies towards the better world that we so clearly need, and which requires all of us to work together to turn into a reality.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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CNET
22 minutes ago
- CNET
Netflix Review: Our Top Pick in a Sea of Streaming Choices
CNET's expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. 9.0 / 10 SCORE Netflix $8 at Netflix Pros Strong recommendation engine Easy to use across different devices Extensive list of movies and shows Massive selection of original programs Cons Cost for premium plans is on the higher end Can't watch shows as they air on other networks Missing titles on ad-based plan Netflix 9.0/10 CNET Score $8 at Netflix Netflix is often people's go-to streaming service for watching TV shows and movies. Even with price increases and tough competition from services like Prime Video, Hulu and Disney Plus, Netflix still stands out as the ultimate option for streaming entertainment, because of its vast selection and user-friendly layout. It also has the largest 4K library around for video-on-demand platforms. Netflix includes a wide variety of familiar network shows as well as more original series, films, documentaries and specials than any of its myriad competitors. Despite its password crackdown, the phasing out of one of its subscription plans and the addition of an ad-supported tier, the world's first major streaming service remains our favorite choice, thanks to its huge library of constantly refreshed content and its easy accessibility across different devices. And if you want, you can now save money on your subscription by bundling Netflix with other streaming services like Max (via Verizon) or Peacock and Apple TV Plus. For the 75th annual Emmys, the streamer earned 107 nominations and won 24 awards, with series like Baby Reindeer and Blue Eye Samurai capturing top honors. If you're looking for something new to watch, Netflix should be your first pick. Depending on the plan you choose, Netflix costs between $8 and $25 per month, which is at the higher end for a streaming service, as you can see in the chart below. However, the pricier package lets you watch up to four screens at once and create different user profiles. Thanks to its sheer variety and number of new things to watch, Netflix also gives you the most bang for your buck. Streaming services compared undefined Netflix Hulu Prime Video Max Disney Plus Monthly price Starts at $8 Starts at $10 Starts at $9 (or included with Prime membership) Starts at $10 Starts at $10 Ads Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Top titles Wednesday, Stranger Things, Adolescence Shōgun, The Bear, Only Murders in the Building The Boys, Fallout, Rings of Power The Last of Us, House of the Dragon,The White Lotus Daredevil: Born Again, The Mandalorian, Bluey Mobile downloads Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 4K HDR available Yes (on Premium plan) Yes Yes Yes Yes Number of streams 2 for Standard, 4 on Premium 2 2 2 (4 for Ultimate) 4 Netflix then vs. now Between 2012 and 2013, Netflix premiered its first original TV shows, including Lilyhammer, House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black. Today, it has a catalog of more than 2,000 original TV shows and movies, including global hits like Stranger Things, Emmy winners such as Bridgerton and The Crown, as well as Oscar-nominated movies such as The Six Triple Eight and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. The company launched its ad-supported tier in November 2022 for $7 per month. It's since gone up in price to $8 a month and become the streamer's most popular plan, even with the company's password-sharing crackdown. We should mention that Netflix's slate of video games is growing at a rapid pace, with the streamer launching new games every month. Though access is only fully available for mobile users, the company has been conducting tests for the TV app, and you may notice a beta version on your screen. The hit series Wednesday is one of the many reasons to have Netflix. 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While watching three episodes of the anime series, I noticed that sometimes the commercials didn't play, even with the progress bar showing when they were supposed to appear. The Equalizer 2 had no preroll, there were eight ad breaks, ranging from 17 seconds up to 30, featuring a single commercial, and The Walking Dead had no commercials. When I watched the Netflix original Nonnas, it had zero ads. This seems to reflect Netflix's commitment to omit ads from new movies. The streamer also seems to keep its word about ad variety, and I barely saw the same commercial twice while watching one title. Commercials for the Nintendo Switch, snack food companies and a local Volkswagen dealer were among those that aired. Kid-friendly content I tested in the adult profile for shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Cocomelon, Raising Dion or Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu lacked commercials. The ads don't operate as pop-up surprises. Yellow dots on the progress bar indicate when and how many ad breaks will appear in a TV show or movie. If you don't see the dots, there aren't any commercials in that particular piece of content. There's also a countdown clock that tells you how long each break will last. What's missing from Netflix's ad-based plan? Netflix made upgrades to its ads plan, and you're now able to download any content to two devices. This is unlike other platforms like Max and Hulu, which require you to have an ad-free subscription to download. Prior to launch, Netflix said that some titles would not be available on the ad-supported version due to licensing restrictions. This content is marked with a lock icon indicating which titles are behind a paywall, and means you have to upgrade to an ad-free account to watch any of it. A quick note on the thumbnail lets you know the title is unavailable due to licensing. But if you click on it, Netflix will prompt you to choose an ad-free plan to watch it. In addition to shows like House of Cards, a number of animated titles and movies are unavailable to stream unless you upgrade to a higher-priced subscription. They include Venom: The Last Dance, The Hateful Eight, Boss Baby: Back in the Crib and Paddington in Peru. Netflix's Kids' Profile doesn't play ads at all, but some children may be disappointed to learn all the Boss Baby titles aren't available to watch. It's probably worth spending the extra money on the ad-free plan just to access Netflix's whole catalog. What shows and movies does Netflix have? Netflix may have had the first-to-market advantage in the world of streaming services, but it's kept its momentum with its increasing number of original shows and movies -- many of which have won critical acclaim and major awards and nominations. 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New York Post
30 minutes ago
- New York Post
Huge pro-Israel summit in Texas canceled over threats
A massive pro-Israel conference in Texas has been canceled over 'threats from violent Jihadists' — even after changing venues over security concerns, organizers said. The Israel Summit, scheduled for next Monday through Wednesday in Dallas, switched locations due to 'indirect and direct threats made by American, pro-Hamas, Jihadist groups, who issued calls to 'target' the Israel Summit,' the organizers said in a statement. But anti-Israel activists outed the new venue and planned to protest the event, according to Luke Hilton from the Israel Guys, which was co-hosting the event. 'This is America in 2025,' former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who was one of the slated speakers for the event, wrote on X. AFP via Getty Images 'Honestly, it feels like it's no longer safe for Jews and Christians who support Israel to publicly,' he said. He said law enforcement uncovered other threats on the dark web to 'target' the event — which was set to host some 1,000 attendees. 'After the two Israeli embassy staffers were murdered in Washington, DC, two weeks ago and then last week people were firebombed in Colorado, to me and to all the rest of us on our team, the word 'targeting' — that's a call to violence,' Hilton said. The three-day summit is run by pro-Israel Christian organizations and was expected to feature former US officials, members of the Israeli government and survivors of Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack. Ten days before the Israel Summit was set to kick off, Dallas authorities said the threat level had been elevated, said Josiah Hilton, also of Israel Guys, according to Jewish New Syndicate. That forced the event's organizers to come up with 'a mandatory security plan with a substantial budget estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,' leaving them to find a new location. They then found a 'new and significantly safer location just north of Dallas' with 'top-tier private security, with additional support from local law enforcement and coordination with the Texas governor's office.' But ultimately they had to cancel after the Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas outed the new spot as 'an isolated compound owned by staunch Israel ally evangelical televangelist Kenneth Copeland' under the campaign 'Texas un-welcomes the genocide summit.' 'This is America in 2025,' former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who was one of the slated speakers for the event, wrote on X. He added: 'Law enforcement was completely cooperative but the threats were of a nature that required cancellation. When @POTUS says we need to take our country back, this is a good example of what he means!'


Newsweek
44 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Elon Musk's Secret Weapon in His War With Donald Trump
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. It was barely an hour after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt last summer when Elon Musk declared his full support. The post on X, his social media platform, landed fast and took off like one of Musk's rockets: "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery." Musk—once ridiculed by Trump for leading companies that made "driverless cars that crash" and "rocketships to nowhere"— slapped a red MAGA hat on his profile photo, lit up X with pro-Trump memes, and used his platform's reach to carpet-bomb swing states with political propaganda dressed as engagement. By sundown, Trump's digital war room was headquartered on X, and Musk looked like the unofficial campaign manager. Ten months later, he detonated that alliance in real time. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk joins U.S. President Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk joins U.S. President Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo byEvery political strategist in Washington could see it coming. Musk, the richest man in the world, doesn't share power. Trump, the most unrelenting figure in American politics, doesn't forgive disloyalty. Their mutual dependency—money for clout, platform for power—was a high-speed arrangement that seemed destined for a crash. For almost three years, Musk used X, formerly Twitter, to help rebuild Donald Trump's public image and support his 2024 presidential run. He reinstated Trump's account that had been banned after January 6, shared meme after meme mocking Democrats, chatted with MAGA influencers and hosted live conversations with Trump and others. Within months, Musk had reshaped the platform's algorithms to favor a content ecosystem that amplified Trump's message, according to social media researchers. "A lot of the far right returned to Twitter because all of a sudden it looked like a safe space," said Giulio Corsi, a researcher at the University of Cambridge in Britain who has been studying X's recommendation system. His findings were blunt: inflammatory posts, particularly those containing false or misleading links, surged in reach. "Tweets expressing right-leaning political bias see heightened amplification compared to the baseline model," Corsi wrote in a case study examining 2.7 million posts on X in early 2023. But the platform's bias wasn't just anecdotal. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that new users interested only in non-political topics were still bombarded with Trump-aligned content, and that pro-Trump accounts appeared twice as often as those favoring Vice President Kamala Harris during last year's presidential election. The Washington Post also reported that Republican congressional accounts received billions more views than their Democratic counterparts, further illustrating Musk's platform as a potent, asymmetric political tool. Blurred Lines Musk's hands-on management of X's internal mechanics blurred the line between owner and political actor. During the 2024 election cycle, Musk took his control to new political heights, according to Hamed Qahri-Saremi, associate professor of information systems at Cleveland State University. "We are seeing social media platform owners as active political actors, not just neutral hosts that used to be the norm," Qahri-Saremi told Newsweek. "Musk's influence on social media primarily stems from two channels: his structural control as the owner of X, which gives him gatekeeping power over policies, algorithms, and norms—and his personal activity, where he promotes specific narratives and amplifies particular users." This photo of Elon Musk was taken from a video grab taken from a video he posted on his Twitter account on October 26, 2022 when he visited the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Musk... This photo of Elon Musk was taken from a video grab taken from a video he posted on his Twitter account on October 26, 2022 when he visited the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Musk officially completed his acquisition of Twitter after months of delays. More Photo from Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images It worked—for a while. After Musk endorsed Trump on X last summer, the platform's energy shifted almost immediately in MAGA's favor. Posts praising Trump surged. Once Joe Biden bowed out, content attacking Kamala Harris—including a viral AI-generated image of her in communist regalia—wasn't just allowed; it was spread by Musk himself. Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 2, 2024 That shift was reinforced by Musk's overhaul of how information is verified on the platform. He ended Twitter's partnerships with professional fact-checkers, replaced them with "Community Notes"—a crowdsourced system run by anonymous users and algorithms—and removed the traditional verification badges that once signaled a user was who they claimed to be. As a result, misinformation and political propaganda spread more easily, especially from verified accounts who could pay for reach. "Other major platforms, such as Meta, subsequently adopted similar practices earlier this year, resulting in significant shifts in fact-checking content on social media platforms," Qahri-Saremi said. "Third-party, professional fact-checking does not exist on these platforms as it once did." Pull The Plug? He hasn't muted Trump—not yet. But if Elon Musk wanted to, he could do it with a keystroke. As the biggest account on X, with more than 220 million followers, Musk's reach is immediate and absolute. His posts fill the feeds of users who do not follow him. Some who have actively blocked him report that they still see his musings. His Thursday barrage of attacks on Trump—accusing him of lying, reposting calls for impeachment, and floating a Jeffrey Epstein connection over the course of about 40 posts—racked up tens of millions of impressions in a matter of minutes. On X, that means they were likely seen by the majority of active users, whether they followed him or not. That scale matters. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 59 percent of X users say they rely on the platform as their primary source of news. With a global user base exceeding 500 million, that gives Musk a direct pipeline to shaping how vast swaths of the internet experience political reality. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk shake hands while attending the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship on March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia, Pa. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk shake hands while attending the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship on March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia, unlike Trump—who posts mainly on Truth Social, where the reach is narrower and engagement smaller—Musk controls not just the content, but the code. He can dial engagement up or down, signal boosts with a single retweet, or let critics vanish into algorithmic limbo without ever banning them outright. "He has structural control," said Qahri-Saremi. "That gives him gatekeeping power over speech norms, algorithms, and who gets seen." It wouldn't be the first time Musk reprogrammed the ground beneath his rivals' feet. Kamala Harris began her sprint toward the general election last fall, her campaign claimed posts supporting her began vanishing from timelines. Pro-Harris accounts reported sudden drops in engagement, unexplained suspensions and disappearing trending topics. Musk did not answer their questions at the time. He has denied manipulating the algorithm for political reasons, but now that X is a private company under his full control, that algorithm is a black box visible only to him and the coders who work for him. The code itself remains perhaps Musk's most potent weapon for control of the modern attention economy — should he decide to use it against the sitting president.