It’s hard to get a splashy sound bite out of Michael Dell, even if you tee him up for one. When asked how big a growth opportunity the AI wave could be for his namesake company, Dell Technologies, the founder and longtime chief executive doesn’t offer up any pithy one-liners but instead ruminates in real time.  

“It feels every bit as big as previous waves, but probably bigger,” he says, pondering the question, and then adds, “You know, maybe quite a bit bigger.” He takes another brief pause, reconsiders his own words, and delivers a most inconclusive conclusion: “I don’t know for sure. Nobody knows.”

We’re seated in a conference room at Dell Technologies’ headquarters just outside Austin, where the temperature has hit 88° F in early March. Dressed in dark slacks and a navy blue denim button-down (Texan for business casual, no matter the season), Dell has just emerged from a photo shoot that he tolerated but clearly didn’t relish. It’s not that he isn’t on board with being the name and face of his company. That’s been true for a while—40 years, to be exact. He remains Dell Technologies’ biggest believer—and biggest shareholder, with 53% of the $79 billion company’s stock under his or his wife Susan’s name. But he’s not a natural-born showman. Never was. In fact, he seems to go out of his way to not put on a performance—even as he’s embarking on what could be his greatest act yet.

Unlike some other tech CEOs, Dell doesn’t do bombastic declarations or colorful antics; he doesn’t have a side hustle that involves blasting himself into outer space. Despite having spent his entire adult life in the public eye, he is measured, analytical, and almost intentionally unexciting. So his reluctance to put a ceiling, or even a floor, on what generative AI could mean for his company is not surprising. 

But while Dell may prefer to hedge, the market isn’t hiding its exuberance. Just a few days before our interview, on March 1, Dell Technologies’ share price leaped 38%, hitting an all-time high above $131 after the company reported earnings that beat analyst expectations. The announcement generated plenty of excitement about demand for Dell’s growing portfolio of back-end tech products, the kind required for storing and managing the massive datasets needed to run—you guessed it—generative AI applications. Orders for AI-optimized servers were up 40% in the most recent quarter. As chief operating officer Jeff Clarke said in the company’s earnings release, “We’ve just started to touch the AI opportunities ahead of us.” 

It’s not just Dell’s company that’s been buoyed by the buzz. As a result of the massive rise in the stock, Michael Dell’s personal net worth reportedly hit the $100 billion mark in early March—a notable milestone even for a man who became a billionaire at the tender age of 30.

But none of this seems to rock Dell’s world. Over the decades, he’s maintained the same steady demeanor through exhilarating highs and harrowing lows. Along the way, he’s steered his company through multiple major pivots. And he’s showed an uncanny ability to read his customers’ needs and make the right strategic change at the right time, whether de-emphasizing PCs in favor of servers, sensors, and storage, or taking the company private—over the heated opposition of Carl Icahn—in a mammoth buyout.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates (L) speaks as Dell CEO Michael Dell listens during the product launch of the new Windows XP operating system on Oct. 25, 2001, in New York City.

Mario Tama—Getty Images

That privatization maneuver is precisely what positioned the company to capitalize on the current AI boom. Over the five years that it was privately held, Dell was able to truly diversify from selling laptops and desktops. Away from the market’s obsession with quarterly earnings, Dell consolidated and expanded his company, creating a behemoth provider of infrastructure tools for corporate customers. Along the way, he engineered what was then the biggest tech deal in history, the $67 billion acquisition of data storage provider EMC. 

If Dell isn’t a dynamic, headline-making speaker, it may be because he’s built this four-decade run on listening—deploying his analytical skills and deep curiosity to recognize what his customers need and to navigate his industry’s twists and turns. “I love spending time on the technology, and I love spending time with our customers,” he tells me. And at least where business is concerned, he adds, “I don’t really love anything else.”

Dell Technologies still sells Dell PCs; in fact, computers make up the majority of its revenue. But today it’s a company vastly different from what it was five or 10 years ago—let alone 40. The one constant? Dell himself. “This is probably the longest-sitting CEO in the tech industry,” says Marc Benioff, cofounder and CEO of enterprise-software maker Salesforce and a longtime friend. “He’s six months younger than I am, but I view him as an older brother,” Benioff says of Dell. “He’s a phenomenon in every possible way.”

Sitting across from Dell at his HQ in Round Rock, a corporate campus that’s forgettable except for its sheer size, “phenomenon” isn’t the first word that comes to mind. But Dell has built—and hung on to—an empire that now provides the technological building blocks for 99% of Fortune 500 companies, most of which will have new needs in this new era of AI. If he plays his cards right, the next chapter of the story could make both the CEO and his once-flailing PC maker more relevant than ever, all but ensuring he’ll stay at the helm for years to come. 

The morning after our interview, Dell is speaking on a panel at a health care innovation summit at the University of Texas at Austin, his alma mater. (Dell finished two semesters before dropping out to devote himself to selling PCs full-time.) Investor Jim Breyer, who relocated to Austin from Silicon Valley in 2019 at the Dells’ suggestion, introduces the CEO with glowing superlatives. “Michael Dell is the most courageous entrepreneur I’ve ever worked with,” he gushes. 

Dell’s performance is … just fine. (It’s clear that public speaking is not his happy place.) Still, he comes across as confident and purposeful. At 59, Dell retains a youthful bearing, his curly hair only tinged by gray. And from the audience reaction, it’s clear Dell’s the big man on campus, even if he never graduated.

In his well-documented early days, the nerdy but gutsy founder could seemingly do no wrong. In 1984, as a premed freshman, he started tinkering with computers in his UT dorm room. By age 19, he had left school and turned all of his attention to his business. He faced other, much bigger competitors, including IBM and Apple. But Dell pioneered a new way of doing business: His computers were built to order, and he sold them directly to consumers, cutting out the middleman. In 1988 he took Dell Computer public, raising $30 million and using the capital to expand globally. At age 27, he became the youngest CEO on the Fortune 500. And the company just kept growing—as long as demand for PCs was on the rise. 

But PCs would prove to be the company’s Achilles’ heel. In 2001, Dell became the world’s leading computer maker, surpassing the once-mighty Compaq. But sales soon began to decline. Asian manufacturers had entered the fray, offering cheaper products to American consumers. And by the late 2000s, smartphones and tablets had swarmed the market, slowing demand for desktops and laptops even more. The company tried to jump on the mobile bandwagon, but its efforts were ill-received: Dell’s “phablet,” a product that sat in the unnecessary purgatory between a phone and a tablet, was discontinued after just one year. 

By then, Dell had been trying for years to diversify. In 1995 he entered the server market with the PowerEdge, a product line that still exists—designed for enterprises that were amassing far more data than they could manage with their existing equipment. In 2006, the company launched a business unit to support cloud computing, including tools to power “hybrid clouds”—private clouds (which keep data on a customer’s premises) that can integrate with public ones (where data is hosted by a third party). 

But this expansion wasn’t happening fast enough to offset declines in PC sales, and investors hammered Dell’s shares. In 2013, after more than two years of falling PC revenue (and after the stock price bottomed at under $11), Dell decided to take his baby private—hypothesizing that shielding the company from Wall Street’s short-term focus on profitability was the best way to reset for the long term. 

Benioff refers to the deal as Dell’s “magic trick.” But the maneuver was anything but slick and graceful. “I had no idea how difficult it was going to be,” Dell recalls. “When it started, [I thought], ‘Is this like a one-week thing or two-week thing?’ I didn’t know it was going to be an eight-month thing.”

Michael Dell with Salesforce cofounder
and CEO Marc Benioff.

Courtesy of Dell

Dell wasn’t in it alone. Egon Durban, co-CEO of private equity firm Silver Lake, was his partner from the get-go. The two presented Dell shareholders with what they thought was a good offer, a $24.4 billion deal financed by a mix of equity and debt—the largest leveraged buyout in tech-industry history. But then corporate raider Carl Icahn entered the picture, snapping up a sizable chunk of the company’s shares and agitating for a more generous offer. Before they knew it, Dell and Durban were going to war, fighting Icahn as he made a counteroffer that involved buying the company himself—and ousting Dell as CEO. 

Eventually, Icahn got concessions, and Dell got his deal. Dell and Durban increased their offer by 10 cents a share and threw in a special dividend for some shareholders. And on Oct. 29, 2013, Dell Computer became a privately held company, owned by Michael Dell and Silver Lake. 

During the lengthy feud, the antagonists stayed true to their personalities: Icahn took to CNBC and other outlets to spread his narrative, while Dell lay low. But in recent years, Dell has spoken openly about the clash. His 2021 memoir, Play Nice But Win, opens with a scene in which Dell goes to Icahn’s house for a dinner of mediocre meatloaf, in a (failed) attempt to find common ground. Though Dell says he doesn’t hold grudges, he also says he felt a need to “expose” Icahn’s tactics.

More than 10 years later, it’s clear there’s no love lost between them. “Icahn showing up was the hardest part,” Dell says. “It was a long, painful period where everyone was subjected to this horrible situation.” Dell maintains that Icahn never really planned to buy his company but simply wanted to squeeze more out of the deal. For his part, Icahn, in a phone interview, says that his actions forced a “meaningful improvement” of the buyout. “The shareholders got a lot more money because of me,” says Icahn. 

Tellingly, both men quote World War II–era leaders to describe their conflict. “What’s that Winston Churchill quote?” Dell asks me rhetorically, invoking the former British prime minister: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Icahn, meanwhile, puts his own paraphrasing spin on a 1936 campaign speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Dell hates me—and I welcome his hatred.”

Still, the trials arguably made Dell a better leader. Those close to the CEO say that his determination and belief in the deal carried the enterprise through a rough patch. “Relationships are forged on the battlefield,” says Durban, who remains close to Dell and whose firm is one of the company’s largest shareholders. Employees from that era say Dell became more connected than ever to his workforce, and even better about communication with the rank and file.

Just as important, Dell proved himself to a wider swath of the business world as an analytical, decisive chief executive. “He took a large risk, which is easier not to do,” Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, says of Dell’s deal. “But he stuck to his guns.” Describing Dell, Dimon invokes the “OODA loop,” a military acronym for efficient decision-making that he says is a secret sauce for the tech CEO. (OODA stands for “observe, orient, decide, act.”) 

That kind of coolheadedness also characterizes Dell’s very, very few hobbies. Benioff tells me that his friend recently took up hunting with a bow and arrow. (Dell’s company won’t confirm this.) Dell hunts for birds, Benioff says—the kind of elusive target you can hit only when you’re calm, unemotional, and utterly focused. 

Jeff Clarke, Dell Technologies’ COO, is the closest person Michael Dell has to a cofounder, having joined his team in 1987. Speaking to Fortune via videoconference, Clarke—dressed in a red, white, and blue T-shirt that simply says “TEXAS”—refers to the company’s private-company era as one of the most fun periods of his career. “It was liberating,” says Clarke. 

Being out of the public market meant that Dell could make big bets and invest in R&D, even if the payoff wasn’t immediate. The company could rebuild itself around providing all things infrastructure for corporate customers like Home Depot and CVS Health, whose greatest needs increasingly revolved around the growing mountains of data they were accumulating. In 2016, Dell and Durban—with Dimon’s help—orchestrated another financial feat, the $67 billion purchase of EMC and its software subsidiary VMware. The acquisition was “something we had dreamed about doing,” Dell says. 

Still, the deal was an expensive bet that saddled the business with a heavy debt load—and it created hassles down the road. The merged company started trading publicly again under a share class that tracked its ownership interest in VMware; two years later, it bought those shares back and replaced them with a new share class. Along the way, some VMware investors (including, briefly, Dell’s old buddy Icahn) sued, arguing that the complex deal undervalued their shares, and Dell Technologies eventually paid a $1 billion settlement. Still, the acquisition added an even broader data-storage and management portfolio to Dell’s arsenal, making the company indisputably stronger. 

Dell’s company has never been a “market maker,” a company that creates demand for something that didn’t previously exist. But it hasn’t had to be. “What Dell’s been good at is knowing the right time to get into a market,” says Patrick Moorhead, an analyst who has covered Dell and its competitors for years and now runs Moor Insights & Strategy. “They’re so close to their customers that they just know.”

That closeness was embedded at Dell from the earliest days, when Michael Dell himself was building PCs for one customer at a time. In 1988 Dell wrote the company’s first Culture Code, with “Provide high-quality products and excellent customer service” at the top of the list. His focus hasn’t changed much, his allies say, and it’s been central to his ability to keep transforming the company. 

On Dec. 28, 2018, the reorganized, renamed Dell Technologies emerged fully from its cocoon, trading on the NYSE under a new share class. In its metamorphosis, the company had all but shed its image as a lagging PC maker, refashioning itself as an enterprise infrastructure giant. And enterprises, it turned out, were about to need a whole lot more infrastructure—and maybe, just maybe, more PCs.  

Back in Round Rock, Dell is trying to explain what an “AI PC” is, and why anyone would want one. “I have a list,” he says as he gets up to grab his phone from his office. The CEO comes back and proceeds to rattle off a catalog of capabilities.

There’s real-time, AI-powered translation, he explains, and a feature called “circle to search,” which enables PC users to highlight a word or line, which the computer will then provide more context and information for. There’s also “generative AI editing,” which can assist with any kind of writing or content creation. What customers actually end up using these machines for, Dell admits, is beyond his expertise to foresee. “But I believe that people will figure out creative uses and that companies will want to have the capability to make their people more productive.”

In fact, Dell’s lessons from its earliest days of customizing laptops still apply in the AI era: The key is to be flexible enough to meet customers’ demands. “The competitive advantage for Dell today is that it offers services you can tailor to almost every need in AI,” says Orit Gadiesh, the chairman of Bain & Co. and a decades-long consultant and confidante of Dell’s. “It’s not a fixed thing.”

Corporate customers in and outside tech are already clamoring for back-end machines that can both house and make sense of the data that feeds into generative AI applications. At a time when huge platform creators like OpenAI and Google are competing for corporate clients, Dell Technologies doesn’t have to worry about who wins: Its tech “stack” is agnostic to different flavors of generative AI, just as its cloud offerings have always accommodated hybrid, private, and public cloud strategies. And just as with the move to the cloud, Dell is counting on one common denominator with AI: that all companies, regardless of which AI applications they build or deploy, will want control over the hardware where the relevant data is stored.

Michael Dell with Nvidia cofounder
and CEO Jensen Huang.

Courtesy of Dell

To be sure, Dell didn’t know that the generative AI explosion would happen when it did; he credits Jeff Clarke with devising much of the company’s AI road map. But he calculated long ago that going all in on data infrastructure was the best way to position his company for the future. As a result, “he’s not just providing the picks and shovels, but also housing and food and beverages for the AI gold mine,” says Silver Lake’s Durban. 

It’s still early days for Dell Technologies’ AI story. Fast as it’s growing, Dell’s AI server products account for just a tiny fraction of its business. But most financial analysts seem bullish about what’s to come. There’s even hope that the AI craze will jump-start demand for PCs—AI PCs, to be precise. The thinking is that the need for increased processing power won’t just be on the data-center side (where servers and storage systems handle companies’ information), but also on the desktops and laptops that consumers and workers interact with. 

In February, Dell Technologies announced its first line of Latitude AI PCs, which look like normal computers but include a tiny component called a neural processor, the key to enabling generative AI workloads. It’s not the only vendor with high hopes in the category—HP and Lenovo have announced similar products. And it’s not clear when demand will take off. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts wrote that “sales and units shipped may disappoint investors in calendar 2024, having a greater potential impact in 2025.”

Even Dell acknowledges that spurring demand could take a while. That said, “if you’re responsible for the PCs in a company, the last thing you want to do is have a bunch of PCs that don’t do the thing that the users want them to do,” says Dell. “I do think there’s going to be a refresh wave.”

The top floor of the University of Texas’s Innovation Tower, a new high-rise that’s meant to be a startup hub, is still empty. But one only has to look out the windows for inspiration. The 360-degree views of the Austin skyline show a city dotted by cranes and construction in almost all directions. 

Jay Hartzell, the university’s president, is showing me around, pointing out all of the landmarks—including the buildings adorned with the name of the institution’s most famous dropout. Michael Dell never did become a doctor, but his name is on his alma mater’s medical school, the university’s teaching hospital, and its pediatric research center. (Not to mention Austin’s Jewish Community Center.) 

“When we talk about what we want to produce as a university, and why people should come here, he’s sort of Leading Exhibit A,” says Hartzell. He credits Dell not only with being a major employer of UT graduates but also with helping to spur the city’s broader tech ecosystem. Over the years, tech companies from Meta to Apple have set up shop in the Texas capital. Investors, too, from Vista Equity Partners to Pimco to Jim Breyer, have put down roots. UT recently welcomed its first cohort of students in a brand-new AI graduate degree program. 

“If you’re responsible for the PCs in a company, the last thing you want to do is have a bunch of PCs that don’t do the thing that the users want them to do.”

Michael Dell

Dell, who is originally from Houston, never wanted to move his headquarters away from Texas, even when others told him he should relocate to Silicon Valley. “He helped put the place on the map,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson tells me in a phone interview. “If you took Michael Dell out of the equation, it would be a strikingly different city.” 

Dell has made his mark outside of Austin, too. The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, which the couple founded in 1999, has 800 active projects around the world at any given time—focusing on education, training, and health innovation to help children living in poverty. (Dell and his wife recently contributed another $3.6 billion to the foundation, bringing its total endowment to $5.2 billion.) Dell says he spends a little more time each year on the foundation. He’s also gotten more hands-on with his family office, which invests in real estate development and hotel companies, among other sectors. 

Could those jobs someday be his life’s work? Dell’s next chapter could be a long one: Even after 40 years leading Dell, he’s still so young, at 59. But the thought of playing any role other than his current one—at the center of the business that he’s synonymous with—seems to stump him. When asked if he could see himself running Dell Technologies in 20 years, Dell says he hasn’t thought that far ahead, but that there’s no other role he craves. Then, at long last, he provides something like a money quote: “I’ve said this before: I’ll still care about Dell when I’m gone.”

The long and winding road

Michael Dell’s company began life in 1984 as PC’s Limited—selling computers, and that’s it. A few crucial pivots helped the company evolve and stay not just relevant but dominant.

1995 
Dell Computer, by then a Fortune 500 company, releases the first-generation PowerEdge enterprise server—its first attempt to sell data storage to enterprises.

2006
Dell joins the cloud era, announcing a new business unit that provides cloud products and services to customers. Demand is relatively slow to catch on.

Michael Dell and Egon Durban of PE firm Silver Lake take the company private in an effort to refocus the company on corporations’ data infrastructure needs.

Stuart Isett—Fortune Brainstorm Tech

2013
Michael Dell and Egon Durban of PE firm Silver Lake (above, with Dell at left) take the company private in an effort to refocus the company on corporations’ data infrastructure needs.

2016 
Dell acquires EMC and its stake in VMware for $67 billion, at the time the largest tech deal ever—making Dell’s data-storage and management portfolio far larger.

In February 2024, Dell announced its AI PC, which includes a “neural processor” to handle AI workloads.

Courtesy of Dell

2023 
Dell Technologies releases a series of infrastructure products, including servers and storage, that are optimized for generative-AI applications.

2024 
In February, the company announces its AI PC, which includes a “neural processor” to handle AI workloads. In early March, Dell Technologies stock hits an all-time high.

This article appears in the April/May 2024 issue of Fortune with the headline, “The [forever] founder.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

WATCH:

The majority of reports about Jewish “settler” violence against Palestinians are distortions or outright lies, with an incident that occurred overnight Wednesday an apt example of the disturbing phenomenon that dominates international headlines and endangers Jews worldwide.

Palestinians claimed that “settler militias” entered a village near Chevron overnight Wednesday and tried to murder residents by deliberately setting fire to a residential building. When IDF officials arrived to investigate the report, residents claimed that they heard “Jews shouting in Hebrew” before the fire.

Of course, international and left-wing Israeli media outlets immediately and gleefully reported the story as fact.

However, an investigation by the Yehuda and Shomron Fire and Rescue Service and forensic investigators from Israel Police ruled out arson, determining that the fire broke out due to an electrical fault, and no traces of an accelerant were found. In addition, the investigation found that no Jews had entered the village overnight.

The initial report was received this morning by the Yehuda and Shomron District Police, alleging that the residential building had been set on fire during the night. In response, officers from the Chevron police station arrived at the scene, along with a forensic investigator from the Yehuda and Shomron District and a fire investigator from the Yehuda and Shomron District Fire and Rescue Service.

The investigators entered deep into the area under IDF protection, collected numerous findings at the scene, and examined the source of the blaze.

At the conclusion of the investigation, it was determined that an electrical short circuit at the site had caused the fire, and no traces of an accelerant were found at the scene. These findings ruled out the residents’ claim that the fire was deliberately set by Israelis.

The claim that Jews had entered the area during the night was also not supported by any evidence found during the investigation. The findings of the police and Fire and Rescue Service investigators contradicted the initial account given regarding the circumstances of the fire.

Police spokesperson

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Defense Minister Yisrael Katz issued a sharp message to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday morning amid tensions surrounding Turkey’s military presence in Syria and Israel’s strike on a Syrian airbase overnight Monday.

The strike triggered furious reactions in Turkey, with pro-government media branding the attack a “war provocation.” In addition, Turkey’s defense ministry lied outright by claiming that no Turkish military delegation had visited the airbase before the strike, even after Syria admitted that a Turkish delegation visited the site a day before the Israeli attack.

Katz published his remarks on X in Turkish and Hebrew and even tagged Erdogan’s account.

“Erdogan is dragging Turkey into dangerous adventures in Syria,” Katz wrote.

“Israel will not allow any actor to threaten its security.”

“It would be better for Erdogan to continue delivering his delusional, empty speeches against Israel in the Turkish parliament rather than testing Israel’s resolve to defend itself.”

Kan News revealed on Wednesday that Israel provided the United States with intelligence showing that Turkey was preparing to establish a presence at the base after indirect talks aimed at reaching understandings with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa failed to produce an agreement.

A senior Israeli official also confirmed to Fox News that Israel shared sensitive intelligence with the United States shortly before the strikes. According to the report, the intelligence was provided directly to the highest levels of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The report added that Israel is not only concerned about the restoration of the runways at the airbase, which occupies a strategic location between the provinces of Idlib, Hama and Aleppo, but also about the possible deployment of air defense systems that could threaten Israel’s control of the airspace, as well as advanced drones.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

U.S. government debt has hit $40 trillion—an alarming milestone for economists who fear the nation’s fiscal policy is spiraling out of control.

It comes after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported earlier this month that deficits are now so large that the U.S. Treasury is paying $3 billion a day in interest, totaling $963 billion between October 2025 (when the 2026 fiscal year begins) and July 2026. 

Treasury data for August 18 shows the closing balance for the day on public debt outstanding totaled $40.04 trillion. 

Budget watchdogs have continually called on policymakers to get America’s fiscal house in order. Proposals range from cutting annual federal deficits in half as a share of GDP, down from the current 6% to 3%, to calls to “cut up the credit cards” entirely. The White House itself has indicated it recognizes a problem, with President Trump suggesting tariffs or visa policy could help plug the budget gap: So far, data suggests it won’t be enough.

With the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio now north of 120% (a metric lenders will watch when analyzing the risk premium on loans to the U.S.), debt hawks are warning the public is already paying, and is only going to start feeling the squeeze more acutely.

Michael Peterson is the chairman and CEO of the Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to putting the U.S. on a more sustainable fiscal path. Speaking to Fortune as America hit the $40 trillion benchmark, Peterson explained that even if families don’t receive a “bill in the mail” for national debt, they’re already paying.

He explained: “When the U.S. borrows this much—and continues to borrow more and more—that drives up interest rates, which then increases household expenses because your mortgage goes up, your car loan, your credit card bills, and inflation more generally. So [we] may not get a bill at the end of the month for national debt, but [we] are paying that bill both in the form of taxes as well as an inflated level of expenses.”

While the mechanics of how debt may trickle down to individual households’ finances are complicated, voters are nevertheless expressing concern about the topic as D.C. heads into midterms. In July, a Peterson Foundation study reported 94% of voters are more likely to support a candidate with a plan to address the debt, including 95% of Democrats, 92% of independents, and 94% of Republicans.

“To anyone who cares about America, about democracy and our future, in my view, this is already a crisis,” Peterson said, “because the level of fiscal mismanagement is tragic. It is burdening every household today, it’s laying more and more debt on our children and grandchildren, and that’s not how America got to be the great country that it is.”

What gives?

The bull case for debt is reasonable. Firstly, despite years of warnings, there has yet to be a market meltdown sparked by debt.

Indeed, Treasury yields—the surest sign of confidence in U.S. borrowing and lending—are showing no signs of acute discomfort. At the time of writing, 30-year Treasuries sit above 5%, elevated (in part) by the uncertainty of Federal Reserve policy. 10-year treasuries are sitting above 4.6% for a similar confluence of reasons.

But debt hawks point to other indicators that suggest the budget will have to give in one area or another.

Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist Oxford Economics, said in a recent note that “mandatory spending, including Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt, continue to see the most growth in spending. Fiscal year-to-date defense spending continues to creep higher as the war with Iran drags on; as of July, defense spending was up 5% y/y.”

A trade-off between two of those outlays seems to be on the books: The trust fund for social security is due to run dry in a little under eight years, and Medicare in a little under seven years, according to estimates by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

While “it’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment in time or an exact program that will be in jeopardy, if you care about government programs and what the government can do to help society, defend our country, make sure the most vulnerable are protected, and take care of the elderly, the first thing you should do is put us on a more stable fiscal path so that all those programs are less in jeopardy,” Peterson said.

However, any cross-party agreement to examine or target borrowing in order to reduce debt is yet to materialize. Peterson adds: “There’s a lack of urgency that concerns me. Just because the financial markets were OK yesterday doesn’t mean they’re gonna be OK tomorrow. To just continue to cross your fingers and hope that we can get away with a completely irresponsible level of budgeting is not a reasonable way to lead our country.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

LISTEN:

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Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have decided to return to the United Kingdom for an extended stay starting this fall, but they won’t resume their roles as working members of the royal family, The Associated Press learned Wednesday.

The couple’s children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, have already enrolled at British schools and will start classes in September, according to a person close to the Sussexes who was not authorized to speak publicly. The family plans to live at a private, non-royal residence outside of London, but plans to maintain their home in Montecito, California, and their vacation property in Portugal.

The Daily Telegraph first reported the story. When asked to discuss the reports by the AP at a roundtable event with U.S. veterans in Washington Wednesday night, Harry replied, “Nothing to say.”

Harry and Meghan gave up their royal duties and moved to California more than six years ago to earn their living through lucrative contracts with Netflix and Spotify. Although relations with the rest of the royal family have soured since then, Harry has recently expressed an interest in reconciliation so he could spend more time with his father, King Charles III, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer.

Charles was informed of the couple’s plans on Sunday. Harry and Meghan visited the U.K. last month.

Buckingham Palace has a policy of not commenting on speculation about non-working members of the royal family. A representative for Harry and Meghan declined to comment.

According to a source close to the Sussexes, Meghan will continue heading her As Ever company from the U.K., while Harry can spend more time working with his U.K.-based charities.

Harry and Meghan have had a stormy relationship with the royal family ever since they decamped to a mansion in the exclusive Southern California enclave of Montecito.

In a series of interviews and Harry’s memoir “Spare,” the couple said they left Britain to escape the restrictions of royal life and criticized palace officials for being insensitive to Meghan’s mental health while alleging that at least one member of the royal family had expressed racist views when she was pregnant with their first child. Meghan describes herself as biracial.

Those tensions were exacerbated by Harry’s long-running legal battle with Britain’s tabloid newspapers, which he alleges illegally hacked his phones and invaded his privacy when he was younger. The prince has lost a series of lawsuits against the media, including one against the publisher of the Daily Mail, which concluded last month.

The latest trial has left Harry facing a potential bill for millions of pounds after the court ruled he and other plaintiffs in the case were liable for the publisher’s legal fees. Associated Newspapers has filed documents showing that its legal costs amounted to 34.5 million pounds ($47 million).

Harry has also been embroiled in a legal wrangle with the British government after a government committee refused to authorize police protection for the prince and his family when they are in the U.K. The prince says he and his family need armed police protection because they are at risk simply because they are members of the royal family, regardless of whether they are working royals.

After losing a court battle over the security issue last year, Harry said he hoped to rebuild relations with his family.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

Last month, Harry returned to the U.K. for a series of charity engagements. Meghan and the children joined Harry for part of the visit and they spent time with the king at his Highgrove estate in western England. It was the first time Archie and Lilibet had seen their grandfather since the late Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee in 2022.

While Harry has recently met with his father, there are no signs of a warming of relations with his brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne.

Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said the surprise announcement would make William “apoplectic.”

“In the short term, Harry will be able to deepen his rapprochement with his father,” Hunt told Britain’s Press Association. “And his presence back home will make it harder for his brother to duck a reconciliation.”

(AP)

Israel is increasingly concerned about the approach being pursued by Tom Barrack, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey, as well as the degree of influence he may wield with President Trump, Ynet reported.

The latest clash between Israel and Barrack was not an isolated incident. Israel’s strike this week on the Abu al-Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria once again exposed significant differences between Jerusalem and the American envoy over Syria’s future, Turkey’s regional role and Israel’s freedom of military action.

Barrack responded to the strike by saying it created a “real risk” of rapid escalation and a direct confrontation involving Israel, Turkey and Syria. He warned that the lack of communication between the sides could have prompted Turkey to believe it was under attack and respond militarily.

Israeli security officials view the incident differently. The Prime Minister’s Office said Syria had ignored repeated Israeli warnings over plans to deploy Turkish forces at the base and that the strike was intended to prevent a change in the security balance on the ground.

For Israeli officials, however, the concern extends beyond Barrack’s public statements to the broader worldview he brings to the region — one in which Turkey, and particularly President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, plays a central role in shaping the emerging regional order.

“Barrack is considered someone who promotes Erdogan’s interests and those of the Syrian regime in the United States,” said an Israeli official familiar with Israel-Turkey relations. “He is not sensitive to Israeli sensitivities. He is focused on the immediate benefit the United States can gain from Syria.”

He added: “Netanyahu doesn’t like Barrack because he thinks Barrack is behind Trump’s support for Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and connects him to Erdogan.”

There are conflicting views in Israel, however, over how much influence Barrack actually has with Trump. On one hand, Barrack has been one of Trump’s close associates for decades. He was close to the president long before entering government and has over the years served as an important point of contact between Trump and officials in the Arab world and Gulf states.

On the other hand, Israeli officials stress that a close personal relationship does not necessarily translate into influence over policy. “It is not at all clear how much he influences Trump,” Israeli officials say. “He certainly doesn’t influence Rubio.”

As evidence, they noted the silence following Barrack’s criticism of the Abu al-Duhur strike: Neither Trump nor the State Department joined him in condemning Israel.

Senior Western diplomats, however, offer a different assessment. They believe Trump views Barrack as his point man on Turkish and Syrian affairs, arguing that his simultaneous appointment as ambassador to Ankara and special envoy for Syria demonstrates the degree of trust the president places in him.

The differences between Barrack and Jerusalem became increasingly apparent following Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rise to power in Damascus. Israel initially harbored serious concerns about Washington’s new approach toward the Syrian leadership, which enjoys significant Turkish backing. Trump himself met with al-Sharaa and supported a dramatic change in U.S. policy toward Damascus, while Barrack emerged as one of the key architects of contacts between Israel, Syria and Turkey.

During those contacts, however, it became clear that Barrack’s ambitions went beyond simply preventing a war between Israel and Syria. He promoted a broader vision centered on integrating Syria into the regional order, rebuilding its economy, strengthening its relationship with Turkey and reducing the American and Israeli military presence as much as possible.

Barrack has described the Israel-Syria conflict as a “solvable problem” and called for beginning with a nonaggression agreement. Israel, by contrast, wants to ensure that any new arrangement does not transform Syria into a Turkish client state or allow Ankara to establish military infrastructure that could threaten Israel or restrict its freedom of action.

One of Barrack’s statements that particularly strained relations with Israel came at a forum in Doha in December 2025. Barrack said that “Israel can claim that it is a democracy,” but added that what had “worked best” in the region was a “benevolent monarchy.”

The comments sparked outrage in Israel and were viewed in Jerusalem as an insult to the country’s democratic character.

Another particularly sensitive issue for Israel is Washington’s effort to bring Turkey closer to the U.S. security architecture. Barrack has publicly advocated progress toward Turkey’s possible return to the F-35 fighter jet program. Israel opposes such a move.

Those concerns are not theoretical. Turkey has emerged over the past year as one of the most influential players in rebuilding Syria’s military and security infrastructure. The Abu al-Duhur base at the center of the latest Israeli strike had been undergoing reconstruction with Turkish assistance.

Alongside Barrack’s personal relationship with Trump, some in Israel are suspicious of his extensive business background in the Middle East. Barrack, a Lebanese Maronite American billionaire and businessman, was involved for years in business deals and commercial relationships across the region, including extensive ties in Gulf states such as Qatar.

Some Israeli officials believe his business background helps explain his worldview: less emphasis on historic alliances and more focus on deals, stability, investment and the economic opportunities that can emerge from regional agreements.

“He is not necessarily against Israel — he simply does not see it through Israeli eyes,” those officials say.

That may be at the heart of Israel’s concerns about Barrack. Even Israeli officials who criticize him do not necessarily describe him as “anti-Israel.”  Rather, they worry that he does not share Israel’s starting assumption that security threats must take precedence over considerations of regional stability and economic interests.

Israel has repeatedly warned Washington that Turkey is helping rebuild the Syrian military and that Erdogan continues to engage in inflammatory rhetoric against Israel. Nevertheless, the prevailing assessment in Israel is that there is no immediate danger of a direct military confrontation between Israel and Turkey — though officials stress that both sides must take care to prevent relations from reaching that point.

“The Americans will not allow this under any circumstances and at any price,” said an Israeli official specializing in Israel-Turkey relations. “It would be a disaster for the United States if two of its allies were fighting each other. These are more like provocations on both sides intended for domestic political purposes.”

He added: “No one in Israel wants a war with Turkey. There is dialogue between Israel and Turkey. There are direct channels, but they are probably not effective enough. In any case, the Americans would like the dialogue to go through them so they can control it. The US envoy may be deliberately presenting the situation as more severe in order to strengthen the channel of dialogue through the United States.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Shalom Lion, z”l, father of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, was niftar on Wednesday at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv at the age of 92.

The niftar was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. His parents immigrated to Israel in the 1930s shortly after his birth. His father’s family remained in Europe and perished in Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Lion worked in the automotive field and for many years served as a chazzan and paytan at the Heichal Moshe shul in Givatayim. His sons, Moshe and Nissim, followed in his footsteps and also served as shlichei tzibbur for many years.

He married Chana, a’h, who passed away several years ago. They had three children: Moshe Lion, mayor of Jerusalem; Prof. Nissim Lion of Bar-Ilan University, one of Israel’s leading researchers of Chareidi society; and Prof. Orly Miron, head of the Department of Social and Health Sciences at Bar-Ilan University.

“Abba and Ima devoted their entire lives to educating their children,” Prof. Lion once said. “That was the central goal of their lives.”

His levayah is scheduled for Thursday at 5:00 p.m. at the Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Givatayim.

The family will sit shivah at 23 Sderot Ben Maimon in Jerusalem.

Yehi Zichro Baruch.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

LISTEN:

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States is launching an unprecedented economic war and campaign of isolation against Iran.

In a post published on Truth Social, President Trump wrote: “No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it.”

“Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale.”

Trump warned governments and financial entities worldwide from supporting Iran.

“Today, I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences,” he wrote.

“Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies – It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are.”

“This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate and defeat the Iran threat.”

“These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide,” he writes, without describing what the measures actually are. “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

In the run-up to the iPhone’s launch in 2007, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs made a fateful decision: Apple would not turn to its partner Intel to make chips for the device, on the grounds that the firm was “really slow…like a steamship,” as Jobs put it. Apple would rely on up-and-comer ARM instead.

Jobs’ decision helped set off a two-decade decline for an iconic Silicon Valley brand. The company was once so celebrated for its chipmaking innovations that hardware makers clamored to attach “Intel inside” stickers to their devices. But Intel went on to miss not only the mobile revolution, but the AI era, as competitors stole its market share.

By early last year, it was unclear if Intel could remain a going concern. But then something remarkable happened. The company brought on CEO Lip-Bu Tan and, in barely a year, became one of the hottest stocks on the market. The story of Intel’s ongoing turnaround could become the rebound story of the decade—one featuring bold leadership, tough decisions, and no small amount of luck.

When Tan took the helm in March 2025, the longtime semiconductor veteran became Intel’s third CEO in six years, and the sixth since legendary cofounder Andy Grove relinquished the post in 1998. By Tan’s arrival, Intel had become defined less by its chips than by the $50 billion in debt it carried. “There was a large recognition that we needed to right the balance sheet,” says CFO David Zinsner, “but not a lot of clarity on how we were going to do that.”

In response, Intel set about selling off noncore parts of the business and raising capital from what Zinsner describes as Tan’s “incredible network.” Soon, Intel had tapped billion-dollar investments from Nvidia and SoftBank; it also grabbed headlines when Tan agreed to let the Trump administration convert a scheduled $8.9 billion grant into an equity stake for the federal government.

“The SoftBank endorsement was good; the U.S. government endorsement was great,” says Zinsner, citing a halo effect that raised Intel’s standing with creditors and investors and shored up its capital structure.

But money alone could not address Intel’s deeper problem of corporate complacency. To combat it, Tan sought to impart a spirit of candor. He cut Intel’s management structure from 12 layers to six and made a point of hearing firsthand about its performance from people at all levels of the company—putting an end to a pervasive practice where managers would filter only good news to the C-suite.

“If there’s a problem and you tell me about it early, it’s our problem, and we’ve got to fix it. If you have a problem, and you don’t tell me, it’s your problem,” Tan told everyone at Intel upon his arrival, Zinsner recalls.

For all the rapid progress it has made under Tan, Intel still needs to show that its chips can compete. “They got fat, dumb, and lazy, and got their ass handed to them,” says Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. Nvidia and TSMC became the leaders of the AI era while Intel mostly watched from the sidelines.

Under Tan, however, Intel has been getting a bigger piece of the AI boom. Part of this has been a matter of luck, Rasgon explains: An insatiable demand for memory to support AI functions has led companies to find more uses for Intel’s traditional CPU chips. This has allowed Intel to sell huge amounts of existing inventory, helping to drive the surge in its share price.

The company’s real challenge is to prove it can still make the cutting-edge chips that once defined it. There are promising signs: Intel’s closely watched efforts to build chips using its next-generation 14A manufacturing process are on track, a technological transition that could help the company woo more big-spending customers. Intel’s design of chips for other companies, the other pillar of its business, got a big boost on recent reports that Apple may turn to the company again as a supplier.

While it’s too soon to say whether Intel will complete its comeback, it clearly has learned from past mistakes. According to Zinsner, Tan has largely departed from his predecessors’ tradition of frequently quoting Andy Grove. He has, however, adopted and repeated one of Grove’s most famous maxims: “Only the paranoid survive.”

This story ran in the June/July 2026 issue of Fortune as part of a feature called ‘Innovation Giants on the Rebound.’ For more Fortune 500 innovation stories, click here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Some universities are now allowing students and their families to pay tuition through PayPal and Venmo.

Among the first institutions offering the payment options are Bellarmine University, Butler University, Kansas State University, Michigan State University and Texas Tech University, although more universities are expected to join later this year.

Students and families may face transaction or processing fees, with the amount depending on the university and the funding method used.

The payment options are being integrated through campus payment platforms including Illumia, Nelnet Campus Commerce and TouchNet, which process tuition payments for institutions across the country.

“A modern tuition payment experience has to work for both sides of the transaction,” Don Smith, Illumia’s senior vice president and general manager of integrated payments, said in a statement.

“Students and families want the flexibility to use payment methods that fit how they manage their money, while institutions need those options to work within the systems and processes their teams already rely on. This integration helps schools expand choice in a practical way, improving the payer experience without creating a disconnected path for campus teams,” Smith added.

PayPal and its Venmo subsidiary have aimed to further expand their presence in higher education over the last year, offering student-athletes the opportunity to receive institutional revenue-share payments through their platforms. Venmo also expanded its presence on college campuses through NIL partnerships with student athletes, college-branded cards, student ambassadors and gameday activations.

The digital payment systems are already used by many students and families for daily money transfers, including purchasing groceries, splitting rent and sending money to friends and family.

“Tuition is one of the biggest payments a family will make, and it should come with the same flexibility and security that millions of people already count on PayPal and Venmo for every day,” Frank Keller, President of Checkout Solutions and PayPal, said in a statement. “That’s why we’re proud to bring that same choice and protection into the reliable systems schools have already built.”

The companies said PayPal and Venmo use security measures including encryption and fraud monitoring. Consumer regulators, however, have cautioned that money stored in nonbank payment apps may not carry the same deposit-insurance protections as funds held directly in a federally insured bank or credit union.

Certain eligible PayPal and Venmo balances may qualify for pass-through FDIC insurance when funds are placed at PayPal’s program banks, which currently include Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Wells Fargo Bank and JPMorgan Chase Bank. Not all PayPal or Venmo balances qualify for the coverage.

But FDIC pass-through insurance “protects against the failure of a Program Bank, not the failure of PayPal. PayPal is not a bank, does not take deposits and is not FDIC insured,” PayPal said in a statement.

Internet firm Naver has earned its nickname—Korea’s Google—by pulling off an improbable feat: It dominates South Korea’s search market, having defended its turf from Google, the world’s top search engine, whose revenue is 40 times as large as Naver’s. 

As of September 2023, Naver controlled 59% of Korea’s search market to Google’s 31%. 

Naver is perhaps “the only company in the world that has survived competition against Google and Amazon,” says Choi Soo-yeon, Naver’s CEO since 2022. 

Naver is hardly a household name outside Korea. But it operates a sprawling portfolio that pits the $22-billion-in-market-cap firm against other Big Tech giants on multiple fronts.

It has a controlling stake in both Yahoo Japan—the most popular website in Japan, according to Nielsen—and the Japanese messaging app Line—a WhatsApp rival—through a joint venture with SoftBank. 

It runs Korea’s No. 2 e-commerce service, behind Coupang. (Amazon’s platform ranks fourth.) Naver’s $1.2 billion purchase last year of Poshmark, the U.S.-based clothing-resale site, expanded its retail reach.

In the streaming wars era, Naver has amassed content platforms of its own. It owns Webtoon, which hosts mobile-friendly comic strips that are popular across Asia. (Naver is reportedly planning a U.S. IPO for Webtoon later this year.) Naver bought Wattpad, a Canada-based platform for user-submitted fiction, for $600 million in 2021. 

Naver is perhaps “the only company in the world that has survived competition against Google and Amazon.”

Choi Soo-yeon, Naver CEO

Naver also has a small but growing cloud-computing business—a category in which Amazon, Google, and Microsoft reign supreme—and it’s launched a series of AI projects to contend with the release of OpenAI’s viral chatbot, ChatGPT.

In recent quarters, Naver’s many business lines have notched record revenues and operating profits, but Choi sees Naver’s mission as extending beyond its own bottom line. 

Despite Naver’s small size, she casts the firm as a counterpoint in a global tech scene in which power is concentrated among a gargantuan few. 

“It’s becoming a world where there are only one or two search companies and one or two commerce companies,” Choi said in a recent wide-ranging interview—her first with the international press—at Naver headquarters in Seongnam, just outside Seoul. (Choi gave her answers in Korean, which were later translated into English.) Naver “is a company that constantly fights against such a world and strives to preserve diversity,” she says. 

Investors question whether Naver can go toe-to-toe with cash-rich rivals. Still, Choi’s goal is ambitious—perhaps even noble—and belies the role she was appointed to fill: that of a caretaker CEO brought on to steady a company in turmoil. 

Choi, 42, was an unconventional pick to run the company. A Harvard-educated M&A lawyer, she joined Naver in 2019 as head of global business support to help lead the firm’s expansion. Three years later, the board named Choi as CEO to show it was prepared to overhaul its culture after a series of crises. 

In May 2021, a senior Naver developer died by suicide after accusing the company of fostering a toxic work culture. A labor union probe found he’d been bullied by executives for years. A later government survey found that over half of employees felt they were bullied at least once in a six-month period. 

In the aftermath, Naver said “there were some acts of workplace harassment by some executives.” Choi’s predecessor as CEO, Han Seong-sook, stepped down, as did Naver’s COO, and Naver tapped Choi. At the time, she told shareholders her most urgent task was “to recover Naver’s corporate culture based on trust and autonomy.”

But a second tragedy struck early in Choi’s tenure. In September 2022, another employee died by suicide while on maternity leave, local media reported. Months later, her family claimed she’d been mistreated at work. A Naver internal investigation did not uncover evidence of harassment, and Korea’s labor ministry could not confirm the family’s claims, a company spokesperson said.

South Korea has the highest rate of suicide of all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, and South Koreans work 200 hours more per year than the global average.

“There was a lack of trust in the systems, leadership, and board,” Choi says of Naver’s previous culture. One big change Choi made was to reintroduce remote work, a rarity in post-COVID South Korea. The option gives employees “the choice of what kind of working environment they can be most productive and create the most innovation in.” 

The suicides were the biggest scandal to rock Naver in its 25-year history. Naver launched in 1999, when founder Lee Hae-jin turned an internal Samsung project into an independent company. By the mid-2000s, Naver had passed rivals like web portal Daum to dominate Korea’s search market.

Naver and fellow internet firm Kakao (founded by an ex-Naver executive) have made South Korea one of a handful of countries where homegrown search engines outperform U.S. search giants without government intervention.

Naver got a head start on tailoring a search engine that met the tastes of the South Korean market, says Bokyung Suh, a Korea analyst at Bernstein Research. Naver hooked users early with its busy homepage that was heavy on icons, links, and animations. Google launched a bare-bones search engine in Korean in 2000, but it didn’t catch on. Google updated its site to a feature-rich format six years later. 

Naver earned 9.6 trillion won ($7.41 billion) in revenue in 2023, a record. Search and e-commerce generated 37% and 26% of sales, respectively. It made $1.3 billion in operating profit, also a record. 

Yet shares are currently trading about 60% below a COVID-era high. Investors are concerned about slowing revenue from search (up 0.6% in 2023), plummeting revenue from display ads (down 10% last year), and the lack of a “punchy, clear growth strategy,” Suh says. 

Naver’s lack of a punchy, clear growth strategy is especially worrisome in the AI age, when Naver faces U.S. companies that are investing billions in the technology. 

As U.S. giants dominate English-based AI, Naver may be able to establish an edge in systems based in Korean and other languages, Choi says.

Naver has a chatbot, CLOVA X, and an AI-powered search engine, Cue. Both are built on its Korean-language large-language model, HyperCLOVA X, which outperforms OpenAI’s GPT in Korean, recent studies say. Naver has claimed that HyperCLOVA, an earlier version of its model, was trained on 6,500 times as much Korean data as GPT-3.0, which underpins OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Naver is also partnering with Saudi Aramco on an Arabic large-language model.

Choi is especially interested in what she calls “sovereign AI,” or a model that’s tailored to an individual user. “We focus on what companies and governments that want to use AI would want, and what needs Big Tech can’t fulfill,” she says. As AI becomes more common, “each group will need an AI model that best understands” its unique traits. 

Sources: Bloomberg; Naver

Much like her rivals at Google and Microsoft, Choi is also grappling with how to integrate AI—with its penchant to hallucinate false information—into Naver’s search product. “People need accurate information through search,” she says, though she hopes AI’s tendency to make stuff up will become “nearly negligible in the near future.”

At the same time, she also sees room for a traditional search engine—with its list of links to choose from—amid the generative AI revolution. “Not all questions in the world have a single correct answer,” she says. “There is still a need for exploration.” 

Naver’s base in South Korea, a chip powerhouse, is an advantage in the AI race, especially its homegrown manufacturers “that support the Korean language,” Choi says. Naver’s chip partners include Korea’s Samsung and the U.S.’s Intel.

“It’s not healthy to rely on just one company,” Choi says. Is that a coded reference to Nvidia? Yes, she says in English, with a smile.

Just four of South Korea’s top 100 firms by revenue had women CEOs last year, according to global headhunter UnicoSearch. Just 6% of executives at the companies were women.

Choi, whose CEO contract expires in 2025, expresses some unease at often being a “sole woman” in business: “Simply because I am a woman, there are expectations for me to demonstrate skills such as effective communication, adept conflict resolution, and the ability to nurture people.” 

Korea’s internet sector got a little more diverse when Kakao appointed its first female CEO, Shina Chung, in March. 

“I’m not alone anymore!” Choi says.

Fortune Korea contributed additional reporting and translation assistance.

This article appears in the April/May 2024 issue of Fortune_._

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

For fifty years, the fastest and cheapest way to build a house in America was effectively zoned out of most neighborhoods. That is changing, and the reason is simple: nothing else has brought prices down.

In Santa Rosa, California, a row of new one-story houses on Acacia Lane looks much like the taller houses across the street. They were built in a factory. Long stigmatized and barred outright by many towns and cities, factory-built housing is being reconsidered in places where home prices have climbed out of reach, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The economics are not subtle. A new manufactured home recently averaged about $135,000, and the Niskanen Center estimates these homes cost 27% to 65% less than comparable houses built on site. A typical site-built house runs north of $400,000. A buyer priced out of one market can be a homeowner in the other.

What kept these homes on the margins was a single federal rule written in 1974. Every manufactured home had to sit on a permanent steel chassis, the frame with axles used to haul it to the lot. The frame stayed attached forever, whether or not the house ever moved again.

It almost never did. Fewer than 5% of manufactured homes are ever moved from where they were first placed, according to research cited in a widely referenced federal report. Fewer than one in twenty. For the other nineteen, the steel served as expensive dead weight beneath the floor.

The chassis also did something worse than add cost. Because the home was built on a frame with wheels, most states classified it as personal property — like a vehicle — rather than as real estate. That pushed buyers into chattel loans carrying higher interest rates, shorter terms and fewer protections than an ordinary mortgage. The cheapest house on the market came with the most expensive financing.

Congress removed the requirement. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law on July 11 after passing the Senate 85 to 5 and the House 358 to 32. Dropping the frame cuts roughly $10,000 from the price of a single-section home, about 9% of its cost.

The bigger change is what it unlocks. Under the law, states have one year — two where legislatures meet every other year — to certify that homes built without a chassis are treated the same as traditional manufactured homes for financing, title, insurance and taxes. Once a home can be titled as real property, it qualifies for conventional, FHA and VA mortgages — the same loans everyone else gets, at the same rates.

Removing the frame also lets builders stack units into two-story homes and small apartment buildings, which matters most in expensive states where the land, not the house, is the cost.

None of this is finished. Lenders will not change their guidelines until federal rulemaking is complete, state legislatures have to act, and local zoning boards still control what gets built where. The Santa Rosa development is what the argument looks like when it works — houses that a passerby cannot pick out from their neighbors, at a price a first-time buyer can actually carry.

The remaining barrier was never the building. It was the rules around it, and the town councils willing to change them.

JBizNews Desk | New York

© JBizNews.com All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or distribution without written permission is prohibited.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman because he is unhappy the country is close to a deal with Iran to manage ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, two regional officials said on Tuesday, a day after Trump leveled the threat.

The officials said the Trump administration has told Oman it is opposed to parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, including the joint Iranian and Omani management of the exit route out of the passage that’s critical to global supplies of oil and natural gas. The officials were briefed on the U.S. position and how the administration views Oman’s position.

Meanwhile, a projectile hit a ship as it sailed out of the strait, and a cargo vessel was rendered a “constructive total loss” by multiple projectiles off the coast of Yemen, according to the British military’s maritime monitoring agency. The defense ministry of the United Arab Emirates said two ballistic missiles were launched from Iran toward the UAE.

An Iranian official said the strait would not reopen until the United States meets Iran’s conditions.

US believes Oman has not been tough enough with Iran

The U.S. believes Oman has not been tough enough in its negotiations with Iran and is unhappy with Oman’s agreement to collect voluntary fees from vessels, even if the charges are related to security and maritime environmental protection, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

Trump on Monday threatened to bomb Oman as it works with Iran on a deal to open the strait and pave the way for the U.S. and Iran to resume negotiations to end the war.

He posted a map on social media on Tuesday depicting the strait as U.S. territory. The president first mentioned the idea in an offhand comment last week. On Monday, he told reporters in the Oval Office, “I like the idea of declaring it a territory,” without providing details.

The White House on Tuesday referred to Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office and declined to comment further about Oman.

Iran refers to Trump’s ‘delusion’ about the strait

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi appeared to respond to Trump’s post on social media depicting the strait as American territory.

“Just as Trump correctly wrote the name of the eternal Persian Gulf, his delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will soon either be corrected, or we will correct this deluded man’s delusions for him,” Gharibabadi wrote on X.

Trump’s comment on Monday was not the first time he has threatened Oman. In May, he told reporters during a Cabinet meeting that Oman “will behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up.”

Iran reiterated Tuesday that Tehran plans to maintain its grip on shipping traffic until Washington meets its conditions.

“Until the United States fulfills its commitments under the agreement, including lifting the blockade, releasing frozen assets, lifting oil sanctions, ending threats and military operations on all fronts, and implementing the other conditions to which it committed, the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen,” said Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and negotiator in previous talks with the U.S.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the Iranian-Omani deal could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations for a “comprehensive and permanent deal that addresses all concerns and enhances regional security and stability.”

The statement came after a meeting between Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Omani counterpart Badr al-Busaidi. But it did not address Trump’s latest threat against Oman.

Trump insists the strait is open as more attacks are reported

Trump said on Tuesday the U.S. has no planned talks with Iran but insisted the strait is “open and operating,” despite limited traffic, the reported boat strike and the end on Monday of the 60-day negotiating period between the countries.

Trump wrote on social media that a U.S. blockade of the strait remains “in full force and effect,” adding that all water mines have been removed.

As the talks between Iran and Oman continue, more attacks were reported in the region.

Both missiles fired at the UAE fell into the sea, the UAE Defense Ministry said. No damage or injuries were reported. Iran disputed the UAE’s claim that it launched missiles toward the country.

The ministry later said assessments showed that the missiles targeted maritime traffic. It was not clear whether they directly targeted UAE ships or the country’s territorial waters.

In the weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28, the UAE was frequently targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, but Tuesday’s reported attack was the first in weeks.

An unidentified projectile hit a ship early Tuesday in the strait off the coast of Oman, damaging the engine room and causing a casualty, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations center.

The monitoring agency did not release any details about the ship or its cargo, and it was unclear whether the crew member was killed or wounded. The agency said the Omani Coast Guard was assisting other crew members and that authorities were investigating.

Elsewhere, the cargo ship that was deemed a loss was struck about 40 nautical miles (74 kilometers) southeast of Mokha, Yemen, the UKMTO center reported.

The center did not identify the projectiles or those responsible.

The Iran-aligned Houthi rebels resumed attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea in July and escalated attacks on Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces. The renewed assaults have threatened shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, another key global trade route.

In other developments, the Houthis claimed they fired drones at an oil refinery in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the latest attack that threatened to reignite Yemen’s civil war and open another front in the Middle East.

The attack targeted a facility run by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, according to a report by the Houthi-run SABA news agency. There were no immediate reports of damage or comment from Saudi Arabia.

___

Associated Press writer Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

A dramatic budget crisis is threatening to force the complete closure of Me’aras Hamachpeilah just weeks before the Tishrei Yomim Tovim, with Israel’s Religious Services Ministry ordering preparations to shut the site within 14 days unless funding is restored.

The warning follows an interim order issued by the High Court of Justice freezing budget transfers that had been approved for the operation of holy sites. Religious Services Ministry Director-General Yehuda Avidan says the order has left the ministry without an approved funding source to continue operating Me’aras Hamachpeilah and other sites overseen by the National Center for the Development of Holy Places.

In letters sent to senior officials, Avidan instructed them to prepare for the possibility that the National Center’s operations will cease at the beginning of September, while a separate urgent directive lays out preparations to close Me’aras Hamachpeilah entirely.

Avidan wrote to ministry Deputy Director-General Yisrael Deri and National Center comptroller Ora Doron that although the Knesset Finance Committee approved budget transfers needed to fund ongoing operations, Justice Alex Stein subsequently issued a temporary order blocking implementation of the transfers.

“Therefore,” Avidan wrote, “since without approval of the budget request the ministry has no budgetary source to maintain the ongoing operations of the National Center for the Development of Holy Places, I hereby inform you that if a solution is not found by the end of August, the operations of the National Center, including the various sites, will cease immediately at the beginning of September. Please prepare accordingly.”

In a second urgent letter addressed to Amitai Cohen, director of the Me’aras Hamachpeilah administration, and Uri Tzubari of the Kiryat Arba Religious Council, Avidan detailed the measures that would have to be taken if the funding crisis is not resolved.

According to Avidan, the Religious Services Ministry is responsible for financing and maintaining the day-to-day operation of Me’aras Hamachpeilah. However, the site’s operating budget is not incorporated into the permanent base of the state budget and instead relies almost entirely on coalition funds.

With those funds now frozen by the High Court, Avidan said the ministry has been left without an authorized source from which it can legally pay the expenses required to keep the site functioning.

“The ministry is not withdrawing and is not shirking its responsibility toward Me’aras Hamachpeilah, which is a heritage site of supreme religious and historical importance,” Avidan wrote. “However, in accordance with the laws of the State of Israel, and as a government ministry obligated to operate according to the rules of proper administration, the ministry is not permitted to allow or continue any contractual engagements without actual budgetary coverage.”

Avidan therefore ordered officials to immediately begin preparing for a complete shutdown of Me’aras Hamachpeilah within 14 days.

Under the contingency plan, all visitors, mispallelim and tourists would be barred from entering the site, and the gates of Me’aras Hamachpeilah would be locked.

Employees working at the site would receive termination notices, while contracts with outside companies and service providers responsible for cleaning, maintenance, transportation and other operations would also be discontinued.

All scheduled events, simchos, ceremonies and other activities at Me’aras Hamachpeilah would be canceled immediately, with organizers instructed to be notified that their events could no longer take place.

Officials were also ordered to urgently coordinate with the IDF, Israel Police and Border Police for the transfer of physical and security responsibility for the building to the security forces once the civilian security and crowd-management operations cease functioning.

Nonessential systems would be shut down, utility consumption would be disconnected or reduced where possible, and measures would be taken to protect the building and equipment throughout the closure.

The ministry would additionally issue public notices announcing that Me’aras Hamachpeilah is closed in order to prevent visitors and mispallelim from traveling to the site unnecessarily.

The potential shutdown comes at a particularly sensitive time, with the Tishrei Yomim Tovim approaching and large numbers of mispallelim traditionally visiting Me’aras Hamachpeilah during the period.

Avidan concluded his directive by expressing regret over the extraordinary situation while emphasizing that the ministry cannot legally continue operating without authorized funds.

“We deeply regret reaching this unfortunate situation, but as stated, the law requires us to take these steps until a solution is found and the necessary budgetary source is arranged by the authorities responsible for doing so.”

Noam Party chairman MK Avi Maoz is calling for expanded Chareidi development in Yehuda and Shomron, arguing that new communities in the region could both strengthen the Jewish presence there and provide a potential solution to the severe housing shortage facing the Chareidi community.

Maoz made the comments during a visit to the Chareidi community of Mitzpe Leah in Binyamin, where he met with the community’s founder, Rav Ephraim Hershkowitz, as well as local residents.

During the visit, Maoz was briefed on plans to expand Chareidi settlement throughout Yehuda and Shomron and heard about infrastructure and development challenges currently facing the community.

Rav Hershkowitz described the establishment of Mitzpe Leah and its growth over the years. He also discussed cooperation between the Chareidi residents and members of other communities living in the surrounding area.

Maoz toured Mitzpe Leah, visited its shul and spoke with residents about daily life in the community. Residents raised the need for greater assistance from government ministries and local authorities to enable the community to continue developing.

Maoz said expanding Chareidi communities in Yehuda and Shomron could accomplish two objectives simultaneously: strengthening Jewish settlement in the region while opening additional and potentially more affordable housing opportunities for Chareidi families.

“Chareidi settlement in Yehuda and Shomron is important for safeguarding Eretz Yisroel and can also serve as a solution to the Chareidi housing crisis,” Maoz said.

At the conclusion of his visit, Maoz urged local authorities throughout Yehuda and Shomron “to open the door and assist the development of Chareidi settlement in every possible way.”

“Just as the Torah belongs to all of Klal Yisroel, so too Eretz Yisroel belongs to all of Klal Yisroel, and settling it is both a privilege and a responsibility of all sectors,” Maoz said.

Maoz added that his party intends to work with the relevant government officials and agencies to advance the continued development of Mitzpe Leah and facilitate further expansion of Chareidi communities throughout the region.

{Matzav.com}

Gilad Erdan, chairman of the new Unity Party, says Israel should grant military-service deferments to exceptional Torah scholars chosen by leading rabbonim and roshei yeshiva, arguing that Torah study deserves at least the same recognition the state gives outstanding athletes and artists.

In a wide-ranging interview with Yishai Cohen in the Kikar HaShabbat studio, the former Likud minister laid out his new political platform, explained why he left Likud, addressed his party’s weak showing in current polls and spoke extensively about Chareidi military service and education.

Erdan rejected accusations that he has become anti-Chareidi and said he opposes mass arrests of yeshiva bochurim or proposals to strip draft evaders of voting rights. At the same time, he insisted that every Israeli citizen should ultimately contribute through military, national or civilian service and called on Chareidi leaders to actively encourage enlistment.

He also advocated a gradual transition toward state-run Chareidi education with core curriculum studies, while stressing that such changes should not be imposed overnight.

On the broader political front, Erdan ruled out joining a narrow right-wing or left-wing government. He said he would be prepared to send Israel back to elections rather than abandon his commitment to forming a broad unity government.

The interview began with Erdan discussing the Likud primaries and his decision to leave the party.

“Some of those elected are friends of mine, and I congratulate them. But in Likud it doesn’t really matter, and that is also why I left Likud and departed from Likud. Because in Likud, it doesn’t really matter where you are on the list or whether you were elected to a high or low position.

“I was elected five times in the top three — the ability to influence what happens to the people through your position on the list is simply zero. Because in the end, the prime minister wants to survive as prime minister, and the result is that he gives instructions to all the elected officials and they have to fall in line on the issues that are most significant today to the citizens of the country, and I’m sure we’ll discuss them further — such as the draft law.”

Erdan was then asked about his assertion that he had been offered a reserved slot on the Likud slate but turned it down, a claim that Likud officials have denied.

“What can I tell you? I think that for decades I have had zero zigzags and have never deviated from the things I told the public, and I believe that most of the public believes me that I don’t want a reserved slot in Likud and that I embarked on a new path.”

“You know,” Erdan continued, “they were searching high and low for new figures who are representative and statesmanlike. There are those who would say that I meet the criteria, fine, but that’s not the point. I’m not interested in reserved slots; I’m interested in leading a path of unity.”

Erdan said the current Likud bears little resemblance to the party of earlier generations.

“That is exactly what shows that today’s Likud is not the original Likud of the past. Today, as a ruling party for many years already, many special-interest elements have penetrated and entered this party whose goal is not the path of Jabotinsky or Begin. Their goal is to influence political decisions.”

He added: “There are always phenomena like this in a ruling party, with special-interest groups that want to exert influence, but I think it has now reached an all-time high. And that is one of the reasons I want to exert influence through my own independent path of unity.”

Asked about polls showing his Unity Party failing to cross the electoral threshold, and whether his relatively late entry into the race had hurt his chances, Erdan said he believes voters remain open to hearing his message.

“I feel that the public is more open than ever to being persuaded and listening, and wants to understand deeply in these elections how things will affect its future. It could be that if we had started a little earlier, the beginning would have been easier. It doesn’t matter. We charged ahead. All day, I and every member of our slate are at parlor meetings and meetings with the public.”

Asked why that activity has yet to translate into stronger poll numbers, Erdan said his party has not yet achieved sufficient public awareness.

“We still don’t have enough public awareness. In the coming days, we will increase our exposure through our campaign, including billboards and additional means. And once the public internalizes the existence of the Unity Party, the values we represent and who our team is — you will see that, with Hashem’s help, it will gain momentum.”

Cohen asked whether the so-called third bloc could ultimately unite, mentioning Chili Tropper and Benny Gantz as potential partners.

“There is a dramatic difference. First of all, you are right, and the public is right to expect the parties in the bloc known as the ‘unity bloc’ — and I call it ‘unity and solutions’ — and there are currently three parties in this bloc, and it is a legitimate demand that we find a solution for how to work together.

“But when Chili Tropper, who comes from the left, while I am clearly a man of the right, says that he is prepared to give Gadi Eisenkot the votes for a narrow government that will ultimately be controlled by the extreme left-wing positions of Yair Golan or, rachmana litzlan, the Arab parties — then I cannot go together with him, unless he changes that position and makes clear, as we do, that we will not join any narrow government.”

Asked whether that meant he was moving toward a merger with Benny Gantz, Erdan said no agreement could yet be assumed.

“No, it still can’t be assessed, because ultimately it also depends on the conditions. What can be assumed is that every effort will be made to create one party that will lead this. I believe that it will be the Unity Party under my leadership. The people are moving to the right. Whoever is supposed to lead such a bloc needs to be a right-wing person whom the public feels comfortable with.”

Asked directly whether he would insist on leading any such united party, Erdan responded:

“With Hashem’s help, I will try to convince them that this is the right thing. Because if today 70%-80% of the Jewish public defines itself as right-wing or center-right, then whoever needs to lead such a bloc should be a right-wing person whom the public trusts to fight, in any government that is formed, for it to be a government that represents right-wing positions.”

The interview then turned to Chareidi issues. Cohen told Erdan that a Chareidi MK had asked what had happened to a politician who had once been considered a close friend and political partner of the Chareidi parties.

“Whoever calls me anti-Chareidi is a liar or has an agenda. And I come from Religious Zionism and studied at Yeshivat Netiv Meir not far from here, and who better than I understands the importance of keeping mitzvos and, first and foremost, Torah study.

“But together with those values, we live here together in the State of Israel, the state of the Jewish people. And when I look — and this is my obligation as an elected official or as someone who now wants to return to the public arena — my obligation is to look at the long term: How will the State of Israel, with Hashem’s help, continue to exist? And it will only be able to continue to exist if all the citizens of the country… And this is not only connected to Chareidim; it also relates to secular people who don’t serve in the military or national service.”

Cohen asked Erdan to spell out his plan for Chareidi enlistment and whether he would accept Eisenkot’s proposal to exempt 3% of the overall draft-age cohort.

“First of all, I don’t think Gadi Eisenkot will really stand by anything he is saying right now, and the same applies to the other side, because what is important to them is getting to the prime minister’s chair — something that I have currently put aside. I think there must be a basic principle that every citizen in the State of Israel serves the state in some way: national service, civilian service, and combat service. The most urgent thing today is combat soldiers, in order to guarantee Israel’s security with all the fronts surrounding us.

“And therefore, anyone who can be a combat soldier should do it. And I say: The obligation to serve, the obligation to serve, will apply to everyone. I am against mass arrests. I don’t believe that we will turn someone into a combat soldier by sending him to prison. I don’t think, chas v’shalom, that voting rights should be revoked, as in the positions of Lieberman and Hendel.”

Erdan stressed that withholding fundamental democratic rights was a line he would not cross.

“I don’t think, chas v’shalom, that voting rights should be revoked — those are populist positions. In a democratic country, you don’t violate a person’s basic civil rights, not because he or his grandfather was more or less loyal to the state, right? There are basic things, okay? Children deserve to receive what they deserve to receive.”

Asked whether there would be exemptions for Torah learners, Erdan answered unequivocally.

“Absolutely yes. It’s not a matter of exemptions but rather deferment of service. I think Torah study is a more important value than outstanding athletes or artists, okay? And if the State of Israel today knows how to accommodate and prioritize outstanding athletes or outstanding artists in order to exempt them from military service — then certainly, all the more so, and all the more so again, Torah prodigies as well, with the geonim, the roshei yeshiva and the leading rabbonim of the generation deciding whom they want.”

Erdan said, however, that the willingness to accommodate elite Torah scholars must be accompanied by a constructive approach from Chareidi leadership toward military service.

“It also depends on willingness. If the leaders of the Chareidi public do not fight against enlistment but instead come with a constructive approach and say: ‘Listen, in order for us to speak to our public and encourage it to enlist — first of all, we need to see not one Chashmonaim Brigade, but infrastructure ready for ten Chashmonaim Brigades, with the required kashrus, with gender separation.’ I have no problem with any of those things! Because we want to make sure that someone who enters the military as a Chareidi can also leave his military service as a Chareidi.”

Cohen then asked whether Erdan accepted the framework advanced by his political ally Yuli Edelstein before Israel’s strike on Iran, which spoke of eventually reaching enlistment levels of roughly 50% of the Chareidi draft cohort.

“No, don’t call it the ‘Edelstein framework.’ With all due respect, Yuli was the committee chairman. He received it from the government, from the prime minister. And given the overall situation and the existential anxiety that existed in the country at the time, the desire to reach compromises — it still exists. I still understand that we need to try to reach compromises — but there are certain moral principles that I am not interested in compromising on, and I see no reason to compromise on them.”

Erdan argued that the conversation over Chareidi enlistment needs to be reversed, with Chareidi leaders approaching the broader Israeli leadership with their own proposal.

“The approach is that the leadership of the majority of the Israeli public needs to come to the political leadership of the Chareidi public and say, ‘Oh, we’ll give you this-and-this percentage; will you agree to encourage enlistment?’ No! Let the leaders of the Chareidi public come and tell the leadership of the entire country in Israel: ‘Look, if you agree to such-and-such a percentage of exceptional Torah learners receiving an exemption or deferment, then we will encourage the children of the Chareidi public to be part of the country, to get under the stretcher.’ Then we can begin talking! To come and tell the majority of the public, ‘Give us a number and we’ll start from there’?”

The conversation then moved to core curriculum requirements in Chareidi schools. Cohen asked whether Erdan supported Naftali Bennett’s position that institutions failing to teach the full core curriculum should receive no government funding, with education ultimately becoming state-run.

“I think there needs to be a gradual process here, at the end of which the state-Chareidi schools will be an official educational stream, okay? We will legislate it as an official stream, and of course there will be the necessary accommodations for the children of the Chareidi public. I don’t think that overnight we should punish the children, but a gradual framework must be established.”

Asked whether that meant all institutions would eventually become state-run, Erdan said:

“It sounds as though that is some kind of dirty word. Yes, I think that ultimately every sane country that wants to live and wants to survive — its children need to receive an education that connects them to Zionism, that connects them to the state, that brings them to what I believe is the correct conclusion, for which there is no alternative: that they need to be part of the state in every sphere. And that is how I view the education of children in the Chareidi public.”

Cohen asked whether Erdan would rule out sitting in a government with Aryeh Deri, Moshe Gafni or Yitzchok Goldknopf.

“If they accept the principles — I don’t rule anyone out. You know what they say: A baal teshuvah…”

Asked why he does categorically rule out the Arab parties, Erdan replied:

“Correct. It doesn’t matter what the Arab parties say; I don’t believe them. If in the most difficult hours for the people of Israel after October 7 they are incapable of identifying with us, condemning Hamas, saying that it is a terrorist organization — then everything they say is within the framework of what Muhammad taught his believers, right? To lie and one day slaughter Jews when possible. I don’t accept that in any legitimate government.”

Erdan then returned to the possibility of governing alongside the Chareidi parties.

“Now,” he said, “Aryeh Deri, Moshe Gafni, everyone whom we have known for decades — if they accept these principles, then of course we can argue about how much time the processes should take. I’m not naive. I’m a politician and public figure of decades. Obviously, there are processes.”

Cohen presented Erdan with a post-election scenario: If his party crosses the electoral threshold and neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot agrees to form a unity government, would he support one of them in reaching 61 seats or force another election?

“First of all, we’ll see whom the people gave greater legitimacy to form a government. I will demand that he make a very generous offer to the other side, and therefore, if the side that did not receive the legitimacy refuses, then we will point to that side as the one refusing unity. And with no alternative, I will not violate my commitments to the public: We said that we would bring unity, I am genuinely right-wing, and we will also pass the law requiring service for everyone. Therefore, if one side refuses unity — we will go back to the people, at least once, for at least one additional election. We will point to that side as the one that caused another election because it refused.”

Cohen pressed him on whether that meant he was genuinely prepared to accept another election rather than join either a narrow right-wing government or a narrow center-left coalition.

“A narrow government would be a major disaster for Israel. And I’ll say it in language that may be extreme, yes: Unity or we die! Not that all of us will, chas v’shalom, die. The value today of unity — of sitting together and solving problems, and reaching a broad judicial reform by consensus, and how we fight together against the unions to lower the cost of living, and how we find a solution for service by all citizens of the country that also protects the lifestyle of the Chareidi public, and also Arabs who need to perform national service…”

{Matzav.com}

The U.S. Justice Department announced an expanded indictment against 17 Iranian nationals linked to the Mabna Institute, an Iranian company accused of carrying out cyberattacks on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other entities since at least 2013.

According to the indictment, the network hacked approximately 8,000 accounts belonging to professors at 144 universities in the United States and 178 universities around the world, stealing more than 31 terabytes of research and intellectual property.

The hackers are also accused of breaching systems belonging to private companies and government agencies. One defendant is additionally charged with attempting to extort HBO for $6 million in Bitcoin. The United States is offering rewards of up to $10 million for information leading to the location of some of the defendants.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The U.S. military has quietly established a shipping corridor through the southern Strait of Hormuz, moving millions of barrels of oil into global markets each day while protecting tanker traffic from Iranian drones and cruise missiles, Axios reports.

The operation has been underway for several weeks, with roughly 15 to 20 tankers entering and exiting the strait each night through a southern channel along the coast of Oman. U.S. officials said close to 10 million barrels of oil are now moving out of the Gulf every day, roughly half the volume transported before the war.

On some nights, the amount has surged far higher, reaching between 15 million and 20 million barrels. More than 20 ships were scheduled to transit the southern lane Tuesday night, with approximately 15 million barrels of oil potentially leaving the Gulf.

The operation goes well beyond escorting tankers already carrying oil. The U.S. military is coordinating empty vessels traveling from the Arabian Sea into the Gulf, where they load oil from the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait before returning through the strait.

Each night, outbound vessels are organized into one large group and assigned a specific transit window, while inbound tankers move separately during another designated period. Ships are given checkpoints along the route and are required to report as they pass through them.

Above the corridor, U.S. Air Force fighter jets circle overhead searching for Iranian drones and cruise missiles and intercepting them when necessary.

“We have been controlling the southern lane of the Strait of Hormuz for two months now,” one U.S. official with direct knowledge of the operation said. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can be a nuisance, but they don’t control the strait. We do.”

The task force overseeing the operation is being run from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and is coordinating closely with Gulf partners.

U.S. officials said the corridor became possible following a two-week U.S. Central Command campaign that degraded Iran’s radar and maritime-surveillance capabilities. Iran is now believed to have only limited visibility into traffic moving through the southern channel, relying on several restored radar systems and spotters aboard small IRGC fast boats.

With much of that surveillance capability degraded, Iranian forces have been launching drones and cruise missiles toward areas where they believe ships may be moving. Some vessels have been hit, but U.S. forces have intercepted many of the attacks.

On Monday night alone, American forces shot down eight Iranian drones and two cruise missiles, according to a U.S. official.

Officials said traffic through the corridor has continued steadily over the past two weeks, with 15 to 20 tankers moving through the southern channel each night and average daily oil exports steadily increasing.

President Trump told Axios on Wednesday that “there is a tremendous amount of oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Trump also said the United States is not currently negotiating with Iran.

“They are wasting time. It’s a waste of time to negotiate with them,” Trump said.

“The Iranians still have some fight left, but overall they are a shell of themselves,” he added.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Fuel stations in Moscow have reimposed limits on gasoline purchases due to fuel shortages linked to Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries and strong seasonal demand, according to Reuters witnesses and fuel suppliers.

Shortages began to gather pace in May and had spread to most Russian regions by July, but fuel stations in Moscow were able to ease an earlier wave of restrictions in June.

Ukraine has targeted Russian oil refineries in an effort to undermine Moscow’s war effort and reduce energy revenues.

To boost domestic supplies, Russian authorities have banned exports of gasoline and diesel, eased fuel quality requirements and began importing petroleum products.

Reuters witnesses also saw long queues at some filling stations in Moscow and the surrounding region.

Gasoline purchases restricted to 40 liters per customer in Russia

A customer hotline operator at Gazprom Neft SIBN.MM said gasoline and diesel sales at the company’s automated filling stations in Moscow were limited to 40 liters per customer.

At Gazprom Neft’s other filling stations, diesel sales remain unrestricted, while gasoline purchases are capped at 60 liters per vehicle.

Rosneft ROSN.MM, Russia’s largest oil producer, said gasoline sales at all its filling stations across Russia were limited to 30 liters per vehicle, while diesel sales faced no restrictions.

The company also warned customers of longer waiting times because of heightened demand.

Lukoil LKOH.MM said it had introduced fuel sales restrictions in Moscow and the surrounding region because of elevated demand, unscheduled refinery maintenance and the need to ensure stable operations at its filling stations.

It did not disclose the specific limits.

Tatneft’s TATN.MM customer hotline said gasoline sales at its filling stations were limited to 50 liters per vehicle.

This post was originally published on here.

Jackson Township officials and the township Municipal Utilities Authority (MUA) say they are continuing discussions over a proposed sale of more than five acres of property that was originally acquired by the MUA to support future infrastructure needs.

Township Council President Burnstein, Council Vice President Palmeri and Business Administrator Terenfko met with Jackson MUA Chairman Porter, Executive Director Roman and Assistant Executive Director Diaz to discuss the proposed sale.

The property was originally sold to the MUA for the purpose of supporting future MUA infrastructure needs.

According to the statement, both sides believe they can reach a mutually agreeable resolution in the near future.

The statement did not disclose the proposed sale price, the identity of a potential buyer or other terms of the transaction.

A fresh dog food company is recalling nearly all of its fresh meals after receiving 192 reports of potential eye problems in dogs, including a condition that can lead to vision loss if severe and untreated.

Years, a U.K.-based subscription service which says it has served roughly 40,000 customers this year, said it is investigating buckwheat as a possible contributing factor, including whether part of its buckwheat supply may have been contaminated.

The company said no causal link between its food, buckwheat and the reported eye problems has been established, and laboratory and toxicology testing is continuing.

As of Tuesday, 192 customers have reported potential eye issues, including sudden bilateral dry eye known as keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS). The condition causes dogs’ eyes to stop producing enough tears, leading to irritation, redness and discomfort.

Tears lubricate and protect the surface of the eye. If left untreated, KCS can cause corneal ulcers, scarring and other damage that can potentially result in permanent vision loss.

The company said reports of eye issues in dogs began a few weeks ago.

“In late July, we began receiving multiple reports of dogs experiencing sudden, bilateral dry eye,” Years said.

By Aug. 16, the company said it had identified 57 suspected cases, which it characterized as about 0.1% of roughly 40,000 customers served year-to-date.

Years said an independent veterinarian and specialist in small-animal clinical nutrition initially advised on Aug. 1 that a link to the company’s food appeared unlikely based on the information then available, while recommending further investigation.

Years said it decided to issue the recall as a proactive measure affecting all of its fresh meals except those in its Chef’s Collection, the ultra-premium, limited-edition tier of dog meals offered by the brand.

The decision was made following “rising case numbers, input from customer advocates and ophthalmologists, and growing evidence around buckwheat.”

Laboratory testing of the buckwheat supply is still ongoing. The company did not provide further details on how the buckwheat supply may be affecting dogs’ eyesight beyond the possibility of contamination.

Years said the affected fresh-meal formulations contained 6.3% to 7.2% buckwheat, depending on the recipe.

KCS can have a number of causes in dogs, including immune-mediated disease, certain medications, infections, hereditary factors and trauma, meaning the reported condition alone does not establish a link to the food.

Customers’ subscriptions have been paused for an initial six-week period as the brand works to reformulate its recipes with quinoa in place of buckwheat. The company said it will also provide a thank-you gift with their next delivery for the inconvenience.

To help with the investigation, the company is also arranging a free collection of any unused meals.

“Your help with our investigation would mean a great deal. We’ll arrange a free collection of any unused meals and apply a full credit to your account for the order,” Years said.

The company also urged dog owners who suspect their pets are experiencing eye issues to take them to the vet, stating that “early treatment makes a real difference.”

A government document released Tuesday night has sparked outrage in the Chareidi political establishment after revealing that Finance Ministry officials view the cancellation of after-school daycare subsidies as one of the most effective economic tools for pressuring Chareidi men subject to the draft to enlist in the IDF.

While plans to revoke subsidies under the Education Ministry’s Nitzanim after-school program had previously been reported, the newly released document sheds light on why Finance Ministry professionals consider the measure particularly potent: the large number of Chareidi households that receive the benefit and the significant monthly expense families would face if the subsidy were eliminated.

The document summarizes an August 3 meeting chaired by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and attended by Deputy Attorney General Dr. Gil Limon, as well as representatives of the IDF, Israel Police, Finance Ministry and other government agencies.

The meeting focused on expanding financial enforcement measures against individuals who are required to enlist but have failed to report for military service. According to the document, a Finance Ministry representative explained that certain government benefits could exert considerably greater pressure than others because of how extensively they are used within the Chareidi community.

Officials specifically singled out the Education Ministry’s Nitzanim program, which subsidizes after-school care for children.

According to the document, the program “is considered highly effective by the professional officials at the Ministry of Finance for the purpose of increasing the number of recruits.”

Finance Ministry officials explained that their assessment was based on “the scope of households eligible for this benefit, alongside the significant monthly cost it represents.”

The meeting summary consequently stated that “there is particular importance in revoking eligibility for those obligated to enlist with regard to this benefit as early as the upcoming school year.”

The discussion extended beyond after-school care. Finance Ministry representatives also presented a chart analyzing the likelihood that Chareidi households receive various government benefits, apparently as part of an effort to determine which financial sanctions would have the greatest impact. Officials also called for further examination of a Housing Ministry program that provides assistance with rental payments.

Chareidi political figures charged that the policy directly contradicts the government’s stated goal of increasing employment among Chareidi women. They argue that subsidized after-school programs allow mothers to remain at work later in the day, meaning that eliminating the benefit would affect not only the man subject to the draft but also working mothers and their children.

United Torah Judaism MK Uri Maklev sharply condemned the Finance Ministry’s approach, accusing officials of deliberately searching for the most painful financial pressure point within Chareidi families.

“It is shocking to discover in the attorney general’s document how Finance Ministry officials maliciously search for the most harmful and significant tool and present the cancellation of after-school daycare subsidies as an ‘effective tool’ for harming Torah learners,” Maklev told B’Chadrei Chareidim. “This is pure wickedness, cruelty and a moral low.”

Maklev said the policy is particularly troubling because it comes from the same government bureaucracy that regularly speaks about encouraging Chareidi women to enter and remain in the workforce.

“Those same officials who preach about encouraging employment are acting against their own principles. Revoking after-school daycare subsidies is a direct attack on the livelihood and well-being of helpless young children and working mothers, motivated solely by the persecution of Torah learners,” he said.

The revelations are also becoming an election issue, with officials in Degel HaTorah directing criticism at Finance Minister and Religious Zionism chairman Bezalel Smotrich.

The document contains no evidence that Smotrich personally instructed Finance Ministry officials to formulate the recommendation. Degel HaTorah officials nevertheless argued that as finance minister, Smotrich bears political responsibility for policies being advanced by the ministry under his authority.

“There has recently been considerable discussion about Chareidim who are considering voting for Smotrich in the upcoming elections,” the officials said. “Those voters need to examine everything that is actually taking place in the Finance Ministry under his responsibility. Time and again, recommendations emerge from this ministry whose practical effect is severe economic harm to the Chareidi family.”

The Degel officials argued that Smotrich cannot simultaneously court Chareidi voters while distancing himself from recommendations being developed inside his own ministry.

“You cannot court the Chareidi vote while at the same time accepting a situation in which Finance Ministry officials map out the benefits Chareidi families rely upon and examine where revoking them would be especially effective. A minister’s responsibility is measured by what takes place in the ministry under his authority. The Chareidi public will have to take these things into account as well when it goes to the polls.”

{Matzav.com}

(Debora Truax/Dreamstime.com)

By Duvi Honig Wednesday, 19 August 2026 03:49 PM EDT Current | Bio | Archive

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Bankers. By the very instinctive nature of their occupation, they are prudent enough to ask a prospective commercial borrower for their business plan.

If you walked into a bank asking for $70 million without such a plan, you’d be shown the door.

• No lender would finance you.
• No investor would write the check.
• No board of directors would approve the deal.

Yet that’s exactly what New York taxpayers are being asked to do.

null

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants the city to spend $70 million to launch five government-backed grocery stores.

The 112th mayor of the Big Apple says the goal is to save participating families about $90 a month on essential groceries.

Sure, helping families afford food is a goal every New Yorker can support. But spending taxpayer dollars without proving it’s the smartest way to achieve that goal is something entirely different.

Here’s the question every taxpayer should be asking: How many families will this $70 million actually help?

Despite announcing the project, promoting the expected savings, and unveiling store locations, City Hall has not publicly stated how many households these five stores are expected to serve.

That omission matters because without that number there is no meaningful way to judge whether this is a sound investment or an expensive experiment.

We do know one thing.

If the objective is putting $90 a month back into family budgets, then the initial $70 million alone could fund nearly 778,000 monthly grocery benefits before a single dollar is spent on salaries, utilities, insurance, maintenance, security, technology, legal fees, consultants, inventory losses or future operating subsidies.

And that’s where the economics begin to fall apart.

The $70 million isn’t the total cost.

It’s the down payment.

Once the stores open, taxpayers will still be responsible for the ongoing costs of operating a grocery business — one of the most competitive and lowest-margin industries in America.

Every payroll check, electric bill, maintenance contract, insurance premium, operating loss and additional subsidy is money that no longer helps struggling families buy food. It helps sustain the government program itself.

Imagine taking those same public dollars and putting them directly into the hands of New Yorkers instead.

Families could shop where they already shop — whether that’s ShopRite, Costco, Key Food, Aldi, their neighborhood supermarket or the local bodega.

Consumers would have immediate relief.

Small businesses would keep their customers.

Competition would continue working. And nearly every taxpayer dollar intended for grocery assistance would reach a family’s shopping cart instead of being absorbed by bureaucracy.

This isn’t an argument against helping struggling New Yorkers.

It’s an argument for helping more of them.

Government has an obligation to ask the same question every successful business asks before spending money: Is this the most efficient way to achieve the objective?

If the answer is yes, then prove it.

Publish the business plan.

Tell taxpayers how many families the stores are expected to serve.

Show the projected operating costs.

Explain how the stores become financially sustainable.

Demonstrate why this approach delivers greater value than direct grocery assistance.

That’s not politics. That’s accountability.

Good intentions don’t balance budgets.

Promises don’t replace financial projections.

Taxpayers should never be expected to invest $70 million on faith alone.

Helping families is the right goal.

But if city hall can’t show why five government grocery stores are a better investment than putting grocery assistance directly into the hands of New Yorkers, taxpayers have every right to ask whether this plan is about feeding families — or feeding another layer of government.

Before New York spends $70 million, it deserves something every entrepreneur is expected to produce before asking for even a fraction of that amount: a business plan.

Duvi Honig is founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce and founder of JBizNews. Read more Duvi Honig Insider articles —Click Here Now.

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The question the crypto industry has been asking Washington for a decade is a simple one: who is in charge? President Trump gathered the industry’s executives at the White House on Wednesday to say an answer is close.

Trump spoke alongside technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room, with executives from Coinbase, Ripple and Nasdaq in attendance, along with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Mike Selig. Leaders from Gemini and Chainlink Labs were there as well, and Ripple was represented by chief executive Brad Garlinghouse.

“We’re leading in every aspect, including AI, and we’re leading by a lot,” Trump said.

The gathering was timed to the first meeting of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Innovation Advisory Committee, which convenes Thursday in Washington, D.C., to advise the agency on digital assets, artificial intelligence and prediction markets.

The substance is a jurisdictional fight that sounds technical and is not. Under current law, a digital token can be treated as a security, which puts it under the Securities and Exchange Commission, or as a commodity, which puts it under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Nobody agrees which is which. That ambiguity is why some exchanges will not list certain tokens, why banks have been cautious about custody, and why several firms moved operations offshore.

Trump used the event to push the Senate on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the bill that would draw the dividing line, calling for a fair version of the measure and arguing it would keep the United States ahead of China. A Senate vote is expected September 15.

Regulators are not waiting. The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed rules Tuesday that would exempt certain token offerings from securities regulation, addressing a longstanding industry complaint that the existing rules were unclear and costly to comply with.

For an ordinary customer, the practical effect of a settled rulebook is mundane and real: clearer disclosure requirements before buying a token, a defined agency to complain to when something goes wrong, and a legal footing for banks and brokerages to hold digital assets the way they hold everything else.

The event drew scrutiny for a reason the White House has faced before. Trump has earned more than $1 billion from the crypto industry since returning to office, including over $635 million from a licensing agreement tied to the $TRUMP meme coin and $236 million from the sale of tokens through World Liberty Financial, a firm he founded in 2024 with Steve Witkoff, now a White House special envoy, and their sons. The president has said he has no day-to-day role in his family’s business and that his investments are independently managed, and the White House has rejected allegations of impropriety. Polling shows a majority of Americans believe he has profited inappropriately from those ventures.

That argument will not be resolved this month. The rulebook might be. The Senate vote in September is the piece that decides whether a decade of regulatory confusion actually ends, or whether the industry spends another year waiting to find out which agency it answers to.

JBizNews Desk | Washington, D.C.

© JBizNews.com All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or distribution without written permission is prohibited.

CARLISLE, Penn. (AP) — A Pennsylvania State Police helicopter and a small plane collided in midair and crashed Wednesday evening, officials reported.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone was hurt.

A Cessna 150 airplane and a Bell 407 helicopter collided in midair near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, around 7:50 p.m. local time on Wednesday, Aug. 19. Two people were on board the helicopter. The number of people on board the Cessna is unknown. The FAA and National Transportation…

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) August 20, 2026

The crash involving the Bell 407 helicopter, which had two people on board, and the Cessna 150 happened about 110 miles (170 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. It was not immediately clear how many people were on the plane.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he had been briefed on the crash and was heading there.

Photos on social media showed a helicopter on its side near aircraft debris and a line of emergency vehicles near Carlisle.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were to investigate.

ORANGE COUNTY, NY (VINnews) – Harriman State Park has been ranked among the nation’s top hotspots for tick-borne illness, according to a report by the Times Herald-Record.

The 48,000-acre park, which stretches across Rockland and Orange counties and features roughly 200 miles of hiking trails, ranked No. 3 nationally on a new World Atlas list examining state parks with significant tick activity and documented cases of tick-borne illness.

Green Lakes State Park in Onondaga County ranked No. 2, while Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania took the top spot.

According to the Times Herald-Record, World Atlas cited Harriman’s large deer population and heavy visitor traffic as contributing factors to its high tick activity.

The ranking comes as tick activity continues to increase across New York. The Times Herald-Record reported that New York has averaged more than 17,500 new Lyme disease cases annually over the past three years, with nearly 19,000 cases reported in 2024.

The number of ticks submitted to a SUNY Upstate Medical University laboratory also increased by 145% between 2024 and 2025, according to the report.

“Every year, the number of people who encounter ticks is increasing,” said Saravanan Thangamani, director of the laboratory.

Deer ticks remain the most prevalent in New York, while researchers are also seeing more Lone Star ticks and dog ticks in areas where they were previously less common.

The World Atlas report noted that Harriman is located in the Lower Hudson Valley, where state surveys have detected pathogens associated with Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis and Powassan virus in blacklegged ticks.

Health officials recommend that hikers wear protective clothing, use insect repellent, stay on marked trails and conduct thorough tick checks after spending time outdoors. New York health officials note that ticks can remain active whenever temperatures are above freezing.

Rav Shimon Galai shared a remarkable personal story involving the Steipler Gaon at a gathering marking the 25th yahrtzeit of Rav Avrohom Yaakov Pam zt”l, founder of Shuvu, offering a powerful message about the continued influence of tzaddikim after their passing.

The gathering was held at Rav Galai’s home with leaders of Shuvu, the kiruv organization founded by Rav Pam and with which Rav Galai serves as a member of its presidium.

Addressing the concern that Rav Pam’s passing might mean that Shuvu no longer benefits from his assistance as it did during his lifetime, Rav Galai said the opposite is true: A tzaddik who accomplished great things in this world can continue working on behalf of others from Shomayim with even greater strength.

“The Steipler told me a fundamental principle, and it is clear to me that it is true,” Rav Galai related. “What a tzaddik did here, they do there in Shomayim with far greater strength. I asked him about someone who was connected to a certain rov, and the rov passed away, and that person felt that his world had gone dark.”

Rav Galai then recounted the Steipler’s emphatic response.

“The Steipler told me: Tell him that I said that what they did here, they do there with far greater strength. It is nothing. Tell him, do you understand Yiddish? You understand Hebrew. He repeated it ten times. Tell him that I said that what they did here, they do there with far greater strength. If here he worried about him, he will worry about him. If here he davened for him, he will daven for him.”

Rav Galai connected the Steipler’s words directly to Rav Pam’s legacy and the future of Shuvu, saying there should be no concern over whether the Torah and kiruv work he championed will continue.

“You ask how the Torah and kiruv will continue after Rav Pam passed away? We already heard what the Ponovezher Rov said after the Holocaust, that we have no concern about how the Torah will continue. Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised, ‘For it will not be forgotten from the mouths of his descendants and his descendants’ descendants.’ The only question is who will merit to be part of it.”

Rav Galai then spoke with humility about his own involvement in Shuvu’s work.

“I am nothing. I am only a shamash. I truly try to do whatever I can to help kiruv. It is clear that the Torah will continue, Shuvu will continue, the talmidim will continue. The only question is who will merit to be part of it.”

He concluded by addressing the message that should be conveyed to those who support Shuvu financially, saying that while people sometimes approach him seeking guarantees of success or blessing, the true promise comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

“People come to me so that I should promise. Right? I don’t know how to promise, but Hakadosh Boruch Hu promises. If you make Mine happy, I will make yours happy. There is no greater joy for Hakadosh Boruch Hu than when another one of His children is brought to say Shema Yisrael.”

{Matzav.com}

Silicon Valley made a fortune betting on disruption. Now some of the most recognizable names in venture capital and Big Tech are spending millions to disrupt California’s plan to tax them.

Campaign finance records show Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and longtime venture capitalist John Doerr donated to political action committees opposing Proposition 40, which would levy a one-time tax on billionaires equal to 5% of their wealth if passed. Thiel officially cut ties with California in 2025 ahead of the proposed wealth tax, and Brin has also reduced his official and financial ties to the state.

Larsen gave $5 million to Golden State Promise, a committee opposing Proposition 40, and Ripple Labs, the company he cofounded, has put in another $5 million. 

Another anti-Proposition 40 committee representing teachers, doctors, and small businesses has received $5 million from Building a Better California, whose top donors are Brin and Doerr. Golden State Promise has also received $450,000 from the California Business Roundtable Issues PAC, one of whose top donors is Thiel, who has given $3 million to the PAC itself.  

The stakes are high for the donors. Experts estimate Proposition 40, if passed, will raise $100 billion for California over five years, with 90% earmarked for health care and the rest for food assistance and education. For someone whose net worth is $1.1 billion, the liability is $55 million, according to an analysis from Wealth Management. If the opposition defeats the ballot measure in November, billionaires will avoid that liability. 

Silicon Valley and Washington flashpoint

The multimillion-dollar checks are landing as California’s proposed wealth tax turned into a broader fight about whether taxing billionaire wealth would raise needed funds—or push founders and investors to move out of the state.

Over the weekend, billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban publicly sparred over this question with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of the most prominent defenders of the proposed tax. Cuban argued Prop. 40 misunderstands founders can be billionaires on paper while still being cash-poor and could drive startup talent out of the state entirely. 

“If this passes, only idiot startup founders stay in Cali,” Cuban wrote on X.

Khanna pushed back by arguing truly illiquid “paper billionaires” make up only part of the population the tax would hit, and suggested a workaround in which founders could hand over their shares in the startup to the state in exchange for a loan to pay the tax. 

“The government would still collect from the vast majority of billionaires who are not illiquid,” Khanna wrote. 

Emmanuel Saez, director of UC Berkeley’s James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality and co-author of an expert report on Prop. 40 arguing the tax asks a fair share from the roughly 250 Californians it would cover—billionaires the report says built their fortunes in the state and can absorb a one-time hit, especially if paid gradually. Saez told Fortune over email founders without the immediate money to pay the tax can “use a deferral option,” paying 5% of “whatever proceeds they take out of their business (as dividends or sales of stock) moving forward.”

“If the business fails, they won’t have to pay anything,” Saez said. “If the business succeeds, they’ll have to pay 5% of that success eventually.”

Khanna has also pushed the fight to tax billionaires beyond California. In March, he and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced federal legislation proposing an annual 5% wealth tax on Americans worth more than $1 billion, with some of the proceeds earmarked for $3,000 payments to lower- and middle-income households.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

A former Meta safety researcher delivered damaging testimony Wednesday in a landmark federal trial, accusing Mark Zuckerberg and his company of deliberately avoiding child-safety problems on Facebook and Instagram when addressing them could threaten profits.

Arturo Béjar, who worked on safety issues at Meta for years and later emerged as a prominent critic of the company, told jurors in California federal court that Zuckerberg wielded enormous authority as CEO but failed to adequately confront the dangers the platforms posed to young users.

“You just cannot trust Mark Zuckerberg with kids,” Béjar said on the witness stand.

Béjar became the first witness presented by a coalition of 29 state attorneys general suing Meta. The states allege that the company intentionally designed addictive features that contributed to anxiety, depression and even suicide among teenagers, while also improperly collecting children’s personal information without parental permission.

The attorneys general are asking the court to order significant changes to Meta’s platforms and impose substantial financial penalties for the alleged violations. Attorneys representing the states have suggested damages could approach $200 billion, while Meta has argued that the potential figure under the plaintiffs’ calculations could climb as high as $1.4 trillion.

Béjar headed a safety-oriented team at Meta between 2009 and 2015 before returning as a consultant from 2019 through 2021. During his testimony, he accused Zuckerberg of creating a misleading public picture of how seriously the company treated the welfare of young users.

“I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook’s commitment to young people,” said Béjar, who estimated that he spoke to Zuckerberg about safety issues at least 100 times during his tenure.

According to Béjar, Meta possessed technology capable of identifying underage users who circumvented the company’s safeguards, but effectively adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach because younger users represented valuable future customers.

“Where the youngest kids are is where the users are going to be in the future,” Béjar said.

Béjar previously played a major role as a witness in separate litigation brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez. In that case, he described the disturbing experiences of his daughter after she joined Instagram at age 16, including receiving sexually explicit messages and “unsolicited penis pictures.”

During cross-examination Wednesday, a Meta attorney questioned Béjar about his decision to permit his daughter to use Instagram. Béjar acknowledged that he had not anticipated the extent of the dangers she would encounter on the platform.

“I kept an eye on how distressing it was for her,” Béjar said. “She got a good following, at the price of harm.”

The multistate trial is expected to continue for approximately six weeks and is set to feature testimony from some of Meta’s most prominent executives. Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri are both expected to take the witness stand.

Meta has denied the allegations against it and maintains that the attorneys general are pursuing financial penalties far beyond what the case could legitimately justify.

During opening arguments Tuesday, Meta attorney Paul Schmidt defended the company’s record, arguing that Zuckerberg and other executives have repeatedly worked to make Facebook and Instagram safer for children. He pointed to measures including parental supervision features and tools allowing limits to be placed on the amount of time young people spend on social media.

President Trump is set to sit down for an interview with Michael Cohen, his onetime personal attorney and fixer who later became one of his fiercest critics, in a remarkable public reunion following years of bitter legal and personal warfare between the two men.

Cohen, who acknowledged arranging payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election over an alleged affair with Trump, said the interview comes after he and the president recently put their long-running feud behind them.

After years of publicly attacking one another following their dramatic falling-out, Cohen revealed earlier this summer that he and Trump had reconciled and were once again on better terms.

Segments of Cohen’s interview with Trump are scheduled to be broadcast Thursday night on New York’s 77 WABC radio, Cohen said in a social media post. Additional portions are expected to air Sunday during a program Cohen is hosting on the station.

MS NOW had earlier reported that Trump would appear with Cohen for an episode of the attorney’s podcast. Cohen disputed that account in his post, saying the interview was instead conducted for the WABC radio program.

The Hill said it contacted the White House seeking confirmation that Trump would participate in the interview.

Cohen disclosed last month that his relationship with Trump had changed dramatically after years of hostility, explaining that an unexpected message from a mutual friend helped open the door to ending their feud.

“Out of nowhere, when I was sitting with my wife at a restaurant, my phone buzzed and it was a text from that friend who expressed to me the president’s genuine empathy for the hell that I was being dragged through … I deeply appreciated that text,” Cohen told John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on WABC’s “Cats & Cosby” radio talk show.

Cohen said the message prompted him to reach out directly to Trump in hopes of finally bringing their years-long battle to a close.

“I actually texted the president. I thanked him. Expressed my sincere hope that this long, exhausting feud between the two of us could finally end,” Cohen added.

{Matzav.com}

President Trump announced Wednesday that he has selected Dr. Heidi Overton, a physician and top White House aide, to lead the Food and Drug Administration, placing a trusted administration figure in line to oversee one of the federal government’s most consequential health agencies.

Overton currently serves as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and has worked on several of Trump’s second-term health initiatives. Trump described her in a Truth Social post as a “smart and respected ‘rockstar’” who would help deliver on his priorities of faster cures, innovation and lower drug prices, as well as furthering Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.

Overton attended medical school at the University of New Mexico and holds a doctorate in clinical investigation from Johns Hopkins University. Before joining the Trump administration, she served as chief policy officer at the conservative America First Policy Institute.

In recent months, Overton has appeared alongside Trump as he unveiled major health initiatives, including agreements with drugmakers aimed at lowering prescription drug prices and his vaccine order seeking to separate the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three individual immunizations. She has also been critical of abortion pills and, if confirmed, would be positioned to roll back FDA rules that have made the pills more accessible.

Overton would succeed Dr. Marty Makary, who resigned in May. Her nomination will first require Senate confirmation.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Israir announced Wednesday that it has received approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation to begin selling tickets for flights to the United States, marking a major step toward launching the Israeli carrier’s long-planned New York route.

The airline said ticket sales are expected to begin next week.

The approval does not yet authorize Israir to actually operate the flights. The airline is still awaiting final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is continuing its review of the planned service.

Israir said that as a precaution, its initial ticket sales will be limited to flights departing beginning October 19, 2027.

However, if the FAA grants operational approval earlier, the airline said it intends to move up the launch of its New York service and begin offering tickets for earlier dates.

The planned route would give Israeli travelers another option for nonstop service between Israel and the New York area, increasing competition on one of the busiest international routes serving Ben Gurion Airport.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The IDF announced Wednesday that it has completed reviews of five major incidents from the Gaza war, ordering criminal investigations in two cases while determining that three others did not warrant criminal proceedings. The cases include the deaths of World Central Kitchen employees, Hind Rajab and members of her family, 15 people in Tel al-Sultan, and two separate incidents involving Médecins Sans Frontières personnel.

In the April 2024 World Central Kitchen incident, seven aid workers were killed after IDF forces struck vehicles belonging to the organization. The military found that troops mistakenly believed Hamas terrorists had taken control of the convoy after identifying armed personnel and later misidentifying individuals in the vehicles. Despite serious failures, the Chief Military Prosecutor determined there was no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct. Several officers had already been removed from their positions or formally reprimanded.

A criminal investigation will be opened into the January 2024 incident involving Hind Rajab, after the IDF review found alleged failures in coordinating the movement of a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance sent to evacuate casualties. The ambulance was struck and two paramedics were killed. A second criminal probe was ordered into the March 2025 Tel al-Sultan incident, where 15 Gazans, including medical personnel and a UN employee, were killed during shootings involving rescue vehicles near an IDF ambush targeting Hamas terrorists. Six of those killed were identified as Hamas members.

The IDF also reviewed two incidents involving Médecins Sans Frontières. In one, troops struck a building in Khan Yunis they believed posed a threat, killing two women and wounding seven people. In the other, two MSF employees were killed after a convoy returned toward Gaza City without the required coordination; the military review found their deaths may have resulted from ricochet or bullet splash from warning fire. No criminal investigation will be opened in either case.

The IDF said that since the start of the war, its General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism has completed reviews of approximately 150 incidents and transferred them to the Military Prosecution for examination.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Israel is demanding that the process of disarming Gaza begin on October 7, the anniversary of the 2023 Hamas massacre, according to a report by Al-Arabiya citing sources familiar with the negotiations.

According to the report, President Donald Trump’s recent comments on the issue came after Israeli polling showed significant public opposition to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

The Board of Peace has reportedly made clear that the political future of Hamas leaders in any future Palestinian government will depend on disarmament. Board envoy Nikolay Mladenov also told Hamas that negotiations cannot move forward while weapons remain widespread throughout Gaza.

The Board of Peace informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel is not required to begin withdrawing from Gaza until Hamas has been fully disarmed, as part of the second phase of the October 10, 2025 ceasefire agreement.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem, meanwhile, told AFP that the terror organization remains committed to the agreed framework but claimed Israel has yet to provide mediators with clear approval of the roadmap.

The developments follow a series of meetings held by U.S. envoy Jared Kushner in Egypt and Israel, during which it was agreed that an American officer would oversee the handover of weapons.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

It’s grape season in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar, and the harvest this year is plentiful. But that’s small comfort for the region’s grape producers and workers, who say fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan has left them unable to access their primary market.

For months, the two countries have traded fire sporadically across their long, mountainous border, leaving hundreds of people dead. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militants who carry out attacks inside Pakistan — a charge Kabul denies.

With the fighting have come border closures, severing a critical trade route and preventing Afghan producers from reaching what is the primary export market for many goods.

Unable to export their fresh fruit, Afghan grape producers have turned to the domestic market, where the increased supply has sent prices tumbling. To adapt, many producers are now drying their grapes and turning them into raisins — a cheaper product that sells for less.

In a long warehouse in Kandahar’s Zhari district, fans whirl overhead, stirring the hot summer air around bunches of plump, green grapes draped over sticks set up in rows to dry.

But even for raisins, prices have tanked.

Sakhi Jan, who owns a grape orchard in Zhari, says that with 10 people in his household to feed, he’s barely getting by. Seven kilograms (15.5 pounds) of raisins used to sell for around 1,000 to 1,200 afghanis ($13 to $16), he says. Now, the same amount sells for just 400-450 afghanis ($5-$6).

In a country where poverty is rife and malnutrition strikes the most vulnerable, such income losses can be critical.

“We are grateful, but things aren’t like they used to be, the struggle is much harder now,” Jan said. “In the past, work was steady, we used to sell some grapes, and people generally had good work but now the hardship is immense.”

Opening the border crossings and allowing trade to flow once more is critical, he stressed.

“We urge both our government and Pakistan to open these routes and reach an agreement,” he said. “The current situation is causing great hardship.”

Abdul Baqi Bina, the deputy director of the Kandahar Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said the border closure has dealt a severe blow to Afghanistan’s fruit exports — not just grapes, but also pomegranates.

In 2025, five southern Afghan provinces that make up the country’s main grape-producing region exported 44,225 tons — $13.8 million worth of grapes. Nearly all — 43,000 tons — went to Pakistan and the remainder headed to Bangladesh, Iraq and India, Bina said. So far this year, only 256 tons have been exported, at a value of $100,000.

For grape exporter Haji Abdul Hai, it has been a disaster.

“In my 50 years of life, I have never seen these roads closed to the extent they are now,” he said, adding that previous border closures would usually last for a few days, or one crossing would close while another remained open.

“But now, we are facing truly major difficulties,” he said.

Last year, the orchard where Qudratullah Popal worked picking grapes employed about 1,500 workers. This year, Popal said the number has plummeted to around 15.

“There have been good harvests. Grapes turned out well, but the issue is they cannot be exported to other countries. They are being sent to domestic locations … where there is already an abundance of grapes,” he said.

“When routes are blocked and trade halts, everyone’s livelihood is paralyzed, traders, laborers and orchard owners alike,” Popal said.It’s grape season in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar, and the harvest this year is plentiful. But that’s small comfort for the region’s grape producers and workers, who say fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan has left them unable to access their primary market.

For months, the two countries have traded fire sporadically across their long, mountainous border, leaving hundreds of people dead. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militants who carry out attacks inside Pakistan — a charge Kabul denies.

With the fighting have come border closures, severing a critical trade route and preventing Afghan producers from reaching what is the primary export market for many goods.

Unable to export their fresh fruit, Afghan grape producers have turned to the domestic market, where the increased supply has sent prices tumbling. To adapt, many producers are now drying their grapes and turning them into raisins — a cheaper product that sells for less.

In a long warehouse in Kandahar’s Zhari district, fans whirl overhead, stirring the hot summer air around bunches of plump, green grapes draped over sticks set up in rows to dry.

But even for raisins, prices have tanked.

Sakhi Jan, who owns a grape orchard in Zhari, says that with 10 people in his household to feed, he’s barely getting by. Seven kilograms (15.5 pounds) of raisins used to sell for around 1,000 to 1,200 afghanis ($13 to $16), he says. Now, the same amount sells for just 400-450 afghanis ($5-$6).

In a country where poverty is rife and malnutrition strikes the most vulnerable, such income losses can be critical.

“We are grateful, but things aren’t like they used to be, the struggle is much harder now,” Jan said. “In the past, work was steady, we used to sell some grapes, and people generally had good work but now the hardship is immense.”

Opening the border crossings and allowing trade to flow once more is critical, he stressed.

“We urge both our government and Pakistan to open these routes and reach an agreement,” he said. “The current situation is causing great hardship.”

Abdul Baqi Bina, the deputy director of the Kandahar Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said the border closure has dealt a severe blow to Afghanistan’s fruit exports — not just grapes, but also pomegranates.

In 2025, five southern Afghan provinces that make up the country’s main grape-producing region exported 44,225 tons — $13.8 million worth of grapes. Nearly all — 43,000 tons — went to Pakistan and the remainder headed to Bangladesh, Iraq and India, Bina said. So far this year, only 256 tons have been exported, at a value of $100,000.

For grape exporter Haji Abdul Hai, it has been a disaster.

“In my 50 years of life, I have never seen these roads closed to the extent they are now,” he said, adding that previous border closures would usually last for a few days, or one crossing would close while another remained open.

“But now, we are facing truly major difficulties,” he said.

Last year, the orchard where Qudratullah Popal worked picking grapes employed about 1,500 workers. This year, Popal said the number has plummeted to around 15.

“There have been good harvests. Grapes turned out well, but the issue is they cannot be exported to other countries. They are being sent to domestic locations … where there is already an abundance of grapes,” he said.

“When routes are blocked and trade halts, everyone’s livelihood is paralyzed, traders, laborers and orchard owners alike,” Popal said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

A coalition representing immigrant-owned grocery stores and other small businesses across New York City is preparing to sue Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration over its taxpayer-funded supermarket initiative, with legal action potentially coming as soon as this week, the NY Post reports.

The Multicultural Business Coalition, an umbrella organization made up of 50 chambers of commerce representing businesses from a wide range of ethnic communities, made one final attempt Wednesday to bring City Hall to the negotiating table before proceeding with litigation.

“Although we have not heard from you since May 2026, we are open to resolving this matter amicably with more sensible solutions to feed working class people with nutritious essential food items at affordable prices,” coalition president Kenneth Roldan wrote in a letter to the administration.

Roldan said Wednesday that attorneys are still deciding whether to bring the challenge in state court, federal court, or pursue cases in both jurisdictions.

“We are at the 11th hour — we have multiple versions of the lawsuits that have been prepared,” Roldan said. “The federal case will be based on antitrust and predatory pricing. The state cause of action will be tortuous interference and possibly discriminatory practices by the administration.”

The coalition represents businesses owned by members of New York’s Asian, African, Caribbean, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Jewish communities. According to Roldan, the organization has repeatedly attempted to secure meetings with City Hall since May but has been turned away.

The escalating legal threat comes as the Mamdani administration moves ahead with plans for five government-owned supermarkets at an estimated taxpayer cost of $70 million. The city recently issued a request for proposals seeking operators for the stores, with bids due by Oct. 16.

In its letter, the coalition argued that the request for proposals “demonstrates a lack of understanding of the supermarket industry and raises questions about the efficacy of the plan.”

The group also warned that subsidized city-owned supermarkets “could paralyze their operations, reduce their slim profit margins or even force some out of business entirely.”

Mark Jaffe, the coalition’s legal counsel and president of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, said business owners would still prefer negotiations over a courtroom battle.

“We are asking the mayor to avoid litigation to sit down with us,” Jaffe said. “But we have to try to stop this if they won’t listen to us.”

Under the city’s proposal, private grocery operators would be selected to manage the five supermarkets. Because the stores would operate in government-owned properties, they would not face the rent and tax expenses borne by competing privately owned supermarkets.

The operators would also be required to offer a 30% discount on staple foods, including produce, meat, milk, cheese and bread.

City Hall estimates that the program could reduce participating shoppers’ grocery expenses by approximately $90 per month, or about $1,000 annually, amounting to an overall savings of roughly 15% on their grocery bills.

Nearly $40 million has already been designated for the first two planned locations, one in Harlem and another at Hunts Point in the Bronx. Locations have not yet been finalized for the remaining three supermarkets.

Opponents have raised particular concerns about the impact on existing stores located close to the proposed government-subsidized supermarkets. Roughly 15 bodegas and grocery stores currently operate within five blocks of La Marqueta in East Harlem, one of the areas involved in the initiative.

A Food Bazaar supermarket, meanwhile, sits directly across the street from one of the proposed subsidized locations — a situation critics say illustrates the competitive disadvantage private businesses could face.

“How can a Food Bazaar right across the street from La Marqueta not be affected by such discounts?” Jaffe said.

{Matzav.com}

A Lakewood Police investigation into the alleged fraudulent use of a stolen credit card led detectives to one suspect at a Wawa in Browns Mills, where they unexpectedly encountered a second man wanted in an unrelated Lakewood case, TLS has learned.

Capt. LeRoy Marshall says, that on Tuesday, August 18, Detective Meyer Jr. and Patrolman Amoroso went to the Wawa while investigating the alleged fraudulent use of a credit card that had been stolen during a vehicle burglary in Lakewood.

While there, they learned that the suspect they were looking for could still be in the area. Shortly afterward, Raymond L. Lawson, 59, of West Creek, was located and arrested.

Lawson was charged with fraudulent use of a credit card and released on a criminal complaint summons pending a future court appearance.

While confirming Lawson’s identity, Detective Meyer recognized another familiar face, Alexander Lowery, 59, of Lakewood.

Lowery was wanted in connection with an unrelated series of shoplifting incidents in Lakewood and also had an active warrant for his arrest.

Lowery was taken into custody, processed on the shoplifting charges and warrant, and later transported to the Ocean County Jail.

“Most people leave Wawa with coffee and a hoagie. Our officers left with two arrests. That’s what I would call a very productive trip,” Chief Meyer said.

The Pemberton Township Police Department assisted with both arrests.

TEANECK, N.J. (VINnews) — Ari Ladino, a Jewish bridal shop owner in Teaneck, and his mother have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to The Jewish Link.

Ladino and his mother, who are originally from Bogotá, Colombia, run Luana Rose Modestly, a modest-fashion boutique on West Englewood Avenue that specializes in custom and semi-custom gowns for weddings and other special occasions.

The reason for their detention remains unclear.

Customers became concerned after they were unable to reach Ladino, including one woman whose daughter’s wedding dress was at the store with the wedding approaching.

Elie Y. Katz, the store’s landlord, went to the business with police and found packages accumulating outside the storefront. He helped customers retrieve completed dresses.

Katz later received a call from a detention facility and was able to speak briefly with Ladino, who authorized a relative to access the store and assist customers in retrieving their dresses.

Ladino also contacted a business associate and asked her to prepare the store’s inventory for a potential sale, with proceeds intended to help fund his legal defense, according to The Jewish Link.

Michael Wildes, managing partner of immigration law firm Wildes & Weinberg and a former federal prosecutor, said the case highlights the potential impact of immigration enforcement on families, businesses and local communities.

The circumstances surrounding the detentions, including the immigration allegations or proceedings involving Ladino and his mother, were not disclosed.

The case remains developing.

The possibility of a historic breakup within United Torah Judaism is being taken increasingly seriously, with senior Agudas Yisroel figures quietly examining whether the Chassidic party could cross the electoral threshold on its own if Degel HaTorah follows through on plans to run separately in the upcoming election.

Against that backdrop, Shlomei Emunim chairman MK Meir Porush and Bnei Brak Mayor Chanoch Zeibert, a senior Gerer representative who also serves as secretary-general of Agudas Yisroel, held a lengthy and highly significant meeting this week after an extended period of strained relations, according to a report by Kikar HaShabbat.

The meeting came as Degel HaTorah is reportedly giving serious consideration to separating from Agudas Yisroel for the upcoming election, not merely as a negotiating tactic but because of fundamental disagreements over the draft issue and the future political direction of the Chareidi parties.

Relations inside Agudas Yisroel have themselves long been marked by deep tensions, particularly between Porush and Ger. Those differences have traditionally been temporarily set aside before national elections, producing what amounts to an uneasy truce until the campaign is over.

According to the report, the latest meeting between Porush and Zeibert was initiated by Ger and took place in a Chareidi-majority city. The two sat together for several hours.

A major portion of the discussion centered on Degel HaTorah’s potential departure and whether Agudas Yisroel could realistically survive electorally without the Litvish party.

Such a campaign would likely require an unprecedented mobilization of the Chassidic electorate, including communities and individual Chassidim who traditionally do not vote. Agudas Yisroel would need those voters to rally behind the party in order to demonstrate the Chassidic community’s true electoral strength and ensure that the party clears the threshold.

A senior Agudas Yisroel official described the Porush-Zeibert meeting as extraordinary given the hostility that has developed between their respective camps.

“The meeting is dramatic, since the gaps between the two warring sides are only growing all the time, especially in light of the draft law. The sides despise each other, and the fact that they met is already an important statement,” the official said.

He said Porush continues to harbor serious grievances over Ger’s conduct in recent years, including its actions during municipal elections and its approach to the draft controversy.

“What Ger has done in recent years, both regarding the municipal elections and regarding the draft, are serious and unacceptable events from Porush’s perspective, and therefore the very fact that he agreed to meet with Ger and give legitimacy to running with them, instead of joining Degel HaTorah, shows the matter-of-fact approach he is taking in the story with Ger,” the official said.

Despite the discussions, the official said there remains considerable skepticism that Degel HaTorah would actually leave Agudas Yisroel to fight for its political survival alone.

“According to what I know, no one thinks that Degel HaTorah will leave the Chassidim to contend with the electoral threshold alone, because then Chareidi Jewry would certainly lose at least three mandates and perhaps even seven,” he said. “At the meeting, the sides tried to understand whether the move is realistic at all and with whom they have a chance to unite in order to safely cross the electoral threshold. The issue of establishing the Tzeva Shachor party and the rumors that those promoting the issue are Gerer Chassidim also came up at the meeting.”

Still, the series of private meetings and political briefings surrounding the issue has led senior figures to believe that this year’s threatened split is considerably more serious than previous attempts by Degel HaTorah to improve its bargaining position within United Torah Judaism, such as demands for the chairmanship or additional realistic slots on the electoral slate.

Degel HaTorah leaders are closely watching developments inside Agudas Yisroel and have reportedly reached the conclusion that if they can establish with sufficient confidence that the Litvish party can cross the electoral threshold without Chassidic support, they are prepared to take the dramatic step of running independently.

Supporters of the idea point to Degel HaTorah’s success in running separately in several municipal contests as evidence that the strategy could also succeed nationally.

The Litvish desire for an independent slate is not new. A similar split nearly occurred before the previous national election but was ultimately stopped by Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l, who was concerned that Agudas Yisroel might fail to cross the electoral threshold independently.

That same concern remains before the Gedolei Yisroel today as they consider whether the risks of dividing the longtime alliance outweigh the political and ideological benefits of independence.

Adding to the indications that the situation is unusually serious, no election-related meeting has yet been held between Degel HaTorah and Agudas Yisroel, according to the report. That is considered highly unusual this close to an election and differs sharply from previous campaigns.

Sources from both factions reportedly acknowledged privately that preparations for a possible separate run are being examined even as the parties continue to project an image of unity publicly.

A senior Degel HaTorah official said the party has considered going alone numerous times in the past, primarily because Litvish leaders believe their community deserves greater representation based on the number of votes it contributes to United Torah Judaism.

“Until today, there were many times when we intended to run alone, for a variety of good reasons, most of which stem from the desire to receive genuine representation for our public,” the official said.

He argued that Degel HaTorah accounts for more than half of United Torah Judaism’s actual voters and claimed its internal election data supports that conclusion.

“Understand,” he said, “we know that we bring more than fifty percent of the votes to United Torah Judaism. These are numbers that we have in our election headquarters. It is not only that we are larger than the Chassidim; there is also an open secret that everyone knows but does not talk about — many, many people in the smaller Chassidic groups simply do not go to vote, ignore the instructions of the rabbonim, and their Rebbes also do not push them to vote. With us the situation is different. Most — an absolute majority — fulfill ‘V’asisa k’chol asher yorucha’ and go out in huge numbers to vote. In Election Day numbers, we are much larger than the Chassidim.”

This time, however, the official said electoral representation is not the primary force behind the possible separation.

“But this time that is not our trigger for separating,” he said. “For close to a decade, we have been conducting an enormous battle over the draft law. Eight years ago, there was a good draft law offered to us that was acceptable to all of our Gedolei Yisroel, but the problem was that several important rabbonim from the Chassidic sector came along, opposed the law and caused everyone to become more extreme.”

The Degel official argued that following Agudas Yisroel’s more uncompromising elements ultimately proved to be a strategic mistake.

“We were swept along after the extremist elements of Agudas Yisroel, and when looking at it from a long-term perspective, we made a major mistake,” he said. “In the next Knesset, we want to end the draft saga. That is our first goal, and if we are again with Agudas Yisroel, we could once again get into this complication that we do not want and are not interested in.”

He added that Degel HaTorah wants to return to a more traditional style of Chareidi political bargaining, in which its support is determined primarily by what a prospective coalition offers the Chareidi community rather than automatic allegiance to a particular political bloc.

“We have also decided to return to the good old Chareidi politics and no longer take into account considerations of the right-wing bloc or small interests involving Meron and so forth,” he said. “We want to return to conducting politics based on what benefits us. Whoever gives us what we need, we will go with them. Beyond that, we will no longer make other calculations.”

Even the Degel official acknowledged, however, that the final decision has not yet been made and that the danger of losing Chassidic votes could ultimately prevent an independent campaign.

“I don’t know whether this time we will really run alone — because in the end we could lose mandates from the Chassidic public,” he said.

But he revealed that one major structural change has apparently already been decided regardless of whether the parties contest the election together.

“What is clear, and has already been finalized with all the parties, is that immediately after the elections we will separate into two official factions. We will no longer be together.”

{Matzav.com}

Five days after Mali and Liel Yahalomi were located safe and unharmed in Argentina, their relatives in Israel say the mother and daughter still have not contacted them, leaving the family with unanswered questions and continued concern.

“Hopefully they’ll make contact, and we’ll have answers,” one relative told Israel Hayom.

According to the report, Mali and Liel did not contact their family on Saturday, when they were located aboard an intercity bus in Argentina, and have remained out of contact during the five days since.

The latest details have only deepened questions surrounding their disappearance. Mali reportedly did not formally resign from her job at a bank before leaving, a detail that appears to support indications that the trip was planned in advance while several aspects of her life were left unresolved.

The international search for the two ended after Israeli and local authorities located them aboard a bus in Argentina. Israel Police representative in South America Lt. Col. Walter Kogan spoke with the two and confirmed that they were healthy, were not under threat or in danger, and had traveled to Argentina of their own free will.

Because both women are adults, are not suspected of any crime and are not wanted by authorities, law enforcement’s role effectively ended once investigators determined they were safe and had disappeared voluntarily.

Under those circumstances, authorities cannot force them to return home or maintain contact with relatives.

The unusual case has also drawn significant attention in Argentina, where media outlets have raised questions about how far police should go in using investigative resources to locate adults who intentionally choose to disappear.

South American reports have meanwhile suggested that Argentina may not have been the pair’s final destination. The two were reportedly considering traveling onward to countries including Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador, possibly with the intention of beginning a new chapter in their lives.

There has been no confirmed indication, however, that they have entered any of those countries.

Police officials have also reportedly said Mali did not have outstanding financial debts and that she withdrew compensation funds more than a year ago, which were used to finance the trip.

For law enforcement, the case was essentially closed once authorities confirmed that Mali and Liel were alive and safe.

For their family in Israel, however, the mystery remains.

Relatives say they are still waiting and hoping for even a brief call that could finally provide some answers.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A new Department of Sanitation (DSNY) facility on Staten Island opened this week, paving the way for hundreds of new affordable homes. Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday announced the opening of two new DSNY garages on a 13.55-acre site at Fresh Kills, once New York City’s largest garbage dump. The $230 million project replaces the old Jersey Street garage on the borough’s North Shore, which will be demolished and replaced with a mixed-use affordable housing complex featuring 232 homes, a grocery store, amenities, and open space.

Located at 1000 West Service Road, the new sanitation complex features a two-story, 140,000-square-foot maintenance and operations garage with personnel offices and muster areas, lunch facilities, locker rooms, and other staff amenities.

The complex also includes a fueling station, a salt shed with a 4-million-pound capacity, upgraded household special waste and recycling drop-off facilities, expanded parking, and major infrastructure upgrades, including sanitary sewer force mains and stormwater systems.

The city says the new facility will improve trash collection, street cleaning, emergency snow response, and day-to-day operations across the borough. Relocating the operations will also substantially reduce heavy truck traffic on the North Shore, improving pedestrian safety and reducing noise.

In 2019, the project received an Award for Excellence in Design from the city’s Public Design Commission. The Department of Design and Construction (DDC) worked with designer Andrea Steel Architecture, contractors Perfetto Contracting Co. Inc. and Prismatic Development Corp., and project partners NORESCO, Tectonic Engineering, and Gilbane Building Company.

The new garage will also feature a plaque honoring former DSNY worker Vincent Guglielmino, who died of a heart attack in 2004 while traveling from work to a DSNY clinic in Lower Manhattan for medical care. His death helped spark changes that bolstered benefits for survivors of deceased DSNY workers, according to a press release.

Once the city’s largest garbage dump, the Fresh Kills facility closed in 2001 after 50 years of operation, briefly reopening following 9/11 so investigators could search through the rubble to identify human remains, according to Gothamist.

The site was initially identified as a development site in the 2019 Bay Street Rezoning and later became part of former Mayor Eric Adams’ North Shore Action Plan, which targeted 20 acres along Staten Island’s northern shore for development with continuous open space, 2,400 homes and new commercial spaces.

“They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and in this case this award-winning DSNY garage is a treasure all on its own,” DDC Commissioner Paul A. Ochoa said. “New York’s Strongest deserve top-notch facilities, and we are proud to deliver a modern garage complex that supports the essential services they provide to the City.”

Hillside Grove. Credit: Purpose by Design Architects

The former site at 539 Jersey Street will become Hillside Grove, a mixed-use affordable housing complex developed by a joint team of Volunteers of America–Greater New York, Spatial Equity Co., and Nehemiah HDFC.

Purpose by Design Architects, a Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) design collaborative, will design the project with a focus on creating healthy, sustainable, and inclusive spaces, as 6sqft previously reported.

The 232 homes will be spread across three buildings: a 90-unit senior building for households earning up to 60 percent of the area median income (AMI); a 105-unit multifamily rental building for households earning up to 80 percent of AMI; and a homeownership co-op with about 37 affordable homes available for purchase by moderate-income households.

Credit: Purpose by Design Architects

Hillside Grove’s design entails four- and five-story buildings centered on concepts of health and wellness, aging in place, universal and inclusive design, active design, zero waste, and trauma-informed design.

The development team envisions the complex as an “urban sanctuary” designed to foster community and well-being, drawing inspiration from the area’s sloping terrain, historic architecture, and lush tree canopy while preserving the “small-town character” of Tompkinsville, according to the architect’s website.

It will also incorporate numerous sustainable design features and pursue Passive House certification through the use of a geothermal energy system, indoor gardens, and rooftop solar panels.

Other features include stormwater management and heat mitigation measures, including the planting of more than 100 trees, green roofs, retention ponds and dry wells, porous pavement, and rainwater capture and storage systems, as 6sqft previously reported.

Residents will have access to a variety of community-focused amenities, including community rooms, outdoor recreation space, exercise rooms, a computer lab, laundry rooms, and resident lounges.

Two mid-door gardens will offer year-round access to indoor greenspace, while a grocery store and community facility will host programming led by local partners.

The complex will also feature new public spaces along its perimeter, including a public plaza at Jersey Street and Victory Boulevard for bus riders and grocery store customers, another plaza at Brook Street, and widened sidewalks with shaded seating along Jersey Street.

“Blizzards or blue skies, our sanitation workers keep this city clean and moving, and they deserve facilities that reflect the excellence they bring to the job every day,” Mamdani said.

“The new Fresh Kills complex will strengthen the services Staten Islanders rely on, from trash collection and street cleaning to snowplowing and salt spreading,” he added. “And by moving these operations, we’re making way for hundreds of new affordable homes, public space, and a grocery store.”

RELATED:

• City-owned garage on Staten Island’s North Shore to become 232 affordable homes
• New photos of Willets Point show off NYC’s largest all-affordable development in decades
• 96 supportive and affordable homes coming to Hunts Point

The post New DSNY facility on Staten Island paves the way for 200+ affordable homes first appeared on 6sqft.

Bitcoin has found some relief after months of selling pressure. On Wednesday, the cryptocurrency jumped nearly 6% to over $69,000, reclaiming a level it had not touched since early June. The jump came right after the Treasury Department announced that it would double purchases of older long-term government bonds.

“The market read this as a quiet form of quantitative easing, a move that weakens the dollar and sends scarce, debasement-hedge assets like Bitcoin higher,” Matt Mena, a senior strategist at crypto research firm 21Shares, told Fortune in a written statement.

Investors quickly piled into those assets, which in turn forced short sellers to cover roughly $1.5 billion in positions by buying Bitcoin in the market. That included purchases of about $700 million in a single minute, an event that 21Shares said may have amounted to the largest short squeeze in Bitcoin’s history.

The rally follows months of weak price action as Bitcoin struggled to recover from a brutal crash last October. Since that rout, which triggered more than $19 billion in liquidations, Bitcoin has fallen about 40% from the $115,000 level where it traded at the time, according to CoinGecko.

Alongside the Treasury announcement, Mena said investors have increasingly priced in a pause in rate hikes over the past two months. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs drew roughly $1 billion in inflows during the first two weeks of August, adding another source of demand for the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin wasn’t the only cryptocurrency to rally following the Treasury announcement. Ethereum and Zcash led major tokens, each rising 9% in the past 24 hours.

A possible bottom

The rally may signal that Bitcoin’s bear market has moved past its worst phase, according to Zach Pandl, Grayscale’s head of research.

“Our best guess is that Bitcoin potentially bottomed at $58,000 earlier this summer… and [that] it’s a compelling time for investors with longer-term horizons to be allocating to Bitcoin and the crypto asset class,” he said.

Pandl said the Treasury’s move highlighted deeper fiscal pressures and could prompt investors to consider alternative stores of value. The national debt is expected to reach $40 trillion before the end of the month, while the U.S. war with Iran has driven inflation higher across the country. Pandl added that recent favorable developments for the crypto industry may have also influenced Bitcoin’s price performance.

On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a regulatory framework for crypto assets that could reduce uncertainty as the CLARITY Act remains stalled in Congress. The proposal would exempt eligible crypto firms from certain federal securities rules and make it easier for them to issue tokens and raise capital.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

A new New York City report finding no significant improvement in Manhattan air quality since congestion pricing took effect is giving fresh ammunition to opponents of the controversial $9 toll, who say the findings prove the program was designed primarily to raise money for mass transit rather than reduce pollution.

The Department of Health analysis found that despite an 11% decline in vehicle trips into Manhattan’s congestion zone compared with the period before the toll began, the reduction in traffic did not produce a measurable improvement in air quality south of 60th Street.

“Did congestion pricing affect air quality in the congestion relief zone? No,” the report said.

Kathryn Freed, a Lower East Side resident and member of New Yorkers Against Congestion Pricing Tax, which sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in an effort to stop the program, said the findings undermine one of the arguments made by toll supporters.

“There hasn’t been any change. Supporters said there would be less pollution if traffic went down in Manhattan. Apparently there’s no environmental benefit at all,” said Freed, a former state judge and councilwoman.

“How can they say traffic went down but not air pollution?”

The findings also contrast with claims made earlier this year by Gov. Kathy Hochul. At a January press conference, Hochul credited congestion pricing with environmental improvements, declaring that “pollution is down more than 20% in one year” because of congestion pricing.

Hochul initially put the congestion pricing program on hold in 2024 before approving its implementation following the November election. The toll ultimately took effect in January 2025 despite lawsuits challenging the plan and opposition from President Trump.

For business owners who regularly drive into the congestion zone, the new findings have renewed anger over the additional expense.

“It was all bullsh-t. It was to put money in the MTA’s pocket,” said Vinnie DiMino, owner of the Sea Breeze Fish Market on Ninth Avenue near the Lincoln Tunnel.

“The report just proved it wasn’t about air pollution. It was all about transit. It’s all a lie – the Democratic politicians lie.”

DiMino said the toll has imposed a substantial daily cost on his business because of the deliveries he makes throughout the area.

“I feel like I have been robbed. It cost me $50-$60 a day to go back and forth, in and out of the [congestion] zone for deliveries. They are killing us.”

The financial burden is scheduled to increase in the coming years, with the congestion toll set to climb to $12 in 2028 and then to $15 in 2031.

Manhattan resident Jill Bowman, who drives several times each week to Brooklyn and New Jersey, similarly questioned the justification for continuing the program.

“We know it’s bullish-t but we can’t do anything about it.

“It’s not about saving lives. It’s about making money,” she said.

Alex Pichado, who has driven for Uber for a decade, said the lack of measurable improvement should prompt officials to reconsider the toll.

“If there is no change [in air pollution], they should stop it. There is no reason to continue with it.”

The Health Department’s findings extended beyond Manhattan. The report concluded that “pollution levels were not significantly different because of congestion pricing” in designated environmental justice communities outside the congestion zone, including parts of the South Bronx.

Supporters of the toll argue that the finding is significant for a different reason. Before congestion pricing began, critics warned that motorists attempting to avoid the charge could reroute through surrounding neighborhoods and create new pollution hot spots.

A separate report released in March had claimed that air pollution worsened in some Bronx neighborhoods following the launch of congestion pricing.

“Opponents of congestion pricing said there would be hotspots for increased pollution. That has not happened,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a watchdog organization that supports mass transit.

Reinvent Albany backed congestion pricing as a way to reduce traffic and generate funding for the MTA, but Kaehny said his organization did not promote major air-quality improvements as a central justification for the toll.

The city report noted that motor vehicles account for only about 14% of particulate matter emissions and approximately 20% of nitric oxide emissions in the atmosphere, limiting how much a reduction in traffic alone could affect overall pollution.

“That congestion pricing would only have a small impact on air quality is consistent” with earlier environmental impact assessments examining the likely effects of the program, the report said.

“Whoever was hyping the air pollution was wrong from the beginning,” Kaehny said.

Opponents in New York City’s outer boroughs remained unconvinced. Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, who is among the plaintiffs challenging congestion pricing in court, pointed to increased truck traffic on Staten Island and questioned how that could occur without affecting pollution levels.

“The report reaffirms that congestion pricing was nothing but a money grab. Just come out and say it,” he said.

The MTA, however, rejected the argument that the findings represent a failure for congestion pricing. The agency, which administers the toll and uses its revenue to finance transit improvements, said the study demonstrates that fears of pollution being shifted into other neighborhoods have not materialized.

“Before we turned the cameras on, there was concern about the potential for increased pollution caused by drivers looking to avoid the toll,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said in a statement about the city report.

“As this study confirms, that didn’t happen, and congestion pricing is already funding additional investments to further improve air quality.”

Former prime ministerial spokesman Nir Hefetz has predicted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could use one of his reserved positions on the Likud candidate list to place his son, Yair Netanyahu, in a favorable position ahead of the 2026 election.

Hefetz made the comments Wednesday during an interview with 103FM, as Netanyahu weighs how to allocate the reserved positions available to him following the Likud primaries.

Could Yair Netanyahu Receive a Reserved Likud Slot?

Asked about Netanyahu’s likely choices for the remaining reserved positions, Hefetz suggested that the prime minister could make an unexpected decision.

“In my opinion, Benjamin Netanyahu, as is his habit, will throw the baby out with the bathwater,” Hefetz said when discussing the future composition of the Likud slate.

“This is a guess. Somewhere around the 15th spot, you will see a very, very ‘attractive’ figure whose name also happens to be Netanyahu. Let’s see if I’m right. Incidentally, I hope I’m not.”

Hefetz was then asked directly whether he thought Netanyahu might reserve a position for his son. The possibility of Yair Netanyahu receiving a place on the Likud list has previously faced opposition within the party.

Hefetz said the decision could ultimately depend on whether Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, wants their son included on the slate.

“I haven’t been in contact with [Sara] for many years, but I believe so. I could also be wrong; you know who prophecy was given to.”

Hefetz: Likud Slate Unlikely to Win Over Undecided Voters

Hefetz also criticized the outcome of the Likud primaries, describing the available candidates as “the lesser of the evils” when viewed as a complete slate.

He questioned whether the resulting list would help Netanyahu broaden his support before Election Day.

“The bigger question is whether the list is actually feasible, and whether it’ll get him the results he needs on Election Day,” Netanyahu’s former spokesman said. “I am certain the answer is no.”

He argued that the new slate does little to strengthen Netanyahu politically and could potentially become a liability.

“This list certainly doesn’t help him. You can debate whether it hurts him or not.”

According to Hefetz, however, the central issue in the upcoming election is likely to be Netanyahu himself rather than the individual candidates competing for positions on the Likud list.

“If there were democratic elections in Russia now, what would be the main question being discussed? Continuing the war with Ukraine and Putin, yes or no. In the State of Israel, which has also had a very strong leader for 17 years, the issue we are going into the election over is Benjamin Netanyahu, yes or no.”

From that perspective, Hefetz said, the precise positioning of Likud candidates is unlikely to be a decisive factor for many voters.

“It isn’t whether Amir Ohana is in second place or whether Nir Barkat has been pushed to the back of the list. This list certainly doesn’t help him. You can debate whether it hurts him or not.”

Hefetz also expressed doubts that the new Likud slate would succeed in reaching voters in the political center, including those who are considering alternatives such as Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel.

“I believe there are no people on this list who appeal to or attract undecided voters. Those who moved toward Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel, or those sitting in the middle on the fence, are not people considering voting for Gilad Erdan. Almost everyone on this list speaks to those who are going to vote for Netanyahu anyway, no matter what.”

Weight-loss drugs are becoming a popular employee perk, with almost a third of workers saying they’d switch jobs to get GLP-1 coverage. Now, Bank of America is spending $250 million or more yearly on the drugs for its staffers—and CEO Brian Moynihan says the upsides are well-worth the eye-watering cost. 

“What we see is a great impact on the employees,” Moynihan recently said in an interview with CNBC. “We’ve always been about mental wellness, physical wellness.”

It’s part of a wider $2 billion a year wellness package for employee healthcare at the $436 billion bank. Staffers may have to cover the premium or copay for their GLP-1s, but the Wall Street titan is picking up the rest of the bill, amounting to nearly a quarter of a billion dollars annually. And Moynihan says the health investment is worth it to support a healthier workforce. 

“It’s lowering near-term incidents of heart issues for people taking, even if they don’t have all the attributes,” the CEO continued. “That’s the payback.”

The chief executive even acknowledged that Bank of America may not fully realize all the long-term benefits. He noted that some Bank of America staffers on GLP-1s may not see the health upsides until later in life, years after they’ve left the company, but he still believes in the investment.

“It’s the right thing to do for your teammates…We do it because we want to be the great place to work,” Moynihan said. “It’s been fascinating to watch our teammates’ behavior on these adjustments, the loss of weight. We monitor that, we give them coaches and everything, and so it’s a good investment by us.”

Bank of America had no further comment to share with Fortune.

Weight loss drugs are popular—but 60% of firms only offer it for diabetes

In the past couple of years, weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound have exploded on the wellness market. 

Now, GLP-1s—originally created to help manage blood sugar levels for people with type 2 diabetes—have become a fixture of millions of Americans’ lives. Around 11% of U.S. adults currently take GLP-1 medications for weight loss purposes, a stark jump from 3% just two years ago, according to a recent Gallup analysis. So companies are steadily expanding their health offerings to meet workers where they are. 

While 60% of employers said they offer GLP-1 coverage for diabetes only, around 36% also cover it for both diabetes and weight loss purposes, according to a recent study from IFEBP.

Earlier this year, consulting giant PwC announced it would no longer cover GLP-1s as an employee benefit for solely weight-loss purposes, blaming “rapidly rising costs.” Instead, the company said it would continue to offer the drug “when prescribed for conditions aligned with established standards of care, such as type 2 diabetes, but [they] will not be included under pharmacy coverage for weight management.” 

Companies are weighing the high costs of GLP-1 offerings for workers

GLP-1s are an increasingly sought-after benefit for talent; around 30% of workers even said they would switch jobs if that got them coverage for the drugs, according to a survey from insurance broker NFP. 

And they’ve gotten cheaper thanks to high demand, manufacturer price cuts, direct-to-consumer options, and new government programs. Now, a starting dose of Wegovy is available for just $149 a month, compared to $1,600 a month when it first launched in the U.S. in 2021. Or in the case of Amazon One Medical’s GLP-1 management program, insured individuals can snag the weight-loss drugs for as low as $25 a month. 

While the drugs have become cheaper, soaring demand and long-term use have put employers in a financial pickle. 

Now, more than a quarter of large corporations are ramping up GLP-1 coverage criteria in 2026 or 2027, according to an analysis from Mercer earlier this year. Around 11% of these big employers have dropped—or are planning to drop—coverage of the drugs for weight-loss purposes this year or next. 

Health services company Cigna stopped covering GLP-1 weight-loss drugs including Wegovy and Zepbound in its employee health plan this July. The company said it made the change “as availability has increased and new options ​have emerged,” but maintained that staffers still have access to weight management programs and resources. 

And HCA Healthcare, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers across its hospitals and medical centers, stopped covering the drugs for weight-loss this January after use of GLP-1s on its employee plan shot up 90% in 2025 alone. It still covers the drug for diabetes. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Three kedoshei elyon had one common concept when it came to learning Torah – they were the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh (Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar 1696-1743) when he came to Eretz Yisroel; the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto 1707-1746) when he lived in Padua, Italy;  and Hagaon, Harav Chaim Volozhiner, (1749-1821) the famous talmid of the Gaon of Vilna.

They each had a yeshiva with ‘around-the-clock’ Torah learning, 24-hours a day, so that there would be no minute when the sound of Torah learning would not be heard in this world. The 24-hour period would be divided into shifts, and as one ended the next would begin.

Torah-24

A “Torah-24” Center has been opened in Yerushalayim and the Nasi is Maran Sar Hatorah, Harav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l.

• The first “Torah-24” center is in Yerushalayim

• 11 Kollelim with 163 avreichim will be learning at “Torah-24” every day

• Nigleh, Nistar, Chumash and Halacha – All under ONE ROOF

• Talmud Bavli / Yerushalmi – Kabbalah & Zohar – Rambam, Shulchan Aruch & Poskim, Zeraim – Taharos

• The following SIX kollelim – Kollel Hashkomas Haboker, Kollel Yerushalmi, Kollel Bavli, Kollel Choshen Mishpat/Even Haezer, Kollel Erev Shabbos, Kollel Kabbalah B’Chatzos (Tikun Chatzot, Etz Chaim, Zohar, Tehillim) – are fully operational

• 24 hour תורה learning cycle – 6:00 am to 6:00 am – is divided into different shifts

• Each kollel shift has its own program, Rosh Kollel and avreichim

• Detailed monthly and annual tests – written and oral – for all avreichim

• Already there are 77 avreichim metzuyonim, and a large number of candidates are vying for the remaining slots in the kollelim. All the avreichim are required to take rigorous monthly tests.

In the words of Gedolei Torah:

“Torah-24 תורה” – where the voice of Torah is not absent from within the walls of the kollelim, not even for a minute…

“The idea … of day and night shifts of non-stop kollelim… the full range of subjects of the Torah… the derech of the Ramchal, the Ohr Hachaim Hakodosh and Hagaon Reb Chaim of Volozhin.”

– Nasi Maran Sar Hatorah, Hagaon Harav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l

“All who donate to and support “Torah-24 תורה” will merit all the brochos of the Torah, including those for refuos, yeshuos, parnossa tova and nachas from all their descendants, Amen”

– Maran Rosh Yeshivas Ponevez, Hagaon Harav Gershon Edelstein, zt”l

At “Torah-24 תורה”, exceptional avreichim do not pause for a moment while studying all the areas of the holy Torah, with a shift of remarkable scholars studying the holy Zohar and the recitation of Tikun Chatzos at midnight. 

All who donate and support this holy endeavor of “Torah-24 תורה” should see brocha and success … children and grandchildren immersed in Torah and mitzvos… fulfillment of all the hopes of their hearts for good and with brocha. 

– Maran Hagaon Harav Moishe Sternbuch, shlit”a

I join the esteemed Rabbanim and Gaonim, shlit”a, in endorsing the illustrious “Kollel Kabbalah b’Chatzos” designated for outstanding talmidei chachomim, masters of Torah and yiras Shomayim, who spend their nights in Beis Hashem, engaging deeply in the concealed dimensions of Torah during this auspicious time of Divine Favor…

I hereby call upon my generous brethren to support this endeavor with significant sums, for through this they will attain the great merit of the hidden Torah studied at night. May you all be blessed by Hashem with many blessings in accordance with the greatness of the endeavor that you are supporting!

– Maran Hagaon Hamekubal, Harav Yaakov Meir Shechter, shlit”a

“Support ‘Torah-24 תורה’ where the sound of Torah – nigleh and nistar – all hours of the day and night; and be blessed from shamayim that the Torah should never cease from your mouth; children bnei Torah; abundant parnassa and good health”

– Maran Hagaon Harav Shimon Badani, zt”l
Rosh Kollel Torah V’Chaim, Member Moetzet Chachmei Hatorah

“Torah-24 תורה” – groups of talmidei chachomim geonim in different shifts, delve in the subjects of Torah learning without interruption – Bavli, Yerushalmi, Dalet Chelkei Shulchan Aruch, Rambam, Kabbala, Midrash, Tana”ch and more.  “Torah-24 תורה” is in actuality a wonderful continuation of the heichalei hakodesh and battei midrash of our holy Rabbonim – the Ramchal, the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh and the Nefesh Hachaim, zy”o. Who would not want to be part of this historical and amazing project “Torah-24 תורה”, and the greatness of its holy impact in both the supernal and lower realms?  “My brocha to all who support “Torah-24 תורה” – You should merit great abundance in both the spiritual and the material – supernal light, peace of mind, tranquility of the soul and bodily health. Only goodness and kindness should pursue you all the days of your lives, and you should dwell securely for your length of days.

– Maran Hamashpia Hagadol, ‘Reb Meilech’ Biderman, shlit”a

“Your kesher with ‘Torah-24 תורה’ will be a true ובהם נהגה יומם ולילה – and we will delve in them by day and by night”

– Maran Hagaon Harav Shraga Steinman, shlit”a – Orchos Torah

“Talmidei Chachomim of ‘Torah-24 תורה’ delve into all sectors of Torah – Bavli and Yerushalmi, Dalet Chelkei Shulchan Aruch, Rambam, Kabbalah – Nistar”

– Maran Hagaon Harav Shimon Gallai, shlit”a – Bnei Brak

Kollel Kabbalah b’Chatzos” is a precious link in the golden chain of the glorious Torah empire “Torah-24”… bringing tremendous delight to the Ribbono shel Olam. Fortunate are all those who take part in this great and holy endeavor.

– Maran HaMekubal Rav Abish Zehnwirth, shlit”a

For more “Torah-24” information click on: www.torah-24.com or call 718-766-5022

Please, folks, let’s not start panicking about long-term Treasury bond yields. In the last couple of weeks I’ve seen more ink spilled about the 30-year Treasury than I have in probably the last 10 years. 

The bellwether Treasury is the 10-year, which has been trading steadily in a range of 4 percent to 5 percent and no one’s been screaming about that. 

Yet here’s the key point. The 30-year Treasury bond yield has gone up about 35 basis points in recent weeks almost entirely because of plenty of new economic statistics that show a faster, more powerful growth rate — especially in manufacturing and construction, along with advanced technologies. 

It’s not about inflation. Yet the news headlines have been screaming inflation with no good analysis because they just love to keep whacking away at President Trump. 

Take a look at any of the Treasury rate increases, however, and you will see it’s all from the real yield, not the inflation component. 

The inflation component, which is the CPI breakeven compensation for inflation, hasn’t gone up all year. On the 30-year CPI breakeven, the expected inflation component has hovered just above 2.0 percent all year to date.

Another example, the market rate for 10-year Treasuries has increased about 50 basis points so far this year. 

And virtually all of it is from an increase in the real yield from Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities of 50 basis points. The expected inflation rate from the breakevens has increased by less than 5 basis points. 

The consumer price index break-even component that implies inflation has basically been flat. The same is true for the 30-year Treasury bond. 

What is happening however, is that market rates have been driven up by stronger 4 percent-type economic growth and are normalizing after all those 0-type rates from the financial crisis and Covid and very bad Federal Reserve policy that Kevin Warsh is going to fix. 

Actually, for context, a 4 percent-plus Treasury yield is more like the President Clinton/Speaker Newt Gingrich days of strong growth from lower capital gains taxes and welfare reform. 

The economy was booming then. The Treasury rate’s around 6 percent.  So right now, we’re just normalizing. And there is an enormous boom. Mr. Trump today at the White House spoke of the boom from one big beautiful bill:

“We’ve gained so much in the last 16 months like nobody can believe, actually. And not only that, but we have more money being invested in the United States than any country at any time in history. Money is coming in by the trillions.” 

He added that “our nation’s economic dominance drives trillions of dollars in investments, creates millions of jobs, and expands access, credit and capital so that every citizen has a chance to achieve what we now hear a lot about the American dream.”

The American dream is alive and well. So I’ll just put a cap on this by saying, first of all, ignore the headlines. Second of all, interest rates in the bond market are not exploding. 

And what increase there has been is because of a stronger than expected economy. And we are normalizing. And there’s nothing to panic over, even though the press loves to whack away at Mr. Trump on almost every topic under the sun.

The Justice Department is pushing back against James Comey’s attempt to have a criminal case against him dismissed, arguing that “there is no serious dispute” that the onetime FBI director’s controversial “86 47” seashell post could reasonably have been interpreted as a threat against President Donald Trump.

Federal prosecutors are also challenging Comey’s claim that he simply stumbled across seashells arranged to display “86 47” during a walk on a North Carolina beach. In court filings Tuesday, the government suggested that the May 2025 Instagram post may also have been connected to efforts to generate attention for Comey’s then-upcoming novel, which centers on a social media figure whose rhetoric inspires followers to attack his enemies.

The filings offer the government’s most extensive explanation to date of the allegations underlying Comey’s indictment. They came in response to multiple defense motions seeking dismissal of the charges, including arguments that Comey is the target of a vindictive prosecution and that his social media post did not constitute a legally actionable threat.

Comey’s attorneys have accused investigators of misleading judges, including false information in documents, omitting important facts and repeatedly failing to uncover evidence establishing that Comey intended to threaten Trump physically or understood the number 86 as a reference to violence.

Merriam-Webster defines “86” as meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” Trump is the 47th president of the United States.

Prosecutors, however, contend that the image of seashells displaying “86 47” amounted to a threat against Trump. Comey removed the Instagram post shortly after publishing it and said he had been unaware that the numbers could be viewed as encouraging violence. His attorneys maintain that the expression has long been used to mean to “get rid of” or “eject” someone and has appeared widely on merchandise and signs at political demonstrations.

The Justice Department argued that the post should also be considered in the context of assassination attempts and alleged plots targeting Trump during the period surrounding Comey’s post. According to prosecutors, just two minutes before Comey published the image, his wife sent him a screenshot containing a definition of “86” that said “to get rid of or refuse service.”

“There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump,’” prosecutors wrote.

The government also highlighted the timing of the controversy, noting that Comey was only days away from releasing his novel “FDR Drive.” The book features a prosecutor pursuing a far-right social media personality who publicly identifies his enemies and whose followers are inspired to commit acts of violence against them.

According to the government’s filings, Comey’s publishing agent texted him after the Instagram controversy erupted and observed that he had “gone viral.” Comey replied that that was “not my intention, but I’ll be OK if it sells books.” The agent responded, ”Music to an agent’s ears.”

Prosecutors further questioned whether Comey actually discovered the seashell arrangement by chance. They said there was “reason to doubt” his account because the shells were found roughly 4 miles from the beachfront property where he was staying and in a location separated from the ocean by a sand dune. Investigators also said there was “no evidence that anyone else arranged, photographed, or even saw the shells.”

Comey’s attorneys have characterized the prosecution — his second indictment within a year — as part of a campaign of retaliation by Trump against a prominent critic. Trump fired Comey as FBI director in 2017 while the bureau was investigating possible connections between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, and the two have remained bitter adversaries in the years since.

The Justice Department rejected the claim that Comey was prosecuted out of political revenge, maintaining that the decision to bring charges was made by the local U.S. attorney and was not the result of instructions from either President Trump or the attorney general.

President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian government on Wednesday to launch a program to rebuild commercial warehouses damaged or destroyed by Ukraine in a month of targeted attacks.

Ukraine has carried out drone strikes against at least two dozen warehouses of Russia’s top online retailer Wildberries since July 18, causing explosions and fires that have destroyed a large chunk of its storage capacity.

Putin, without naming the company, said a number of logistic sites needed rebuilding with state involvement, and told the government to work on this.

“It is essential to ensure that the restoration of damaged facilities is carried out at a qualitatively new technological level,” he said in televised comments to a conference of ministers and business leaders on the economy.

Russia’s economy growing despite sanctions, Putin says

Putin said the economy was growing modestly despite external pressure, a reference to Western sanctions, and despite Ukrainian attacks on industrial and infrastructure facilities.

“Of course, such attacks have not caused, and could not cause, critical consequences. However, they do inflict damage; this is obvious, and we fully understand and acknowledge it,” he said.

Ukraine, whose own cities, ports and logistics hubs are also under attack, says its strategy is aimed at raising the costs to Russia of continuing the war that Moscow launched in February 2022.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said this week that the EU would in the coming months impose its most far-reaching sanctions yet on Russia.

This post was originally published on here.

As New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill wraps up her first six months in office, a new poll released today gives her decent approval ratings, while U.S. Senator Cory Booker and Andy Kim also hold positive ratings among New Jersey voters.

The Morning Consult poll shows 55% of New Jersey registered voters approve of Sherrill’s job performance, compared with 30% who disapprove. Another 15% said they did not know or did not have an opinion. Her net approval rating is plus 25 percentage points.

Booker, a Democrat who is running for reelection to the Senate this year and is also strongly considering running for president in 2028, also has a favorable standing among voters. Fifty-three percent approve of his job performance, while 33% disapprove, giving him a net approval rating of plus 19 points. His net rating is up 3 points from the previous quarter.

Kim, New Jersey’s other Democratic senator, has a 49% approval rating and a 27% disapproval rating, for a net approval rating of plus 22 points. His net rating increased by 1 point from the first quarter of 2026.

President Donald Trump is the only leader included in the survey with a negative overall rating in New Jersey. 38% of voters approve of his performance, while 59% disapprove, producing a net approval rating of minus 21 points.

Trump’s net rating declined by 2 points from the first quarter. His approval is sharply divided along party lines, with a net rating of plus 66 among Republicans and minus 79 among Democrats. His net rating among independents is minus 39.

Sherrill’s net rating is plus 73 among Democrats, plus 15 among independents and minus 28 among Republicans.

How would you rate her as a leader?

PHILADELPHIA (VINnews) – Philadelphia police have released photos of a man suspected of vandalizing the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History for the second time in a year.

The incident occurred around 8:10 a.m. Friday in the 100 block of South Independence Mall in Old City. Police said the man wrote an antisemitic message on the OY/YO sculpture outside the museum.

Surveillance video allegedly shows the suspect, described as between 50 and 60 years old, heavily tattooed and wearing a white tank top, khaki shorts and red-and-white Nike Air Jordans, defacing the statue before entering the 5th Street SEPTA station via the southeast stairs.

The graffiti has been removed, but community leaders said the impact extends beyond the physical damage.

“This is incredibly frustrating, but unfortunately not surprising,” said Andrew Goretsky, senior regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. He noted that the repeated targeting of the museum reflects a broader trend, citing 80 incidents of vandalism recorded in Pennsylvania in 2025 compared with 29 in 2022.

State Rep. Tarik Khan, who reported the incident to police, said: “Whether you’re Jewish or not, I think people realize that we must stand out against hate in our community. We can’t tolerate hate, and when we see something that’s wrong, we have to stand up.”

The latest episode comes nearly one year after another suspect spray-painted the museum’s facade, plaza and an Israeli flag.

Goretsky outlined steps he said are needed to combat hate: public condemnation by leaders, individuals reporting incidents rather than remaining silent, and greater education to counter disinformation.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Central Detective Division at 215-686-3047 or 215-686-3048.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov is calling for presidential elections to be held despite the ongoing war with Russia, mounting one of the most direct political challenges yet to President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” Fedorov said in a speech broadcast on social media. He called for Ukraine to develop a “legal, safe and realistic mechanism” that would allow the country to fully resume its democratic process even while the war continues.

Ukraine’s presidential election had been scheduled for 2024 but was postponed under martial law, which prohibits elections. Zelensky has previously indicated that the law could be changed, but has said an election should take place during a ceasefire with Russia to ensure voting can be conducted safely and freely.

Fedorov, 35, served as defense minister for roughly six months and became a popular figure over reforms he promoted and his efforts to combat corruption. His dismissal last month sparked protests in several Ukrainian cities, particularly among younger Ukrainians.

In his remarks, Fedorov criticized what he called the “old system,” saying it fears change and protects itself. He also suggested that personal loyalty has become too important in government appointments.

“People cannot live forever in a country where they do not understand why certain decisions are being made,” Fedorov said. “It is especially dangerous when society begins to feel that the main criterion for an appointment is not professionalism, achievements and the ability to change the country, but personal loyalty to the system.”

Fedorov has not announced whether he plans to run for president. A poll released earlier this month showed him receiving 13.1% in a hypothetical first round, behind Zelensky at 22.3% and former military chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi at 21.4%. The same poll found both Fedorov and Zaluzhnyi would defeat Zelensky in a runoff.

The political tensions come as two Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies announced an investigation involving lawmakers and senior advisers in the presidential office. Among those reportedly examined was deputy presidential office chief Iryna Mudra, who was linked by the agencies to a group accused of laundering 150 million hryvnias, approximately $3.35 million. Zelensky later removed Mudra from her position.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The sweltering Middle East summer commute got a bit cooler for some public transportation riders this week after the first air-conditioned bus stop was launched in Israel.

The innovative pilot project saw a water-based air-cooling system installed at a city bus stop located in the central Israeli city of Holon.

The pilot is slated to run all week at the bus stop opposite the city’s mall, and if successful, will be expanded to additional bus stops throughout the city.

The system installed on the roof of the station disperses tiny droplets into the air, absorbing heat through evaporation.

“Waiting for the bus in the sweltering heat is part of daily life for thousands of residents, and we want to change even these seemingly small things that have a significant impact on the quality of life in the city,” said Holon Mayor Shai Kenan. JNS

NEW YORK (VINnews) — The captain of a charter boat that capsized in New York Harbor, killing a mother and her 5-month-old daughter, was in the United States illegally and is now in federal immigration custody, according to the New York Post.

Manuel Hernandez, 46, of El Salvador, was allegedly operating the 21-foot boat without a boating license when it capsized near Liberty Island on Aug. 8. Sara Sanchez, 27, and her baby daughter, Antonella Garcia, drowned in the accident.

The Department of Homeland Security said Hernandez had entered the U.S. illegally through Texas in 2007 after falsely claiming to be an American citizen.

Federal prosecutors allege that Hernandez, who was hired by the tour operator as a limo driver, periodically operated charter cruises despite lacking the required license or training.

Investigators said Hernandez packed 14 passengers onto the boat, which was typically designed to carry no more than 10 people. The vessel also lacked an infant-size life jacket, authorities said.

Hernandez allegedly turned and accelerated after encountering a swell, causing the boat to capsize and sending the passengers into the water. Other boaters and NYPD, FDNY and Coast Guard crews rescued survivors, but Sanchez and her baby could not be saved.

Hernandez was arrested and charged in federal court with two counts of misconduct and neglect of a ship officer resulting in death. He was initially released on $50,000 bail.

After federal authorities determined his immigration status, Hernandez was taken into ICE custody and is being held without bail pending the outcome of the criminal case.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin called Hernandez an “illegal alien” and said he would be removed from the country after facing justice for the alleged crimes.

The New York Post reported the case Wednesday.

The IDF announced Wednesday that four Hamas Nukhba terrorists from the Beit Lahia Battalion were eliminated in an airstrike in Gaza’s Al-Shati area a day earlier, including a company commander and three platoon commanders.

Among those eliminated was Muhammad Hamdi Ahmad Al-Masri, a Nukhba company commander who advanced terror attacks against IDF troops. The strike also killed Samed Samir Harb Abu Habal, a Nukhba platoon commander who infiltrated Israeli territory during the October 7 massacre.

The other two terrorists were identified as Nukhba platoon commanders Muhammad Attar and Muhammad Fathi Hussein Nasser. According to the IDF, both were involved in advancing and carrying out attacks against Israeli forces.

The IDF said the four commanders posed a threat to its troops and were targeted in an aerial strike to remove that threat.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

WATCH:

The Five Towns Jewish Times has issued a public apology to the community after coming under criticism for publishing a full-page advertisement for a cannabis dispensary — an issue brought to the forefront in a strongly worded YWN Mailbag submission from a Five Towns resident.

The letter, published by YWN on Wednesday, expressed shock that a newspaper serving the Orthodox Jewish community would carry such an advertisement, particularly amid serious concerns surrounding substance abuse and addiction within the frum community.

The writer called on local Rabbanim and community leaders to speak out and demanded that publications serving the frum community exercise greater responsibility when deciding which advertisements they accept.

Following the controversy, the 5TJT acknowledged that publishing the advertisement was a mistake and issued an unequivocal apology on its social media account.

“We want to acknowledge a recent advertisement that appeared in our paper. Publishing this ad was an error in judgment, and we understand that it caused pain and disappointment,” the newspaper said in its statement.

“As a family newspaper that strives to serve our community with sensitivity and responsibility, we should have exercised far greater caution. We sincerely regret this mistake and apologize to our readers. We are committed to doing better and regaining your trust.”

The accompanying post added: “We made a mistake. We take responsibility. We apologize to our readers and our community.”

YWN commends the Five Towns Jewish Times for listening to the concerns raised by members of the community, taking responsibility and publicly acknowledging that the advertisement should not have appeared.

Mistakes happen. What matters is how they are addressed. In this case, the newspaper heard the criticism, acknowledged it without excuses, and apologized to the community it serves.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Casino and resort operator Bally’s issued a warning that it may struggle to keep up with its debt burden over the next year, and there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to remain a going concern.

The company made the disclosure in its second quarter earnings report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In the filing, Bally’s said the company is “pursuing a number of financing alternatives to enhance its liquidity, including asset monetization, an equity sale, and debt financings.”

“While the company is actively engaged in discussions on several financing alternatives, the conditions and events raise substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Bally’s said in the filing.

The company said it executed a term sheet in July for a loan that would fund the continued development of the Bally’s Bronx project and other corporate purposes, though the term sheet is non-binding, and the two sides are working toward a binding agreement.

“These plans have not been finalized, are subject to market conditions and the actions of third parties, are not within the company’s control and there can be no assurance that the plans will be successfully implemented,” Bally’s explained, adding that those plans don’t alleviate substantial doubt about its ability to remain a going concern.

Companies are required to include a going concern warning in its financial filings when auditors see that the company faces the risk of failing or being forced into bankruptcy within the next year.

Bally’s filing noted several factors that may influence its outlook and performance, including unexpected costs from its construction projects, risks from rapid growth, the impact of digitization of gaming on casino operators and the company’s expansion into digital gaming, as well as regulatory compliance costs and other matters.

As of the end of June, Bally’s owned and operated 20 casinos globally, including some in the United Kingdom and in 11 U.S. states, as well as a golf course in New York and horse racetracks in Colorado and Wyoming.

It also operates the Bally Bet Sportsbook & Casino, an iCasino and sportsbook licensed in 14 North American jurisdictions, and it holds a majority interest in Bally’s Intralot.

The company has rights to developable land in Las Vegas at the former site of the Tropicana Las Vegas and has a license to build a full-scale casino and resort in The Bronx, New York. 

It’s also developing Bally’s Chicago, an integrated resort in the Windy City, though it recently paused construction on some portions of the project amid the uncertainty.

Shares in Bally’s stock have declined over 35.9% over the past five trading days since the warning.

The company’s stock is down just 4.9% over the last year, but has fallen more than 46.8% since the start of 2026.

Bally’s shares are down 0.79% during Wednesday’s trading session.

Consumers are being urged to check their freezers after several varieties of Outshine fruit bars sold nationwide were recalled due to possible glass contamination.

Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream is voluntarily recalling select batches of Outshine fruit bars sold in six-count packages and 24-count Variety Packs, according to an Aug. 18 announcement from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The recall was issued after consumers reported finding glass in the products, the announcement noted.

“Dreyer’s is taking this action out of an abundance of caution following consumer reports of glass found in the product,” the company said.

No illnesses or injuries have been reported, according to Dreyer’s.

The affected products were distributed to retailers nationwide. 

Consumers are urged to check the UPC, batch code and best-before date on the packaging to determine whether their fruit bars are included in the recall.

The recalled products include certain batches of:

A complete list of affected batch codes, UPCs and best-before dates can be viewed on the FDA’s website.

No other Outshine products or varieties are affected, according to the company.

Anyone who purchased an affected product should throw it away or return it to the place of purchase for a full refund.

FOX Business reached out to Dreyer’s for comment.

Israel’s policy for Gaza is to “remove threats, eliminate terrorists, and exact retribution from anyone who took part in the [Oct. 7, 2023,] massacre,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday.

The Israel Defense Forces eliminated Hamas terrorists in Gaza earlier in the day and will “continue to act with force to protect our soldiers and ensure the peace for the southern communities—from within the security zone,” Katz added in Hebrew.

The IDF presently controls roughly half of the Gaza Strip, a territory referred to as the security zone.

Katz’s statement comes on the backdrop of increased IDF activity in the Gaza Strip over the past week, as well as the arrival in Israel of U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner, who is leading international efforts to demilitarize the Palestinian territory.

The IDF targeted a gathering of Hamas Nukhba Force commanders in an airstrike in the Shati area in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, including a terrorist who participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

According to the military, the strike killed a company commander, three platoon commanders and several other terrorists who were planning attacks against Israeli troops operating in the enclave. One of the terrorists had infiltrated Israeli territory during the Oct. 7 invasion, the IDF said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF said it had killed on Aug. 16 a Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander who infiltrated Kibbutz Be’eri and participated in the abduction of an Israeli civilian during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Tareq Anwar Khamis Ra’i, a company commander in PIJ’s supply unit, was killed in an Israeli strike in the Khan Yunis area, according to the military. The IDF said he had recently been advancing terrorist attacks against Israeli troops and civilians.

The army said it used precise munitions and aerial surveillance to mitigate harm to civilians.

In addition, IDF troops sealed two Hamas underground tunnel routes east of the Yellow Line, totaling more than two kilometers in central and southern Gaza, the military said on Wednesday.

Soldiers under the command of the Gaza Division’s Engineering Unit completed the operation as part of the effort to neutralize the Palestinian terrorist organizations’ tunnel network across the Gaza Strip, the IDF said.

Kushner: Washington addressed Jerusalem concerns over Gaza roadmap

Meanwhile on Monday, Kushner said that progress toward Gaza’s demilitarization could begin within 30 days, following a nearly four-hour meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kushner told Fox News that Washington would not support rebuilding Gaza before demilitarization, adding that the administration had addressed Israeli concerns about the Board of Peace roadmap and clarified that Israel’s right to act against imminent threats would not be restricted.

Top Israeli officials, including the prime minister, have repeatedly stated that the IDF will not leave Gaza before Hamas is fully disarmed.

Netanyahu on Aug. 9 said publicly that “Israel rejects the 15-point document,” referring to the disarmament roadmap announced by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace on July 30.

On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that there was no disagreement between Israel and the United States over disarming Hamas and ensuring the terrorist group has no future in the Gaza Strip.

Huckabee, who attended meetings on Monday with Netanyahu, described the talks as “intense and thoughtful, but respectful.”

He rejected reports of a rift, saying some accounts of the discussions were “simply fake news” and “invented out of thin air.”

A Hamas delegation arrived earlier in the week in Egypt to probe alternative ways of advancing the 15-point roadmap, a Hamas official told AFP.

The source was quoted as saying that talks would cover “the latest developments in the negotiations and the efforts being made to compel Israel to abide by the agreement,” apparently referring to previous Hamas statements that it would start handing its arms to a technocratic Palestinian body only after the IDF withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Leaders of the terrorist group also reportedly met with Kushner. JNS

Thai police have raided foreign-owned companies on the island of Koh Samui suspected of using Thai citizens as straw owners to illegally hold land and businesses, as authorities investigate thousands of registered companies.

As part of an examination of approximately 12,900 registered companies, authorities identified dozens of firms holding assets estimated to be worth between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion baht, Kan News reported.

One network identified in the investigation includes 19 companies linked to Israelis, which are suspected of operating unlicensed kindergartens and conducting real estate transactions involving luxury villas. Authorities have opened approximately 60 cases against 88 suspects, including 62 foreign nationals, and arrest warrants have been issued.

The investigation follows a separate raid in May on an illegal childcare facility on the Thai island of Koh Phangan, where authorities found 89 Israeli children. The facility was reportedly authorized to accommodate no more than 18 children between the ages of two and five, but authorities found children ranging in age from two to 12.

The facility was operated by an Iranian couple and a Thai citizen and employed foreign workers in violation of Thai law.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

New York City must create roughly 700,000 new homes over the next decade to address its housing shortage, according to a draft city report. Released Wednesday, the Fair Housing Growth Strategy report is an analysis of the city’s housing crisis, mandated under a 2023 City Council bill that called for an assessment of the city’s overall need for new housing. The report finds that the city’s current shortage is among the worst in recorded history, with a rental vacancy rate of just 1.4 percent. Among apartments with asking rents below $1,100, fewer than 0.4 percent are available.

The Local Law 167 mandated the city’s Departments of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and City Planning (DCP) to produce a long-term housing needs assessment, five-year housing production targets, and a strategic equity framework every five years.

The Fair Housing Growth Strategy seeks to answer two questions: How much housing does NYC need to support a healthier, more affordable housing market, and how should housing be distributed to advance fair housing goals?

According to the report, decades of underproduction have led to one of the most limited housing markets in city history. With only 1.41 percent of apartments available to rent, lower-income households face even greater risks of severe rent burdening, poor housing conditions, overcrowding, displacement, and homelessness.

These figures are reflected in similar reports, such as the Coalition for the Homeless’ annual “State of the Homeless” report, released in June, which found that 194,531 individuals used the city’s shelter system over the course of 2024, the most in its history.

Scarcity amplifies fair housing barriers, according to the report, which include both intentional discrimination and structural practices that disproportionately limit housing opportunities for certain people and populations based on factors such as race.

For example, in a highly competitive housing market, source-of-income discrimination and bias based on family status, race, language, disability, or immigration status can become more prevalent and difficult to challenge. Additionally, structural barriers like restrictive zoning can curtail where, how much, and what types of housing can be built.

In order for the city to address this looming crisis, the long-term housing needs assessment says it needs to create roughly 700,000 additional homes over the next 10 years.

The figure was calculated by combining the city’s current housing shortage of 290,000 homes with 240,000 homes needed to accommodate projected population growth and another 170,000 homes that could be created as the city moves toward a healthier housing market.

The report also notes the Mamdani administration’s commitment to building affordable housing. As part of his “Block by Block” housing plan, the mayor has committed to building 200,000 new affordable homes, including 90,000 deeply affordable units and 28,000 units for formerly homeless households.

Local Law 167 also required the creation of five-year housing production targets (HPT), which translate the 10-year housing goals into five-year targets at the citywide and community district levels and inform strategies to overcome local barriers to fair housing.

By 2030, the city must build 350,000 new homes to meet half of its long-term housing needs, including 85,000 affordable units, 25,500 deeply affordable units and 12,750 units for formerly homeless households. It must also preserve 100,000 existing affordable homes while improving housing quality.

The report also found that most community districts have added relatively little housing over the past several decades, a rate insufficient to meet the city’s long-term needs. To meet these goals, all districts must contribute, according to the report.

Each community district offers “unique opportunities” to create new housing while facing “unique challenges.” Local stakeholders and conditions will help determine the best path toward meeting these goals.

2030 Targets for the Bronx:

To determine how much housing each district should create, the report first assesses how much growth it has experienced over the past decade relative to the total number of homes in the district.

2030 Targets for Queens:

Low-growth districts, with annual growth rates between 0.07 and 0.33 percent, would need to increase their production the most. Their targets are calculated by adding 6.5 percentage points to their recent growth rates.

2030 Targets for Manhattan:

Medium-growth districts, with annual growth rates between 0.34 and 1.07 percent, would have a target growth rate of 8.75 percent. High-growth districts, with annual growth rates between 1.09 and 3.27 percent, would need to sustain their recent growth, with a target growth rate of 10 percent.

2030 Targets for Brooklyn:

“The work undertaken by the City Council to establish a Fair Housing Growth Strategy is essential to identifying where housing development is most needed and addressing the longstanding disparities that have shaped our neighborhoods,” Council Member Farah N. Louis, chair of the subcommittee on zoning and franchises, said.

“This strategy affirms that even in communities like Central Brooklyn, where we have seen consistent housing production, we must do more to ensure that new homes are truly affordable and accessible to the neighbors who call these communities home,” she added.

2030 Targets for Staten Island:

A strategic equity framework (SEF) is another component of the report. It identifies strategies needed to overcome barriers to fair housing, ensure the benefits of growth give New Yorkers access to every neighborhood, and help those who struggle most. It uses a three-pronged approach to assess fair housing in NYC: mobility, stability, and neighborhood equity.

To improve mobility, the report says the city must create high-quality shared housing near job centers with high demand from young professionals and households in transition, as well as expand low- and moderate-cost homeownership opportunities, including co-ops with community land trusts, in areas where homeownership is rare and existing options are unaffordable.

One hundred percent affordable housing must also be financed in low-growth areas with very few existing low-cost homes. To achieve this goal, these areas can be rezoned to require new permanently affordable housing projects.

To improve stability, the city should build on recent commitments to tenant protections by improving outreach to New Yorkers who are less likely to seek help, such as those who distrust the government or have uncertain immigration statuses, while also targeting buildings with high rates of distress.

In order to protect older adults, people with disabilities, and children from unhealthy heat conditions, the city should provide financial assistance to help these populations purchase air conditioners and cover related utility costs, while ensuring New Yorkers have easy access to safe spaces during heat emergencies.

Additionally, for people with physical mobility challenges, the city should make it easier and less costly to install elevators in new housing, even when they are not legally required, while finding new ways to retrofit existing walk-up buildings to improve accessibility.

Neighborhood equity can be achieved through investment in streets, sidewalks, and public spaces, as well as increased access to services in areas with abundant affordable housing. It also includes investments in climate resilience measures to protect neighborhoods from flooding and other extreme weather events.

The report released this week is a draft, and over the coming weeks, HPD and DCP will gather public feedback to inform the final report. New Yorkers can learn more and comment on the draft by attending one of two virtual public hearings, scheduled for August 26 and September 2, scheduling a one-on-one conversation with city staff, or submitting written comments.

“To overcome our housing crisis, we need every neighborhood in every borough to do its part,” Dina Levy, commissioner of HPD, said. “The Fair Housing Growth Strategy is a roadmap to a fairer and more affordable city. We’re excited to engage with our neighbors across the city as we draft our final report.”

RELATED:

• Nearly 195,000 people slept in NYC shelters in 2025, the most ever
• Mamdani releases blueprint to build 200,000 new affordable homes, target bad landlords
• Even amid NYC’s housing crisis, new affordable units sit vacant for over 14 months

The post NYC needs 700,000 new homes: See the unit target for every district first appeared on 6sqft.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited a facility where terrorists found guilty of murder will be hanged. The site, currently under construction, is located in central Israel. Its exact location has not been revealed.

The facility will include a “dedicated wing” where terrorists sentenced to death will be transferred and await hanging. It will also include the gallows, which will be located in the center of that wing. Viewing booths will allow surviving victims and their families to watch the proceedings. Of the viewing booths, Ben-Gvir said that this is customary in other countries, including the United States.

While many, but not all, terrorists who carry out attacks in Israel are killed in the act by security forces, Ben-Gvir said that those that do survive will meet their fate at the facility behind him.

“We are making history,” he declared. “Terrorists deserve only one thing: death by hanging.”

With national elections scheduled for Oct. 27, the National Security Minister appealed to his base in a video post, stressing that he has kept his electoral promises.

“I promised to worsen the conditions of terrorists in prisons. It was fully carried out. I promised to pass the death penalty law for terrorists. That’s done. I promised to establish a [hanging] facility. And that’s carried out,” he said, pointing to the construction site behind him.

The death penalty law the minister referred to was passed by the Knesset on March 30 by a vote of 62-48. The law was sponsored by a member of his Otzma Yehudit Party, whose husband was killed in a terrorist attack.

“From now on, every mother in Judea and Samaria will know that if her son goes out to murder, his sentence is the gallows,” Ben Gvir said at the time.

In 2023, Ben Gvir also tightened restrictions on security prisoners, those held for nationalistically motivated attacks or membership in terrorist groups.

He reduced shower times, closed prison bakeries and banned family visits. His separate ban on visits by Knesset members to prisoners was overturned by Israel’s Supreme Court in April 2026. JNS

Treasury yields are on the march with some analysts suggesting Fed chairman Kevin Warsh is being “tested” by the bond market. But those who know the boomerang central banker well told Fortune that while Warsh will note market “teething” problems, a reaction shouldn’t be expected.

Yields have climbed higher as softer inflation and labor data have dampened the picture for Fed rate hikes, which the market has already priced in. Thirty-year Treasuries sit near 5.3%, heights which haven’t been seen since 2007. The 20-year is around the same mark.

Yields have been elevated since the conclusion of Warsh’s latest press conference following the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. In July, markets got the impression that they were perhaps doing some of the legwork for the Fed by tightening financial conditions with higher yields. Warsh also declined, as is his policy, to provide forward guidance, leaving analysts questioning whether the central bank would follow through with hikes.

“It is too early to draw firm conclusions, but the rise in the term premium and bear steepening of the curve following Warsh’s first two [Federal Open Market Committee] FOMC meetings could indicate that the Fed’s credibility is being tested,” said Bassam Nawfal, chief asset allocation strategist at Alpine Macro in a report yesterday.

Warsh’s defenders point out that he has been clear in his intention to bring inflation to heel at 2%. At his first post-FOMC conference in June, Warsh stated: “I’ve said for years inflation is a choice. You bet it is. And today I’m announcing that this Committee, unambiguously and unanimously, have decided we are going to deliver on that.”

The declaration was notable given that President Trump had insisted his nominee would have to be willing to cut the base rate.

Warsh’s credibility at the Fed is clear, Randall Kroszner, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, tells Fortune. Professor Kroszner has worked closely with Warsh in the past: He was confirmed to the Fed’s Board of Governors in the same year—at the same hearing—as Warsh, and the pair sat side by side during FOMC meetings until Kroszner left the central bank in 2009.

“There’s a teething process whenever there is a new Fed chair … there were concerns about Jay Powell when he first came in,” Prof. Kroszner told Fortune—speaking last week, ahead of the latest yield jump. “Kevin is very clear that he wants to change the communication strategy, and people … in the press as well as in the markets don’t like change, [they think]: ‘I’m used to this, I know how everything works, and now I don’t know how everything works and I’m frustrated.‘”

“But that’s part of the changeover process … I don’t think Kevin could be clearer about how he really doesn’t want to give forward guidance, he doesn’t want the focus to be on every bump and wiggle in the data. He wants the Fed to think in terms of the bigger picture … and people are finding that frustrating, but I think he’s been very, very clear.”

A market watcher

Prof. Kroszner, like Warsh, worked closely on the Fed’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, chairing the Committee on Supervision and Regulation of Banking Institutions and the Committee on Consumer and Community Affairs. The pair worked closely with private sector stakeholders: Warsh, a former Morgan Stanley executive, with Wall Street, and Prof. Kroszner speaking daily with credit card companies to evaluate the health of consumers.

Wall Street may now be wondering why one of its own is proving so surprisingly unhelpful. Prof. Kroszner suspects—unsurprisingly—that Warsh will still be keeping a watchful eye on markets.

“You certainly don’t want to dismiss what’s happening in the markets, that’s not appropriate,” Prof. Kroszner said. “You want to be aware of what’s happening in markets, but you certainly don’t want to be a slave to what’s happening in the markets … Kevin will be aware of and sensitive to that.”

Economists are divided on Warsh’s approach thus far, with current unease in the bond market just one symptom of that split. Federal Reserve alum Claudia Sahm has suggested Warsh is “long on symptoms and short on solutions.” Jeremy Siegel, emeritus professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, wrote for WisdomTree, where he serves as senior economist, that central bankers have an “obligation to explain the economic framework behind their decisions” and that last month Warsh had fallen short.

Prof. Kroszner suggests that whether or not experts agree or disagree with the approach, Warsh is nevertheless asking “very important questions.” Prof Kroszner added of Warsh’s task forces to examine current practice at the Fed: “Getting outsiders to have input and then have a good discussion at the Fed—as he said, family fights at the table, and he may well get that—because the answers may be controversial, but I think the questions are good ones.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Moderna shares soared 177% Wednesday, nearly tripling from $62.96 to $174.38 and adding approximately $44 billion to the company’s market value.

It was Moderna’s biggest one-day gain ever and the largest advance by an S&P 500 company in at least 25 years. The last member of the index even to double in one session was Hartford Financial, which gained 102.4% during the financial crisis on December 5, 2008.

The historic rally followed a medical breakthrough. Moderna and Merck said their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in a Phase 3 trial involving patients with high-risk melanoma, becoming the first personalized mRNA cancer treatment to achieve that milestone.

The vaccine is created separately for each patient. Scientists analyze mutations inside the patient’s tumor and produce a customized treatment that trains the immune system to recognize and attack those cancer cells.

Combined with Merck’s Keytruda, the vaccine significantly extended the time before melanoma returned or spread following surgery.

The result could transform Moderna, which has struggled to replace declining COVID-19 vaccine revenue. It also gives Merck a potential way to strengthen its cancer franchise as Keytruda approaches the loss of important patent protections.

Merck shares climbed 12.6% to a record, while BioNTech jumped approximately 20%. Investors betting against Moderna suffered an estimated $5 billion in losses, and their rush to repurchase shares added fuel to the rally.

Moderna and Merck are preparing to seek regulatory approval, with a possible U.S. launch next year. The same technology is also being tested against other cancers, meaning Wednesday’s breakthrough could extend far beyond melanoma.

JBizNews Desk | Cambridge

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