Detroit’s historic bankruptcy case — the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history — has officially closed more than 13 years after the city first sought Chapter 9 protection amid a financial collapse that reshaped the city’s finances, pensions and long-term fiscal strategy.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Tucker granted the city’s motion for a final decree this week, formally ending the case after determining administration of the bankruptcy had been completed.

The closure marks the end of a years-long restructuring effort that eliminated roughly $7 billion in debt and restructured another $3 billion, according to the city, freeing up an estimated $150 million annually for city services.

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Mayor Mary Sheffield called the milestone evidence that Detroit “has its financial house in order,” pointing to 12 consecutive balanced budgets and surpluses, reserve funds topping $500 million and the city’s return to investment-grade status.

The formal closure also comes as major credit-rating agencies have highlighted Detroit’s improved fiscal position.

One day before the bankruptcy case officially closed, S&P Global Ratings upgraded Detroit’s general obligation bond rating to BBB+ from BBB, citing the city’s “sustained strong financial performance and governance conditions.”

Moody’s similarly said Detroit had strengthened its “financial resiliency” in recent years, citing strong reserves and improved fiscal management since emerging from bankruptcy in 2014.

MAJOR US CITY OFFERS CASH INCENTIVES TO SPARK GROWTH, ATTRACT NEWCOMERS

Still, both ratings agencies warned the city remains vulnerable to broader economic pressures tied to the automotive sector, inflation and long-term pension obligations.

The closure came after Detroit completed a final distribution of roughly $10 million tied to accrued interest on “Class 14 B notes,” financial recovery bonds issued to unsecured creditors during the restructuring.

Detroit filed for bankruptcy in July 2013 under a state-appointed emergency manager after years of population decline, shrinking tax revenues and rising pension liabilities pushed the city into insolvency. 

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The city officially exited bankruptcy in late 2014 under a restructuring plan that became a national case study in municipal financial recovery.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s plan to build a triumphal arch in Washington is getting a second look from a federal agency that suggested changes before it approved the concept last month.

The proposed 250-foot (76 meter) arch is one of several projects the Republican president is pursuing alongside a White House ballroom to leave his imprint on Washington.

He has said some of his other projects, such as adding a blue coating to the interior of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, will beautify the city in time for July 4 celebrations of America’s 250th birthday.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump, approved the concept for the arch at its monthly meeting in April. Commissioners are set to consider and possibly vote on updated plans when they meet again on Thursday.

As presented to the federal agency, the arch itself would stand 250 feet tall (76 meters) from its base to a torch held aloft by a Lady Liberty-like figure on top of the structure. The statue would be flanked on top by two eagles and guarded at the base by four lions — all gilded. The phrases “One Nation Under God” and “Liberty and Justice for All” would be inscribed in gold lettering atop either side of the monument.

A public observation deck on top would provide 360-degree views of the surroundings.

The commission’s vice chairman, architect James McCrery II, said in April that he preferred the arch without the figures on top. Removing them would significantly reduce the arch’s height by about 80 feet (24.4 meters). Critics of the project, including an overwhelming number of people who submitted public comment in April, said the arch would be taller than any other monument in the capital city and dominate the skyline.

At a height of 250 feet, the arch would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial, which is 99 feet (30 meters) tall, and be close to half the height of the Washington Monument, an obelisk that is about 555 feet (169 meters) tall.

McCrery also recommended that the lions on the base be removed because that animal is “not a beast natural to the North American continent.” And he objected to plans for an underground tunnel for pedestrians to get to the arch, which would be built on a traffic circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Preliminary surveys and testing of the site began last week.

A group of veterans and a historian have sued the Trump administration in federal court to block construction on grounds that the arch would disrupt the sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House at Arlington National Cemetery, among other reasons.

Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have argued that Washington is the only major Western world capital without such an arch. Burgum’s department includes the National Park Service, which manages the plot where Trump wants to put the arch.

Trump’s rehab of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is also the subject of a court challenge brought by The Cultural Landscape Foundation, which said the administration’s moves to repaint the bottom of the Reflecting Pool blue without first undergoing relevant reviews ran afoul of federal preservation laws governing historic sites.

The nonprofit group argued in a lawsuit filed last week that the changes at the Reflecting Pool are part of Trump’s broader effort to push through dramatic renovations in Washington without proper reviews and undermine the tone of the area.

A hearing in the case was scheduled for Thursday afternoon in federal court in Washington.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As negotiations with the United States hang in the balance, a hard-line Iranian general linked to notorious attacks at home and abroad over the past decades is believed to have seized a place near the center of power.

Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, who heads Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, has become a major player in formulating Iran’s tough stance in negotiating a possible end to the war with the United States, experts say. He is believed to be part of a small clique in direct contact with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who remains in hiding after being reportedly wounded in the Feb. 28 Israeli strikes that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Like everything in Iran since the war began, who ultimately controls decision-making remains uncertain. As people within the upper ranks of Iran’s theocracy vie for power, they can gain or lose favor quickly. Vahidi himself hasn’t been seen publicly since Feb. 8, weeks before the war began. On Thursday, Iranian media carried contradictory reports on Vahidi meeting with Pakistan’s interior minister in Tehran, who carried a message regarding negotiations with the U.S. and met with other top Iranian officials.

A longtime veteran of the ruling system, Vahidi helped shape Iran’s support of militant groups across the region, is accused of a role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina, and in 2022, led domestic security forces in a bloody crackdown on protesters.

Elevated to Guard commander this year after his predecessor was killed early in the war, he leads the most powerful force in Iran, with its arsenal of ballistic missiles and its fleet of small boats threatening Persian Gulf shipping.

“Vahidi and members of his inner circle have likely consolidated control over not only Iran’s military response in the conflict but also Iran’s negotiations policy,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said.

Iran’s war strategy has been to keep a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, blocking oil and gas exports and causing a global energy crisis. At the same time, it has struck hard against oil facilities, hotels and infrastructure in Gulf Arab nations.

In negotiations, it has held out against U.S. demands that it surrender its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, betting that it can outlast the U.S. in the ongoing standoff and that President Donald Trump will be reluctant to resume outright war that could bring greater damage to America’s Gulf allies.

That likely reflects Vahidi’s confrontational style. “He comes from that mindset of unending revolution, unending resistance,” said Kenneth Katzman, a senior fellow at the The Soufan Group, a New York-based think tank. Vahidi believes “the U.S. needs to be challenged at every turn,” said Katzman, a senior Iran expert who advised the U.S. Congress for over 30 years.

Vahidi boasted in January that Iran’s defense power has developed to make it a “high risk for any military action by an enemy.”

Vahidi now a focal point in talks
Pakistan hosted talks in April between an Iranian delegation, led by parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and an American one, headed by U.S. Vice President JD Vance. But it ended without any deal.

Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi returned home to face criticism from inside the theocracy suggesting they were too willing to make concessions. Qalibaf had to insist publicly that the talks had the support of the supreme leader.

Since then, Vahidi has become the main point of contact for those negotiating with Iran, said a regional official with direct knowledge of the mediation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy.

The extreme seclusion and unknown condition of the supreme leader have fueled speculation about jockeying among leaders for access to Khamenei and influence over him. In early May, President Masoud Pezeshkian, who many see as sidelined from influence by the Guard, went out of his way to say he “got to see our dear leader” and spoke to him for around two hours.

But Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said it’s likely the new supreme leader “is in lockstep with a more hard-line (Guard) — similar to his father, but in a more emboldened and uncompromising form.”

Analyst Kamran Bokhari wrote that figures like Vahidi “are not just managing war — they are actively reshaping succession, consolidating authority around a weakened supreme leader, and effectively ‘capturing’ the state through crisis governance.”

Vahidi forged by years leading Quds Force
Born Ahmad Shahcheraghi in Iran’s southern city of Shiraz in 1958, Vahidi like many young men after the 1979 revolution joined the Revolutionary Guard and fought against the invasion by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein that sparked a bloody, eight-year war.

Vahidi entered the Guard’s nascent intelligence arm and soon was overseeing operations outside Iran. He gained the favor of powerful patrons, including Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a later president. Rafsanjani said in his autobiography that Vahidi was involved in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, in which the Reagan administration sold weapons to Tehran in an effort to free hostages held by Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon. The U.S. later used the money from those sales to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Rafsanjani later intervened to protect Vahidi when then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sought to prosecute members of the Guard who failed to stop an incursion by armed fighters from an Iranian exile group in the late 1980s during the war.

Around this time, Vahidi took over the newly formed Quds, or Jerusalem, Force. Over decades, the Quds Force helped create a network of proxy militant groups and allied governments around the Middle East. The Quds Force under Vahidi helped mastermind the 1994 bombing targeting Argentina’s largest Jewish community center, killing 85 people and wounding 300 others, prosecutors say. Iran has denied involvement.

American investigators also believe that under Vahidi, Iran organized the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. service members and wounding hundreds. Tehran has denied being involved in that attack as well.

Vahidi left the Quds Force in 1998. In 2010, while he was defense minister, the United States imposed sanctions on him over alleged involvement in Iran’s nuclear program and its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

More recently, as interior minister, Vahidi oversaw police units involved in a bloody, monthslong crackdown on protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for not properly wearing the mandated headscarf to the liking of authorities.

An Iranian newspaper later published a classified document that showed Vahidi’s Interior Ministry ordered security agencies to monitor and photograph women not wearing the hijab, something he had denied was taking place.

At around that time, Vahidi said in public comments that calls to remove the hijab were a “colonial plan” by Iran’s enemies trying to undermine the Islamic Republic. “The hijab has been a big barrier against the progress of effete Western culture,” he said.

Vahidi’s role makes reaching an accord with Iran that much more difficult for the U.S. — as does the continued obscurity over Iran’s leadership.

Trump wants a single interlocutor in Iran for negotiations, but “the whole system has changed,” said Hamidreza Azizi, an Iran expert at the Middle East Institute.

“It is not a one-man show. Vahidi is one alongside others,” Azizi said. “Some we know and some we don’t know.”

Two new polls of American voters have found declining public support for Israel and growing discontent among Republicans over US President Donald Trump’s direction on Israel.

According to a New York Times/Siena poll published Monday, 38% of potential Republican voters said they would like to see the next Republican candidate for president move “in a new direction” on Israel, as opposed to following Trump’s lead.

Nearly a third of potential Republican voters also said they believed Trump had been “too supportive of Israel,” according to the poll of 1,500 voters this month, which has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

The poll adds to growing signals that Israel is becoming a fault line within the Republican Party as well as on the left, where it has been increasingly divisive for years. In a sign of tensions surrounding the split by Republican leadership, Congress’s most anti-Israel Republican is facing a steep primary challenge from a Trump-backed Republican on Tuesday.

Make America Great Again (MAGA)-aligned Republicans who support Trump in particular are more likely than other Trump voters to back the Israeli government, according to a different poll released last week by Politico.

The survey asked respondents who voted for Trump whether they identified with the president’s “MAGA” movement. Just over half said they identified as MAGA.

The Politico poll, which was conducted in partnership with Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, found that nearly half of MAGA Trump voters say they back Israel and approve of the actions of its current government, while just 29% of non-MAGA Trump voters say the same.

Plurality of MAGA voters: Israeli Gaza action justified

The Politico poll found that 41% of MAGA Trump voters believe that Israel is justified in its military campaign in Gaza, compared to 31% of non-MAGA Trump voters. The poll surveyed 2,035 adults online from April 11 to 14 and had an overall margin of sampling error of ±2.2 percentage points.

Trump voters were also split over the perceived influence of the Israeli government over foreign policy, with 22% of MAGA voters saying they believed the Israeli government had too much influence, compared to 32% of non-MAGA voters.

When asked about the spending of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby, on elections, a topic that has increasingly split American Jews, 20% of MAGA Trump voters said they oppose the group’s “efforts to influence US elections,” compared to 31% of non-MAGA voters. AIPAC has increasingly emerged as a bogeyman in politics.

The NYT/Siena poll found Trump’s overall approval rating had sunk to 37%, with 64% of American voters saying they believed Trump made the wrong decision entering the Iran war. Among Republicans, support for Trump’s decision to enter the war was much higher, at 70%.

More sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis

The NYT poll also found that Americans are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis, with 37% saying they sympathize more with Palestinians compared with 35% who say they sympathize more with Israelis.

The finding is in line with a growing number since the beginning of the war with Gaza that have shown growing sympathy for Palestinians among American voters.

When asked whether the US should provide additional economic and military support to Israel, 57% of American voters overall said they opposed doing so, compared with 37% who supported it.  Among Republicans, 66% said they supported additional support for Israel, versus 30% who opposed it.

This post was originally published on here.

Zohar Chamberlain Regev, who was the only activist held back by Israel after the release of some 430 Gaza flotilla activists, was released Thursday under certain conditions.

The Jewish, Israeli-born woman converted to Islam at an unspecified point in her life, after working for years as an activist on behalf of Arabs in Gaza. She said in a 2024 interview that overcoming her atheism to join Islam presented an obstacle, but she cleared that hurdle with her mother’s support.

The Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court ordered her release after she signed an agreement to self-report to police on demand, adhere to a ban to visit Gaza for 60 days, and agree to a self-guarantee of NIS 5,000.

Police had sought harsher penalties in the form of a 184-day Gaza ban and paying down a deposit of NIS 5,000.

Regev’s lawyer, Hadeel Abu Saleh, argued that the arrest was unlawful, as Regev was detained at gunpoint in international waters on a Polish-registered boat. She argued that because the arrest had been carried out without proper authority, the court could not lawfully impose restrictions. She also claimed that Regev, who had gone on a hunger strike, had been abused in detention, particularly in regard to her hijab.

Initially, Regev was arrested for “infiltration” under the Prevention of Infiltration Law, which was later clarified at her court hearing as “attempted infiltration.” The police filing was considered flawed after inconsistencies were found between the stated reason for her detention and the description of where the offense occurred.

For this reason, Judge Talmor Peres criticized the filing. Nevertheless, she conceded that there was reasonable suspicion that Regev had committed the offenses she was charged with.

The judge ordered Regev’s release with the restrictions listed above, which were lighter than police recommendations.

NEW YORK, May 21, 2026 — Consul generals, ambassadors, U.S. trade officials and senior business executives gathered in Times Square on May 20 for the closing summit of World Trade Week NYC, days after President Donald J. Trump issued the 2026 Presidential Message reaffirming the federal observance he proclaimed last year through Proclamation 10944. The summit convened as the United States moves through the most active tariff and trade-deal cycle in a generation.

The summit was hosted by the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce and co-hosted by the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, both appointed to the World Trade Week NYC Committee Leadership by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It is the only federally appointed convening of its kind in the country, and the chambers’ work in that role has drawn a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. Congress and proclamations from New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Prior summits have produced on-site memorandums of understanding between the chambers and the governments of India and South Korea, signed in the presence of foreign trade ministers and U.S. officials.

L-R: Frank Garcia | Duvi Honig | Howard Teich | Dr. Vladimir Božović (Serbia) | Karel Smekal (Czech Republic) | Dadhiram Bhandari (Nepal) | Adalnio Senna Ganem (Brazil) | Marcos Bucio (Mexico) | Mark Jaffe | Jarmo Sareva (Finland) | Helana Natt | Amit Shah | James Kim (American Korean American Chamber of Commerce)

The economic backdrop is unprecedented. U.S. exports of goods and services reached a record $3.43 trillion in 2025, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis — the largest export economy in U.S. history. The International Trade Administration estimates exports support nearly 9.8 million American jobs, and the U.S. trade-to-GDP ratio is running near 27 percent. The 2026 observance comes against tariff actions under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, more than 20 new bilateral trade agreements reached over the past year, and the USMCA review scheduled for July.

In the 2026 Presidential Message issued from the White House this week, Trump said “America has built the world’s most powerful economy through the strength of our industries, the genius of our innovators, and the promise of fair and reciprocal trade,”  citing “over 20 new trade deals with major world partners, opening new markets for American goods.”  In Proclamation 10944 last year, he committed to “redoubling our efforts to combat unfair trade practices for every American.”  The argument is one his predecessors have made under the same federal observance. President George W. Bush, in 2006, called free and fair trade “a powerful engine for growth and job creation.”  President Bill Clinton, in 1997, noted that “95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States.”

Featured diplomatic speakers represented trillions of dollars in annual goods trade with the United States. Marcos Bucio, Consul General of Mexico, represented the largest U.S. trading partner at $976.1 billion in total goods and services trade  in 2025. Tom Clark, Consul General of Canada, represented the second-largest at $719.5 billion  in U.S. goods trade. Binaya Srikanta Pradhan, Consul General of India, anchored $149.4 billion in U.S. goods trade . Adalnio Senna Ganem, Consul General of Brazil, represented the source of a $14.4 billion U.S. goods surplus. Karel Smekal of the Czech Republic represented roughly $12 billion in annual U.S. bilateral goods trade; Jarmo Sareva of Finland a key transatlantic partner in machinery and clean energy; Dr. Vladimir Božović of Serbia, who also serves as Vice President of the Society of Foreign Consuls in New York, the world’s largest diplomatic organization ; Aamer Ahmed Atozai of Pakistan, anchoring the U.S.-Pakistan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement; and Dadhiram Bhandari of Nepal.

Past summits convened by the chambers have drawn senior federal trade leadership across the full U.S. trade-enforcement and trade-facilitation chain. James McCament, then-acting chief operating officer of U.S. Customs and Border Protection , has keynoted. Troy A. Miller, who served as Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has been honored. Susan S. Thomas, the Acting Executive Assistant Commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Trade, responsible for designing and implementing U.S. tariff policies for the Trump Administration , addressed the 2025 summit on tariff enforcement. Danielle Outlaw, Deputy Chief Security Officer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Tenavel Thomas, Customs and Border Protection Port Director for Newark/NY; and Edward Mermelstein, New York City Commissioner of International Affairs, have all participated. Foreign delegations across years have included Israel, India, South Korea, China, Turkey, Pakistan, Germany, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Poland, Guatemala, Peru, Thailand, Canada, Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Philippines .

The chambers’ South Korea MOU, signed at a prior summit, has since produced the Orthodox Jewish Chamber’s South Korea chapter, opened at Seoul City Hall under the host of the Deputy Mayor of Economy. At last year’s summit, Korean Air received the Global Investment Impact Award for its $32 billion investment commitment in the United States . The Korean government separately recognized Duvi Honig, the Orthodox Jewish Chamber’s founder and CEO, as Trade Ambassador for the World Korean Business Convention 2025.

The summit’s headline panel, “Growing Global Trade & Investment Through Diplomacy,” was moderated by Howard Teich, Chair of the Greater New York Chamber, and Mark Jaffe, the Chamber’s President and CEO. It was joined by the Global New York Team of Empire State Development, the New York State governor’s international trade and investment office, represented by senior member Brian Teubner.

“Our members export billions of dollars of products and services to dozens of countries around the world,” Jaffe said . “World Trade Week NYC demonstrates how partnerships between governments, business leaders and economic organizations continue driving investment and economic opportunity throughout the United States.”

“Hosting this on behalf of the world’s biggest economy is a true honor,” Honig said. “It stimulates economic growth and builds bridges that unite the world through commerce. When business leaders, diplomats and government officials come together in one room, relationships are built that lead directly to investment, partnerships, job creation and long-term economic expansion.”

World Trade Week was launched in 1926 by Stanley T. Olafson of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce during what the Chamber describes as “a time of isolationism and under the conditions prevailing during the heyday of the restrictive Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.”  President Franklin D. Roosevelt formally proclaimed it a national observance in 1935 , embedding it in the federal calendar as he dismantled the Smoot-Hawley tariff structure through the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. Every president since has reaffirmed it.

The summit’s International Trading Partners Awards recognized Brian Teubner of Empire State Development’s Global New York Team; Dr. Dana York, scientist and international AI leader; Ruben Luna of Key Food / Luna Group; and Frank Garcia of the Multicultural Business Coalition. Additional honorees were recognized at the Asian American Pacific Islanders Awardees ceremony. The 2026 Dr. Lucio Caputo Statesman Award was presented to Angelo Vivolo, President of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, by Marion Pardo, the Foundation’s former President and Chair.

As governments and corporations continue repositioning supply chains and competing for investment, business leaders at the summit said direct diplomatic engagement and international economic cooperation remain essential to sustaining American competitiveness, expanding exports and driving long-term economic growth.

JBizNews Desk

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Dow Slides Over 250 Points as Treasury Yields Rebound; Eli Lilly Pops on Obesity-Drug Breakthrough; Small Caps Buck the Sell-Off

NEW YORK, May 21, 2026 — American consumers got their clearest signal yet this earnings season that the nation’s largest retailer is bracing for a tougher spending environment. Walmart Inc. shares tumbled more than 6% on Thursday after the company paired in-line first-quarter results with cautious annual guidance, dragging the broader market lower as oil prices ripped past $100 a barrel on fresh tensions with Iran and Treasury yields climbed once again.

The S&P 500 declined 0.45%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.48%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.50%. The Dow shed roughly 252 points in afternoon trading, with Walmart (-6.43%), Salesforce (-4.27%) and Sherwin-Williams (-2.20%) leading the losses, while IBM (+3.69%), Honeywell International (+0.99%) and Chevron (+0.97%) held the index from a steeper decline. The Russell 2000 bucked the trend with a 2.56% gain, signaling rotation into domestically focused small caps less exposed to oil prices and rate risk.

Crude jumped on a Reuters report that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a directive that the country’s near-weapons-grade enriched uranium must remain inside Iran — a development that complicates U.S.-Iran de-escalation efforts and revived inflation concerns just as Treasury yields rebounded. West Texas Intermediate crude rose $2.86 to $101.14 a barrel intraday, with Brent climbing toward $107. The move reversed two sessions of softening energy prices built on hopes for a diplomatic resolution. The 10-year Treasury yield sits near a one-year high, and gold slipped about $20 to roughly $4,512. The VIX ticked up to 17.62.

Walmart’s Caution Signals a Frugal American Consumer

Walmart (NYSE: WMT) posted first-quarter revenue of $177.8 billion, up 7.3% year-over-year and slightly above the $176.7 billion Wall Street consensus. Non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.66 met estimates. The problem was the forward look: management guided next-quarter revenue to $185.4 billion, roughly 0.5% below analyst expectations, and reaffirmed cautious annual guidance citing rising fuel costs, tariff pressures and what the company has flagged as more frugal consumer behavior. The sell-off came despite 26% e-commerce growth and 37% growth in advertising revenue — underlying strengths that ordinarily would have been celebrated. Walmart shares remain up roughly 19% year-to-date, but Thursday’s drop wiped out a portion of that gain in a single session and gave investors a real-time read on how America’s biggest retailer sees U.S. consumer spending heading into the summer.

Deere Reports Into a Tariff Headwind

Deere & Company (NYSE: DE) reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 results today against Wall Street expectations of $5.74 EPS on $11.50 billion in revenue, with the agricultural-equipment maker absorbing $1.2 billion in pretax tariff costs this fiscal year. New Chief Financial Officer Brent Norwood, who stepped into the role May 1 after more than two decades inside the company, took his first earnings call as investors pressed on margin trajectory and dealer-inventory levels. Deere shares had entered the print down roughly 15% from their all-time high.

Eli Lilly Pops on Obesity Drug Breakthrough

Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) shares rose 1.05% after the drugmaker said its next-generation obesity drug retatrutide cleared a crucial late-stage trial. In the highest-dose cohort, patients lost an average of 28.3% of body weight — roughly 70.3 pounds over 80 weeks — compared with 2.2% for placebo, according to CNBC’s coverage of the results. The data brings Lilly meaningfully closer to seeking approval for the weekly injection, which works differently from existing GLP-1 therapies from Lilly and Novo Nordisk and may offer stronger efficacy. The development carries direct consumer implications across U.S. healthcare costs and the broader obesity-treatment category, which is reshaping pharmaceutical and grocery economics simultaneously.

Analyst Calls and Sector Moves

Earlier this week, Home Depot (NYSE: HD) reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings. Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman, who carries an overweight rating, told clients “The housing backdrop appears static and HD continues to execute well in a relatively ‘growthless’ environment,”  arguing the stock is not pricing in a housing recovery and that any “glimmer of inflection” in home-improvement end markets should be a positive. The session followed Wednesday’s broad rally on Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) earnings, in which the AI chip leader posted April-quarter revenue topping $81 billion and a July-quarter outlook of $91 billion that fell shy of the most bullish analyst expectations. Nvidia declined to forecast any China sales despite CEO Jensen Huang’s recent Beijing visit. Nvidia shares hovered near the flatline Thursday as energy and yields took over the narrative.

What’s Next

Investors now turn to additional earnings tonight from Take-Two Interactive (TTWO), Workday (WDAY), Zoom Communications (ZM), Ross Stores (ROST), Ralph Lauren (RL) and Deckers Outdoor (DECK). With WTI above $100, the 10-year Treasury yield near one-year highs, and the Iran uranium standoff unresolved, the market enters Friday with two converging pressures — energy-led inflation and rate-driven valuation compression — that have, for now, overtaken the AI-earnings tailwind that defined the prior session.

JBizNews Desk

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A former Tennessee police officer who spent more than a month behind bars after posting social media content criticizing Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA following Kirk’s assassination last September has received an $835,000 settlement.

According to the New York Times, Larry Bushart reached the settlement agreement with Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems and local government officials after filing a federal lawsuit late last year.

Bushart had been arrested after sharing memes on social media that accused TPUSA of promoting hatred. Following the arrest, he remained jailed for 37 days.

“The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy,” Bushart said in a statement. “I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.”

The report described Bushart as a “Facebook warrior” who reposted numerous memes created by others in a local Facebook group. The group had been circulating information about a prayer vigil honoring Kirk, who was fatally shot while speaking to students at Utah Valley University in September.

One of the memes Bushart allegedly shared featured President Trump saying, “We have to get over this,’” following a school shooting at Perry High School in Iowa.

According to the report, “The original poster” of the meme had also reportedly included the words, “this seems relevant today.”

Sheriff Weems later claimed that some residents believed Bushart’s posts amounted to threats directed toward the local high school.

As a result, the Perry County Sheriff’s Department reportedly contacted police officers in Bushart’s hometown and requested that an officer visit him regarding the posts.

According to the report, Bushart refused to delete the material when approached by law enforcement, despite the officer appearing confused by the request.

Bushart, who told the confused police officer that he would not remove his post, was arrested “later that night.”

{Matzav.com}

Police have temporarily closed entry to Trader Joe’s in Brick due to overcrowding as hundreds of shoppers arrive to purchase flowers for Shavuos.

Customers will be allowed back in as the store begins to clear out.

EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, is unveiling the American Reserve Modernization Act to establish a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve in an attempt to diversify America’s reserves balance sheet.

This bill, which is receiving bipartisan support, would establish the reserve within the Treasury Department with a separate digital asset stockpile for federally held digital assets different from bitcoin. Begich told FOX Business that bitcoin draws similarities to gold in the crypto asset class.

“When you look at gold, it is the dominant precious metal reserve,” Begich said. “When you look at bitcoin, it represents about 60% of all market cap for the entire crypto space. So the market has decided, in the case of gold and in the case of bitcoin, that this will be the predominant store of value within that asset class.”

US TARGETS IRAN’S $7.7 BILLION CRYPTO NETWORK TIED TO REGIME OPERATIONS

In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve, but it’s not yet fully operational. The Trump administration has been working on establishing a reserve with the hope that the U.S. will claim global dominance in crypto.

In the past, Trump shared his belief in crypto.

“This could be perhaps the greatest revolution in financial technology since the birth of the internet itself,” Trump said at the signing of the Genius Act in July 2025.

TRUMP CREATES STRATEGIC BITCOIN RESERVE, OTHER CRYPTOCURRENCIES TO BE USED IN STOCKPILE

Over the past month, the Treasury Department launched Operation Economic Fury to obstruct Iran’s revenue streams and pressure its financial systems, as the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran continues. As of late April, the Treasury Department announced it had seized nearly $500 million in Iranian cryptocurrency assets.

However, Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-N.C., who is one of more than a dozen co-sponsors of the bill, says the U.S. needs to find out how to manage previously seized bitcoin.

“The United States government already holds billions in seized bitcoin with no coherent strategy for managing it, and that needs to change,” Harrigan said.

KEVIN O’LEARY REVEALS THE ONLY TWO CRYPTOCURRENCIES HE SAYS ARE WORTH OWNING

This comes as the Senate Banking Committee passed the Clarity Act with bipartisan support in a 15-9 vote to send the bill to the Senate floor. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., says this could be voted on by the middle of June, but adds that is “probably pretty optimistic.”

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Begich hopes the U.S. will hold about 5%, or about 21 million coins, of the world’s bitcoin in the reserve. This would be roughly equivalent to what the U.S. government currently holds in gold.

Kash Patel announced Wednesday that a former Department of Justice prosecutor who worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Trump has been criminally charged for allegedly stealing and concealing confidential government documents.

According to Patel, former federal prosecutor Carmen Lineberger is accused of secretly sending sensitive investigative materials to her personal email accounts while disguising the files under recipe-themed names in an attempt to avoid detection.

“This afternoon, a former managing assistant U.S. Attorney who supported Jack Smith’s politicized investigation of President Trump has been charged with stealing the confidential investigation documents,” Patel said.

“Carmen Lineberger allegedly emailed the confidential material to her own personal email, disguising them as dessert recipes to conceal them from record searches. Lineberger is charged with four felony counts in the indictment.”

The charges were formally announced in a press release issued by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida.

According to prosecutors, Lineberger previously served as the Managing Assistant United States Attorney for the Fort Pierce branch office within the Southern District of Florida. Federal authorities allege she unlawfully transmitted internal DOJ records and then attempted to hide the activity by altering file names.

The press release states that Lineberger was “indicted in federal court for two counts of theft of government money or property, valued less than $1,000.00; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; and concealment, removal, or mutilation of public records.”

Prosecutors claim the alleged conduct occurred during multiple incidents in late 2025 while Lineberger was still serving in her official DOJ position.

“The indictment alleges at the time of the offenses the defendant served as the Managing Assistant United States Attorney (MAUSA) of the Fort Pierce branch of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. In separate instances in late-2025, the defendant altered the electronic file names of government records that she received in her official capacity as the MAUSA in order to conceal her unauthorized electronic transmission of those records to personal email accounts belonging to her without being detected. The altered government records included a document compiled by the defendant consisting of portions of internal DOJ electronic messages and an internal DOJ memorandum, and a DOJ report related to a criminal prosecution in the SDFL that had been court-ordered to remain under seal and prohibited from distribution or disclosure outside of DOJ.

“As alleged in the indictment, the defendant concealed her actions by saving electronic copies of the government records in question under the misleading files names “chocolate cake recipe” and “bundt cake recipe” before electronically transmitting those records to her person email accounts. As to the DOJ report, the indictment further alleges the defendant act knowing that her transmission of the record outside DOJ directly violated the court order and impaired the proper administration of the underlying criminal prosecution.”

Patel used the announcement to sharply criticize the original Trump investigation and vowed continued accountability for officials involved.

“This FBI will not hesitate to bring to account those who violated the trust of the American public in an investigation that should’ve never been brought to begin with,” Patel added in his post.

CNN separately reported that Lineberger is also facing “two felony charges related to her handling of Volume II of Smith’s final report, which detailed Smith’s findings that Trump and two co-defendants who worked for him in 2021 mishandled national security documents.”

{Matzav.com}

TORONTO (AP) — An Air France flight bound for Detroit was diverted to Montreal after a passenger from the Congo boarded a flight in Paris “in error” amid flight restrictions tied to the Ebola outbreak, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

A spokesperson for the agency says the passenger “should not have boarded” the plane on Wednesday due to U.S. entry restrictions put in place to reduce Ebola risk.

The spokesman said in an email officials “took decisive action and prohibited the flight carrying that traveler from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, and instead, diverted to Montreal, Canada.”

Air France said the passenger was denied entry into the U.S. due to new regulations that travelers from certain countries, including the Congo, can enter only through Washington.

The Department of Homeland Security also said that as of Thursday all U.S.-bound American citizens and permanent residents who have been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days must only enter through Washington Dulles International Airport for enhanced screening.

Canadian health officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

There is a growing Ebola outbreak linked to a rare virus. There is no available vaccine or medicine for the Bundibugyo strain responsible for the outbreak, which spread undetected for weeks following the first known death while authorities tested for a more common Ebola virus.

Healthcare workers and aid groups are struggling to respond as experts say the outbreak is much larger than what has been officially reported. Authorities have so far announced 139 suspected deaths and nearly 600 suspected cases.

WHO has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. The organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic” and it’s likely much larger than the official case count. WHO’s chief in Congo said the outbreak could last at least two months.

WASHINGTON (VINnews) — Lawmakers, diplomats and Jewish community leaders gathered on Capitol Hill this week for the annual Jewish American Heritage Month luncheon honoring the contributions of Jewish Americans to public life, medicine, philanthropy and religious leadership.

The event, held Tuesday in the Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building, honored Nobel Prize-winning physician Dr. Harvey J. Alter, philanthropist Elliott Broidy and Rabbi David Baron.

The bipartisan gathering included several members of Congress, among them Sens. Richard Blumenthal, John Fetterman and Jacky Rosen, along with Reps. Randi Fine and Ken Calvert.

In remarks accepting the Visionary Award, Broidy spoke about the importance of giving back to family, community and country, while warning about rising antisemitism in the United States and abroad.

The luncheon was co-chaired by Malcolm Hoenlein, CEO emeritus of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Eric J. Gertler, executive chairman of U.S. News & World Report.

Organizers said the annual event traces its roots to the creation of Jewish Heritage Week during the Reagan administration and has since evolved into the nationwide observance now recognized as Jewish American Heritage Month.

[Video below.] Brad Lander, a Democratic candidate in New York’s 10th Congressional District race, is facing criticism following remarks he delivered at a Queens mosque in which he condemned Israel’s war in Gaza and expressed solidarity with prominent anti-Israel progressive lawmakers in Congress.

During a May 15 appearance at the Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Queens, Lander recited a verse from the Quran in Arabic before addressing congregants on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Introducing himself as “a proud Jewish New Yorker,” Lander told attendees that what he described as “Israel’s genocide in Gaza” contradicts the Jewish teaching that all human beings are created in the image of God.

Lander also said that if elected to Congress, he hopes to build the same type of political partnership he currently shares with New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani alongside Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, two of the most outspoken critics of Israel in Congress.

Following the candidate’s speech, the imam led the congregation in a supplication invoking the coming of the Mahdi and asking that victory and relief come to believers through the defeat and killing of infidels “by his sword.”

Lander, who currently serves as New York City comptroller, has positioned himself as a progressive Democrat aligned with the party’s left wing on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues.

WATCH:

{Matzav.com}

Israel has released hundreds of the Gaza flotilla activists, who are in the process of being deported. Human rights group Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, or Adalah, confirmed that they were taken to Ramon Airport in the southern city of Eilat, from where they will be flown back to their countries of origin. Turkey sent airplanes to pick up some 85 Turkish activists who participated in what critics are calling a publicity stunt.

Israel is holding back one participant, Zohar Regev, who holds Israeli citizenship and has participated in previous flotillas, for illegal entry and unlawful stay. A court hearing is being held Thursday.

A commander commends his troops for their execution of the detention of the Gaza flotilla activists. (From a post on X)

Adala pushed back against the detention, calling the charges “absurd” and “unfounded and contradictory accusations,” as Regev was “forcefully abducted” and “brought into Israeli territory entirely against her will,” though it has not clarified the connection between its characterization of the charges and Regev’s detention, which by its nature is involuntary. It has also not provided evidence that the charges are baseless.

The release of the activists follows a sharp rebuke from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, who taunted activists while they were handcuffed and kneeling on the deck of a ship. The spectacle created a massive PR headache for Israel as several countries summoned their Israeli envoys to protest the act, which Netanyahu said was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”

The new Board of Bnos Penina tells TLS that it has assumed responsibility for the school amid what it described as significant financial and operational challenges that raised concerns about the institution’s future.

In a letter being sent today to parents and friends of the school, the Board said a group of askanim and philanthropists, working together with Keren Olam HaChinuch, stepped in several months ago to stabilize and strengthen the Lakewood girls’ school.

The letter also acknowledged the longtime service of Mrs. Paschkes, praising her “dedication, mesiras nefesh, and leadership” over the past two decades, and crediting her with helping shape Bnos Penina into “the warm and caring מוסד it is today.”

According to the Board, since taking over responsibility for the school, hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours have been invested into strengthening Bnos Penina’s financial, operational, and administrative structure in an effort to secure long-term growth and stability.

The Board said its primary focus is ensuring that “every child has the opportunity to receive a warm, high-level Torah and Yiddish education in a stable environment where she can thrive and grow as a בת ישראל.”

The letter further revealed that after consultations with rabbanim, educators, and parents, it was determined that renewed structure and leadership were necessary for the school’s future. As part of that effort, the Board said it is actively searching for a new principal/מנהלת to help guide the school moving forward.

In the interim, Rabbi Yisroel Stern has been brought in by the Board to oversee and lead school operations. The Board credited R. Stern with restructuring operations, strengthening administrative and enrollment systems, and helping position the school for long-term stability and growth.

The Board also expressed optimism about the school’s future, stating that enrollment is increasing for the upcoming school year due to strengthened oversight, administration, and partnerships with parents, community members, and the Lakewood school Vaad.

The letter concluded with a call for additional parents and community members to become involved in helping guide and support the school in the future.

In a stark warning to Washington policymakers, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed that U.S. technology export bans may be triggering unintended consequences, declaring that China already has “all the chips they need” while state-backed rival Huawei is actively “flourishing in our absence.”

“Critics would say that selling advanced chips to China helps China close the gap and perhaps beat the U.S. in AI,” FOX Business host Maria Bartiromo told Huang, “and yet the other angle is the fact that if we block all sales, then China does it anyway, simply accelerating the growth coming out of companies like Huawei.”

“You’ve summarized it really well… The president would like us to win in every aspect,” Huang responded. “The United States has to be absolutely certain and determined to lead the world in every aspect, every layer of that five-layer cake, from energy, of course, from chips.”

“China obviously has all the chips they need. That’s the reason why they don’t need ours. And Huawei has done a very good job there, obviously, one of the largest companies in the world. They had a record year. They’re flourishing in our absence. And they’re now exporting their technology out to the rest of the world, competing with American companies around the world,” he continued.

TRUMP’S TAIWAN ‘NEGOTIATING CHIP’ REMARK SPARKS ALARM OVER HOW FAR HE’D SHIFT U.S.-CHINA POLICY

“And so I think that their ability to secure technology for their national security reasons, I think they have more than ample… for their own needs.”

The tech pioneer’s admission exposes a critical national security dilemma: instead of crippling Beijing’s capabilities, aggressive decoupling has forced the communist regime into tech self-sufficiency, turning domestic competitors into a global threat to American industry.

Huang’s comments come on the heels of his recent trip with the president to Beijing, and the U.S. government officially approving licenses for Nvidia’s advanced H200 chips for select Chinese clients.

“[President Trump’s] been very clear that he would like American companies to win around the world. Winning around the world allows us to, one, export, generate revenues for the country, bring back tax dollars for the country, create jobs in America,” Huang said. “It allows us also to diffuse and spread the American technology stack around the world, so that the rest of the world can be built on top of American technology and standards.”

The CEO also highlighted Nvidia’s critical role in American defense infrastructure, specifically confirming that U.S. military intelligence and radar run on its systems.

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“We do a lot of work in imaging, and most of the world’s radar systems and imaging systems has Nvidia chips in it. And, and we’re just incredibly honored,” Huang said. “The Department of War has access to Nvidia’s technology, and our technology is completely open-source so that it could be modified and enhanced for the applications of our military.”

“We’re a very large technology company, and we’re [an] American technology company. We want America’s technology industry to be a national treasure of the United States,” he added. “And manufacturing is a core part of our national security. And we play a very central role in doing that.”

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Reader-submitted dashcam video captured a frightening scene of what appears to be a Bachur weaving in and out of traffic on an electric scooter.

Attention parents: This can result in serious injury – or death R”L. 

As earlier reported, beginning in July, a new state law will require all electric bicycles in New Jersey to be licensed, registered, and insured.

BERLIN (AP) — A man arrested last year has been charged with espionage and attempted participation in murder after an Iranian intelligence agency tasked him with gathering information on the head of Germany’s main Jewish group and three others with a view to carrying out attacks, German prosecutors said Thursday.

The suspect, a Danish national identified only as Ali S. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested last June in Denmark. An alleged accomplice, an Afghan national identified as Tawab M., also was arrested there in November. Federal prosecutors said they filed an indictment against the pair at the Hamburg state court on May 7.

Ali S. was charged with working as an agent for an intelligence service, acting as a secret agent for purposes of sabotage and attempted participation in murder and arson. Tawab M. was charged with attempted participation in murder.

Prosecutors alleged that Ali S. worked for the intelligence service of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and was in close contact with the Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force.

They said that, at the beginning of 2025, he was tasked with gathering information on the head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, and on the head of the German-Israeli Society, prominent former German lawmaker Volker Beck, as well as two Jewish grocers in Berlin whom they didn’t identify.

“All this served for the preparation of assassination and arson attacks in Germany,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Ali S. scouted out various locations in Berlin last year and sought accomplices for attacks, they added. By May 2025, he was in contact with Tawab M., who allegedly said that he was prepared to procure a weapon for an unidentified third person and arrange for him to try to kill Beck.

After Ali S. was arrested last year, Iran’s ambassador was summoned to the German Foreign Ministry. The Iranian Embassy at the time rejected what it called “unfounded and dangerous allegations” of an apparent plan for an attack on Jewish facilities.

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart delivered another quarter of impressive sales as speedy deliveries and low prices served as a magnet for shoppers across the income spectrum.

Yet like other major retailers posting financial results this week, it was cautious about the rest of the year given the current economic uncertainty. On Thursday, it issued a forecast for the current quarter that was weaker than what Wall Street had been expecting.

Shares slipped 2% before the opening bell Thursday.

Walmart has resonated with many Americans who are increasingly careful about where they spend their money as inflation has taken a bigger bite out of paychecks, particularly since the start of the Iran war in late February. Traffic at Walmart can be a barometer of consumer spending given its vast customer base. More than 150 million customers are on its website or in its stores every week, according to Walmart.

On Thursday, Walmart touted strong sales that were fueled by online shopping.

Comparable sales at U.S. Walmart stores rose 4.1% during the three-month period ended April 30. Walmart’s U.S online sales rose 26%, the company said.

Walmart’s promise of lower prices, improved merchandise and faster delivery has also attracted wealthier shoppers. The biggest gains in market share for Walmart are coming from households with annual income over $100,000. That shift is taking place as lower-income shoppers become more entrenched in what economists collectively call a K-shaped economy.

“Our results reflect our continued focus on delivering across the enterprise — better shopping experiences, a broader assortment, and faster delivery,” CEO John Furner said in a prepared statement Thursday.

Yet U.S. retailers have spent months navigating an uncertain economic environment, from President Donald Trump’s tariffs to the impact of soaring gasoline prices due to the war. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline raced higher this week and did so again overnight. Gasoline prices are about 45% above where they were at this time last year.

Based on quarterly financial reports this week from Walmart, as well as Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s and TJX, shoppers are cautious but still spending, helped by more generous tax refunds. Yet there is a widespread belief among economists that once of those refunds dry up, shoppers will pull back on spending. Consumer spending is the dominant economic engine for the U.S.

Target reported the largest jump in comparable sales in four years Wednesday, but a cautious outlook overshadowed convincing evidence that changes under the company’s new CEO are resonating with customers. Target raised its annual revenue outlook Wednesday, but even that falls below the pace of its first quarter this year.

The nation’s two largest home improvement retailers Home Depot and Lowe’s this week reported strong sales, but both companies said that customers are putting off larger home projects.

“I think, overall, this has been the most difficult housing market that I’ve faced in this business since the financial crisis,” Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison said this week.

Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas reported first-quarter earnings of $5.33 billion, or 67 cents, for the quarter ended April 30. Adjusted per-share results were 66 cents, matching the 66 cents that analysts expected, according to FactSet.

For the year-ago quarter, the company reported net income of $4.48 billion, or 56 cents per share.

Sales rose 7.3% to $177.75 billion in the fiscal first quarter, above the $174.84 billion that analysts predicted,

For the second quarter, Walmart expects sales will be 4% to 5% higher than the same period a year ago. That brings the range to between $182.8 billion and $184.59 billion. It also expects per-share profit to be between 72 cents and 74 cents. Analysts had been projecting per-share earns of 75 cents on sales of $186.2 billion, according to FactSet.

For the year, Walmart stuck to the guidance it issued in February of per-share earnings between $2.75 and $2.85, and an increase in sales of between 3.5% and 4.5%, or between $731.1 billion and $738.2 billion.

Wall Street has been anticipating profits of $2.92 per share on sales of $749.01 billion for the year.

OpenAI is about to do something almost no company in American history has been positioned to do. The maker of ChatGPT, last valued at roughly $852 billion, is preparing to confidentially file paperwork for an initial public offering in the coming weeks, with a target of going public as early as September. If it lands at anything close to its current private valuation, it will be one of the largest stock market debuts ever — bigger than Facebook, bigger than Alibaba, in the same conversation as Saudi Aramco. And it would mark the moment artificial intelligence stops being a venture-capital story and becomes a permanent piece of millions of Americans’ retirement portfolios.

The trigger was a courtroom in San Francisco.

On Monday, a judge dismissed the lawsuit that Elon Musk had been waging against OpenAI and Chief Executive Sam Altman for more than two years. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and later left, argued that Altman betrayed the company’s founding promise to operate as a nonprofit research lab for the benefit of humanity when OpenAI restructured into a for-profit business backed by Microsoft Corp.

Inside OpenAI, the case was widely viewed as an existential threat — not necessarily because Musk was likely to win outright, but because the litigation cloud made an IPO extraordinarily difficult. Investors rarely want to buy shares in a company whose corporate structure is actively being challenged in court by one of the world’s most aggressive litigants. With Monday’s dismissal, that cloud suddenly lifted. By Wednesday, the IPO machinery was already moving.

OpenAI is now working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley to prepare a confidential draft prospectus, according to people familiar with the plans. The confidential filing process allows companies to negotiate privately with regulators before publicly disclosing detailed financials and risk factors.

The timing is strategic.

Later Wednesday, SpaceX was also expected to move toward its own public-market preparations — a potential deal that could reportedly value the company near $1.5 trillion and raise up to $30 billion, potentially surpassing Saudi Aramco’s 2019 debut as the largest IPO in history. By moving alongside SpaceX, OpenAI gains two advantages: it diffuses some of the regulatory and media spotlight that would otherwise focus entirely on its own listing, and it reframes the public narrative away from Musk’s lawsuit and toward a broader race over the future of technology.

The reason OpenAI is pursuing public markets is straightforward: it needs enormous amounts of capital.

The company reportedly raised approximately $122 billion earlier this year, likely one of the largest private funding rounds in Silicon Valley history, yet the cash demands of frontier AI development continue to escalate. Training advanced AI systems requires massive data centers, enormous fleets of Nvidia chips, vast electricity consumption, and some of the most expensive engineering talent in the world.

Even Microsoft — OpenAI’s primary strategic backer — cannot indefinitely finance the company’s ambitions alone.

Going public unlocks access to the deepest capital pool on earth: the American stock market. Pension funds, mutual funds, ETFs, retirement plans, and ordinary retail investors would finally gain direct ownership exposure to the company that ignited the modern generative AI boom.

But the easy part may now be over.

OpenAI no longer dominates the AI landscape as completely as it appeared to a year ago. Anthropic, maker of the Claude AI platform, has emerged as a major enterprise rival and is reportedly discussing fundraising at valuations north of $900 billion. Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc. has aggressively accelerated development of its Gemini AI systems after initially appearing behind in the race, prompting OpenAI to internally declare a “code red” response effort late last year.

ChatGPT still commands more than 900 million weekly active users and over 50 million paying subscribers, but public investors will demand something private investors largely tolerated without scrutiny: detailed financial transparency.

Wall Street will want hard answers about revenue growth, operating losses, customer retention, infrastructure spending, and long-term profitability.

There is also the lingering question surrounding Sam Altman himself.

Although Musk’s lawsuit has now been dismissed, pretrial proceedings surfaced testimony from former OpenAI executives raising concerns about Altman’s management style and governance practices — issues that echoed the internal conflict that briefly led to Altman’s firing by OpenAI’s board in November 2023 before employees and investors forced his reinstatement days later.

As a public company, OpenAI will be required to formally disclose every material risk factor facing the business. That includes governance concerns, executive concentration risk, dependence on Altman’s leadership, and the operational tensions between OpenAI’s nonprofit origins and its rapidly expanding commercial ambitions.

Altman himself has openly admitted in past interviews that becoming a public-company CEO sounds “really annoying,” acknowledging that life under Wall Street’s quarterly scrutiny is fundamentally different from operating under the patient capital of Silicon Valley venture firms.

The broader implications for corporate America are enormous.

An OpenAI IPO anywhere near its reported valuation would instantly create one of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States, placing it alongside Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Corp., Alphabet, Amazon.com Inc., and Meta Platforms Inc. among the most valuable firms on earth.

It would also become the first true public-market test of whether trillion-dollar AI valuations can survive exposure to ordinary investors, institutional scrutiny, and quarterly earnings pressure.

The outcome will likely shape the future decisions of nearly every major AI startup still waiting on the sidelines, including Anthropic, xAI, Perplexity, and others weighing whether to remain private or follow OpenAI into public markets.

For consumers, ChatGPT will likely look the same tomorrow morning.

But OpenAI itself would fundamentally change.

A public OpenAI would answer to shareholders, analysts, pension funds, and quarterly earnings expectations. It would face constant pressure to accelerate growth, increase monetization, and justify the extraordinary sums being invested into artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The mission to “benefit humanity” — the founding principle Musk spent years arguing OpenAI abandoned — would no longer be debated primarily inside courtrooms or boardrooms.

It would be tested every quarter on Wall Street.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

NEW YORK (VINnews) — JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned Thursday that New York City risks economic decline if ideological politics override practical governance, cautioning Mayor that rhetoric alone will not solve the city’s mounting challenges.

Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg Television, Dimon emphasized that the success or failure of Mamdani’s administration will ultimately depend on whether life in New York improves for residents, businesses and families.

“I don’t care what he says. What does he do?” Dimon said. “You can talk about morality and ideology all you want, but if things don’t get better, you didn’t do a good job.”

Dimon’s remarks carried particular weight given his status as one of Wall Street’s most influential executives and a longtime voice on the American economy, banking system and the future of major U.S. cities.

The JPMorgan Chase chief warned that New York cannot afford to lose sight of economic competitiveness as businesses and residents increasingly have alternatives in lower-tax cities and states.

“Every city has to compete,” Dimon said, arguing that cities must remain attractive places to live, work, raise families and build companies.

“He can be an ideologue, but he has to compete too,” Dimon added. “Will he learn that he’s got to make the city a place where people want to grow and build and live and have families and work?”

Dimon also pointed to global and domestic competitors including Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Nashville, Tennessee, warning that people and companies can relocate if they believe opportunities elsewhere are stronger.

“People vote with their feet,” he said.

The comments came after Dimon and other business leaders met with Mamdani, whose administration has advanced a progressive agenda centered on higher taxes for corporations and wealthy residents.

Among the proposals backed by Mamdani are increased corporate taxes, a new income tax surcharge on millionaires and additional taxes on luxury second homes valued above $5 million.

Dimon suggested that ideological leadership without economic results could ultimately damage the city’s long-term future and weaken its competitiveness at a time when affordability concerns and migration trends are already putting pressure on New York.

Mamdani and his allies have defended the policies as necessary to address inequality, affordability and housing shortages across the city.

Gabriel Shohet’s sin was his membership in the WJC, and simply being Jewish.

Together with his college roommate Eirik Holth, Shohet founded a global chain of coffee shops called Black Sheep Coffee, starting in London and expanding outward, with more than 120 locations across the globe, including the United States. He was once a member of the World Jewish Congress, when he advocated for the Jewish people and fought against antisemitism.

A protest at a Black Sheep café disrupted patrons enjoying their coffee, as a woman with a megaphone marched through the restaurant shouting that the café is Zionist and the coffee is “Palestinian blood.” After her tirade was over, she was joined by her companion in chanting, “Boycott Black Sheep.”

The White House issued a forceful response Wednesday after commentator Tucker Carlson accused Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu of drawing the United States into a damaging war with Iran during an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 News.

Responding to Carlson’s remarks, the White House defended President Trump’s longstanding position on Iran and praised the military operations carried out alongside Israel.

“Long before he was elected, President Trump has been consistent in his belief that Iran can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. Israel has always been a great ally to the United States, especially through Operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury that obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities and destroyed their defense industrial base,” the White House said in a statement to Channel 13 News.

“President Trump took bold, decisive action to protect the American people – something presidents have talked about for 47 years, but only this President has had the courage to address,” the statement added.

Carlson’s comments came during an interview aired Tuesday, in which he sharply criticized Netanyahu’s leadership and accused him of steering Israel in a dangerous direction.

According to Carlson, Netanyahu is “leading Israel toward destruction” and is “a very bad leader and a very unwise leader”, though he also said that he believes Netanyahu “is acting in what he thinks is his nation’s best interest. So I give him credit for that and always have.”

Carlson further argued that the conflict with Iran has harmed the United States’ standing and interests because of its close alliance with Israel.

“because of this war…America’s relationship with Israel, while it may be based on good intentions, is hurting the United States very badly,” Carlson claimed, while also calling for Washington to completely end aid to Israel.

“I don’t think the United States owes Israel anything. I don’t think the United States should give Israel anything. I think we should stop all aid to Israel, all special deals for Israel.”

Discussing the American role in the fighting against Iran, Carlson criticized President Trump’s decision-making and argued that Netanyahu pressured him into entering the conflict.

Trump “turned out to be far weaker than I understood” and had been pushed by Netanyahu “into a war that hurts the United States.”

Carlson was previously viewed as an ally of President Trump, but in recent years has emerged as one of his sharpest critics, particularly regarding foreign policy and support for Israel.

Earlier this year, Carlson also drew attention after claiming he had been detained upon arriving at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.

However, video footage later circulated on social media appeared to contradict Carlson’s account. The footage showed him calmly signing paperwork, smiling, hugging a security guard, posing for a photograph, and then departing the airport without incident.

{Matzav.com}

LONDON (VINnews) — A leading Jewish demographer is warning that the future of the Jewish people over the next century will be shaped by shifting population trends, rising religious polarization, assimilation pressures and the growing centrality of Israel to Jewish identity worldwide.

In a new policy paper released Tuesday by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Professor Sergio DellaPergola said the Jewish future will depend not only on demographic changes but also on how Jews define identity, maintain communal continuity and navigate relations with wider society.

DellaPergola, a renowned Israeli demographer and president of the institute’s European Jewish Demography Unit, said three pillars will continue to define Jewish existence: the State of Israel, Jewish communities in the Diaspora and the increasingly complex relationship between the two.

The report predicts Israel is likely to become home to the majority of the world’s Jewish population within coming decades, a shift DellaPergola said could dramatically reshape Jewish political, cultural and religious life globally.

At the same time, the paper warns that many Diaspora communities face long-term demographic challenges, including aging populations, low birth rates and assimilation.

Among the report’s major findings is that higher birth rates among more religious Jewish groups — particularly charedi communities in Israel — are expected to significantly alter the internal makeup of the global Jewish population.

The study also predicts antisemitism will persist in evolving forms and that migration trends among Jews will continue to be heavily influenced by security concerns, political instability and economic conditions.

DellaPergola argued that future Jewish leadership will require stronger mechanisms for cooperation across increasingly diverse Jewish communities and a more realistic assessment of emerging social and political challenges.

Rather than offering precise forecasts, the paper examines what DellaPergola describes as the major structural forces that have shaped Jewish history and are likely to continue influencing the Jewish people in the decades ahead.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) —  Itamar Ben-Gvir loves making headlines, whether during election periods or even on a regular basis. Ben-Gvir doesn’t really care if the headlines are positive, a very rare occurrence in his case, or negative, because notoriety is never a real impediment for a politician, and can help motivate his base, who anyway do not trust the media’s treatment of the right wing MK.

However, Wednesday’s show of superiority and scorn towards the detained members of the Sumud Flotilla garnered strident international condemnation even from Israel’s friends and raised the legitimate question of what are the limits of humiliating an enemy.

The video published on social media, captioned “Welcome to Israel”, showed Ben-Gvir visiting a detention facility at the port of Ashdod where the activists are being held. He is seen encouraging security personnel as they push down a female activist who shouts “Free, Free, Palestine” as he walks past her.

Ben-Gvir is then shown waving a large Israeli flag next to dozens of activists kneeling on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs. He tells them in Hebrew: “Welcome to Israel. We are the masters.” Other activists are shown kneeling on the deck of a ship as the Israeli national anthem is played.

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, normally a staunch defender of Israel’s actions, called Ben-Gvir’s behavior “despicable”.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the video showed “totally disgraceful scenes”, adding that she had sent a summons to the Israeli embassy to demand an “urgent explanation”. She earlier said the government was “in touch with the families of a number of British nationals involved to provide them with consular support”.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has described Israel’s treatment of the activists as “abominable”, adding that he had instructed officials to summon the Israeli ambassador.”The protection of civilians and respect for human dignity must be upheld everywhere, at all times,” Carney said in a post on X.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong condemned Ben-Gvir, saying that the actions of Israeli authorities were “degrading”.

Yet despite these sharp criticisms by foreign diplomats, if one analyzes Ben-Gvir’s actions in the context of previous flotillas, they become more convincing and even logically sound.

If on previous occasions when foreign entities attempted to break the blockade near Gaza, the war was still raging and some commodities were scarcer in the region, the current situation is far from that reality.

Hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid enter Gaza on a daily basis, with one Israeli official estimating that they contain four times the required needs of local citizens. The balance of goods is sold off by Hamas, who then use their riches to consolidate power, build more tunnels and attempt to smuggle weapons. They have never kept their side of the ceasefire agreement, never given up their positions or disarmed. They continue to attack Israel’s forces near the Yellow Line on a daily basis. The “Peacekeeping” force being assembled internationally has yet to even step into Gaza, let alone attempt to take civil control and start reconstruction. This is the frustrating situation Israel finds itself in a few months after the ceasefire started.

Additionally, during the previous flotilla led by Greta Thunberg in 2025, Israel went out of its way to exhibit its kind behavior to the participants, offering them pastrami sandwiches and other water to eat and maintaining a cordial atmosphere despite the hostility of the group towards Israel. Despite this, Thunberg dismissed the gestures as a ‘publicity stunt’ and continued to lambast Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

As an attempt to dampen the enthusiasm of anti-Israel agitators for further attempted breaches of the Gaza blockade, Ben-Gvir’s waving a flag and presentation of the flotilla participants in handcuffs and kneeling on the ground may be a more successful tactic than handing them sandwiches. It certainly demonstrates that Israel has had enough of the world’s hypocrisy in casting it as a war criminal state, especially in light of Hamas’s unwillingness to uphold the terms of the ceasefire.

If anything, Ben-Gvir’s actions may cost him foreign sanctions, but they also stress what most of Israel’s enemies are unwilling to recognize: We are the masters of our destiny. We are a sovereign state which should not be subjected to humiliating flotillas in its territorial waters any more than attacks on its villages and towns. We will treat all attacks on our sovereignty with the same force and conviction, and we will prevail against all our foes.

“No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises up against you in judgment you shall condemn.” (Yeshayahu 54:17)

Nvidia Corp. just reported the largest quarterly revenue in its history — $81.6 billion, up 85% from a year ago — beat Wall Street on every meaningful line, raised its dividend, added $80 billion to its buyback program, and guided to $91 billion for the current quarter. And then the stock fell.

Shares slipped roughly 1.3% in after-hours trading Wednesday to around $220.64, after closing the regular session at $223.47. To anyone reading the headlines, it makes no sense. The company is printing money at a pace almost without precedent in American corporate history. Data center revenue alone hit $75.2 billion in three months — more than the annual revenue of most Fortune 100 companies. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $1.87, beating the $1.76 Wall Street consensus. Operating cash flow reached $50.3 billion in a single quarter.

The answer says more about how Wall Street works than about how Nvidia is doing. When a company is priced for perfection, even spectacular results can disappoint. Nvidia entered the report valued near $5.4 trillion, the largest market capitalization of any company in history. At that size, investors are no longer asking whether Nvidia is growing. They are asking whether it can keep growing at the pace already baked into the price.

This is where Chief Executive Jensen Huang stepped in. On the analyst conference call Wednesday evening, he addressed the skepticism directly. The bear case on Nvidia has hardened around one core worry: that the company depends too heavily on a small handful of cloud giants — Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms — whose combined AI spending is now tracking near $725 billion for 2026.

Huang argued that concern is already outdated.

“The world is rebuilding computing for agentic AI and robotic physical AI, and Nvidia sits at the center of it all,” Huang told analysts, describing what he called a rapidly expanding “second cluster” of enterprise and government customers growing outside the hyperscalers.

To reinforce the point, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress unveiled a new reporting structure breaking data center revenue into two segments: Hyperscale and ACIE — short for AI Clouds, Industrial and Enterprise. In the quarter just reported, Hyperscale generated roughly $37.4 billion while ACIE came in slightly higher at $37.9 billion.

In other words, more than half of Nvidia’s data center business is already coming from customers outside the four dominant cloud giants Wall Street focuses on. Hospitals, factories, telecom carriers, regional cloud providers, and national governments are increasingly buying Nvidia chips at massive scale.

Sovereign AI — systems sold to governments building domestic AI infrastructure — crossed $30 billion in fiscal 2026, more than triple the prior year, according to Kress. Customers now include the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Singapore, and India, with India alone signing a reported $1 billion sovereign AI initiative.

She compared the spending trend to the buildout of power grids and interstate highways: governments now see AI infrastructure as strategic national infrastructure, not optional technology spending.

Investors, however, were looking for one more thing: clarity on China.

Nvidia’s data center business in China remains constrained by U.S. export restrictions, and the company continues absorbing roughly $5.5 billion tied to H20 inventory and related charges. Huang said he hoped a broader Trump-Xi framework could eventually restore access, but he offered no timeline or concrete guidance. That uncertainty appeared enough to keep traders from aggressively bidding shares higher after the report.

Beyond the stock reaction, Nvidia’s earnings highlighted how quickly AI is moving into the real economy.

Huang revealed that physical AI revenue — chips powering robots, autonomous systems, and industrial machines — has already reached approximately $9 billion, a business category that barely existed two years ago. Edge computing revenue, spanning gaming, AI-enabled PCs, robotics, telecom infrastructure, and automotive systems, generated $6.4 billion in the quarter, up 29% year over year.

The company also continues pushing aggressively into enterprise computing. Huang said Nvidia’s new Vera CPU platform opens what the company estimates is a $200 billion opportunity in the broader server market, placing Nvidia into more direct competition with Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The labor and economic implications are becoming increasingly tangible. Nvidia highlighted partnerships powering robotaxi deployments, industrial automation systems, warehouse robotics, and humanoid robotics platforms — technologies expected to reshape transportation, logistics, and manufacturing over the next several years.

Gross margin held at 75%, matching expectations and signaling that Nvidia’s pricing power remains intact despite growing competition and custom AI chip programs from Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft. Huang also told analysts the company expects to remain supply constrained throughout the rollout of its next-generation Vera Rubin systems, meaning demand continues to outpace Nvidia’s ability to manufacture chips fast enough.

For investors, the modest aftermarket dip was a reminder that at Nvidia’s valuation, even record-breaking quarters may not satisfy every expectation already embedded in the stock price.

For the broader economy, though, Wednesday’s message was much larger: AI is no longer confined to Silicon Valley experiments or cloud computing budgets. It is rapidly becoming embedded into factories, vehicles, government infrastructure, healthcare systems, and consumer technology — and the businesses that adapt fastest may define the next decade of economic winners and losers.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The U.S. Embassy in Israel appeared to gently remind Jews this week that the Shavuot holiday is not only about cheesecake.

In a lighthearted social media post ahead of the holiday, the embassy noted that “long before cheesecakes and pies,” Shavuot marked the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and the biblical harvest of first fruits.

Long before cheesecakes and pies, Shavuot marked the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and the harvest of the first fruits. It is a time for gratitude, reflection, and reconnection with the land. Wishing all who celebrate a happy Shavuot 🌾🧀 pic.twitter.com/Z1eGp2k0Uk

— U.S. Embassy Jerusalem (@usembassyjlm) May 21, 2026

The post described the holiday as “a time for gratitude, reflection, and reconnection with the land,” before wishing those celebrating a happy Shavuot alongside wheat and dairy-themed emojis.

While cheesecake and other dairy dishes have become closely associated with the holiday in Jewish communities around the world, Shavuot is one of Judaism’s major biblical festivals and commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai.

The holiday also has agricultural roots tied to the ancient harvest season in the Land of Israel.

The embassy’s playful message quickly drew attention online among Jewish social media users preparing for the holiday.

Tom Homan said the Trump administration remains fully committed to carrying out President Trump’s large-scale deportation agenda, even as critics from both parties — and some Trump supporters — question whether immigration arrests are moving quickly enough.

Speaking in an interview with the Washington Examiner published Wednesday, Homan insisted federal immigration authorities are continuing broad enforcement operations while prioritizing individuals considered the greatest threats to public safety and national security.

“We are after everyone, but again, you’ve got to prioritize those who are the biggest threats to our national security, public safety,” Homan said.

“Am I happy with the numbers right now? No, I want more, too. Even though numbers are historic, I want more.”

According to Homan, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies have arrested roughly 641,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records since the start of President Trump’s second term, while deportations have surpassed 800,000 individuals overall.

“Total of 800,000 out of the country,” Homan said. “If you take 60% of that, criminals, hundreds of thousands of public safety threats, have been removed from this country. Name another president who’s done that.”

Homan acknowledged that immigration enforcement activity has declined somewhat in recent months, attributing the slowdown to sanctuary-city policies, unfavorable court decisions, and the 75-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown earlier this year.

“There’s a lot of argument within the world that [questions], ‘Are we keeping our promise?'” Homan said. “Numbers are slightly down, but there’s a plan: Get them back up and even higher.”

“I’ve never seen so many activist judges … which adds to the 12% decline in arrests,” he added.

The border czar also rejected accusations that ICE is focusing only on violent offenders while neglecting wider deportation operations involving other illegal immigrants.

“I know there’s a lot of noise out there about, ‘You shouldn’t be just concentrating on criminals, you ought to be arresting everybody,’ but we are pursuing a broad range of arrests,” Homan said.

Homan argued that sanctuary-city policies continue to create additional dangers because federal agents are forced to locate suspects in neighborhoods and public spaces instead of taking them into custody inside jails.

Referring to a recent conversation with Kathy Hochul, Homan said, “I explained to her again, it’s safer for the community, safer for the officer, and safer for the alien to arrest him in the safety and security of jail.”

He also indicated the Trump administration is preparing additional legal challenges against sanctuary jurisdictions around the country.

“I’ve been fighting sanctuary cities for the last 20 years,” Homan said. “I think we’ve got an … acting attorney general now that’s going to take it seriously.”

Meanwhile, according to a Newsmax report, ICE officers arrested several illegal immigrants over the weekend who had previously been convicted of violent crimes, including child rape, assault, and drug trafficking offenses.

The Department of Homeland Security said the arrests are part of the administration’s expanding immigration crackdown targeting migrants with criminal convictions.

{Matzav.com}

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans filed for jobless aid last week as layoffs remain low despite a number of uncertainties that continue to cloud the economy.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 16 fell by 3,000 to 209,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 213,000 new applications analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet had forecast.

Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

The four-week moving average of jobless claims, which softens some of the weekly volatility, inched down by 1,500 to 202,500.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending May 9 grew by 6,000 to 1.78 million.

(JNS) – Washington is threatening to revoke the visas of the Palestinian Authority delegation to the United Nations if the P.A. ambassador refuses to end his candidacy for the vice presidency of the U.N. General Assembly, Reuters reported on Thursday.

The U.S. administration views the intention of envoy Riyad Mansour to assume the General Assembly role as undermining U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Gaza Strip, the report read.

“To be clear, we will hold the P.A. responsible if the Palestinian delegation ⁠does not withdraw its VPGA candidacy,” the report cited a message in a cable instructing the course of action for U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem.

Mansour had already withdrawn his candidacy for the presidency of the General Assembly following pressure from Washington.

However, if elected to the vice president role, he could still preside over General Assembly sessions, Reuters reported.

“Therefore, there is still a risk that the Palestinians could preside over G.A. sessions during UNGA81 [the U.N. General Assembly’s 81st annual high-level week in September] unless they withdraw from the race,” the report cited the cable as adding.

“In a worst-case scenario, the next PGA might assist the Palestinians in presiding over high-profile sessions related to the Middle East or during UNGA81 high-level week,” the cable read.

The election for the president and vice presidents of the General Assembly will be held on June 2.

A U.S. revocation of the Palestinian delegation’s visas would not be a first. On Aug. 29, the Trump administration revoked the visas of Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and around 80 other P.A. and PLO officials.

Their visas were restored the following month.

In February, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon accused the P.A. of trying to upgrade its status by seeking the presidency of the General Assembly.

Mansour’s bid “is a blatant attempt to upgrade the status of the Palestinian delegation at the United Nations through the back door, to turn the General Assembly into a platform for anti-Israel propaganda, and to undermine the U.N.’s objectives,” tweeted Danon at the time.

The Palestinian delegation has observer state status within the General Assembly and has no authority to vote along with the 193 member states.

Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.

Good morning and happy Thursday. Later this morning, NIH director Jay Bhattacharya will testify on his agency’s budget before the Senate Appropriations Committee. We’ll have the news as it comes, but for now, let’s start with the below.

Read the rest…

Dear Friend,

We’re down to the final hours.

Shavuos begins tonight, and 1,800 families are still waiting.

But this isn’t just about them—it’s about the incredible segulah you can still fulfill.

Rav Chaim Palagi’s teaching is crystal clear: ערב שבועות יפריש צ”א פרוטות… והוא סגולה לחשוכי בנים ומקרב הגאולה

Your $104 donation before Shavuos isn’t just tzedakah—it’s a direct pathway to brachah and geulah.

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• Your segulah window is rapidly closing

This is your moment. Not tomorrow. Not next week. NOW.

Every minute that passes is a minute closer to missing this incredible opportunity for both tremendous chesed and personal brachah.

The families need you. The segulah is waiting. Time is running out.

[DONATE $104 IMMEDIATELY – SEGULAH ENDS TONIGHT]

Don’t let this slip away. The window closes when Shavuos begins.

732.978.9901 | tomchei.org

Act now. Brachah awaits. Families are counting on you.

Israel established an elite task force in the wake of the October 7 massacre to track down and kill or capture every single Hamas terrorist who participated in or planned the attack, from foot soldiers who breached the border fence to the senior commanders who orchestrated it, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The unit, code-named NILI, an acronym for “Netzach Yisrael Lo Yeshaker,” operates under the principle that no victim of the massacre would be forgotten and no perpetrator placed beyond reach.

“The clear message to all future enemies is to think again about the price of a terrorist operation like that,” Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official in the Shin Bet, told the Journal.

NILI has compiled a list of “thousands of names” of terrorists involved in the massacre, the Journal reported, many of whom have already been crossed off. According to the report, no individual on the list is too insignificant or too powerful to be targeted. The Journal describes a man who drove a tractor through the Gaza border fence on October 7 being killed in an Israeli airstrike two years later, while walking down a narrow urban street, alongside the recent assassination of Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, whom IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir called “one of the chief perpetrators of the October 7 massacre and the head of Hamas’s military wing.”

Current and former Israeli officials told the Journal that once two pieces of evidence are found establishing that an individual took part in the attack, they are marked for death without trial. The methods used to identify and locate targets include facial recognition programs run against videos that the terrorists themselves posted to social media on and after October 7, cellphone location data, and the interrogation of Gazan detainees.

Beyond Gaza, the task force has also assassinated Hamas leaders in Iran and Lebanon, in operations consistent with the unit’s founding premise that no geography places a perpetrator out of reach.

The acronym itself carries deliberate historical weight. NILI was the name of a Jewish espionage network during World War I that provided critical intelligence to British forces fighting against the Ottoman rulers of Israel. More than a century later, a modern-day NILI is operating on behalf of the Jewish state to hunt down its most recent enemies.

The unit was established by the Shin Bet along with the Mossad in late 2023, weeks after the October 7 attack. Ahron Bregman, an Israeli political scientist at King’s College London who spent six years in the Israeli army, told France 24 at the time that “Shin Bet along with Mossad formed a special operations centre tasked with tracking down and killing members of Hamas that entered Israel and massacred Israelis on 7 October.” He added that the inclusion of Mossad meant the assassinations would not be restricted to Gaza but would extend to Hamas figures sheltering in countries such as Qatar and Turkey.

According to the Journal report, the task force has at times prioritized terrorists whose deaths would console the family members of victims, in what one security official described as “treatment for the soul.”

Michael Milstein, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer on Palestinian affairs, told the Journal that “revenge is an important part of the discourse” in the Middle East. “It is about how serious anyone in your environment sees you,” he explained. “Unfortunately, this is the language of this neighborhood.”

The task force has continued its work even as the wider war has wound down. The Journal reported that since the ceasefire with Hamas began, NILI has been reduced to a small number of operatives who pass information on targets to commanders responsible for ongoing operations in Gaza. The list does not shrink on its own, and the unit’s mandate, by design, does not expire with a ceasefire.

Some of the October 7 perpetrators are not slated for assassination. Israeli forces captured some of them alive during the war, including several minors. These terrorists are being held in isolated prison wings under strict security measures, with some reportedly responsible for as many as 30 Israeli deaths each. Israel has worked to set up a special war crimes tribunal to try them.

Top targets for the unit have historically included Marwan Issa and Yahya Sinwar, both suspected of orchestrating the October 7 massacre. Both have since been eliminated, along with a long line of senior Hamas figures whose names rotated to the top of the list in turn.

Not all observers of the Israeli security establishment view the strategy uncritically. Journalist Yossi Melman, a longtime author on Israeli intelligence, has criticized the campaign, arguing that the strategy of assassinations “doesn’t solve anything” and represents an attempt by Israeli security services to redeem themselves after being humiliated by the success of the Hamas attacks. Israeli officials, by contrast, argue that the operation serves a strategic deterrent function distinct from any single target’s value: future enemies, they say, must understand that an attack on Israel will be answered not only at the level of organizations and infrastructure but at the level of every individual who pulled a trigger.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Target Corp. delivered its strongest sales quarter since the pandemic boom on Wednesday, but the cautious tone from new Chief Executive Michael Fiddelke said almost as much as the numbers themselves. Comparable sales jumped 5.6% in the first quarter, ending four consecutive quarters of declines, while the Minneapolis-based retailer raised its full-year sales outlook to roughly 4%, double what management projected just two months ago.

Yet despite the strong quarter, Target shares still fell nearly 4%.

The reason says a lot about how Wall Street views retail turnarounds in 2026: investors are no longer rewarding one good quarter. They want proof the recovery can last.

Fiddelke, who officially took over as CEO on Feb. 1, made clear he understands that pressure.

“To be clear, a single good quarter has never been our goal,” Fiddelke told investors. On the company’s media call, he added: “We will not confuse this progress with potential. Our focus is on delivering consistent growth, not just in 2026, but for decades to come.”

In plain English: after more than a year of weak traffic, inventory problems, and slipping customer loyalty, management knows one strong quarter is not enough to declare victory.

Still, the underlying numbers were far stronger than analysts expected.

Net sales rose to $25.4 billion, up 6.7% from a year earlier. Gross margin expanded 80 basis points to 29%. Adjusted earnings per share climbed to $1.71, a 32% increase from the prior year.

Most importantly for retail analysts, customer traffic — one of the hardest metrics to artificially inflate — increased 4.4%, with gains across all six of Target’s core merchandise categories.

Digital sales stood out as a major driver.

Store-originated comparable sales rose 4.7%, while digital comparable sales jumped 8.9%. Same-day delivery through Target Circle 360 surged more than 27%, providing some of the clearest evidence yet that Target’s aggressive investment strategy is finally beginning to translate into measurable consumer engagement.

That matters because the company is spending heavily.

Target plans approximately $5 billion in capital expenditures this year — more than $1 billion above the prior fiscal year — as it pours money into store remodels, fulfillment systems, technology upgrades, staffing, and merchandising resets designed to rebuild the company’s “cheap chic” reputation.

But Wall Street’s hesitation centers on what comes next.

The second half of the year now becomes a major execution test.

Chief Merchandising Officer Cara Sylvester is overseeing what Target calls its largest food-and-beverage reset in more than a decade. At the same time, Chief Operating Officer Lisa Roath is expanding the company’s Target Beauty Studio concept into more than 600 stores while simultaneously revamping roughly 75% of decorative home assortments.

Each initiative individually would represent a significant operational challenge. Launching all of them simultaneously while consumers remain highly price-sensitive creates the kind of retail execution risk that has hurt Target before.

There is also the tariff issue.

Chief Financial Officer Jim Lee acknowledged the company is still “working through the process” of applying for tariff refunds while warning the tariff environment remains fluid. Because Target sources a substantial share of its apparel, home, and seasonal merchandise internationally, higher tariffs pressure margins long before reimbursement programs offset the impact.

That dynamic helps explain why management’s updated guidance — although stronger — still sounded restrained.

Fiddelke himself described the company’s more measured forecasting approach as a “lesson learned” from prior years when management grew overly optimistic and later had to walk expectations back.

The broader question facing investors is whether Target can fully reclaim the identity that once made it one of America’s most admired retailers.

For years, the company built a loyal customer base around fashionable but affordable merchandise — earning the nickname “Tarzhay” among shoppers who viewed it as a higher-end alternative to Walmart. But inflation, staffing issues, inventory disruptions, and inconsistent store experiences damaged that image over the last two years.

Fiddelke’s strategy is essentially an attempt to restore the brand’s original formula: stronger merchandising authority, cleaner stores, better staffing, improved technology, and a more enjoyable in-store experience.

The quarter Target reported Wednesday is the first substantial evidence that strategy may finally be working.

If the company’s food, beauty, and home resets perform well through the summer and back-to-school season, investors may begin viewing Target as a legitimate turnaround story again rather than a retailer merely bouncing off depressed comparisons.

If execution slips, however, the pressure will return quickly — especially with competitors like Walmart Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. continuing to gain market share.

The report also offered a broader read on the American consumer.

Sales growth in beauty, home goods, and discretionary categories suggests middle-income shoppers still have enough financial flexibility to spend on comfort and lifestyle purchases even amid elevated interest rates and inflation pressures.

At the same time, Target’s own guidance repeatedly referenced weakening consumer sentiment, signaling management remains cautious about the second half of the year and the broader economic backdrop.

A strong quarter helped restore confidence.

But even Target’s own leadership is not ready to call it a full turnaround yet.

For now, Wall Street appears to agree.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

In a bold move reminiscent of the audacious capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the United States Department of Justice indicted former Cuban president Raúl Castro on charges of murder and conspiracy to kill Americans related to the downing of two American planes over the waters off the Cuban coast on Feb. 24, 1996. The incident resulted in the deaths of three Americans and one Cuban national.

If convicted, the 94-year-old faces the maximum penalty of life in prison and the possibility of a similar operation to remove him from Cuba as the one conducted to bring Maduro to the United States to face justice. Five fighter pilots who participated in the incident are also named in the grand jury indictment.

The indictment comes amid rising tensions between the two countries as President Donald Trump seeks to topple the regime.

(Credit: The White House)

The downed planes belonged to a group called Brothers to the Rescue that searched the sea off Cuba’s coast for people fleeing the Communist country who needed to be rescued. Fidel Castro took responsibility for the mission at the time, claiming the group was dropping anti-regime leaflets on Cuban territory to subvert his government. As one of “the final decision makers,” his brother Raúl Castro is named in the indictment.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Trump administration would hold those who took American lives accountable.

“My message today is clear,” he said. “The United States and President Trump does not — and will not — forget its citizens.”

He did not, however, answer questions about the possibility of U.S. military action to extract the former Cuban leader in the manner of Maduro, saying the final decision for such action rests with the president. Trump also deflected the question, saying “I don’t want to say that” in response to reporters’ questions Wednesday.

The Cuban government pushed back in a statement.

“It is highly cynical for this accusation to be made by the very same government that has murdered nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, far from United States territory, through the disproportionate use of military force,” it said.

Jeff Bezos blasted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday over the city’s massive education budget, arguing that the public school system spends enormous sums while delivering poor results.

During an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bezos mocked the efficiency of the city’s school system, saying Amazon customers would revolt if his company operated the same way.

“If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system – your packages would take six weeks to arrive,” the Amazon honcho told Andrew Ross Sorkin during a sit-down on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“We’d have to charge you a $100 delivery fee. And then when the package did finally arrive, it’d have the wrong item in it anyway.”

Bezos directed much of his criticism at the city’s record-breaking education expenditures, pointing to New York’s estimated $43 billion school budget and claiming the city spends roughly $44,000 per student — far above the levels seen in many other major American cities — despite declining enrollment and disappointing academic performance.

The sharp criticism comes as the Bezos family has simultaneously pledged major charitable funding toward early childhood education efforts in New York City.

The billionaire businessman argued that increased government spending is not meaningfully benefiting teachers, but instead disappearing into layers of administrative bureaucracy.

“None of this money is getting to the teachers, I promise you,” he stressed.

“If you’re charging $44,000 per student, how much of that money do you think is trickling down to teachers? Not much.”

Bezos also defended his own tax contributions while criticizing Mamdani’s push for higher taxes on wealthy residents, including proposals targeting luxury second homes that have drawn backlash from affluent property owners and business leaders.

The Amazon founder argued that even substantially increasing his own taxes would not meaningfully improve conditions for teachers or working families.

The Blue Origin founder insisted that the 34-year-old failed rapper-turned-mayor could jack up the billions Bezos already forks over in taxes and it still wouldn’t help “that teacher in Queens.”

Mamdani responded publicly on social media later Wednesday.

“I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ,” Mamdani snapped on X.

City Hall did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment.

Bezos further argued that simply taxing wealthy Americans more heavily and pouring additional money into struggling systems will not solve underlying problems.

“What’s happening here is politicians are using the kind of age-old techniques … you know, picking a villain and pointing fingers,” he said, calling the fiscal mess a “tale of two economies.”

“But the problem is that doesn’t solve anything. And so like, if you want to help the group of people who are struggling, you have to figure out real root causes and solutions. And that takes skill.”

Describing Amazon’s internal management philosophy, Bezos said executives at the company rely on a method known as “the five whys” to identify deeper causes behind operational problems.

“What we don’t do, because it doesn’t work, is just point fingers and blame people,” he added after Mamdani singled out billionaire Ken Griffin.

“It might feel good for 10 seconds, but it doesn’t accomplish anything.”

The public clash unfolded as the Bezos Family Foundation expands its involvement in New York education initiatives. The family recently pledged up to $150 million toward early childhood education programs in the city while Mamdani continues promoting his universal free childcare agenda.

Last week, anti-poverty organization Robin Hood Foundation launched a $1 billion endowment effort anchored by a $100 million Bezos family contribution that will establish the Jackie Bezos Endowment for Early Childhood.

The Bezos family also committed an additional $25 million contingent on matching contributions, potentially bringing the total donation to $150 million in honor of Bezos’ late mother.

The donation further strengthens Robin Hood’s role in the city’s growing debate over affordable childcare and anti-poverty programs. The organization has already invested roughly $3 billion in poverty-related initiatives throughout New York City.

Meanwhile, Mamdani is reportedly attempting to raise $20 million for a separate childcare action fund through the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, though reports indicate only about $3.5 million has been raised so far.

During the CNBC interview, Bezos also advocated broader changes to the federal tax structure, arguing that lower-income Americans should not be paying taxes at all.

He noted that the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers currently account for roughly 40% of all federal tax revenue while the bottom half contribute approximately 3%.

He said it shouldn’t be 3%, but instead “zero.”

“When people are starting out and they’re struggling, stop taxing them. We don’t need it. We live in the wealthiest country in the world,” Bezos told CNBC.

Bezos also reflected on his family background while discussing economic opportunity in America. He described how his adoptive father immigrated from Cuba during the 1960s and how his mother gave birth to him as a teenager in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“I look at that and I think, I want to make sure that the people that are struggling today have a chance to do that too, to bring themselves up and maybe they’re gonna be the next Steve Jobs,” said Bezos, 62, who serves as executive chairman of Amazon, the country’s largest parcel carrier.

“Maybe one of their kids will be the next Steve Jobs, I don’t know. But we can give them a better chance by eliminating their tax bill. And I don’t want to reduce it, I want to eliminate it.

{Matzav.com}

Iran has already restarted drone production and is rapidly rebuilding its military capabilities just weeks after the April 8 ceasefire with the United States and Israel, according to a CNN report citing American intelligence sources.

The report says the speed and scale of Iran’s military recovery has stunned the US intelligence community, which had previously estimated that Tehran would require a far longer period to restore its damaged arsenal.

One US official told CNN that Iran could potentially return to its pre-war military strength in as little as six months, saying the regime has “exceeded all timelines the IC [intelligence community] had for reconstitution.”

According to the report, Iran’s accelerated recovery has been aided in part by support from Russia and China. Intelligence sources allege that China has been supplying missile components to the Islamic Republic since the war erupted on February 28.

China’s Foreign Ministry denied the allegation, insisting the CNN report was “not based on facts.”

The report warns that Iran’s rapid military reconstruction underscores the ongoing threat posed by the regime despite months of war and sustained Israeli and American strikes targeting its infrastructure and weapons systems.

US officials cited in the report said Iran’s ability to quickly restore its drone and missile programs demonstrates that Tehran could still inflict major damage across the region should hostilities resume.

US Central Command declined to comment on the intelligence assessment, while a Pentagon spokesman stated that the US military “has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Germany continues to face alarmingly high levels of antisemitism, with thousands of incidents recorded across the country in 2025, according to a new report released by the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).

The report documented 2,197 antisemitic incidents in Berlin alone during 2025. While that marked a 13% decline from the 2,521 incidents recorded the previous year, the number remains more than double the levels seen before the October 7 Hamas massacre in Israel.

RIAS reported 40 violent antisemitic attacks in Berlin, including a stabbing at the Holocaust Memorial in which a young man suffered a neck wound. Other incidents included assaults, spitting attacks, threats, and vandalism targeting Jewish institutions and businesses.

In the German state of Hesse, the situation worsened significantly, with a record 1,099 antisemitic incidents documented in 2025 — an 18% increase from the year before and nearly six times higher than pre-October 7 levels.

The report described an increasingly hostile atmosphere for Jews and Israelis in Germany, with many victims reporting harassment, intimidation, and violence in public spaces. Jews reportedly said they avoid displaying Jewish symbols or speaking Hebrew openly out of fear for their safety.

RIAS also highlighted a sharp rise in anti-Israel demonstrations, noting that 239 events included antisemitic slogans, denial of Israel’s right to exist, and explicit calls to “kill Jews.”

Jewish leaders in Germany warned that antisemitism is becoming normalized throughout broader society.

“The threat to Jewish life is worse than at any time since the Holocaust,” said Hesse antisemitism commissioner Uwe Becker.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is walking back earlier comments urging consumers to boycott Starbucks, as tensions grow over Seattle’s relationship with major employers and the coffee giant expands its footprint outside Washington state.

Wilson, a democratic socialist elected last year on a progressive, labor-backed platform, told The New York Times this week that comments she made during a Starbucks worker strike last fall were not productive.

“Those comments were not productive in the sense that they caused more harm than good,” Wilson told the outlet.

The remarks marked a notable shift in tone from comments Wilson made shortly after winning Seattle’s mayoral race in November, when she joined Starbucks workers on a picket line outside the company’s former Reserve Roastery on Capitol Hill and urged residents to boycott the hometown coffee chain.

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“I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either,” Wilson said at the rally, according to KUOW. She later led protesters in chants supporting striking workers.

At the time, several unionized Starbucks workers in Seattle and other cities were striking amid stalled contract negotiations with the company.

Wilson’s comments have resurfaced in recent weeks as concerns mount among some business leaders and local officials about Seattle’s economic climate and whether increasingly progressive politics could drive employers and wealthy residents elsewhere.

JAMIE DIMON SAYS NEW YORK, OTHER CITIES FACE WORKER ‘EXODUS’ AS LAWMAKERS PUSH HIGHER TAXES

Those concerns intensified after Starbucks announced plans to establish a 2,000-employee corporate hub in Nashville, Tennessee, fueling debate over whether the company could gradually shift more operations away from Seattle, where Starbucks was founded in 1971 and still maintains its global headquarters. Tennessee has increasingly attracted corporate expansions from companies seeking lower taxes, lower operating costs and a more business-friendly regulatory environment than many West Coast cities.

Seattle City Council member Rob Saka told The New York Times he was “gravely concerned” about the potential implications for the city.

“This is real,” Saka told the outlet.

Saka’s concerns mark a notable shift from his tone following Wilson’s election victory, when he praised the mayor’s “energy” and said voters were calling for “change and a renewed focus on affordability.”

MAMDANI MEETS JAMIE DIMON AS WALL STREET OUTREACH INTENSIFIES AMID TAX BACKLASH

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz also weighed in earlier this month in a Wall Street Journal op-ed criticizing Seattle’s political leadership and warning the city risks alienating businesses that helped fuel its economic rise.

“Seattle’s mayor, Katie Wilson, has chosen to cast business as a foil rather than a partner,” Schultz wrote. “Her socialist rhetoric vilifies employers, even while she continues to rely on them for revenue.”

Schultz argued Washington state’s economic success was built on entrepreneurship, innovation and business growth, adding that the ecosystem is now “fractured.”

The debate comes as Seattle and Washington state grapple with rising housing costs, affordability concerns and tax policy disputes. Earlier this spring, Washington lawmakers approved a new 9.9% tax on certain personal income above $1 million, a measure critics have described as the state’s first income tax, while Wilson recently drew criticism for remarks dismissing concerns that wealthy residents could leave the state.

CALIFORNIA BUSINESS OWNERS ‘WORKING FOR PEANUTS’ AS COSTS, RECORD GAS PRICES AND REGULATIONS DEVOUR PROFITS

“I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are super overblown,” Wilson said during a Seattle University forum last month. “And the ones that leave? Like, bye.”

Wilson has since indicated she is trying to strike a more balanced tone toward Seattle’s corporate community.

The mayor told The New York Times she now understands her comments will be closely scrutinized for signs of hostility toward businesses and said she hopes to maintain “a multidimensional relationship” with companies like Starbucks.

“I want them here,” Wilson said of Starbucks, “and I believe they want to be here.”

Starbucks has framed its Nashville expansion as part of a broader growth strategy rather than a departure from Seattle. In a letter to employees cited by The New York Times, Starbucks chief partner officer Sara Kelly described the Tennessee expansion as “a complement to our global and North America presence in Seattle.” Starbucks has also continued restructuring portions of its Seattle-based workforce, including reported layoffs tied to its technology division earlier this month.

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Fox Business reached out to Starbucks and the Seattle mayor’s office for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.

Paul Atkins, the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, just slowed down what was expected to become one of the biggest ETF product launches of the year. On Wednesday, he announced that fund sponsors had agreed to delay a wave of more than two dozen exchange-traded funds tied to prediction markets while the SEC opens a formal public comment process before allowing them to launch.

Atkins, a longtime Republican securities lawyer and former SEC commissioner under President George W. Bush, now leads the federal regulator responsible for approving investment products, enforcing disclosure rules, and protecting investors in U.S. financial markets. When the SEC Chairman decides a product needs additional review, it does not move forward.

The products in question were filed earlier this year by Roundhill Investments, GraniteShares, and Bitwise Asset Management. The firms proposed ETFs that would allow Americans to effectively bet on real-world outcomes — including elections, recessions, layoffs, sports events, and economic data — through ordinary brokerage accounts.

The funds would rely on contracts tied to prediction-market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, where users wager on yes-or-no questions about future events. Prediction markets generated roughly $63.5 billion in trading activity last year and have rapidly evolved from niche internet platforms into a growing corner of Wall Street speculation.

Had the ETFs launched, the products would have become available through mainstream investment accounts at firms such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, and Vanguard Group, potentially placing them inside retirement portfolios and 401(k) plans used by millions of ordinary Americans. Several of the funds were expected to begin trading as early as May 21.

“Novel products raise novel questions,” Atkins said in a statement Wednesday, adding that the SEC must proceed “in a transparent and thoughtful manner” before approving the products.

Behind the delay are several major concerns.

First, prediction markets historically fall under the authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not the SEC. But Atkins previously told the Senate Banking Committee that some of the contracts increasingly resemble securities products, potentially placing them under SEC oversight instead.

Second, federal investigators are examining whether prediction markets could create opportunities for insider trading and market manipulation. Earlier this year, users on Polymarket placed unusually well-timed bets shortly before President Donald Trump authorized military actions involving Iran and Venezuela. Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former SEC Chairman, confirmed his office is investigating aspects of the prediction-market industry for possible fraud and misconduct.

Third, courts in Massachusetts and Nevada are still debating whether some prediction-market contracts amount to illegal gambling under state law.

For now, Atkins has already succeeded in slowing the industry’s expansion. The ETFs will not launch this week, and the SEC’s public-comment process could delay approvals for months. The agency has broad authority to demand additional disclosures, request structural changes, or refuse approval entirely.

Notably, the issuers themselves agreed to pause the launches voluntarily, signaling that they are unlikely to challenge the SEC publicly while the review process unfolds.

The longer-term fight, however, may ultimately move beyond the SEC and into Congress.

Lawmakers including Sen. Adam Schiff and Sen. John Curtis are backing legislation known as the “Prediction Markets are Gambling Act,” which would ban sports-related prediction contracts outright. Meanwhile, Rep. French Hill, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, acknowledged Wednesday that many lawmakers still do not fully understand how the rapidly growing market functions.

Atkins’ move is ultimately aimed at protecting ordinary investors — particularly retirees, working families, and retail traders who could easily mistake prediction-market ETFs for traditional investment products.

Unlike buying shares in a company that produces goods, hires workers, and generates profits, prediction-market contracts are fundamentally wagers on whether specific events will occur. Wrapped inside an ETF structure, those bets could suddenly appear alongside conventional stock and bond funds in retirement accounts across the country.

The SEC chairman is also attempting to protect confidence in the broader securities market itself. If products vulnerable to manipulation or insider-information risks receive the SEC’s approval through the ETF structure, it could undermine trust in the wider regulatory system overseeing Wall Street.

The stakes extend far beyond Washington regulators.

Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, recently committed up to $2 billion to Polymarket at an estimated $8 billion valuation. Investors including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, CapitalG, Paradigm Ventures, and Coinbase Ventures have poured money into Kalshi at valuations reportedly reaching $5 billion. Donald Trump Jr. also serves as an adviser to both companies.

Those investments were made under the assumption that prediction markets were on the verge of becoming a mainstream financial product embedded directly into the U.S. investment system.

Atkins’ decision does not end that possibility. But it makes clear that before prediction markets reach retirement accounts and everyday brokerage portfolios, the SEC intends to move far more carefully than the industry hoped.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Mountains are central to our history. The first mountain we encounter is Har Hamoriah, where Avrohom Avinu approached to bring his son Yitzchok as a korban.

On that mountain, malochim appeared to Avrohom and Yitzchok. On that mountain, Yaakov Avinu experienced kedusha and received tremendous brachos. On that mountain, the Bais Hamikdosh was built.

The mountain that hosted so much holiness also experienced great tragedy. Though it witnessed immense kedusha, during the time of the churban its holiness was defiled and tumah found a resting place there. We anxiously await the day when the Shechinah will once again return there together with the Bais Hamikdosh Hashlishi.

The Torah also speaks about Har Gerizim and Har Eivol, the mountains near Shechem. Upon one, eternal brachos were proclaimed. Upon the other, eternal curses were declared for those who do not follow the Torah. The mountain of blessings was lush and green, while the other remained barren and desolate. They remain that way until today.

In Nach, we read about the mountain upon which Eliyohu Hanovi confronted the false prophets of the avodah zorah known as Baal.

But of all the mountains, the one most central to who we are is Har Sinai. Though physically small, it towers over the entire landscape of Jewish history. On Shavuos, we picture millions of Yidden encamped around it, overwhelmed with tangible awe. They had traveled for forty-five days, following Moshe Rabbeinu through a hot and dusty desert in order to reach it.

Their journey had truly begun at brias ha’olam, when the world itself was created. The nation was moving toward its ultimate destiny. Bereishis, Chazal teach us, bishvil haTorah shenikreis reishis – the world was created so that the Torah could eventually be given to the Jewish people.

There was thunder and lightning. The sound of the shofar echoed powerfully, growing louder and louder. Smoke rose from the mountain, which stood beneath a thick cloud. The Divine Voice reverberated throughout creation, shaking the foundations of the earth. The Bnei Yisroel trembled with fear as they watched their leader ascend the mountain and disappear into the arofel, the thick fog.

On Shavuos, as we revisit the story of Moshe Rabbeinu ascending Har Sinai, we are reminded that the road to the highest levels of kedusha is rarely smooth or clear. More often, it passes through fog, smoke, and uncertainty. The Torah tells us, “Vayavo Moshe besoch he’anan,” and later, “Moshe nigash el ha’arofel asher shom ha’Elokim.” Moshe entered the cloud and approached the dense darkness where Hashem’s Presence rested. Moshe Rabbeinu did not receive the Torah beneath calm and peaceful skies. It came amid thunder, lightning, smoke, and heavy fog.

Perhaps that itself was part of the lesson.

A person may think that drawing closer to Hashem always comes with clarity, serenity, and immediate inspiration. But the Torah teaches otherwise. Very often, before reaching greater light, a person must first pass through confusion. Before attaining deeper holiness, he encounters resistance, distraction, and what Chazal call tishtush hamochin, a fogging of the mind and spirit.

Wherever there is kedusha, there is tumah attempting to oppose it. The greater the potential for holiness, the stronger the forces that seek to obstruct and contaminate it. To demonstrate this, at the very moment the world was about to become forever elevated through Kabbolas HaTorah, Har Sinai was surrounded by arofel, darkness, and smoke.

That pattern has repeated itself throughout history.

Whenever Yidden sought to build Torah, strengthen themselves spiritually, or establish places of purity and growth, opposition inevitably arose. Sometimes the resistance came from external persecution and hardship. At other times, it emerged internally, through confusion, cynicism, temptation, or spiritual exhaustion. The greater and stronger the structure of kedusha becomes, the more aggressively tumah attempts to seep through the cracks and poison it.

Yet, those who seek taharah do not become lost in the fog or frightened by it. They understand that it is part of the process. Moshe Rabbeinu moved forward into the arofel because he knew that beyond it rested the Shechinah itself.

The challenge facing those who strive for greatness in Torah and avodas Hashem is to continue advancing even when clarity fades. To keep learning, davening, building, and striving despite the noise, confusion, and distractions swirling around them. The yeitzer hora tries to convince a person that if he feels uninspired, overwhelmed, or spiritually blocked, he should retreat. But the lesson of Har Sinai teaches the exact opposite. Sometimes, the greatest growth occurs precisely when one pushes through the fog rather than surrendering to it.

This is the foundation of the nisyonos involving emunah and bitachon. It is easy to believe when everything is clear. But we must also recognize the Hand of Hashem when it is hidden, when life becomes difficult and events do not unfold the way we hoped.

Throughout the generations, our forefathers understood this truth. They knew that there are periods of darkness and hester, and that the path to kedusha, survival, and a blessed Yiddishe life is not by avoiding struggle, but by refusing to allow struggle to define or stop us.

That message is especially relevant in our generation, when distractions are endless and confusion is everywhere, when moral boundaries become blurred and spiritual fog surrounds us. We live in an age of superficiality, shortened attention spans, and short memories. It is easy to lose clarity regarding who we are and what we are meant to strive for. This is the modern form of arofel.

We must continue pushing our way through the fog, recognizing that if we persevere – if we maintain our sense of kedusha and Torah values – we can continue climbing until we reach the place we seek, “asher shom ha’Elokim,” the place beyond the darkness where Hashem resides.

The Brisker Rov was the mesader kiddushin at a wedding. Standing under the chupah, it came time for the chosson to place the ring on the kallah’s finger and declare her his wife. As the young man attempted to put the ring on her finger, he became so nervous that he began shaking and dropped the ring.

His father bent down, picked up the ring from the floor, and handed it back to the chosson. Once again, the chosson’s hand trembled, and as he tried to place the ring on his kallah’s finger, it slipped and fell to the ground. His father picked it up and returned it to him.

The nervous chosson made a third attempt to place the ring on the girl’s finger. Once again, the seemingly simple task escaped him and the ring dropped to the floor. This time, people began murmuring. Someone turned to the rov and remarked, “This seems like a sign that they should not be getting married. Perhaps their match is simply not bashert.”

The rov shook his head. “No, no,” he replied. “This is a sign that the couple was meant to marry now and not three minutes earlier.”

Upon hearing those words, the young man relaxed. His father handed him the ring once more, he placed it on the kallah’s finger, and declared, “Harei at mekudeshes li… kedas Moshe v’Yisroel.”

The study of Torah is difficult, and many times, while learning, we feel as though we are trapped in arofel, lost in a fog of confusion. We cannot follow the back-and-forth of the Gemara or understand the kushya or teretz of Tosafos. We convince ourselves that the sugya is beyond our ability to comprehend. We feel tempted to close the Gemara and find something easier to occupy ourselves with.

But we must remember that this is the way of the Torah. It does not come easily. Nevertheless, we immerse ourselves in it, and after much toil, we slowly begin to understand and appreciate its beauty and brilliance.

Rav Shmuel Auerbach related a story that he heard from a direct witness, ish mipi ish. One of the holy tzaddikim of Yerushalayim possessed a kemei’a that he would lend to people in need of a yeshuah. The Kabbalistic parchment had been written by the Taz, author of the Turei Zohov on Shulchan Aruch. The kemei’a was known to be exceptionally powerful, and many who used it saw their problems resolved.

The owner of the kemei’a was extremely curious about what was written on the concealed parchment that possessed such extraordinary power. Although opening an amulet generally causes it to lose its effectiveness, he reasoned that perhaps he could copy the secret names of Hashem and the malochim written on it onto a new parchment and preserve its power to help those in desperate need.

When he carefully opened the ancient sacred document, he was astonished to discover that it did not contain holy names or the names of ministering angels. Instead, in the handwriting of the Taz, there was only a single sentence: “Dear Creator of the world, in the merit of my deep toil to understand the words of Tosafos in Chullin on daf 96, please bring salvation and blessings to the person wearing this amulet.”

That is the power of Torah. This is the reward for laboring to understand the words of a Tosafos.

The Torah grants life to those who struggle through the arofel in order to understand and absorb its holy words and messages. The strength it gives its faithful adherents is eternal. But to attain a true understanding of Torah, we must possess patience, discipline, and wisdom. We must never give up or surrender.

The first Jews who received the Torah had their own arofel: the slavery of Mitzrayim and the descent into the deepest levels of tumah. Their faith sustained them as they followed Moshe Rabbeinu out of the country and through the Yam Suf. Within forty-nine days, they prepared themselves to receive the Torah at Har Sinai. They fought their way through the fog of Mitzrayim’s tumah and elevated themselves to the highest levels attainable by man.

On Shavuos, we read Megillas Rus, the story of Na’ami and her daughter-in-law, Rus. Two courageous women survived tremendous tragedy and rose above their personal arofel to become the ancestors of Dovid Hamelech and ultimately Moshiach. Rus HaMoaviah rose above the depravity of her homeland and became a devoted giyores. Nothing deterred her from remaining loyal to Torah and the Jewish people. She endured poverty and loneliness while pursuing the path she had chosen. In return, she merited royal descendants and eternal blessings. We continue to await the arrival of her descendant, the ultimate redeemer.

Rus had every reason to return to Moav and to the wealth she had left behind when she married into the family of Elimelech, yet she so eloquently bound her destiny to the Jewish people. Her story inspires us to persevere during difficult times. It is yet another reminder that those who follow the path of Hashem and cling to Torah and mitzvos with determination will ultimately flourish and succeed.

Rather than retreating, she moved forward. Instead of surrendering to what appeared to be overwhelming obstacles, she demonstrated that commitment to Torah is always preferable to any alternative. We, too, must never give up, no matter what difficulties we encounter in the observance or study of Torah.

When Hashem appeared to the Bnei Yisroel and offered them the Torah, they responded in unison, “Na’aseh venishma – We will do and we will hear whatever You tell us.” Their response was so praiseworthy that the Gemara in Maseches Shabbos (88a) relates that afterward, malochim placed two crowns upon the head of every Jew, one for na’aseh and one for nishma. A bas kol rang out proclaiming, “Who taught My children this secret?”

Many ask what was so extraordinary about na’aseh venishma that it elicited such a dramatic response. Perhaps we can explain that by responding in this manner, they were declaring: “Na’aseh – we will live according to the dictates of the Torah and follow its commandments. Venishma – and we will accomplish this through dedicating ourselves to the study of Torah. No difficulty will stop us from working as hard as we can to understand the words of the Torah. We will not become lost or deterred in the arofel.”

Na’aseh venishma. We have been repeating that pledge for thousands of years. Wherever we are, whatever language we speak, regardless of our geographical distance from major Jewish centers, despite the ravages of exile, golus, churban, and pogroms, we continue proclaiming together, “Na’aseh venishma.”

Those words are what distinguish us and what have sustained us throughout the ages. We have been protected by the Torah and by our loyalty to it and to what it demands of us. The other nations that once filled the world have disappeared throughout history. We remain because of those two words that guide and define us.

On the Yom Tov of Kabbolas HaTorah, we once again stand at Har Sinai and proclaim, “Na’aseh venishma.” We receive the Torah anew and are reminded of our mission and purpose. Shavuos is not merely a commemoration of what our ancestors accepted long ago, but a renewal of our own commitment to live as people shaped and elevated by Torah, today and every day.

My uncle, Rav Avrohom Chaim Levin, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Telz, once recalled a difficult period in the yeshiva when an incident had deeply shaken the rosh yeshiva, Rav Elya Meir Bloch. The atmosphere in the bais medrash was tense as the talmidim gathered to hear the rosh yeshiva speak. They expected a fiery rebuke, a painful description of how low a person can fall. As they entered and took their seats for the shmuess, they feared what he would say.

But Rav Elya Meir spoke about something entirely different.

“We already know how low a person can sink,” he said. “Now let us speak about how high a person can rise.”

And with the classic mussar emphasis on gadlus ha’adam, he delivered a shmuess about possibility, about the greatness contained within every Jew, and the heights each person can attain.

The great mashgiach, Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, would say that while it is a serious failing for a person not to recognize his deficiencies, it is an even greater failing not to recognize his strengths and qualities. A person who ignores his weaknesses cannot improve himself, but a person who ignores his greatness cannot even begin the journey upward.

Perhaps this is one of the central messages of Shavuos as well.

The Torah was not given to malochim. It was given to human beings who struggle, fail, become discouraged, and sometimes lose clarity. Yet, Hashem looked at those very human beings and entrusted them with His Torah because of what they are capable of becoming.

The yeitzer hora wants a person to focus obsessively on his weaknesses and failures, convincing him that holiness and greatness belong only to others. But the yeitzer tov reminds us that the opposite is true.

The fire of Har Sinai burns within the heart of every Jew.

The fire of Torah possesses the power to illuminate the neshomah and burn away the tumah that seeks to envelop it. Even during periods of arofel and choshech, confusion and spiritual exhaustion, every Yid possesses the strength to continue moving forward, to walk through darkness with purpose, and to strive upward as a kadosh reaching toward Heaven.

So often in life, there is a temptation to surrender, to convince ourselves that the burdens are too heavy, the distractions are too powerful, and the challenges are too overwhelming. A person may feel that he has stumbled too many times to ever rise again.

But the nation that declared “Na’aseh venishma” is not a nation that gives up.

The very essence of those words was the willingness to continue forward despite uncertainty, despite difficulty, despite not fully understanding what lay ahead. At Har Sinai, Klal Yisroel demonstrated that it understood that greatness is achieved by accepting the challenge of growth.

Every Shavuos, as we once again accept the Torah, we are reminded not only of our obligations, but also of our greatness. We remember that we were created for more than mediocrity and distraction. We were created to rise, to horeveh in Torah, to grow, and to become a great nation of great people.

For those who carry the words “Na’aseh venishma” within their souls, no challenge is insurmountable and no height is beyond reach.

We speak about greatness, holiness, and climbing toward Heaven. We speak about the crowns that were placed upon our heads at Har Sinai, about walking through the arofel, about becoming anshei kodesh while living in a difficult physical world filled with challenges. But all of this can sound lofty and distant, as though true greatness belongs only to malochim and not to ordinary people like us.

The Torah teaches otherwise.

There was once a great commotion in the town of Sadigura. Rav Yisroel of Ruzhin had come to visit, and crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of the great tzaddik and perhaps receive a brocha. A young child heard the excitement and asked what it was about.

“A rebbe as holy as a malach has come to town,” they told him. “The heilige Ruzhiner is here.”

Curious and sincere, the child pushed his way through the crowd until he stood before the rebbe. He carefully walked around him, studying him from every angle.

The rebbe noticed and asked the boy what he was looking for. “I was told that the rebbe is a malach, and my cheder rebbi taught us that in Akdamus it says that malochim have six wings. I am looking for your wings.”

The rebbe looked down at the cherubic young boy and smiled. Pointing to the six sons accompanying him, he said, “These are my six wings.”

The Torah does not ask us to escape our humanity and become malochim. It asks us to elevate our humanity. True greatness is not found in withdrawing from life, but in sanctifying it. The wings that lift a Jew Heavenward are not hidden somewhere beyond this world. They are built here – through raising children, building families, learning Torah, refining our character, helping others, persevering through struggle, and remaining loyal to Hashem and His Torah.

Moshe Rabbeinu entered the arofel not to stop being human, but to demonstrate that a human being can ascend far beyond what he imagined possible. Klal Yisroel stood at Har Sinai and affirmed that ordinary people of flesh and blood could live lives infused with kedusha and eternal meaning.

And every year on Shavuos, we stand there once again, hearing the call to greatness and reminding ourselves that despite the darkness of the times, despite the distractions of life, our weaknesses, and our struggles, we are the people to whom Hashem spoke at Har Sinai, and we are the people to whom He gave the Torah. That upward path still exists.

We are not malochim. But we possess the wings that can carry us as high as we wish to go.

Let’s go.

Ashreichem Yisroel.

Gut Yom Tov.

Australian police have charged a 35-year-old man with allegedly stealing camera equipment from one of the 15 people killed in last December’s antisemitic terror attack on a Chanukah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

The alleged thief was himself a photographer hired to work the same Chanukah by the Sea event where Peter Meagher, a 61-year-old retired police detective-sergeant, was shot dead on Dec. 14 while on a freelance assignment, New South Wales Police said. The man allegedly took Meagher’s gear in the chaos following the shooting and pawned it days later.

Detectives executed a search warrant at a home in Sydney’s northwestern suburbs Wednesday morning, where they recovered a camera, a set of handcuffs, electronic devices, and a small quantity of white crystalline powder, according to the department.

“Detectives identified that one of the victims, a 61-year-old retired police officer and photographer, had his camera equipment stolen in the aftermath of the attack,” police said in a statement. They allege the suspect “was a photographer at the Hanukah event who stole the deceased 61-year-old’s camera equipment before pawning it days later.”

The man was charged with grand larceny and drug possession, granted strict conditional bail, and is scheduled to appear in Blacktown Local Court on June 22.

The arrest brings a small measure of resolution to a months-long search by Meagher’s family. His widow, Virginia Meagher, made a public appeal on social media in March asking for help locating her late husband’s camera, which she said carried deep personal significance.

Meagher, a beloved figure at Sydney’s Randwick Rugby Club, was one of 15 people gunned down when a Muslim father and son opened fire on roughly 1,000 people gathered at Archer Park. The dead included 11 men, three women, and a 10-year-old girl. More than 40 others were wounded.

The Islamic State later claimed credit for the assault.

One of the attackers, Indian national and Australian permanent resident Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead by police at the scene. His son, 24-year-old Australian citizen Naveed Akram, was wounded, survived, and is now on remand at Goulburn Correctional Centre awaiting trial on 59 charges including 15 counts of murder, 44 counts of attempted murder, committing a terrorist act, and the public display of a prohibited terrorist symbol.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly ordered that Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium remain inside the country, rejecting any proposal to transfer the material abroad as part of a possible agreement aimed at ending the war with the United States and Israel.

According to senior Iranian sources cited by Reuters, Khamenei issued the directive amid ongoing indirect diplomatic efforts and mounting international pressure over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran is currently believed to possess more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium — a quantity Israeli officials have warned is sufficient for approximately 11 nuclear bombs if enriched further to weapons-grade levels.

The reported refusal is likely to deepen concerns in both Jerusalem and Washington, where officials have repeatedly insisted that Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile must be dismantled or removed entirely as part of any future agreement.

Earlier this month, a senior Israeli military official warned that if the uranium remains inside Iran, the military campaign launched in February could ultimately be viewed as “one big failure.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The Transportation Department announced Wednesday that it will allocate an additional $200 million to help launch construction on the long-awaited redevelopment of New York’s Penn Station, part of a sweeping $8 billion modernization effort expected to begin by the end of next year.

According to Amtrak and the Trump administration, the project will dramatically transform the aging transit hub by increasing rail capacity, constructing a new grand entrance along Eighth Avenue, creating a modern train hall, and replacing outdated passageways with larger open concourses.

Penn Station remains the busiest transportation hub in the United States, handling roughly 10 million Amtrak passengers each year and approximately 100 million travelers overall when regional rail systems are included.

Last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that the department planned to direct $4.7 billion toward rail infrastructure upgrades along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, including improvements at Penn Station and Union Station in Washington, D.C.

“We’re going to give $8 billion to rebuild Penn Station,” Duffy said Tuesday during a Senate hearing.

The decision effectively ends the possibility that New York would relocate Madison Square Garden, which sits above Penn Station and serves as the home arena for the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, in addition to hosting concerts and other major events.

Plans for the reconstruction also include expanded retail areas and a redesigned exterior intended to give the station a more classical architectural appearance.

New York previously unveiled the $1.6 billion Moynihan Train Hall project in 2021, opening a large new concourse inside the former Farley Post Office building across Eighth Avenue from Penn Station.

The 255,000-square-foot Moynihan Train Hall features a massive glass skylight rising 92 feet overhead, as well as amenities including a lounge for nursing mothers. The facility provides access to 17 Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road tracks.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has continued facing legal setbacks regarding the separate $16 billion Hudson Tunnel Project. Federal courts have ordered the Transportation Department to continue funding the project after administration officials attempted to halt payments.

The Hudson Tunnel Project is designed to construct a new commuter rail tunnel linking Manhattan and New Jersey while also rehabilitating the century-old existing tunnel currently used by more than 200,000 passengers and 425 trains every day.

The current tunnel sustained extensive damage during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and now requires repeated emergency maintenance, causing disruptions along the nation’s busiest passenger rail corridor.

{Matzav.com}

JERUSALEM (VINnews)  Israeli soldiers and Border Police officers foiled an overnight attempt to smuggle 26 handguns and ammunition across the eastern border, authorities announced Thursday.

Acting on information from field observers, IDF troops and Judea and Samaria District Border Police conducted searches near the border Wednesday night and located a bag containing the weapons and munitions, the joint announcement said.

The seized handguns were transferred to the Judea and Samaria District Police for further processing and investigation.

Israeli security forces maintain a heightened presence along the eastern border to prevent smuggling and protect Israeli civilians, the statement added.

No arrests were mentioned in the announcement.

Wall Street investors may be getting a little too confident.

Bank of America warned Tuesday that professional money managers have become so heavily invested in stocks that the bank’s closely watched “sell signal” has officially triggered — a warning that markets could soon face a pullback after months of strong gains.

For everyday investors, the message is simple: when almost everyone is already bullish and fully invested, there may not be enough new buyers left to keep pushing stocks higher.

The warning comes after cash levels held by major fund managers dropped below 4% for the first time in months — a threshold Bank of America historically views as a sign investors have become overly optimistic.

At the same time, professional investors sharply increased their stock exposure in May, making one of the biggest monthly moves into equities ever recorded in the bank’s survey history.

“Bull capitulation almost complete,” Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in a note to clients.

In plain English, that means many investors who had been cautious finally rushed back into the market — often a sign that optimism may be peaking.

The stock market has staged a powerful rally since March, driven largely by enthusiasm around artificial intelligence, strong earnings from major tech companies and hopes the economy could avoid recession despite rising oil prices and global tensions.

Much of the buying has flowed into giant technology companies including:

• Nvidia
• Apple
• Microsoft
• Amazon
• Meta
• Alphabet
• Tesla

Those seven companies — often called the “Magnificent Seven” — have powered much of the broader market’s gains over the past few years.

But Bank of America now says that trade has become extremely crowded.

The concern is not necessarily that a major crash is imminent. Historically, the bank’s sell signal has often been followed by relatively modest pullbacks.

Still, the indicator suggests markets may be vulnerable because investors have already deployed much of their available cash.

If bad news hits — such as rising inflation, higher interest rates, weak earnings or geopolitical escalation — there may be fewer buyers ready to step in and support prices.

The timing of the warning is especially notable because several major risks remain hanging over markets:

• Oil prices remain elevated because of the Iran war
• Treasury yields have surged to multi-year highs
• The Federal Reserve may keep rates higher for longer
• Investors are increasingly worried about inflation returning

Long-term Treasury yields briefly climbed above 5.19% Tuesday, their highest levels in nearly two decades.

Higher bond yields often pressure stocks because they increase borrowing costs and make safer investments like bonds more attractive relative to equities.

Ironically, many investors surveyed by Bank of America said they expect yields to continue rising — while simultaneously remaining heavily invested in stocks.

That contradiction is part of what worries strategists.

The survey also found only 4% of fund managers expect a severe economic slowdown, showing how optimistic Wall Street has become despite ongoing global uncertainty.

Historically, markets tend to become more fragile when nearly everyone expects good news.

Hartnett specifically pointed to early June as a possible period for profit-taking, especially with the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting approaching and Nvidia earnings due this week.

For everyday investors, analysts say the warning does not necessarily mean panic-selling stocks.

Instead, it may simply suggest being more cautious after a strong rally:

• Reviewing portfolio risk
• Avoiding excessive speculation
• Rebalancing overly concentrated positions
• Keeping some cash available for future opportunities

The broader economy still appears relatively strong, corporate profits remain healthy and AI optimism continues driving massive investment flows into technology.

But Bank of America’s message is that markets may now be priced for near perfection — leaving less room for disappointment.

And when almost everyone is already bullish, even small negative surprises can sometimes trigger outsized market reactions.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

Foreign governments sharply reduced their holdings of U.S. Treasurys in March as the economic fallout from the Iran war forced central banks across Asia and the Middle East to defend their currencies and stabilize local markets.

Japan, the largest foreign owner of U.S. government debt, cut roughly $47.7 billion from its Treasury holdings, lowering its position to about $1.19 trillion, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Treasury Department. China also reduced its holdings, bringing them down to roughly $652 billion — the country’s lowest level since 2008.

For everyday Americans, the story matters because foreign demand for U.S. government debt directly affects borrowing costs across the economy, including mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and business financing.

When countries buy fewer Treasurys, the U.S. government often has to offer higher interest rates to attract buyers. Those higher rates can ripple through the entire financial system.

The selloff comes after the U.S.-Iran conflict triggered a major surge in global oil prices earlier this year, putting enormous pressure on countries that rely heavily on imported energy. Japan and several Asian economies saw their currencies weaken sharply as energy costs climbed, forcing central banks to step in and support their financial systems.

To do that, many governments sold dollar reserves — including U.S. Treasury bonds — and used the cash to buy their own currencies.

Analysts say the moves were driven more by financial defense than by politics.

“Given increased financial volatility since the start of the war in the Gulf, and resultant pressure on exchange rates, especially in Asia, it is not a surprise that U.S. Treasury holdings by central banks have fallen,” said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC.

Japan faced some of the most severe pressure as the yen weakened past the key 160-per-dollar level, alarming policymakers in Tokyo. The Bank of Japan reportedly intervened in currency markets in late March and early April to slow the collapse.

China’s reduction, meanwhile, continues a much longer trend that has been unfolding for more than a decade. Beijing has steadily reduced its direct Treasury exposure since peaking near $1.3 trillion in 2013, although analysts believe China still indirectly holds large amounts of U.S. debt through financial centers such as Belgium and Luxembourg.

The Treasury market was also hit by rising inflation fears tied to the war and higher oil prices. Bond prices fell sharply in March as investors worried the Federal Reserve may delay future interest-rate cuts.

That matters because when bond prices fall, yields rise — increasing borrowing costs for the U.S. government.

Treasury yields have climbed back toward levels last seen before the 2008 financial crisis, and several government debt auctions earlier this year saw weaker-than-expected demand from investors.

The pressure is becoming increasingly important for Washington because the federal government is already paying close to $1 trillion annually in interest expenses on the national debt.

At the same time, foreign central banks have slowly become less dominant buyers of Treasurys in recent years. More hedge funds and private investors are now stepping into the market instead, a shift analysts say can create sharper swings and more volatility.

Not every country pulled back. The United Kingdom actually increased its Treasury holdings by nearly $30 billion during the month, helping offset part of the broader decline.

Overall, foreign private investors continued buying U.S. assets aggressively even as governments and central banks reduced exposure. Analysts say that suggests confidence in the U.S. economy itself remains relatively strong, even as official institutions focus more heavily on protecting their own currencies and economies from the global energy shock.

Investors are now watching closely for April Treasury data, which will show whether the March selling was a temporary reaction to the war-driven oil spike or the beginning of a broader global shift away from U.S. government debt.

For now, the message from foreign governments is increasingly clear: stabilizing their own economies is taking priority over supporting the global dollar system that has dominated world finance for decades.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved.

NEW YORK (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) What follows is a fascinating and inspiring new understanding of Naomi based on a shiur given by Rav Uren Reich shlita. This shiur was delivered the same day that the Rosh yeshiva served as the sandek for this author’s einekel.  The pasuk at the beginning of Megillas Rus describes this wealthy, successful lady, Naomi.

How’s everything going for her? And then she leaves with her husband to stay in Moav, and one tragedy after another befalls her, and she comes back bereft of everything that she had before. “Vayehi k’voanah Beis Lechem” — as they come back and they come into Beis Lechem, and everybody’s assembled there, “vateihom kol ha’ir” — everybody was talking about it. “Vatomarna ha’zos Naomi?” Is this the lady that we once knew? Naomi — she’s unrecognizable. “Vatomer aleihen, al tikrena li Naomi.” Don’t call me Naomi.

The word Naomi is from ne’imus — sweet. “Kerena li Mara” — call me bitter. “Ki heimar Shakai li me’od” — Hashem has given me much bitterness. “Ani mele’ah halachti, v’reikam heshivani Hashem; lamah tikrena li Naomi, v’Hashem anah vi, v’Shakai heira li.”

We look at these words, and they sound like the bitter ranting of a woman who’s fallen on hard times — negative and upset.

She, so to speak, spits at those who call her Naomi. Why are you calling me Naomi? I’m not Naomi. I’m now a woman who’s living a bitter life. Things have turned very bad for me.

But it may have meant something completely different.

And I’d like to share a story about my great-grandfather, Rav Shlomo Zalman Pines. Rav Shlomo Zalman Pines lived in Minsk. He was truly “Toraso v’zulaso b’mokom echad.” He was a fabulously wealthy person, part of his family, and he learned yomam va’laylah. And gedolei Yisroel stayed in his house — Rav Zalman Sender, Rav Chaim Brisker. He spent his Shabbosos with Rav Meir Simcha, and he spoke about it till the end of his life — different chiddushim that he discussed with Rav Meir Simcha.

And the wealth in the house was so fabulous that his wife used to tell the grandchildren stories about the maidservants they had, and the gold — they didn’t have silver, they had gold.

They had all kinds of cutlery. And every year, as a very wealthy man, he used to go with his wife to Switzerland for a vacation, and he left his two children behind with a babysitter — this was their minhag b’kviyus.

And one year — I think it was 1914 — for reasons that no one knows, he took both children with him that year. And they were in Switzerland, and on the way out, they realized they were missing certain papers.

They went back to the stantzia to get the papers, and they missed the boat that day, and therefore they decided to go back to Russia the next day. Which was Hashgachah Pratis — they got a telegram: “The Bolsheviks have taken over. There’s a revolution. A lot of unrest. Don’t come back right now. Wait until you know what’s me’ulad yom.”

Shortly afterwards, he got another telegram, or maybe a letter: “They’ve taken over completely. The Russian Revolution — and the scapegoat for everything is the wealthy people. They’ve taken over everything that you have. If you walk into Russia, you’ll be killed immediately. Stay where you are.”

And he realized that it was a gezeiras Hashem that he has to stay in Switzerland.

He had kim’at no money with him at all. He had what he brought with him for the vacation. And he had some very nice leichter, and he had a little bit of a part in the house that he was in in Switzerland.

He was doomed to be a poor man for the rest of his life. “Litvish atam tarchem,” omar, “dar raglov, v’al ma she’amar Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu Melech ha’olam — dayeinu emes.”

From then, for the next 30 years until the end of his life — more than 30 years — he never spoke a word about his previous riches. He lived as a very poor man, and he was marbitz Torah yomam va’laylah, sha’arim, sha’arim.

Yeduah — he said on himself, he said to my uncle Reb Dov, he learned Bava Kamma over 100 times b’iyun. He wrote on kol chelkei ha’Torah, atem chochmas Halacha.

But the point that I’m bringing out of it is “mefulag harayim.” Here he’d lived one track as a wealthy person, a baal gedulah, a person who was machnis kedushah l’Yisroel, b’haflagah — and in a moment, so to speak, his life was nehefach, and he was mekabel b’tzidduk hadin, b’ahavah, and never spoke about it.

His wife used to speak to the children about it, but he never said another word.

And what’s the omek of that? What’s the depth of that?

He put that life behind him. He realized that Hashem gives a person a tafkid. His tafkid until now was to live the life of a wealthy person — with tzidkus, with Torah, with avodas Hashem. And now he had a different goral. And he didn’t want to hear about what was before. It’s not relevant. Why be nostalgic about times that used to be and feel that I’m missing something? I’m in a new world, and a new tekufah.

Naomi lived a life of sweetness for a long time. And when she came back, people were comparing the lady they were watching to the lady she used to be. And from the name of a person, they said, comes the tafkid: “Ha’zos Naomi?” Is this the lady that we knew, that was Naomi? “Vatomer aleihen” — and she said to them: I don’t view myself anymore as Naomi. That was my previous life. “Al tikrena li Naomi.” Don’t give me the title Naomi. Naomi is the lady I used to be. “Kerena li Mara, ki heimar Shakai li me’od.”

Now Hakadosh Baruch Hu has given me the trial, the tribulation, of having a bitter life — and seeing if I can endure it with the right kabbalah b’ahavah. “Ani mele’ah halachti, v’reikam heshivani Hashem” — middas harachamim. Now Hakadosh Baruch Hu has decided to give me a different role. “Lamah tikrena li Naomi?” Why talk about the Naomi that used to be? It’s irrelevant. “V’Hashem anah vi, v’Shakai heira li.”

And the truth is, as we all know, Naomi’s gedulah begins now.

Now, through Rus, Naomi has a connection — as we see at the end of the Megillah, she becomes the one who is the forerunner of Malchus Beis Dovid and Malchus Melech HaMashiach.

So a person who feels deprived because there was something great that he had — whatever it may be — that was taken from him: this is the avodas Hashem. “B’chol me’odecha” — Chazal zogn, “b’chol middah u’middah she’hu moded lecha, hevei modeh lo me’od me’od.” A person has to accept what Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives him. It’s a very, very difficult challenge.

I remember my father, alav ha’shalom — he was a very active person, he was a sociable person, he liked people. And when he became sick, and he was in an old age home, at the beginning he couldn’t deal with the transformation of his life. He spoke to me about it; we spoke. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives a different tafkid, and he took that discussion and he said it over to many people: “I’ve been mekabel — now I have a different life. Now I have to take care of Mommy, I have to take care of Mommy, and I have to live a slower life, and it takes me half an hour till I walk next door to Minchah. That’s my life. I’m going to be mekabel b’ahavah.”

This is the way we all have to live in avodas Hashem. U’bizchus ha’kabbalos ha’tovos shelanu nizkeh l’mashiach.

The transcriber can be reached at [email protected]

The wholesome Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes have been taught in classrooms, crooned in karaoke bars and used in U.S.-China diplomacy for decades.

Anthropic has hired one of the most respected names in artificial intelligence: Andrej Karpathy, the former Tesla AI chief and OpenAI co-founder whose work helped shape today’s AI boom.

For everyday readers, the move highlights how intense — and expensive — the fight for top AI talent has become as companies race to dominate the next generation of artificial intelligence.

Karpathy announced Tuesday that he is joining Anthropic, the fast-growing AI company behind the Claude chatbot, to work on developing future large language models and advanced AI systems.

“I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative,” Karpathy wrote in a post on X.

Inside the tech industry, the hire is being viewed as a major win for Anthropic and a blow to rivals including OpenAI, Tesla and Elon Musk’s xAI.

Karpathy is widely considered one of the most influential AI researchers of the modern era.

He was part of the original founding team at OpenAI alongside Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever and others back in 2015, before leaving to lead Tesla’s artificial intelligence efforts.

At Tesla, Karpathy helped build the computer vision systems behind Autopilot and the company’s Full Self-Driving technology.

He later became one of the most recognizable public educators in AI, helping explain complex technologies like neural networks and large language models to millions of engineers, developers and students online.

He also coined the now-popular phrase “vibe coding,” referring to the growing trend of developers describing what they want while AI generates the code automatically.

Anthropic says Karpathy will join its “pretraining” team — the group responsible for building the foundational intelligence of future AI models.

That stage of AI development is among the most expensive and competitive areas in technology today because it requires enormous amounts of computing power, data and highly specialized researchers.

In simple terms, these are the teams trying to create the next generation of ChatGPT-like systems before they are later refined into consumer products.

The hire comes at a pivotal moment in the AI race.

Anthropic has rapidly emerged as one of OpenAI’s biggest competitors, especially in enterprise AI and coding tools. The company recently reached a private valuation approaching $1 trillion and is widely expected to pursue an IPO in the near future.

Meanwhile, AI companies are battling aggressively for a very small pool of elite researchers capable of pushing frontier models forward.

Compensation packages for top AI talent have exploded, with some companies reportedly offering deals worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

The move is also notable because Karpathy had previously been linked to possible future projects with Elon Musk.

Musk reportedly tried to recruit him back to Tesla last year for work on the company’s Optimus humanoid robot initiative.

Instead, Karpathy chose Anthropic — a company founded largely by former OpenAI employees and increasingly seen as one of the strongest challengers in the AI industry.

The timing adds another layer of drama.

Karpathy’s hiring comes just one day after Musk lost a major legal battle against OpenAI and Sam Altman over claims tied to OpenAI’s transition into a for-profit company.

For Anthropic, landing Karpathy sends a clear message to competitors and investors: the company intends to compete aggressively at the very highest level of AI development.

The broader industry implications are enormous.

As AI systems become more powerful, experts increasingly believe the biggest advantage may not simply be who has the most computer chips or money — but who can attract the smartest researchers capable of improving models faster than rivals.

That makes people like Karpathy extraordinarily valuable.

For consumers, the escalating talent war could accelerate advances in AI tools used for coding, search, education, automation and business productivity.

It could also further intensify competition between major AI players including OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic and Musk’s xAI as each races to build more capable systems.

And increasingly, the battle is no longer just about technology.

It is about who can convince the people building the future of AI where they want to work.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

This post was originally published on this site.

Economists worry that a sharp drop in immigration could weaken economic growth as the current workforce ages and starts to retire.

New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman)  Lo sira mi’pachad layla, mei’chetz ya’uf yomam — “You shall not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day” (Tehillim 91:5). The imagery that Dovid HaMelech describes has rarely felt more literal than it does today along Israel’s northern border . Soldiers and citizen alike are facing small, fast, lethal projectiles — fiber-optic-guided drones launched by Hezbollah that, rachmana litzlan have been killing our brethren. 

It is a drone that cannot be jammed and something that all of Klal Yisroel should be saying Tehillim for.

The proper approach, of course, is bitachon bashem combined with hishtadlus. And that hishtadlus has created a partial solution.

Smart Shooter, the Kibbutz Yagur-based defense technology firm, has just signed a NIS 6.7 million agreement with Israel’s Ministry of Defense to supply its SMASH Hopper lightweight remote-controlled weapon stations, with options that could expand the deal’s total value to approximately NIS 14.6 million. The system is aimed squarely at the chetz ya’uf yomam of our generation.  

A Contract Born of Urgent Necessity

The agreement calls for delivery of SMASH Hopper systems, spare parts, and related services during the second half of 2026. Smart Shooter CEO Michal Mor described the deal as reflecting “the ministry’s continued confidence in the company’s technology,” adding that the system addresses “urgent” defense needs.

The timing is no coincidence. Just days before the contract was announced, IDF officer Cpt. Maoz Israel Recanati, Hy”d, was killed in a Hezbollah drone strike in southern Lebanon — the seventh Israeli military death since the nominal ceasefire that took effect on April 17, 2026.

Despite the formal cessation of hostilities, Hezbollah has continued to harass IDF positions and Israeli border communities with a weapon that has proven dismayingly difficult to counter.

The Fiber-Optic Threat

Fiber-optic drones — small first-person-view (FPV) quadcopters tethered to their operators by a hair-thin glass fiber cable — emerged as a defining weapon of the Russia-Ukraine war. Hezbollah operatives, observing this evolution carefully, have adapted the technology for use against Israel.

The menace lies in their immunity to electronic warfare. Conventional drones rely on radio frequency communication that can be jammed or spoofed. Israel, which has invested enormously in EW capabilities, has been highly effective at neutralizing radio-controlled UAVs. But a drone receiving its commands through a physical cable — a wire roughly the width of dental floss — emits no detectable signal whatsoever. Israel’s electronic shield, in effect, simply does not see it.

These drones are also remarkably cheap. According to Israeli military officials, Hezbollah produces them locally from an off-the-shelf commercial drone, a small explosive payload, and readily available transparent fiber cable — at a cost measured in hundreds of dollars per unit.

The IDF has attempted various improvised responses: concrete walls, netting strung over positions, net-launching interceptor drones, and even anti-drone barbed wire supplied to the Lebanese Armed Forces. An Israeli military official, speaking to CNN, candidly acknowledged that none of these measures is foolproof: “It’s a threat that we are still adapting to.” On April 11, the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development issued a public call for solutions — nearly two years after such systems first appeared on the Ukrainian battlefield.

What the SMASH Hopper Is

Weighing approximately 15 kilograms, the SMASH Hopper is a compact, modular, remote-controlled weapon station designed for rapid deployment on light vehicles, ground robots, fixed posts, masts, and tripods. The operator controls it from a safe distance from the threat — a critical feature when the threat is a high-explosive drone designed to hunt and kill the very soldiers attempting to shoot it down.

The system offers full day-and-night operation, automatic scanning and target detection, and a safe trigger mechanism. Mounted on a stabilized platform rather than held by a fatigued or stressed soldier, it delivers consistent precision under conditions where human marksmanship deteriorates. The SMASH family can engage drones at ranges of up to 250 meters, with recent integrations on heavy machine guns extending that range to 400 meters during NATO trials in Project VANAHEIM.

Software as the Decisive Factor

What makes Smart Shooter’s systems distinctive is not the hardware but the software. A camera and sensor feed continuous imagery into an onboard computer, which analyzes the scene in real time. When the operator identifies a target and presses a button, the system locks on and tracks — calculating, frame by frame, where the projectile must be aimed to strike a target moving erratically at considerable speed.

The operator’s job is reduced to alignment. The system displays a firing window; the trigger releases the shot only when the geometry is correct. This approach — called Lock-Track-Hit — converts a difficult skill into a task that can be performed by ordinary soldiers, even reservists with minimal training. The first round, according to Smart Shooter, hits its target.

This is precisely what the fiber-optic drone problem demands. Because these drones cannot be jammed, they must be killed kinetically. But the targets are tiny, fast, and piloted aggressively at high speed. A soldier under attack, with seconds to react, must hit a target the size of a dinner plate moving at 60 or 70 miles per hour. Without computational assistance, this is essentially impossible for any but the most exceptional marksmen.

Why the SMASH Hopper Specifically Addresses This Threat

First, the system does not depend on electronic detection. Because fiber-optic drones emit no radio signal, radar- and RF-based detection systems struggle against them. The SMASH Hopper acquires targets optically — exactly the modality that fiber-optic drones cannot evade. When integrated with detection radars such as the DRS RADA RPS-42, an end-to-end sensor-to-shooter solution is produced.

Second, the remote-control architecture removes the soldier from the kill zone. Fiber-optic drones are designed to hunt specifically the soldiers attempting to engage them. A SMASH Hopper mounted on a fixed post or light vehicle — with its operator controlling it from a protected position — denies the drone its target. From a halachic perspective, the principle of u’shmartem me’od l’nafshoseichem is served in a particularly direct way by technology that places machinery, rather than men, in the line of fire.

Third, the system’s software-driven nature allows it to be updated as the threat evolves. The same approach has allowed SMASH systems to evolve from their original mission — countering Hamas balloons and kites along the Gaza fence — to engaging the much more demanding targets of today.

Global Validation

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s vote of confidence comes against substantial international validation. Last week, the U.S. Army awarded Smart Shooter a $10.7 million contract for SMASH 3000SA rifle-mounted fire-control systems. The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence has placed orders worth roughly 4.6 million pounds. Germany, NATO member states, and other allied nations have deployed Smart Shooter technology. The company maintains subsidiaries in the United States, Germany, and Australia.

A Sober Assessment

No single system will solve Israel’s drone problem. The fiber-optic threat will require a layered response — improved detection, physical barriers, intelligence operations against Hezbollah’s drone infrastructure, and kinetic interceptors at multiple ranges.

The SMASH Hopper occupies one critical layer — the close-in, last-line, point-defense layer where a drone has evaded all other countermeasures and is seconds from impact. In that role, it offers what Israel’s soldiers have urgently needed: a tool that does not require them to expose themselves to acquire a small, fast, maneuvering target with a rifle alone.

For Cpt. Recanati, Hy”d, and the six soldiers who fell before him during this latest chapter of the Lebanon conflict, this technology has come too late. The hope and prayer is that for the next soldier whose position is found by a Hezbollah drone, the SMASH Hopper will already be in place, scanning the sky.

As Dovid HaMelech declared: Baruch Hashem tzuri ha’melamed yadai la’krav, etzbe’osai la’milchama — “Blessed is Hashem, my Rock, who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war” (Tehillim 144:1). In our dor, that training increasingly takes a digital form. The SMASH Hopper is one of the latest expressions of an old principle: that Klal Yisrael must combine bitachon in Hashem with the most capable tools its hands can wield.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

In a world that often feels rushed and overwhelming, many people look for ways to regain a sense of calm without stepping away from their daily responsibilities. Across different communities, there has been renewed interest in natural approaches that support both focus and relaxation. This quiet shift toward balance reflects a deeper desire to live with intention while staying grounded in values that have guided generations.

Among these options, some have turned to plant based solutions that draw from long standing traditions. Products like kava and kratom shots have gained attention for combining two well known botanicals into a simple, ready to use format. These blends are designed to support a steady state of mind, helping individuals remain engaged while easing the tension that can build during demanding days.

Ancient Roots in Modern Times

Kava and kratom each carry a rich cultural history. Kava has been used for centuries across the South Pacific as a communal drink, often shared during gatherings that emphasize connection and peace. Its calming properties have long been associated with moments of reflection and unity.

Kratom, on the other hand, originates from Southeast Asia, where it has traditionally been used in different ways depending on the time of day. Some have used it for energy during work, while others have found it helpful for unwinding later.

Bringing these two traditions together in a single product reflects a thoughtful approach that blends heritage with modern convenience. The result is something that speaks to both the past and the present, offering a way to experience these botanicals without complex preparation.

A Practical Approach to Daily Balance

Many people today are seeking simple ways to maintain clarity while managing stress. The appeal of these botanical blends lies in their ability to offer both calm and focus in one serving. According to product information, these shots are formulated with additional ingredients such as ashwagandha, L theanine, and GABA, all of which are commonly associated with relaxation and mental support.

This combination creates a balanced effect that does not overwhelm. Instead, it supports a steady mindset that can be especially useful during long workdays, study sessions, or even social gatherings where presence and composure matter.

The convenience of a small liquid shot also makes it easier to incorporate into daily routines. There is no need for preparation or measuring, which can often discourage consistent use. With everything contained in a single bottle, the experience becomes straightforward and accessible.

Why Simplicity Matters

For many readers who value structure and clarity in their daily lives, simplicity plays an important role. Complex solutions often fall short because they demand too much time or attention. In contrast, a well designed product that fits naturally into an existing routine is more likely to be used consistently.

This is where modern botanical blends stand out. They take something traditional and present it in a format that aligns with the pace of contemporary life. The goal is not to replace long standing practices, but to make their benefits more accessible.

In communities that emphasize discipline and mindful living, this kind of approach resonates. It reflects a respect for tradition while acknowledging the realities of modern schedules.

A Look at the Broader Conversation

The growing interest in botanicals like kava has also led to increased research and discussion in the wellness space. For example, a detailed overview published by a trusted health resource explains that kava has been studied for its calming effects and its role in reducing short term anxiety in certain cases.

Readers can explore this further through this helpful resource on kava benefits and effects which outlines how the plant interacts with the body and why it has remained relevant for so many years.

Such discussions highlight the importance of understanding what we consume and making informed choices. They also reinforce the idea that traditional plants continue to have a place in modern conversations about well being.

A Thoughtful Conclusion

Balance is not something that happens by accident. It requires intention, awareness, and often a willingness to explore new approaches while staying rooted in what has proven meaningful over time.

Botanical blends that combine kava and kratom offer one example of how this balance can be approached in a practical way. By drawing from established traditions and presenting them in a convenient form, they provide an option for those seeking calm without losing focus.

As more people look for ways to navigate the pressures of daily life, solutions that respect both heritage and practicality are likely to remain part of the conversation. In that sense, these small, carefully crafted products reflect something larger. They represent a quiet effort to live with steadiness, clarity, and purpose in a demanding world.

This post was originally published on this site.

For the last three years, Wall Street has operated on one basic rule: when Nvidia Corp. reports earnings, the market stops everything else and watches.

On Wednesday night, Nvidia delivered another massive quarter — and the market barely reacted.

The reason arrived hours earlier, when Elon Musk’s SpaceX confidentially filed paperwork for what could become the largest initial public offering in the history of global markets.

The targeted valuation: between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion.

The expected raise: as much as $75 billion, more than double the size of Saudi Aramco’s record $29.4 billion IPO in 2019.

In plain English, a private rocket company may be about to become one of the most valuable publicly traded companies on earth.

And suddenly, even Nvidia’s staggering earnings looked almost routine.

On paper, Nvidia delivered exactly the kind of quarter that normally dominates global markets. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $81.62 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $79.19 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.87, above the $1.76 consensus. Gross margins held near 75%. Revenue guidance for the current quarter topped expectations again, ranging between $89.18 billion and $92.82 billion.

The company also announced an additional $80 billion share buyback, raised its dividend, and extended one of the most dominant earnings streaks in modern corporate history.

And yet Nvidia shares barely moved in after-hours trading.

The reason is simple: investors no longer view Nvidia as a surprise. They view it as infrastructure.

The market already assumes AI spending will remain enormous. The debate has moved beyond the chip supplier and toward the companies building entire ecosystems around artificial intelligence, satellites, broadband networks, and supercomputing infrastructure.

That is where SpaceX enters the story.

According to the filing, SpaceX generated roughly $4.694 billion in revenue during the quarter ended March 31. The business now spans three major divisions: rocket launches, the Starlink satellite-internet network, and a rapidly growing AI infrastructure operation tied to Musk’s acquisition of xAI earlier this year.

That AI segment includes the massive Colossus compute cluster, which houses more than 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and has already been tapped by companies including Anthropic for AI processing capacity.

In effect, SpaceX is becoming both a customer and competitor within the AI ecosystem at the same time.

The company is also attempting to turn the IPO into a public event rather than a traditional Wall Street offering.

SpaceX plans a 5-for-1 stock split ahead of the listing, reducing the implied per-share price from roughly $526 to about $105, according to documents reported by Bloomberg. The company has also discussed allocating as much as 30% of IPO shares to retail investors — an unusually large portion for an offering of this scale.

The strategy is politically and financially smart.

It turns the IPO into something ordinary Americans can participate in directly instead of watching from the sidelines while institutional investors dominate the allocation.

Still, the risks are enormous.

At a valuation approaching $2 trillion, SpaceX would debut at more than 100 times annual sales, far above the multiples at which even companies like Meta Platforms or Nvidia traded during peak growth periods.

The company also reportedly lost roughly $5 billion last year.

Critics argue the valuation reflects investor excitement around Musk more than traditional financial fundamentals.

But supporters counter that no company in the world controls a comparable combination of launch dominance, satellite broadband infrastructure, military contracts, and AI computing power.

Starlink alone is estimated by some analysts to be worth between $150 billion and $250 billion as a standalone business. SpaceX also launches the majority of satellites entering orbit globally and remains deeply embedded in U.S. military and intelligence infrastructure.

For everyday Americans, however, the bigger story is what this IPO represents.

For the first time, ordinary investors may soon own shares in the company controlling much of the world’s access to space, satellite communications, and rapidly expanding AI infrastructure.

The IPO also deepens the connection between Musk’s businesses and Washington. SpaceX depends heavily on federal contracts, regulatory approvals, and broadband subsidies. Once public, those political relationships become directly tied to the retirement accounts and brokerage portfolios of millions of investors.

Most importantly, the IPO signals something larger about the AI economy itself.

The market’s center of gravity is shifting.

Nvidia remains the backbone of AI hardware. But investors are now chasing the companies building the infrastructure that consumes Nvidia chips at massive scale — orbital internet systems, hyperscale compute clusters, and AI-powered communications networks.

That is why an $81 billion Nvidia quarter suddenly felt almost ordinary.

The AI economy has become so large that even Nvidia is no longer the whole story.

And by the time SpaceX executives begin meeting institutional investors ahead of the June roadshow, the question for many Americans may no longer be whether they should own Nvidia.

It may be whether they are willing to buy into Elon Musk’s vision of space, broadband, and artificial intelligence — at whatever price Wall Street decides the future is worth.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved sweeping legislation designed to tackle rising housing costs, expand homeownership opportunities, and boost the nation’s housing supply. The measure now heads back to the Senate for further consideration.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act cleared the House in a 396-13 bipartisan vote, with all opposition coming from Republican lawmakers.

The Senate had already passed an earlier version of the legislation in March. However, the bill remained stalled in the House for months due to disagreements among Republicans over several provisions. According to Politico, revisions that won President Donald Trump’s backing ultimately helped move the legislation forward. The White House issued a statement Wednesday praising the bill and encouraging the Senate to approve the updated version.

According to The New York Times, Trump has recently focused heavily on limiting the role of institutional investors in the housing market, including large financial groups and pension funds that purchase residential properties. The president had originally supported the Senate’s earlier version of the bill.

“This has been years of work in the making and months of intensive work in this 119th Congress to find a path that improves accessibility on housing for the American people and affordability for the American people that could be a bicameral and bipartisan housing measure,” said Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., and chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

The legislation has become a major priority for both parties ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, as housing affordability continues to worsen across the country. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have increasingly faced pressure from constituents struggling with soaring housing costs.

“It’s unconceivable that members of the House and the Senate would want to go home and face constituents who legitimately frustrated with housing affordability and not be able to tell them, ‘I got this bill passed,’ “said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Coalition, in The New York Times.

Despite the overwhelming House vote, uncertainty remains over the bill’s future because of the changes made by House lawmakers. Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren addressed the issue in a joint statement released Wednesday.

“There’s still work to be done, and we are committed to continuing to work with the White House and our colleagues in the House on a housing bill that can pass the Senate and get to the president’s desk,” they said.

Senior officials in Israel’s Foreign Ministry are expressing outrage after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir circulated footage appearing to humiliate pro-Gaza flotilla activists, a move diplomats now say caused major international damage to Israel’s standing abroad.

According to a report aired late Wednesday night on Israel’s Channel 12, the Foreign Ministry distributed an urgent message to Israeli embassies and diplomatic missions worldwide describing Ben Gvir’s actions as a “global strategic terror attack.”

The internal communication reportedly instructed Israeli diplomats to circulate alternative images and official footage showing what the ministry described as Israel’s humane and respectful treatment of the activists aboard the flotilla.

Embassy staff were also told to emphasize Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s public distancing from Ben Gvir’s conduct in conversations with officials in the countries where they serve.

One Israel official, speaking anonymously, called Ben Gvir an “outright rodef.”

Diplomatic officials quoted in the Channel 12 report delivered especially blistering criticism of Ben Gvir, accusing him of undermining extensive diplomatic efforts carried out behind the scenes with allied nations.

“Ben Gvir effectively joined the flotilla activists. He is the captain of the ship — second only to Greta,” one senior source said, apparently referring to climate activist Greta Thunberg.

“The damage he caused is immeasurable. Today he destroyed intensive work conducted with our allies around the world. He handed real weapons to the worst of our enemies. The disgrace cannot be described,” the source added.

The controversy erupted after Ben Gvir publicized footage documenting the treatment of activists aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla, triggering international criticism and diplomatic discomfort.

Prime Minister Netanyahu later attempted to distance the government from Ben Gvir’s conduct while reaffirming Israel’s right to block flotillas attempting to reach Gaza.

“Israel has every right to prevent provocative flotillas of Hamas terror supporters from entering our territorial waters and reaching Gaza. However, the way Minister Ben Gvir behaved toward the flotilla activists does not align with the values and norms of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

{Matzav.com}

A new Fox News national survey found growing voter frustration over the economy and President Donald Trump’s handling of major issues, while opposition to continued U.S. military involvement in Iran is also rising — even though most voters believe the United States is winning the conflict.

The poll found that affordability remains the dominant concern for Americans.

Fifty-eight percent of voters identified the cost of living as their biggest economic worry, an increase from 50% in February. Other concerns trailed far behind, including government spending at 16%, jobs at 8%, and tariffs at 8%.

More than three-quarters of respondents — 77% — described the economy as being in bad shape, up from 73% last month and 71% a year ago. Just 23% rated the economy positively, marking the lowest figure recorded in more than a year.

The economic pessimism is also affecting voters personally. A narrow majority, 51%, said their family’s financial situation is worse now than it was two years ago. Before the 2022 midterm elections, that number stood at 44%.

The worsening outlook appears to be hurting Trump politically. A year ago, 56% of voters disapproved of his handling of the economy. That figure climbed to 66% last month and now stands at 71%. Fox News noted that much of the latest increase came from Republicans, with GOP disapproval rising by 7 points since April.

Support among Republicans outside the MAGA movement was especially weak. Just 36% of non-MAGA Republicans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, compared to 74% of MAGA Republicans and 18% of independents. Overall, only 29% approved of Trump’s economic performance, down from 34% in April.

Trump received his worst marks on inflation, where only 24% approved of his handling of the issue, compared to 35% in January. Inflation was also one of the few issues where a majority of Republicans — 51% — expressed disapproval. Among independents, disapproval reached 85%, while Democrats registered 96%.

The president’s ratings were also underwater on foreign policy, with 38% approving and 62% disapproving. Border security, once considered one of Trump’s strongest issues, also slipped into negative territory for the first time during his second term, with voters divided 49% to 51%. That decline came even as 45% said border security is better now than it was two years ago, compared to 29% who said it is worse.

Trump’s overall job approval rating fell to 39%, down 3 points from last month and 10 points lower than at the start of his second term. Meanwhile, 61% disapproved of his performance, including 48% who said they strongly disapprove.

Since April, approval ratings have weakened among several traditionally supportive groups, including rural White voters, White men without college degrees, and Republicans.

Fox News said Trump’s approval ratings among Republicans, non-MAGA Republicans, White voters, and rural voters have all dropped to record lows in its polling.

“Despite consistently strong GOP support, the president’s numbers are leaking a bit,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson. “Make no mistake; it’s all about affordability. Independents jumped ship in 2025, and now non-MAGA Republicans and other core constituencies are wavering.”

The survey also found that 57% of voters believe Trump’s policies will hurt the country in the long run, compared to 34% who believe they will help. The share saying his policies will “hurt” increased by 6 points since last April. While 88% of MAGA Republicans said Trump’s policies would help the country, only 43% of non-MAGA Republicans agreed.

Gas prices also remain a major concern for voters. Eighty-six percent called rising gas prices a problem, including 51% who described them as a “major” problem. Nearly all respondents — 96% — said gas prices are a problem for the broader economy, while 75% labeled the issue “major.”

When asked who or what is responsible for high gas prices, voters largely blamed domestic factors such as Trump’s policies, oil companies, and government regulations. However, 91% said the Iran war is the primary cause.

On Iran, two-thirds of voters said they believe the United States is winning the war, but opposition to American military involvement still rose to 60%, up from 55% last month.

Half of respondents said they expect the war to last at least a year, including 33% who believe it will continue for more than a year. Meanwhile, 60% favored setting limits on how long the United States should remain involved militarily in Iran.

Nearly all Republicans — 89% — and two-thirds of independents said they believe the United States is winning the war, while 56% of Democrats said they think Iran is winning. Younger voters under 30 were the most likely age group to say the United States is winning, at 79%, but they were also among the most opposed to the war, at 67%.

Among military veterans and active-duty service members surveyed, 55% supported U.S. action against Iran and 72% said they believe the United States is winning the conflict.

Concern over Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon has also declined sharply. Last summer, 78% of voters expressed concern, the highest level ever recorded in the Fox News poll. That figure has now dropped to 56%, the lowest on record, down from 66% in March.

The poll also examined reactions to Trump’s handling of the recent U.S.-China summit. While 45% approved of Trump’s performance, 54% disapproved.

A majority of voters — 52% — said Chinese President Xi Jinping came away with more of what he wanted from the negotiations, compared to 46% who said Trump did. More than a quarter of Republicans agreed that Xi emerged stronger from the summit, along with majorities of Democrats and independents.

The survey was conducted May 15-18 by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research and included 1,002 registered voters nationwide. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Something strange is happening in two stock markets most American investors barely glance at. South Korea’s Kospi is up roughly 70% this year. Taiwan’s Taiex is up about 41%. By contrast, the S&P 500 has gained a fraction of that. And the explanation is not a Korean economic miracle, a Taiwanese export boom, or a sudden flood of foreign investment chasing cheap valuations. The explanation is three companies — Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. — and one product they all make.

That product is the chip inside the artificial intelligence machines being built at a pace the global economy has not seen since the early internet.

To understand what is going on, start with how lopsided these two markets have become. TSMC alone now accounts for more than 40% of Taiwan’s entire stock market, according to UOB. In South Korea, Samsung and SK Hynix together make up a record 42.2% of the Kospi, according to Manulife Investment Management. That is the equivalent, in American terms, of Apple by itself being worth nearly half the S&P 500. June Chua, head of Asia equities at Manulife Investment Management, summed it up bluntly: both indexes have effectively become AI and semiconductor proxies. Tim Moe, chief regional equity strategist for Asia-Pacific at Goldman Sachs, agreed, telling CNBC the AI hardware theme is what is clearly propelling things.

So why has this become a Korea-and-Taiwan story rather than an America story? After all, the AI companies driving the demand — Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta — are all American.

Here is where the plain logic kicks in. The American giants design the AI. They write the software, train the models, run the cloud platforms. But every single one of them needs a physical chip to actually do the computing. And the world has exactly one company that can manufacture the most advanced versions of those chips: TSMC. The world has exactly two companies that can produce the high-bandwidth memory, known as HBM, that those chips need to function: Samsung and SK Hynix. Three companies. Two countries. Zero serious competitors at the cutting edge.

When Microsoft announces it will spend $80 billion on AI infrastructure, that money does not stop in Redmond. It flows to Nvidia. Nvidia then sends it to TSMC in Hsinchu and SK Hynix in Icheon. The cash arrives in Asia. The earnings show up on Asian balance sheets. The stock prices rise in Seoul and Taipei.

This is why the rally feels detached from ordinary economic news. The Kospi climbed from 5,000 to 8,000 in a single year — a move that took the index more than 18 years the first time around, from 1,000 to 2,000. On May 6, Samsung shares jumped almost 15% in a single session, vaulting the company past a $1 trillion market capitalization and making it the second Asian company ever, after TSMC, to cross that threshold. SK Hynix is up more than 146% so far this year. JPMorgan has lifted its bull-case target for the Kospi to 10,000 points.

Now the harder question. Is this real, or is this a bubble?

The honest answer is that it is both — depending on the time horizon.

On the short-term side, there are warning lights flashing. Kospi stocks have already pulled back more than 9% from their record high. Taiex has dropped about 4%. Concentration risk is now part of the conversation in every Asia portfolio meeting. Herald van der Linde, head of equity strategy for Asia-Pacific at HSBC, warned that Asian portfolios are reaching levels where too much exposure to too few stocks could limit further upside. Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets, said Korea and Taiwan had become very crowded expressions of the AI infrastructure boom, and once US inflation concerns nudged bond yields higher and US tech momentum wobbled, investors took profits where gains had been largest. Valuations on Taiex now sit at 18.2 times forward earnings, above the five-year average. When a single stock can move an entire national market by 3% in a session, the market is no longer really a market. It is a leveraged bet on one trend.

On the long-term side, the trend is very real. AI capital spending is on track to exceed $600 billion in 2026 alone. Samsung and SK Hynix have locked in multi-year supply agreements with Nvidia for the next generations of HBM memory chips. TSMC is the manufacturing chokepoint for nearly every advanced AI processor on earth. Even if the stock prices correct sharply, the underlying business of making AI hardware is not slowing down. It is accelerating.

For everyday Americans, the takeaway is bigger than a foreign stock ticker. The Korean and Taiwanese rallies are flashing a signal about where industrial power in the AI age actually lives. The brand names belong to Silicon Valley. The physical production sits across the Pacific. That has profound implications for trade policy, for the Trump administration’s push to bring chipmaking onshore, for the future of the CHIPS Act, and for any American company whose business model depends on AI hardware showing up on time and at price. When the Strait of Hormuz flares up, Americans feel it at the gas pump. When something flares up in the strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, Americans will feel it in everything from cloud bills to laptop prices to the cost of running an AI customer service bot at a regional bank.

Short-term, the Korean and Taiwanese rallies will swing. Profits will get taken, narratives will shift, and someday the parabolic chart will break. Long-term, the structural shift is what matters: the most important factories in the world economy now sit on two islands and one peninsula in East Asia, and global stock markets are finally pricing that in.

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

Zuckerberg Redirects Thousands of Workers Into AI Roles as Meta Accelerates $145 Billion Infrastructure Push

NEW YORK — Meta Platforms Inc. began the largest companywide layoff in its history on Wednesday, eliminating approximately 8,000 positions — roughly 10% of its global workforce — while reassigning another 7,000 employees into new artificial-intelligence-focused roles, in a sweeping restructuring that Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has framed as necessary to compete in the accelerating global AI infrastructure race.

The cuts, confirmed internally through a memo from Janelle Gale, Meta’s head of human resources, impacted divisions including Reality Labs, Facebook operations, recruiting, sales, and global business operations.

Notification emails began rolling out at approximately 4 a.m. local time, starting in Singapore before expanding into Europe and the United States later in the day.

California WARN filings showed additional layoffs at Meta facilities in Burlingame and Sunnyvale, while the broader cuts span Meta’s global workforce of roughly 78,865 employees.

The restructuring marks Meta’s largest reduction since Zuckerberg’s earlier “Year of Efficiency” campaign in 2022 and 2023, when the company eliminated approximately 21,000 positions.

Combined with the newest cuts, Meta has now reduced its workforce by roughly 25,000 employees since 2022, with additional reductions reportedly still under consideration later this year.

The business rationale is increasingly centered around one word: AI.

Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast last month to as much as $145 billion, up from prior guidance between $115 billion and $135 billion, as the company races to build massive artificial-intelligence infrastructure across the United States and globally.

The company told employees the restructuring is intended to “allow us to offset the other investments we’re making” while operating more efficiently.

The 7,000 reassigned workers will reportedly move into four newly structured AI-focused organizations under Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who joined Meta following the company’s major investment in Scale AI.

Internal company materials describe the new groups as “AI-native design structures” with flatter management hierarchies and significantly heavier concentration around AI products, research, infrastructure, and automation.

The restructuring highlights one of the clearest trends emerging across corporate America: major companies are no longer simply adding AI capabilities — they are actively redesigning workforces around artificial intelligence itself.

Meta reported record quarterly revenue of $56.31 billion, meaning the layoffs are not being driven by collapsing business conditions or weakening advertising demand.

Instead, the company is reallocating resources away from traditional staffing expansion and toward AI compute power, data-center construction, networking infrastructure, and high-end AI engineering talent.

The compensation disparity inside Meta also underscores the broader shift now occurring across the technology sector.

While median employee compensation reportedly declined year-over-year and portions of stock-based compensation were reduced, Zuckerberg has simultaneously pursued elite AI researchers with compensation packages reportedly reaching $100 million in certain cases.

Meta’s restructuring also carries significant implications beyond Silicon Valley itself.

The eliminated jobs are concentrated primarily in high-income metro regions including San Francisco, Seattle, New York, and London, potentially impacting housing demand, restaurant spending, luxury retail, travel, and broader local economic activity tied to highly compensated technology workers.

Recruiting firms, staffing agencies, and job-platform operators also face secondary effects as Meta simultaneously eliminates positions while reducing future hiring demand.

At the same time, there are clear winners emerging from the shift.

Companies supplying AI infrastructure — including Nvidia Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Broadcom Inc., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and SK hynix Inc. — stand to benefit directly from Meta’s rapidly expanding AI spending.

Utilities, construction firms, data-center developers, fiber providers, and power-equipment companies tied to large-scale AI campuses are also increasingly tied to the technology industry’s next growth cycle.

Meta has committed to massive long-term infrastructure expansion across the United States as demand for AI computing capacity continues accelerating.

For smaller businesses and employers, the message is increasingly complicated.

Some companies struggling to compete with Big Tech compensation packages may now gain access to experienced engineering and operational talent entering the labor market.

At the same time, Meta’s restructuring reinforces growing concerns throughout the business community that artificial intelligence is beginning to permanently reshape white-collar employment structures across industries ranging from technology and finance to marketing, operations, administration, customer service, and recruiting.

The broader implication is becoming increasingly difficult for corporate America to ignore:

The same AI boom powering record infrastructure spending, soaring semiconductor demand, and historic stock-market gains is simultaneously driving one of the largest workforce restructurings in modern technology history.

JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) – Marc Zell, chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, said antisemitism is becoming mainstream in America as he outlined President Donald Trump’s approach to Iran, which centers on preventing the country from obtaining nuclear weapons and limiting its regional influence.

Zell told ynet Global that Trump’s primary objective remains blocking Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and missile threats, even as American voters prioritize domestic concerns such as fuel prices, food costs and the potential economic impact of any wider conflict.

“Trump’s decision-making process is often difficult to predict,” Zell said, adding that the president listens carefully to a range of opinions before acting. “Nobody really knows what he’s going to do except for him himself. He listens carefully. He likes different points of view.”

Zell’s comments come amid ongoing uncertainty about how far the U.S. is prepared to go militarily against Iran. He emphasized that Trump’s policy focuses on curbing Tehran’s nuclear weapons development and its broader destabilizing activities in the Middle East.

The chairman’s remarks reflect concerns within pro-Israel Republican circles about rising antisemitism in the United States while highlighting the tension between foreign policy priorities and domestic economic worries heading into future elections.

Moshe Gafni launched a fierce public attack Wednesday against Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara over the continued delay in approving tax benefits for charitable organizations, accusing her of acting beyond her authority and targeting chareidi institutions.

The Degel HaTorah chairman also called on the head of Israel’s Tax Authority to ignore the attorney general’s position and move forward with bringing the matter before the Knesset Finance Committee for approval.

The dispute centers around Section 46 of Israel’s tax ordinance, which grants tax deductions to donors who contribute to approved nonprofit organizations. The benefit has long served as a major incentive for donations to various charitable and religious institutions, including many chareidi organizations.

Baharav-Miara previously ruled that the state should stop providing direct or indirect support to certain chareidi nonprofit groups through the approval of these tax-exempt donation benefits.

Reacting angrily to the move, Gafni accused the attorney general of abusing her position.

“This woman, Baharav-Miara, does whatever she wants as though the country belongs to her. She is harming hundreds of third-sector organizations waiting for approval under Section 46,” Gafni declared.

According to Gafni, efforts had quietly been underway for weeks in an attempt to resolve the matter and secure approval for the organizations through the Finance Committee.

“For many weeks we worked quietly in order to find a solution to the issue and approve the organizations in the Finance Committee, but unfortunately without success,” he said. “Everything is only because she decided they must not be approved, in a decision that is blatantly unlawful.”

Gafni then issued a direct appeal to the head of the Tax Authority, urging officials to bypass the attorney general’s objections.

“I call on the head of the Tax Authority not to listen to her and to bring the matter for discussion and approval by the Finance Committee in accordance with the law,” he said.

He concluded with an especially harsh accusation against Baharav-Miara, stating: “Hatred has clouded her judgment.”

As thousands of Israelis prepare to spend Shavuos outside of Eretz Yisroel, a major halachic question surrounding Yom Tov Sheini Shel Goluyos has now received a clear ruling from the former Rishon Letzion, Rav Yitzchak Yosef.

The question was submitted by the rov of Uman, Rav Yaakov Jan, who sought guidance regarding the many Israeli visitors expected to spend Yom Tov in the city.

This year, Shavuos falls on Friday. In Eretz Yisroel, where only one day of Yom Tov is observed, the following day — Shabbos — will already feature the reading of Parshas Naso. Outside of Eretz Yisroel, however, Shabbos itself is observed as the second day of Yom Tov, and the regular weekly Torah reading is delayed. As a result, a gap develops between the parshiyos read in Eretz Yisroel and those read in chutz la’aretz, a discrepancy that will continue for several weeks until the readings are synchronized again around Parshas Balak.

In his letter, Rav Jan asked whether Israelis staying in Uman would be permitted to organize a separate minyan on Shabbos in order to hear the reading of Parshas Naso according to the Eretz Yisroel schedule.

Rav Jan noted that it is already well established that Israelis visiting abroad may not publicly perform melachah on the second day of Yom Tov. However, he suggested that given the unusually large number of Israeli guests expected this year, perhaps there would be room to allow a separate Torah-reading minyan without objecting to it.

Rav Yitzchak Yosef responded immediately with a detailed written teshuvah, ruling decisively that Israelis staying outside Eretz Yisroel must conduct themselves publicly exactly like local residents observing two days of Yom Tov.

According to the ruling, this requirement applies not only to melachah but also to the public structure of tefillah and Torah reading in shul. Therefore, separate public minyanim for the Eretz Yisroel Torah reading may not be held.

At the same time, the Rishon Letzion clarified that privately, within their homes, Israelis may daven and read according to the custom and schedule of Eretz Yisroel.

The issue of Yom Tov Sheini Shel Goluyos has long created fascinating customs and practices among various chassidic communities during the Yomim Tovim.

Visitors from abroad who travel to Eretz Yisroel for the regalim — particularly to spend Yom Tov in Yerushalayim or near their rebbes — continue observing two days of Yom Tov even while in Eretz Yisroel. Because these visitors are maintaining the stringencies of Yom Tov rather than relaxing them, their public minyanim do not create a concern of public desecration of Yom Tov.

In some chassidic courts in Eretz Yisroel, local chassidim have even adopted the custom of wearing their Shabbos clothing on the second day of Yom Tov as a visible sign of solidarity with their fellow chassidim visiting from overseas.

By contrast, Israeli chassidim who travel to the United States or Europe to spend Yom Tov with their rebbes are careful not to perform melachah publicly on the second day of Yom Tov, even when that day is an ordinary weekday back in Eretz Yisroel.

In typical years, when the second day falls during the week, some Israeli visitors quietly put on tefillin in complete privacy inside their lodgings so as not to appear to local residents as though they are violating Yom Tov. This year, however, that issue does not arise because the second day of Yom Tov coincides with Shabbos.

{Matzav.com}

WASHINGTON (VINnews) – Sen. John Fetterman’s chief of staff resigned Wednesday, the latest departure from the Pennsylvania Democrat’s office as he has drawn criticism from the party’s left for his pro-Israel positions and more conciliatory approach toward President Donald Trump.

Cabelle St. John, who had served on Fetterman’s team since he arrived in Washington more than three years ago and became chief of staff in 2025, will leave in the coming weeks, a source familiar with the move told Axios. Her official last day has not been finalized.

Fetterman, once a progressive favorite, has faced significant staff turnover. Former aides have cited frustration with his steadfast support for Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and his willingness to work with Trump on certain issues, diverging from many Democrats. Some ex-staffers also pointed to interpersonal challenges in the office.

Fetterman downplayed the turnover in a text to Axios after the report, sharing an image comparing his office’s retention to others and writing, “So much for the turnover issue. Clicks!”

The resignation comes as progressive groups prepare to challenge Fetterman in the 2028 Democratic primary. The Working Families Party and other left-leaning activists have already launched efforts, including a website, to recruit candidates against him, viewing his positions as a betrayal of the platform on which he was elected in 2022.

Pennsylvania’s Senate seat, currently held by a Democrat, could become a prime target for Republicans in a general election if Fetterman is weakened by a contentious primary or opts not to run.

Fetterman has maintained strong support for Israel and criticized what he calls “Trump Derangement Syndrome” within his party, further alienating some traditional Democrats.

No replacement for St. John has been announced. Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Deep concern has spread throughout the Torah world and the halls of Yeshivas Ponovezh following reports that the famed masmid, Rav Chaim Berman, has become seriously weakened.

Rav Chaim, widely regarded in the yeshiva world as one of the greatest masmidim of the generation, has long been known for his extraordinary consistency in Torah learning and for never missing a single day in the famed Ponovezh bais medrash.

Several weeks ago, Rav Chaim was hospitalized for several days after his medical condition worsened. Although he has since returned home, he has yet to regain his strength, and his absence from the main bais medrash in Bnei Brak has been deeply felt by generations of talmidim.

For Ponovezh bochurim, the absence is especially painful. Rav Chaim is known as someone who virtually never left the walls of the yeshiva and who, despite his towering stature in Torah, would regularly enter the shiurim klaliyim and sit among the younger bochurim with humility and simplicity.

In light of Rav Chaim’s condition and prolonged absence from the yeshiva, Ponovezh rosh yeshiva Rav Berel Povarsky issued an unusual and emotional public letter addressed to current and former talmidim of the yeshiva, calling on them to intensify their tefillos for Rav Chaim’s recovery.

The rosh yeshiva went so far as to refer to Rav Chaim Berman with the rare title “hamaor hagadol – the great luminary” and wrote that “all of us are obligated to share in his suffering.”

The letter states: “To the holy sons of our yeshiva, throughout all generations: I hereby come with a request to increase prayer and supplication for the complete recovery of the great luminary, the gaon Rav Chaim ben Reisha Rizel Berman, shlita, whose image has served as a living example for generations of yeshiva students, like Yehoshua, the devoted student who never departed from the tent. His influence through his Torah, fear of Heaven, and tefillos upon the holy yeshiva is deeply evident.

“And now, to our great pain, his place is missing, as due to his suffering and weakness he is unable to come to the heichal Hashem as he did continuously throughout all the years until very recently. All of us are obligated to share in his suffering and to increase Torah, good deeds, and tefillos for his complete recovery. May Hashem hear our cries, and may the students of the yeshiva merit to continue benefiting from his light for many more years in health and tranquility.”

{Matzav.com}

Michal Waldiger sharply criticized Israeli government agencies and welfare authorities on Wednesday following the murder of yungerman Rav Yishai Por z”l in Bnei Brak, arguing that the tragedy reflects a deep systemic failure in the handling of severe mental-health crises.

Reacting to the shocking stabbing attack inside Kollel Chazon Ish, Waldiger described the incident as far more than an isolated criminal act and said the state bears responsibility for failing to properly address the suspect’s condition.

“The horrifying case in Bnei Brak gives me no rest. The death of Yishai Por z”l is first and foremost a failure of the state,” the Religious Zionism lawmaker wrote in a public post.

She questioned whether the suspect — described in reports as a homeless individual with a known psychiatric background — had received proper treatment or oversight from government agencies.

“‘The background is criminal,’ the headlines will scream. But what do we know about the background of the stabber?” Waldiger wrote.

She continued with a series of pointed questions aimed at the country’s welfare and mental-health systems: “Did he receive a proper support framework from the ministries? Was he under any supervision? Who sees him during the days of madness? Who takes him to the police station — a police officer in uniform or a social worker? And who will be able to say, ‘Our hands did not spill this blood’?”

As previously reported, Rav Yishai Por z”l, 50, was stabbed to death Tuesday afternoon while learning alongside his son inside the Chazon Ish kollel on Rechov HaAri in Bnei Brak.

According to reports, the suspect fled immediately after the attack. Authorities later arrested him near Beit Shemesh.

Investigators say the victim and suspect were involved in a heated verbal confrontation several days earlier inside the kollel, during which the suspect allegedly threatened Rav Por, saying, “I’ll deal with you yet.”

Waldiger concluded her remarks with a broader warning about the state of mental-health care in Israel.

“If mental health remains in the backyard of the State of Israel, we will not be denying the problem — on the contrary, the neglected garden will grow thorns into the main street for all of us,” she wrote.

Her comments reignited the longstanding public debate over how Israeli law enforcement and welfare authorities handle individuals suffering from severe psychiatric crises, particularly those who may pose a danger to others.

The discussion has increasingly centered on whether existing government systems provide sufficient supervision, treatment, and intervention for mentally ill individuals before situations escalate into violence.

Several months ago, the Knesset marked World Mental Health Day for the first time during an event led by Waldiger herself. At that gathering, Israeli Health Minister Uriel Buso stated that “during the war year, the State of Israel is treating hundreds of thousands” of citizens suffering from anxiety and emotional trauma.

Waldiger’s latest remarks drew widespread attention and shifted much of the public conversation from the specific crime itself to the larger unresolved questions surrounding Israel’s mental-health and social-service systems, as calls grow louder for broader reform and earlier intervention by trained welfare professionals.

{Matzav.com}

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has fired the two leaders of an influential health group that determines when insurance must provide free preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies, for millions of Americans.

In letters dated May 11, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. notified the two doctors who chaired the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that he was terminating their appointments immediately, before the end of their multiyear terms.

The Department of Health and Human Services already had largely sidelined the task force, indefinitely postponing scheduled public meetings over the past year and thus leaving some long-expected updates on cervical cancer screenings and other topics in limbo.

The panel, first created in the 1980s, is composed of experts who scrutinize the latest evidence behind a wide array of disease prevention tools, such as depression screenings ad the use of statins to prevent heart attacks. The panel updates guidelines with letter grades showing the strength of the science. Under the Affordable Care Act, most insurance plans must cover preventive services given an “A” or “B” grade without requiring a co-pay.

Kennedy’s letters don’t make clear why he ousted Drs. John Wong and Esa Davis from the panel. He wrote that their “leadership, contributions and expertise” have advanced the task force’s work “to improve the health of Americans” and encouraged them to reapply. He said he was reviewing task force appointments “to ensure clarity, continuity and confidence” in HHS oversight.

The letters were first reported by The New York Times. An HHS spokesman didn’t respond to questions about why the two were fired.

Kennedy told lawmakers last month that he was reforming the task force, calling it “lackadaisical,” so that it would meet more frequently and “have, for the first time, transparency.” The panel holds public meetings, opens its draft guidelines to public comment before finalizing them, and publishes the scientific evidence behind them.

Some health advocates had worried that Kennedy was preparing to replace the expert panel with less experienced political appointees, like he had done with a critical vaccine advisory committee. Over the past year, the task force wasn’t allowed to publish its final update to the cervical cancer screening guideline or take steps to update recommendations about maternal depression, said former task force chairman Dr. Michael Silverstein, a pediatrician.

“This is a level of government intrusion into scientific processes that I’ve not experienced in my 10 years on the task force,” he said.

The panel has staggered terms so that normally health secretaries can regularly appoint new members, making their mark on the task force without upending it, said Aaron Carroll of the nonpartisan healthy policy group AcademyHealth.

Trader Joe’s is expanding its footprint with 25 new locations across 14 states, adding to its previously announced growth pipeline, the company said.

The popular California-based grocery chain announced Wednesday that nine additional stores are now in development, bringing the total slate of upcoming openings to more than two dozen.

All locations have been identified, though opening dates remain to be determined.

“We are proud to be joining the neighborhood, and to continue our commitment to providing nourishment to the surrounding communities through our Neighborhood Shares program,” the company said.

TRADER JOE’S WORKERS SHUT DOWN LONG-RUNNING CHECKOUT LINE RUMOR: ‘OVER-THE-TOP FRIENDLINESS’

The new round of storefronts spans Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Utah.

The nine new locations across eight states include:

COSTCO FANS ERUPT AFTER BELOVED FOOD COURT ITEM REPLACED BY HIGH-CALORIE NEWCOMER

The other 16 previously announced locations include: 

Details surrounding the store openings — including store size, parking capacity and inventory offerings — remain limited beyond the listed addresses. 

As of May 20, Trader Joe’s opened four new storefronts across the country earlier this year, including one in Hamden, Connecticut; Miller Place, New York; McKinney, Texas; and Woodinville, Washington.

The chain, known for its private-label products, affordable prices and upbeat shopping experience, currently operates stores across 42 states and the District of Columbia.  

States currently without a Trader Joe’s location include Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming.

(AP) – A real estate broker says an organization denied her the opportunity to purchase land in an Arkansas development because of her Jewish ancestry, and because she has a Black husband and biracial children, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court.

The lawsuit, filed in Arkansas on behalf of Michelle Walker, names Return to the Land, a development whose owners have said they must personally confirm that applicants are white before they are accepted, its Ozarks chapter and five officers. It says Return to the Land founders are “explicitly attempting to establish an all-white community.”

The lawsuit also calls Return to the Land a white nationalist organization and says it’s in violation of federal and state fair housing and civil rights acts.

“Its founders believe that white people are genetically superior to other races, advance the view that Jewish people are engaged in a plot to eliminate the white race, and advocate for segregated white communities for the purpose of creating a separate all-white nation state that will help avoid ‘white genocide,’” the lawsuit said.

For decades, Blacks and other minorities were restricted from buying or renting homes in some neighborhoods or areas due to racial covenants built into mortgages and leases. Prospective homebuyers also faced redlining in which mortgages and loans were denied based on race.

Walker, a real estate broker who lives in St. Louis, applied to buy land last year in the town of Ravenden, Arkansas, due to its below-market price. Ravenden is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock and just south of the state line with Missouri.

She was asked questions during the application process about her ancestry, religion and her family, according to the lawsuit.

Walker is white and belongs to a Christian church. Her Jewish ancestry is on her mother’s side.

She is represented in the lawsuit by the Relman Colfax law firm, the Legal Defense Fund, and Legal Aid of Arkansas.

Return to the Land did not respond to an email Wednesday from The Associated Press seeking comment on the lawsuit.

On its website, Return to the Land promotes itself as a private membership association “for individuals and families with traditional views and common continental ancestry.” In addition to the its Ozarks Regional Chapter which covers parts of Arkansas, Missouri and eastern Oklahoma, Return to the Land says it has chapters around the United States.

After reports that Return to the Land was eyeing the Springfield, Missouri-area for a whites-only community, Springfield’s city council said in a Facebook post last July that there was no place in the city “or anywhere, for such a divisive and discriminatory vision.”

Pennsylvania’s state House in April passed — by a ultra-slim vote of 101-100 — a bill to block the creation of whites-only housing communities. House Bill 2103 followed Return to the Land’s believed intention to expand to Pennsylvania and other states.

The legislation now is before the Pennsylvania Senate.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Brooklyn woman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison on Wednesday for drowning her three young children in the ocean near Coney Island’s famed boardwalk.

Erin Merdy, 34, pleaded guilty earlier this year to first-degree murder charges in the 2022 killing of her 7-year-old son Zachary, her 4-year-old daughter Liliana and her 3-month-old son Oliver.

“No sentence can fully measure the loss of a seven-year-old, a four-year-old and a three-month-old baby, or the grief their loved ones will carry forever,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement. He added that the children’s lives were taken “in the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way.”

A message left with Merdy’s attorney was not returned.

The frantic search for the three children began in the early hours of Sept. 12, 2022, after New York City police received a call from Merdy’s relatives, concerned that she intended to harm her kids.

Officers first found the mother, barefoot and soaking wet, 2 miles (3 kilometers) down the boardwalk from the section of Coney Island where she lived. She repeatedly said that the children were gone and that she was sorry, according to prosecutors.

Hours later, the bodies of the children were recovered from the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean, steps from the boardwalk and about a dozen blocks from the stadium where the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team plays.

The city medical examiner’s office ruled their deaths homicides by drowning.

The evidence against Merdy included video showing her walking toward the ocean with the children just before 1 a.m., according to the criminal complaint.

At the time, relatives said she may have been going through postpartum depression.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators are considering whether to drop a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support on Capitol Hill.

Pressured by the White House, Republicans have tried to add the money to a roughly $70 billion bill to restore funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. But the security proposal has met with backlash from some GOP lawmakers who are questioning the cost and the lack of detail from the White House and U.S. Secret Service about how the taxpayer dollars would be used.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Wednesday that the bill was “back to square one” without the security money because “the votes are not there.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to the bill was a “bad idea” and he does not think there is enough backing to pass it, even if it were reduced.

The text of the bill has not yet been released. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged “ongoing vote issues” as leaders try to measure Republican support, as well as “ongoing parliamentarian issues” as they try to figure out what will be allowed in the bill under the chamber’s rules.

The wrangling comes as Democrats have criticized Republicans for trying to fund Trump’s ballroom when voters are concerned about basic affordability issues — and as some GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump. Several GOP senators have spoken out against the administration’s $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies who believe they have been persecuted, and many were upset by the president’s endorsement Tuesday of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the party primary runoff next week against Sen. John Cornyn.

“There’s always a consequence with taking on United States senators,” Thune said Wednesday. The president “obviously has his favorites and people he wants to endorse and that’s his prerogative. But what we have to deal with up here is moving the agenda, and obviously that can become slightly more complicated.”

Republicans could set parameters on Trump’s settlement fund
The “anti-weaponization” fund, part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, has unexpectedly become one of the main complications in the bill. Democrats said they would force votes to block it or place restrictions on it.

Democrats have an opening because Republicans are trying to pass the immigration enforcement bill through a complicated budget process that requires a long series of amendment votes. Democrats are considering multiple amendments potentially to block that new fund outright or to ban any payments to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Those amendments, along with others, could pass as a growing number of Republicans have voiced reservations about the fund. So Republicans are now discussing their own last-minute add to head that off, potentially placing some parameters on the settlement and who could receive compensation, according to two people with knowledge of the private discussions who requested anonymity to discuss them.

Thune — who said Tuesday that he is “not a big fan” of the settlement and doesn’t see a purpose for it —- said Wednesday that any new language potentially putting restrictions on the settlement is “a work in progress.”

It’s unclear how any Senate Republican changes would be received in the House, even as some Republicans there have also criticized the settlement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that the House will pass the bill “whatever form it takes.”

Tensions rise between Senate and White House
As Republicans challenged the settlement and parts of his agenda, Trump unloaded on the Senate in a social media post.

He urged Republicans to fire the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who said over the weekend that parts of the $1 billion security proposal cannot remain in the ICE and Border Patrol bill. Trump also renewed his long-standing calls for the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, a Republican bill that would require all voters to prove U.S. citizenship, and to end the Senate filibuster.

Republicans need to “get smart and tough,” Trump said, or “you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!”

While they have been loyal to Trump on most issues, Senate Republicans have resisted his repeated calls — even in his first term — to kill the filibuster, which triggers a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

Hanging over the growing GOP rift is Trump’s surprise endorsement of Paxton. That intervention has Republican senators privately fuming that it could cost them their majority in November as they view the incumbent, Cornyn, as the better candidate in the November general election.

Secret Service request falters as Republicans want more detail
Under the Secret Service request, about $220 million would pay for security improvements related to the ballroom. The rest would go for a new screening center for visitors, training and other security measures.

Tillis said the bill should not have included the other security improvements “because it’s just giving everybody the ‘billion-dollar ballroom.'”

Several other Republicans in the House and Senate have questioned the request, and senators left a briefing with the director of the Secret Service last week saying they needed a lot more information.

People “can’t afford groceries and gasoline and healthcare, and we’re going to do a billion dollars for a ballroom?” asked Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost reelection in his GOP primary on Saturday after Trump endorsed one of his opponents.

Left in the bill is the money for ICE and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked for months in protest of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.

Democrats demanded reforms for the agencies, but negotiations with the White House yielded little progress. So Republicans are using the complicated budget maneuver called reconciliation — the same process that allowed them to pass Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill last year — to fund the agencies through the end of Trump’s term with a simple majority and no Democratic votes.

Still, passage requires signoff from the parliamentarian, and unity from Republicans.

“We’re working on it,” Thune said as he left the Capitol on Wednesday evening.

Survivors of several Islamist terror attacks in the UK have warned that British charities are being allowed to promote extreme Islamist beliefs and rhetoric, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.

The victims fear that the Charity Commission, the government’s charity watchdog, is not doing enough to act when organizations harbor extremists, the outlet said.

Additionally, the victims believe that the British public is at risk unless the Charity Commission does more to “shut down charities that promote hate,” the report said.

The outlet noted that the victims’ warnings come amid a “series of long-running investigations” by the watchdog into a number of charities with “alleged links to the Iranian regime and other bodies accused of promoting antisemitic propaganda.”

The British government announced plans in March to strengthen the watchdog’s powers to shut down charities that promote extremism, but these have not yet been implemented, according to the report.

The terror victims believe that the watchdog’s “slow reactions in handling such cases are undermining Britain’s ability to counter influence from hostile states and risks allowing extremist narratives to spread,” the outlet cited.

Critics of the UK government’s charity watchdog identified several cases in which they say the Commission failed to adequately address charities with alleged links to extremists.

Charity watchdog investigating Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust for ties to Iranian regime

The Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust (IHRC) has been investigated by the charity watchdog since 2017 for its alleged ties to the Iranian regime. 

The commission issued an official warning to the IHRC in March 2023 after a statutory investigation into concerns of “misconduct and/or mismanagement.” However, the case remains ongoing, and no enforcement or penalty against the IHRC has been published to date, the Telegraph reported.

The Islamic Center of England in London has also been under continued investigation by the Charity Commission, as it also allegedly holds ties to the Iranian regime.

The watchdog issued an official warning over two events held at the charity’s grounds, where a eulogy for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani, who was subject to UK sanctions and killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

The Commission also opened regulatory compliance cases into the Dar Alhekma Trust and Abrar Islamic Foundation in 2024, and the investigations were expanded to examine claims that the two charities had platformed proponents of the Iranian regime. Both charities have repeatedly denied using their platforms to promote extremism. 

The length and number of open cases into charities like the IHRC and others have drawn criticism from victims of extremism in the UK over the Charity Commission’s ability to handle allegations of extremism in charities.

Steve Gallant, who tackled the Fishmonger’s Hall terror attacker Usman Khan to the ground after he killed two students in November 2019, said: “The charity sector should not be providing cover for extremist networks or hostile foreign influence. The watchdog’s reluctance to act decisively risks undermining public trust in both the regulator and the wider sector.”

Charity Commission stands by its handling of extremist investigations

The Charity Commission defended its handling of cases of extremism in charities, maintaining that it does take assertive steps to root out charities that promote extremism and abuse the UK charity networks.

The Commission is also working with the government to develop existing powers to better respond to threats, including acquiring the ability to close charities that platform extremists. 

Since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the UK Charity Commission has opened over 400 investigations into the potential misconduct of charities escalating conflict in the Middle East, and has given over 80 referrals to the UK police when the watchdog considered that a criminal offense might have been committed.

David Holdsworth, the Charity Commission’s chief executive, said: “The Charity Commission is clear that extremism and violence have no place in the charity sector and we take as robust action as possible, within the legal framework set by Parliament, to root out and tackle the few who abuse the status of charity to promote extremism and terrorism.”

In response to accusations that the commission has failed to uphold its mandate and act decisively to root out extremism in the charity sector, Holdsworth added that, “it is categorically untrue to say the Commission has not acted to investigate allegations about the charities highlighted. We have taken regulatory action in all these cases, including disqualifying trustees, while ongoing cases enable us to fully use the powers we have.”

“Protecting our democracy against the rising threats of extremism, terrorism, hate speech, or the malign influence of hostile states is a challenge for the whole of state and society. Successive governments have so far failed to put in place the strong, clear and enforceable powers to identify and tackle extremism the state needs,” he added in his interview with the Telegraph.

“Freedom requires boundaries and limits – the Commission plays its part in upholding and enforcing those limits, but we alone cannot draw and patrol those boundaries.”

This post was originally published on here.

MOUNTAINAIR, N.M. (AP) — Three people are dead and more than a dozen first responders had to be quarantined and assessed Wednesday for possible exposure to an unidentified substance after being called to a suspected drug overdose at a rural New Mexico home, authorities said.

New Mexico State Police said three of the four people found unresponsive inside the home east of Albuquerque died, while the fourth was being treated at a hospital in Albuquerque.

During the response, first responders were exposed to the substance and began experiencing symptoms including nausea and dizziness, authorities said.

Antonette Alguire, a firefighter with Mountainair’s volunteer fire department, helped to give CPR to a woman outside the home and watched as EMTs and firefighters started coughing, vomiting and becoming dizzy at the heliport. She said she never went inside the home and hasn’t experienced any symptoms but described it as scary.

“I guess we’re just going to have to start wearing hazmat suits into these calls and wearing oxygen,” she said. “It’s getting to that point where we just have to live in fear, even saving lives.”

Officials at University of New Mexico Hospital confirmed that 23 patients who were exposed were assessed and decontaminated after being transported to the hospital. Most of those were first responders who were showing no symptoms and were later discharged.

Medical teams continued to monitor three symptomatic patients Wednesday evening, according to the hospital.

Two first responders were listed in serious condition, said Officer Wilson Silver with New Mexico State Police.

Mountainair EMS Chief Josh Lewis, who was the first to enter the residence, was hospitalized overnight for observation, Mountainair Mayor Peter Nieto said in a social media post.

Also among those experiencing symptoms were EMTs from Torrance County and nurses from the University of New Mexico hospital who came into contact with individuals on scene, he said. The mayor added that public works crew had confirmed that the health issues were not related to carbon monoxide or natural gas exposure.

Albuquerque Fire Rescue Hazmat teams were assisting at the scene in Mountainair, a rural community east of Albuquerque, in efforts to identify the substance involved.

“At this time, investigators believe the substance may be transmitted through contact and do not believe it to be airborne,” Silver said.

As law enforcement officers from multiple agencies remained on the scene late Tuesday afternoon, three bodies were placed onto gurneys and then loaded into a white van and driven away.

Yellow police tape surrounded the home, located on a dirt road in a rural subdivision. A singlewide trailer could be seen in the home’s backyard, with several cars, trucks and vans in the driveway.

While the investigation was ongoing, Silver said indications were pointing toward drugs as a possible factor in the deaths. He added that there was no threat to the public.

Residents, however, took to social media to voice their frustrations about drug use in the community and elsewhere. New Mexico had the fourth-highest rate of drug overdose deaths of any U.S. state in 2024, with 775 deaths, according to the most recent data available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The mayor said the town’s law enforcement officers and first responders work every day to protect the community and respond to difficult situations.

“But the reality is that addiction and substance abuse are issues affecting communities all across our state and nation,” Nieto said. “There is no simple or immediate solution. Lasting change requires family support, accountability, education, and most importantly, individuals who are willing to accept help.”

Fresh polling data released Wednesday indicates that Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu’s political bloc is strengthening, while opposition parties continue to fall short of forming a governing majority without relying on Arab parties.

A survey conducted by the Kantar Institute for Kan News found that if elections were held today, the Likud party would emerge as the largest faction with 27 seats. Naftali Bennett’s “Together” party would follow with 23 seats.

According to the poll, the “Yashar!” party would secure 16 seats, while The Democrats would receive 10. Otzma Yehudit and Shas would each win 9 seats, followed by Yisrael Beiteinu and United Torah Judaism with 8 apiece. Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am would each receive 5 seats.

Under that scenario, Netanyahu’s coalition bloc would rise to 53 seats. Parties aligned against Netanyahu would control 57 seats, leaving the Arab factions holding the balance with 10 seats.

The survey also showed movement among smaller parties fighting to cross the electoral threshold. Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party climbed to 3.1%, moving closer to reentering the Knesset, while Balad rose to 2.5%. Meanwhile, Blue and White dropped sharply to just 1.1%.

Respondents were also asked who they believe is best suited to serve as prime minister in head-to-head matchups.

In a direct comparison between Netanyahu and Bennett, Netanyahu led with 42% support, while Bennett received 32%. Another 26% said neither candidate was suitable for the role.

Netanyahu also held an advantage over Gadi Eisenkot, though by a narrower margin. In that matchup, 42% favored Netanyahu, compared to 35% for Eisenkot, while 23% said neither was fit to serve as prime minister.

A separate survey conducted by the Midgam Institute for Channel 12 News showed similar trends and found that the Religious Zionist Party would cross the electoral threshold for the first time in a considerable period, winning four seats.

According to that poll, Likud would receive 25 seats, while Bennett’s “Together” party would win 23.

The “Yashar!” party would capture 16 seats, The Democrats 10, Shas 9, United Torah Judaism 8, Yisrael Beiteinu 8, Otzma Yehudit 7, Hadash-Ta’al 5, Ra’am 5, and the Religious Zionist Party 4.

The Reservists Party, Blue and White, and Balad would all fail to reach the electoral threshold, receiving 2.4%, 1.4%, and 1.4% respectively.

Like the Kan News poll, the Channel 12 survey also projected Netanyahu’s coalition bloc at 53 seats, while anti-Netanyahu parties without Arab support would hold 57 seats.

A special atmosphere of anticipation and elevation filled the halls of Yeshivas Mir Brachfeld in Modiin Illit as hundreds of bnei yeshivah gathered for a unique evening of Torah and chizuk ahead of Matan Torah.

The highlight of the event was the arrival of Slabodka Rosh Yeshivah Rav Dov Landau, who traveled from Bnei Brak to deliver a shiur in Maseches Pesachim to the assembled תלמידים. The shiur, delivered in Rav Landau’s trademark clarity and depth, was listened to with intense concentration by the packed bais medrash.

Following the shiur, Rav Landau addressed the tzibbur with heartfelt words of preparation for Kabbalas HaTorah. Speaking before hundreds of bnei yeshivah together with the roshei yeshivah and senior members of the administration, Rav Landau emphasized the importance of strengthening dedication to Torah learning and approaching Shavuos with seriousness and inner preparation.

The gathering left a profound impression on those in attendance and added a palpable sense of inspiration to the days leading into Yom Tov.

Photos by Shuki Lerer:

{Matzav.com}