WATCH:

Senior IDF officials are pushing to resume military operations in the Gaza Strip, warning that the terror group is rebuilding its weapons production capabilities while continuing to refuse disarmament in Cairo negotiations, Army Radio reported on Sunday morning.

“The best time to defeat Hamas is now,” senior IDF officials are saying in closed-door discussions, emphasizing that the previous war’s mission—preventing Hamas from ruling Gaza—has not yet been accomplished.

Since the war in Gaza ended in October, Hamas has tightened its control over the Strip and continued producing weapons—rockets, explosive devices, and anti-tank missiles—intended for attacks on Israel and IDF forces.

At the same time, multiple rounds of talks have taken place in Cairo between Hamas leaders and international mediators. However, Hamas has repeatedly rejected the second phase of the ceasefire, which would include steps toward disarmament.

In recent days, the IDF has decreased its forces in southern Lebanon and shifted regular brigades to the Gaza front and to Yehuda and Shomron. The Southern Command has finalized its operational plans and is ready to resume battle, pending a decision by the political leadership.

Over the past several weeks, the IDF has taken two steps in Gaza: increasing the intensity of strikes and targeted eliminations on a larger scale than during the ceasefire, and pushing the Yellow Line westward. At the start of the ceasefire, Israel controlled 53% of the Strip; now, after gradually shifting the line westward, it controls approximately 59%.

The central question surrounding such a move is the extent to which the IDF could carry out a large ground operation without an additional reserve call-up—and the resulting heavier burden on reservists, who are already serving an average of about 80 days per year.

Some senior IDF officials believe a large-scale ground operation in Gaza should be postponed for several months to avoid significantly increasing the already heavy strain on reserve forces.

Kan News reported that the security cabinet will convene on Sunday to discuss resuming the war in Gaza.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

LISTEN:

https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Stories4Life-Shiur-567-Mitzvah-R-Aharon-Kotler.mp3

Israel Police on Sunday morning officially announced the cancellation of the Lag BaOmer celebration at the tzion of Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai in Meron, along with traffic restrictions on roads leading to the yishuv.

The move was made following a decision by the Jerusalem Ministry late last week and in accordance with Home Front Command directives due to the security situation in the north.

Police forces, Border Police units, and Traffic Division officers have been deployed since Shabbos on all roads leading to Meron and in the surrounding areas. The officers will prevent the entry of vehicles and pedestrians into Meron until Wednesday, May 6, 2026.

Entry to Meron will be allowed only for authorized individuals, and only upon presentation of identification by all passengers in a vehicle. Anyone without an ID or not listed as a resident of Meron will not be allowed to enter.

Border Police forces are also deployed in the fields and forests surrounding Meron and are equipped with advanced surveillance tools to prevent attempts to reach the site on foot.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Spirit Airlines shut down abruptly Saturday, leaving thousands of travelers stranded and earning the dubious distinction of the first major casualty of the war with Iran.

The airline made flying less costly for those with smaller budgets and cornered about 5 percent of the market. An airline of that size has not shut down in two decades.

In recent years, the airline struggled financially, but the spike in gas prices, doubling its fuel costs, forced its closure. As travelers were stuck in airports, other major airlines stepped in to offer discounts to those stranded and free seats to Spirit employees.

The collapse of the airline will cost about 2,000 jobs and is a blow to President Donald Trump, who had proposed but failed to procure $500 million to save the flailing airline. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed former President Joe Biden for preventing the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, which would have saved the airline.

The president of Cornell University, Michael Kotlikoff, allegedly bumped into a protester blocking his car and drove over his foot as he attempted to leave the campus in Ithaca, N.Y., following an Israel-Gaza debate Thursday.

Norman Finkelstein, a former professor whom critics have accused of being a self-hating Jew who has engaged in inflammatory and antisemitic rhetoric against Israel, gave a talk at the debate entitled, “Resolved, Israel was not justified in its response to Oct. 7.”

A student paper accused the president of driving over a protester’s foot, citing the protester as saying that his foot was “painful” to “walk on.”

Kotlikoff described the events of the evening without mentioning anything about driving his car into protesters.

In a statement titled “Harassment and intimidation incident at Day Hall,” the president wrote,

“Yesterday evening, I introduced an Israel-Palestine debate series event in Goldwin Smith Hall, hosted by the Cornell Political Union and co-sponsored by, among others, Cornell Progressives, Cornellians for Israel, and Students for Justice in Palestine. The debate was vigorous and civil, and an example of the kind of open discourse that we prize in our academic community.

“As I left the event room, I was accosted by a group of several individuals in the hall, among them students and non-students. These individuals are known to Cornell for their past conduct, including a long history of ongoing verbal and online abuse toward numerous members of Cornell’s administration and staff, as well as disruptive protest resulting, in the case of two individuals, in bans from campus.

“These individuals followed me from the event space and across campus, while loudly shouting questions and recording on their phones. After answering a few questions, I let them know that I was not planning to engage further, and asked them to stop recording.

“Their response to this was, ‘No, we are not going to stop.’ They continued to follow me to my car and then surrounded the car, banging on the windows, blocking the car, and shouting. I waited until I saw space behind the car and then, using my car’s rear pedestrian alert and automatic braking system, was able to slowly maneuver my car from the parking space and exit the parking lot.”

“The behavior I experienced last night is not protest,” the president concluded. “It is harassment and intimidation, with the direct motive of silencing speech. It has no place in an academic community, no place in a democracy, and can have no place at Cornell.”

A new study suggests artificial intelligence may be able to identify early warning signs of pancreatic cancer long before tumors can actually be seen through standard imaging, potentially opening a path to earlier and more effective treatment.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have developed an AI system that was able to spot subtle abnormalities on CT scans up to three years before patients received a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, according to findings published in the journal Gut. The system is now undergoing evaluation in a clinical trial.

To build the model, scientists trained it on CT scans from patients who originally underwent imaging for unrelated health concerns but were later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Radiologists then reviewed the same scans, and their ability to detect early indicators was compared against the AI system. The results showed the AI outperformed human experts by a factor of three in identifying early warning signs.

Dr. Ajit Goenka, a radiologist at the Mayo Clinic and one of the study’s authors, explained the reasoning behind the research direction:
“We knew, based on the biology of the disease, that this is not something which is coming all of a sudden in three months.” Goenka told NBC. “We knew that the signal was there. We just needed to find a way to be able to detect it,”

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with a five-year survival rate of just 13%. It is projected to become the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths by 2030. Most patients roughly 80% are diagnosed only after the disease has already spread, limiting treatment options.

Unlike more commonly screened cancers such as breast or colon cancer, there is no standard screening test for pancreatic cancer in healthy individuals. The pancreas is also difficult to examine physically due to its deep abdominal location. Early symptoms like weight loss or abdominal pain typically appear only after the cancer has progressed significantly.

Doctors say that early-stage changes are extremely subtle and often invisible on imaging until the disease advances. In many cases, scans may appear completely normal just months before diagnosis.

“I analyze these images every day,” said Dr. Daniel Jeong, a diagnostic radiologist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, who was not involved in the Mayo Clinic research and told NBC News. “We’re really looking for a measurable mass that could represent the cancer. So these tumors need to grow to a certain level to become visible.”

Researchers behind the AI model believe one of the signals it detects involves abnormal cellular activity in the pancreas that helps shield cancer from immune system detection, something previously known in theory but difficult to observe on scans.

Goenka noted that the technology may be especially useful for high-risk individuals, such as those with genetic predisposition or diabetes, even before symptoms appear. In such cases, additional testing like blood work or advanced imaging could follow a positive AI signal.

“Unfortunately, if they have symptoms and if it’s truly pancreas cancer, you don’t need AI for that,” he said.

The AI system is part of a broader wave of innovation in pancreatic cancer research. Recent developments include an experimental mRNA vaccine that showed early survival benefits in a small patient group, as well as a targeted drug, daraxonrasib, which has been shown to extend life expectancy in later-stage trials. Regulators have also begun allowing expanded access to the drug in controlled settings for patients who have exhausted other options.

At the same time, scientists are working on advanced blood-based tests designed to detect early biological markers of the disease before symptoms emerge.

“We’re making, actually, major strides. It hasn’t turned this disease around,” Dr. Tamas Gonda, director of the pancreatic disease program at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center told NBC News.

Experts say earlier detection could significantly expand treatment options, allowing more patients to qualify for surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation before the disease spreads.

“This really could be a game changer for us for early detection,” Dr. Pam Hodul, a surgical oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center, told NBC News.

AI is also gaining traction in other areas of medicine. In a separate study published in Science, researchers found that AI systems matched or exceeded physicians in diagnosing emergency room cases, further highlighting its diagnostic potential.

Despite the promising results, researchers caution that widespread clinical use is still years away. The ongoing trial will need to track patients over several years to determine how accurately the model predicts future cancer development.

“In a disease where we have been just wandering in darkness for decades, this is a milestone that shows us the finish line, but we still have to get to the finish line,” he said.

A motor vehicle crash in Jackson Township Friday night left an adult and two juveniles injured after they were struck by a vehicle while crossing the street.

According to the Jackson Police Department, officers were dispatched at approximately 8:50 p.m. to the area of Manhattan Street near Beam Avenue for a report of a car versus pedestrian crash.

Upon arrival, officers determined that a 2004 Volvo sedan struck one adult and two juveniles as they were attempting to cross Manhattan Street.

All three victims were transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center for treatment of their injuries. Their conditions were not immediately disclosed.

The incident is currently under investigation by the Jackson Police Traffic Safety Unit.

Anyone who may have witnessed the crash is urged to contact P.O. Thomas Parise at 732-928-1111.

Spirit Airlines, the scrappy discounter that once rattled the industry with cheeky ads and rock-bottom fares, took its final flight after 34 years of upending the business of flying.

Once worth as much as roughly $5.5 billion on the stock market, the airline known for its bright yellow planes said Saturday it had shut down after its final flight departed from Detroit and landed safely in Dallas.

“For more than 30 years, Spirit Airlines has played a pioneering role in making travel more accessible and bringing people together while driving affordability across the industry,” CEO Dave Davis said in a statement.

The announcement comes after two bankruptcy filings in as many years that allowed Spirit to repay lenders. That was followed in recent months by a final, mad-dash scramble to save money by cutting routes, squeezing concessions from unions and pursuing a potential financing deal with the Trump administration that could have provided a lifeline had it panned out.

But in the end, higher jet fuel prices triggered by the Iran war drained cash from the business at an accelerating pace, forcing it to call it quits.

“This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted,” Davis said.

From chartered tours to unbundled fares
It began as Charter One Airlines, which ran vacation tours in the early 80s, then grew in popularity and profits two decades later with no-frills “unbundled” fares allowing travelers to forgo basic services — bag handling, seat selection, even the printing of tickets — or pay extra.

Proudly penny-pinching and irritatingly so for many passengers, Spirit was for years run by the famously frugal Ben Baldanza, who ordered his burgers plain, bristled at paying extra for pickles he didn’t want, and flew in the same cramped seats as his customers. He was unapologetic about the airline’s nickel-and-diming them, saying the issue wasn’t that Spirit was cheap, but that passengers were seeing an itemized bill for the first time — and didn’t like it.

For all the complaints, though, Spirit’s model became so influential that giant airlines with decades more operating history and global destinations found they had to follow suit by slashing prices and introducing “basic economy” fares.

On its final day of operations, Spirit had safely flown more than 50,000 passengers, a company spokesperson said. The airline was also working to get more than 1,300 crew members back home. About 17,000 employees — some with more than 25 years at the airline — learned Friday they had lost their jobs, many finding out through media reports, the spokesperson said.

In a memo Saturday to members, the Spirit flight attendants union acknowledged the end of the airline and the toll on workers.

“While the country has had a blast making Spirit the butt of the joke, we’ve built a strength together that could withstand anything that anyone throws at us,” it said. “And that is no joke.”

The provocation playbook
Despite its abrupt end, Spirit left behind a reputation that was impossible to ignore.

Kendria Talton, who flew Friday on Spirit from Dallas to Atlanta with her daughter for a dance competition, arrived at the airport Saturday trying to find a new way home.

Talton said she had flown Spirit multiple times because of the price. “Other than that, I mean nobody even likes Spirit,” she said. “They’ve always talked about Spirit for years.”

A key part of that image came from its bold, over-the-top ads that some critics slammed as tasteless and indeed sometimes backfired.

After the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, the company ran a “Check Out the Oil on Our Beaches” ad, playing on the double entendre of suntan oil and the real black stuff.

Next up was a “Weiner Sale” after New York Congressman Anthony Weiner was caught in a sexting scandal, an ad that also included the line, “fares just too hard to resist.” Later came its infamous “MILF Sale,” referring to “Many Islands, Low Fares,” but also referencing, with a wink and a nod, to the sexual acronym.

Ironically, Spirit was also taken down by its own success as more traditional airlines mimicked its offering and began to steal its customers with their own low fares.

The unraveling
Spirit had been struggling with losses for years, but its going-out-of-business announcement still came as a shock.

Just a few months earlier this year, Spirit said it would likely emerge from its second bankruptcy in the late spring or early summer after striking a preliminary deal with lenders.

Then the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran four days later, sending global crude prices soaring above $100. Gasoline prices followed closely behind and jet fuel prices more than doubled in some markets.

Spirit struggled especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, amid rising operational costs and its mounting debt. By its first Chapter 11 filing in November 2024, Spirit had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020.

University of Houston student Angelina Deruelle, 23, was at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport on Friday, Spirit’s final day of operations, after her flight to Texas was canceled. She said the loss of the airline as an affordable travel option would be difficult to accept.

“I feel like Spirit is just affordable, simple, nothing too fancy,” she said. “It’s just like home.”

European leaders urged the continent to strengthen its own defenses Saturday after the Pentagon announced plans to remove roughly 5,000 American troops from Germany.

The decision followed comments from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the United States had been “humiliated” by Iran. His remarks intensified tensions with Washington and came after weeks of frustration from President Donald Trump over what he sees as insufficient European support for the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The move arrives amid widening disagreements between the United States and its European partners. Strains across the Atlantic have already been fueled by tariff disputes, pressure from Washington on Ukraine to negotiate concessions with Russia, and Trump’s earlier push to gain control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to NATO member Denmark.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the withdrawal had not come as a surprise.

“That the U.S. would withdraw troops from Europe and also from Germany was foreseeable,” he said Saturday.

Pistorius noted that close to 40,000 U.S. troops remain stationed in Germany, making it the largest American military presence in Europe and a critical logistical center for operations across the region.

“We Europeans must assume more responsibility for our security,” he added. “Germany is on the right track.”

According to Pistorius, Germany has already begun expanding its military capabilities by increasing procurement efforts, investing in innovation and strengthening infrastructure.

Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO members and several European governments, including Germany, for what he considers weak or nonexistent backing of his military campaign against Iran. He has also threatened to remove the United States from NATO altogether, while members of his administration have argued that alliances with European partners cannot continue as a “one-way street.”

Speaking to reporters Saturday evening at Palm Beach International Airport, Trump suggested the reduction could go beyond the planned withdrawal.

“We’re going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” the president said.

The announcement triggered a mix of concern and cautious realism across European capitals and within NATO headquarters in Brussels.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said alliance officials were coordinating with Washington to gain clarity on the troop reduction plans.

“This adjustment underscores the need for Europe to continue to invest more in defense and take on a greater share of the responsibility for our shared security,” she said.

Hart also pointed out that NATO members had already committed last year to spending 5% of their GDP on defense.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that growing separation between Europe and the United States could have dangerous consequences.

“The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance,” Tusk wrote Saturday on X.

Poland, which borders the eastern flank of NATO and depends heavily on the alliance as a safeguard against Russian aggression tied to the war in neighboring Ukraine, has been especially sensitive to shifts in U.S. military policy.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has faced personal criticism from Trump over Britain’s limited support for the Iran conflict, stopped short of directly addressing the troop withdrawal during a BBC interview Saturday. Still, he acknowledged that Europe lacked sufficient strength and leadership.

“We need Britain at the heart of a stronger Europe on defense,” Starmer said, adding that he hoped relations with European neighbors could improve after years of tension linked to Brexit.

Michał Matlak, a senior fellow at the European University Institute and director of the Institute for Innovation and Technology in Warsaw, said the decision was consistent with a broader shift in trans-Atlantic relations.

“This is not a turning point, I’d say, but another step toward a trans-Atlantic divorce,” Matlak said.

He argued that removing 5,000 troops would not dramatically affect U.S. military operations or Europe’s overall security environment because of the large American presence that still remains on the continent. However, he said the decision would likely be viewed as “yet another warning sign.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker said the withdrawal appeared intended as a political message aimed at Germany rather than a major strategic military change.

Both Europe and the United States still benefit from maintaining a strong American military footprint in Germany, Volker said.

“We’re all going to live beyond the Trump era, and I hope that NATO lives beyond the Trump era as well,” he added.

American troops remain stationed across more than a dozen European countries, with Germany, Italy and Britain hosting the largest deployments. U.S. European Command coordinates military operations throughout the region in partnership with NATO allies.

The Pentagon announced Friday that the withdrawal process would unfold over the next six to twelve months. A defense measure approved by Congress last year prevents the Pentagon from reducing the overall number of U.S. troops in Europe below 76,000.

Matlak said European governments have increasingly recognized the need to rely less heavily on Washington for security, though disagreements remain over how that transition should happen.

“How strong should the separation be between the U.S. and Europe? What should be the role of European institutions? What should be the role of NATO? What should be the role of national armies? There are differences here, and that’s the critical issue, not the realization of the gravity of the situation and the need for Europe to rearm itself,” Matlak said.

“This is clear, and there is a consensus here, and obviously President Trump helped in getting there, because even most pro-Atlantic countries are now very reluctant and cautious when it comes to the role of the U.S.”

I rewrote the article with a stronger headline, reworded every paragraph, and preserved all direct quotes exactly as requested.

The Toronto Police Service are searching for a suspect who shot at three Jewish people with an Orbeez-type gun, which shoots gel beads — but with enough force to have caused minor injuries. The suspect was driving a blue SUV, and police have asked anyone with information to come forward.

The attack with the replica gun is one of the more bizarre incidents to afflict Jews worldwide.

The attack occurred Thursday, the day before Canadians mark Canadian Jewish Heritage Month, when Canadians recognize Jewish contributions to Canadian history and society and celebrate Jewish history and culture.

The attack follows on the heels of an attempted break-in at a synagogue and vandalism of a Jewish shop within the same week.

The Toronto Police Service posted a statement on its official website, saying, “The Toronto Police Service is requesting the public’s assistance identifying a vehicle in a suspected hate-motivated Assault with a Weapon investigation.”

Toronto Police posted video of the suspect fleeing in a blue SUV. (Credit: The Toronto Police Service)

The statement went on to describe the attack: It took place on April 30 on Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue; the attacker targeted visibly Jewish members of the Toronto Jewish community; the suspect shot at them with an Orbeez gun, inflicting minor injuries; and the suspect fled in a blue SUV.

“This investigation is being treated as a suspected hate-motivated offence,” the statement read.

The incident drew reactions from Jewish groups.

“On the streets of Canada’s most diverse city, Canadians are assaulted and shot at for being visibly Jewish,” stated the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

“Our country is facing a wave of violent extremism and radicalization — one that threatens more than a single community. It endangers the personal safety and democratic values of all Canadians,” CIJA said. “Confronting these forces requires everyone to stand up and demand action before we face the kind of loss of life seen in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

“UJA has been made aware of a violent attack against members of the Jewish community involving a weapon on Thursday, April 30,” UJA Federation of Greater Toronto posted on X. “While we are relieved that none of the victims were seriously injured, this reflects an escalation of antisemitic violence across the GTA.”

“There can be no ambiguity about the motive,” the group added. “These targeted attacks are intended to threaten our community and force us to hide our identity. It won’t work. We are resilient, strong, and determined to live our Jewish lives freely and openly.”

StandWithUS Canada also weighed in.

“The situation facing the Jewish community in Canada is escalating rapidly. It is critical that our lawmakers and law enforcement draw a hard line in the sand, now, before things deteriorate further,” the group posted on social media.

“Words are not enough,” the group added. “The psychological warfare of vandalism and property damage has now escalated to physical attacks on Jewish-Canadians in the streets. “It’s time for the pendulum to swing aggressively in the other direction, and for radical actors to be pushed back to the fringes of Canadian society.”

Tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran are escalating rapidly, with President Donald Trump warning that the U.S. could resume military strikes as the ceasefire appears increasingly fragile. In response, senior Iranian officials have openly stated that a renewed conflict is highly probable.

The developments follow a tenuous ceasefire reached on April 8, which paused a war between the U.S., Israel, and Iran that commenced on February 28. However, with Iran continuing aggressive maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz and diplomatic efforts stalling, the region remains on the brink of wider conflict.

Speaking to reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, President Trump expressed deep skepticism regarding a recent ceasefire proposal from Iran, which was delivered via intermediaries in Pakistan. The President indicated that he was “not satisfied” with the offer from Tehran.

Trump noted he “can’t imagine it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”

Asked what might trigger new military action, the President kept options open. “If they misbehave, if they do something bad, but right now, we’ll see,” he stated. “But it’s a possibility that could happen, certainly.”

The President described the Iranian leadership as “very disjointed,” adding, “They all want to make a deal, but they’re all messed up.” Senator Lindsey Graham has also urged the administration to take decisive action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting the U.S. should “finish the job” with additional strikes if Tehran’s provocations continue.

The conflict has severely impacted global shipping, sending oil prices surging past $100 per barrel. Iran effectively closed the critical Strait of Hormuz—which typically handles 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas trade—following the outbreak of war.

​Despite the U.S. launching a naval blockade on April 13 to prevent Iranian tankers from leaving and deprive the regime of oil revenue, Tehran has attempted to establish a “tollbooth” system. Iran has reportedly demanded up to $2 million per vessel to secure safe passage through alternative routes.

In a brazen escalation, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament announced that the body intends to pass a law barring Israeli vessels from the Strait entirely, while requiring ships from “hostile” countries to pay for permits.

Senior officials within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have responded to U.S. pressure with defiance:
Mohammad Jafar Asadi, a high-level IRGC officer, predicted that a “renewed conflict between Iran and the United States is likely.”

Ali Rafiei Atani, an IRGC commander, taunted U.S. forces, stating: “We hope America makes a mistake and tests its power on the ground as well. It was defeated at sea and in the air, and we would like it to test itself on the ground too.”

The U.S. government has taken strict measures to counter Iran’s financial extortion in the region and bolster allied defenses.

The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a stark warning to shipping companies regarding the payment of Iranian “tolls.”

Violators face steep consequences: Fines of up to $1 million and up to 20 years in prison.
The warning covers all forms of payment, including cash, digital assets, and even charitable donations made at Iranian embassies.

Concurrently, the State Department sanctioned a Chinese petroleum terminal operator, Qingdao Haiye Oil Terminal Co., Ltd., to further disrupt Iran’s illicit oil trade.

To ensure regional stability, Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked an emergency declaration to bypass standard congressional review, approving $8.6 billion in arms sales to key U.S. allies. The approved packages include:
Israel, Qatar, and the UAE**:** Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) laser-guided weapons.

Qatar**:** $4 billion to restock Patriot missile defenses.

Kuwait**:** A $2.5 billion Integrated Battle Command System.

Meanwhile, U.S. Central Command continues to enforce its naval blockade in the Arabian Sea, with 48 commercial ships reportedly turned around since the operation began. President Trump has also ordered the Navy to conduct operations to clear Iranian mines from the strait.

Meanwhile, Iran is simultaneously escalating threats and signaling diplomatic outreach. Tehran’s ambassador to Cairo warned that if the war continues without a political resolution, Iran reserves the “right to compensate itself” by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, citing its coastline stretching over 1,000 kilometers along the waterway.

At the same time, Iran claims to have submitted an updated negotiating proposal through Pakistan, demanding sanctions relief, the unfreezing of assets, and financial compensation — declaring the “ball is in America’s court,” while insisting it will not come to the table under military threat.

Students at The New School in Manhattan voted Friday to strip funding from the campus Hillel chapter, a move critics condemned while university officials said has no binding authority.

The student senate approved the measure by majority vote, declaring Hillel “not in good standing” and alleging ties to “grave violations of international law” through its connection to Israel-related programming, according to the New York Post.

Hillel is an international Jewish campus organization with hundreds of chapters across the United States, providing religious, social, and cultural support for Jewish students.

In a lengthy report, student leaders argued that programs involving trips to Israel, including volunteer opportunities on military bases, make the broader student body “complicit” because student activity fees help fund campus groups.

“To continue to fund Hillel at the New School would mean that your student fees would be used to support violations of international law,” the statement says. “Our shared values require us to enforce our policies until Hillel agrees to affirm and abide by international law.”

The report also criticized participation in Birthright Israel trips.

University officials pushed back later Saturday, stating the vote does not carry administrative power.

“The student senate does not have the authority to determine the recognition, funding eligibility, or official status of registered student organizations. That authority rests with university administration,” a spokesperson said.

“Our Hillel chapter remains, as it always has been, in good standing, eligible for funding, and supporting Jewish life at The New School.”

It remains unclear whether the university will take disciplinary action against the student senators involved.

Jewish leaders and elected officials sharply criticized the vote. Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said the move unfairly targets Jewish students.

“Hillel is not a political organization,” Treyger said, calling the decision “disgraceful and dangerous.”

“To target Hillel is to target Jewish identity and Jewish belonging on campus,” he continued. “Jewish students should not be forced to justify their identity, heritage, or communal spaces in order to participate in campus life. At a moment of rising antisemitism across the country, stripping recognition or funding from Jewish student life sends a chilling and unacceptable message.”

City Council Member Eric Dinowitz also condemned the vote.

“This is a direct attack on Jewish life on campus,” he wrote. “The New School must not allow the student senate to be weaponized to target their Jewish population.”

Jewish alumni voiced outrage as well, with some criticizing the university’s handling of the situation and warning of broader consequences.

Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman said Jewish students will continue to have access to the organization.

“Demonizing Hillel with false charges rooted in age-old antisemitic tropes is wrong, plain and simple,” Lehman said.

The New School’s Hillel chapter serves roughly 700 Jewish students, with modest student fees typically allocated to support campus programming.

While this marks the first known vote of its kind, similar efforts to cut ties with Hillel have surfaced at other universities following the October 7, 2023 attacks, including protests and boycott calls on multiple campuses.

Authorities are investigating after a potty exploded in Lakewood today.

The incident happened early this morning at a construction site in Lakewood. No injuries were reported.

Lakewood Detectives and the State Police Bomb Squad are checking other Porta potties in the area and investigating the incident.

An Orthodox Jewish mother from Brooklyn has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Department of Motor Vehicles employees of forcing her to remove her religious head covering for a license photo, an experience she says left her deeply shaken and humiliated, Matzav.com has learned.

Sara Fellig claims she felt compelled to comply with what she described as a violation of her religious practice, and says the incident has continued to affect her emotionally. In her complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, she details the distress she experienced during and after the encounter.

“Forcing Ms. Fellig — or any married, ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman who wears a head covering — to remove [their] head covering in public is akin to forcing a secular person to strip naked in front of strangers, carrying all the same shame, humiliation, and abasement,” she said in the court papers filed against the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

According to the filing, Fellig arrived at the Atlantic Avenue DMV office in downtown Brooklyn for a scheduled appointment in November while caring for her young children. Two of her three daughters were unwell at the time, and she brought one of them with her to the office.

As is her regular practice in public, Fellig was wearing a partial shaitel along with a small hat.

When she was called for her photograph, a DMV employee instructed her to remove her head covering. Although state regulations prohibit images that obscure facial features or interfere with identification, Fellig maintains that her hat and wig did not cover her face.

She objected to the request, leading the employee to ask whether the head covering was worn for religious reasons. After she confirmed that it was, the worker allegedly responded, “Well you still can’t wear your hat,” according to the lawsuit.

A second DMV employee did not step in to address the situation, despite provisions in state law allowing exemptions for individuals with sincerely held religious beliefs.

“Ms. Fellig was so disturbed by the prospect of removing her head covering in public that she contemplated calling her rabbi to discuss the unlawful circumstances she was facing,” she said in the legal claim.

The lawsuit notes that Fellig hesitated to seek help at the time due to prior incidents of harassment. In 2020, she was verbally attacked on Empire Boulevard, and in 2023 she encountered another antisemitic outburst in the same area.

With nearly 100 people present at the DMV office, and “mindful of shifting sentiments against the Jewish community due to the war in Gaza . . . Ms. Fellig decided not to call her rabbi, worried that onlookers would believe her to be an angry Jewish person seeking to make trouble.”

She ultimately removed her head covering and posed for the photo, an action she says left her emotionally overwhelmed and filled with regret. In her lawsuit, she is seeking damages, the destruction of the existing license image, and a replacement license at no cost.

“Each time someone views the photograph, Ms. Fellig experiences a renewed desecration of her religious beliefs,” according to the lawsuit.

“Ms. Fellig’s emotional damages will continue and multiply until a new photograph is taken and a new license issued,” she said in the court papers, adding, “she fears condemnation from her Chabad community — and her rabbi — if they discover that her official New York State ID depicts her without appropriate headgear.”

Her attorney, Emma Freeman, argued that the issue stems from a failure to apply existing policy.

“The DMV has the right rule in place — but, for no reason at all, it wasn’t followed in Ms. Fellig’s case,” she said.

{Matzav.com}

NEW YORK — GameStop is preparing an offer for eBay, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal, in a move that could mark a dramatic shift in strategy for the video game retailer as it seeks to significantly expand its market value.

The report, citing people familiar with the matter, said GameStop’s leadership has been exploring a potential acquisition as part of a broader effort led by CEO Ryan Cohen to transform the company beyond its traditional brick-and-mortar retail model.

Shares of eBay surged about 14% in extended trading following the report, reflecting investor optimism about a possible deal. GameStop shares also rose roughly 4%.

eBay, an online marketplace connecting buyers and sellers globally, currently has a market capitalization of about $46 billion. GameStop, by comparison, is valued at nearly $12 billion, underscoring the scale and complexity of any potential transaction.

Analysts say a bid of this size would likely require significant financing and could face scrutiny from investors given the disparity in valuations. Still, some view the move as consistent with Cohen’s efforts to reposition GameStop as a broader technology and e-commerce platform.

GameStop rose to prominence in recent years during a surge driven by retail investors, but the company has since faced ongoing challenges tied to declining physical game sales and shifting consumer habits toward digital downloads.

A successful acquisition of eBay could give GameStop access to a massive global user base, established logistics infrastructure and a diversified revenue stream, potentially accelerating its transformation strategy.

However, the discussions remain preliminary, and there is no guarantee that a deal will materialize. Representatives for GameStop and eBay did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

If pursued, the transaction could become one of the most notable deals in the retail and e-commerce sectors in recent years, signaling a bold — and potentially risky — attempt by GameStop to redefine its future.

During a nichum aveilim visit to the Karadi family following the killing of young Nesia Hy”d in a missile strike, powerful words of emunah and hisorerus were shared first by the grieving father and then by the Yenukah.

The father spoke about the profound spiritual impact his daughter had in the short time since her passing. “I sit and think about what I’ve gained in these three and a half weeks… what merits she brought into the world,” he said. He added that even those distant from Yiddishkeit were moved to change: “Three people who heard her story took upon themselves to keep Shabbos.”

He described how, amid the immense pain, a wave of teshuvah and strengthening had emerged, with Nesia’s story touching hearts across many circles.

The Yenukah then addressed the family with deeply emotional words. “I don’t even know how to begin… how do you begin to thank for what you’ve received,” he said. He described the girl as a “holy soul,” adding: “A holy child. She died sanctifying Hashem’s Name. She brought sanctification of His Name throughout the world.” He also expressed awe at the father’s faith, saying, “I sit with him and tremble from his words—how he praises Hashem.”

At one point, the Yenukah addressed a painful question troubling many: how such a tragedy could happen davka in Bnei Brak, a city of Torah. “Missiles never fell here. The Chazon Ish, Rav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l, all the holy ones here gave their lives for Torah—and suddenly we see what happened,” he said.

He stressed that such events are not random. “This is meant to shake us—where have we come to,” he said. He explained that even places of kedusha are not immune when there is a breakdown in achdus: “If there is lashon hara, it breaks down all the walls.” Citing Chazal, he noted that even when Klal Yisroel struggled spiritually, unity protected them, but division brought harm. He added with pain: “Missiles don’t fall for nothing… swords come down into the world, and no one knows who they will strike.”

The Yenukah called on the ציבור to strengthen in ahavas Yisroel. “We need to stop all the disputes… to love one another, to support one another,” he said, emphasizing that the responsibility extends beyond the immediate family. “This is pain for all of us,” he added, urging continued support even after shivah: “Not just now—also afterward, to come, to help, to strengthen the mother and the father.”

He concluded with words of comfort, speaking about the elevated place of pure souls: “Such souls are in the highest places… with tzaddikim and with angels.” He ended with a tefillah: “May Hashem give strength and comfort, and may we merit the complete redemption, the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash, and the resurrection of the dead במהרה.”

LAKEWOOD (VINnews/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) – Rabbi Chaim Yisroel Abadi, a pioneering educator and founder of programs supporting at-risk youth in the Orthodox Jewish community, has died, community members said. He passed away over the Sabbath following a period of illness.

Abadi was the founder and spiritual leader of “Minyan Shelanu” and “The Chill,” initiatives based in Lakewood that focused on teenagers and young adults struggling within traditional yeshiva frameworks.

He established “The Minyan” in 2001, creating a space designed to be supportive and nonjudgmental. The program offered mentorship, social support and a sense of belonging to youth facing personal and educational challenges. Over the years, it became a widely recognized resource in the community, credited by supporters with helping many participants build stable and productive lives.

Abadi had lived in Lakewood long before the township’s rapid growth in recent decades. He was regarded by many as a forward-thinking figure who identified and addressed the needs of struggling teens at a time when such issues received less public attention.

FILE – Minyan Shelanu boys along with Rabbi Chaim Abadi & other Minyan family visiting Rav Gamliel Rabinovitch & listening to divrei chizuk.

His father, Rabbi Yitzchak Abadi, a noted halachic authority and educator in Lakewood, died about five months ago.

Abadi had been ill for some time and was reported to be in critical condition in recent days before his death

There are Rabbonim whose lives are measured in the Torah and seforim that they leave behind. There are others whose lives are measured in the neshamos they refuse to abandon. HaRav Chaim Yisroel Abadi zt”l, who was niftar this past Shabbos in Lakewood after a long battle with illness, belonged to that second, rarer category — and the void he leaves cannot be measured at all.

He was the founder and Rov of “Minyan Shelanu” and of “The Chill,” its parallel division for girls. To the broader Lakewood community, those names long ago stopped being institutions and became something closer to a maskana — the maskana that no Yiddishe neshama, however far from where it once stood, was ever to be written off.  The love they had for him was tangible.  My brother-in-law would hire these young men for work and he was awed by the love and respect that they had for him.

A Father’s Mantle, a Son’s Different Mission

Rav Chaim was the son of HaRav Yitzchak Abadi zt”l, the towering posek and marbitz Torah from Lakewood’s earliest years, who was himself niftar only five months ago, on the second day of Chanukah. The father had been sent at nineteen by the Chazon Ish to learn under Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l, was appointed as posek of Beth Medrash Govoha and the Lakewood kehilla in his twenties, and trained much of the next generation of American poskim. Many of today’s leading halachic authorities in Lakewood and beyond consider themselves his talmidim.

That was the legacy into which Rav Chaim was born. And yet his own avodah took a strikingly different shape. His father carried the Torah of psak; the son carried the Torah of pikuach nefesh — quite literally, the saving of lives that the system had, in too many cases, given up on.  He deeply loved his father and was sho-el aitzah from him constantly.

The community lost both within a single calendar year. Five months ago, the towering posek. Now, the son who pulled drowning bochurim back to shore. It is hard not to feel that an entire era — one that began with the Chazon Ish placing his hand on the head of a young man bound for Lakewood — has just closed.

The Founding of “The Minyan”

Lakewood in the late 1990s was already on its way to becoming the Torah metropolis it is today. But beneath the surface of that explosive growth, a quieter crisis was unfolding. Hundreds of teenagers and young adults — sons and daughters of yeshivishe homes — were finding themselves alienated from the system in which they had been raised. Some were experimenting with drugs. Some were sleeping in cars. Some were technically still “frum” but spiritually adrift. Almost all of them had stopped davening, because there was simply nowhere they felt welcome to walk in.

Rav Chaim Abadi noticed. And then he did something almost no one else in his generation was willing to do: he listened.

The story, as told by one of the founding members, is that a small group of close friends — perhaps ten in all — used to gather at Rabbi Gissinger’s shul after the regular minyan had dispersed. They would daven, eat breakfast, smoke a cigarette, and head to work. Rav Chaim, a successful real estate developer who had been ordained as a rabbi, gave several of them jobs at his own company. For some, it was the first stable framework they had known in years.

Out of that informal gathering, in 1998, was born Minyan Shelanu — “Our Minyan.” It quickly became something far larger than its founders had imagined: a beis medrash, a social center, a refuge, a surrogate home, and, in the words of more than one rebbi who watched it from the outside, “the only place in Lakewood where a kid who didn’t fit could feel he wasn’t broken.”

The Method That Saved Hundreds

Minyan Shelanu was never marketed as a kiruv operation, and Rav Chaim was emphatic on this point. The teenagers walking through his doors were not strangers to Yiddishkeit; they were sons of bnei Torah, often grandsons and great-grandsons of bnei Torah. What they had lost was not information — it was belonging.

So the method was deceptively simple. Unconditional acceptance. A non-judgmental space. A rav who, in the words of one alumnus, “still spoke to me on the phone multiple times a week, even after I moved out of Lakewood, even after I was married with children of my own.”

Around that core, an entire ecosystem grew. A daytime kollel and night seder under R’ Yaakov Bess. A yeshiva placement program under R’ Shneur Olshin, helping bochurim find the right yeshiva and covering tuition, travel, and living expenses. A Thursday night cholent and speech, with addresses by Reb Malkiel Kotler shlita, Dayan Dunner, Reb Shlomo Feivel Schustal, and others. Yossi’s game room. An annual Shabbaton. A road trip at the end of the zman that, in one famous summer, took the boys through thirteen states from the Smoky Mountains down to Florida. And, when needed — and it was often needed — full payment for drug rehabilitation, therapy, and yeshiva tuition for those whose families could not, or would not, help.

There was also “The Chill” — the girls’ division, kept entirely separate from the boys’ program, which served as a parallel haven for young women in similar straits. When a fire ripped through The Chill’s Jackson headquarters in the early hours of a Tuesday morning, destroying everything in its path, the girls who had called it home spoke of it the same way the boys spoke of the Minyan: as the place where, when every other door in their lives was locked, this one was always open.

The Cost He Paid

Those who knew Rav Chaim closely understood that his work exacted a price. As one Lakewood mechanech put it during the recent campaign of tefillos for his refuah: “The way Reb Chaim is metapel with our holy souls at risk in our town is unparalleled. And he has been living in incredible yissurim every day for years already.”

He carried, in other words, the weight of every kid he could not yet save, and many he had. He answered phone calls at hours no rav should have to answer phone calls. He attended weddings of bochurim whose parents had once given up on them. He danced at the chasunos of young men whose own fathers, in some cases, had stopped speaking to them. He was, as one alumnus described him, “my guardian angel — and I mean that literally. I am alive because of him. It is that simple.”

And he did all of this while his body was, increasingly, failing him.

The Final Days

In recent months, the tzibbur was repeatedly called upon to be mispallel for Rav Chaim Yisroel ben Chaya Rizsha. Tehillim groups were organized online. The seriousness of his condition was not hidden. In the past several days, he was in critical condition, and over Shabbos, his neshama was returned to its Maker.

Levaya details will be published when they become available.

The Legacy

It is tempting, in writing about a figure like Rav Chaim Abadi zt”l, to reach for the language of statistics — the hundreds of teens who returned to mainstream yeshivos, the alumni now raising frum families of their own, the Minyan members who today sit in kollel, run businesses, and serve as mentors to the next generation of strugglers.

But the deeper measure is harder to quantify. It is the measure of a community that, in part because of him, is no longer able to pretend that “this kind of thing doesn’t happen here.” It is the measure of every parent who, in the worst night of his life, was told by a friend, “Call Reb Chaim.” It is the measure of a mehalech — call it the Abadi mehalech — in which a struggling Yiddishe neshama is treated not as a liability to be managed but as a future zaide whose grandchildren are already davening for his geulah.

His father gave the Lakewood community its poskim. Rav Chaim gave the Lakewood community something arguably even more precious: he gave it back its lost children.

Yehi zichro baruch. T.N.Tz.B.H.

A major Shabbos gathering for hundreds of leading supporters of Belz took place at the David Citadel Hotel in Yerushalayim, drawing widespread excitement among chassidim in Eretz Yisroel and abroad after the event had been postponed from the previous week.

The Belzer Rebbe arrived at the hotel already on Thursday night and took part in a special program marking Pesach Sheini, after which the assembled donors were received for personal greetings and brachos.

During the preparations, the Rebbe also offered warm words of appreciation to the Bobover askan, Reb Dovid Aryeh Roth, recognizing his role in helping organize the large-scale Shabbos.

Throughout the Shabbos, the Rebbe devoted exceptional attention to the many guests, elevating the atmosphere of the gathering. For Mincha on Erev Shabbos, the Rebbe entered a specially prepared shul at the hotel shortly after candle-lighting time. His eldest grandson, Rav Sholom Rokeach, served as shliach tzibbur for Mincha, while the Rebbe himself led Kabolas Shabbos. During “Lo Sevoshi,” the niggun “Hatov Ki Lo Cholu Rachamecha” was sung, and during “Bo’achem L’Sholom,” the Rebbe encouraged extended singing, with the melody repeated for several minutes. Following the tefillah, the Pinsk-Karliner Rebbe, who was staying nearby, came to wish him a Gut Shabbos, after which the assembled tzibbur exchanged greetings.

The Friday night tish began at 11:00 p.m. in a large hall prepared for the occasion. The honor of lifting the kos for Kiddush was given to Reb Moshe Koenig. During the meal, the renowned chazzan Reb Yitzchok Meir Helfgot performed a moving piece of chazzanus with the composition “Ezras Avoseinu,” originally composed by Reb Moshe Stern in honor of Pesach Sheini. The niggun “Vehi She’amda” was then sung for several minutes by the participants.

For Birchas Hamazon, the Rebbe instructed that Reb Pinchos Lerner, CEO of the central Belzer offices in the United States, be honored with leading the bentching. This was followed by a Sholom Zochor celebration and a special Peiros Tish. At the height of the gathering, Rav Pinchos Friedman delivered an emotional address, speaking about the privilege of seeing the distinguished supporters maintaining their full chassidishe levush and remaining deeply connected to the spirit of the chassidus. He also spoke passionately about continuing tefillos for the Rebbe’s strength and complete recovery, leaving many in the room visibly moved. The niggun “Ki Orech Yomim U’Shnos Chaim” was then sung.

On Shabbos morning, Pesukei D’Zimra were led by Rav Avrohom Shmuel Rokeach, while Rav Pinchos Friedman served as shliach tzibbur for Shacharis, with a niggun sung to “Mimkomcha.” During the Torah reading, the honored guests were called up for aliyos, and the Rebbe himself led Mussaf.

Following davening, the Rebbe returned to the main hall for a Kiddusha Rabba and the daytime seudah with the assembled guests. The kos was lifted by Reb Elimelech Landman. Chazzan Reb Sholom Lemmer performed “Rozo D’Shabbos,” composed by Reb Pinchos Pinchik, and Reb Yitzchok Meir Helfgot added further selections, including “U’v’Menucha Yomar,” composed by Reb Yossele Rosenblatt. Musical accompaniment was provided by Shaya Lebron and Reb Moshe Daman, who had traveled from abroad for the occasion. Reb Shimon Faivush, a member of the Belzer central administration, was honored with Birchas Hamazon.

For Seudah Shlishis, the Rebbe once again gathered with the hundreds of supporters and guests. After delivering Torah thoughts, the niggun “Bar Yochai” was sung, followed by “Omar Rebbi Akiva.” The kos for bentching was lifted by Reb Yisroel Lewinger, chairman of the Belzer building fund.

After Maariv and Sefiras HaOmer, the Rebbe conducted Havdalah. The kos was lifted by senior members of the Belzer administration, Reb Yosef Meir Horowitz and Reb Rafael Klein. The niggun “Hamavdil” was then sung in chazzanus by Reb Yirmiyah Daman and Reb Yitzchok Meir Helfgot, after which the ציבור passed by to wish each other “A Gut Voch.”

Over the course of Thursday night, Friday, and Motzoei Shabbos, hundreds of supporters arrived with substantial contributions, with the Rebbe presenting each donor with a gold goblet and a leather-bound Tehillim for their household.

At the time of this report, preparations were underway for a major dinner in the hotel’s grand ballroom honoring those supporting the construction of new Belzer buildings, scheduled to begin shortly.

{Matzav.com}

NEW YORK (AP) — Fewer than one-third of Jewish voters in New York City say Mayor Zohran Mamdani is doing a good job, while a larger share rate his performance negatively, according to a new survey highlighted by the New York Post.

The poll, conducted by the advocacy group The Jewish Majority, found that 32% of respondents described the mayor’s performance as “excellent” or “good,” while 40% said it was “poor.” Another 18% rated his performance as “fair,” with the remainder undecided.

The survey also found widespread concern about antisemitism among Jewish voters in the city. A large majority said they are either very or somewhat concerned about rising incidents, and many respondents attributed the increase to public discourse around anti-Zionism, according to the findings reported by the New York Post.

New York City police data cited in the report indicated that hate crimes increased in the early months of the year compared with the same period last year, with more than half of reported incidents targeting Jewish individuals.

Among other findings, a majority of respondents said the mayor’s handling of rhetoric related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has contributed to tensions, while many also expressed support for measures aimed at increasing security around houses of worship.

City officials defended the administration’s record, saying the mayor has engaged with Jewish communities across the city and is working on initiatives to address antisemitism.

The poll surveyed 665 Jewish voters who participated in the most recent mayoral election.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s prime minister warned Saturday that tougher action was needed against people chanting certain phrases at pro-Palestinian protests, as concerns grew over the safety of British Jews after the stabbings of two Jewish men in London.

Keir Starmer said he would always defend the right to protest, but said there may be instances where some marches protesting the war in Gaza should be banned. He suggested that repeated pro-Palestinian marches have had a “cumulative effect” linked to the rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.K.

“When you see, when you hear some of those chants — ‘globalize the intifada’ would be one I would pick out — then clearly there should be tougher action in relation to that,” Starmer told the BBC. The Arabic word intifada is generally translated as “uprising.”

A 45-year-old man was charged Friday with attempted murder after two Jewish men were stabbed and wounded Wednesday in Golders Green, a London neighborhood that’s an epicenter of Britain’s Jewish community. Police called the attack an act of terrorism.

It was the latest in a string of incidents including recent arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in the British capital.

The U.K.’s most senior police officer warned Friday that British Jews are facing their greatest ever threat, and blamed social media for making antisemitism more mainstream than before.

Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, said British Jews are now the target of every extremist group spreading hate.

“The ghastly fact is that Jews are on everybody’s list, all of those hateful groups, whether you’re extreme right, whether you’re extreme left, whether you’re Islamist terrorist, whether you’re right-wing terrorist, and some hostile states as well now with some sort of Iranian-related threats,” he told The Times. “There’s a ghastly Venn diagram that they’re at the middle of.”

Britain’s official terror threat level was raised from substantial to severe after Wednesday’s stabbing attack. Severe is the second-highest on a five-point scale and means intelligence agencies consider an attack highly likely in the next six months.

The government said the change was not due solely to the Golders Green attack but also due to increased danger “from Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorist threat from individuals and small groups based in the U.K.”

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has soared since the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust charity. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump had no qualms about a government takeover of Spirit Airlines, so long as the terms could be portrayed as a financial victory in what would have been the latest addition to a taxpayer-backed conglomerate of business interests.

But the budget carrier ceased operations on Saturday after reaching an impasse with an administration that increasingly sees the government as an activist investor that will shape the path of the U.S. economy.

While Trump has long railed against Democrats and other opponents as communists — the antithesis of the free market ethos that helped America grow into a superpower — he has taken a shine to the government owning some of the means of production since he has been back in the Oval Office.

Trump sees opportunities in preserving legacy brand companies such as Intel and possibly making a tidy profit for Uncle Sam. The Republican president views the investments as critical for economic security and emblematic of his own dealmaking skills, overturning what had been GOP dogma that government should avoid picking winners and losers.

In the case of Spirit, a cash-strapped budget airline that faced surging fuel costs caused by the Iran war, Trump told reporters on Friday that the government would buy a stake in the company “ only if it’s a good deal.” His objection to a bailout was not ideological as much as it was about the upside.

“If we can help them, we will,” Trump said. “But we have to come first.” Trump did not immediately address the shutdown of the carrier.

He had compared the potential acquisition to an earlier move to buy a stake in Intel. Trump has watched the computer chip manufacturer’s stock closely. “I’m very proud of that Company in that I am responsible for making the United States of America over 30 Billion Dollars in the last 90 days on that stock alone,” Trump posted on social media this week.

Committed to government stakes in companies
Communism wields big influence in countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba, where governments play a central role in providing goods and services. The ideology has morphed over its history from the premise that government should own all property to a system in which the government might own or control major companies.

In the United States, major government interventions in the private sector have been unusual outside of a recession. Trump aides say his interventions are necessary to compete against China’s industrial heft, yet the president has frequently tethered corporate America to his administration.

He has used his tariffs to solicit foreign investments and claimed that he controls how the money is being spent. The government has a “golden share” to limit what Japan’s Nippon Steel can do after buying U.S. Steel. His administration brokered an agreement to take a cut of computer chip sales to China by Nvidia and AMD.

Under Trump, the government has invested in rare earths company MP Materials to break China’s control of the metallic elements needed for smartphones, autos and other technologies. Add to that agreements for stakes in Lithium America, Trilogy Metals and Vulcan Elements as well as preferential financing for Westinghouse and ReElement Technologies.

The administration backed off ending the government conservatorship of the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Trump says they are worth more now because he held on instead of privatizing the companies in his first term. “If I would have sold it, I would have felt like a schmuck,” he said Friday.

He is accessible to CEOs, speaking regularly on the telephone with them, yet he also can be demanding of them to support his agenda. He has told Walmart to not raise prices because of his tariffs and suggested he would favorably “remember” companies that decline to seek refunds after the Supreme Court ruled his tariffs were illegal.

Logic and ego seen in Trump’s moves
To critics, Trump’s desire to fund and hold ownership stakes in private business is a byproduct of an id in overdrive.

“This is entirely a reflection of a transactional-minded president who wants unilateral control of the economy,” said Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “At the end of the day, it is about power, it is about leverage and it is about control.”

Others see some logic in competing against Chinese manufacturers that can churn away without regard to profits, undercutting factories in other industrialized nations and putting America’s preeminence as a military power and technological innovator at risk.

The investment in Intel was “a strategic move, necessitated by the growth of China as an economic peer and rival,” said Sujai Shivakumar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

“The key point is that we should not sacrifice our national economic and industrial framework in the name of ‘free markets’ or other ideologies,” he said. “Pragmatism, in various forms of industrial and innovation policy, have always been a feature of our economic system since the very beginning of our republic.”

Republicans traditionally shunned picking winners and losers
During the 2024 campaign, Trump portrayed the administration of Democrat Joe Biden as communist and socialist.

“We will cast out the communists,” Trump said at an April 13, 2024, speech in Pennsylvania. “We will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all.”

Biden often stressed his belief in the power of free markets to help the middle class and he believed his efforts to raise corporate tax rates would help achieve that. “I’m a capitalist,” he said in his last State of the Union address, saying he was not opposed to companies making profits. “That’s great — just pay your fair share in taxes,” he said.

The Biden administration extended loans and grants to chipmakers and sought to leverage the government’s role as a customer of American businesses. But a key difference was that the investments were based on laws passed by Congress.

Trump’s unilateral approach is more nimble, his White House argues, saying that funding for his investments come from sources previously approved by Congress.

Trump specifically took loans and grants from Biden’s 2022 CHIPS and Science Act and converted them into a $11.1 billion purchase of Intel stock. In his 2025 address to Congress, Trump called the CHIPS Act a “horrible, horrible thing” and suggested the Republican majorities claw back funding to pay down the budget deficit.

With Spirit Airlines in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, his administration had been weighing a $500 million deal that would have given the government a stake in the Florida-based discount airline. Other budget carriers have been interested in similar packages.

That possibility drew objections from Republicans such as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Trump had told reporters in the Oval Office that he wanted to save the jobs at Spirit Airlines and that “when the prices of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a profit.”

Government investment can help to even the playing field for American companies competing against subsidized foreign businesses, said Monica Gorman, a managing director at Crowell Global Advisors who helped lead manufacturing and industrial policy in the Biden White House.

But Gorman said that it was unclear whether the Trump administration had fully grasped the risks of “making some bad bets.” She stressed the importance of formalizing the process through legislation instead of relying on Trump’s whims.

“Congress really needs to step in and design a legislative framework for U.S. industrial policy that governs equity stakes as well as other mechanisms such as loans and grants,” she said. “All of these are important tools in the U.S. industrial policy toolkit, but we need more guidance on when and how to use them.”

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police have released body-worn camera footage of officers shooting and killing a machete-wielding man who stabbed three people at a Grand Central subway stop last month.

The video clip posted on the department’s YouTube page Friday shows officers confronting Anthony Griffin after he had randomly slashed three people at the 42nd Street-Grand Central subway station, which connects to Grand Central Terminal.

The uniformed officers, identified in the video as detectives Ryan Giuffre and Anthony Manetta, are seen encountering the 44-year-old as he walks up a stairwell holding a large knife at around 9:40 a.m. on April 11.

They order Griffin to drop the weapon multiple times, but Giuffre draws his gun as Griffin continues to hold the knife high near his head.

Griffin then retreats back down the stairs but starts moving toward the officers with the knife still overhead when they start to pursue him.

“Nobody wants to hurt you,” Giuffre says in the video. “We can talk about it. Get down. Get down. Dude, I’m not going to ask you again. Please. Please. Please. Get down!”

But Griffin continues shouting and moving erratically toward the officers with the large blade raised up.

“I don’t want to be here. Shoot me,” he says at one point. “I am Lucifer,” he says at another.

Giuffre then fires two shots at Griffin, who immediately drops to the ground. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the time of the incident that the officers ordered Griffin to drop the knife at least 20 times but he refused to comply.

“Our officers were confronted with an armed individual who had already injured multiple people and was continuing to pose a threat,” she said. “They gave clear commands. They attempted to de-escalate. And when that threat did not stop, they took decisive action to stop it and to protect New Yorkers on one of the busiest train platforms in the city.”

The three stabbing victims — an 84 year-old male, 65-year-old male and 70-year-old female — sustained injuries including “significant lacerations to the head and face” and a skull fracture, though the wounds were not considered life-threatening, Tisch said.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the billions of dollars owed by the United States to the global body must be paid without conditions, rejecting reports that Washington is tying the funds to a series of demanded reforms.

According to a report by Devex, U.S. officials circulated diplomatic communications outlining nine proposed “quick-hit” changes that would need to be implemented before additional funding is released. These proposals reportedly include budget reductions and steps aimed at limiting China’s role within the organization.

“The money we are talking about is referred to as assessed contributions,” Guterres told reporters when asked about the reports. “Assessed contributions are an obligation of member states. They are non-negotiable.”

Guterres, who has been advancing internal reforms amid mounting pressure from member countries—particularly the United States—said the organization remains committed to improving efficiency and accountability.

He stated that the U.N. would continue working “to make sure that we make this organization as effective and as cost-effective and as able to deliver for the people we care for.”

“But these are two separate things,” he added.

The Devex report indicated that the proposed U.S. conditions include significant cost-cutting measures, such as restructuring the U.N.’s pension system, eliminating long-distance business-class travel for certain staff members, reducing senior-level positions, and cutting 10% from longstanding peacekeeping operations deemed ineffective.

Additional proposals reportedly seek to curb China’s financial influence, including blocking its ability to direct tens of millions of dollars annually into a discretionary fund within the secretary-general’s office.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations has not publicly responded to the report. However, American officials have repeatedly emphasized that they intend to continue pressing for reforms, following decisions to withdraw from numerous U.N.-affiliated bodies this year and reduce funding in the previous year.

Earlier this year, Guterres warned that the organization was nearing a financial crisis due to unpaid dues, with the majority of the outstanding amount attributed to the United States. In February, the U.N. reported that Washington had paid approximately $160 million of the more than $4 billion it currently owes.

{Matzav.com}

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Federal prosecutors in New Jersey have charged four residents with illegally voting.

The U.S. attorney’s office for New Jersey said in a statement Friday that the four people were not U.S. citizens when they registered to vote and cast ballots in federal elections, as federal law requires.

Their charges range from illegally voting in a federal election to making false statements when applying for citizenship and unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization.

Prosecutors say all four voted in at least one federal election from 2020 to 2024, a period that included two presidential elections and one midterm election.

They say the defendants, after casting ballots, then submitted applications for naturalization in which they falsely claimed to have never voted or registered to vote in a federal election.

U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer said the charges reflect his office’s “commitment to protecting the integrity of our election system.”

Last year, the office launched a task force focused on election-related crimes such as voter registration fraud, casting of fraudulent ballots, voting by noncitizens and individuals voting multiple times in the same election.

Social media claims of widespread voter fraud surged after the 2020 election and have continued to be amplified by President Donald Trump and his allies.

But current and former election officials have said such fraud is isolated and rare. The country’s elections are decentralized, with thousands of independent voting jurisdictions, which make it virtually impossible to pull off a large-scale vote-rigging operation that could tip an election, officials have told The Associated Press.

Frazer, a veteran prosecutor, was appointed in March, ending a high profile standoff between the judiciary and the Trump administration over control of the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey.

Trump’s previous picks for the position, including his former personal attorney, Alina Habba, had been disqualified.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York issued a sharp response to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he condemned Israel’s interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla, accusing him of ignoring a recent antisemitic incident in Brooklyn.

Mark Treyger, who heads the organization, criticized Mamdani for speaking out about the maritime incident while remaining silent on reports of antisemitism at the Park Slope Food Coop earlier in the week.

“This week, it was reported that Jewish New Yorkers were subjected to vile antisemitism at a prominent Brooklyn institution…conduct that likely violates state and local human rights laws and warrants public attention and a response from your administration, including the NYC Commission on Human Rights. Yet I have not seen a word from City Hall about that incident,” wrote Treyger.

“Leadership in New York requires the ability to show up consistently for all communities, especially when hate targets them here at home,” he pointed out.

“Foundational to advancing any mayoral agenda is ensuring that New Yorkers of every background feel seen, heard, and protected by their mayor, which includes Jewish New Yorkers,” stated Treyger.

Mamdani had earlier criticized Israel’s detention of activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, describing the action as unlawful and contrary to international law.

“Last night, Israeli forces intercepted and boarded a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza in international waters off the coast of Greece – unlawfully detaining more than 175 people, including several New Yorkers,” Mamdani wrote in a post on social media.

“My team has been in direct contact with State and Federal partners as we work to confirm the whereabouts and conditions of these New Yorkers,” he added.

“This is a brazen violation of international law. Those detained must be released.”

The Israeli Navy stopped the flotilla Wednesday night, determining—similar to past incidents—that the vessels were not transporting the humanitarian supplies organizers had claimed.

Mamdani has faced ongoing criticism over his positions on Israel. During his campaign, he declined to repudiate the phrase “globalize the intifada,” drawing backlash from critics.

He also came under fire for comments he made on October 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas attack in southern Israel, when he publicly criticized Israel.

In subsequent remarks, Mamdani has repeatedly accused Israel of committing war crimes in its conflict with Hamas in Gaza and has pledged to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York City.

Controversy also erupted at the start of Mamdani’s tenure when he rescinded executive orders enacted by his predecessor, Eric Adams, related to Israel.

Among the measures reversed was an order formally adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, as well as a directive barring city officials from participating in boycotts or divestment efforts targeting Israel.

Mamdani has continued to face scrutiny over antisemitism-related issues during his time in office. Reports recently surfaced indicating that his wife, Rama Dawaji, had engaged with social media posts that praised or appeared to support the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Additional criticism followed last month when Mamdani was introduced at a Ramadan gathering by an individual who publicly called for Hamas to carry out an attack on Tel Aviv.

{Matzav.com}

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu returned to a high-level cabinet meeting this week and unexpectedly credited Aryeh Deri for a successful outcome, telling him, “It’s all thanks to you,” and later adding, “Because of your learning [Torah],” after a tense phone call with President Donald Trump.

According to a report, Deri, who serves as chairman of the Shas party, had participated in a meeting of the restricted security cabinet last Motzoei Shabbos. During the session, Netanyahu stepped out for an extended phone conversation with Trump, with visible signs of tension and concern apparent on his face as he left the room.

Sensing that the discussion would be paused for some time, Deri used the opportunity to continue his daily limud haTorah. He opened Maseches Menachos, explaining that he had only a few remaining pages to complete the masechta as part of his Daf Yomi cycle.

After approximately half an hour, Netanyahu returned to the meeting noticeably relieved and in high spirits. To the surprise of those present, he gestured toward Deri with a sign of acknowledgment and said, “It’s all thanks to you.” When Deri, puzzled, responded, “What did I do? I was just sitting and learning,” Netanyahu replied, “Because of your learning.”

The following day, Deri marked the completion of Maseches Menachos with a siyum, attended by members of the Shas faction as well as the newly appointed Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Rav Zevadia Cohen.

{Matzav.com}

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A fire broke out Saturday evening at a lab building on the University of South Florida campus in St. Petersburg, prompting an evacuation, authorities said.

The fire sent plumes of billowing gray smoke from the marine science laboratory building. No injuries had been reported, university police and the local fire department said. The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

University police said more information would be released as it became available.

LARGE BLAZE AT USF CAMPUS: A viewer captured video as crews worked to put out a fire at the Marine Science Lab building on the University of South Florida’s campus in St. Petersburg on Saturday afternoon. https://t.co/SQpfdQe9YH pic.twitter.com/Z5rzRU7u4e

— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) May 2, 2026

The Lakewood Fire Department is currently seeking opportunities to conduct training operations on homes and buildings slated for demolition.

These hands-on trainings provide firefighters with valuable real-world experience in controlled environments, helping to enhance safety, coordination, and operational readiness, fire officials said.

Property owners with structures scheduled for demolition who may be interested in allowing the department to utilize their property for training purposes are encouraged to reach out to the Lakewood Fire Department for more information.

A bipartisan group in the House, including dozens of Republicans, joined Democrats to defeat a proposal that would have prevented recipients of federal food assistance from using benefits to buy sugary drinks, prompting criticism from fiscal conservatives and public health advocates.

The measure, introduced by Rep. Keith Self, sought to disqualify soda and other sweetened beverages from eligibility under SNAP, the federal nutrition assistance program serving more than 40 million Americans. In a 238-186 vote, the amendment failed, with 183 Democrats and 55 Republicans opposing it.

SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program, currently allows recipients to use benefits for a wide range of food items, including sugary beverages. Critics of the program’s current structure note that roughly $9 billion is spent annually on soda purchases, accounting for about 10% of total SNAP expenditures and making it the most commonly purchased item.

Opponents of the House vote argue that subsidizing soda consumption places a financial burden on taxpayers while contributing little to nutritional needs and potentially worsening health outcomes tied to diet-related diseases.

Reaction to the vote was swift, with several lawmakers voicing frustration over the outcome.

“The House just voted against banning soda from SNAP,” Rep. Nancy Mace wrote on social media. “Why should the government fund your soda purchases?”

She added, “If SNAP recipients want to buy sugary drinks, they can do it on their own dime, not on the backs of a taxpayer-funded nutrition program.”

Some Republicans also questioned why members of their own party broke ranks on the issue.

“It’s so disappointing that 55 Republicans can’t take the first step in stopping something so obviously wrong and that hurts the moral fiber of the country,” Rep. Glenn Grothman told Newsmax.

Policy analysts and nutrition researchers have pointed to studies suggesting that consumption patterns among SNAP participants may be linked to higher rates of chronic illness, increasing long-term healthcare costs.

One frequently cited study conducted by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California examined data from more than 19,000 SNAP participants and concluded that restricting purchases of sugary beverages could lead to measurable improvements in public health.

The study found that removing sugary drinks from SNAP eligibility would reduce calorie intake and lower rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes among recipients.

Researchers estimated that such a policy could cut obesity prevalence by nearly one percentage point and reduce diabetes incidence by approximately 1.7%, translating to about 240,000 fewer cases nationwide.

“The logic behind SNAP policy changes is that taxpayers are potentially subsidizing unhealthy food consumption and paying for its downstream health consequences,” the study noted.

Public health advocates argue that the broader impact extends beyond individual choice, emphasizing the cost burden on government healthcare programs.

“This is not just about personal choice — it’s about public cost,” one nutrition policy analyst said.

“When the government subsidizes unhealthy consumption, taxpayers ultimately pay twice: once at the grocery store, and again through healthcare.”

The research also found that SNAP recipients consume more calories from sugary beverages than from fruits and vegetables.

Despite these findings, critics of the proposed restriction—including some lawmakers and anti-hunger organizations—argued that implementing such a ban could complicate program administration and limit consumer autonomy.

Industry groups representing beverage manufacturers and bottling companies were also reported to have lobbied lawmakers heavily in opposition to the amendment.

“It makes me very worried about the country’s future when an anti-family program like this is backed by so many Republicans,” Grothman said.

{Matzav.com}

The answers may surprise you.

Jeff J. Horn – Divorce Lawyer

Are hurt feelings from a bad marriage enough to justify filing for divorce now? Work with your family law attorney and think strategically.

Learn about how filing for divorce affects pensions, IRA & 401K accounts, closely–held businesses and alimony. Find out why timing is everything when it comes to filing for divorce.

File for divorce now because of:

● financial trouble

● extramarital affairs

● parenting problems

● poor communication

● drugs and drinking

This article is about filing for economic advantage. Work with your family law attorney and think strategically. The marriage ends on the divorce filing date – Rothman v. Rothman – 1974.

Divided benefit Pensions

Pensions are subject to equitable distribution. Pension service time during the marriage results in a division of the pension to the non-title spouse. Definitively, marriages end upon divorce filing.
Accordingly, the non-title spouse stops accruing pension after the divorce filing date.

**Contributory IRA and 401K accounts
**

File divorce now because every dime you contribute or your employer contributes, during the marriage is subject to equitable distribution.
Filing divorce cuts off the other spouse.
Hence, every dollar contributed to and added to your IRA / 401K is yours and theirs.

**Closely-held business
**

Ordinarily, one spouse will keep the closely held Business. Hence, the date of evaluation is the divorce filing date. Accordingly, you can grow your business post-divorce filing without sharing.
Imaginative new products and better customer accounts are all yours, post-filing. Whereas your spouse is limited to the business valuation on the filing dates.
Clearly, filing is a simple way to protect your interests in the growth in value of your closely held business.

**File for divorce now to limit alimony exposure.
**

You are likely an alimony payer. Of course, you prefer lower alimony for a shorter time frame. Who wouldn’t?
By statute, the payment of alimony on marriages under 20 years is capped at the duration of the marriage.
For example a 10 year marriage is limited to a maximum of 10 years on alimony. Conversely, marriages of 20 years or longer, expose the payer to open durational alimony.

**Separation does not stop the marriage clock.
**

On the contrary, sharing contributions to your retirement accounts like 401(k) and IRA plans, cuts off on the day of filing.

Timing in life is Everything. Why file for divorce now? This article only addresses pure mercenary, economic advantage. Of course, real life decisions are more than dollars and cents.
The take-away, control the aspects of divorce in your power, including filing when the advantage is yours.

Pro-Tip – If you start the process in rabbinical court – remember to include a cut-off agreement that will be enforceable in civil court at the beginning of the arbitration process.
Otherwise, file in civil court and mediate and arbitrate in Bais Din.

Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, has moved from the White House Iran briefing room to one of America’s most important forward platforms in the region. CENTCOM said Cooper visited sailors and Marines aboard USS Tripoli (LHA 7) in the Arabian Sea, recognized top performers, and toured operational spaces including the ship’s Combat Information Center. The timing is impossible to ignore: this is the same commander who briefed President Donald Trump this week on military options against Iran.

The USS Tripoli is not a ceremonial backdrop. It is an America-class amphibious assault ship carrying Marines and aviation power into a theater where the United States is trying to keep pressure on the Iranian regime, preserve freedom of navigation, and deter a renewed round of fighting. USNI has reported that the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group includes USS Tripoli, USS New Orleans, elements of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, and USS Rushmore.

Tripoli’s Marines have already been part of active blockade enforcement. CENTCOM said Marines from the 31st MEU departed USS Tripoli to board M/V Blue Star III, a commercial ship suspected of attempting to transit to Iran in violation of the U.S. blockade, before releasing it after confirming no Iranian port call. CENTCOM also said Marines departed Tripoli to board M/V Touska after USS Spruance disabled the Iranian-flagged vessel’s propulsion when it failed to comply with repeated U.S. warnings.

The visit comes as Washington sends two messages at once. Trump has told Congress that direct hostilities with Iran have “terminated” under the ceasefire, but his letter also said the threat from Iran to U.S. forces remains significant and that the Pentagon is continuing to update force posture in the region. In other words, the legal language in Washington is calm; the military posture in the Arabian Sea is not.

Reuters reported that Cooper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine were expected to brief Trump on actions that could pressure Iran into negotiations. Axios reported that CENTCOM had prepared options including a short, powerful wave of strikes and a possible Strait of Hormuz operation, though those remain military options, not an announced order. Trump later confirmed he had been briefed by Cooper and framed the choice bluntly: make a deal or “blast the hell out of them.”

For Israel, the signal matters. The Iranian regime and its proxies are watching whether America’s pressure fades after the ceasefire headlines. Cooper’s appearance aboard Tripoli says the opposite: CENTCOM’s top commander is in the region, the Marines are positioned, the Navy is enforcing the blockade, and Trump’s Iran options are not just sitting on paper in Washington. They are floating in the Arabian Sea.

An investigation by CNN revealed the extent of the damage to U.S. bases in the war zone with Iran.

According to the report, at least 16 US military bases in eight Gulf countries— the majority of U.S. bases in the Middle East—were damaged by Iranian strikes during the war. Several of the bases suffered such severe damage that they are now unusable.

“I’ve never seen anything like this at US bases,” a US source told CNN. “These were fast and precise strikes, using advanced technology.”

Among the targets that were hit were U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq.

Iran struck advanced aircraft, including the U.S. E‑3 Sentry surveillance plane, known as “the eyes of the United States in the Gulf,” which was destroyed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia; critical communications equipment, and radar systems.

A congressional source told CNN that the damage to radar systems was significant. “Our radar systems are our most expensive and also our most limited resources in the region,” the source said.

Iran managed to strike so many bases so accurately due to its dramatic improvement in “seeing the enemy” following its secret purchase in 2024 of an advanced satellite from China.

The damage to US bases has reportedly caused some Gulf states to reconsider their reliance on Washington.

A senior Saudi source told CNN, “The war has shown Saudi Arabia–the U.S.’s longest-standing Arab ally–that the alliance with the U.S. cannot be exclusive and it is not impregnable.”

(YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)

The United States is warning shipping companies they could face sanctions for paying Iran to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control alert on Friday adds pressure in the standoff over control of the strait at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, where about a fifth of the world’s trade in oil and natural gas typically passes.

Iran effectively closed the Strait by attacking and threatening ships after the U.S. and Israel launched a war on Feb. 28. It later offered some ships safe passage via routes closer to its shore, charging fees at times.

The U.S. warns against transfers not only in cash but also in “digital assets, offsets, informal swaps, or other in-kind payments,” including charitable donations and payments at Iranian embassies.

The U.S. has responded with a naval blockade of Iranian ports since April 13, depriving Tehran of the oil revenue it needs to shore up its ailing economy. The U.S. Central Command on Saturday said 48 commercial ships have been told to turn back.

(AP)

(YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)

An unusual incident occurred on Shabbos morning near the yishuv of Pnei Kedem in Gush Etzion, when a reserve soldier opened fire at a powered paraglider that entered the yishuv’s airspace.

The reservist suspected a possible airborne terrorist infiltration and fired his personal weapon at the aircraft. No injuries or damage were reported, and the paraglider left the area.

Following the report, the IDF launched a swift investigation. A preliminary showed that the paraglider had taken off from the Jordan Valley after proper coordination with military authorities, but veered off its approved flight path mid-air.

After straying from its route, the paraglider crossed into a different operational sector within the Yehuda and Shomron Division, where it was misidentified by the reservist as a threat.

The IDF said it quickly became clear that the aircraft was part of a coordinated civilian flight that had deviated from its route. The circumstances are still under review.

(YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)

Funds collected through a public crowdfunding drive to oppose the draft law are now being used as part of a political campaign linked to Naftali Bennett, following the decision of the activist group’s founder to join his party ahead of the upcoming elections.

The movement “Shoulder to Shoulder,” which in recent months spearheaded protests against the draft law and raised more than half a million shekels from supporters, has now become the focus of a growing political controversy. About two weeks ago, the group’s founder, Yonatan Shalev, joined Bennett’s electoral list, and donors who contributed to the cause later discovered that the digital assets created with their donations had effectively been absorbed into Bennett’s campaign operation.

According to a report by Channel 12 News, the funds raised by Shalev and members of “Shoulder to Shoulder” were used, among other things, to build and promote social media pages, including those belonging to Shalev personally and to the organization itself. After Shalev aligned with Bennett’s party, those same pages were formally presented as part of the campaign’s official assets.

As a result, individuals who donated to support a public protest against the draft law—without necessarily intending to support Bennett or his party—found that the initiative they backed was now tied to a partisan political effort. Some donors voiced discomfort with the abrupt transition from a grassroots protest movement to direct political campaigning.

The development has also sparked legal and public scrutiny. The fundraising efforts of Shalev and “Shoulder to Shoulder” were not conducted through a registered nonprofit or formal legal entity, meaning there was no typical external oversight governing how the money would be used. A key question now being raised is whether social media platforms built with public donations, and later used in a party campaign, could constitute an improper political contribution or benefit.

Bennett’s associates have strongly pushed back against the claims. A statement from the “Together” party said: “Shoulder to Shoulder is a social initiative that is not a nonprofit organization, which promoted equality in sharing the burden. Its members launched a crowdfunding campaign to fight the draft evasion law. Recently, the members of the organization made a courageous decision to enter politics in order to give a voice to young people in the country. Any claim of an ‘improper contribution’ is completely without factual or legal basis.”

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump said Friday that he will not pursue congressional authorization for the ongoing conflict with Iran, arguing that the requirement under the War Powers Act is invalid and unnecessary.

Under the War Powers Act, a president must obtain approval from Congress within 60 days of notifying lawmakers about a military engagement involving U.S. forces. The joint U.S.-Israeli campaign targeting Iran’s leadership and military assets began on Feb. 28, but Congress was not formally notified until March 2. That timeline set Friday as the deadline for securing authorization to continue operations.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House before departing for Florida, Trump was asked why he would not request approval from Congress.

“Because it’s never been sought before,” he said in comments that aired live on Newsmax and the free Newsmax2 streaming platform. “There’s been numerous, many, many times, and nobody’s ever gotten it before. They consider it totally unconstitutional.

“But we’re always in touch with Congress. But nobody’s ever saw it before. Nobody’s ever asked for it before. It’s never been used before. Why should we be different?”

Presidents from both political parties have historically carried out military actions without formally invoking the War Powers Act, often raising questions about its constitutional standing and choosing not to adhere to it in certain situations.

Trump’s remarks build on the administration’s broader position regarding the law. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the 60-day requirement does not apply in this case because a ceasefire between the United States and Iran has been in place since April 8.

However, the statute does not include any clause that pauses the 60-day deadline during a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the Senate voted Thursday for the sixth time on a resolution aimed at ending the conflict, rejecting it by a 50-47 margin. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, sided with most Democrats in backing the measure, along with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has consistently supported efforts to limit the administration’s war-making authority. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., was the lone Democrat to oppose the resolution.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said Thursday that he would support a formal authorization for the conflict if Trump were to request one. He also raised doubts about the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, noting its origins during the Vietnam War as an effort to reassert congressional control.

“Our founders created a really strong executive, like it or not like it,” Cramer said.

A 45-year-old man has been formally charged with attempted murder following a stabbing attack that left two Jewish men seriously wounded in Golders Green, north London, on Wednesday, in an incident authorities have deemed terrorism-related.

Essa Suleiman, 45, is accused of carrying out the assault on Shloime Rand, 34, and Moshe Shine, 76. Both men suffered significant injuries and were rushed to the hospital, where they received medical treatment. The Metropolitan Police have classified the attack as connected to terrorism.

In addition to the Golders Green incident, Suleiman is also alleged to have tried to murder Ishmail Hussein in a separate stabbing earlier that same day at Hussein’s residence in Southwark, south London. According to reports, the two men had been acquainted for approximately 20 years.

Prosecutors have further charged Suleiman with possession of a knife in a public place in connection with the Golders Green attack.

During a court appearance on Friday, Suleiman stood in the dock wearing a grey sweatshirt and trousers issued by police. He appeared to have visible bruising around his eyes. He confirmed his name and date of birth but did not enter a plea at that time.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump said Friday that he is not satisfied with Iran’s most recent proposal to end the conflict, raising doubts about whether a negotiated agreement can ultimately be reached.

Speaking to reporters, Trump indicated that while Iran is showing interest in reaching a deal, the current offer falls short of his expectations. “They want to make a deal,” Trump said, adding, “I’m not satisfied with it.”

Trump on Iran:

They want to make a deal, but I’m not satisfied with it.pic.twitter.com/2PQGp4KXZn

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 1, 2026

The president declined to detail the specific elements he found unacceptable, but suggested that Iran’s leadership may not be capable of finalizing an agreement. He pointed to internal divisions among officials in Tehran as a major obstacle.

“They’ve made strides, but I’m not sure if they ever get there,” Trump said, describing “tremendous discord” among Iran’s leaders.

“The leadership is very disjointed,” he said. “It’s got two to three groups, maybe four, and it’s a very disjointed leadership. And with that being said, they all want to make a deal, but they’re all messed up.”

Trump outlined what he described as two possible paths forward: escalating military action or continuing efforts toward a diplomatic resolution. He emphasized that, while force remains an option, it is not his preferred course.

“There are options. Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever? Or do we want to try and make a deal. That’s the options,” Trump said, stressing that his preference was not to restart the bombing campaign.

“On a human basis, I’d prefer not,” he said. “But that’s the option: do we want to go in there heavy and just blast them away or do we want to do something?”

The remarks follow comments Trump made Thursday, when he suggested that Iran is eager to reach an agreement. At that time, he said Iran is “dying to make a deal,” adding that “hopefully it can be worked out very soon.”

When asked about the status of negotiations, Trump underscored the limited number of people involved in the discussions.

“Nobody knows what the talks are except myself and a couple of other people.”

He reiterated that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons remains a central objective.

“The bottom line is for this world, for our country, but certainly for Israel, the Middle East and Europe, much closer, you cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

Recent diplomatic efforts have also shifted in format. Trump canceled a planned visit by U.S. envoys to Islamabad for in-person discussions with Iranian officials, opting instead to continue negotiations remotely.

“We have talks, we’re having talks with them now, and we’re not flying anymore with 18-hour flights every time we want to see a piece of paper,” the president said.

“We’re doing it telephonically, and it’s very nice. I make a call, or I have my people make a call, and you know the answer in 15 – I always like face to face, you know, I consider it better,” he continued. “But when you have to fly 18 hours every time you want to have a meeting, and you know what the meeting is all about, and you know they’re going to give you a piece of paper that you don’t like before you even leave, it’s ridiculous, and they’ve come a long way.”

[Video below.] President Donald Trump sharply criticized House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries after the New York Democrat made pointed remarks about the Supreme Court and Republican leadership, escalating tensions between the White House and congressional Democrats.

Trump responded to Jeffries’ comments by disputing his claims and questioning his judgment, calling him a “low-IQ” person and warning that his rhetoric was “dangerous.” The president’s response came after Jeffries delivered a forceful critique of the current Supreme Court, which he characterized as dominated by a “corrupt” MAGA-aligned majority.

During his remarks, Jeffries also signaled that Democrats could take action regarding the Court if they regain power in the upcoming midterm elections, stating that they would “do something” about its current composition.

WATCH:

A fundraising event featuring Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was held last night at the offices of Binyomin Kurland on N. County Line Road in Jackson, New Jersey.

The gathering was organized in support of the Fetterman Victory Fund and drew attendees interested in engaging with the senator and supporting his ongoing efforts.

The event was co-hosted by Binyomin Kurland, Moishe Klein, Shalom Stein, Meir Kubie, and Heshy Landau.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump sharply criticized late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, dismissing him as a “lowlife” and saying he neither heard nor cared about any apology from the comedian.

“I haven’t heard him apologize, but he’s a lowlife, whether he apologized or not,” Trump said during “The Record With Greta Van Susteren,” adding that Kimmel “shouldn’t be on television” and accusing his show of being entirely anti-Republican.

Trump went on to question ABC’s decision to continue airing Kimmel’s program, suggesting the network may be misusing public airwaves and warning that it could be placing itself “in great jeopardy.”

The comments come in the wake of backlash over a joke Kimmel made ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where he remarked that the first lady had “a glow like an expectant widow,” a statement that drew sharp criticism from Trump allies.

In the days that followed, a shooting at the annual event—reported as targeting Trump—brought heightened attention to Kimmel’s remarks. The president and his supporters argued that such rhetoric contributed to a dangerous political atmosphere, while Kimmel maintained that he did not intend to incite violence and rejects it.

The controversy has since broadened into a regulatory issue involving federal oversight.

According to multiple reports, the Federal Communications Commission has accelerated its review of broadcast licenses held by ABC-owned stations, expediting what is usually a routine renewal process.

FCC officials have indicated that the review is based on wider concerns about corporate conduct and compliance, rather than any single show. Still, the timing—coming after Trump’s public criticism of Kimmel and ABC—has led to questions about whether the move is politically driven.

In his phone interview with Greta Van Susteren on Newsmax, Trump linked his remarks about Kimmel to broader concerns about the network, referencing prior disputes with ABC and its journalists while describing the current situation as “very serious.”

{Matzav.com}

An overnight enforcement operation in the Gush Etzion region has sparked widespread anger after residents reported that tefillin were destroyed during the evacuation of an agricultural outpost.

According to residents, combined forces from the Border Police and the Civil Administration raided the Kochav Yehuda outpost during the night and demolished structures at the site, marking the 33rd such evacuation since the outpost was established roughly two months ago.

The outpost, located in a strategic area between the communities of Efrat and Tekoa, has been repeatedly rebuilt by residents after each demolition. During the latest operation, residents said authorities not only dismantled buildings but also confiscated religious texts and caused significant damage to personal belongings.

The incident took a particularly disturbing turn, residents said, when they returned to assess the damage after the forces left. They discovered that a pair of tefillin belonging to one of the residents had been crushed and completely ruined by a bulldozer used in the operation.

Photos from the scene showed that the housing of the head tefillin had been split in two, while the hand tefillin were also severely damaged.

Residents reacted with shock and distress to the discovery. In a statement, they said: “These are scenes that shock every Jewish soul and are reminiscent of dark times. The severe incident of desecrating sacred items is the result of unrestrained persecution being carried out by Central Command against the outpost. Not only destruction on an unprecedented scale, but also violence and a lack of basic humanity on the part of the forces, who do not even safeguard the residents’ personal property during demolitions.”

Despite the repeated demolitions and the reported damage to both personal and religious items, the residents made clear they intend to continue maintaining their presence at the site.

They emphasized the strategic importance of the outpost, stating: “Kochav Yehuda outpost is one of the most strategic outposts today in Gush Etzion, connecting the central bloc to its eastern area.”

According to their claims, without a continuous Jewish presence in the area, an opposing Arab territorial bloc could quickly take hold, which they argue could serve as a foundation for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

They concluded with a firm declaration: “We will continue to hold on to our ancestral land and protect it in every way.”

{Matzav.com}

The UN Plaza Grill, a prestigious kosher restaurant long favored by diplomats, organizational leaders, and communal figures for high-end political meetings and formal dinners, will no longer be certified kosher, a source at the Orthodox Union – which certified the restaurant, tells Belaaz.

The OU is expected to issue a formal alert shortly, the source said.

Reports indicate that the decision stems from financial difficulties facing the restaurant.

The loss of the certification marks the end of an
era for a venue that occupied a unique niche in New York’s kosher dining landscape.

Situated near the United Nations in Trump World Tower, UN Plaza Grill served for years as one of the rare upscale kosher options capable of hosting the kind of high-profile gatherings that Orthodox Jewish communal and organizational life increasingly demands — from meetings between Jewish advocacy groups and foreign diplomats to fundraising dinners for major institutions. For observant Jews navigating the world of high-level diplomacy and politics in New York, the restaurant provided a setting where kashrus could be guaranteed.

In a fitting farewell, Wednesday evening’s final kosher meal at the restaurant brought together Rep. Elise Stefanik, who addressed the Israel Justice Organization about her new book, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, and Jonathan Burkan. Photos from the evening were shared exclusively with Belaaz.

A senior Israeli military official is warning that the success of the recent operation against Iran could be effectively erased if diplomatic talks fail to secure an agreement to remove enriched uranium from the country and stop further enrichment.

The official stressed that preventing Iran from advancing its nuclear program was the core objective of the operation, not merely a symbolic move or response. “This would be a major failure, because this rogue regime would be able to rush toward nuclear capability-and then we will have achieved nothing.”

He also voiced doubts about the decision-making of Iran’s leadership, suggesting that if current negotiations do not fully meet their goals, additional military action may be required to achieve the intended outcome.

During the course of the conflict, the IDF targeted not only military infrastructure but also internal security forces within Iran, including Basij checkpoints and other enforcement units. According to the official, these strikes were aimed at encouraging public unrest within the country.

However, he acknowledged that the effort did not produce the desired effect. “Once it became clear to us that it was not working, we stopped doing it,” he said.

Separately, the Israeli Air Force recently conducted a test of a new drone interception system, but the trial did not meet expectations.

In response to ongoing drone threats, the Air Force has shifted its approach, seeking to strike Hezbollah drone-launching units deep within their territory rather than relying solely on defensive measures.

The official conceded that the military currently lacks a complete technological answer to the drone threat. “there is currently no solution for drones,” he said, adding: “There will not be 100% success in intercepting drones. We must not wait on the defensive; we must attack the drone operators 20 kilometers inside Lebanon.”

{Matzav.com}

RALEIGH, N.C. (VINnews) — Thousands of North Carolina teachers and school staff converged on the state capital Friday for a rally demanding increased public education funding, higher salaries and opposition to school vouchers and corporate tax breaks, prompting widespread class cancellations across multiple districts.

The “Kids Over Corporations” demonstration, organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), took place May 1 on Halifax Mall as lawmakers continue to negotiate a delayed state budget. Protesters called for action on teacher pay — North Carolina ranks near the bottom nationally in average educator salaries — and greater investment in public schools.

At least 13 school districts, including major ones like Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Wake County and others in the Charlotte region, canceled classes due to high numbers of teacher and staff absences. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reported more than 1,300 employees requested the day off. Districts cited safety and staffing concerns as reasons for the closures.

The event coincided with May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, a date traditionally associated with labor movements worldwide. Broader May Day protests across the country have drawn involvement from a coalition of groups, including some with socialist and Marxist ties.

Reports have linked elements of the wider May Day mobilization to networks funded by Neville Roy Singham, a U.S.-born tech entrepreneur based in Shanghai. Singham has provided substantial funding to organizations such as the People’s Forum and groups affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, according to investigations by Fox News and others. These networks have supported various left-leaning causes and maintain ties to international leftist movements.

NCAE officials described the Raleigh rally as a nonpartisan effort focused on supporting students and educators amid ongoing budget disputes. “We are united in our fight for public education,” one participant told local media. Critics, however, pointed to the timing and some participating organizations as evidence of ideological motivations beyond school funding.

State education leaders expressed mixed reactions. North Carolina Schools Superintendent Catherine Truitt had previously urged that such protests occur on non-school days to minimize disruption to students.

The rally comes as North Carolina remains the only state without a new budget in place, exacerbating concerns over teacher shortages and resources. Organizers said they aim to pressure legislators ahead of final budget decisions.

Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Rav Ephraim Mirvis, has called on the UK government to expel Iran’s ambassador following controversial messages linked to the Iranian diplomatic mission that he says amounted to a call for martyrdom.

The demand comes after reports that a message associated with Iran’s embassy encouraged British-Iranians to register for a program described as “martyrdom,” prompting a police review of the content.

Rav Mirvis said the messaging, which urged those “loyal to Iran” to “sacrifice themselves for the homeland,” was effectively incitement.

He urged British officials to follow the lead of countries such as Australia and Lebanon, which have already expelled Iranian representatives, and to take decisive action in response to the message, now under investigation.

One post, written in Persian and circulated on the social media platform Telegram, stated: “Let us all give our bodies to be slaughtered, because this is better than giving our country to the enemy,” and directed readers to a website where they could register.

Iran’s ambassador, Seyed Ali Mousavi, was summoned to the Foreign Office by Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer following the reports. London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed it is reviewing the content of the message.

Despite that, Rav Mirvis pressed for stronger action, calling for the envoy’s removal. Speaking on BBC Radio 4, he said: “We are wondering how it can be that on Tuesday, just three days ago, the Iranian embassy here in the UK called on Iranians in Britain to ‘be loyal to your country,’ to go out and even risk your lives in order to act for Iran. This is effectively a call for martyrdom”.

He linked the message to broader security concerns, adding: “The day after that, we saw someone trying to stab to death as many people as possible simply because they were Jewish in Golders Green”. He questioned why the UK had not followed other nations in expelling the ambassador.

“How is it that in Australia, the Iranian ambassador was expelled, that in Lebanon the Iranian ambassador was expelled, why is the Iranian ambassador still here?”

The chief rabbi also warned of what he described as “terror activity backed by Iran” and criticized delays in formally designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization—a step supported by both Labour and Conservative lawmakers but not yet implemented.

“Why is there not a more serious examination of the threat not only to Jews, but also the threat from Iran within our society and to society as a whole?” he said. “And we must treat the situation with far greater seriousness right now”.

Responding to the remarks, minister Alex Davies-Jones said it remains important to maintain diplomatic relations with Iran. “It is important that we get this right, that we keep channels open, that we keep diplomatic channels open with the Iranian ambassador, particularly at a time when war is taking place in Iran,” she said.

She described the Telegram messages as “abhorrent” and added that the Foreign Office had summoned the ambassador “to discuss these remarks, to see what further action can be taken in cooperation.”

Rav Mirvis’s comments follow similar remarks from Nigel Farage, leader of a right-wing party in the UK and a leading figure in opinion polls, who told the Jewish Chronicle that a government under his leadership would expel Iran’s ambassador.

A spokesperson for the Iranian Embassy in London defended the messaging, stating: “Iranians around the world have always cared deeply about their homeland and about defending its territorial integrity, and they always will. The ‘Jan Fada’ platform is intended for all Iranians who wish to support and defend their country, and it does not promote any form of hostility.”

{Matzav.com}

ISLAMABAD (AP) — An explosion of leftover bombs from strikes during the war against Iran killed 14 members of the Revolutionary Guard, Iranian media reported Friday.

A report by the Nournews website, believed to be close to Iran’s security, said the explosion happened near the northern city of Zanjan, which is northwest of Tehran.

It was the largest number of Revolutionary Guard members reported to be killed since the ceasefire began on April 7. The report said the ammunition included cluster bombs and air mines dropped during the fighting.

Talmidim of Yeshivas Grodna who were arrested following a protest outside the home of a senior military police official were welcomed back Thursday night at the residence of the rosh yeshiva, Rav Moshe Shmida, where he delivered a forceful message defending the bochurim and rejecting any intimidation.

The gathering came after the students were released from custody by court order and placed under house arrest within the yeshiva. The arrests followed a demonstration outside the Ashkelon home of Brig. Gen. Yuval Yamin, head of the Military Police, an incident that drew widespread attention and condemnation, along with reported sanctions directed at the rosh yeshiva.

Upon their return to the yeshiva campus in Ashdod, each of the released talmidim was greeted personally by Rav Shmida. A larger reception then followed, with bochurim and members of the community assembling for a lechaim gathering, during which the rosh yeshiva addressed the crowd.

“I do not want to go on at length, but only to sharpen a few points that must be clear. And it is important to say and to prove: the fact that you are all here, alive and with us today, proves clearly that everything that was attributed to you was a false accusation. Because if there had been even the slightest basis for what was claimed against you, you would not be here today, and everyone knows this well. It has been proven beyond any doubt that everything that was attributed to you was a false accusation.

“You are precious sons of Tzion, refined like gold. You have only one ‘offense’ that pains them and irritates them: that you and we sit and learn Torah. That is the only ‘offense,’ and everything else is fabrication.

“It is very painful that we are under a wicked government whose entire goal is to undermine those who learn Torah. As our great Torah leaders already saw at the founding of the state, that this was the only objective—to uproot Torah in Klal Yisroel.

“And we declare here clearly—know this well: our fathers and your fathers gave up their lives for Torah study in every place they were. You cannot deny this; they literally gave up their lives. If we speak about the terrible basements in communist Russia, where they persecuted those who learned Torah, our fathers sacrificed themselves with real danger to life—exile to Siberia, terrible punishments—but they knew that this is the existence of the Jewish people. There is no existence for the Jewish people without this, and this is what has sustained us and will continue to sustain us, with God’s help, for generations.

“And, thank God, today we see that this absolute truth is spreading further, and larger groups already admit that there is no other way. Everyone agrees today that this is the only path—to fight and to stand up for our very existence. We hereby declare clearly: nothing will deter us, not sanctions of any kind, not delays, and not decrees. Nothing will deter us.

“And we follow in the ways of our rabbonim and under their guidance. The rosh yeshiva zt”l who established the foundations here with a pure worldview, and who made it the banner upon which the yeshiva stands; the words of the Chazon Ish, that against suicide battalions nothing will help you—this is what stands here and what will continue. This is our strength, and with it we proceed in the path of our rabbis according to their precise directives: the rosh yeshiva zt”l, and rosh yeshiva Rav Shmuel of blessed memory who built the community of Torah scholars, and after him rosh yeshiva Rav Asher zt”l, and today, thank God, we remain completely faithful to the path of the great Rav Azriel, may he live long.

“All year, what is our way? Our way is in the bais medrash—in learning, in understanding, in deepening Torah, in yiras Shomayim, in tefillah, in goodness and kindness without limit. But on the other hand, when there is a temporary directive, we fulfill it with all its demands and with self-sacrifice. When our rabbis instruct us to leave the bais medrash, we carry out that directive as well, outside the bais medrash, with all our strength and with total self-sacrifice.”

The rosh yeshiva continued by emphasizing determination and a return to learning.

“Nothing will deter us—no ridicule and no decree. We will continue to overcome everything with strength and inner resolve. And as you see, even this gathering took place between study sessions, and we are returning with increased energy and strength to our learning. We have merited to bring about a tremendous sanctification of God’s name in these days, as preparation for the giving of the Torah.”

{Matzav.com}

The Pentagon said Friday it has partnered with seven tech companies to tap into their artificial intelligence capabilities, allowing the military to boost its use of AI to help it fight wars.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, OpenAI, Reflection and SpaceX will provide their resources using classified systems to help “augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,” the Defense Department said.

The Defense Department has been rapidly accelerating its use of AI in recent years. The technology can help the military reduce the time it takes to identify and strike targets on the battlefield, while aiding in the organization of weapons maintenance and supply lines, according to a report in March from the Brennan Center for Justice.

But AI has already raised concerns over the possibilities of invading Americans’ privacy or allowing machines to choose targets on the battlefield. One of the companies contracting with the Pentagon said its agreement required human oversight in certain situations.

Such concerns were raised by a company not on the list, Anthropic, and it is now battling the Pentagon in court. The tech company said it wanted assurances in its contract that the military would not use its technology in fully autonomous weapons and the surveillance of Americans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the company must allow for any uses the Pentagon deemed lawful.

Anthropic sued after President Donald Trump, a Republican, tried to stop all federal agencies from using the company’s chatbot Claude and Hegseth sought to label the company a supply chain risk, a designation meant to protect against sabotage of national security systems by foreign adversaries.

OpenAI had announced a deal with the Pentagon in March to effectively replace Anthropic with ChatGPT in classified environments. OpenAI confirmed in a statement Friday that it was the same agreement it announced in early March.

“As we said when we first announced our agreement several months ago, we believe the people defending the United States should have the best tools in the world,” the company said.

One company’s agreement with the Pentagon included language that said there should be human oversight over any missions in which the AI systems act autonomously or semi-autonomously, according to a person familiar with the agreement who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. The language also said the AI tools must be used in ways that are consistent with constitutional rights and civil liberties.

Those resemble sticking points for Anthropic, though OpenAI has previously said that it secured similar assurances when it made its own deal with the Pentagon.

Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, told CNBC on Friday that it would have been irresponsible to rely on only one company, an acknowledgement of the friction with Anthropic.

“And when we learned that that one partner didn’t really want to work with us in the way we wanted to work with them, we went out and made sure that we had multiple different providers,” Michael said.

Some of the companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, have long worked with the military in classified environments and it was not immediately clear if the new agreements significantly altered their government partnerships. Others, such as chipmaker Nvidia and the startup Reflection, are new to such work. Both companies make open-source AI models, which Michael has described as a priority to provide an “American alternative” to China’s rapid development of AI systems in which some key components are publicly accessible for others to build upon.

The Pentagon said Friday that military personnel are already using its AI capabilities through its official platform, GenAI.mil.

“Warfighters, civilians and contractors are putting these capabilities to practical use right now, cutting many tasks from months to days,” the Pentagon said, adding that the military’s growing AI capabilities will “give warfighters the tools they need to act with confidence and safeguard the nation against any threat.”

(AP)

President Donald Trump on Friday said he’s still weighing a taxpayer-funded takeover of Spirit Airlines.

The president didn’t offer details about the proposal but told reporters as he prepared to leave the White House for a trip to Florida that he would have an announcement on the matter Friday or Saturday.

“We’re looking at it. If we could do it, we’ll do it. But only if it’s a good deal,” Trump said.

Trump said he would like to save jobs at the airline and his administration gave Spirit “a final proposal.”

“We’re looking at Spirit and if we can help them, we will. But we have to come first,” he said.

He likened it to the deal his administration struck to make the U.S. government into a major stockholder of semiconductor manufacturer Intel, but said it was “a different kind of a thing.”

Last week, Trump floated the idea of a taxpayer-funded takeover of Spirit and suggested the U.S. government could later resell the airline for a profit once oil prices pushed up by the Iran war drop.

A lawyer for Spirit, meanwhile, told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court a week ago that the airline was in advanced talks with the government on a financing deal that would allow it to exit Chapter 11 protection.

Supporters of the airline’s rescue included labor groups representing Spirit’s pilots and flight attendants, who argued that allowing the low-cost carrier to collapse would hurt workers and push fares higher.

Critics, including both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, have raised concerns about the use of taxpayer dollars and questioned whether federal support would amount to a bailout of a company unlikely to recover.

Spirit has struggled with losses for years. The airline filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2024 and again in August 2025.

With the Iran war driving up jet fuel costs for all airlines, creditors last month expressed doubts about Spirit’s ability to keep operating, raising the possibility that the airline recognized for its bright yellow planes would be forced to sell its assets and stop flying.

(AP)

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment.

Trump said in a social media post that the EU “is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal,” though he did not flesh out his objections in the post.

Asked by reporters on Friday about the increase in import taxes as he departed the White House for Florida, Trump said the EU was not “as usual” adhering to last year’s trade framework, without detailing the source of the tension. He added that he believed the shift to higher tariffs “forces them to move their factory production much faster” to the U.S.

Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had agreed to the trade deal last July. It set a tariff ceiling of 15% on most goods, though the Supreme Court this year ruled against the legal authority that Trump had used to charge that tax. This left Trump looking for substitute authorities, and his administration has imposed a 10% tax while investigating trade imbalances and national security issues to put in new tariffs to make up for lost revenues.

The tariffs hit at a moment when the Iran war has crushed the world economy with expectations of slower growth and higher inflation, as oil and natural gas prices have risen due to the effective closure of the critical Strait of Hormuz after strikes by the U.S. and Israel began at the end of February.

At the same time, Trump faces political pressure in the U.S. going into November’s midterm elections because of rising levels of inflation. Trump, a Republican, returned to the White House last year on the explicit promise that he could quickly tame prices that jumped in the aftermath of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, but higher energy costs pushed annual inflation in March to 3.3%, which was higher than what he had inherited.

Just 30% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to the latest poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs.

Both the U.S. and the EU had previously confirmed their commitment to preserving the trade framework, known as the Turnberry Agreement, which was named after Trump’s golf course in Scotland.

The status of the 2025 deal was first cast into doubt after the Supreme Court this year ruled that the president lacked the legal authority to declare an economic emergency and charge tariffs on goods from the members of the EU and other states. The alternative tariffs being explored by the Trump administration could ultimately put the agreement with the EU in risk of violation, though European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maroš Šefčovič told reporters last week that the relationship with the U.S. had become more positive over the past year.

The EU had said it expected the bilateral deal would save European automakers about 500 million to 600 million euros ($585 million to $700 million) a month.

The value of EU-U.S. trade in goods and services amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in 2024, or an average of 4.6 billion euros a day, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.

“A deal is a deal,” the European Commission said in February after the Supreme Court ruling. “As the United States’ largest trading partner, the EU expects the U.S. to honor its commitments set out in the Joint Statement — just as the EU stands by its commitments. EU products must continue to benefit from the most competitive treatment, with no increases in tariffs beyond the clear and all-inclusive ceiling previously agreed.”

(AP)

LIMA (JNS) – Peruvian President José María Balcázar faced sharp criticism after suggesting that Jews helped “push” Germany into World War II, echoing long-discredited antisemitic tropes.
“It is a monument to the history of commerce: how bills of exchange were born, how international trade moved, what role the Jews had in Germany’s national and international trade, how Germany was pushed into a war also partly because of the Jews because they controlled all the banks, all the commerce and practiced usury,” Balcázar said during a speech commemorating the 138th anniversary of the Lima Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

The Jewish Association of Peru called the president’s remarks “outdated antisemitic theories.”

“It is unbelievable that in the 21st century, arguments worthy of the dark ages are being used to blame the victims of their own Holocaust,” the organization stated.

The Israeli and German embassies in Lima also issued a joint statement calling the claims “absurd” and historically baseless.

Balcázar’s office issued a clarifying statement on Wednesday that “the president of the republic regrets that those statements generated a mistaken perception regarding the Jewish people in the context of the beginning of World War II.”

“The Peruvian state has consistently maintained that Nazi fanaticism was the cause of that war and was responsible for the unforgivable genocide of the Jewish people,” his office stated. “This historic position, which led Peru to firmly support the creation of the State of Israel, remains unchanged. President José María Balcazar expresses his strongest rejection of the genocide committed against the Jewish people during World War II, reiterates his condemnation of antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and expresses his solidarity with the victims of the Holocaust.”

Balcázar, an interim leader appointed by Congress in February following the impeachment of former President José Jerí, is expected to remain in office until a new president is sworn in later this year.

New York (VINnews/Rabbi Yair Hoffman)  Since October 7th, more than 940 IDF soldiers and some 210 members of Israel’s security forces have been cut down by murderous terrorists. For so many of their bereaved families, one yearning rises above every other:

That something of their loved one should yet remain in this world. That a child — a grandchild — a future — should still emerge from the ashes of their loss.

One face of that anguish, recently featured in the Jerusalem Report, belongs to Hadas Levy, a young pediatrician whose fiancé, Capt. (res.) Netanel Silberg, fell in combat in Gaza in December 2023. Levy made a decision that would soon make her the first woman in Israel to give birth to a child whose father had been killed in the war against Hamas.

Her story — and the stories of the some 250 Israeli families who, according to the Health Ministry, have since had their loved ones’ genetic material retrieved and preserved — has placed before the poskim of our generation a series of weighty halachic questions that demand both unflinching rigor and profound rachmanus. What follows is an examination of the underlying halachos.

With the outbreak of the horrific murders of October 7th and the subsequent efforts to eliminate terrorism, many bereaved parents and widows of fallen IDF soldiers and other Israeli security personnel have sought to extract zera from the deceased for future fertility purposes.

The procedure is time-sensitive. When performed within 24 hours of death, viable zera is found in roughly 75 percent of cases. After 72 hours, retrieval generally fails.

Guidelines on the topic were issued by the Attorney General in 2013 and this is the current status:

• A widow or partner does not require family court approval unless a relative opposes the procedure.
• Parents or other relatives must obtain family court approval to retrieve zera.
• During the initial military action the Tel Aviv Family Court issued a temporary directive (through April 30, 2024) permitting parents to retrieve zera without court approval, given time constraints.
• Use of the zera always requires court approval. For a widow, the request is granted on the presumption that the deceased wished to have children with her. For parents, use requires proof that this was the deceased’s wish.

The Three Halachic Scenarios

Three distinct cases must be analyzed, each with different halachic considerations:

• [A] A married soldier with children — the discussion concerns lineage and inheritance.
• [B] A married soldier without children — beyond lineage and inheritance, the laws of yibum and chalitzah must be considered.
• [C] A single soldier — beyond lineage and inheritance, fertility would be performed via the womb of an unmarried woman, requiring its own analysis.

Most of the material quoted here can be found in Rav Tzvi Reizman’s Ish Milchama Siman 23. Rav Mordechai Halperin (Kovetz Beis Hillel Vol. 9, p. 50) was asked about a young bachelor who froze zera before chemotherapy and later died, leaving a letter stating: “There is at the hospital frozen zera of mine, as I would have wanted that it should be made use of.”

Rav Halperin observed that there is no fulfillment of the mitzvah of pru u-revu after death, since “the dead are exempt from any mitzvos” (Shabbos 30a, expounding Tehillim 88:6). However, he suggested that fulfilling the deceased’s will may constitute chesed shel emes, comparing it to saying Kaddish for a parent or other acts of kindness performed for the deceased (Sukkah 49b; Yerushalmi Pe’ah 1:1; Beis Yosef YD 376).

On this basis he initially concluded that fulfilling the deceased’s wish to leave a name and remnant constitutes chesed shel emes. He later modified his position (Kovetz Asia 75-78, p. 113), but maintained the basic permission.

V’Ahavta L’Rayacha Kamocha as a Foundation

Beyond the framework of chesed shel emes, there is an additional and powerful consideration that bears directly upon both the spouse and the parents of the fallen: the mitzvah of v’ahavta l’rayacha kamocha (Vayikra 19:18). The Ramban (in his commentary to that pasuk) explains that the obligation requires a person to desire for his fellow every good that he desires for himself — not in measured portions, but in the fullness of what one would wish for one’s own self. The Chofetz Chaim, in the introduction to Ahavas Chesed, develops this principle at length, demonstrating that the mitzvah extends not merely to acts of kindness during life but to the totality of what a person would wish realized on his own behalf.

For many a widow whose husband was killed in battle, the longing to bear his child is among the deepest expressions of the love commanded by this mitzvah. She seeks to actualize for him precisely what he would have desired for himself — a child, a continuation, a name in Klal Yisrael. So too for parents who knew their son’s heart, who heard him speak of the family he had hoped to build, who understand with the certainty that only a parent possesses what their child would have wanted brought into the world after him. The mitzvah of v’ahavta l’rayacha kamocha, applied to the deepest aspirations of the deceased, provides a Torah foundation for understanding why these requests are not merely emotional impulses but the very fulfillment of an obligation between Yisrael and Yisrael.

This consideration is perhaps the underlying position of those poskim who permit posthumous retrieval and use, particularly where there is a clear umdana — a reasoned assessment but they qualify it based on the deceased’s known wishes, character, and life trajectory — of what he also would have wanted. The Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah 243) writes that the root of v’ahavta l’rayacha is that one should care for his fellow’s body and money as he cares for his own.

Rav Asher Weiss’s Sharp Disagreement

Rav Asher Weiss, Av Beis Din Darkei Torah (in Kovetz Beis Hillel Vol. 9, p. 53), rejected Rav Halperin’s permission on multiple grounds:

• There is no mitzvah of pru u-revu after death, since the deceased is exempt from mitzvos.
• The principle of “mitzvah l’kayem divrei ha-meis” (the mitzvah to fulfill the words of the deceased) applies only to monetary matters and inheritance, not to other matters (Tashbetz Vol. 2 §53).
• Practically, since one cannot use a bachelor’s zera to inseminate a married woman, the procedure inherently leads to single motherhood which is “not according to the conduct of those who fear heaven and keepers of Torah and mitzvos.”
• Permitting this encourages parents to bring forth children outside of marriage.

His conclusion: “It does not appear at all to fulfill this request… it shall not arise and shall not enter at all.”

Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg’s Position

Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg zatzal (Asia Heh-Vav, Elul 5739, p. 47) ruled: Without consent of the deceased, the procedure is forbidden. But with explicit consent or a clear assessment (umdana) that this was his wish, fertility is permitted, since “the Torah considers very greatly the human will to leave a name and remnant in the world, as one learns from the Parashah of Yibum.”

He invoked the Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah 598) on the root of yibum: there is no greater remnant for the deceased than offspring established through one who shared his flesh.

Rav Halperin relied on Rav Goldberg’s reasoning to permit fertility for a deceased bachelor as well. Rav Weiss rejected this analogy, arguing that the reasons of mitzvos cannot be extended beyond their explicit context, especially yibum, which contains kabbalistic dimensions.

The Status of a Common-Law Partner

A particularly sensitive question arises when the fallen soldier was not formally married but lived together with his partner in a stable household, as is common in modern Israeli society. Many are of the opinion that, according to Rav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin zt“l, such a common-law living arrangement is considered like marriage in halachic terms. Rav Henkin held the position — developed in his teshuvos and discussed extensively by his talmidim — that a couple who lived together openly and exclusively as husband and wife may be regarded as having effected the third form of marriage listed in the first Mishna in Kiddushin.

On this view, the common-law partner of a fallen soldier may perhaps be treated, for the purposes of posthumous fertility, much as a halachic widow is treated: there is a presumption that the deceased wished to have children with her, the umdana is strong, and the considerations of v’ahavta l’rayacha kamocha apply with their full force. This position is not universally accepted — many poskim require an actual chuppah and kiddushin and do not extend Rav Henkin’s reasoning to contemporary arrangements — but it is widely cited and forms a meaningful basis for leniency in cases where formal marriage did not occur but a genuine marital relationship clearly did. Practically, a sho’el u’meishiv must be consulted in each individual case.

Summary

The questions raised by posthumous fertility in the wake of October 7th touch the deepest places in halacha and in the human heart. The poskim are divided: Rav Asher Weiss rules stringently across the board; Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg permits where there is consent or a clear umdana; Rav Halperin extends that permission, with qualification, even to a deceased bachelor. The mitzvah of v’ahavta l’rayacha kamocha provides a Torah foundation for the spouse and parents who seek to fulfill the deepest wishes of their loved one, and the position attributed to Rav Henkin zt“l regarding common-law arrangements broadens the category of those who may halachically be treated as a widow for these purposes.

As always in matters of such gravity, every individual case requires the guidance of a competent posek who knows the family, the circumstances, and the wishes of the niftar.

May Hashem comfort the bereaved among Tzion and Yerushalayim, and may the names and remnants of those who fell protecting Klal Yisroel be remembered as a zchus for us all.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

Rav Avraham Kantor zt”l, a distinguished talmid chacham known for his vast knowledge and decades of teaching, passed away this morning at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Yerushalayim after an illness. He was 69.

The levayah took place at Shamgar Funeral Home in Yerushalayim, proceeding to Har HaMenuchos for burial.

Rav Kantor was regarded as one of the prominent talmidei chachamim in Yerushalayim and Modiin Illit. Over the past several months, he battled a serious illness before his passing.

He was born on the 20th of Nissan, 5717, to his father, Rav Tzvi Nosson Kantor, and his mother, Mrs. Hadassah Kantor.

In his youth, he studied at Yeshivas Torah Ore in Yerushalayim, where he became closely attached to his revered rebbi, Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg. During those years, he was known for his exceptional diligence and was counted among the yeshiva’s most dedicated learners.

After reaching marriageable age, he married the daughter of Rav Yaakov Gedalia Aharoni of Petach Tikvah.

Following his marriage, Rav Kantor continued his studies in the kollelim of Yeshivas Beis HaTalmud in Yerushalayim and Yeshivas Novardok. Throughout his life, he devoted himself entirely to Torah study and avodas Hashem. Despite his stature, he remained exceedingly humble and never sought recognition. He was widely regarded as a formidable talmid chacham with mastery across all areas of Torah learning.

He maintained a close connection with the mashgiach, Rav Dan Segal, and was among the regular mispallelim at his beis medrash, Ohel Moshe, in Gush Shemonim.

For more than 25 years, Rav Kantor taught Torah at Yeshivas Mishkan Shlomo. He was also among those learning Kodshim and Taharos in a kollel in Modiin Illit, where he engaged deeply with some of the most complex sugyos.

Those who knew him described a man with extraordinary breadth of knowledge, capable of delivering a shiur on virtually any topic at a moment’s notice. He was devoted to every avreich and approached each interaction in learning with humility and warmth, always engaging others with a welcoming countenance.

His immersion in Torah was legendary. Even when simply passing a shul, he would often be drawn inside and become absorbed in his learning. At family gatherings as well, he would use any available time to return to his seforim, remaining deeply engaged in study for extended periods.

About a decade ago, he relocated from the Ezras Torah neighborhood in Yerushalayim to the Neot Hapisga neighborhood of Modiin Illit.

Rav Kantor is survived by a large and distinguished family, having merited to raise 14 children and to see all of them married during his lifetime.

Yehi zichro baruch.

{Matzav.com}

A new analysis is casting doubt on a proposed tax targeting luxury second homes in New York City, suggesting it could bring in far less revenue than expected while also driving some wealthy residents out of the city.

The report, released Thursday by City Comptroller Mark Levine’s office, estimates the plan backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul could fall short of its projected $500 million in revenue by nearly $200 million. It also warns the city could lose about $40 million annually as high-income residents relocate or adjust their living arrangements.

Levine’s findings were influenced in part by the experience of Vancouver, Canada, where a similar policy led some property owners to rent out, sell, or move into their secondary residences.

According to the study, the tax would likely generate between $340 million and $380 million, significantly below initial projections. Levine cautioned that the financial impact could decline further over time.

“Behavioral responses to the tax — conversions to rental, primary-residence claims by relatives, sales, and possible legal challenges — introduce further variability that will only become observable after implementation,” Levine’s study states.

The report adds fresh uncertainty to the proposal, which has been promoted by Hochul and Mamdani as part of a broader push to increase taxes on high earners to address what the mayor has described as “a budget crisis of historic magnitude.”

Supporters of the measure argue that imposing a levy on second homes valued at $5 million or more—estimated at roughly 13,000 properties across the city—could help reduce a reported $5.4 billion budget gap.

However, the comptroller’s review found that these projections rely heavily on assumptions that remain unclear. Many of these properties are already rented out, potentially excluding them from the tax, and questions remain about how the policy would apply to homes owned through trusts, LLCs, or family arrangements.

The study also highlighted uncertainty around how affluent homeowners might react to the new tax, a factor that could significantly affect overall revenue.

Levine pointed to Vancouver’s experience as a possible indicator. The city introduced its “Empty Homes Tax” in 2017 to encourage property owners to rent out vacant units.

At the time, Vancouver had approximately 2,500 vacant homes. That number has since dropped to fewer than 1,000, representing a roughly 60% decline, according to the report.

While Canadian officials have credited the policy with reducing speculation, expanding rental availability, and generating revenue, Levine’s analysis suggests that similar measures in Vancouver and England indicate New York could see a comparable rush to sell properties, potentially reducing expected revenue by about 10%.

“The revenue loss from behavioral changes could compound over time,” he added.

The report estimates that residents leaving the city in response to the tax could reduce revenue by between $38 million and $42 million. Additionally, converting second homes into rental units could cut expected income by another $88 million to $133 million.

Concerns about wealthy residents leaving New York over additional taxes have been raised for years, and the latest proposal has intensified those worries.

Mamdani fueled the debate further with a social media video filmed outside billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238 million penthouse on Central Park South, in which he declared “Today we’re taxing the rich.”

The video angered executives at Griffin’s Citadel hedge fund, who responded by threatening to withdraw a planned $6 billion development project from Park Avenue.

In response, business leaders have urged Hochul and Mamdani to consider exemptions for luxury property owners who generate significant employment, such as those creating 100 or more jobs.

Opponents of the tax quickly pointed to the comptroller’s report as evidence that the policy may not achieve its intended goals.

“Comptroller Levine’s analysis is yet another confirmation that a tax on second homes would not deliver the tax revenue expected,” said James Whelan, president of the powerful Real Estate Board of New York, in a statement.

“This proposed tax also presents significant logistical issues as to how you identify second homes, value co-ops and condos, and account for changes in taxpayer behavior. If implemented haphazardly, this tax would result in less investment, less housing and less revenue for the City, State and MTA.”

Despite the findings, representatives for Hochul and Mamdani signaled that they remain confident in the proposal.

“While details of the policy are still being negotiated, the governor’s proposal will generate at least $500 million for New York City,” insisted Jen Goodman, a spokeswoman for Hochul, in a statement.

Mamdani’s senior spokeswoman Dora Pekec echoed that stance, maintaining the original revenue expectations.

“The comptroller’s report makes one thing very clear: thoughtfully crafting and implementing this legislation will do exactly that,” she said.

{Matzav.com}

A man has been convicted of planning a terrorist attack at the Embassy of Israel in London, following an investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing London, authorities announced Friday.

Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 34, a homeless man, attempted to gain entry to the Israeli diplomatic mission in the Kensington neighborhood on April 28 of last year, armed with two knives. Armed officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command intervened swiftly, preventing Albadri from scaling the embassy gates before any harm could be done.

Body-worn camera footage from the arrest captured Albadri telling officers he had “weapons” and intended to “make a crime” inside the Embassy. Two knives with red-and-white handles were recovered from his pockets. He was also found carrying a martyrdom note stating his intention to die, in his words, “for the glory of God.”

Investigators determined that Albadri had planned the attack as an act of revenge against the Israeli government over its military operations in Gaza. In the five days preceding the attack, he had searched multiple Arabic terms relating to suicide and martyrdom online — a marked departure from his prior search history, which had centered on his attempts to secure asylum status. Albadri had entered the United Kingdom illegally on a small boat from France on April 12, 2025.

CCTV footage recovered by investigators showed Albadri walking the entire distance from Kilburn in northwest London to the embassy in Kensington on the day of the attack, wearing a red-and-white scarf wrapped around his head and mouth and sunglasses.

Following a two-week trial at the Old Bailey, Albadri was convicted of one count of preparation of terrorist acts under the Terrorism Act 2006, and two counts of possession of a bladed article. Sentencing is scheduled for a later date.

Commander Helen Flanagan, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, praised the responding officers, noting that their rapid intervention prevented what could have been a deadly incident. “Those officers responded within seconds,” she said, adding that the subsequent investigation secured the evidence needed for the conviction.

Commander Flanagan also acknowledged that the embassy has faced multiple security alerts in recent times, and said Counter Terrorism Policing continues to work closely with the Embassy and Metropolitan Police colleagues to review and strengthen protective security arrangements.

Hating on Jews made its way into a school event at Beverly Elementary School in Beverly Hills, Mich., where parents posted stickers bearing antisemitic imagery at one of the tables.

Leo Terrell, antisemitism task force lead in the Trump administration, captured the frustration of Jewish parents at the school in a post on X.

“SHAMEFUL!! What is wrong with these people??” he vented.

StopAntisemitism also took to social media to blast the parents responsible for spreading hate.

One of the parents promoting hate shamelessly poses for a picture praising herself for her nefarious activity. (From a post on X)

“Parents at Beverly Elementary School decided it would be a good idea to distribute these antisemitic, pro-violence stickers at the school’s cultural night to promote ‘diversity,'” the group wrote, posting photos of the antisemitic stickers.

Embekka Roberson, the school superintendent, said the school took action immediately to remove the offensive labels, adding that the stickers had not appeared at the table during the pre-event walk-through, but that the school would devise and implement measures to ensure such activity does not recur.

“We do not tolerate intimidation, bullying, threats, discrimination or antisemitism in our schools,” she said in a statement.

The Jewish Federation of Detroit also issued a statement on the matter, warning that these types of actions are exacerbating a climate of antisemitism and calling for those responsible to be called to account.

Terrell said it best. Parents are supposed to model for their children the virtues of good character. What kind of parents teach their children to hate? What is wrong with these people, indeed?

Toms River homeowners are about to get hit with another property tax increase, TLS finds, as the Toms River Regional Board of Education has approved its 2026–27 school year budget, adopting a spending plan that raises property taxes for residents yet again.

The roughly $306 million budget includes a tax levy increase of about 4.9% overall, with Toms River homeowners expected to see a 4.6% rise in school taxes, according to budget documents. For a home assessed at the township median, the increase amounts to about an additional $17.76 per month.

The vote marks the first time in three years the board has approved a budget after previously rejecting spending plans that included double-digit tax hikes, prompting intervention by the state Department of Education.

District leaders said the latest increase, while smaller than in prior years, comes amid mounting cost pressures and continued concerns over state funding. Health insurance expenses alone are rising by more than $6.5 million, or about 13.3%, accounting for a significant portion of the budget growth.

Superintendent Michael Citta also noted that limits on state aid increases, which are capped at 6 percent annually, have prevented the district from fully recovering under New Jersey’s school funding formula, leaving local taxpayers to make up the difference.

The district is slated to receive about $31.7 million in state aid for the upcoming school year, an increase from the prior year but still below what officials say is needed under the formula.

The new tax increase follows steep hikes in recent years. In 2025, the state imposed a budget with a nearly 13 percent tax increase after the board declined to approve it, on top of an earlier roughly 9 percent increase — raising taxes by more than 20 percent over a two-year span.

Officials have tied those increases to long-term reductions in state aid, which they say have totaled more than $100 million over time, forcing layoffs, asset sales and program cuts to balance budgets.

While the newly adopted budget avoids another double-digit increase, it continues a pattern of rising local taxes as the district works to stabilize its finances.

Toms River Regional, which serves students from Toms River, South Toms River, Beachwood and Pine Beach, is one of the largest school districts in New Jersey, with about 14,500 students enrolled in 18 facilities.

Three Givati Brigade soldiers were sentenced to 21 days of confinement after arriving late to a memorial ceremony for a fallen comrade, with the delay caused by major road closures during a protest near Bnei Brak.

The incident, reported Thursday, triggered backlash from the soldiers’ families, who said the delay was not due to carelessness but was a direct result of heavy traffic disruptions tied to demonstrations earlier in the week.

The soldiers left the Rechovot area for Petach Tikvah about two hours before the scheduled memorial. However, they became stuck in severe traffic on Route 4 near the Geha interchange, where protesters had blocked central roads while demonstrating against the arrest of yeshiva students considered draft evaders. The congestion prevented them from reaching the cemetery in time for the start of the ceremony.

According to those familiar with the situation, the soldiers tried to update their commanders and the unit’s casualty officer in real time about the delays. Although they missed the formal ceremony, they later arrived for a meeting with the bereaved family and took part in the commemorative meal held in the fallen soldier’s memory.

Despite that, commanders decided to proceed with disciplinary action. The soldiers were tried by their company commander and ultimately given a 21-day confinement sentence.

Sources close to the soldiers voiced strong frustration, noting that the troops are close to completing their service. They said the soldiers showed their commander evidence of the road conditions to prove the delay was beyond their control, but the army chose to take a strict approach to emphasize the importance of honoring fallen soldiers and arriving on time for memorial events.

In response, the IDF said: “The IDF places great importance on honoring the memory of fallen soldiers and on the participation of commanders and troops in memorial ceremonies. The soldiers were released the day before in order to attend the memorial, along with clear instructions to ensure timely arrival. In practice, the soldiers chose to depart at a time that did not align with the instructions and did not meet the required schedule. It should be emphasized that other soldiers who were sent to the same memorial arrived on time. After reviewing the incident, disciplinary measures were taken in accordance with regulations. The IDF will not accept conduct that does not meet the expected standard, particularly when it involves honoring the memory of the fallen and their families.”

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico City is sinking by nearly 10 inches (about 25 centimeters) a year, according to new satellite imagery released this week by NASA, making it one of the world’s fastest-subsiding metropolises.

One of the world’s most sprawling and populated urban areas, at 3,000 square miles (about 7,800 square kilometers) and some 22 million people, the Mexican capital and surrounding cities were built atop an ancient lake bed. Many downtown streets were once canals, a tradition that continues in the rural fringes.

Extensive groundwater pumping and urban development have dramatically shrunk the aquifer, meaning that Mexico City has been sinking for more than a century, leaving many monuments and older buildings — like the Metropolitan Cathedral, where construction began in 1573 — visibly tilted to the side. The contracting aquifer has also contributed to a chronic water crisis that is only expected to worsen.

“It damages part of the critical infrastructure of Mexico City, such as the subway, the drainage system, the water, the potable water system, housing and streets,” said Enrique Cabral, a researcher studying geophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “It’s a very big problem.”

Mexico City is sinking so fast that the subsidence can be spotted from space.

In some parts it is happening at an average rate of 0.78 inches (2 centimeters) a month, according to NASA’s newly released report, such as at the main airport and the iconic monument commonly known as the Angel of Independence.

Overall that means a yearly subsidence rate of about 9.5 inches (24 centimeters). Over the course of less than a century, the drop has been more than 39 feet (12 meters), according to Cabral.

“We have one of the fastest velocities of land subsidence in the whole world,” he said.

The NASA estimates are based on measurements taken between October 2025 and January 2026 by a powerful satellite known as NISAR, which can track real-time changes on the Earth’s surface and is a joint initiative between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization.

NISAR scientist Paul Rosen said that by capturing details of the Earth from space, the project is also “telling us something about what’s actually happening below the surface.”

“It’s basically documentation of all of these changes within a city,” Rosen said. He added: “You can see the full magnitude of the problem.”

With time the team hopes to be able to zoom in even more on specific areas and someday get measurements on a building-by-building basis.

More broadly, researchers hope to apply the technology around the world to track things like natural disasters, changes in fault lines, the effects of climate change in regions like Antarctica and more.

Rosen said it could be used to bolster alert systems, letting scientists alert governments to the need for evacuations in cases of volcano eruptions, for example.

For Mexico City the technology amounts to a big advance in studying the subsidence issue and mitigating its worst effects, according to Cabral.

For decades the government has largely ignored the problem other than stabilizing foundations under monuments like the cathedral. But following recent flare-ups of the water crisis, Cabral said, officials have begun to fund more research.

Imagery from the NISAR satellite and the data that comes with it will be key for scientists and officials as they plan on how to address the problem.

“To do long-term mitigation of the situation,” Cabral said, “the first step is to just understand.”

Hundreds of roshei yeshiva and mechanchim gathered at Binyanei HaUma for a major conference focused on strengthening chinuch, where a revealing practice by one of the leading roshei yeshiva—keeping a personal list of every talmid—captured the attention of participants and stirred strong emotion.

The annual Knessiah HaGedolah LeChinuch, organized by Lev Shomea, drew large crowds from across the Torah world for a full day of analysis, guidance, and practical tools for dealing with today’s educational challenges. From early afternoon on Thursday, 29 Nissan, the venue was already filled with mechanchim eager to deepen their understanding and sharpen their approach during what was described as a critical period for Klal Yisroel.

A powerful sight unfolded as participants sat with pen in hand, carefully recording each insight shared by gedolei Torah, all driven by a singular goal—to better understand how to guide every bochur to his proper place in the world of Torah.

The program opened with remarks by Rav Eliav Miller, chairman of Lev Shomea and head of the Ohr Elchonon preparatory program. He spoke emotionally about the siyata diShmaya that made the gathering possible, invoking the teaching that “any assembly held for the sake of Heaven will endure.”

Rav Miller elaborated on the turbulent times facing the current generation, describing it as a period of rapid change. He addressed the pressures confronting bnei yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel, particularly from the legal system, and explained that the purpose of the conference was to equip mechanchim with tools to help talmidim struggling with confusion brought on by media influences and the challenges of modern technology.

He also paid tribute to the late Rav Aviezer Shapiro, zt”l, longtime mashgiach of Yeshivas Kol Torah L’tzeirim, who had been a consistent participant in these conferences for more than two decades and placed great importance on continuously studying the methods of chinuch.

The first speaker was Rav Aharon Levy, a prominent lecturer in the world of kiruv, who outlined effective strategies for communicating with students in a way that resonates.

A key theme throughout his talk was the importance of looking beneath the surface of a student’s behavior. He explained that what may appear as a lack of derech eretz can often be an expression of deeper struggles, and it is the responsibility of the mechanech to identify and address the root cause.

A wave of emotion swept through the hall with the arrival of the mashgiach, Rav Dan Segal, who responded to questions on chinuch and emphasized the need for genuine love toward talmidim, along with the importance of setting aside time for personal conversations with each individual.

Throughout the event, complex and pressing questions from within the yeshiva world were presented to leading roshei yeshiva, who offered thoughtful and measured responses.

Rav Shraga Steinman, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivos Orchos Torah and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, opened with words of chizuk, stating that the challenges and distractions of the generation are intended to strengthen Torah learning under pressure.

He also referenced teachings of his father, the author of Ayeles HaShachar, who stressed the obligation to show interest in every talmid—even those who appear, at first glance, to be managing well.

Rav Dovid Cohen, rosh yeshiva of Chevron and a member of the Moetzes, delivered one of the most striking moments of the gathering. He revealed that despite his many responsibilities, he maintains “a personal list of all his talmidim and reviews it regularly to ensure that no one is overlooked and that each receives individual attention.” He stressed that rabbeim must speak with their talmidim about the value of Torah and instill the recognition that all of our existence depends on it.

In response to questions, Rav Cohen highlighted the importance of ensuring that every talmid has a suitable framework and sense of fulfillment, warning that idleness can lead to boredom and spiritual decline. For certain students, he noted, yeshivos kibbutz can serve as a critical support system.

Rav Chaim Peretz Berman, one of the roshei yeshiva of Ponovezh, addressed the range of talents among talmidim and described hasmadah as a greater asset than natural brilliance, since it is something that can be developed. He noted that gedolei Yisroel achieved greatness through persistence and dedication, and that anyone who remains committed to a clear goal will succeed.

Responding to a question about how much time a rebbi should dedicate to his talmidim, Rav Berman cited a teaching from the Steipler Gaon regarding the Pri Megadim, who avoided giving advice in order to complete his seforim. In contrast, the Chozeh of Lublin chose to forgo writing a sefer in order to help people, demonstrating that each individual must carefully weigh how to balance personal growth with responsibilities to others.

A central portion of the conference featured a panel discussion on the role of the yeshiva and practical approaches to assisting talmidim. Participants included Rav Eliyahu Kellerman, mashgiach at Ponovezh; Rav Chaim Paley, mashgiach at Chevron; Rav Yehuda Steinharter, a founder of Lev Shomea; Rav Mordechai Kravitz, one of the organization’s rabbanim; and Rav Yitzchak Miller, an educational psychologist and head of the psychological services department in Beit Shemesh.

During the panel, participants analyzed complex real-life cases that had been brought to Lev Shomea’s hotline. They discussed contemporary challenges, the responsibilities of mashgichim, when they should intervene directly, and when cases should be referred to professionals. They also shared methods for identifying the underlying causes of a talmid’s struggles and recognizing early signs of withdrawal.

At the conclusion of the panel, Rav Kellerman quoted teachings of Rav Wolbe on the critical importance of personal conversations between mashgichim and talmidim, noting that such interactions can have a greater impact than formal shmuessen. Rav Paly emphasized that when a talmid approaches a staff member, it often comes after significant internal struggle, and turning him away—even for valid reasons—can discourage him from ever seeking help again.

Yerushalayim Deputy Mayor Eliezer Rauchberger addressed the gathering briefly, expressing appreciation for the work of Lev Shomea and recalling how the author of the Ayeles HaShachar would urge rabbeim to daven regularly for their talmidim.

MK Uri Maklev also offered remarks, praising the organization’s ongoing efforts to respond to the needs of the generation and commending mechanchim who attend year after year to continue growing in their role.

As part of the conference, attendees received a document titled “Asarah Mi Yodea,” outlining key guiding questions mechanchim should ask themselves about each talmid. These included inquiries into a student’s background, his relationship with his parents, and even practical considerations such as how long it has been since he purchased clothing—ensuring that no aspect of a talmid’s life goes unnoticed.

The conference was moderated by Rav Yeshaya Greenspan of Kehillas Nichsefa in Bnei Brak. At its conclusion, several practical resolutions were announced, including that every rebbi should carry a list of his talmidim and make a point of speaking with each one personally at least once a month, and that hashkafah and mussar should be incorporated into general shiurim to strengthen the students’ emunah.

The Lakewood Fire Department is mourning the passing of Richard Weil, an exempt member of Engine Company #1.

Weil joined the department in 1974 and remained a proud member for many years, earning the respect and appreciation of those who served alongside him. He was also a member of the Ocean County Firemen’s Association and the Lakewood Exempt Firemen’s Association.

His passing is being felt throughout the department, where he was known as a dedicated and valued member.

As per his family, funeral services will be held privately in the near future.