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HBO airing ‘No Accident,’ documentary on legal team that sued Charlottesville rally organizers and won
(JTA) — A new HBO documentary dives into the successful effort to sue the white supremacists behind the deadly far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
“No Accident,” premiering Oct. 10, follows the attorneys Roberta Kaplan and Karen Dunn, who filed a lawsuit against 17 white nationalist leaders and organizations on behalf of nine plaintiffs who suffered physical and emotional injuries while peacefully staging a counterprotest of the rally, which was called “Unite the Right.” The lawsuit alleged that the rally was not a spontaneous gathering, but a coordinated conspiracy intended to incite racially-motivated violence.
The 17 defendants, including neo-Nazi and white supremacist Richard Spencer, were forced to pay more than $2 million in damages, plus nearly $5 million for the plaintiffs’ legal fees.
The film features interviews with and behind-the-scenes footage of the attorneys, their team, and six of the nine plaintiffs.
Amy Spitalnick, who served at the time as the executive director of Integrity First for America — the group that funded the lawsuit — appears in the documentary as well. Spitalnick, who now serves as the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said the lawsuit “had major financial and operational impacts on the defendants,” and has “emerged as a model” for holding extremists accountable via civil court.
“In the six years since Unite the Right, these white supremacist conspiracy theories have moved from the fringes into the mainstream of our politics and society, fueling a cycle of violence targeting communities across the country and around the globe,” Spitalnick said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“At the same time, we know that we can’t only sue our way out of this crisis,” she added. “Civil litigation is a crucial tool, but it must go hand-in-hand with a whole-of-society approach aimed at building democratic resiliency and preventing extremism in the first place.”
In the ruling ordering the defendants to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees, Magistrate Joel Hoppe cited the “complex, expansive, and voluminous” research done by Kaplan and Dunn’s team.
“When Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in October 2017, the world had seen and heard reports of the torch march, overtly racist and antisemitic chants, and violent clashes in Charlottesville a few months earlier. But ‘[t]he world had not yet seen or heard about the planning and coordination that enabled the conflagration’,” he wrote, quoting a filing from the plaintiffs.
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The post HBO airing ‘No Accident,’ documentary on legal team that sued Charlottesville rally organizers and won appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
The post UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.