Macklemore’s forthcoming Wembley concert is due to raise money for a group critics have labelled “extremist” after it described Hamas’s October 7 hostage-taking as “legitimate”.

The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) Britain has also faced criticism for previously urging supporters to stage a “siege” targeting Labour MPs over the party’s position on Gaza.

Despite the controversy, PYM Britain has been named as one of the beneficiaries of Macklemore’s “Free Palestine” concert in London on October 30.

The American rapper is scheduled to perform at Wembley Arena, with additional dates planned in Paris and Dublin. The shows were announced after he was removed from Ed Sheeran’s tour last month following pro-Palestinian remarks made on stage.

Several venues in the United States reportedly told promoters they would not host the 43-year-old performer, whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, after he used his opening appearances to lead “Free Palestine” chants and deliver a political speech.

The dispute began at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium before intensifying into a wider row that put Sheeran’s tour under pressure, particularly after other support acts withdrew in solidarity with Macklemore.

The “Macklemore & Friends: Free Palestine” tour is now set to reach Wembley Arena only weeks after the anniversary of the Hamas attacks.

Organisers say proceeds from the concerts will be donated to several organisations supporting “Palestine and the Palestinian movement”.

The decision to include PYM Britain among the beneficiaries has prompted objections from politicians and Jewish community leaders, who have characterised the organisation as “extremist”.

Critics point to statements in which PYM Britain allegedly expressed support for Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation, by describing October 7 as a “prison break” and “fundamentally just”.

Following the attack, in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 others were taken hostage, PYM Britain wrote on X: “When people are occupied, resistance is justified.”

PYM spokesperson Jeanie Hourani also appeared in a video seen by the Daily Mail, in which she described Hamas terrorists’ seizure of hostages as “legitimate” and “effective”.

In a separate video, she reportedly said the organisation’s goal was to make Zionism “untenable” wherever Zionists “live, work, organise, study, and socialise”.

The group has additionally been accused of publicly supporting Palestine Action, which is a proscribed organisation, after declaring that “direct action has never been more necessary”.

Opponents have also accused PYM Britain of ignoring concerns about politicians’ safety after it called for a nationwide “Siege on Labour”. The proposed action was aimed at MPs, councillors and party staff over the government’s approach to Israel and Gaza.

Its demands for the action, planned for last August, included calls for then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy to be dismissed and prosecuted as a war criminal at The Hague. The group also called for “Zionism [to become] a political crisis for the political class in this country”.

PYM Britain describes itself as a grassroots movement that “organises Palestinian and Arab youth to struggle for Palestinian liberation”. The organisation drew further criticism after staging a youth football tournament in Kensington, west London, in August this year.

The group shared a photograph on social media of five children with their backs to the camera, with only two wearing numbers on their shirts – displaying seven and 10.  

Advocates claim this was a deliberate reference to the October 7 atrocities.

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In May of this year, PYM was revealed to have hosted a youth event where 100 young attendees were seen on footage chanting in Arabic: ‘We will have victory over Zionism.’

At the ‘summer school’, which was held at the Youth Hostel Association Edale Activity Centre in Derbyshire, they added: ‘We will return, young people rise up, our revolution is an Arab revolution.’

Participants were also lectured about Ghassan Kanafani, the former spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organisation responsible for multiple plane hijackings in the late 1960s and 1970s. 

The Youth Hostel Association (YHA) England and Wales, which operates the venue, said at the time that it would investigate, adding the ‘views or activities of private groups using our facilities do not represent YHA’s views or values’.

Ahead of Macklemore’s planned UK concert, the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) has written to event promoter Live Nation and OVO Arena Wembley to raise its concerns about the inclusion of PYM Britain as a beneficiary.

The JLC has also questioned the platforming of Macklemore as an artist, after he previously caused outrage in 2014 by wearing a costume that featured a black wig, beard and large prosthetic nose. 

Macklemore later apologised for the outfit, which was widely condemned as a racist ‘Jewish caricature’.

The rapper again prompted fury after he juxtaposed photographs taken during the Holocaust from the Warsaw Ghetto with images of a Palestinian child in the West Bank, for his 2025 music video, F**** up. 

A JLC spokesperson told Daily Mail: ‘The Palestinian Youth Movement has described 7 October as ‘a prison break’ and praised young people joining armed factions. 

‘Its inclusion as a beneficiary of Macklemore’s concert raises serious questions about Live Nation’s due diligence.

‘Live Nation must explain what checks it carried out on PYM and where the money will go. 

‘At a time of grave violence and threats against Jewish communities, it must also explain how it will protect Jewish audiences and staff from antisemitic incitement and harassment.’

Rebecca Paul MP, shadow culture secretary, added the promoters and venue have ‘serious questions’ to answer.

She said: ‘It is deeply concerning that a concert at Wembley is raising money for the Palestinian Youth Movement, an organisation which has described the events of 7 October as a ‘prison break’ and organised campaigns targeting British MPs and their offices.

‘Live Nation and OVO Arena Wembley now have serious questions to answer about why they are helping to fund this particular organisation, what checks they have undertaken and how the money will be used.

‘At a time where Britain’s Jewish community is facing a tidal wave of hostility and aggression, venues have a responsibility to ensure they are not providing a fundraising platform for extremism – even inadvertently’.

Lord Walney, former UK Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, described the planned gig as a ‘hate fest’.

He said: ‘Macklemore’s decision to fundraise for a group that has reportedly celebrated Hamas’s 7th October atrocities and calls for the targeting of ‘Zionists’ doesn’t only expose him as a dangerous hardliner, it showcases how far extremism has been normalised in the UK. 

‘Shame on Live Nation and OVO Arena Wembley for their involvement in this hate fest. The Home Secretary must urgently clarify whether Macklemore’s presence in the UK is conducive to the public good.’

Daily Mail has contacted Live Nation, representatives for Macklemore and the PYM Britain for comment.

Andy Lee and Rebecca Harding are married, 12 years after their first meeting at a Melbourne café, where Rebecca was working as a waitress.

The 45-year-old comedian and 36-year-old model exchanged vows in New York City on Tuesday, with several famous friends joining them for the celebration.

Rebecca looked stunning in an elegant white strapless gown, believed to have been created by an Australian designer, as she left The Bowery Hotel in Lower Manhattan. She was accompanied by assistants carrying umbrellas and her stylist, Elliot Garnaut.

Her gown featured a dramatic train and structured bodice, while delicate diamond earrings and her engagement ring completed the look.

The brunette wore her hair in a romantic half-up, half-down style and opted for minimal makeup to highlight her natural features.

Guests included Andy’s best friend and co-star Hamish Blake, Hamish’s wife and beauty entrepreneur Zoë Foster Blake, Nova radio host Lauren Phillips and her fiancé, aviation tycoon Paul O’Brien. Celebrity stylist Garnaut, who is also the new KIIS FM breakfast host, was in attendance as well.

Andy was supported by three groomsmen: Lego Masters host Hamish Blake, one of his brothers and his best friend, Michael Horgan.

The couple arrived in the Big Apple over the weekend ahead of their wedding celebrations.

They travelled to the United States in first class, accompanied on the flight by two of Andy’s groomsmen.

On Monday evening, Andy and Rebecca appeared to host a pre-wedding celebration for friends in Manhattan.

The couple were seen walking through New York dressed in outfits inspired by their upcoming wedding.

Rebecca paired a fitted cream coat with a matching mini dress, while Andy looked smart in a beige suit.

Their love story began in 2014, when Andy met Rebecca at a Melbourne café and famously wrote his email address on a napkin for her.

Rebecca eventually contacted him, and they went on their first date the following day.

Although they briefly separated early in their relationship, Andy and Rebecca reunited and have been together ever since.

Andy proposed in 2024, after 10 years of dating. Rebecca later admitted that the proposal genuinely surprised her, despite the length of their relationship.

The comedian announced their engagement during an episode of his Hamish and Andy podcast.

Speaking with his podcast co-host Hamish Blake, Andy shared intimate details of his proposal, before inviting his fiancée on the show.

‘I asked Bec to marry me on Sunday,’ Andy announced.

Hamish said he was overjoyed and that he and his wife Zoë were both ‘crying’ with happiness over the news.

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‘Is it a bit quick? That’s all I wanna ask,’ he also joked.

Rebecca also showed off the stunning diamond engagement ring on Instagram.

‘People keep saying we’ve rushed into this but we don’t care what people say!’ she captioned her post. 

Andy and Rebecca, who are currently undertaking a $5 million renovation project after buying a historic mansion in Melbourne’s east, went to their ‘new old house’ under the guise they needed to film videos for social media ahead of starting the build.

Pretending to get something out of the marble fireplace, Andy was on one knee when he produced a napkin – which symbolised how they met.

Rebecca and Andy went public with their relationship at the 2015 Australian Open.

In 2022, the couple confirmed they had briefly split for six months in 2016 after Rebecca felt ‘immense pressure’ dating someone in the public eye.

However, they soon realised they were meant to be during their time apart.

For years, the rumour mill spun with speculation about the pair getting engaged.

In February 2024, Andy was forced to assure The Hundred viewers he hadn’t secretly married his long-time sweetheart.

Andy made the announcement as he was responding to a joke from co-star Tom Gleeson, who brought up his well-publicised love life. 

‘Andy has got something to announce, he’s just eloped!’ Tom said.

‘Stick around till the end of the show, if that’s the case… It’s not the case,’ Andy hit back.

In 2019, radio host Fifi Box questioned their marital status after the station received an email from a publicist referring to the couple as ‘Andy and his fiancée Bec’.

A month earlier, then-Today show host Georgie Gardner had also tried to get a definitive answer on where the couple were in their personal life.

‘Gosh, Andy. She is wife material. Just saying, she is wife material,’ she told Andy, who was a guest on the program.

He replied: ‘Has my mum been texting you? What the hell is going on?’

Engagement rumours were sparked again in 2020 when Andy posted a photo of Rebecca hiding her left hand while celebrating her 30th birthday.

‘Is there a ring she’s hiding with her left sleeve?’ one eagle-eyed follower wrote, keen to see if the pair were about to share exciting news.

The happy couple plan to split their time between Melbourne and New York, where Andy part-owns an Australian pub called Old Mates. 

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In” that President Donald Trump “has unleashed a kind of wickedness into the ether.”

Host Chris Hayes asked Warnock about the pope’s ministry following news that the pontiff had undergone surgery to remove a cancerous lobe from his lower right lung. Hayes noted that Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, had preached there for decades and said he wanted to discuss the pope’s broader role in the nation’s moral and spiritual life, as well as his influence around the world since becoming pope.

Warnock said the pope’s voice was especially important during what he described as a pivotal moral moment in the United States. He argued that Trump, whom he called “the most gifted politician I’ve ever seen at dividing us,” had brought “a kind of wickedness into the ether,” making the presence of an American pope particularly significant. Warnock praised Pope Leo for urging people toward “the higher angels of our nature” and challenging what he called a “war mongering president.” He said the pope’s criticism had drawn pushback from Vice President JD Vance, whom Warnock described as perhaps the most prominent and well-known Catholic in politics. Warnock also asked viewers to pray for the pope’s strength and recovery, as well as for the health of the country.

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Ukraine has accused the United States of aiding Russia’s war effort after Starlink services were reportedly “throttled” overnight, while Kyiv received no advance warning of incoming Russian missiles.

Ukrainian officials said the restrictions disrupted drone operations near the front line early Wednesday. They also said Western partners had failed for a second consecutive day to alert Kyiv to an impending Russian attack on the country’s energy infrastructure.

“There have already been two cases where the Americans did not provide warnings about Russian ballistic launches, a massive ballistic attack against our energy sector… And on top of that they’ve throttled Starlink speeds,” a senior Ukrainian official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

SpaceX imposed restrictions on some Starlink services in Ukraine, disrupting military drone missions that depend heavily on the satellite internet network, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

The Starlink terminals operated by Elon Musk’s company are essential to Ukraine’s longer-range drone strikes in Russian-occupied areas of the south and east. Those attacks have inflicted significant damage on Russian supply and logistics networks.

“Our defense forces did not receive a warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions,” presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said in a post on Telegram.

Beskrestnov said SpaceX had halted the military-grade service when drones were traveling faster than 100 miles per hour, or 160 kilometers per hour.

Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps, which is deployed in the southeast, said the restrictions had forced some units to abandon planned missions.

“According to our observations, during flights, the connection could drop for 10–20 seconds at speeds of just 110–120 km/h. The drones kept moving, but these interruptions made them harder to control,” the corps said in a statement to Reuters.

A Ukrainian defense ministry source said the limitations were significantly complicating logistics as well as certain drone operations.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal US business hours.

The allegations followed heavy overnight Russian strikes that killed at least six people in Ukraine and left large parts of Kyiv without power, as Vladimir Putin continued to disregard Donald Trump’s proposed “energy ceasefire”.

The accusations emerged as Russian attacks overnight killed at least six people across Ukraine and cut electricity to extensive areas of Kyiv. The strikes came as Vladimir Putin continued to ignore Donald Trump’s proposed “energy ceasefire”.

Ukraine depends heavily on intelligence from Western allies to track incoming Russian attacks and help locate targets. However, renewed tensions with US President Donald Trump have raised questions about the future of those arrangements.

In Kyiv, a Russian strike on a multi-storey apartment building in the Desnianskyi district killed two people. Another attack in the Holosiivsky district claimed one life.

Russian strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region killed two people and injured six others, while one person was killed in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.

AFP reporters in Kyiv heard multiple explosions overnight and said electricity and water supplies had been cut in the city’s eastern districts.

‘Energy facilities in Kyiv and the surrounding region have come under a massive ballistic missile strike. There are power disruptions in the capital,’ Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram, urging people to remain in shelters.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy provider, said on Telegram that the attack caused emergency power cuts in the Darnytskyi, Dniprovskyi, Pecherskyi and Solomianskyi districts, as well as in part of the Holosiivsky district.

Further Russian ballistic missile attacks were reported in Kharkiv and Zhytomyr regions, and other strikes hit Sumy and Chernihiv.

The governor of Russia’s Saratov region, citing preliminary estimates, said a Ukrainian drone strike had killed one person in the city of Balakovo.

Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin said air defence forces had downed nearly 500 drones flying towards the Russian capital overnight.

Russian authorities said around 160 more were brought down over the Rostov region, while others targeted Moscow.

Earlier, Zelensky said a Russian strike on a Kyiv power facility on Tuesday evening had come without Ukraine receiving advance warning from its Western allies.

‘A Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. Once again, no early warning from our partners,’ he wrote on Facebook.

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‘The main target was energy infrastructure, specifically the CHP-4. Unfortunately, it was hit.’

Zelensky said Ukraine’s systems picked up the missiles only as they were nearing the city.

‘This is absolutely unjust: when they are destroying our infrastructure, and Ukraine is not even receiving early warnings about ballistic missile launches,’ he added.

Kyiv, which is home to some three million people, has come under increasing attack from Russian drones and missiles, with energy infrastructure a key target.

Overnight from Monday to Tuesday, Kyiv residents heard explosions from Russian strikes before even air raid sirens sounded, something that rarely happens.

Ukrainian officials attributed the issue to the Russian military’s use of hard-to-detect missiles or potential technical issues.

Trump announced an ‘energy ceasefire’ on his Truth Social network on Sunday, saying Russia and Ukraine had agreed to end their punishing long-range strikes on power infrastructure.

Zelensky voiced surprise at the news and said later strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure were President Putin’s ‘answer’ to Trump’s claim.

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Zelensky for strikes on Russian oil refineries and on Saturday suggested it was ‘time for Ukraine to get a new president’.

The American leader has faced criticism from Zelensky, and a political backlash at home, for announcing plans last week to buy diesel from Russia despite wartime sanctions on Moscow.

In a statement on X, the Ukrainian leader accused Putin of disrespecting the Trump administration by flagrantly ignoring the ‘energy ceasefire’.

‘Overnight, the Russians used 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions against our energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the Kyiv region, and Kharkiv,’ he wrote.

‘A targeted Russian ballistic missile strike specifically against energy infrastructure – the very infrastructure covered by the ceasefire announced by the American President.

‘The strike was entirely deliberate and demonstrative in its scale – Russia has never before shown such ostentatious disrespect toward the United States.

‘Russia does not consider the American President’s statements strong.’

He said at least 600,000 people were without power and warned that outages could become even more widespread.

He added that at least 26 power facilities and four in the oil and gas sector had been significantly damaged.

Infrastructure belonging to Ukraine’s state railway was also targeted.

‘The American President has all the effective and necessary tools to bring peace closer through strength, justice, and pressure on the aggressor,’ Zelensky continued.

‘We ask for additional packages of Patriot missile interceptors for Ukraine.

‘It is entirely fair for us to tell the United States, Europe, and all our partners that no country in the world should be left alone to face such a deranged and pro-war actor as Russia.’

This is a breaking news story. More to follow.