The United Arab Emirates has warned Israel that annexing the occupied West Bank would "severely undermine" the "vision and spirit" of the Abraham Accords. The series of agreements, brokered in 2020 by the US, established full diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. But the accords' standing has been called into question since the Oct. 7 attacks and Israel's subsequent military operations. 

What was the agreement? 
The Abraham Accords established diplomatic ties between Israel and Arab states for the first time since the 1994 Jordan-Israel agreement and the 1979 Egypt-Israel agreement and led to the appointment of ambassadors and increased trade and cooperation between the countries. The 2020 treaties "broke with long-standing foreign policy consensus treating peace with the Palestinians as a condition for Israel's more thorough integration with the Arab world," said The Washington Post. 

The decision to normalize relations with Israel without securing progress toward a Palestinian state was met with dismay by many citizens of the signatory nations and across the Middle East. Regional analysts said the signing of the accords even "contributed to Palestinian alienation" that fueled the Oct. 7 attacks. 

Why are they under threat? 
Emirati Foreign Ministry official Lana Nusseibeh has called Israel's recent proposal to annex more than 80% of the West Bank a "red line for the UAE." Emirati officials have reportedly spoken to both the White House and Israeli government in recent weeks to warn of the consequences of annexation. 

Will the US intervene? 
President Donald Trump, who oversaw the signing of the Abraham Accords, wants to see the agreement expanded, rather than diminished. Recruiting Saudi Arabia would be the "ultimate prize", said the Media Line. When asked about the president's motivation, Hadas Lorber, the head of the U.S.-Israel project at the Institute for National Security Studies, said Trump "wants a Nobel Prize." 

Trump is "likely the only foreign player" who could stop Israel from annexing the West Bank, said Axios. The UAE's message is that should he fail to do so, a "key aspect of his foreign policy legacy could unravel."

Home Depot has long been a popular place for day laborers looking for temporary jobs, so U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been focusing on the home improvement chain to carry out immigration raids. This has led to fear and anxiety among these laborers, who include both legal citizens and undocumented immigrants. And many believe Home Depot isn’t pushing back enough. 

Numerous raids
While cities across the country are seeing an increase in raids at Home Depot, Los Angeles has become ground zero for the events. At least a “dozen Home Depot stores have been targeted, some of them repeatedly, in Southern California since the administration stepped up its immigration crackdown this summer,” said The Associated Press.  

The home improvement chain was also reportedly “mentioned as a target for immigration raids by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and chief architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies,” said the AP. Miller was reportedly angry that more raids weren't happening. Stephen Miller “wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’” an ICE official said to the Washington Examiner.

Some of these Home Depot workers have gone to extreme lengths to avoid ICE. One man, identified only as Javier, “narrowly escaped three raids at the store, avoiding agents by hiding beneath a truck,” he said to the AP. The ICE agents “come in big vans, and they all go out to chase people.”

‘It’s just not right’
Home Depot’s top brass has largely stayed out of the conversation around the raids and has claimed to know little of what takes place. They aren’t “notified that immigration enforcement activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in them,” the company told NPR.

But many have criticized this approach. “It’s just not right,” said Home Depot shopper Ray Hudson to NPR. They are “out here trying to make an honest living. They are not hurting nobody. They are not bothering nobody [sic].” Home Depot has a “responsibility and certainly a moral obligation to defend day laborers, who are both customers and service the stores where they seek work,” Chris Newman, the legal director of the National Day Labor Organizing Network, said to NPR.

North Koreans bow to a mural in Pyongyang depicting the hermit kingdom’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and his son Kim Jong Il, on the 77th anniversary of the country’s founding.
BJ Warnick / Newscom / Alamy Live News

Films in September often mark a transition from fun summer blockbusters to somber awards-season bait. These new releases include a long-anticipated adaptation of one of Stephen King's most pessimistic novels, a politically charged Paul Thomas Anderson action flick, and, for some much-needed levity, the return of Spinal Tap 40 years later.

'The Long Walk'
Set in a dystopian version of the U.S. ruled by a totalitarian regime, this adaptation of a Stephen King book follows a group of young men who compete in a grueling and fatal walking contest (you stop walking, you die; the sole survivor wins money). The sad "spectacle of the Long Walk" is a "stand-in for capitalist expectations," said Alison Willmore at Vulture. (in theaters Sept. 12)

'Spinal Tap II: The End Continues'
More than 40 years after "This Is Spinal Tap" satirized the rock industry in a now-iconic mockumentary about a fake English heavy metal band, director Rob Reiner has returned for the sequel, as have stars and co-writers Christopher Guest (who has been "essentially retired" for the last decade), Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. (in theaters Sept. 12)

'One Battle After Another'
Thomas Pynchon is a notoriously challenging author to read, which translates into being a difficult author to adapt. Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson ("There Will Be Blood") again adapts a Thomas Pynchon novel with his latest film, "One Battle After Another," based loosely on Pynchon's "Vineland." The story follows Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), a former member of a radical revolutionary group who lives off the grid with his daughter. (in theaters Sept. 26)