NSW Labor backbenchers have vowed to attend a Sydney protest against a visit by Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, with one stating he’s attending because Australia should not be welcoming the head of a state engaged in an “ongoing genocide”.

Another member of the government said he was attending – despite the premier opposing any rallies – to show that “Bondi was not caused by such protests”.

Upper house Labor MLCs Cameron Murphy, Stephen Lawrence and Sarah Kaine said they would attend Monday evening’s rally organised by Palestine Action Group as part of a nationwide protest. But it was not yet clear whether they would march from Town Hall to state parliament despite an effective ban.

Chris Minns’ push to prohibit marches in designated areas following the Bondi terror attack is continuing after the NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, extended the restriction for a fourth time on Tuesday.

Lanyon said Herzog’s visit was a factor in his decision. The restriction prevents the authorisation of protests under the form 1 system – which means protesters who march risk being arrested for obstructing traffic, for example.

Organisers of the Sydney protest have said they plan to march from Town Hall to Macquarie Street despite it falling within the restriction zone. They have called on NSW police to help facilitate that peacefully.

Murphy said he would attend the rally “because we should not be welcoming to Australia the head of a state engaged in an ongoing genocide”. He told Guardian Australia that Herzog had signed a bomb and had “no regard for international law as an active supporter of illegal settlements”.

Lawrence said he would go to the rally at Town Hall but would decide on Monday whether to march. He said he would comply with the law.

“I will be attending the rally because I want to make the obvious but important points that peaceful protest is lawful in this country; that Bondi was not caused by such protests; and that inviting the head of a state whose head of government is under ICC indictment suggests we don’t take proceedings seriously,” he told Guardian Australia.

On Tuesday evening, Lawrence said of the police’s decision to extend the ban on marches in certain areas: “I’m just not sure that continually extending this thing to apply it to the visit of the Israeli president is actually going to make us more safe.”

“It could be creating a flashpoint, and it concerns me,” he told ABC radio.

The current protest ban is facing a constitutional challenge. Lawrence, who is also a barrister, raised serious concerns over the hearing being delayed.

He pointed out that the state had agreed the case could be heard on 16 January, but “after the judge on duty spoke to the chief justice, it was then not listed until the end of February”.

“The people who seek to protest have not had the opportunity to have the court rule on it,” Lawrence said.

Kaine said she would attend PAG’s rally, at which she was scheduled to speak. Asked if she would march if that went through the restricted area, she said: “At the moment, my plans are to attend a legal protest.”

“We all just have to be aware that what is legal is nuanced,” Kaine told Guardian Australia, adding she would be attending on Monday evening, “in the light of the discussions around protest that have been going on,” and to object to Herzog’s visit.

“I don’t think we should be welcoming someone to this country who is so heavily implicated in the actions that have resulted in the death of 75,000 innocent Gazans.”

A spokesperson for the Palestine Action Group, Josh Lees, said on Tuesday there had been no safety issues at the near-weekly pro-Palestine rallies held over the past two years. Minns declared on Tuesday that “we just can’t have a riot in Sydney”.

Minns said on Wednesday he had not spoken to MPs who planned to attend rallies during Herzog’s visit. The premier said police were negotiating with the Palestine Action Group about the location of their protest.

Asked if the government was divided over Herzog’s visit, Minns said: “Look, the cabinet’s certainly not.” He accepted there had been division in the wider party “or even Labor MPs … and that’s been the way for a long period of time”.

Minns was asked on Wednesday about the possibility of Labor politicians being arrested under legislation rushed through parliament in December. The premier replied: “I don’t think that’s necessarily the case that that will happen.”

The state Greens MP for Newtown, Jenny Leong, said on Wednesday: “If there’s a march, I’ll be marching.”

“Neither the premier nor the police commissioner will stop me and the thousands of others who know genocide is wrong – and we have a right to protest.”

A UN commission concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. That commission, which does not speak on behalf of the UN, stated that Herzog, Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and then defence minister, Yoav Gallant, “have incited the commission of genocide”.

Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the commission’s report, calling it “distorted and false” and claiming it “relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods”.

Herzog has called the genocide case against Israel in the international court of justice a “form of blood libel” and pushed back on criticism of his 2023 statement that “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible” for the 7 October attacks on Israel.

He claimed he had been taken out of context, and noted he had said in the same media appearance that Israel would respect international law and there was no excuse for the killing of innocent civilians. The ICJ is yet to issue its final ruling.

A Utah prosecutor involved in the case against Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, denied allegations of a conflict of interest in the case during a hearing on Tuesday.

Robinson’s attorneys have argued that a judge should disqualify local prosecutors because the adult daughter of Chad Grunander, a deputy county attorney, was in attendance at the rally on a Utah college campus where Kirk was shot dead. The defense alleges that the office’s move to seek the death penalty just days after Kirk’s killing indicated a “strong emotional reaction” from Grunander, and suggested a conflict of interest.

Grunander and his daughter testified before Judge Tony Graf in Provo, Utah, on Tuesday. Grunander told the court his daughter’s presence did not play a role in his office’s decision to seek the death penalty, and prosecutors opted to do so because they felt they had sufficient evidence against Robinson.

The county attorney Jeffrey Gray testified on Tuesday that he had considered seeking the death penalty before authorities arrested Robinson, and said he had announced his intention to do so early because the case had already attracted significant attention from the public.

The testimony came as the defense and prosecution seek to hash out procedural issues in the case ahead of the trial, including whether graphic videos of the killing should be shown in court. Robinson’s attorneys have asked the judge in the case to block the footage, and requested to ban all cameras from the courtroom, arguing that “highly biased” media coverage could hinder his right to a fair trial.

Kirk’s widow, and prosecutors and attorneys for media outlets, have urged the judge to keep the proceedings open.

“In the absence of transparency, speculation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories are likely to proliferate, eroding public confidence in the judicial process,” Erika Kirk’s attorney wrote in a Monday court filing. “Such an outcome serves neither the interests of justice nor those of Ms Kirk.”

Robinson’s attorneys, however, have said that news media have become a “financial investor” in the case, and accused outlets of trying to determine what the defendant whispered to his attorneys with lip readers. During a hearing last month, a television camera operator zoomed in on Robinson’s face in violation of courtroom orders.

Legal experts have backed the validity of the defense team’s concerns. Media coverage in high-profile cases such as Tyler Robinson’s can have a direct “biasing effect” on potential jurors, said Valerie Hans, a professor at Cornell Law School.

“There were videos about the killing, and pictures and analysis (and) the entire saga of how this particular defendant came to turn himself in,” said Hans, a leading expert on the jury system. “When jurors come to a trial with this kind of background information from the media, it shapes how they see the evidence that is presented in the courtroom.”

Watching those videos might make people think, ‘Yeah, this was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel’,” Hans said.

Kirk was one of Donald Trump’s highest-profile allies and his organization, Turning Point USA, played a significant role in helping bolster Trump’s 2024 campaign. The national attention and political rhetoric around the case is expected to further complicate efforts to ensure Robinson receives a fair trial.

Even before Robinson was charged, people jumped to conclusions about who the shooter could be and what kind of politics he espoused, said University of Utah law professor Teneille Brown.

“People are just projecting a lot of their own sense of what they think was going on, and that really creates concerns about whether they can be open to hearing the actual evidence that’s presented,” she said.

Robinson has not yet entered a plea in the case. Prosecutors have said he has been linked to the killing with DNA evidence. He reportedly texted his romantic partner that he targeted Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred”.

In the early hours of 3 January, Donald Trump ordered a surprise attack on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to kidnap the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. Millions of Venezuelans’ lives were thrown into uncertainty. Politicians at home and abroad scrambled to respond. It seemed this was something no one had seen coming. Except one person did actually predict it.

In the hours before the attack, someone – and we have no way of knowing who – placed a series of bets that Donald Trump would oust Maduro on a prediction market platform, netting them nearly $500,000 when it happened. These platforms allow their users not just to bet on whoever’s going to win the Super Bowl, but also on world events. Heavily regulated under the Biden administration, these apps have enjoyed a huge boom in popularity since Trump came to power.

The Atlantic’s senior editor, Saahil Desai, explains them to Annie Kelly. “They’re called prediction markets because these sites are thought of as more akin to stock markets. The idea being that you put money based on what you think will happen. And in that sense, prediction markets let you forecast the future. But in effect, it’s just a fancy way of betting.”

He explains why the fact that media organisations are partnering with prediction market platforms is a worrying trend. “Let’s say you are a donor to a major Senate candidate. You could put millions of dollars into the prediction market for whether your preferred candidate would win and swing the odds. And so you can really shape media coverage in a way that you can’t with traditional polling. And all of that is exacerbated as media outlets start to incorporate this into their coverage.”

But how do they work, why are they such big news in the US and why does Trump want to set up his own?

Archive sources: NBC, BBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, Daily Mail, 60 Minutes