Macklemore has been dropped from the remainder of singer Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour after several venues objected to hosting the rapper, according to the tour’s promoter, following the rapper’s chants of “Free Palestine” and comments and imagery on Gaza during two recent opening sets for Sheeran. 

“As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans,” Messina Touring Group, the promoter of the U.S. leg of Sheeran’s Loop Tour, told Rolling Stone on Monday, “After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.” 

The Department of Education again delayed a report on foreign funding to U.S. colleges and universities, the fifth such delay since mid-July.

The report under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act was expected to be released Friday. The department announced on Friday that it is again postponing the release, which is now slated to occur on Sept. 25.

President Donald Trump on Monday informed the Senate that he plans to nominate Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, moving toward filling one of the numerous Middle East ambassadorship posts that have sat vacant since the start of his second administration.

Hunt, a former Army officer and Apache helicopter pilot, served two deployments in Saudi Arabia as a military diplomatic liaison. He is serving his second term in the House, but lost a primary bid for Texas’ Senate seat earlier this year.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is leaning into his work to combat antisemitism as he launches his general election campaign, airing a new advertisement on the subject on digital platforms.

After beating an anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidate in the primary, Moskowitz, who is Jewish, now faces former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, who is also Jewish and has pledged to be vocal against antisemitism as a member of Congress.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to New York City for the U.N. General Assembly later this month is expected to set up political and logistical challenges for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, one of Netanyahu’s foremost U.S. critics, experts tell Jewish Insider — a challenge that protests, which Mamdani has tacitly encouraged, may only exacerbate.

The Israeli leader is scheduled to arrive in New York on Sept. 23 and address the global gathering the following day, during which time the NYPD’s dignitary protection detail will help ensure Netanyahu’s personal protection, its intelligence and counterterrorism teams will work to secure the gathering as a whole and an array of its officers will manage the Manhattan streets. The department reports to the mayor’s office.

Anthropic disclosed in a new report released on Thursday that it had over the past eight months disrupted efforts by Iran and other state-aligned groups and actors to use the AI giant’s artificial intelligence tools for “malicious activity” such as tracking U.S. forces, developing weapons guidance software and waging “cognitive warfare” to spread propaganda.

The 154-page report also said it had identified an “Iran-nexus threat actor” using Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, to target “hundreds of individuals in Israel and the Jewish diaspora.” The report did not specify the purpose of the activity or confirm whether it had been disabled.

For the first time, luxury publisher Assouline is bringing its signature lens to Israel. Famous for transforming cities into vibrant $105 coffee table books, the French publisher just quietly launched Tel Aviv Spirit, featuring over 200 photographs of the Mediterranean metropolis. 

The muted rollout follows last month’s splashy launch of Beirut Habibi, another addition to Assouline’s Classics Collection, the publisher’s line of glossy travel photography books that has over the years cast a spotlight on many Middle Eastern cities including Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. 

LAS VEGAS — Jewish House Republicans said during the Republican Jewish Coalition’s leadership summit in Las Vegas earlier this month that there’s little appetite among Republicans to end U.S. aid to Israel as the two sides look toward the end of the current memorandum of understanding on military aid.

They also said they do not have serious concerns about antisemitism on the right, and argued that it did not stand any real chance of encroaching into the GOP.