(Reuters) – British police said on Friday they may have accidentally shot two victims, including one who died, in their attempts to bring under control an attack on a Manchester synagogue during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

In Thursday’s attack two men, Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were killed after a British man of Syrian descent drove a car into pedestrians and then began stabbing several people outside Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue.

The attacker, whom armed officers shot dead at the scene, was not carrying a firearm, said Greater Manchester Police chief constable Steve Watson, though one of those killed suffered a gunshot wound.

“It follows therefore this injury may have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence of the urgently required action taken by my officers to bring this vicious attack to an end”, Watson said in a statement.

The attacker wore a vest that had the appearance of an explosive device, but the police later determined it was not capable of causing an explosion.

UK VOWS TO CRACK DOWN ON ANTISEMITISM

Watson said another worshipper is believed to have suffered a non life-threatening gunshot wound, and that it is thought both victims were close together behind the synagogue door, as worshippers tried to prevent the attacker from gaining entry.

Police have named the attacker as Jihad al-Shamie, 35, and said they could find no records to show he had been referred to the government’s anti-radicalisation programme.

In a statement on Facebook, the family of al-Shamie said that they were in “profound shock” and wanted to distance themselves from what they called his “heinous act”.

The British government vowed to redouble its efforts to tackle antisemitism as the Jewish community reeled from the attack.

On Friday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited the site of the attack and spoke with members of the police and ambulance services workers where he praised “the degree of professionalism and speed” they showed in their response.

Police also urged organisers of a planned protest in London this weekend in support of a banned pro-Palestinian group to cancel or postpone the event, saying it would divert police resources needed to protect fearful communities.

Organisers said the protest, the latest in a series in which police have arrested more than 1,500 people, would go ahead, and that it was the police’s choice whether to make more arrests of people “peacefully holding signs”.

Like other European countries and the United States, Britain has recorded a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in the nearly two years since the war in Gaza started.

Israel has accused Britain of allowing rampant antisemitism to spread through its cities and universities, and repeated that criticism after Thursday’s attack.

Starmer last month announced that Britain was recognising a Palestinian state, a decision that was criticised by Israel as a “huge reward to terrorism”.

Britain’s interior minister, Shabana Mahmood, criticised pro-Palestinian protests that took place hours after the Manchester attack, calling them un-British and dishonourable and urging people to show a bit more “humanity and some love towards a community that is grieving”.

ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS, JEWISH COMMUNITY’S CONCERNS

The killing shocked Britain’s Jews, particularly in Manchester, home to the country’s largest Jewish community outside London and a highly diverse city.

Many Jewish leaders noted that they were the only faith in Britain that routinely required security at its institutions.

Last year was the second worst on record for antisemitic incidents in Britain, surpassed only by 2023, according to the Community Security Trust, which provides security to Jewish organisations across Britain. It recorded more than 3,500 incidents last year.

Islamophobic incidents in Britain have also increased since the start of the Gaza war.

On Friday morning there was a heavy police presence at the scene of the attack, with debris still lying in the street and bunches of flowers being left nearby.

Dawud Taj, a 28-year-old from Manchester, said the government should have done a better job at protecting people.

“There’s an atmosphere in the air,” he told Reuters as he walked to the city centre, “and everything feels a little bit shaky”.

(Reuters) – Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab said on Thursday that it had removed ICEBlock, the most popular ICE-tracking app, and other similar apps from its App Store after it was contacted by President Donald Trump’s administration, in a rare instance of an app being taken down due to a U.S. federal government demand.

The app alerts users to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area, which the U.S. Justice Department says could increase the risk of assault on U.S. agents.

ICE has been a central part of Trump’s hardline immigration agenda and its agents have regularly raided and arrested migrants, and rights advocates say free speech and due process are often being infringed in the government’s deportation drive.

“Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store,” Apple said in an emailed statement.

Civilian surveillance of federal immigration agents has become more assertive since Trump returned to office, as activists say they are trying to protect their communities from aggressive enforcement by ICE agents.

Legal experts have told Reuters that surveillance of ICE is largely protected under the U.S. Constitution, as long as they do not try to obstruct law enforcement.

Apple removed more than 1,700 apps from its App Store in 2024 in response to government demands, but the vast majority – more than 1,300 – came from China, followed by Russia with 171 and South Korea with 79.

Over the last three years, the United States does not appear as one of the countries where apps were removed due to government demands, according to company application transparency reports.

The company’s actions may also lead to further scrutiny over the ties that tech firms have built with the Trump administration during his second term.

Since Trump took office, ICE has raided multiple facilities with immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. The agency has also arrested visa holders and permanent U.S. residents targeted by the Trump administration over pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Fox Business first reported the app’s removal on Thursday, citing a statement by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who said the Justice Department contacted Apple to pull the app on Thursday, and that the company complied.

“ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed,” Bondi said in her statement to Fox Business.

Bondi has previously argued that Joshua Aaron, the Texas-based creator of ICEBlock, is “not protected” under the Constitution and that they are looking at prosecuting him, warning him to “watch out.”

Aaron, in an interview with the BBC, said he was “incredibly disappointed” with Apple’s decision, saying it would not affect the security of law enforcement.

Aaron did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Apple removes thousands of apps from its app store every year, including more than 82,500 in 2024, for other reasons, including design-related issues, fraud or intellectual property infringement. Shares were down fractionally on Friday.

 (Reuters) – Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina said on Friday he was ready to listen to find solutions to problems facing the poor island nation, but ignored calls for his resignation by a nationwide youth-led protest movement.

Inspired by similar “Gen Z” demonstrations in Kenya and Nepal, the protests have grown since last week into the largest wave of unrest Madagascar has seen in years, tapping into widespread discontent with high levels of poverty and corruption.

The president disbanded the government late on Monday in an attempt to quell public anger, but the move has done little to address grievances that initially erupted in the capital on September 25 over worsening water shortages and power outages.

The United Nations says at least 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the first few days of the protests. The government rejects those figures.

“No one benefits from the destruction of the nation. I am here, I stand here ready to listen, ready to extend a helping hand, and above all, ready to bring solutions to Madagascar,” Rajoelina said in a speech broadcast on his Facebook page.

He said, without providing evidence, that some politicians were plotting to take advantage of the protests and had considered staging a coup while he was addressing the United Nations in New York last week.

“Criticism of existing problems does not necessarily have to be expressed in the streets; it should be done through dialogue,” said Rajoelina, who himself first came to power in a 2009 coup after leading mass protests against the government.

In a post on his X account on Friday, Rajoelina said he had also met various groups for the past three days to discuss the situation.

Protests resumed in the capital on Friday after a one-day pause, with police firing tear gas to disperse some marchers, footage from Real TV Madagasikara showed.

Despite Madagascar’s significant mineral wealth, biodiversity and agricultural land, the Indian Ocean island nation is among the poorest countries in the world.

Between independence in 1960 and 2020, income per capita has fallen 45% in real terms, according to the World Bank, which blames the poor economic performance on tight control of the institutions and resources by an unaccountable elite, and a lack of competition and transparency.

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate will vote again on Friday on dueling Democratic and Republican plans to end a government shutdown now entering its third day, though there is no sign that either plan will win passage.

Lawmakers do not appear to have made any headway toward a deal that would allow them to resume government funding, and Democrats and Republicans have spent the past several days blaming each other for their failure to keep the government funded beyond October 1, the start of the fiscal year.

Democrats say any funding package must also expand pandemic-era healthcare subsidies due to expire at the end of December, while Republicans say that issue should be dealt with separately.

U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has frozen billions of dollars earmarked for Democratic-leaning states and threatened to fire more federal workers, on top of the 300,000 he will have forced out by the end of the year. His budget chief, Russ Vought, has asked federal agencies to draw up plans to lay off those whose work is not aligned with the administration’s priorities.

The shutdown, the 15th since 1981, has suspended scientific research, economic data reports, financial regulation, and a wide range of other activities. Pay has been suspended for roughly 2 million federal workers, though troops, airport security screeners, and others deemed “essential” must still report to work.

A prolonged shutdown could disrupt air travel, food aid for millions of Americans, and force federal courts to close. Federal workers would miss their first paycheck in mid-October if the standoff is not resolved by then.

The longest shutdown lasted 35 days in 2018-2019, during Trump’s first term in office.

The Senate has three times already rejected a Republican plan, which would fund the government through November 21, and a Democratic alternative that would also bolster the expiring health subsidies. The chamber will vote on both of those plans again on Friday.

Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but they need at least seven Democratic votes to advance spending legislation in the Senate.

A group of senators from both parties say they have been exploring a compromise. But some Democrats say they do not trust Republicans to honor any agreement that would first reopen the government and then tackle the healthcare subsidies, which were passed as part of a 2021 Democratic COVID relief package and now help 24 million Americans pay for coverage.