US TV host Jimmy Kimmel suspended over Charlie Kirk shooting comments

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Alex Ritson, and at 0500 GMT on Thursday, the 18th of September, these are our main stories.

American TV host Jimmy Kimmel is taken off air indefinitely over comments about Charlie Kirk's shooting.

Britain's King Charles and President Trump hailed transatlantic relations at a lavish banquet in Windsor Castle.

And another 60 Palestinians are killed in Gaza City as Israel's ground offensive continues.

Also in this this podcast, Brazil's President Lula talks exclusively to the BBC about tariffs, climate change and the world order.

And scientists say AI can predict who might be at risk of disease.

We can do that not just for one disease, but all diseases at the same time.

The technology is here to make these kinds of predictions.

Jimmy Kimmel is one of America's best-known faces on late-night TV.

His talk show has been on air for more than 20 years and has interviewed everyone from A-list actors to presidents.

But Jimmy Kimmel Live has now been suspended indefinitely over comments the host made about the shooting of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

The ABC announcement has reignited a debate about press freedom and free speech in the US.

Our North America correspondent David Willis told me more.

Well, this goes back to Monday's show, the start of the show, Alex, when Mr.

Kimmel, who has hosted four Academy Award ceremonies in the past for ABC, suggested that the man responsible for the death of Charlie Kirk was a so-called MAGA Republican.

That's a reference to Make America Great Again, Mr.

Trump's slogan, and accused Donald Trump's party of seeking to score political points from it.

Now, as a result of that, there was the threat of legal action by federal regulators who make up the FCC.

And that in turn, it appears, has sparked a revolt by ABC-affiliated stations who presumably fear that they could get into legal difficulties or perhaps lose their licenses as well.

So following the decision by one of the largest affiliate groups to ditch the Jimmy Kimmel Live programme, ABC has now pulled the plug and announced it's cancelling his show altogether, Alex.

And ABC, well, it's acted quickly.

Has there been any other reaction?

A short while ago, Donald Trump on his Truth Social social platform hailed this news, the news of Jimmy Kimmel's cancellation, as great news for America.

And he urged another network, NBC, to cancel the two remaining late-night shows that it hosts.

Jimmy Fellon and Seth Myers both have late-night shows on that network.

But Charlie Kirk's death, Alex, has sparked a very heated war of words in this country, as I'm sure you're aware, between those on the right, President Trump among them, who blamed the assassination on what they have called left-wing radicals, and those on the left who fear that the Trump administration may now use the conservative activists' death as a pretext to crack down on its political opponents and basically stifle dissent and free debate.

And in the course of the last week, people in a variety of positions in this country, academics, political commentators and others, have been essentially forced out of their jobs after expressing criticism of Charlie Kirk online.

And the CBS network announced a few weeks ago that it was cancelling another late-night show hosted by the comedian Stephen Colbert.

At the time, it blamed the decision on falling ratings, but there's been widespread speculation since then that the decision was more in a response to political pressure on the part of the White House.

Stephen Colbert was also a frequent critic of Donald Trump's.

David Willis in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, President Trump is in the UK.

Later today, he'll meet with the British Prime Minister at his country estate, Checkers, and the two men are expected to sign a new technology deal.

President Trump's second state visit to the UK began with a packed itinerary, a golden carriage procession, an impressive military display, an aeroplane flypast, the President laying a wreath at the tomb of the late Queen Elizabeth, followed by a lavish banquet at Windsor Castle.

In his speech, King Charles urged the President to go even further in building on the trade agreement between the UK and the US.

He also spoke of the importance of the two countries standing together in support of Ukraine against tyranny.

This unique and important occasion reflects the enduring bond between our two great nations.

Anchored by the deep friendship between our people,

this relationship, which with good reason we and our predecessors have long called special,

has made us safer and stronger through the generations.

Our people have fought and died together for the values we hold dear.

For his part, President Trump said the word special does not begin to do justice to the UK-US relationship.

Being the first president to receive an invitation for a second state visit was, he said, one of the highest honours of his life.

On behalf of all Americans, I offer a toast to one of the great friendships to two great countries and to His Majesty King Charles III, a very, very

special man and also a very, very special queen.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our political correspondent Rob Watson described the welcome given to President Trump.

1,300 soldiers in ceremonial outfits, 120 horses, I think, carriage procession, flypasts, the beating of the retreat.

You just couldn't really have had a redder carpet than this or a more full-fat welcome from the royal family.

Give us a flavour of the speeches at the banquet.

But essentially, both men said that there was something,

extraordinary bond between the two countries.

I mean, I think one would pick out from King Charles perhaps something, two elements that were maybe slightly controversial, where he talked about the importance of supporting Ukraine against tyranny.

And given that the United States takes a less hard line on that than the UK, that did stand out to me.

And also, where he talked about the importance of preserving nature for for the next generation, something which we know that the king feels very passionately about.

Whereas we tend to associate President Trump with drill, baby, drill, but it was clearly very friendly.

And President Trump said some words about Princess Catherine, Princess of Wales, being looking in good health and how much he liked King Charles.

It was a love fest, basically, right?

They laid it on for the president, and he clearly enjoyed it.

Yes, there were several moments when I looked at the president during the day as he was honoured with this extraordinary military, assorted military processions, the carriages, and he looked to be lapping up every minute of it.

And also the case when he visited St George's Chapel to lay a wreath on the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II.

And that's really what it was all about.

I mean, I don't think you should beat about the bush, Alex.

This was something laid on at the behest of the British government, asking the royal family to do this to put the president in a good mood, to make him feel favourable about the UK and maybe potentially perhaps a little bit more open to British asks on things like yep, trade and things like support for Ukraine.

He's going to be meeting with Keir Starmer.

Can we expect any big announcements?

I don't think there's going to be big announcements in the sense that this visit wasn't about a specific trade deal, a specific foreign policy issue.

So I think you're going to get more of the same of what we heard at the dinner.

So that is lots of talk about why the relationship is so special, so deep.

And I think you're going to get lots of business, business, business, trade, trade, trade talk, particularly the focus on the so-called tech prosperity deal, which is all about how American and UK high-tech companies can work together.

Are we going to see massive breakthroughs on areas where there's disagreement, such as Ukraine, where obviously Britain is far more supportive, or on Gaza and the Middle East, and where the United Kingdom is about to recognize Palestinian statehood, something that the Americans very much oppose?

I mean, I doubt that, but I suspect that both sides have also agreed in advance to disagree agreeably.

Rob Watson.

Palestinians in Gaza City have described Israel's attacks as hell as the IDF pushes ahead with its widely condemned offensive to capture the city.

Thick clouds of smoke could be seen as Israeli forces fired artillery shells and smoke bombs.

Sixty people were reportedly killed on Wednesday.

Pictures show a long line of cars and people walking down the coastal road further south, but with vehicles and fuel in short supply and tents selling for more than a thousand dollars many people can't afford to leave the city and those who can say there's nowhere safe to go.

Israel does not allow the BBC to report independently from inside Gaza so our correspondent John Donason has been following developments from Jerusalem.

Israel's push into Gaza City is intensifying.

Hundreds of thousands of people have now fled.

The roads south are packed with families carrying what they can.

Others, like Nidal al-Shabi, have stayed put, fearing there's nowhere safe to go.

Last night was extremely difficult, with continuous explosions and shelling that lasted from night until down.

Israeli vehicles advanced from Sheikh Redwan and Tal Lilhawa and also from Shuja'i.

It was a very, very frightening night.

Ummazan says she lost 10 members of her family, half of them children, when an Israeli airstrike hit their tent.

Where can we go?

For two years, we have been pleading with the world to help us find a solution.

My neighbors have fled to the south, but even that journey took them more than 12 hours on the road because of the heavy traffic.

Doctors say Israel bombed at Gaza's only specialist children's hospital, the Al-Ramtisi, damaging the upper floors and forcing sick and injured patients to flee.

Israel's military, which says it's targeting Hamas, says it's looking into the incident.

Tess Ingram from UNICEF in Gaza says it's children who are suffering the most.

The children that I have met are sick, they are malnourished, they are restless and traumatized.

There are children who are enduring being buried underneath the rubble, their mother being killed, being separated from their family in the chaos of these mass movements, starving and becoming malnourished.

And in Gaza City and much of the north of the Strip, there is no internet or phone communication after the main telephone company was targeted.

The operation to capture and fully occupy Gaza City is expected to take months.

Criticism from abroad and at home has done little to alter Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's course and his determination, he says, to eradicate Hamas.

John Donerson.

Both Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers are on a mission to document the ongoing war, but the Israeli government is equally concerned about the war of public opinion.

And the Culture Minister is not happy about this year's winner at the National Film Awards, Carla Conti reports.

The Ophir Awards are known as Israel's very own Oscars, celebrating the country's film industry each year with prizes in feature and documentary cinema.

On Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Academy of Film and Television awarded the Best Feature Prize to The Sea, an Arabic-language drama written and directed by Shai Karmeli Polak.

The film tells the story of Khaled, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in the occupied West Bank who longs to see the ocean for the first time.

Khaled finally gets the chance to visit the beach in Tel Aviv on a school trip, but when he gets turned away at an IDF checkpoint, he sets off on his own, despite not knowing the way or speaking any Hebrew.

But the film's success has not been welcomed by all.

Israel's culture minister Miki Zohar has called the award ceremony pathetic, accused it of spitting in the face of Israeli soldiers, and pledged to strip it of government funding from next year.

As is tradition, the Ophir winner for Best Picture is usually put forward as Israel's Oscar submission for best international feature film.

That automatic slot has now become a political flashpoint.

But politics were already in plain view at the Ophirs.

Attendees wore shirts reading A Child is a Child and End the War.

Producer Bahir Akbaria said the film's message was simple: that every child should be able to live and dream in peace.

And there is precedent for these clashes reaching beyond the ceremony.

Last year, the joint Israeli-Palestinian documentary No Other Land won the Oscar for Best Documentary feature, and its makers used their speech to criticize Israel's conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.

And Israel's culture minister denounced that film too, calling it sabotage against the state.

And with the sea now bound for Hollywood, the fight over Israel's image and who gets to tell its story looks set to intensify.

Carla Conte.

European scientists have used artificial intelligence to forecast which health problems people are likely to suffer from over the next decade or more.

Experts say the technology can spot patterns in medical records, as James Gallagher reports.

The researchers describe this artificial intelligence model as like a weather forecast for your health.

But instead of warning of a 70% chance of rain, it tells you the risk of more than a thousand diseases.

The AI has learned to spot patterns hidden in the types and timings of different medical diagnoses.

So now it can look at a patient and predict what is likely to come next.

The AI was trained using more than 400,000 people's anonymous medical records from the UK and tested on nearly 2 million people's records in Denmark.

Professor Ewan Burney from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory says the vision is to spot high-risk patients.

And we can do that not just for one disease, but all diseases at the same time.

Now we've never been able to do that before.

Now just to stress, this is research, everything needs to be tested and of course it needs to be well regulated and thought about before it's used.

But the technology is here.

to make these kinds of predictions.

But what can we do with such predictions?

People are already offered a cholesterol-lowering statin based on a calculation of their risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Understanding how diseases unfold could lead to new ways of intervening early.

The AI could also help inform screening programs or help hospitals plan for future demand.

The researchers say there is work to do, but that they are at the beginning of a new way of understanding health and disease.

James Gallagher

Still to come.

There are collectors out there who don't really care about legality.

They want to own this thing, even if it's hidden in a safe and nobody will ever see it again.

The search is on for a stolen bracelet that once belonged to an Egyptian pharaoh.

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Earlier, we heard Donald Trump talking about his special relationship with Great Britain.

Well, Brazil's President Lula De Silva has said he has no relationship with Donald Trump.

His comments came during an interview with the BBC in which he said relations with the US have been icy since Mr.

Trump imposed fifty percent tariffs on Brazil in response to the insurrection trial of the former Brazilian President Jaebolsonaro, a Trump ally.

Our correspondent Aoni Wells asks President Lula what he thought the best solution was to the tariff dispute.

Well, for any kind of conflict the best alternative is to sit around a negotiation table and negotiate.

But what we cannot negotiate is the Brazilian sovereignty.

You've written articles which you say are to start a dialogue with Donald Trump.

Why not just pick up the phone to him?

Because they don't want to talk.

But he said you can call him any time.

But they don't want to talk.

It's important to remember that when President Trump communicated imposing tariffs on Brazil, he didn't communicate in a civilized manner.

He just published them

in his social media.

And I found out by the newspapers in Brazil, whenever they wish to talk, we're ready to talk.

In a few words, how would you describe your current relationship with President Trump?

There's no relationship.

None at all.

I had good relationships with President Bush, with President Biden, with Obama.

You have built relationships, as you say, though, with other world leaders.

You went to Russia's World War II anniversary celebrations, for example.

Who do you have a better relationship with, President Putin or President Trump?

No, with President Putin, I had relationship because he was president in previous times, and I also was president of Brazil in previous times.

I don't have any relationship with Trump because when President Trump was elected the first time,

I was not in the presidency.

And now his relation is with Bolsonaro, not with Brazil.

You say you want a more democratic United Nations.

Why not call out the authoritarianism among some of your allies, Russia, China, Iran?

These are countries where it has been widely documented that there have been unfair elections, undemocratic elections, and human rights abuses too.

I want that the United Nations should represent the world geography of the 21st century.

Where is Brazil in the UN Security Council?

China, India, Germany, Japan?

Where are the African countries in the Security Council of the UN?

So the UN cannot continue with just five permanent members.

If it doesn't have strength, it will not have influence in any conflict.

They can't have any influence in the Ukraine war, in Israel.

I want to move on to COP30, where Brazil will be on the world stage hosting the COP30 climate summit.

How is your climate leadership consistent with your personal desire to allow oil companies to drill in the Amazon basin?

I was choosing

to be held in the Amazon region because I want that the world

get to know truly the Amazon region.

With respect, President, the International Energy Agency says there can't be any new oil projects if net zero is to be reached by 2050.

Are they wrong?

Brazil is a country that has oil

and possibly

we have oil in the equatorial margin and we are

making surveys and we are following the law and the rules so that we can do the research.

We never had such a spill here and if we do have a problem we will be the ones that are liable and responsible to take care of the problem if it comes.

I am totally favorable that there will be a moment that the world will not

need any more fossil fuels.

But this moment has not come yet.

I want to know any country on the planet that is prepared to have an energy transition that is capable to give up fossil fuel.

President Lula of Brazil.

The U.S.

Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, has lowered interest rates for the first time since Donald Trump began his second term.

The President has frequently criticized Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates faster, calling him a numbskull who should be sacked for his caution.

Here's our New York business correspondent, Michelle Fleury.

After nine months on hold, the U.S.

Central Bank has cut interest rates by a quarter point, breaking its pause amid clear signs of weakness in the labour market.

Officials also signalled the possibility of two more cuts this year.

But the decision wasn't unanimous.

Stephen Myron, a Trump appointee who just joined the board, pushed for a deeper cut.

Given Myron's ties to the president, a vocal advocate for lower rates, his stance is raising eyebrows and putting added pressure on Fed Chair Jay Powell.

We did welcome a new committee member today, as we always do.

We're strongly committed to maintaining our independence, and beyond that, I really don't have anything to share.

Politics aside, Powell acknowledged the economy is facing trouble on two fronts.

While the unemployment rate remains low, it has edged up.

Job gains have slowed, and downside risks to employment have risen.

At the same time, inflation has risen recently and remains somewhat elevated.

And that's starting to sound an awful lot like stagflation, the toxic mix of stagnant growth and high prices not seen in America for 40 odd years.

And it puts Mr.

Powell in a tight spot since these forces typically demand opposite policy responses.

Michelle Fleury.

Commuters in France are in for a day of misery after unions called for strikes and protests nationwide.

Some 400,000 people are expected to take to the streets to ramp up the pressure on President Macron and his new Prime Minister over planned budget cuts.

Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.

There'll be a fair amount of disruption on public transport as well as at airports and some schools will shut.

Throughout the day there'll be demonstrations in the big cities.

The one in Paris starts from the Place de la Bastille in the afternoon.

As ever on days like this, trouble can't be ruled out with members of the so-called Black Bloc ultra-left-wing groups expected to break away from the main cortege to vandalize and attack police.

The aim of the movement is to protest against the budget cuts outlined by the last government of François Beirut, which the new Prime Minister, Sébastien Le Corneux, has not entirely renounced.

He's still unable to formalize any kind of budget because he's in consultation with the political parties, hoping, vainly so far, that he can wrench from them some kind of compromise and then begin by at least forming a government.

Indian-administered Kashmir is still reeling from this year's devastating floods that caused landslides, killed dozens, and submerged entire villages.

And the region's economy is also being hit with the all-important fruit industry on the brink of collapse.

Ira Khan reports.

In the sprawling valleys and scenic landscapes of Indian-administered Kashmir, a new crisis is forming.

Across the region, roads are littered with around 4,000 trucks carrying apples that were supposed to get to the rest of India but instead remain at a standstill because the highways used to transfer produce out of the region have been damaged and it could not have come at a worse time.

The blockades coincide with peak harvest season where apples, walnuts and rice are gathered across the valley.

Horticulture forms the backbone of Indian Kashmir's economy and people's entire livelihoods depend on these harvests with losses estimated to be up to 80 million dollars.

The government in Delhi says it's working around the clock to clear the highways and has dedicated a train to transport the fruit.

But Kashmiri farmers say it isn't enough.

They are worried that the prices of their produce have already started to fall, and in protest, they have closed down fruit markets.

These apples that were nurtured in orchards since spring now sit rotting on blocked highways.

An entire year of hard work gone to waste.

A high alert has been issued for all border crossings in Egypt after an extremely valuable and rare gold bracelet went missing from a museum.

The 3,000-year-old artefact belonged to a pharaoh of ancient Egypt's 21st dynasty.

Aidan Dobson, who's professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol, told us what it looks like.

It's quite a simple piece of gold, but then it's also got a lapis lazuli bead at one part of it.

A lapis lazuli is a particularly important stone because it's only found in Afghanistan.

So the very fact this is it on a bracelet in Egypt, thousands of miles away, indicates quite how important that particular piece is and how valuable it is.

It was found back in 1939 in a tomb at Tarnis in northeastern Egypt, in one of the only two king's tombs ever found intact in Egypt, the other one being the famous one of Tatank Hamun.

This is much, much later on, and it actually contained no fewer than three separate pharaohs.

And the owner of this bracelet, Amenamope, was one of those.

There are plenty of collectors out there who don't really care about legality.

They want to own this thing, even if it's hidden in a safe and nobody will ever see it again.

This thing is hot.

Nobody legit would ever think of buying it, but clearly there is a market for this sort of thing.

The worrying thing is that somebody might simply want to melt it down for the gold.

That's always another risk because the 24-karat gold it's made of is worth a hell of a lot of money in its own right, and it's probably more negotiable than what's quite clearly a stolen bracelet from a royal tomb.

Professor Aiden Dodson.

And that's all from us for now.

But there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag GlobalNewsPod.

This edition was mixed by Chris Hansen and produced by Wendy Urquert and Anna Aslam.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Alex Ritzen, until next time, goodbye.

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