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Judge Dismisses Cases Against James Comey, Letitia James

admin - Latest News - November 25, 2025
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The Justice Department is vowing to appeal orders from a federal judge who tossed out the criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey and New York’s attorney general Letitia James. The judge concluded that President Donald Trump’s hand-picked prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was not lawfully appointed. NBC’s Laura Jarrett reports for TODAY.



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Oct. 23, 2025, 3:51 PM EDTBy Rebecca KeeganAfter “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which counts Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara as executive producers, received a nearly 23-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere in September, filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania took a slew of meetings with potential North American distributors.Executives praised the film, which follows the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s failed attempt to save Hind, a Palestinian child who was killed in Gaza in 2024 after being trapped in a car under Israeli fire. But not a single major studio or streamer made an offer on the movie, the official Oscar submission of the Tunisian Culture Ministry, Ben Hania said.“People never say, ‘I’m afraid to pick up a movie,’” Ben Hania said. “Maybe they are. I don’t know. They can’t openly talk about it, because it’s a shame to be afraid of talking about the killing of a child.”Four movies that tell stories about Palestinian people, set from 1936 to 2024, are competing for this year’s Academy Award for best international feature, just as a ceasefire takes hold in the region. The films, “All That’s Left of You,” “Palestine 36,” “The Sea,” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” are screening for awards voters this fall. Three of them are slated to run at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles this week. Despite interest at the start of filming, and in some cases A-list backers, none of these films have secured a deal with a major studio or streamer, which is uncommon when a title receives buzz overseas. In past years, other foreign language films about major conflicts in history, such as Brazil’s “I’m Still Here” Germany’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the United Kingdom’s “Zone of Interest” all found prominent distributors.As Hollywood has grown more outspoken in recent months about the situation in the Middle East, the challenges of convincing its distributors — the lifelines that can take movies from obscurity to national recognition — remain. The batch of movies arrives as the crisis in the Gaza Strip remains a flashpoint issue in the entertainment industry. More than 5,000 film and television professionals have signed on to a boycott of Israeli film institutions, while two studios, Paramount and Warner Bros.. have condemned the boycott. Just as some in Hollywood have worried about saying the wrong thing in a social media post or a red carpet interview, others have been vocal, like Javier Bardem, who wore a keffiyeh to the Emmy Awards in September and openly criticized the war in interviews on the red carpet, or Amy Schumer, who posted frequently on her Instagram account calling for the release of the Israeli hostages.A still from the film “Palestine 36.”Watermelon PicturesForeign films that get picked up for distribution often land with smaller independent companies, limiting the films to a few cities and small marketing budgets. International films have also long struggled with marketing to English-speaking audiences with non-English language films. Multiple distributors declined to comment on the record about why studios aren’t buying the movies about Palestinians, but studio sources said either that their slates were already full or that the movies don’t seem likely to draw large audiences to theaters.Without a major distributor, it can be hard for films from the region to demonstrate theatrical potential. But last year’s Oscar-winning “No Other Land,” a documentary about a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank, shows both an appetite among American audiences for Palestinian stories and the complex issues these films face.When “No Other Land” failed to close a theatrical deal in North America, producers paid to release it in theaters themselves, collecting $2.5 million domestically, enough to make theirs the third highest grossing documentary of the year so far, after films featuring Taylor Swift and Led Zeppelin. The filmmakers then turned down an offer to stream on U.S. platforms from Mubi, citing the London company’s backing from Sequoia Capital, which also invests in an Israeli defense tech startup called Kela. (In August, Mubi’s CEO responded to backlash about Sequoia financing by saying that the profits Mubi generates “do not fund any other companies in Sequoia’s portfolio.”) For the filmmakers working in the region over the past two years, it’s been a long, arduous road to reach audiences, as the war impacted their physical productions and made potential distributors wary of facing political backlash for releasing their films. Seeking to fill what they see as a void in the marketplace, Palestinian-American brothers and producers Hamza and Badi Ali formed their own company, Watermelon Pictures, in April 2024. The duo also tapped model Alana Hadid as Watermelon’s creative director and unofficial brand ambassador.“Truthfully, we wish there was more competition,” Hamza Ali said. “It is almost like all of the pressure is on us to release these films and we feel obligated to do so. We hope that distributors of all sizes will start to engage.” The Chicago-based company is distributing “All That’s Left of You,” submitted by the Royal Film Commission–Jordan for Oscar consideration, and “Palestine 36,” submitted by the Palestinian Culture Ministry, both of which also received long ovations at film festivals and strong reviews from critics. Cherien Dabis as Hanan in “All That’s Left of You.”Watermelon PicturesOver a year since the company’s launch, the Ali brothers said that when they meet with executives at larger studios and streamers about buying films on Palestinian people, the buyers defer to higher ranking executives, citing the sensitivity of the subject matter, and effectively ending any conversation about a deal.For some directors, the barriers have come from their own governments. In Israel, filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Pollack won the country’s version of the Oscar for “The Sea,” the Ophir Award, only to have the Israeli government condemn the film and pull funding for the organization that granted the award. Each country chooses its own film to submit for Oscar consideration, and in Israel, the winner of best film at the Ophir Awards is automatically the country’s submission. “I wasn’t surprised,” said Carmeli-Pollack, whose film is about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who wants to join a school trip to the beach. “I’m not the first film that they attacked. In a way, they saved us a lot of explaining to the world that we do not represent this government.”In a statement issued on social media in September regarding the decision, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar wrote in Hebrew that he believes the country’s taxpayers shouldn’t have to support a “ceremony that spits on the heroic Israeli soldiers. (The film features a soldier questioning a Palestinian boy and his father as they are trying to go to the beach).Muhammad Gawazi as Khaled in the film “The Sea.”MubiCarmeli-Pollack shot his movie in the West Bank in the summer of 2023, and he said he saw distributors’ enthusiasm for it evaporate after the Oct. 7 attacks. “The Sea” is now being released in the U.S. by Menemsha Films, a small Los Angeles-based company that distributes a variety of Jewish films.Stories shot in the Palestinian territories have always faced hurdles when it comes to securing locations, but the crisis in Gaza made physical production virtually impossible, directors who spoke to NBC News said.Cherien Dabis, the director, writer and star of “All That’s Left Of You,” was scheduled to start shooting her film in October 2023 in Jericho. Plans changed after the Oct. 7, Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which led Dabis to evacuate her cast and crew from the West Bank.“We were hearing fighter jets and cities were being sealed off, checkpoints were closing,” she said. “We thought maybe we’d come back to Palestine, things would blow over. We had no idea.”We need to make sure that we’re speaking to the masses.-Cherien Dabis, the director, writer and star of “All That’s Left Of You”Dabis, whose movie she said is backed by a mix of European and Arab financing, ended up shooting in Greece, Cyprus and Jordan, telling the fraught history of the region through three generations of one family who were expelled from Jaffa in 1948. “Palestine 36” director Annemarie Jacir was also scheduled to shoot her historical drama in October 2023 in the West Bank, with a cast that includes British actor Jeremy Irons and Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass. But after Oct. 7, “There was no more insurance,” Jacir said. “No agents were going to send any of their cast to Palestine to film.” Jacir shot most of her movie in Jordan but was eventually able to return, with a much smaller crew, to film some scenes in Bethlehem, Jaffa and Jerusalem. In order to help their movies find wider audiences, some are enlisting high-profile Hollywood advocates. Dabis recruited Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo, two of the entertainment industry’s most outspoken figures on Gaza, as executive producers. “Given what we’ve watched unfold in the last two years, we understand that we need to break out of any kind of echo chamber,” she said. “We need to make sure that we’re speaking to the masses.”On Dec. 16, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce a narrowed list of 15 movies in contention for the international Oscar, ahead of the awards telecast March 15. Rebecca KeeganRebecca Keegan is the senior Hollywood reporter for NBC News Digital, where she covers the entertainment industry.
October 17, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 16, 2025, 9:10 PM EDTBy Allan SmithAndrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani both opened Thursday’s New York City mayoral debate by saying a future headline about their first year in office would celebrate lowering costs for New Yorkers. The next 50 minutes of the debate — aired on NBC New York and Telemundo New York, in partnership with Politico — turned into an all-out brawl over issues including crime, the war in Gaza and President Donald Trump as the candidates tore into each other in deeply personal ways.During one back and forth focused on which candidate has the right experience for the job, Mamdani, a state assemblyman, blasted Cuomo, the former governor, for his handling of nursing homes during the Covid pandemic. Cuomo, who resigned from office amid allegations of sexual harassment, which he denies, had just said the mayorship was “no job for on the job training.”“What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity,” Mamdani said. “And what you don’t have in integrity, you could never make up for in experience.”Democratic nominee Mamdani and Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in June, were joined on stage by Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, with the three clashing over how to handle the police department and mental health calls, the education system, taxes and the business climate in New York City.Mamdani, a self-described Democratic socialist, enters the stretch run of the election with a commanding lead, though Cuomo has closed some ground since Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the contest.Trump has sought to influence the outcome of the race and has repeatedly threatened to withhold federal funding from New York should Mamdani wins the contest next month. And the president’s influence in New York was a central discussion of the debate.Each candidate was asked when they had last spoken with the president, with Cuomo saying he believed it was after the attempt on Trump’s life in 2024. Sliwa said it had been many years, while Mamdani said he never has never spoken to Trump.But Mamdani did express willingness to work with Trump to lower costs — before attacking Cuomo over reports that he had discussed the race with the president.“I don’t need the president’s assistance,” Mamdani said. “And what I’d tell the president is, if he ever wants to come for New Yorkers in the way that he has been, he’s going to have to get through me as the next mayor of the city.”Cuomo said he never had such a conversation with Trump and talked up past “bloody battles” with the president during Covid.“I’d like to avoid them,” Cuomo said.Mamdani also attacked Cuomo for not taking a strong enough line in defending state Attorney General Letitia James, who was recently indicted on federal charges after Trump had called for her prosecution.“I said political weaponization of the justice system is wrong,” Cuomo said. “Both sides do it. It’s wrong when Donald Trump does it. It’s wrong when they did it to [James] Comey. It’s wrong when Comey did it to Hillary” Clinton.Sliwa cut in and said New Yorkers will suffer if either Cuomo or Mamdani takes on Trump.“Look, you can be tough, but you can’t be tough if it’s going to cost people desperately needed federal funds,” Sliwa said. “Zohran Mamdani, the president has already said it’s going to take $7 billion out of the budget right from the start if you’re elected mayor. People are going to suffer in this city, people who need those federal funds. What I would do is sit and negotiate.”While Sliwa sought his openings in the debate, Mamdani and Cuomo were the main event, often ignoring his jibes — except to agree when the Republican was attacking the other candidate.Democratic dividesMeanwhile, Mamdani and Cuomo battled over who is a real Democrat, too. Mamdani said that voters who believe there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties should vote for Cuomo, while voters who want a mayor to stand up to Trump and his donors should back him.Cuomo then said Mamdani isn’t a Democrat, focusing on his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America and accused him of not voting for former Vice President Kamala Harris last fall. (Mamdani said voters should leave their presidential primary ballot blank if they disagree with then-President Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.)“If you want to look for me on the ballot, you’ll find me as the Democrat,” Mamdani said.The war in Gaza took up a significant portion of the debate. Mamdani has accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide” and, in a Fox News interview on Wednesday, declined to say whether Hamas should forfeit their weapons following the recent ceasefire agreement.“Of course I believe that they should lay down their arms, I’m proud to be one of the first elected officials in the state who called for a ceasefire and calling for a ceasefire means ceasing fire,” Mamdani said. “That means all parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons.”“And the reason that we call for that is not only for the end of the genocide, but also an unimpeded access of humanitarian aid,” Mamdani said. “I, like many New Yorkers, am hopeful that this ceasefire will hold.”Cuomo responded that Mamdani is refusing to “denounce Hamas” and separately said the state assemblyman was speaking in “code” with his answer — and that code signaling that Israel “does not have a right to exist as a Jewish state.” Mamdani responded that Cuomo was acting as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “legal defense team during the course of this genocide.”He added that conversations with Jewish New Yorkers had led him to discourage the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a phrase he said he does not use.“And what I’m looking to do as the first Muslim mayor of this city is to ensure that we bring every New Yorker together, Jewish New Yorkers, Muslim New Yorkers, every single person that calls the city home, they understand they won’t just be protected, but they will belong,” he said.Cuomo attacked Mamdani for not explicitly denouncing the phrase.“He is a divisive personality across the board,” Cuomo said.Handling crime and costsOn crime, Mamdani said he had spoken to police officers to apologize for past anti-police postings, and he said that he is not running on those ideas, attacking Cuomo for not focusing on his actual plans. Cuomo said Mamdani “doesn’t like the police” and “that’s why he won’t hire more police.”“When everyone else says, we need more police,” Cuomo said. “He wants to use social workers on domestic violence calls, which are very dangerous, and he’s told you what he thinks. He thinks the police are racist, wicked, corrupt, and a threat to public safety.”Mamdani said that as a state assemblyman he learned “that to deliver justice means to also deliver safety, and that means leading a city where you recognize the bravery of the men and women who join the NYPD and put their lives on the line.”“It means representing the Muslims who were illegally surveilled in my district and the Black and brown New Yorkers who have been victims of police brutality,” Mamdani said.The second half of the debate featured more discussion on cost of living and affordability. Each candidate was asked what they paid in groceries and rent: $2,300 for Mamdani, $3,900 for Sliwa and $7,800 for Cuomo.Cuomo was deeply critical of Mamdani’s plans for affordable housing and free bus service while talking up his own experience as governor and secretary of Housing and Urban Development.“I just have to say it’s been an hour and 20 minutes of this debate, and we haven’t heard Governor Cuomo say the word affordability,” Mamdani said. “That’s why he lost the primary.” Mamdani criticized Cuomo for having the support of billionaire hedge fund executive Bill Ackman, to which Cuomo said “there are a lot of New Yorkers who support me, and there are a lot of Jewish New Yorkers who support me because they think you’re antisemitic.”“So it’s not about Trump or Republicans,” Cuomo said. “It’s about you.”The two candidates did have one point of agreement when asked to identify the best-ever mayor of New York City. Both shouted out former Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.“We agree,” Mamdani said.Allan SmithAllan Smith is a political reporter for NBC News.
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