Iran said Monday it has reached an agreement with Oman over a plan for ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz, which runs between the two countries, and the sides are now working to finalize details for a joint statement.

Iranian Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran that “an understanding has been reached regarding the map of the transit route.”

His comments came as a 60-day deadline for finding an agreement to end the war expired, with no signs of a deal between the U.S. and Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Iran used the past two months to prepare for an escalation of the war against the US and Israel.

Baghaei did not elaborate on the deal, but details that have previously emerged suggest the deal would reopen the strait with ships entering through a route close to Iran and exiting through a route close to Oman. Ships would transit without paying fees or tolls during the interim period.

The U.S. has sought an acceptable deal on opening the strait before ending its blockade of Iranian ports, and it was not clear whether this would meet Washington’s expectations.

Iran effectively closed the strait — through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies passed before the war — after Israel and the U.S. attacked the country on Feb. 28.

Baghaei conceded the talks with Oman have gone slowly, “but we had planned, and still plan, to finalize the understanding in the form of a package: the map plus a joint statement.”

(AP)

Anthropic investors have been kicking the tires on what could be the most valuable initial public offering in history. A handful of the frontier lab’s backers confirmed to the Financial Times this week that they expect privately held Anthropic to go public in October with a targeted valuation of $2 trillion or higher, which easily eclipses SpaceX’s record-breaking $1.77 trillion IPO in June.

That valuation would more than double the $965 billion the company was worth when it reported a Series H funding round in May. Bloomberg, meanwhile, has reported that Anthropic is also in talks to buy the startup Decart AI for $6 billion. Anthropic filed for an IPO confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, but has not publicly set a timeline. Rival frontier lab OpenAI followed suit shortly after Anthropic, but is not expected to IPO until 2027.

The awkward part of all this, though, is that Anthropic isn’t making money yet. Across the Nasdaq 100 universe, the index of large-cap tech companies Anthropic would join post-IPO, the average company trades at roughly 34 times trailing earnings and 25 times forward earnings. At those multiples, a $2 trillion Anthropic would need to post annual profits in the neighborhood of $59 billion to $79 billion to keep pace. 

It could be getting closer, but the Claude chatbot purveyor led by Dario Amodei still has a long way to go. The Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic’s second-quarter 2026 revenue would more than double to $10.9 billion, while the company would for the first time post an operating profit. But operating profit is not the same as net income. Operating profit tells investors whether the business is covering costs like salaries, compute, and research, but it doesn’t account for interest on debt or taxes. Net income is what’s leftover after all of that is subtracted out. And for a company like Anthropic, with all the needs that go along with sustaining a bleeding-edge frontier lab, the distance between operating profit and actual bottom-line profit could be substantial. 

Avery Marquez, director of investment strategies at Renaissance Capital, said approaching that threshold of a profitable bottom line will be key to make Anthropic’s valuation palatable to public investors.

“Just seeing the [$2 trillion] number, it’s definitely jolting,” she said. “Reaching near operating profitability will at least be something that in my mind makes this very large valuation maybe not seem so crazy.”

At $2 trillion, Anthropic would be keeping company with six other businesses in the world with valuations that size or more plus Broadcom, which has been floating near the $2 trillion mark since first crossing it earlier this year. But just look at the profits of those six firms.

Nvidia’s valuation is more than $5 trillion, and it earned $120.1 billion in net income last fiscal year on $215.9 billion in revenue. Alphabet, at $4.55 trillion, made $132 billion on $403 billion in revenue. Apple, at $4.49 trillion, earned $112 billion on $416 billion in revenue. Microsoft, at $3.7 trillion, posted $133.7 billion of net income in the year ended June 30. Chipmaker TSMC, one of the most valuable companies outside the U.S., rounds out the group at $2 trillion.

Anthropic would be closest to Amazon, which booked $77.7 billion in net income in its most recent fiscal year, although a portion of its own profits are a function of Anthropic’s valuation. (Amazon’s most recent second-quarter earnings show $62.6 billion of net income, and $53.4 billion of that was nonoperating pretax income “primarily from our investments in Anthropic,” its earnings release states.) 

What’s going right

Anthropic’s run-rate revenue went from about $9 billion at the end of 2025 to $47 billion by mid-May. Outside data shared by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff estimated Anthropic’s run rate had reached $74.1 billion, surpassing OpenAI’s $41.3 billion. (Salesforce is an early investor and customer of Anthropic; neither company has confirmed the figures, and Benioff shared data from TickerTrends.) 

“What most impresses me about Anthropic (besides unprecedented revenue growth) is their enterprise hat trick,” posted Benioff. “The best model (Claude), the best coding agents (Claude Code), & the best productivity tool (Cowork).”

What most impresses me about Anthropic (besides unprecedented revenue growth) is their enterprise hat trick: the best model (Claude), the best coding agents (Claude Code), & the best productivity tool (Cowork). Salesforce is proud to be an early investor, customer, and partner. pic.twitter.com/PE1DIGTOnN

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) July 23, 2026

The two rival frontier model developers, OpenAI and Anthropic, are comparable to each other, noted Marquez, which means whichever company files first sets the benchmarks that every company that follows has to measure up against.

Anthropic can tout its enterprise customer base, which is stickier and compounds more predictably than individual consumer subscriptions, which is where OpenAI’s ChatGPT has the name-brand recognition advantage. 

Then there’s compute. Evan Schlossman of Neostellar Capital Corp., whose fund holds a position in OpenAI, said the supply side of the business is the second thing he’ll turn to once he has an S-1 prospectus filing for Anthropic, right after he looks at its definitions for revenue and how it defines key financial metrics. 

“The question is, what is Anthropic’s source over the next 18 months, 24 months, of how much compute they will be able to access at any given time?” said Schlossman. “Do they own that? Are they leasing it? Is it short-term leases? Is it long-term leases?”

The answers will be revealing. A company that owns its servers or has locked-in, long-term leases has predictable costs and can squeeze performance out of its fleet of chips, making each dollar of revenue less expensive to deliver. Short-term leases can lead to spiking costs and scarce supply, and could leave Anthropic at the mercy of another company’s pricing. 

“If you’re able to get slightly better margins out of the hardware you own, what is that showing in terms of overall margin?” asked Schlossman. 

For its part, Anthropic has been locking in capacity. It has deals with Amazon, Google, and Broadcom, and GPU access through SpaceX. If the Decart deal closes, it would also bring in software that helps chips run more efficiently, and an inference optimization team that could plug and play in Anthropic’s organization. Marquez said lining up an acquisition before a road show is pretty common in the tech-IPO world. Companies do it so the pro forma financials already reflect the acquisition, even if the numbers describe a combined business that hasn’t actually operated together yet. 

What this does to OpenAI

Schlossman said the $2 trillion valuation for Anthropic is “exciting” news as an OpenAI investor. 

“If you see strong, credible demand for investments in Anthropic and escalating premiums on that revenue, it would speak to a reasonable analogy that you’re seeing similar market trends for OpenAI,” he said. “It’s the same sort of bull or bear case.”

He’s also not worried about one lab slide-tackling the other. 

“If everyone in the world wanted to switch over to OpenAI tomorrow, or Anthropic tomorrow, or Gemini tomorrow, I don’t believe those companies even have the compute to satiate that,” he said. “It seems less likely that you’re going to have one model intelligence company dominate the global demand for intelligence.”

Marquez sees Anthropic’s valuation turning up the heat for OpenAI. Whether it goes public first or second barely matters for Anthropic, but it matters a lot for OpenAI, which will be priced against a live competitor if Anthropic goes first as planned. Anthropic’s enterprise revenues are flattering, but hundreds of millions of people use ChatGPT. OpenAI will likely have to answer the strategic question as to whether it will continue pushing more deeply into enterprise where Anthropic is strong, or if it will lean into scaling more individual customers and monetizing advertising or paid conversions, she said. 

But OpenAI doesn’t necessarily need to beat Anthropic at its own game, noted Marquez, it just has to arrive looking comparable with similar growth and a credible path to profitability on an Ebitda basis. The hurdle Anthropic will need to overcome is establishing what financial metrics make sense for the company.

“The big hang-up for the valuation is, what metrics make sense for this company?” said Marquez. OpenAI will not have that problem, but it will have a very clear peer for investors to use for comparison.

“I don’t think that’s going to deter OpenAI at all,” said Marquez. “But I don’t think it helps OpenAI for Anthropic to go first.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

While recent economic data suggests South Florida has lost its cost advantage over New York, top real estate developers argue the numbers fail to tell the full story.

Key executives behind major residential skyscrapers in Manhattan and Miami argue South Florida is playing long-overdue catch-up after decades of underpriced real estate, while still offering buyers significantly more long-term value.

“Miami has earned a seat as one of the greatest cities in the world,” Naftali Group EVP of marketing, sales and design Danielle Naftali told Fox News Digital. “As people have migrated down here, [and] made it a location that people are living permanently, obviously, things have become a bit more expensive… world-class restaurants opening here, the most amazing cultural institutions, entertainment, hospitality groups — everything that people really experience in major cities around the world. And, you know, those truly go hand in hand.”

“Globally, Miami was playing catch-up to New York for long periods of time, and you can do this by price per square foot, you can do it by total dollars, what they sell for, but Miami used to trade at — as a local myself — I almost thought it was weird how inexpensive the real estate was here comparatively to cities like New York or London or LA,” PMG managing director Ryan Shear also told Fox Digital.

“A lot of people have moved down here, not just people, but companies and a lot of high-profile people, and you’re seeing big headlines about big trades and big sales and that’s true and that is great for the city. I don’t think it tells the whole story. I think Miami is still a value city,” he added. “I still think it’s a bargain play down here.”

A recent Bloomberg analysis of U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data found that the overall cost of living in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area has surpassed that of greater New York. The analysis separately found that housing costs in South Florida are roughly 5% higher than in New York and its suburbs. Additionally, consumer prices in South Florida have risen 36% since 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, representing the second-highest inflation surge among major American markets, trailing only Tampa.

South Florida home prices have jumped 79% since the pandemic, according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data, while Florida’s average annual homeowners insurance premium stands at $8,292, roughly four times the average in New York state, according to Insurify.

“There’s definitely a price gap that has changed. But what we see ultimately is that buyers are less sensitive to the price per square foot as the buyers have become more sophisticated,” Naftali countered. “We see our buyers thinking about everything from lifestyle, services and amenities, finished pallets, and really the best quality. So this is something that people are really willing to pay that premium.”

“Anyone that’s buying in our development today will be able to see their appreciation over the next five to ten years,” she said.

Beyond homebuyer costs, developers also face nationwide borrowing and insurance pressures. However, Shear emphasized that constructing a high-rise in Florida remains vastly more accessible than doing so in New York.

“It is still less expensive to build in Florida than New York. And not by a little, by like a decent, significant amount,” Shear said. “Debt in Florida is the same as debt in Texas… Banks lend nationally and globally. So it’s still affordable to build in Florida.”

“Everything’s relative. You know, we’re relative to the world we live in. So, relative is South Florida trading at faster paces, absorption greater than what we see in a lot of markets… It’s not a Miami thing. I think Florida in general is having a very good moment. And it’s been going on for a while, and I don’t think it’s stopping,” Shear said.

Florida remains one of nine U.S. states with no individual income tax, whereas top earners in New York City face combined state and local income tax rates of nearly 14.8%. ATTOM data show Miami-area property taxes have jumped 62% since 2019. Florida voters, meanwhile, will consider a constitutional amendment in November that would exempt the first $250,000 of a homestead’s value from property taxes other than school district levies.

“There is definitely still tax incentive to Florida. That’s very obvious. What we see, though, especially in the luxury sector, is that global luxury buyers, it’s not that they’re either going to New York or either going to Florida. Most of those buyers have a home in both locations. So there’s definitely a tax benefit to being in Florida, without a doubt,” Naftali said.

“It’s just math. The effective tax rate, I believe, in New York, if you’re in the top tax bracket, is somewhere between 50 and 55%, depending on what borough and so forth. There’s no state income tax and there’s no city tax here. So the top tax bracket is set by the federal government, that’s it. That’s the math. If anybody would tell you different, it’s not an opinion, that just factually is the truth,” Shear argued.

“I’ve read countless articles saying how real estate taxes are going through the roof. Well, it’s not the real estate tax going through the roof. There’s just more expensive real estate. It’s not that the tax rate is changing,” he continued. “But if you want to go to city that’s checking all these boxes that somebody’s looking for — massive growth, massive job[s], large population, high rises and so forth — I think it’s impossible to find one. So again, to the point of relativity, it’s all relative to the next option. I think as an option, it does not get better than South Florida.”

U.S. Census Bureau figures show the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area’s median household income was $80,625 in 2024, about $1,000 below the national median of $81,604. The developers also pointed to infrastructure, permitting and school expansion as efforts to accommodate future population growth across South Florida.

While local median incomes may lag national benchmarks, Shear noted the region’s economic engine is fundamentally changing as major employers relocate their corporate headquarters, rather than just opening small satellite branches.

“It’s not just the people that are moving down here. People are moving their companies down here,” Shear explained, noting that PMG shifted its primary headquarters from New York to Miami. “We’ve reached a tipping point where you’re seeing companies… that are planting their flag in Miami and building companies or taking their existing company and moving them to Miami.”

“I think specifically in Miami, people will continue to move down here. As we said, this is no longer a seasonal location, right? You have everything here,” Naftali said. “It’s a continuous progression. So when you talk about the next five years, it’s only going to continue to get better. So if you’re able to get in now and invest in a new development down here, I think it’s a great investment opportunity.”

“Ask people, where do you want to spend the rest of your life?” Shear said. “Not everything’s about price per square foot, and I still think it’s a value play down here, but I think it is about a lot more down in Florida… Work hours, quality of life, weather, state income tax, restaurants, who’s down here. I mean, Miami’s culture now is incredible… how lucky are we to experience the world’s cultures in one city? Fundamentally, people are moving down here and still are continuing to, not just because you save on taxes or there’s good sun. I think people have finally figured out that living in Florida may just be a better life that they want, and that’s invaluable.”

A Chabad House that opened about a month ago in southern Sri Lanka to serve Israeli tourists in the area has become the target of attacks and threats in recent days from some local residents, Ynet reported.

A protest led by Buddhist monks and residents was held against the Chabad House on Friday night, during which the protesters demanded that the legality of its operations be investigated.

The Chabad House, located in the village of Hiriketiya, southern Sri Lanka, operates a kosher restaurant, holds Shabbos meals and serves as a ‘home away from home’ for Israeli travelers. However, residents justify their protest against the site by claiming that “unwanted religious and commercial activity” is taking place there.

This past Shabbos, during the Friday night meal, Buddhist monks and residents held a noisy protest near the Chabad House and harassed those at the site, playing loud music, throwing firecrackers into the courtyard, and hurling stones at the building.

In addition, Israelis on the way to the site to join the Shabbos meal were stopped by protesters and ordered to turn back. The protesters even set off firecrackers near some of the guests in an effort to frighten them and prevent them from reaching the site.

The protest escalated after Shabbos ended, when several Israelis leaving the Chabad House were threatened with sticks.

A spokesperson from the Chabad House told Ynet that they are concerned that the incidents will escalate without immediate intervention. “The Chabad House was opened to serve Israeli tourists in Hiriketiya, allow them to eat kosher food and provide them with a warm and safe place far from home,” an official there said. “Now we need urgent help so we can continue operating safely.”

Chabad House officials called on the Foreign Ministry, the Israeli Embassy and the authorities in Sri Lanka to immediately intervene, provide a permanent security presence around the site, and carry out an investigation on the violence and threats. “We must not wait until a disaster occurs. Immediate action is needed to protect the Israelis and the Chabad House and ensure that every traveler can reach the site safely,” officials at the Chabad House in southern Sri Lanka said.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

President Donald Trump’s effort to bring U.S. prescription-drug prices closer to those paid overseas is already changing pharmaceutical companies’ behavior far beyond America.

Drugmakers are increasingly holding back applications for insurance reimbursement in Switzerland because lower Swiss prices could eventually be used as benchmarks under the administration’s most-favored-nation drug-pricing policy.

A survey released Thursday by Swiss pharmaceutical industry group Interpharma found that seven of 22 newly introduced innovative medicines between January 2025 and June 2026 were never submitted for inclusion on Switzerland’s mandatory health-insurance reimbursement list. Three additional medicines were not submitted for Swiss market approval at all. 

The reimbursement list matters because it determines whether Swiss compulsory health insurance will cover a drug and also helps establish the price paid in the country.

That is now becoming a strategic concern for manufacturers.

Trump’s most-favored-nation approach seeks to prevent Americans from paying substantially more for medicines than patients in other wealthy nations. Switzerland is among the markets that can be used as an international pricing reference. 

For drugmakers, that creates a new calculation.

Launching a medicine at a relatively low reimbursed price in Switzerland could potentially put pressure on the much larger and more profitable U.S. market. Companies therefore have an incentive to delay reimbursement, hold back a launch or seek a higher overseas price rather than risk creating a cheaper benchmark that could follow them back to America.

Interpharma said just 15 new medicines were submitted for Swiss reimbursement during the 18-month period, compared with an average of 24 during comparable periods between 2019 and 2025. 

The business consequence is one of the most important unintended effects emerging from international reference pricing.

A policy designed to lower American drug costs does not necessarily change only what Americans pay. It can also influence where pharmaceutical companies launch medicines, how quickly they seek reimbursement and what prices they demand from foreign governments.

That could leave countries accustomed to negotiating lower drug prices with less leverage.

The trend is not limited to Switzerland. Drugmakers have also delayed some European launches amid concern that lower prices there could undermine U.S. pricing under the administration’s international benchmarking push. 

For American consumers, the administration’s objective remains straightforward: use the enormous size of the U.S. pharmaceutical market to push domestic prices closer to the lowest prices paid by other developed countries.

But the early response from manufacturers suggests the policy may change the global pricing system itself.

Instead of simply lowering American prices to European levels, pharmaceutical companies may increasingly try to prevent European prices from falling far below American ones.

That means the next phase of the drug-price battle may not be fought only inside U.S. pharmacies and insurance companies.

It may be fought over which countries get new medicines first — and how much they will have to pay to get them.

JBizNews Desk | Washington

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Stripe Inc. has finalized an agreement to acquire OpenRouter Inc., a startup that helps companies switch between artificial intelligence models, for more than $7 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The deal, just months after OpenRouter raised money at a reported $1.3 billion valuation, underscores the demand from businesses to find the most cost-friendly AI solutions. It could also give Stripe, a payments processing firm, a stronger footing in the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector.

The final price for the acquisition could change. The discussions were described by people who spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public. 

A spokesperson for Stripe said the firm doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation. OpenRouter declined to comment. 

Founded in 2023, OpenRouter provides access to hundreds of AI models, with the goal of matching developers with the most efficient and affordable options for the job at hand. The New York-based company has attracted some of the biggest investors in Silicon Valley, including CapitalG — one of Alphabet Inc.’s venture arms — as well as Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures. OpenRouter has raised more than $150 million in capital to date.

The startup’s rise coincides with greater scrutiny on AI costs. While firms like Anthropic PBC and OpenAI are still widely viewed as offering the most capable AI models, a long list of Chinese firms provide cheaper alternatives that are often viewed as good enough for many tasks. 

In May, OpenRouter said it serves 8 million developers who rely on it to access more than 400 different AI models. The startup’s main growth is coming from developers who experiment with different models when building agentic capabilities into their software, a process that requires a mix of infrastructure that can work across different providers and data sources.

OpenRouter also offers services that help companies access backups in case the model they use fails and understand which options are most popular across the broader tech ecosystem.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported Stripe was in talks to buy OpenRouter for about $10 billion.

OpenRouter Chief Executive Officer Alex Atallah previously co-founded OpenSea, a nonfungible token marketplace, which raised more than $400 million in capital but saw usage crater. Atallah stepped down from OpenSea in July 2022, and less than a year later started OpenRouter.

Earlier this year, Atallah described OpenRouter as the AI equivalent of Stripe. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Jane Street, one of the most powerful trading firms on Wall Street, suffered an extraordinary $15 billion hit in July after an AI-stock selloff battered positions connected to one of the market’s most aggressive artificial-intelligence investment funds.

Yet the loss reveals something equally remarkable: Jane Street has still generated more than $40 billion in trading revenue this year, already surpassing the $39.6 billion it produced during all of 2025.

The July setback was tied partly to Jane Street’s investment in Situational Awareness, an AI-focused hedge fund run by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.

The fund had grown rapidly as AI-related stocks surged during the first half of the year. But when semiconductor, memory and other AI-linked shares suddenly reversed in July, leveraged positions came under severe pressure.

Situational Awareness ultimately unloaded much of its stock portfolio in a distressed sale to Citadel after losses triggered margin calls.

Jane Street was caught in that reversal both through its investment in the fund and through other technology positions of its own.

Several major memory and semiconductor stocks fell roughly 50% during the July rout, according to a Jane Street communication to employees.

The result was Jane Street’s first negative month of trading revenue since 2016.

For perspective, a $15 billion loss would be catastrophic for almost any investment firm in the world.

For Jane Street, it interrupted an otherwise extraordinary year.

The privately held trading company has approximately 3,500 employees and operates across more than 200 trading venues worldwide, buying and selling stocks, bonds, ETFs, options, currencies and commodities.

Its scale allows the firm to hold enormous positions while providing liquidity to global markets.

That model can be extraordinarily profitable when markets move as expected.

July demonstrated what happens when they do not.

Jane Street said it has since reduced risk in some strategies and closed significant portions of positions associated with the losses.

The episode also offers investors a rare glimpse into how concentrated the AI trade has become.

Artificial intelligence is no longer simply a collection of popular technology stocks held by retail investors. Hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, banks and institutional investors have committed enormous amounts of capital to many of the same semiconductor, data-center, cloud-computing and memory companies.

That concentration can amplify gains when AI stocks rise.

It can also accelerate losses when investors attempt to exit similar positions simultaneously.

The most unusual part of Jane Street’s July loss may therefore be what happened afterward.

Despite absorbing approximately $15 billion in a single month, the firm remains on pace for what could still be the most profitable year in its history.

That says as much about the extraordinary amount of money being made around today’s markets as the loss itself.

But July delivered a warning that applies far beyond Jane Street:

A trade can become enormously profitable without becoming less dangerous.

And when billions of dollars are crowded into the same AI bets, a relatively short market reversal can produce losses measured not in millions — but in tens of billions.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

Israel’s High Court last week rejected petitions seeking to prevent the State Attorney’s Office from handling the Military Advocate General’s case in the Sde Teiman affair.

As a reminder, officials in the Attorney General’s Office and State Attorney’s Office covered up the leak of the doctored Sde Teiman video carried out by disgraced Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi by carrying out a feigned internal investigation and claiming that they were unsuccessful in identifying the source of the leak. Justice Minister Yariv Levin then demanded that an external party oversee the investigation. However, the High Court stymied those efforts by imposing impossibly harsh restrictions on the candidate’s qualifications. The Court then proceeded to disqualify Levin’s appointments twice, leading Levin to give up on his efforts for an untainted investigation.

In addition, there are deep suspicions that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara was deeply involved in the cover-up of the MAG affair. During his interrogation by the police over the lackluster internal investigation into the source of the leak, ex-Deputy Military Advocate General Brig. Gen Asael said that “all of my actions were guided and directed by the Attorney General’s office.” In addition, Baharav-Miara personally prevented the transfer of information on the case to Lahav 433.

Nonetheless, three justices—Yitzchak Amit and Justices David Mintz and Khaled Kabub—ruled that there were no grounds to order the police to carry out specific investigative actions.

Amit and Kabub also ruled that there were no grounds for judicial intervention in the opinion of the Justice Ministry’s legal adviser, according to which the State Attorney is no longer barred from overseeing the investigation into the affair, and that there were no grounds to grant Justice Minister Levin additional time to exercise his authority to appoint another official to oversee the investigation.

However, Justice Mintz disagreed with that conclusion. In his minority opinion, he held that a conditional order should be issued requiring Levin to explain why he was not exercising his authority to appoint an outside official to oversee the investigation in accordance with the conditions previously established by the High Court. Mintz believes that the previous ruling had been based on a clear premise that this was a sensitive investigation requiring outside oversight. According to him, the need for a supervisory official was evident both from the parties’ positions and from the justices’ statements and decisions in the previous proceeding.

Mintz noted the exceptional sensitivity of the affair, which, he said, concerns suspected involvement by the head of the IDF’s law enforcement system in leaking investigative materials and providing false information to the court. Under those circumstances, he held that appointing a supervisor from outside the Attorney General’s Office and the senior ranks of the State Attorney’s Office was not a secondary matter, but a prerequisite for creating an independent and reliable factual foundation free even from the appearance of a conflict of interest.

In his view, as long as the investigation had not been conducted under the oversight ordered by the High Court, it could not be determined that a new factual foundation had emerged that justified reconsidering whether the State Attorney was barred from involvement. He added that the police’s position that they had exhausted their investigative actions did not eliminate the need to examine the integrity of the process, even retroactively.

Petitioners Likud MK Avichai Boaron and the Lavi organization responded to the ruling by stating that they will seek a further hearing before an expanded panel of the High Court in an effort to overturn the decision by Amit and Kabub: “Such a fundamental issue, touching on the integrity of the investigation, conflicts of interest within the leadership of the law enforcement system and the public’s trust as a whole, cannot end with an incidental majority of two justices against such a forceful and well-reasoned minority opinion.

“We will not give up. We will not allow the affair to be whitewashed, and we will not agree to a situation in which those who should have been investigated, or whose system is involved in the affair, are also the ones overseeing the way it is closed. The truth must be investigated. And the investigation must be clean. Anyone who tries to legitimize a tainted investigation will encounter us through every legal and public avenue available to us.”

Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich said: “Justice Yitzhak Amit’s corrupt decision to return the investigation of the Military Advocate General to the State Attorney as part of the whitewashing of the video leak, which caused unimaginable harm to our heroic IDF soldiers, is yet another expression of the ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ method practiced by the High Court justices, the State Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General.

“Instead of Gali Baharav-Miara sitting in the interrogation rooms herself, she will lead the investigation and ensure that her friend, who caused grave harm to the State of Israel, emerges from this serious affair unscathed. I call on those High Court justices who still have a little integrity left to stand up against this madness and not settle for side comments in a minority opinion.”

Law professor Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya responded to the ruling in a post entitled: “The Massive Cover-Up.”

“Burying the Military Advocate General affair is the most serious scandal in the history of the High Court,” he wrote. “And the person responsible for this grave corruption is Yitzchak Amit.”

“When the affair broke, Amit panicked. He distanced himself from the issue, and therefore appointed a panel that was less activist than the hyper-activist group to which he belonged (Amit, Barak-Erez, Grosskopf, Kabub and Ronen). The panel consisted of Wilner, Stein, and Kanfi-Steinitz. That panel established the ‘Boaron precedent,’ which found a broad institutional conflict of interest applying to the State Attorney’s Office, due to the involvement of senior officials in the Attorney General’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office in overseeing the inquiry into the leak of the Sde Teiman video to journalist Guy Peleg.

“That ruling sent Amit (and the juristocracy in the State Attorney’s Office) into shock. Amit therefore immediately decided to step back in and take control of the matter. Because he cannot afford the downfall of Baharav-Miara, who constantly protects him.

“And that is where the erosion of the “Boaron precedent” began. First, the supposedly conservative panel itself imposed nearly impossible conditions on Levin in his search for an attorney to oversee the investigation. Thus, although the panel ruled that Levin was authorized, under the exceptional circumstances, to transfer the supervisory authority to another official, it also ruled that Asher Kula, whom Levin had appointed, could not take the position because of the statutory provisions that apply to him as the Ombudsman for Complaints Against Judges.

“And when Levin appointed retired judge Yosef Ben-Hamo, Amit stepped into the picture quite aggressively in order to block Levin and completely gut the Boaron precedent. As part of a request for an additional hearing on the ruling concerning Kula, Amit, sitting as a single judge, issued a temporary injunction freezing Ben-Hamo’s appointment on the grounds of ‘preserving the existing situation.’

“Amit now needed a legal avenue to bury the ‘Boaron precedent,’ and so he granted both requests for an additional hearing — filed by the Democracy Guard and the State Attorney’s Office — on the fundamental issues decided in the original ruling: the applicability of Section 23A(d) of the Civil Service Law and the scope of the justice minister’s authority under that provision in a specific criminal investigation, as well as the scope of the rule concerning a sweeping or systemic conflict of interest. He ruled that the case would be heard by all 11 High Court justices.

“An empirical study by Prof. Yehonatan Givati and Israel Rosenberg found that a justice who granted a request for an additional hearing voted against the original ruling in 87% of cases, compared with 65% among other justices who joined the expanded panel. In other words, Amit is seeking to bury the Boaron precedent through the additional hearing.

“And now to the damage in this specific case: How do you completely bury the Sde Teiman affair? After attorney Yael Kotik gave in to the juristocracy, which sought to allow State Attorney Amit Isman — who had been included in the institutional conflict of interest established by the Boaron precedent at the stage of overseeing the investigation — to resume handling the case after police announced that they had completed their investigative actions, a petition was filed with the High Court. In her updated legal opinion, Kotik determined that in light of the new factual basis, Isman was no longer barred from handling the case.

“Amit then stepped into the picture again, and this time a panel was appointed consisting of himself and Kabub — two members of the same hyper-activist camp — with Dovid Mintz added alongside them as a fig leaf (in place of Sohlberg). As expected, Amit and Kabub formed the majority on the central issues: They ruled that there was no basis to intervene in Kotik’s legal opinion that Isman was no longer barred from overseeing the investigation, and that Levin should not be given additional time to appoint another supervisory official. Mintz remained in the minority and held that a conditional order should be issued requiring Levin to explain why he had not appointed a supervisory official. All Dovid Mintz could do was take a swipe at Amit for effectively burying the Boaron precedent — which is precisely what Amit intends to do once and for all in the additional hearing.

“Never has such a corrupt judge served on the Supreme Court. And certainly never has there been a High Court president as manipulative as Yitzchak Amit.

“There is no justice in the High Court of Justice. All there is is manipulation of judicial panels whose sole purpose is to preserve the old hegemony, while trampling every principle of democracy and denying justice to the IDF soldiers who were harmed by the blood libel that the Military Advocate General pinned on them through the grave act in which she was involved.

“Because the only thing that interested Amit was how to get Baharav-Miara off the hook so that she could continue protecting him — at the expense of IDF soldiers and at the expense of the State of Israel.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

The Middle East shipping crisis cost Hapag-Lloyd approximately $600 million in the second quarter alone, putting a concrete price tag on how geopolitical disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz are flowing directly into global supply-chain costs.

The German container-shipping giant said Thursday that higher fuel, insurance, storage, rerouting and inland-transportation expenses tied to the disruption sharply weighed on earnings.

Net profit fell to just $83 million, down from $306 million a year earlier, even as revenue increased to about $5.84 billion.

The result shows how a shipping company can move more cargo and collect more revenue while still making dramatically less money when major trade routes become unstable.

Hapag-Lloyd has been forced to reroute vessels and reorganize its network as Middle East tensions disrupt normal shipping patterns. Those diversions add sailing time, consume additional fuel and create congestion throughout the company’s global system.

Insurance costs also increase when vessels operate near conflict zones, while containers delayed or stranded in the wrong ports create additional storage and repositioning expenses.

The impact does not stop with the shipping company.

When carriers spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to move cargo, those costs can eventually reach manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers through higher freight charges and surcharges.

That makes Hapag-Lloyd’s $600 million figure important far beyond one corporate earnings report.

The company said stronger exports from Asia and improved U.S. demand helped offset part of the damage. Second-quarter EBITDA reached $829 million, slightly above the comparable period last year, as higher spot freight rates provided some relief.

But profitability remained under heavy pressure.

Hapag-Lloyd’s experience also highlights how quickly geopolitical disruptions can reshape transportation economics. A container that once traveled through the most efficient route may suddenly require a longer voyage, additional handling or a combination of ocean, rail and truck transportation to reach the same customer.

Those changes create costs at nearly every step.

For businesses importing goods, the lesson is that shipping disruptions do not have to stop cargo completely to become expensive. Even when products continue moving, slower routes and higher operating expenses can significantly increase the final cost of getting merchandise onto shelves.

Hapag-Lloyd is one of the world’s largest container carriers, meaning the company’s experience provides a window into pressures affecting international trade more broadly.

Its rival Maersk also reported higher costs from Middle East disruptions Thursday, although strong freight rates and global container demand helped the Danish carrier raise its earnings outlook.

The contrast shows another unusual feature of the shipping industry: disruption can hurt operating costs while simultaneously pushing freight rates higher.

For individual carriers, the outcome depends on whether those higher rates are enough to compensate for the extra expense.

For Hapag-Lloyd during the second quarter, they were not.

The company’s $600 million hit demonstrates how quickly a regional security crisis can turn into a global business expense — and eventually into another cost embedded in the products moving through the world economy.

JBizNews Desk | Hamburg

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

IDF troops operating along the Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip have been instructed to prepare for possible Hamas fire, including sniper attacks and other terrorist activity, Channel 12 News reported Sunday evening.

According to the report, Hamas may open fire at IDF troops as part of an effort to shift the narrative and portray its attacks as responses to IDF actions that it will label as “violations.”

“Hamas is already showing increased boldness on the ground,” the report states. “In the past, the terror organization sent only women and children toward the Yellow Line. Now, Hamas terrorists themselves are approaching the volatile line in the Gaza Strip.”

The change in Hamas’s behavior is seen as an attempt to reassert control on the ground and challenge the IDF’s presence in the area, while taking advantage of the pause in combat to strengthen its hold on the territory.

Troops have been instructed to respond immediately to any threat inside the Yellow Line and eliminate terrorists who pose a danger. Strikes against terrorists beyond the Yellow Line, however, are subject to additional criteria.

A key consideration established by the Southern Command is the risk of collateral damage, with troops required to ensure that “innocent civilians” are not harmed.

The Otef Israel forum stated: “Hamas is exploiting the pause to rearm. They must not be allowed to bring in forces or weapons. This effort must be dismantled and brought down.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

LISTEN:

https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Tefila4Life-Shiur-1123-Bow-Vayevarech-Dovid.mp3

The 60-day deadline established under the June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran ended at midnight Sunday without a final agreement to end the war and with increasing evidence that Tehran used the negotiating period not as an opportunity for de-escalation, but to prepare for a broader military confrontation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing Arab and Iranian sources.

The report noted that from the moment the memorandum was signed, Iran’s leaders had already decided to violate it.

Arab intelligence officials have gathered evidence pointing to a strategic shift within the Iranian leadership, under which Tehran is preparing to expand the regional conflict in an effort to exact a heavy price from the United States through its network of militias across the Middle East.

According to the sources, hardliners in Tehran doubted the sincerity of U.S and Israeli intentions, viewing the agreement as an attempt to ease strain on the global economy and buy time ahead of a broader attack. At a meeting following the signing, they agreed to prepare for the next war with the US and Israel.

The intelligence information, based in part on intercepted communications between Tehran and militias in Yemen and Iraq, indicates Tehran’s growing willingness to carry out offensive operations deep inside “enemy territory,” with the aim of creating deterrence that would prevent further attacks against Iran.

As part of those efforts, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders have dispatched military advisers to Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon to coordinate targets, assist in deploying missiles and advanced weapons, and prepare forces for direct offensive operations.

During this period, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders tightened their control over the military, appointed hardline commanders to key positions, accelerated missile production and expanded operations in conflict zones in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. While Iranian diplomats ostensibly conducted negotiations, security officials activated militias in Yemen and Iraq to attack ships, energy facilities and Saudi Arabia, and even launched missiles toward Jordan.

The next stage of the Iranian plan includes attacks on strategic infrastructure and attempts to foment internal unrest in countries across the region. According to the report, missiles, naval weapons and drone launchers have been deployed in Yemen at positions overlooking shipping routes in the Red Sea.

Iran is also considering carrying out ground operations inside Kuwait, including through southern Iraq. The plans also include deliberately sabotaging undersea internet cables running through the Persian Gulf.

The sources cited in the report say that Iran’s goal is to create sustained pressure across multiple fronts, from the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea, exacting a steep economic, military and political price from the United States and its allies.

“There is also a widespread view in Iran that the main war has not yet begun,” Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash, a Tehran-based defense analyst close to the Iranian government, told the Journal. “What we have seen so far is increasingly interpreted through the lens of ‘salami-slicing’ tactics, limited and gradual escalation designed to weaken capabilities before a larger confrontation.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Jared Kushner, Nikolay Mladenov, and Tony Blair are expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on Monday, continuing to apply pressure on Israel to move forward with the next stage of the US plan for Gaza and advance US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, including the 15-point document on disarming Hamas.

Ahead of the meeting in Jerusalem, a senior Board of Peace official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that Kushner, Mladenov and Blair had held meetings in El Alamein, Egypt, with senior Egyptian officials and the other mediators, with the aim of turning the next steps in the roadmap into concrete measures for implementation. 

The three also met with the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and reviewed plans with its members ahead of the transfer of governing authority in the Gaza Strip to the technocratic body.

According to the senior official, the talks expected in Jerusalem will focus on ways to accelerate the implementation of Trump’s 20-point plan, with “the United States and Israel agreeing on the end state: a demilitarized Hamas.” 

The official added that the goal is to reach a demilitarized Gaza in which Hamas has fully relinquished governing authority to the Palestinian technocratic government, thereby allowing the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip to proceed.

Additionally, the official stated that the steps are intended to preserve the ceasefire, begin transferring all governing authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, and ensure that Hamas has no role whatsoever in managing the future of the Gaza Strip. At the same time, the process is intended to begin the comprehensive disarmament of Hamas and the decommissioning of its military infrastructure, enable the deployment of the International Stabilization Force, and accordingly allow Israeli withdrawals.

BoP attempting to speed up entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, begin rebuilding

The Board of Peace is also seeking to accelerate the entry of humanitarian aid and the reconstruction and rebuilding process in the Gaza Strip, while ensuring that aid is neither stolen nor diverted under threat. The official stressed that, from the Board of Peace’s perspective, there is no longer any room for ambiguity regarding what is required of Hamas.

“Hamas must relinquish governing authority and all weapons and military infrastructure. Gaza can never again serve as a source of terrorism against Israel,” he said.

This post was originally published on here.

Wall Street will get financial updates from some of the nation’s biggest retailers this week, along with more details from the Federal Reserve’s most recent meeting.

Home Depot reports its latest results on Tuesday, followed by Target and Lowes on Wednesday, and then Walmart on Thursday. The results will help give investors a more detailed picture of how businesses and consumers are handling stubbornly high inflation.

The rate of inflation remains solidly above 3%. The ongoing U.S. war with Iran prompted a surge in oil prices, which jolted gasoline prices. Higher prices on everything from gasoline to groceries and any goods that are shipped could prompt people to shift or cut spending.

Results from Home Depot and Lowes could provide more insight into the housing market and whether people are spending more or less on home improvements. Results and forecasts from retail giants Target and Walmart could provide more insight into how households are budgeting and spending.

Wall Street and economists will get more details about the Fed’s interest rate policy when the central bank releases minutes from the July meeting on Wednesday.

The Fed once again held its interest rate steady in July amid worries about stubborn inflation, the jobs market and the direction of the economy. But three officials dissented in favor of higher rates during the meeting. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh described the policy discussion to reporters as a “good family fight.” Wall Street expects at least one rate hike before the end of 2026.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The hardest investment decisions in business are rarely between a good idea and a bad one. More often than not, they’re between many good ideas, all backed by smart people, credible data, and a convincing argument for why they need to happen now.

This is further complicated by the fact that AI is moving fast. Trillions of dollars are being spent globally on new initiatives, and the competitive landscape is being turned on its head. Every quarter, the list of worthy investments grows longer, and every leader I speak with can make a compelling case for why their initiative matters most.

Here’s what hasn’t changed: capital is finite. Yes, you could raise more money, but there is no inexhaustible pot of gold waiting to be given out. If money is going to one area, you’re making a trade-off and spending less somewhere else.

At ServiceNow, that is not a theoretical exercise. We recently completed our $7.75 billion acquisition of Armis — one of the biggest capital allocation decisions in our history, and a bet that closing the gap between asset visibility and cyber risk mattered more right now than half a dozen other initiatives competing for the same dollars. These are decisions about where we believe enterprise AI is going, what capabilities we need to own, and how much conviction we have before the ROI is obvious to everyone.

As President and CFO, I sit at the intersection of growth and financial discipline. It is my job to make deliberate calls about where to invest, when to wait, and when to say no — and, like many other enterprise leaders right now, I’m aiming at a moving target.

Here are the questions I believe every major investment decision must answer.

1. Does it deepen our competitive moat?

I stress-test every investment decision against a simple question: does it strengthen what is hardest to copy about our business?

Right now, that question carries more weight than ever. When intelligence is cheap and AI can produce functional code in minutes, a meaningful feature advantage can be matched by your competitor in weeks. That raises the bar for what is actually worth funding.

Investment must now balance strategic parity — ensuring you aren’t left behind — with the differentiation required to be a market leader. Increasingly, one path to achieving this is pairing AI with proprietary data, hard-won expertise, and systems built over years.

Take JPMorgan Chase, which built its LLM Suite platform in-house and connected it to the firm’s own data and systems, creating a unified and unique AI resource that others can’t easily duplicate. At ServiceNow, we’re building on a different set of advantages: 20+ years of helping customers execute more than 100 billion workflows, which has given us deep domain expertise, proprietary data, and a massive install base of customers embedded broadly and deeply across our platform.

For every company, the moat will look different. The point is to be honest about the aspects of your business that are genuinely hard to replicate, and to invest in whatever compounds that advantage.

It also means being practical about the path you take to get there. We pride ourselves on being an organic growth and innovation machine. In a market moving this quickly, though, even organizations with a strong build-it-ourselves culture must be open to inorganic plays that bring in critical capabilities and talent faster than they can be developed internally. For many companies, it’s one of the harder shifts this moment requires.

2. Are we funding a real customer need?

The voice that should drive investment decisions is often the one that is not in the room: your customer.

One of my top priorities is making sure we have incredible feet on the street, working with customers to understand their pain points and challenges so we can help them innovate and create value.

One example: we heard from many enterprise customers who were struggling with fragmented AI efforts across their organization. Multiple initiatives were running in parallel with no central visibility or governance. That feedback led directly to an investment in developing what we call the AI Control Tower, a central hub for managing AI across the enterprise.

Some of the most expensive investment mistakes happen when there is a disconnect between what customers need and the products or innovations a company chooses to invest in. If you cannot trace a direct line from a customer insight to a major investment decision, that is a red flag.

3. Are customers adopting what we built and getting measurable business value from it?

An investment decision does not end once an initiative is greenlit — or even when sales are made and customers are onboarded. You have to care about whether customers are actually using what you built, and if it is embedded deeply in their operations and delivering real value.

I believe the teams closest to customers post-sale are often the best early-warning systems in the business. They see friction first and hear where adoption is stalling, or workflows are breaking down.

This is even more critical in this moment of AI adoption, where we know the real challenge lies in execution. According to ServiceNow’s own Enterprise AI Maturity Index**,** 59% of organizations are using agentic AI, but only 9% have made significant progress in creating autonomous, multistep AI workflows. That means companies are paying for capabilities they haven’t yet unlocked, so they’re not seeing the value they’re hoping for.

Of course, when your customers don’t see value, you’re inviting churn. At enterprise scale, even a single point of revenue retention can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This is money that should be driving investments in the right innovations and funding projects that create a competitive edge. Instead, it simply vanishes from the balance sheet.

Balancing bold bets with discipline

In my career, I have led through periods of real pressure. But the pressure companies feel right now to move quickly on AI is at a whole new level. That means companies must stay agile without becoming reactive. As I often tell my team, AI is creating incredible opportunities, but opportunities without prioritization are just noise.

These decisions are also never made in a vacuum. The key to success lies in making sure they are aligned across the business, grounded in what customers actually need, and tied to real value creation, not just experimentation. This is where discipline matters most: when something is not working, you have to be willing to close off the spigot and reallocate capital toward what is.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune_._

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

[Video below.] House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday that Democratic Socialists who win their congressional races will be welcomed into the House Democratic caucus, even as he distanced himself from the agenda promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker pressed the New York Democrat on whether Democratic Socialists belong within the Democratic Party.

Welker asked, “Do Democratic Socialists belong in the Democratic Party?”

Jeffries responded by emphasizing several progressive positions that he does not support and argued that congressional Democrats are instead concentrating on economic concerns facing Americans.

“Well, what I can say is that I do not support defunding the police. I do not support open borders. I do not support abolishing the Senate. We’re focused on actually solving problems that hardworking American taxpayers want us to solve, which is to lower the high cost of living in a situation where life is far too expensive in this country. That’s the democratic agenda. That’s what House Democrats are fighting to achieve.”

Welker followed up, seeking a more direct answer about whether the Democratic Party’s political coalition is broad enough to include members who identify as Democratic Socialists.

“Do you think, though, that there is room in the Democratic Party, under the tent of the Democratic Party, for Democratic Socialists, is it big enough?”

Jeffries said that while he personally rejects the DSA’s platform, candidates who prevail in Democratic primaries and subsequently win their general elections will become members of the Democratic congressional coalition.

“Well, listen, I don’t support the DSA agenda, as has been articulated, by the DSA itself. Now you’re going to have individual members, who have been elected in Democratic primaries and if they are elected in the general in November, will be part of the House Democratic caucus. It’s going to be a broad caucus.”

{Matzav.com}

Yashar presented its absorption plan for new olim (immigrants) on Sunday, aiming to reach a goal of two million olim by 2048 if elected.

The plan seeks to make absorption into Israeli society “simpler, more accessible, and more effective,” a statement from the party said.

Presented to representatives from aliyah and absorption programs, the plan has three key points: establishing a “unified framework” to support olim from while they are abroad until their complete absorption into Israel, to make it easier for olim to enter employment suited to their skills, and to remove barriers that prevent integration.

The unified framework aims to bring together resources to support immigrants across different areas, from language to education to access to rights.

Ease to enter employment would focus on making it easier to get international degrees recognized in Israel, lessons in professional and practical Hebrew, and providing olim with direct connection to employers. 

The final step of Yashar’s new aliyah absorption plan aims to “remove barriers that prevent integration” by making essential services such as banking and social support accessible in different languages.

Yashar members speak at unveiling of aliyah plan

Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot spoke at the meeting where the plan was unveiled, saying “The strength of the State of Israel rests on the ingathering of the exiles, on constant development, and on the aspiration to be leaders in every field.”

“We will propose a national plan that will call on young people to return home and on Jews around the world to make aliyah to Israel, because this is our national home, and this is the country that should be the most advanced and leading in the world,” Eisenkot added.

Yashar’s aliyah absorption program leader Alex Rif said “aliyah is not a favor that is done for immigrants, it is the miracle thanks to which the state was established, and thanks to which it can flourish again.”

“I want to build an Israel here where every immigrant will know from the first day, not only did I choose it. It chose me.”

This post was originally published on here.

MIAMI (AP) — The Miami Marine Stadium, considered a masterpiece of midcentury Brutalist architecture with its massive cantilevered roof and a stunning view of the city, opened in 1963 as the nation’s only race venue for powerboats, a major symbol of South Florida.

The historic gem designed by a Cuban refugee was the backdrop of Elvis Presley’s 1967 film “Clambake” and a beloved venue of Gloria Estefan and the late Jimmy Buffett, who performed on a movable, floating stage.

But since closing in 1992 after suffering serious damage during Hurricane Andrew, the 6,500-seat venue has fallen into disarray and today is fenced off and covered in graffiti despite being listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to allow the city to partner with a private company to return the unique stadium situated on Virginia Key across the water from downtown Miami to its former glory.

President Richard Nixon and Sammy Davis Jr. appeared together at the stadium during a 1972 campaign rally to support Nixon’s reelection bid. And residents would gather for Easter sunrise services, as well as celebrate Our Lady of Charity, a representation of the Virgin Mary honored by many Cubans and Cuban Americans.

“It encapsulated a time period in Miami that’s incredibly unique with an incredible story that touches all Miamians,” Miami Commissioner Damian Pardo said. “So this is really a place that connects with Miami at a very deep and personal level.”

The Miami Marine Stadium’s seats are shaded by a concrete cantilevered roof Tuesday Aug. 11, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Daniel Kozin)

The stadium has a rich history in Miami
Hilario Candela was in his late 20s and a recent refugee from the Cuban Revolution when he designed the structure. He spent decades designing buildings around Miami and led community efforts to restore the marine stadium until his death in 2022.

When it was added to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places in 2018, then-Secretary of State Ken Detzner called the stadium “one of the state of Florida’s most unique architectural and historic resources,” and “an ambitious example of mid-century Modernist architecture” that represented the “multi-cultural influences evolving in the city of Miami during the 1960s.”

The year before his 2023 passing, Buffett wrote a letter to Miami officials, urging them to save the “little cathedral of musical fun.” The Mayor of Margaritaville described a 1985 concert at the marine stadium that ended with him jumping off the floating stage into the surrounding water, joining cheering swimmers and boaters.

“Those were the ‘Miami Vice’ days, and Don Johnson introduced us,” Buffett wrote of the actor in the popular 1980s television crime drama. “WITCO Desperadoes from Trinidad opened the show, and the Coral Reefer Band finished the night with what I think was one of the most fun shows, for band and fans, that I have ever done.”

Buffett’s daughter, Savannah, continues to work with Restore Miami Marine Stadium. The group’s co-founder, Donald Worth, began a mission to save the stadium in 2008, shortly after city officials at the time announced plans to tear it down.

The Miami Marine Stadium is seen from an aerial view Tuesday Aug. 11, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Daniel Kozin)

“The architecture gives it the wow, the history gives it its soul,” Worth said. “It’s just a special, magical place, and so many people in Miami have had such memorable experiences there.”

Voters will help decide the stadium’s future
Breakwater Hospitality Group co-founder Emi Guerra, who’s working with the company selected to partner with the city, said the stadium’s view of the city skyline and its location right off Biscayne Bay could make it an entertainment destination that rivals Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, an open-air venue built into the side of a mountain.

“There’s just something here that can’t be duplicated, and that’s the view,” Guerra said of the marine stadium.

Guerra said he can understand the cynicism felt by some voters, but he points out that this isn’t a developer land grab to build more condos. The city of Miami will retain complete ownership of the stadium and surrounding area, and the management company will be stewards of the city’s vision, Guerra said.

“When it’s something that’s historic, you have two options: restore it or let it rot,” Guerra said.

Ernesto Cuesta, head of the Brickell Homeowners Association, sees another option.

He said the group supports the preservation of a historical landmark, but members are worried about how noise and traffic from a large-scale event space will affect residents across the bay and nearby wildlife. He said he’d prefer a park with more green spaces.

A concrete roof cantilevers over the Miami Marine Stadium on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/David Fischer)

Restoration plans aim to honor the stadium’s past
Despite sitting unused for more than three decades, multiple studies have shown that the stadium remains structurally safe.

Project architect Richard Heisenbottle, who has previously worked to restore other Miami landmarks, said he hopes reviving the marine stadium will honor its original architect.

He said renovations will have to include modern amenities and accessibility requirements, but the galvanized steel rebar used to reinforce the concrete during its original construction has protected the stadium from serious deterioration. Completed construction documents for the restorations have already been permitted by the city of Miami, he said.

Miami Commissioner Pardo said a significant hurdle to reopening the stadium previously has been the city government simply not having the capacity to properly run a major event space.

The referendum going before Miami voters on Tuesday would allow the city to enter into a management agreement.

The private company would develop the stadium’s large parking area into a flex park that includes public recreational facilities and a special events space. The city would collect revenue from events to fund the stadium repairs and upgrades, while paying the company a management fee. The total cost of the project hasn’t been determined, but Pardo insisted it will not be borne by taxpayers at all.

“It’s the right time to finally do this,” Pardo said.

Sen. John Fetterman is warning that the Democratic Party is moving increasingly toward socialism after a new poll found that a majority of Democrats view socialism favorably while half hold a negative opinion of capitalism.

The Pennsylvania Democrat reacted to the findings in a post on X, declaring that his party is “becoming the party of socialism” and making clear that he remains firmly committed to free-market capitalism.

Fetterman shared a screenshot of a Mediaite report about a CBS News/YouGov survey showing that 58 percent of Democratic respondents held a positive view of socialism, compared with just 32 percent who viewed capitalism positively.

The divide was also evident among those expressing negative opinions. Among Democrats surveyed, only 18 percent said they viewed socialism negatively, while 50 percent reported having a negative view of capitalism.

“The Democratic Party is becoming the party of socialism,” Fetterman wrote, adding that 58 percent “view socialism positively” while 50 percent have a negative view of capitalism. “I’m a proud free market capitalist. This is lunacy.”

The CBS News/YouGov poll was conducted from August 12 through August 14 and included 2,287 adults across the United States.

The results among Americans overall were considerably different from those among Democrats. Across all respondents, 35 percent expressed a positive opinion of socialism, while 46 percent viewed capitalism positively. Meanwhile, 42 percent had an unfavorable view of socialism, compared with 33 percent who viewed capitalism negatively.

Fetterman’s criticism quickly drew a response from Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, who publicly invited his Democratic colleague to switch parties.

“John, please join us,” Lee wrote. “We’re not socialist. And we don’t bite.”

Fetterman has increasingly voiced concern about the ideological direction of the Democratic Party. In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, he described the party’s trajectory as “troubling” and said he “would never try to elevate” a communist.

“I would never try to elevate… a communist just because [Piker] has followers on some, on Twitch, whatever that is,” Fetterman told the outlet. “But overall, if you identify with a communist who praises Mao and Cuba and for these places, that should be foreign to any Democrat.”

{Matzav.com}

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday said vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the same spot where Trump had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.

Trump made the accusation in a social media post without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. He posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf.

“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!” he added.

Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for damage to his renovation projects in the nation’s capital, often without evidence and sometimes despite opposing accounts from his officials. Trump lashed out at U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro this month after her office concluded that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the result of poor construction and not the work of vandals, as Trump claimed.

Authorities on Friday announced an arrest in connection with vandalism at the World War II Memorial, after the words “Clean hands dirty $” were found painted on the monument and bubbles filled a fountain. Pirro said felony charges are being brought against Melissa L. Farris.

Charging documents in that case make no mention of the grassy area Trump is highlighting in his new claims. Authorities said Farris had previously been arrested for camping on federal property a few blocks from the World War II Memorial, but not the area cited by Trump.

That stretch of lawn is instead where a large stage was built and crowds gathered to hear from Trump and watch fireworks at a July 4 event celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. Trump claimed without providing evidence that more than 400,000 people attended the event before a storm hit the area and delayed his remarks.

Photos from the time, taken by a streaming webcam atop the Washington Monument, show a large bandstand and seating areas covering nearly the entire lawn Trump now says has been vandalized. Associated Press photos from the days that followed showed workers removing the structures, revealing brown, damaged grass underneath.

On Aug. 1, Trump posted a different photo of the same area that appears to show the numbers “86 47” — which federal officials have said constitutes a threat against Trump — emblazoned into the grass. He cited it as evidence refuting Pirro’s conclusion, calling it “a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass.”

“There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” he wrote.

Those numbers are not visible in the photo Trump posted to social media on Sunday.

Hezbollah is deliberately escalating its activities in Lebanon at Iran’s direction in an effort to undermine direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, a Lebanese political official opposed to the terror group told Kan News on Sunday.

The official claimed that Hezbollah’s actions are intended to weaken the Lebanese government’s position and derail the talks with Israel. “It is unfortunate that the Lebanese leadership does not understand this sufficiently,” the official said.

The comments come after Hezbollah attacked IDF forces in the Ali al-Taher Ridge area, seriously wounding three soldiers and prompting Israeli strikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam subsequently issued sharp condemnations of Israel over the retaliatory strikes.

The Lebanese official sharply criticized Beirut’s response, arguing that the country’s leadership continues to ignore the fundamental issue of Hezbollah refusing to disarm despite Lebanese government decisions. The official added that the government is also failing to assert control over the situation at the Ali al-Taher Ridge, effectively allowing Hezbollah to manage events there.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are investigating transactions tied to Radiant World, the privately held firm that grew into one of the world’s largest iron ore traders, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Justice Department officials are examining the company’s business, while the futures regulator is looking at trades that moved through it.

Here is what the case turns on. Radiant World buys iron ore from miners and resells it to steelmakers, and like most trading middlemen it borrows money to bridge the gap between paying the seller and getting paid by the buyer. The collateral it hands the bank is paperwork — an invoice showing that a large, creditworthy customer owes it money for a shipment. Lenders accept that paper because the name on the invoice is good for it. The allegation is that some of those shipments never took place.

One case has been documented in detail. Radiant World used invoices bearing Vitol’s name to obtain financing from Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo. When the bank checked, Vitol told it some of the trades had never happened. Intesa has said its exposure runs to roughly €200 million and is largely provisioned for. Jefferies Financial Group’s Point Bonita fund has less than $300 million at stake. Between those two lenders alone, close to half a billion dollars is riding on the answer.

The commercial fallout arrived first. Vitol and Cargill have ended their business with Radiant World, and Glencore has stopped writing new deals with the firm after questions surfaced about the validity of its trade documents. That is three of the largest commodity houses on earth walking away from the same counterparty within weeks.

The paperwork concerns are not new. Bloomberg has reported that an internal investigation at Rabobank concluded in 2020 that Radiant World had been involved in multiple trades using falsified bills of lading — the shipping receipts that prove cargo actually exists — and that the Dutch bank cut off its credit that year. The findings never traveled beyond Rabobank. There is no shared registry in commodity trade finance, so a document rejected at one bank can be presented at the next one without triggering any alarm.

Radiant World has denied the reporting and said previously that it had never been investigated or prosecuted by regulators. The company could not immediately be reached regarding Friday’s report, and neither agency has confirmed an investigation.

The scale explains why lenders are paying attention. Radiant World handled about 7 million tons of iron ore in 2014 and roughly 43 million tons by 2024 — six times the volume in a decade — on about $12 billion in annual revenue, financed by bank and credit-fund lines running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it secured by trade paperwork.

For Jefferies, the timing is unwelcome. Point Bonita was already being wound down after investors demanded their money back when the fund’s largest exposure turned out to be First Brands, the auto parts supplier that collapsed. The structure was the same one now under scrutiny: investors were told the fund’s biggest positions were with household corporate names, when what it actually held were invoices those companies owed to a middleman, bought from the middleman.

The market has already moved. Iron ore prices slid to a 13-month low as China’s construction sector contracted to its weakest reading since the start of the pandemic, with the financing scare on top of it. Iron ore is the raw material for steel, and steel prices feed into cars, appliances, machinery and construction — the reason a paperwork dispute among traders eventually reaches American buyers.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

NEW YORK (AP) — Bedbugs are sometimes called the vampires of the insect world — hiding during the day and coming out at night to feast on human blood. Generations of children have been told: “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

Well, bad news: Bedbug infestations are increasing. This is the time of year when they tend to be at their worst. And some scientists think the reviled pests might be capable of spreading an antibiotic-resistant infection called MRSA.

For centuries, the bugs have horrified homeowners and occasionally panicked the public. That happened in New York City in 2018, when at least a half dozen city buses were taken out of service after reports of bedbugs crawling on seats. It happened again in Paris in 2023, when reports of bedbugs at a movie theater, on trains and on buses popped up in the lead-up to the 2024 Olympics.

“They certainly are out there,” said Christopher Hayes, a North Carolina State University assistant professor who has been bitten by bedbugs more than 50 times in the course of research. “And if you’re unaware, if you’re not on top of your game, it’s easy to bring them into your home.”

Bedbugs really do come out at night
Bedbugs are reddish-brown bloodsuckers about the size of an apple seed. Some researchers estimate they date back to the time of the dinosaurs, but they are best known for their unfortunate ability to live with — and prey on — humans.

They can hide in narrow crevices in furniture and lurk in clothes, linens and mattresses. They are hard to see but can be detected through the small dark excrement stains they leave.

The pests can be year-round problems but they have traditionally thrived in the summer. They tend to emerge at night, crawling onto people and using a beaklike body part to pierce human skin and suck blood for several minutes.

The bite itself is painless. Some people develop itchy red welts a day or so later, but others have no reaction.

That’s a problem, because people unaware that they are repeatedly being bitten can quickly find themselves victims of an infestation.

One of the more gruesome stories about bedbugs and human health was detailed in a 2020 medical journal case report from France.

It told of a 70-year-old man who lived by himself in an apartment and fainted on the street one day. He was brought to a hospital emergency department in a Paris suburb where he was diagnosed with dementia — and with anemia caused by a longstanding loss of blood.

He also had bedbugs feeding on his neck, head and shoulder. An investigation of his apartment detected thousands of them in his bed and on the floor, walls and curtains of his home.

They aren’t thought to spread disease, but one experiment raises questions
Some good news about bedbugs is there hasn’t been clear evidence that they have spread diseases from one person to another. The bugs’ digestion and anatomy seem to prevent germs from being passed on efficiently, said Chow-Yang Lee, an entomologist at the University of California at Riverside.

But University of South Dakota researchers in 2023 published the results of an experiment — using blood capsules with an artificial skin — that demonstrated bedbugs could acquire MRSA during one feeding and spread it during a later one.

Follow-up research is needed to really prove bedbugs actually are spreading MRSA to people, said one of the study’s authors, Jose Pietri, who is now at Purdue University. But “it changes the perspective of what bedbugs do, in terms of public health,” Pietri said.

Bedbugs are more resistant to pesticides
Bedbug populations in developed countries were decimated after World War II due to the widespread use of the pesticide DDT. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the pesticide for most uses in 1972, citing evidence that it was harming animals and was a potential risk to people.

Bedbugs had already started to develop resistance to DDT by then, and they have only been getting stronger and more common, said Lee, noting that insecticide resistance has driven a continued resurgence in bedbugs in recent decades.

Exactly how much more common isn’t clear. Pest control companies generate annual rankings of U.S. cities with the worst bedbug problems. (Orkin currently ranks Chicago at No. 1, while Terminix says Philadelphia has the biggest problem.) But those lists are based on how many calls each company receives in a year, not a rigorous survey.

Many bedbug infestations happen in low-income or public housing, which may not hire the big companies that compile those rankings, Lee said in an email.

How to protect yourself from the pests
The best thing you can do is never get them in the first place, experts say. That means not bringing them into your home.

Travelers can pick them up in hotel rooms. So before you unpack for your stay, check the room for signs of bedbugs by pulling back the covers and bedsheets to look for bugs or fecal spots.

Do not place luggage on beds or on the floor near beds, and consider placing your bags in a light-colored trash bag or even in the bathtub. When you get home, open the luggage outside and take laundry right to the washing machine and dryer.

Sometimes, bedbugs enter homes by hitching a ride on secondhand furniture or other products. Visually inspect those items and treat them before you take them into your home, Hayes advised. Some experts advise vacuuming, steaming or heating furniture, and quarantining it in a garage or storage unit for a few days before bringing it inside the house.

If it’s clothes, wash them and put them through the dryer for an hour. Shoes or other items? Consider putting them in a freezer for a week “to make sure that everything in there that could be alive is taken care of,” Hayes said.

How to get rid of bedbugs if you have them
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers do-it-yourself guidance for getting rid of the pests, but it’s labor-intensive, involving sealing hiding spaces and treating infested items.

It also contains many warnings of what not to do.

“You can’t just blast random chemicals and expect it’s going to work because there’s a fairly high likelihood that they’ll be resistant to some of the first-line insecticides,” Pietri said.

It makes sense to hire professional exterminators who are experienced in getting rid of bedbugs, Pietri and other experts said. But it can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Insecticides are not the only option.

Silica dust treatments, for example, absorb the bedbug’s body moisture, killing them.

Sustained dry heating works wonders, killing eggs as well as adult bedbugs. But it has to be at least 122 degrees (50 degrees Celsius) and can damage furniture, paintings and other personal possessions, so it must be done by professionals.

“I think the biggest piece of advice is just people shouldn’t panic,” Hayes said. “They just need to take action. If you think you have bedbugs, don’t wait to deal with it.”

Israel and Honduras entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Honduras in a Sunday signing ceremony, the Defense Ministry announced in a statement.

Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Honduran counterpart, Enrique Rodríguez Burchard signed the deal, which is meant to “deepen defense cooperation” between the countries, the ministry said.

The ceremony was also attended by Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) Director General Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram, the Senior Deputy Head of the Policy and Political-Military Bureau, Israel’s Defense Attaché to Honduras, and other senior officials from both countries.

During the visit, said the statement, the Honduran Minister of Defense, the Minister of Internal Security, and the Chief of the Joint Staff of the Honduran Armed Forces participated in “wide-ranging security discussions” with Baram.

A part of the discussions held included shared strategic and security issues, as well as ways to expand cooperation, the ministry said. Further, the Honduran officials were briefed on “key lessons” learnt from Israel’s wars in the past few years. Additionally, the delegation was informed about the IMOD’s current activities, “as well as key aspects of Israel’s defense and defense-industrial establishment.

Honduras considered key ally in Jerusalem recognition, embassy move

This Memorandum of Understanding is a part of a series of agreements designed by the IMOD over the past year, the statement said, casting these moves as “part of the Ministry’s strategy to expand Israel’s circle of defense partnerships, strengthen strategic ties with friendly nations, and deepen cooperation between Israel’s defense industries and international markets.”

The statement described Honduras as an “important partner” in Central America, and one that has supported Israel internationally over the years. In 2017, Honduras was among the nine countries who voted against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the US’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

In 2021, Honduras became one of the first countries to move its embassy to Jerusalem, joining the US, Guatemala, and Kosovo.

After withdrawing its ambassador from Israel in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, Honduras appointed a new envoy in early August, who was received by President Isaac Herzog.

This post was originally published on here.

The Trump administration secretly bypassed Iran’s official negotiating team and opened a direct backchannel to the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after the White House became concerned that Tehran’s negotiators did not have the authority to finalize an agreement, Axios reports.

The effort began in mid-May amid uncertainty over who was actually calling the shots in Tehran following the war. The assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior political leaders, along with uncertainty surrounding new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei during the first weeks of the war, had significantly strengthened the IRGC’s influence over national security and foreign policy. U.S. officials increasingly suspected that Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were being overruled by the IRGC as negotiations stalled.

Around May 10, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard contacted Nechirvan Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, and asked him to establish direct contact with IRGC commander Gen. Ahmad Vahidi. The outreach was made with the approval of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Barzani, who has longstanding relationships with senior Iranian officials, agreed but insisted on speaking directly with Vahidi.

On May 14, an IRGC official arrived at Barzani’s office in Erbil carrying an encrypted phone for a secure conversation with Vahidi. Asked whether the IRGC supported Iran’s negotiating team, Vahidi responded: “I fully support them and this is also the position of the IRGC. We prefer to solve this crisis through negotiations.” Barzani immediately relayed the response to Gabbard, who briefed the White House.

The Trump administration later proposed secret face-to-face talks between senior U.S. and Iranian officials in Erbil. Iranian officials did not rule out the proposal but feared Israeli intelligence could target them while traveling to or meeting in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the meeting never materialized. Pakistani and Qatari mediators continue exchanging messages between Washington and Tehran without significant progress, while Barzani has recently offered the White House his assistance in restarting negotiations.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

HAMILTON HEIGHTS, Manhattan — A firefighter was seriously injured while battling a fire that broke out on the top floor of a residential building in Hamilton Heights, according to the FDNY.

Firefighters were dispatched to 3657 Broadway shortly after 6:15 p.m. Sunday following reports of a fire on the roof, officials said.

The blaze was quickly elevated to a two-alarm response as crews worked to contain the flames. Firefighters brought the fire under control at approximately 7:45 p.m.

One firefighter suffered serious injuries, while three others sustained minor injuries, officials said. A civilian was also hurt. All of the injured were transported to nearby hospitals for treatment.

Citizen footage showed intense flames engulfing the top floor while firefighters worked from the roof to bring the blaze under control.

Officials had not immediately determined what caused the fire.

LONDON (AP) — The BBC asked a U.S. court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s family in connection with his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed.

Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr. have “personal knowledge” and likely have records relevant to elements of Trump’s claims against the broadcaster, according to a filing Friday in federal court in Florida.

The broadcaster has been unable to serve subpoenas because the three have Secret Service protection and other security personnel around them, the filing says.

Trump filed the lawsuit in December seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing it of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.

The allegations center on the way a 2024 documentary edited a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington. The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”

It added that the editing was “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The BBC has apologized to Trump for the misleading edit, but said it had not defamed him.

The latest court filing said that Trump’s family members had knowledge of issues that were relevant to Trump’s argument “that it would be materially false to imply that he incited violence” on Jan. 6, 2021.

It cited that Donald Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump were both present in the Oval Office when Trump was still revising his speech, adding that Donald Trump, Jr. spoke directly with his father after violence had broken out at the Capitol.

The filing says the BBC asked Trump to accept the subpoenas on his daughter and son-in-law’s behalf or to direct the Secret Service to allow the subpoenas to be served, but he refused. The broadcaster asked the court to allow the subpoenas to be served by email and certified mail.

The judge has given Trump’s legal team until Friday to respond to the BBC’s request.

Trump’s legal team said that “the BBC is simply trying to distract away from their own obvious liability.”

“The BBC intentionally defamed President Donald J. Trump, and now the BBC is seeking to harass him, his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process,” according to the team.

A trial has been provisionally set for February in the case.

Last week, a federal judge in Florida granted Trump a temporary reprieve from an order that he provide details of his business empire’s financial performance as part of the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Roy Altman agreed to put that order on hold while he considers an amended complaint from Trump that would narrow his claim that he suffered damage to both business and reputation.

LONDON and WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews) — The United States and the United Kingdom are investigating alleged financial ties between China and the pro-Palestinian activist group Code Pink, The Telegraph reported Sunday.

The far-left feminist organization has organized dozens of protests in both countries since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Code Pink’s website states that it supports “Palestinians’ right to resist the violent Israeli occupation of Palestine” and is “committed to supporting Palestinian liberation from abroad.”

British authorities are examining whether Code Pink received approximately £250,000 ($338,000) from a company linked to Neville Roy Singham, a China-based British technology entrepreneur. Singham is married to Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans. He has faced accusations of funding Chinese propaganda efforts but has consistently denied the claims.

The U.K. Home Office inquiry forms part of a wider examination of foreign influence and interference. Officials have expressed concern that Beijing may be seeking to exacerbate societal divisions and engage in what some describe as political warfare in Britain.

A U.K. government spokesperson said protecting national security, democracy and democratic institutions remains fundamental, adding that the government will take necessary action against state-backed threats.

In the United States, a congressional committee and the Justice Department are also scrutinizing Singham’s activities. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said Singham’s influence extends beyond U.S. borders and that his funding has supported pro-Hamas and pro-communist causes in the United States and abroad, including Britain.

The Justice Department has convened a federal grand jury to examine Singham’s alleged connections to China and to pro-Palestinian protest organizations.

Both the United States and Britain have experienced a sharp rise in anti-Israel demonstrations and reported incidents of antisemitism since the start of the Gaza war in 2023.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party are tied at 23 seats, while Netanyahu’s bloc has slipped to 52 seats, according to a Kan News poll published Sunday.

Likud dropped one seat from the previous poll, while Naftali Bennett’s Beyachad gained one to reach 14 seats. Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit recorded a two-seat gain, climbing to 10, while Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism fell from five seats to four. Overall, the Netanyahu bloc dropped from 53 seats to 52, while Eisenkot’s bloc increased from 56 to 57.

Eisenkot also overtook Netanyahu in the poll’s prime minister suitability question for the first time in approximately a month. Eisenkot was preferred by 41% of respondents, up from 36% in the previous poll, while Netanyahu fell from 41% to 36%. Against Bennett, Netanyahu maintained a narrow 37%-35% advantage, dramatically down from the 10-point lead he held in the previous survey.

The poll also examined attitudes among Likud voters ahead of the party’s primaries. MK Tally Gotliv was selected as the lawmaker who best represents Likud’s values, while Transportation Minister Miri Regev was identified as the lawmaker most likely to hurt the party’s electoral prospects. Approximately 60% of Likud voters said Netanyahu should reserve a spot on the party slate for pro-Israel activist Yoseph Haddad, while 57% said they were satisfied with the candidates Netanyahu has reserved spots for thus far.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The Trump administration appears to be placing increasing emphasis on two objectives in the war with Iran — preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and keeping oil and gas prices under control — a shift examined in a CNN analysis published Sunday.

Vice President JD Vance laid out those priorities during an interview Thursday, describing continued oil and gas flows through the Gulf and stable energy prices as “goal number one.” He then identified ensuring that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon as “goal number two.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that “both goals are equally as important to the president.”

The analysis noted that the administration has articulated a broader and sometimes changing set of objectives during the six-month war. Those have included complete Iranian surrender, regime change, ending Tehran’s support for proxy groups such as Hezbollah, and destroying portions of Iran’s missile and military infrastructure. Keeping oil and gas prices low, however, had not previously been included among the publicly stated goals.

President Trump has also increasingly emphasized the damage already inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program. While the administration previously focused on Iran surrendering its enriched uranium, President Trump has since argued that much of the country’s nuclear material is buried too deeply underground to be accessed and has said the U.S. could monitor the sites from space to prevent Iran from retrieving it. He has also declared that Iran has already been “denuclearized.”

The analysis argues that the increased emphasis on energy prices could indicate the administration is preparing for an eventual conclusion to the war without achieving every objective discussed earlier in the campaign. The White House, however, maintains that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon remains equally important, while President Trump has continued to defend the costs Americans have faced during the war, saying Friday that he would “never apologize” for Americans paying somewhat more for gasoline given what he views as the stakes in Iran.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Internal Israeli security documents reportedly reveal that a new Qatari funding mechanism benefiting Hamas was approved in late 2021, months after then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett publicly declared that the era of Qatari “suitcases of dollars” entering Gaza needed to end.

According to an investigative report aired Sunday evening by Israel’s Channel 13, confidential meeting summaries and security protocols show what the report described as a significant gap between the government’s public declarations and the policy being implemented behind the scenes regarding money reaching Hamas.

The investigation, conducted by journalist Michael Shemesh, reported that while Bennett publicly declared that “the suitcases of dollars are something we inherited and that needs to disappear from the world,” an alternative mechanism was approved as early as October 2021.

Under the arrangement, Qatar purchased approximately $10 million worth of fuel from Egypt each month. The fuel was then transferred into the Gaza Strip without Israeli supervision and delivered directly to Multi Trade, a company that the report said was owned by Hamas. According to the investigation, proceeds from the fuel sales were used by Hamas to pay the salaries of its employees.

At the center of the report are summaries of meetings between Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, then the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and Qatari envoy Mohammed al-Emadi, who was reportedly given the code name “The Jeweler” by Israeli security officials.

According to the documents, on October 17, 2021, “The Jeweler” informed Israeli officials that he had succeeded in developing an alternative mechanism for paying salaries to senior Hamas personnel.

Under the proposal, the funds would effectively be transferred through fuel purchases from Egypt: Qatar would spend $10 million to purchase Egyptian fuel, which would then be transferred without supervision directly to the Hamas-owned company. Hamas would subsequently be able to use either the proceeds generated from selling the fuel or the money it saved through the arrangement to cover salaries.

At the same time, the Qatari envoy asked Israel to increase the number of Gazans permitted to enter Israel for work to 30,000 per month.

“The Jeweler” subsequently met with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and later held discussions with Alian.

The investigation published an Israeli security assessment of the meeting between the Qatari envoy and Sinwar.

“The Jeweler describes a positive situation in the Gaza Strip, from both a security and civilian perspective, and the fuel-purchasing mechanism is agreed upon by all sides as a replacement for the grant for Hamas employees,” the document stated.

The newly disclosed documents reportedly contain several other significant revelations about Israel’s dealings with Hamas, Qatar and Egypt during that period.

One involved threats conveyed by Sinwar. According to the report, the Qatari envoy delivered a warning on Sinwar’s behalf that Israel should neither alter the status quo in Yerushalayim nor worsen conditions for security prisoners following the escape of Palestinian terrorists from Gilboa Prison.

COGAT responded in the protocol: “Israel governs its capital as a sovereign state.”

The documents also reveal that Israeli officials used the code name “the Greens” when referring to Hamas. According to the protocols, Qatari officials expressed a desire to reduce the dependence of “the Greens” on Qatari assistance for paying Hamas employees.

Another section of the documents addresses Israel’s policy of restraint along the Gaza border.

Despite ongoing efforts toward an arrangement with Hamas, the terror group reportedly continued provocations and established military positions just 100 meters from the border fence.

According to a summary of an October 2021 conversation, despite Israeli complaints over the activity, an Egyptian intelligence general instead chose to “thank the general for the restrained policy in the use of fire” by the IDF.

The report also highlighted the expansion of permits for Gazans to work inside Israel. At approximately the same time that the alternative funding mechanism was being approved and Qatar was pressing Israel on the issue, Israel significantly increased the number of Gazan workers allowed to enter the country, eventually reaching a quota of 30,000 per month.

Bennett’s office strongly rejected the report’s characterization of his government’s policies, arguing that he had fundamentally changed the previous system and adopted a significantly tougher approach toward Hamas.

“Former Prime Minister Bennett stopped the suitcases of dollars that entered the Gaza Strip indiscriminately; two-thirds of the money was transferred to food vouchers and reached civilians, and one-third was converted into fuel,” Bennett’s office said in response.

“Bennett led the change within a few short months, after years of complete abandonment. Bennett led a policy that was the opposite of Netanyahu’s — instead of surrendering to Hamas pressure and increasing the number of workers, Bennett permitted workers to enter only when the security situation allowed it.”

Bennett’s office also pointed to the 2022 Flag March as evidence of what it described as his tougher policy toward Hamas.

“Another example of this is that Bennett insisted that the 2022 Flag March take place along its original route, despite Hamas threats, as opposed to Netanyahu, who diverted the route of the Flag March in 2021 because he was afraid of Sinwar.”

The statement also flatly rejected the contention that Bennett’s government pursued a restrained policy in response to Hamas-instigated disturbances along the Gaza border.

“In addition, the claim that a restrained and accommodating policy was adopted surrounding the riots at the fence is a complete lie. Bennett led a policy of zero tolerance for incendiary balloons, rockets and approaches to the fence without a response, ended the bombing of sand dunes as was done during the Netanyahu era, acted to carry out strikes against high-quality targets, and led the quietest year the Gaza border communities had experienced in the previous 20 years.”

National Security Minister and Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben Gvir sharply attacked the leaders of the chareidi parties in a wide-ranging interview with Kikar HaShabbat, accusing Aryeh Deri and Moshe Gafni of exploiting allegations of police violence against chareidi protesters for political gain.

Ben Gvir argued that the criticism is particularly hypocritical because Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is seeking his removal in part over discussions he initiated concerning alleged discrimination and police mistreatment of chareidim.

The minister also laid out his position on the contentious issue of chareidi military service, saying that those who are genuinely learning Torah should remain in yeshiva, while those who are not learning should be encouraged to enlist — “with an embrace and not through coercion.”

Ben Gvir openly appealed to chareidi voters who are disappointed with their traditional parties to support Otzma Yehudit, while stressing that he is not seeking to undermine the established chareidi parties. He also said he has no plans to add several newly formed small chareidi factions to his electoral slate.

During the interview with Kikar HaShabbat’s Yishai Cohen, Ben Gvir also discussed the discovery of missing mother and daughter Mali and Liel Yahalomi in Argentina, the security situation in Lebanon, the Likud primaries, reports of efforts to oust Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, his decision to run separately from Bezalel Smotrich, and the controversy surrounding Israel Prison Service Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi.

The Yahalomi Case

Ben Gvir began by addressing the discovery of Mali and Liel Yahalomi in Argentina after an extensive search.

“First of all, wonderful work by the police, truly wonderful work by the police,” Ben Gvir said. “I spoke with the police commissioner on Thursday. He told me: ‘The direction is that this is not terrorism, and the direction is that this is not criminal.’ And still, we both agreed: Heaven forbid that the police take their foot off the gas, because who knows what could later emerge. And therefore they worked hard.”

Cohen noted that considerable uncertainty remains surrounding the case and that police officials themselves have indicated that information may still be concealed.

“I don’t know whether they are hiding things or not hiding things,” Ben Gvir responded. “What I can tell you is: Baruch Hashem, praise to the Creator of the world — it was not criminal, it was not nationalistically motivated, and that is the most important thing. That is the most important thing.”

Cohen then raised calls that emerged after Shabbos for the mother and daughter to potentially be charged for the enormous cost of the search operation.

“Since Motzoei Shabbos, quite a few people have been writing: Perhaps they should be required to pay the expenses of the police, of the state? After all, this incident cost the state millions. They knew that the entire world was searching for them, and they still played with the police, played with the entire country, which was turning itself upside down to locate them. Perhaps they should pay the expenses?”

“I don’t know whether I accept your description,” Ben Gvir replied. “But you know what? I’m proud that we are a country where we are not like New York or all sorts of places where people are left to die. If it turns out that they did this deliberately and maliciously and did something… I’m completely with you. But I’m proud to be in a country where we take care of our people. We take care of our citizens even when they are very, very far from here. You know, in New York, a person can die in the street and nobody will look at him.”

“We Should Bomb Beirut”

Turning to security, Cohen asked Ben Gvir whether Israel had become too restrained along its northern and southern fronts.

“You look at the northern border, the southern border, Gaza, Lebanon. It’s true that there are still targeted killings and there are attacks here and there, but it isn’t what it was two or three months ago.”

“You’re exactly right, exactly right,” Ben Gvir responded. “We can… and I hear warnings from the prime minister and from the chief of staff that there is a real danger to the lives of the soldiers — they shoot, they kill. It’s not enough.”

“I think the prime minister is wrong about this — and it has been reported, I’ve told him this more than once or twice,” Ben Gvir continued. “My red line is harming soldiers. And of course, I daven for their recovery. I have a son who is now going in and out, in and out of Lebanon with a reconnaissance unit, and I’m telling you: he and his friends deserve for us to bomb Beirut, for us to crush them.”

Ben Gvir Intervenes in the Likud Primaries

Cohen then turned to the Likud primaries, noting the unusual spectacle of a minister who leads a separate political party publicly weighing in on another party’s internal election.

“It was always like this,” Ben Gvir responded. “Why? I want the Likud list to be a right-wing list. I want to have partners on the Likud list. I’m not embarrassed about it. I published a list. I published a list of names — I want them to be the ones who are elected.”

“I’m calling on the Likud public — and by the way, when I come to Likud weddings, to Likud events, you have to see what happens, what love! I tell them: These are people who I think you should vote for. It’s the most legitimate thing in the world.”

Cohen noted that Ben Gvir had revealed earlier on 103FM that eight Likud MKs and ministers had approached him in recent days and asked him to reserve spots for them on the Otzma Yehudit slate.

“Yes,” Ben Gvir confirmed. “Baruch Hashem, they see that Otzma Yehudit is growing. Yishai, Likud is not a branch of Ben Gvir. Everything is fine. Likud is the ruling party, and with Hashem’s help, it will continue to be the ruling party. I have no aspiration in the coming election to replace the ruling party. I do have an aspiration in the coming election: first, to be as strong as possible, and truly to bring in as many good people as possible.”

“And yes, it’s no secret that people in Likud see Otzma growing and growing,” he continued. “A lot of people in Likud are also jealous of what we’re doing. Many times they’ve said to me: ‘Wow, you do this, and you do this here, and you do that there and you do this,’ and they want to be part of the success.”

Asked what those eight lawmakers were telling him privately, and whether they feared failing to secure realistic positions on the next Likud slate, Ben Gvir said that was not necessarily their only concern.

“I don’t know whether it’s only the fear of not getting a spot on the list,” he said. “By the way, you know, they could also reach places 20, 25, 30, which is… But it’s also about going to a brand that, Baruch Hashem, is very successful, praise to the Creator of the world.”

“As of now, the polls look good for us. My internal polls look even better. I’m not getting confused. I work more and more and more and more and more. I want more. I think ultimately they should compete in Likud. This contest is important. I believe they will succeed, and I wish them success.”

Attempts to Oust Netanyahu

Cohen then asked about reports that Likud figures had explored replacing Netanyahu after the October 7 massacre, potentially with Yuli Edelstein or Nir Barkat.

Ben Gvir said he personally encountered such efforts during a later period when he left the government.

“I actually remember from the period when I resigned from the government, and then figures in Likud came to me — I won’t give names, I won’t give names — and they came and said to me, ‘There’s an opportunity now, there’s an opportunity now! Let’s send Netanyahu home and establish a right-wing government, establish a right-wing government.’”

“First of all, I didn’t accept it,” Ben Gvir said. “Not only did I not accept it, I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu during one of our conversations and told him: ‘I can tell you, I wish they loved you in Likud the way I love and appreciate you.’”

“He said to me: ‘You love and appreciate me, but there are all sorts of other people in Likud who love me and appreciate me.’ I told him: ‘Prime Minister, not enough, not enough.’”

Why Ben Gvir Wants to Run Separately From Smotrich

With approximately two and a half months remaining until the election, Cohen asked whether Otzma Yehudit would run independently or reunite with Bezalel Smotrich.

“I think it’s right that we run as two separate heads,” Ben Gvir said. “I conducted a survey of thousands, an in-depth survey. And it turned out that if Bezalel joins me, there are people in the chareidi community who won’t vote; if Bezalel joins me, there are people in the periphery who won’t vote. By the way, Bezalel also has a constituency that is debating between him and Bennett and prefers that he run alone.”

Cohen raised the concern that Smotrich could fail to cross the electoral threshold, costing the right-wing bloc four seats.

“I actually don’t see that concern as of today,” Ben Gvir responded. “I see that with his full strength, he is stable, he crosses the threshold. I would hope and expect Feiglin and Winter to join him. But I say explicitly: Otzma Yehudit needs to run as one separate list.”

An Appeal to Disappointed Chareidi Voters

Cohen asked whether Ben Gvir might instead join forces with smaller chareidi parties, including Rabbi Abergel’s Achi party and a party calling itself “The Chareidi Public,” led by Leitner of Beit Shemesh.

“Yishai, right now — and not only right now, I see it all the time — for four years Otzma Yehudit has run alone, and the results are good, the results are beautiful,” Ben Gvir said. “I think you don’t replace a winning horse.”

“I respect everyone, I truly respect everyone, but ultimately Otzma Yehudit is a brand. Otzma Yehudit is something that appeals to all of Klal Yisroel. People feel how much I care.”

He stressed, however, that he was not attempting to deliberately weaken the established chareidi parties.

“I certainly don’t want to stick a finger in the eye of the chareidi parties — let that be clear!” Ben Gvir said. “But I do say explicitly: Anyone who is not voting for the chareidi parties should vote for me.”

“There is a certain disappointment today in various parts of the chareidi community. If they aren’t going to vote for chareidi parties, let them come to me. They shouldn’t go somewhere where their votes will be wasted.”

“And on the other hand, someone who votes for the chareidi parties should vote for the chareidi parties. Sometimes there are disagreements, with Aryeh too, certainly with Gafni, and with various others. But ultimately, whoever votes for the chareidi parties should vote for them; whoever doesn’t should come to Otzma Yehudit.”

Ben Gvir Fires Back at Deri and Gafni

Cohen confronted Ben Gvir with the fierce criticism he has faced in recent months from the leaders of the chareidi parties over alleged police violence against chareidi demonstrators.

“They say that you don’t intervene regarding police violence against chareidi protesters,” Cohen said. “Deri, Gafni, Goldknopf, Porush — all of them have issued very harsh statements against your conduct as national security minister.”

“You can attribute many things to the names you mentioned, but they’re not stupid,” Ben Gvir responded. “And they read exactly what the attorney general wrote when she said she wants to remove me. For what? Because I initiated discussions in my ministry about why chareidim are being beaten, why they are being discriminated against, and why the chareidi community is being harmed.”

“So I don’t think Aryeh Deri doesn’t know this — he knows it very well!” Ben Gvir said. “He wants to make a political play out of it.”

“And you know what? It angers me that he is making a political play against someone whom he told me — he told me this more than once or twice — ‘You always, always, always helped, and you were always, always, always there when we needed you.’”

“So how do you go and make a political play out of this?” Ben Gvir continued. “What, for the sake of another few thousand votes? Both Aryeh and Gafni know that the attorney general wants to fire me, among other things, because of this very issue. How are you not ashamed to talk?”

Ben Gvir Defends Prison Service Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi

The interview then turned to Israel Prison Service Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi, who has been summoned to a hearing ahead of a possible indictment.

“Of course, certainly! Certainly!” Ben Gvir exclaimed. “Because they’re persecuting him! What are they persecuting him for? Because he is implementing Ben Gvir’s policies!”

“I’m telling you, Yishai: If I’m not there, if Otzma Yehudit isn’t in this ministry, we’re going back to summer camps in the prisons.”

Asked whether he would call on Yaakobi to remain in his position, Ben Gvir answered emphatically.

“Of course! What kind of question is that? A person is presumed innocent until his guilt is proven. There is a presumption of innocence. When he is convicted by the Supreme Court by a panel of three judges, then we can consider what to do with him.”

“But in this situation, in a situation where they are persecuting him… I know why they’re persecuting him, I know why she is persecuting him. If he is convicted in the Supreme Court, that’s a different story. But if he isn’t convicted, and there’s only an indictment? What, are there not enough examples of indictments that were filed in order to persecute someone?”

“I told him my position several times, and I very much hope that he accepts it and that my position is heard: As long as there is no final conviction against you — final — again, I’m not arguing with a court. If there is a final conviction, that is a different event. If the Supreme Court determines, through a panel of judges, that this is the situation, that is something else. But as long as that does not happen, Kobi is innocent.”

“Whoever Learns Torah Should Learn Torah”

The interview concluded with the explosive issue of the draft law and the legal status of yeshiva bochurim.

“I’m exactly where I’ve been all these years,” Ben Gvir said. “I think serving in the army is a mitzvah. My son is now in a reconnaissance unit. Someone who isn’t learning should enlist.”

“But even them — not by force, not through populism, and not like those who tried to score political points at the expense of the chareidi community and to smear them and harm them and use violence. I’m absolutely not there.”

“With an embrace!” he continued. “Another embrace, and another embrace, and it works. I want to bring chareidim into the IDF, but I want chareidim who aren’t learning. Someone who isn’t learning…”

Cohen interrupted to clarify: “Meaning, you accept that someone who is learning — learns?”

“Yes!” Ben Gvir replied. “What the rabbanim say: Whoever learns Torah should learn Torah. Unfortunately, there are many who don’t learn Torah. Those are the people I want first. There are very many of them — let them come, I’ll embrace them.”

“And I succeeded this way!” Ben Gvir added. “You know, Lieberman talks about recruitment, Bennett talks about recruitment — they didn’t recruit a single chareidi! Not one chareidi did they recruit.”

“And I, through an embrace and by making sure that the chareidi Border Police unit would be mehadrin min hamehadrin in every respect… What did the fighters there tell me? ‘We never learned as much Torah before as we learn there.’”

{Matzav.com}

The first U.S.-Japan joint intervention in three decades aimed at boosting the yen has come and gone without doing much to ease anxiety in currency markets.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s notepad suggested the U.S. bought $5 billion-$10 billion worth of yen, while Japan’s move topped $50 billion. The exchange rate initially strengthened to about 157 yen per dollar from nearly 164, but has since given back some gains and hovered around 159 on Friday.

To be sure, efforts to prop up the yen were seen as short-term measures to address the symptoms rather than the root causes of the currency’s weakness. Those include Japan’s massive debt that exceeds 200% of GDP, fiscal stimulus that’s expected to worsen the deficit, and a central bank that’s been slow to raise rates in the face of high inflation.

But given that the yen’s recent instability was enough to trigger the U.S.-Japan intervention, a key underpinning of global financial markets appears riskier.

“Now traders are watching the ‘yen carry trade,’ where cheap yen borrowing funds bets on higher-yielding assets worldwide, and wondering if it’s about to blow up,” Wall Street veteran Ed Yardeni wrote in a note on Tuesday. “The financial system right now looks like a giant Jenga tower with the yen as a load-bearing piece.”

The way the U.S. and Japan intervened had already raised other concerns, especially the fact that the U.S. sold euros, not dollars, to buy yen and that Japan borrowed against its Treasury holdings rather than selling them.

The tactics called into question the dollar’s dominance and revealed the Trump administration’s underlying fears of how a spiraling yen could worsen the U.S. debt outlook.

With a stockpile of more than $1 trillion in Treasuries, Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt. So any drawdown of that reserve would send Treasury yields higher and add further to U.S. debt costs.

Other countries in Asia could sell Treasuries too. But Yardeni pointed out they are in better shape than they were during the 1998 Asian financial crisis, when currencies across the region crashed. Still, risks remain.

“Team Bessent isn’t exactly hat in hand,” he added. “But decades of assuming that Asia’s central banks dutifully would keep buying U.S. debt are catching up with Washington. Each Jenga piece gets harder to pull without something toppling.”

Shandre Bay, 13, of Everett, looses a game of super-sized Jenga as her uncle Kelvin Walker tries in vain to save the game during a holiday party hosted by Boston Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas for Cambridge fire victims at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge on Thursday, December 15, 2016.

MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images

The yen’s post-intervention pullback was also notable since it happened despite cooler-than-expected U.S. inflation data that lowered the odds of an imminent rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

Previously, the Bank of Japan’s reluctance to raise its own rates coupled with fears the Fed would hike as soon as next month had been driving the yen’s recent slump.

But relatively tame readings on U.S. consumer and producer prices this past week offered no reprieve for the yen.

“This should be a setting where the Yen rallies versus the Dollar, because US rates are falling relative to Japanese ones, but that didn’t happen. The Yen continued to fall, which is a really worrying sign,” wrote Robin Brooks, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a Substack post titled “The Yen is in Deep Trouble.”

He has been sounding the alarm on the yen for a while, warning its extended slide is actually a sign of a simmering debt crisis. Eventually, markets will ignore intervention, which is doomed to fail and merely creates the illusion of stability, Brooks has said.

On Friday, he called for a “profound shift” in the Bank of Japan’s policy, going well beyond incremental increases to its benchmark rate.

Instead, long-term yields on Japanese government bonds must rise to narrow the gap versus U.S. yields that’s been sending the yen lower.

“BoJ buying of government bonds needs to be scaled back so that this can happen,” Brooks added. “That’s the only thing that will strengthen the Yen.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

President Donald Trump said Sunday that the United States will reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, pointing both to his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Seoul’s refusal to assist Washington in its war against Iran.

Trump announced the move ahead of major U.S.-South Korean military drills that had been scheduled to begin Monday, arguing that the exercises are expensive for Washington and send an unnecessarily hostile message to Pyongyang.

“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump then connected the issue to South Korea’s decision not to participate in U.S. efforts against Iran, though he acknowledged that the two matters were not necessarily directly related.

“While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’” Trump wrote.

The president has repeatedly expressed frustration with American allies that have declined to provide assistance during the war with Iran, criticizing countries he believes have benefited from U.S. support while failing to reciprocate.

At the same time, Trump has continued to emphasize his unusually cordial relationship with Kim, despite decades of hostility between Washington and Pyongyang.

Earlier over the weekend, Trump posted a photograph of himself with the North Korean dictator and wrote: “Despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture, there are many where we’re smiling, Kim Jong Un and I get along GREAT!”

The U.S.-South Korean exercises, known as the Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, had been scheduled to begin Monday and continue for 10 days.

Pyongyang has repeatedly denounced military exercises conducted by the United States and its regional allies, portraying them as preparations for an attack on North Korea. Last year, North Korea’s Central Military Commission described trilateral exercises involving the United States, Japan and South Korea as “the most comprehensive and offensive war drill for aggression in terms of scale, content and nature” conducted on the southern Korean Peninsula.

Trump’s latest decision follows a pattern established during his first term, when Washington and Seoul reduced the scale of some joint military activities as Trump pursued diplomacy with Kim and attempted to lower tensions on the peninsula.

In 2018, amid nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea, Trump argued that it was “inappropriate to have war games” on the Korean Peninsula.

The following year, after Trump and Kim failed to reach an agreement during their summit in Hanoi, Washington and Seoul announced that the large annual military exercises that had long been central to their defense partnership would be reorganized into smaller drills.

Trump also focused at the time on what he said was the disproportionate financial burden being carried by Washington.

“The reason I do not want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the U.S. for which we are not reimbursed,” he posted in 2019.

South Korea has been one of Washington’s closest Asian allies for more than seven decades, and its armed forces routinely train alongside American troops. The country is also home to Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. military installation overseas, where thousands of American servicemembers, their families and South Korean nationals are based.

Trump, who met Kim several times during his first term, has continued to speak positively about their personal relationship since returning to the White House.

While traveling home from China in May, Trump said he had been communicating with Kim but declined to disclose how many conversations had taken place between the two leaders.

Kim, meanwhile, has cited the U.S. war against Iran as further justification for North Korea’s refusal to abandon its nuclear arsenal.

In remarks to North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly that were published in March, Kim accused Washington of “acts of state sponsored terrorism and aggression,” though he did not specifically name Iran.

{Matzav.com}

A rear-cam captured the moment a reckless driver on the Garden State Parkway spun out and crashed today.

https://thelakewoodscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/wa-1786926927771-qd01ta.mp4

Israel is identifying the first signs of a renewed thaw between the United Arab Emirates and Iran, including the return of Flydubai and Emirates flights through Iranian airspace for the first time in months and reported movement involving Emirati presidential aircraft.

Diplomatic officials familiar with the matter said the shift is being driven by the UAE’s economic and pragmatic interests and does not signal a move away from Israel. At the same time, security cooperation between Israel and Abu Dhabi has deepened significantly and reached an unprecedented level during the war.

As part of that cooperation, Israel transferred an Iron Dome system to the UAE and also sent Israeli soldiers to assist in operating it against the Iranian threat. The closer ties have continued despite ongoing friction with Tehran, after three vessels belonging to Abu Dhabi’s national oil company were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz in less than a week, with the UAE blaming Iran.

Abu Dhabi continues to view freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz as a top strategic interest, while pursuing a dual-track policy: preserving its security partnership with Israel and the United States while simultaneously reducing friction and reopening channels with Tehran.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is enjoying strong overall support among city voters, but a new Siena poll reveals a dramatically different picture among Jewish New Yorkers, who overwhelmingly hold a negative view of the socialist mayor.

According to the poll, 69% of New York City voters have a favorable opinion of Mamdani, while 24% view him unfavorably.

Mamdani’s support is particularly strong among younger voters. Among those between the ages of 18 and 34, 72% hold a favorable view of the mayor compared to 21% who view him negatively — a net positive rating of 51 points.

That represents a significant increase from January, when Mamdani’s net favorability among the same age group stood at 35 points.

Mamdani has also registered a dramatic turnaround among black voters. The poll found 78% now view him favorably and just 15% unfavorably, giving him a net positive rating of 63 points. In September 2025, his rating among the same demographic had been eight points underwater.

But among Jewish voters across New York State, the numbers are almost completely reversed.

A striking 66% of Jewish voters hold an unfavorable opinion of Mamdani, while just 26% view him favorably.

The divide comes amid continued criticism of Mamdani over his positions and rhetoric concerning Israel, which have fueled deep tensions with portions of New York’s Jewish community.

Statewide, Mamdani remains far more polarizing than he is inside New York City. Among likely voters across New York, 47% view him favorably while 44% have an unfavorable opinion.

The Siena poll surveyed 811 likely New York voters between Aug. 3 and Aug. 6 and carries a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Iran’s military has announced a $30,000 reward for the capture or killing of American military personnel, according to a report by the Iranian WANA news agency citing Iranian Army commander Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami.

According to the report, the reward would be doubled if the attack is carried out by a woman.

Hatami said the money would be financed through a public funding initiative involving the Iranian people, with the reward to be given to an Iranian force that succeeds in attacking an American servicemember.

The announcement comes amid continued tensions between Tehran and Washington over the U.S. military presence in the region, Iran’s nuclear program and economic sanctions.

Iranian officials have previously promoted similar initiatives targeting senior officials of other countries.

Iranian Vice President Ebrahim Azizi previously announced a parliamentary proposal offering a €50 million reward for the killing of President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and U.S. Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper.

New York City tenant advocates aren’t sitting out the legal battle over a rent freeze. They came off the sidelines and entered the courtroom fray to ensure the freeze stays in place.

In a Thursday court filing, Tenants and Neighbors and the Metropolitan Council on Housing pushed back against landlords who sued in a Staten Island court over a rent freeze for stabilized apartments.

The city’s Rent Guidelines Board decided in June to set a 0% increase on one- and two-year lease renewals starting October 1. The decision gave Mayor Zohran Mamdani a victory, as he won office on a promise to improve housing affordability.

Landlords argue the board’s decision was unlawful and ignored data showing a rent increase was warranted. They also say Mamdani stacked the board with people who “agreed with his vision of a freeze.”

The tenant groups agreed that the board must consider hardships facing both landlords and tenants. But they argue that landlords “wrongly assume that as long as any landlords face hardship, the RGB must increase rents, even if the increase worsens tenant hardships.”

Tenant groups interpret numbers their way

Line by line, the tenant group’s response parses the landlords’ 356-paragraph petition. It concedes narrow factual points while rejecting the broader legal spin the landlords put on the evidence.

The tenant advocates lean heavily on the numbers to make their case. More than 45% of rent-stabilized households are “rent-burdened,” spending more than 30% of income on rent, and more than 27% are severely burdened, paying over half, the filing notes.

Landlords aren’t hurting nearly as much as their lawsuit claims, the filing says, noting that fewer than 10% of stabilized buildings report negative operating income. The filing cites Fiscal Policy Institute testimony before the RGB showing operating income across the sector has climbed 56.6% after inflation over the past 25 years.

The board’s decision wasn’t made in a vacuum, the filing adds. It followed seven public meetings, four hearings and testimony from experts at the Fiscal Policy Institute, NYU’s Furman Center and Columbia’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, among others.

RGB Chair Chantella Mitchell’s own statements on the rent freeze are quoted at length. She described two concurrent realities. Most tenants are struggling to keep up. A smaller group of landlords faces real financial strain, often in the same neighborhoods, such as the Bronx.

Raising rents that tenants can’t afford wouldn’t help those landlords, she argues. Instead, it would just speed up evictions. What’s needed, she says, is direct financial intervention from the city and state.

Mamdani appointees disputed

Mitchell is one of the six Mamdani appointees the landlord lawsuit mentions.

“I’m confident that, under the leadership of Chantella Mitchell as chair, the board will take a clear-eyed look at the complex housing landscape and the realities facing our city’s two million rent-stabilized tenants, and help us move closer to a fairer, more affordable New York,” Mamdani said in a statement at the time.

All his appointees voted for the rent freeze.

Landlords seized on former board member Christina Smyth’s resignation before the vote, citing her letter as evidence that Mamdani’s appointees had rigged the process.

In their filing, the tenant group confirms the lawsuit accurately quoted Smyth’s letter. But they dispute that it proves what the landlords claim. Smyth’s letter “merely alleged certain things,” the filing states, and did not confirm that Mamdani’s appointees had predetermined the outcome.

They want the case dismissed outright, arguing the board acted within its authority and wasn’t arbitrary or capricious, as the landlords claim.

This post was originally published on here.

When architect Liran Shukrun, Partner and CEO of Primovitz-Bas, first encountered Givat Hashalvah nearly four years ago, the plan on paper did not yet reveal what the place could become. It looked familiar: another residential plan near Yerushalayim, another hillside with buildings arranged across it. But the land itself was saying something larger. The site sat on a high ridge, facing south, with rare topography, open views toward Yerushalayim, and on clear days, even the sea. The opportunity was not in the drawing. It was in the place.

For Liran, that is where architecture begins. A skilled architect can design a building. The harder work is understanding the story of a place: what belongs here, specifically here, and nowhere else. In Givat Hashalvah, that story began to emerge when the team understood the families this project was being created for: frum families, many from the Anglo world, looking to build a meaningful life in Eretz Yisroel with community, quality, and shared values around them.

That insight changed the master plan. The goal became to make community visible in the architecture itself. Cars, access roads, and technical systems were placed underground so the surface could belong to people. In their place came courtyards, paths, schools, shuls, parks, and shared spaces connected along an east-to-west axis that stitches the neighborhood together. Instead of life being pushed around the buildings, the buildings began to revolve around the life between them.

That is the story inside the plan. Givat Hashalvah is not arranged as a collection of homes with amenities attached. It is shaped as a neighborhood where walking, meeting, davening, hosting, learning, and raising children can happen naturally. The question was never only what could be built on the hill. It was what kind of life the hill was asking to hold.

Explore Givat Hashalvah → https://go.lyo.group/43crjh9

With less than a month remaining until the annual Rosh Hashanah gathering in Uman, a prominent Breslover rov has publicly highlighted several Likud politicians whom he says have assisted Breslover chassidim over the years, just hours before the party’s primary elections.

Rav Yaakov Jan, the rabbi of Uman, issued a letter ahead of the Likud primaries stressing the importance of traveling to the gravesite of Rav Nachman of Breslov in Uman and expressing gratitude toward Israeli public officials who, he said, have worked on behalf of the Breslover community.

In the letter, Rav Jan addressed Likud members for whom continued access to Uman and the ability to visit Rav Nachman’s gravesite are important issues. He pointed to the efforts of several government ministers and Knesset members who have assisted Breslover chassidim and the annual pilgrimage.

Among the politicians specifically named were Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, Minister Dudi Amsalem, Minister May Golan, and MK Ze’ev Elkin.

According to Rav Jan, Breslover chassidim do not forget those who have helped them over the years, and he said the appeal ahead of the primaries was rooted in the Jewish principle of hakaras hatov — showing gratitude to those who have provided assistance.

“We are returning the favor,” the letter stated, emphasizing what Rav Jan described as the special relationship between the Breslover community and public officials who have worked to assist with matters involving Uman and those traveling to Rav Nachman’s gravesite.

The letter was released against the backdrop of the Likud primaries and is expected to attract attention among party members, particularly given the importance Breslover chassidim attach to maintaining access to Uman and preserving relationships with Israeli decision-makers who can assist the annual pilgrimage.

{Matzav.com}

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Construction workers renovating a historic brewery in Belgium made the discovery of a lifetime when they uncovered 49 gold bars and approximately 4,000 coins hidden inside the building’s basement walls, with the treasure estimated to be worth roughly $10 million.

The remarkable discovery was made in Dendermonde, in Belgium’s East Flanders region, as workers were drilling through a wall to install new sewer pipes ahead of planned work at the 19th-century brewery.

Among the workers was an 18-year-old summer employee named Kobe, who told Belgian media that the crew briefly considered what it would be like to keep the treasure but quickly realized that concealing such an enormous discovery would amount to theft.

The workers alerted the site manager, and police subsequently took possession of the gold and urged members of the public not to descend on the property in search of additional valuables.

The cache, consisting of 49 gold bars and thousands of coins, is estimated to be worth approximately €9 million, or roughly $10 million.

Under Belgian law, the original owner or legal heirs have five years to establish a valid claim to the treasure. Three people have reportedly already contacted authorities claiming possible family connections to the fortune, and their claims are being investigated.

If no legitimate heir is identified and authorities determine the treasure is not connected to criminal activity, the fortune could ultimately be divided equally between the workers who discovered it and the current owner of the property.

The building is currently owned by a nonprofit organization that plans to use the property to provide temporary housing for homeless people. The structure originally housed a brewery dating back to the 1890s before closing in 1970.

The head of the nonprofit said he hopes any eventual proceeds from the discovery can help fund projects assisting the homeless, while the young worker who helped uncover the treasure said he hopes the crew will ultimately receive a share for turning it over to authorities.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The Likud party has issued a warning letter threatening legal action against AID Coalition over its “Fly & Vote” initiative, alleging that the program improperly offers financial and logistical benefits to Israelis living abroad to encourage them to return to Israel and cast ballots in the upcoming election.

AID Coalition rejected the accusations, saying the initiative is entirely nonpartisan and stressing that organizers “do not check political leanings.”

Attorney Ilan Bombach, representing Likud, described AID Coalition as a “foreign corporation” and accused it of operating “capital-intensive initiatives” designed to “encourage Israelis who live at the ends of the earth to come to Israel on Election Day or close to it in order to vote, by providing ‘logistical support’ that includes, among other things, chartering airplanes for that purpose, coordinating efforts to reduce the cost of airline tickets, and providing additional services or benefits — before and after their arrival in Israel.”

Likud contends that the initiative’s activities could constitute the criminal offense of election bribery and also violate Israel’s Party Financing Law by amounting to a prohibited contribution. The warning letter demanded that AID Coalition take down the initiative’s website and immediately stop providing any benefits to voters.

AID Coalition, however, says Fly & Vote primarily assists Israelis overseas with bureaucratic information, helps locate available flight options and guides participants through the process until they reach Israel.

The organization described the effort as a “nonpartisan initiative” whose sole purpose is to increase voter participation in the democratic process, regardless of which party an individual intends to support. AID Coalition argues that because it does not inquire into participants’ political preferences, its activities cannot be considered bribery or an attempt to purchase votes.

The dispute comes amid growing attention surrounding Israelis living overseas ahead of the Oct. 27 election. Since the election date was announced, social media has seen a surge of posts from Israelis abroad saying they intend to travel to Israel to vote.

The issue has fueled a broader political debate over the role of Israelis who reside outside the country but retain the right to vote. Earlier this month, Likud also petitioned the Central Elections Committee over a separate initiative offering free accommodations to voters arriving from abroad, arguing that the lodging constituted an improper benefit.

Critics of overseas voters have repeatedly voiced the argument: “You don’t live here. You don’t live here. You won’t decide for us.”

{Matzav.com}

A 24-pack of Coca-Cola that cost $14.97 at Walmart now costs $9.97. A pound of fresh tomatoes costs about a fifth more than it did a year ago. Both are true at the same store on the same trip, and the reason is that one price is set by a retailer competing for your business and the other is set by a tax in Washington.

Start with the good news, because it is the part shoppers can act on. Walmart cut prices across thousands of items at its stores, Sam’s Club locations and its apps. The 24-packs of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero Sugar dropped to $9.97 from $14.97 — a third off. Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Dr Pepper and Diet Mountain Dew 24-packs went to the same $9.97 from $13.97. A pound of 73% ground beef fell to $5.94 from $6.74. A 2.25-pound bag of red cherries dropped to $5.63 from $11.18. Sweet corn went to 25 cents an ear from 68 cents. Great Value ice cream and an 8-ounce bag of Lay’s Classic both went to $2.50 from $2.97.

“Customers count on Walmart to deliver the value they need every day,” said Julie Barber, the chain’s U.S. chief merchant, describing the move as investments in price across beef, produce and beverages. The company frames these as seasonal reductions under its longstanding everyday-low-price approach rather than short-term promotions, and President Trump praised the retailer and sought credit for the cuts. Target lowered prices on some foods in March.

Now the other direction. In July of last year the administration put a duty of about 17% on fresh tomatoes from Mexico. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the import taxes were needed to protect American farmers from “unfair trade practices that undercut pricing on produce like tomatoes.” The move ended the 2019 suspension agreement that had governed the trade, replacing it with an antidumping duty of 17.09% on most fresh Mexican tomato imports.

The problem is arithmetic. The United States imports roughly 70% of its tomatoes, and about 90% of those imports come from Mexico. When you tax nearly two-thirds of the national supply, there is no domestic crop large enough to absorb the shift, so the tax lands on the shelf price.

Tomato prices rose roughly one-fifth from June 2025 to June 2026, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. An agribusiness economist at Arizona State University had estimated a 17% duty would push retail tomato prices up about 8.5%. The actual increase came in more than double that, because the duty was not the only pressure. Fertilizer prices paid to manufacturers jumped more than 20% year over year in June, with nitrogen fertilizer up 46%, driven by disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Freezes in Florida early this year damaged tomatoes, strawberries, citrus and sweet corn. Mexican tomato imports fell 13% year over year. Lettuce is up 32%. Diesel, which moves produce from farm to store, has topped $7.50 a gallon in some states.

Anyone hoping the tariff lifts should plan otherwise. The International Trade Commission reviewed the order on June 30 and upheld the 17% duty, finding no sufficiently changed circumstances to revoke it, after Mexican producers requested revocation. Mexican tomato production is forecast to fall 9% this year to 2.6 million metric tons, with planted acreage down 11% — meaning less supply heading north, not more.

Two practical notes for the grocery list. First, the tomato duty largely hits the fresh produce section. Canned tomatoes, sauce and paste are substantially less affected, according to economists — so a recipe that can use canned instead of fresh saves real money right now. Second, the retailer price cuts are on shelf-stable and freezer items: soda, chips, paper plates, ice cream. Those are worth buying deep while the rollback holds. Cherries and corn are seasonal and the discount goes with the season.

The wider pattern is worth understanding, because it explains why the inflation reports keep saying prices are cooling while the register says otherwise. Bain and NielsenIQ found American shoppers bought fewer grocery items in the second half of last year, with the decline sharper by February. Retailers are fighting for those shrinking baskets by cutting prices where competition is fierce. Where the cost comes from a policy decision rather than a competitor, nobody is cutting anything.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

Non-profit organizations in New Jersey can receive funding of up to $100,000 for security upgrades. Eligible improvements include cybersecurity, cameras, perimeter lighting, alarm systems, fencing, barriers, bollards, shatter-resistant materials, security personnel and more.

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A year and a half after his release from Hamas captivity, former hostage Omer Shem Tov is releasing a new book recounting the 505 days he spent in Gaza, including 50 days completely alone in a dark cell and the faith that helped him survive.

The Hebrew-language book, titled “A Meeting with Myself in Hell,” documents Shem Tov’s experiences after being abducted on October 7, as well as the thoughts and beliefs that sustained him. “I didn’t choose to be abducted. I didn’t choose to spend 505 days in the Hamas tunnels. I didn’t choose to be far away from my family, from my friends, and from my life,” he wrote.

Shem Tov described the particularly harrowing period in which he was held in complete isolation. “I certainly did not choose to spend 50 days alone, in a dark cell, just me, my thoughts, and G-d,” he wrote. Yet he said it was precisely when nearly everything had been taken from him that he realized there was one thing Hamas could not take away: his ability to choose. “The freedom to choose what to think. What to believe. What to give up on. And how to hold on even when the reality around me is impossible.”

Shem Tov said he began writing the book so he would remember not only what happened during his captivity, but what carried him through it — “the difficult moments, the faith, and the things I understood about myself.”

“I didn’t choose what happened to me,” Shem Tov wrote. “But I do choose what to take out of it with me for life.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Two young children were hospitalized Sunday after they apparently consumed chocolate containing hallucinogenic mushrooms while on a family vacation, leaving them confused, suffering hallucinations and displaying severely dilated pupils.

The children, ages five and six, were brought to the Galilee Medical Center, where doctors conducted an initial evaluation. Medical staff determined that their breathing and cardiovascular functions were stable, though both children were experiencing significant neurological symptoms.

Doctors consulted with the National Poison Information Center and came to suspect poisoning caused by Psilocybe/Panaeolus mushrooms. The mushrooms contain psychoactive compounds capable of triggering hallucinations and increased blood pressure and, in more serious cases, seizures and heart-related complications.

Because doctors were concerned that additional symptoms could emerge, both children were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit, where they were placed under close observation and monitoring.

Dr. Sally Mahoum, a physician at the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Center, said: “The children arrived in a state of confusion, with dilated pupils and active hallucinations. We immediately took steps to stabilize them and, in coordination with the National Poison Information Center, began treatment and monitoring. Due to the unpredictable nature of this type of poisoning, they were transferred for continued observation in the pediatric intensive care unit.”

Dr. Tzvi Sheleg, deputy director of the Galilee Medical Center, said: “This was a serious, life-threatening incident that, thus far, has ended without critical harm thanks to the parents’ alertness and the rapid treatment provided by our medical teams. We call on the public to exercise the utmost responsibility, keep dangerous substances out of the reach of toddlers and children, and seek immediate medical attention whenever poisoning is suspected.”

There are moments in life that pierce through the ordinary, reminding us with absolute clarity that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the Ba’al HaNissim. We can never take a single breath for granted.

On a recent, ordinary day in Los Angeles, our family lived through a miracle.

Young AY was swimming happily in a pool. His mother sat just feet away, keeping a watchful eye on the children. It was a normal summer scene—until the world stopped.

Suddenly, AY sank to the bottom.

His 12-year-old brother felt a chill of panic. Something was wrong. He turned to his mother, his voice tight: “AY went down and didn’t come back up.”

Without a second thought, the 12-year-old dove into the deep end. He had no way of knowing that the water had just transformed into a deadly trap. He didn’t know that a faulty underwater light had sent a quiet, invisible wave of electricity surging through the entire pool.

He only knew his brother was in trouble.

Pushing through the heavy water, he reached the bottom and found AY completely motionless. Fighting against time, he grabbed his little brother and hauled him to the surface.

As they broke the water, gasping for air, the older brother turned to his mother. He was shivering.

“I feel a tingling sensation,” he whispered.

Only later did we learn the terrifying truth: the pool was fully electrified.

The sheer weight of what happened is dizzying. When electricity hits a pool, it creates a silent hazard known as Electric Shock Drowning. It paralyzes muscles instantly. Normally, no one could have entered that water safely. But the 12-year-old didn’t hesitate. Driven by pure love and an incredible mesirus nefesh, he risked his own life to pull his brother from the depths.

B”H, both brothers survived this frightening ordeal.

Our hearts overflow with hakaras hatov to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The fact that his brother looked over at the exact perfect second, realized the danger, and acted instantly was nothing short of absolute hashgacha pratis.

We are sharing this story because a miracle for our family should be a shield for yours.

If you own or use a swimming pool—especially one with underwater lighting—please do not wait. Have the entire electrical system inspected by a certified professional immediately.

Do not rely on the fact that your pool has worked fine for years. Electrical grounding, underwater fixtures, and safety switches can fail without warning. A pool can look clear, blue, and beautiful while hiding a fatal current.

This story could have ended in unspeakable tragedy. Instead, through a massive nes, two brothers are alive today.

We thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu with all our souls for His endless chesed, and for giving a 12-year-old boy the split-second courage to become a hero.

We share this not, chas v’shalom, to cause fear, but to inspire action.

Check your pool lights. Check your wiring. Protect your children.

Ultimately, we do our hishtadlus, but our lives rest safely in the hands of the Almighty. B”H, our story has a beautiful ending.

May we all be zocheh to hear only nissim, yeshuos, and besoros tovos.

A Los Angeles resident.

The views expressed in this letter are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of YWN. Have an opinion you would like to share? Send it to us for review.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

An Israeli man approximately 66 years old was found lifeless along a roadside in Finland after contact with him had been lost for about a week while he was traveling alone on a bicycle trip.

The man had set out to tour Finland by bicycle before suddenly losing contact with his family. A search was launched, and local authorities later informed the family that he had been located along the side of a road.

Initial indications are that the cyclist was apparently struck by a passing vehicle, though the circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation.

ZAKA’s International Division is working together with Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the victim’s family and Finnish authorities to complete the necessary procedures, ensure kavod hames and arrange for the aron to be brought to Israel for kevurah.

ZAKA Operations Division Director Chaim Weingarten said that immediately after receiving the report, the organization began accompanying the family and working with Finnish authorities to complete the required arrangements and bring the niftar to burial in Israel as quickly and respectfully as possible.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Thrive Capital founder Joshua Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger stunned the sports world this week with a deal to buy the Los Angeles Lakers for a record $12.5 billion.

If approved, the acquisition would provide the new owners with an iconic NBA franchise that boasts 17 championships as well as ties to legends like Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and LeBron James.

But ownership of the Lakers would also provide tax benefits. In fact, sports teams have long been considered great tax shelters for wealthy individuals.

That was not lost on Ram Ahluwalia, founder of Lumida Wealth Management, who said Kushner’s Lakers deal has nothing to do with sports teams as an asset class.

“It’s a powerful tax shield,” he posted on X on Saturday. “My guess is he is preparing to offset a boatload of carried interest income. If you own a sports team, done correctly, you can get a deduction against income. The goal in acquiring a sports team is to setup a ‘non-passive’ deduction.”

Ahluwalia pointed out that Kushner is likely facing big gains from his holdings in SpaceX, OpenAI and Stripe. Meanwhile, tax deduction benefits from owning a team are more favorable than owning real estate.

He added that Warren Buffett mastered the art of depreciating goodwill expenses from high-quality brands like See’s Candies and Dairy Queen that are owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

Similarly, when Mark Cuban was the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise, he handled it very well, according to Ahluwalia.

“He also grew the equity value at the same time. Net net he transformed high income tax into lower taxed capital gains. That’s a trifecta,” he explained.

Thrive Capital didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The blockbuster Lakers acquisition comes as pro teams have become hot commodities. Just last month, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla agreed to buy the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks for $9.6 billion.

And in 2025, the Boston Celtics were sold for $6.1 billion, a record at the time—until Mark Walter bought the Lakers for $10 billion later that year.

By amortizing key assets like media rights and treating other assets as depreciable like contracts and the stadium, team owners can lower their tax bills.

For example, a team’s roster of players can be counted as an intangible asset that depreciates over time, generating hefty paper losses that offset an owner’s taxable income elsewhere. Similarly, depreciation on stadium infrastructure can further shield an owner’s income.

That’s possible even as a team appreciates in value while its actual business operations are also profitable.

Broadcast rights have also emerged as a major factor in team valuations, especially as sporting events have retained their ability to draw viewers and advertisers. Regional broadcast deals can be structured to allow team owners to shift income to units with better tax rates.

Thanks to long-term media deals, team revenue has become far steadier. Because of this, a team can stay profitable “regardless of the number of people that shows up” on a given night, David Silverman, a partner in Cooley’s M&A group who worked on the Celtics sale, told Fortune’s  Catherina Gioino last month.

In addition, consumers are spending more on in-person experiences generally, and sports captures that spending better than most entertainment options, he noted. As a result, franchise values have compounded at a pace few other asset classes can match over the long run.

“It is being part of a very elite and exclusive club of owners that control those franchises,” Silverman said_._ “There are unique business opportunities that come from both being part of that club and being notable in that way.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

[Video below.] Hundreds of talmidim from Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim witnessed an unusual musical moment this past week when renowned composer Yossi Green was unexpectedly challenged by the rosh yeshiva, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, to compose an entirely new song on the spot.

The remarkable scene unfolded during the Mir Yeshiva’s bein hazemanim camp in Shaalavim, where hundreds of talmidim gathered for a special musical program featuring Yossi Green.

Yossi led the bochurim in an uplifting kumzitz lasting approximately two hours, filled with singing and niggunim in the spirited atmosphere of bein hazemanim.

The highlight of the evening came with the arrival of Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel. The rosh yeshiva surprised Yossi with an unusual request: He handed him a note containing words and asked him to create a new melody for them then and there, in front of the hundreds of assembled bochurim.

Yossi accepted the challenge and sat down at the keyboard, beginning the creative process in real time as the crowd watched.

Within just a few minutes, the new tune had taken shape. The bochurim quickly joined Yossi in singing the freshly composed melody, filling the hall with the song that had been created moments earlier.

Rav Finkel’s reaction, and the visible emotion on his face as the new composition came to life, helped turn the spontaneous performance into one of the memorable highlights of the evening.

The program continued with spirited singing and an uplifting atmosphere, with the newly created song becoming an immediate part of the kumzitz. For those present, it was a rare opportunity not merely to hear a new composition, but to watch the actual creative process unfold before their eyes and then join in singing the result almost immediately.

https://tinyurl.com/AirTransportReport

Israel’s Consul General in New York, Ofir Akunis, sharply attacked Mayor Zohran Mamdani over the rise in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City, accusing him of failing to protect the city’s Jewish community and of fueling hostility toward Israel.

Speaking at an event for young Jewish community leaders in New York, Akunis said: “The mayor is busy inciting against and promoting a boycott of the Jewish state. His method is the ‘well-known’ antisemitic one: ‘No matter what – blame the Jews.’ This is exactly the same method that was used a century ago by the Third Reich.”

Akunis pointed to recently released NYPD figures showing a sharp increase in antisemitic hate crimes since Mamdani took office. “This is further proof of his failure to protect the city’s Jewish community,” he said. “Mamdani continues to incite and fuel his supporters to attack the State of Israel and its Prime Minister. This must stop before it is too late!”

NYPD data for July showed that 23 of the city’s 33 confirmed hate crimes during the month targeted Jews, nearly 70% of the total. That marked a 53.3% increase from the 15 anti-Jewish incidents recorded in July 2025. Five confirmed hate crimes targeted Muslims, compared with two during the same month last year.

So far in 2026, the NYPD has recorded 360 confirmed hate crimes, up 9.4% from 329 during the same period in 2025. Of those, 205 targeted Jews, representing 56.9% of the total, while 26 targeted Muslims. Anti-Jewish hate crimes are up 8.5% year over year, while anti-Muslim incidents have increased 62.5%.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Though Hamas’s popularity has declined among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya still commands more support than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to a new poll published by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research on Wednesday.

The survey was conducted among 1,270 Palestinians between August 5 and 8, with 830 respondents in the West Bank and 440 in the Gaza Strip. Researchers conducted face-to-face interviews using tablets or mobile phones, with the data automatically transmitted to the research center’s server to prevent interception or manipulation. The poll had a margin of error of 3.5%.

The most popular candidate for Palestinian leadership was Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti, who is currently imprisoned in Israel and played a key role in the Second Intifada, with 54% of likely voters saying they would vote for him in a hypothetical presidential election. Al-Hayya would receive just over a quarter of the votes, 26%, and the current Palestinian Authority president would receive only 14%, according to the poll. Notably, only 10 months ago, 36% of respondents said they would support Hamas figure Khaled Meshaal, showing a drop in support by 10%.

Satisfaction with Abbas’s performance as president stands at just 20%, down slightly from 23% ten months ago, while 76% of Palestinians expressed dissatisfaction, according to the poll. Satisfaction was higher in the Gaza Strip, at 26%, than in the West Bank, where just 16% approved of his performance. The large majority, 82% in the West Bank and 74% in the Gaza Strip, want to see Abbas’s resignation.

Likely connected to Abbas’s lack of popularity, 83% of respondents said that they believed that there is corruption in PA institutions and 65% said they view the PA as a burden for Palestinians.

Despite more than half expressing support for Barghouti, 40% said they would not participate in the presidential elections.

Election turnout could be high if factions from the 2006 vote participate in today’s elections

However, if legislative elections were held in which all electoral lists or factions that participated in the 2006 elections competed, turnout would be 66%.

Fatah would receive 32% of the votes in the legislative elections, according to the poll, followed by Hamas at a close 29%.

However, among Gazan respondents alone, Hamas would receive 34%, Fatah 30%, and the combined third parties 27%.

Though more than a quarter of respondents maintained their position in favor of Hamas, the poll showed a significant decline in support for the terrorist group. Just 10 months ago, 44% of respondents overall said they would vote for Hamas, and support in Gaza specifically stood at 49%.

When asked which political party or political orientation they supported, 24% said they preferred Fatah, and 24% answered that they preferred Hamas; 14% chose third parties, and 38% said they supported none of them or did not know.

Continuing to demonstrate a trend in declining support for Hamas, ten months ago, 35% said they supported Hamas, including 41% in Gaza, but the figure now stands at only 18% in the West Bank and 33% in Gaza.

Though the survey did not seek to determine if, when, or why respondents’ views of Hamas had changed, it found that only 20% believed Hamas emerged victorious from the war against Israel. A majority, 60%, said neither side won, while 15% said Israel emerged victorious. In the Gaza Strip, 20% said Hamas won, while an identical 20% said Israel emerged victorious.

The proportion of respondents who believed Hamas had won the war nearly halved from 39% in October 2025. The decline was particularly pronounced in the West Bank, where just 21% now believe Hamas emerged victorious, down from 48% ten months ago.

Not as popular as it once was, 72% of respondents were still against Hamas disarming before a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Only 20% of respondents felt Hamas should disarm first. Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip were slightly more in favor of Hamas disarming first, with 62% opposed, compared to the West Bank where 79% insisted Israeli presence must first be removed.

Respondents believe war would resume if Hamas disarmed, Israel would not withdraw from Gaza

An overwhelming majority, 72%, said they believed that if Hamas were to disarm, the war in Gaza would resume and Israel would not fully withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Only 22% believed that Hamas’s disarmement would not be the cause of a continued war.  

One in five respondents said they believed a full-scale war would resume, while only 30% believed Gaza would move toward a period of peace and stability. Another 41% said they expected the current situation, marked by occasional Israeli strikes, to continue.

Support for a two-state solution has remained largely unchanged over the past 10 months, with 44% of respondents in favor, down 1 percentage point from October, while 50% opposed the proposal, according to the poll. Some 58% said that the two-state solution is no longer practical because of settlement expansion, while 36% answered that they believe that it remains practical. Similarly, 64% say that the chances of establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel within the next five years are low or nonexistent, while 32% say that the chances are medium or high.  With the two-state solution being a divisive issue among Palestinians, 36% said they supported the alternative of returning to confrontations and armed intifada, and 33% said they supported a single Palestinian state.

More than half (53%) also said they believed that even if Hamas gave up its weapons, it would remain an “armed resistance movement” and a political movement, while only 36% believed it would focus solely on politics.

Trust in the US-backed alternative to Hamas, the Board of Peace, was low but was considered a viable political option, the survey found. If the Palestinian elections scheduled for November are held as planned and a new government is formed, 32% (43% in Gaza and 24% in the West Bank) would prefer that NCAG maintain responsibility for the Gaza Strip over the elected government. Only 28% (34% in Gaza and 24% in the West Bank) would prefer a newly elected government to assume responsibility for the administration of Gaza, while 34% do not prefer either option.

Asked their opinion of external actors, the Iran-aligned Houthi terror group was highly popular among respondents in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The majority, 61% (63% in the West Bank and 58% in Gaza), said they were satisfied with the Houthis.

Qatar (51%), Hezbollah (50%) and Iran (50%) were also popular among Palestinian respondents, though satisfaction with Iran has grown over the past 10 months and Doha’s popularity has slightly declined since the last survey.

When asked whether they were with or against Iran during the recent war between the United States and Iran, which resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and retaliatory attacks against US bases in the region, 45% of respondents said that they were with Iran, 12% answered that they were against Iran, and 40% said that they were neither with Iran nor with the United States.

This post was originally published on here.

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews)-The Trump administration is considering imposing new sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

The potential move would revive penalties first levied against Moraes in July 2025 under the Global Magnitsky Act. Those earlier sanctions cited his role in the trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as well as broader concerns over censorship and arbitrary detentions. The measures were lifted in December 2025 amid improving bilateral relations.

Recent internal talks about restoring the sanctions have been driven by U.S. criticism of Moraes’s handling of a press freedom case. American officials have pointed to court-ordered police actions directed at a journalist and the journalist’s sources in connection with reporting on another Brazilian Supreme Court justice. Officials describe the episode as part of a pattern of actions that restrict free expression.

No final decision has been announced.

One hundred years after his petirah, the fire still burns. An unforgettable journey into the life, Torah, and towering legacy of Rav Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk zt”l, one of the greatest geonei Torah and baalei machshavah of the modern era. Discover his phenomenal hasmadah, breathtaking gadlus baTorah, profound understanding of Klal Yisrael, and extraordinary personality ;enriched with rare stories, fascinating giluyim, little-known episodes, and remarkable insights into the man behind the Ohr Sameach and Meshech Chochmah.

WATCH:

{Matzav.com}

New details are emerging about the intensive international operation that led Israeli authorities to locate missing Israelis Mali and Liel Yahalomi aboard a bus in Buenos Aires, Argentina, within roughly a week of their disappearance.

The two had traveled through several countries and reportedly avoided using their primary cellphones, significantly complicating efforts to track their movements.

Despite the limited digital trail, investigators from Israel Police’s Lahav 433 unit and Intelligence Division operated around the clock in Israel and overseas, carrying out hundreds of investigative actions in cooperation with Europol and foreign law enforcement agencies.

Their route reportedly took them through several countries, including the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany, before they ultimately reached South America.

Investigators determined that Mali and Liel had obtained replacement phones and had planned their disappearance due to personal circumstances involving financial matters.

Israeli authorities ultimately narrowed the search to Buenos Aires and identified the specific public bus on which the two were traveling.

An Israel Police representative boarded the bus and approached them, identifying himself as Walter, the police representative in South America from Israel Police’s Intelligence Division.

“We were very worried about you,” he told them.

The two were questioned following their discovery and subsequently released after authorities determined there was no suspicion that they had committed a criminal offense.

The operation brought an end to an intensive international search that involved Israeli authorities, Europol and law enforcement agencies across multiple countries.

The speed with which investigators reconstructed the pair’s movements across several countries and ultimately located them on a specific bus in one of South America’s largest cities was described in the report as an extraordinary investigative achievement.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A psychiatric drug unlike anything currently approved in the United States just cleared a major hurdle.

Definium Therapeutics said Wednesday that a single dose of its LSD-based tablet significantly reduced symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder within days, delivering a major Phase 3 victory that could put the company on a path toward the first FDA-approved LSD-based treatment for anxiety.

The drug, DT120, is a pharmaceutical-grade form of lysergide — better known as LSD — delivered as a tablet that dissolves in the mouth. Unlike conventional anxiety medicines that patients may take every day for months or years, participants in Definium’s trial received one 100-microgram dose under medical supervision.

The effect appeared rapidly.

Patients receiving DT120 showed statistically significant improvement shortly after treatment, with the benefit becoming evident within days following the single administration. The study continued tracking patients for 12 weeks and found that the treatment advantage remained at the study’s final measurement.

That distinction matters: patients did not take the pill for 12 weeks. They took it once.

One Dose Produces Major Phase 3 Result

The Voyage trial enrolled 214 adults ages 18 to 74 with generalized anxiety disorder at roughly 35 U.S. clinical sites.

Patients began the study with moderate-to-severe anxiety and were randomly assigned to receive either DT120 or placebo.

At the study’s primary endpoint, patients receiving DT120 experienced an average 11.6-point reduction on the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, compared with a 6.2-point reduction for placebo.

That produced a 5.4-point advantage over placebo, comfortably clearing the trial’s statistical threshold and giving Definium the positive Phase 3 result investors and regulators were waiting for.

The individual patient results were equally striking.

About 43% of patients receiving DT120 cut their anxiety symptoms by at least half, compared with 16% in the placebo group.

And 14% of patients receiving DT120 reached remission, versus 4% receiving placebo.

Definium said the drug was generally well tolerated and the trial met its primary endpoint and all key secondary efficacy endpoints.

A Different Way to Treat Anxiety

What makes DT120 potentially groundbreaking is not simply that LSD reduced anxiety.

It is the possibility that a chronic psychiatric condition normally managed with daily medication could instead be treated with a single supervised dose producing rapid and lasting improvement.

Many conventional antidepressant and anti-anxiety medicines must be taken every day and can take weeks before patients know whether they are working. Patients may cycle through several medications before finding one that helps.

Definium is proposing a fundamentally different model.

The patient comes to a qualified medical facility, receives a single tablet, remains under supervision while the psychedelic effects wear off and then goes home. No daily prescription follows from that treatment session.

And unlike some psychedelic programs being developed elsewhere, Definium is not requiring psychotherapy to accompany the drug, potentially making the treatment easier for clinics to administer and insurers to reimburse if it eventually reaches the market.

There is currently no FDA-approved LSD medicine for generalized anxiety disorder.

That means DT120, if it successfully completes development and wins regulatory approval, could create an entirely new category of psychiatric treatment.

The FDA has already granted the drug Breakthrough Therapy designation for generalized anxiety disorder, a designation intended to accelerate development and regulatory review of medicines showing substantial potential improvement over existing treatments.

Investors Send Shares Higher

Wall Street immediately recognized the significance.

Definium shares surged in premarket trading Wednesday after the results were released, reversing much of Tuesday’s decline as investors reassessed the likelihood that DT120 could eventually reach the market.

The company also has considerable financial resources behind the program, reporting approximately $1.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents and investments at the end of June.

And anxiety is only one part of the opportunity.

In June, DT120 also produced positive Phase 3 results in major depressive disorder, meaning the same one-dose LSD tablet has now generated successful late-stage results in two of the largest psychiatric treatment markets.

One More Anxiety Trial Matters

Definium still has another major hurdle before it can declare the anxiety program complete.

Its second Phase 3 anxiety study, Panorama, is expected to report results in September.

If that trial also succeeds, Definium could have the pivotal evidence needed to move substantially closer to an FDA submission for generalized anxiety disorder.

That is why Wednesday’s announcement goes well beyond another biotechnology trial result.

For decades, LSD has been known primarily as an illegal psychedelic associated with recreational drug use and the counterculture of the 1960s.

Definium is now attempting to turn a precisely manufactured pharmaceutical version of that compound into something entirely different: a regulated medicine that a patient could potentially take once and experience meaningful relief from severe anxiety within days.

If the remaining trials confirm what Voyage has shown, psychiatry may be looking at the beginning of an entirely new treatment model.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

NEW YORK (VINnews) — As Mayor Zohran Mamdani left New York City Sunday for a weeklong family vacation upstate, former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind took a swipe at the mayor, saying New Yorkers would be better off while he is away.

“With the mayor out of town, Jews will be as safe as they were right before he left. Same goes for the rest of New York City,” Hikind wrote Sunday on X.

With the mayor out of town, Jews will be as safe as they were right before he left. Same goes for the rest of New York City. https://t.co/FqW2o19057

— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 16, 2026

City Hall said Mamdani and his family will spend the week in upstate New York. The mayor is not expected to hold public events during his vacation but will continue receiving regular updates from senior staff.

First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan will oversee day-to-day city operations during Mamdani’s absence. City Hall did not disclose the family’s exact destination and said the mayor is expected to return in a week.

Dear Matzav Inbox,

The Navi Michah gives us one of the most quoted, and least understood, summaries of what Hashem wants from us: “הִגִּיד לְךָ אָדָם מַה טּוֹב וּמָה ה’ דּוֹרֵשׁ מִמְּךָ כִּי אִם עֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וְאַהֲבַת חֶסֶד וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת עִם אֱלֹקֶיךָ” : He has told you what is good: to do justice, love kindness, and walk modestly with your G-d (Michah 6:8).

We tend to read v’hatznea lecheches as a dress code. But tznius was never primarily about a hemline. It’s the instinct to keep something private because it’s precious, not shameful, but because some things lose their kedusha the moment they become public property. A chuppah. A private conversation between spouses. A family’s pain. Tznius is the recognition that not everything sacred needs an audience.

That is the tznius we, as a klal, are forgetting how to practice.

A generation with no delete button

We live inside a machine engineered to extract the private and reward its exposure. Every platform runs on the same transaction: give us something raw that used to belong only to you, and we’ll give you attention in return. An entire generation has been trained to believe that an unshared experience is an unprocessed one, that pain doesn’t count until it’s posted, that a simcha isn’t complete without a caption.

We used to understand that some rooms have doors for a reason. Now we build content out of what used to happen behind them.

The podcast challenge

Nowhere is this clearer than in the explosion of frum podcasts and inspirational content. And the honest place to start is with the good. These platforms have brought real Kvod Shamayim into places it never used to reach, a person driving alone, a teenager scrolling at midnight, someone sitting in a hospital waiting room. They’ve given people who felt alone a sense that they’re not the only ones. They’ve turned commutes into chizuk, made Torah hashkafa accessible to people who would never have opened a sefer, and given ordinary people the courage to share nisyonos that used to be carried in total silence. That is not a small thing. It’s a genuine kiddush Hashem, and it deserves to be said plainly before anything else.

The challenge isn’t the impulse. It’s what happens when a business model built on engagement meets material that was never meant to be engagement in the first place.

A podcast needs episodes. Episodes need hooks. Hooks need drama. Even content that begins with good intentions, as chizuk, can get pulled toward its most “shareable” version: a dramatic thumbnail, a scandalous title, because a modest telling doesn’t perform the way a scandalous one does. The very platforms built to spread Torah values can end up structurally pulled against one of the most basic of those values, that not everything needs to be said to everyone.

This isn’t a claim about any one podcast or story; it’s a claim about the pull of the machine itself, a pull that even the most well-meaning creator has to actively resist. An audience fed a thousand hours of content this week needs something sharper next week. That’s what oversaturation does: it raises the threshold of what people are willing to expose, of themselves and of each other, just to be heard, even on platforms that set out only to inspire.

The cost we don’t see

Tznius protects the individual, but it also protects the tzibbur. A community that consumes an endless stream of other people’s private pain slowly loses its own capacity for privacy. We start to feel entitled to know, to feel that a family’s struggle is ours to have an opinion on, because it arrived in a well-produced 45-minute episode.

Chazal tell us Bilaam, looking down at the tents of Klal Yisroel, could find nothing to curse, because the entrances didn’t face each other. מַה טֹּבוּ אֹהָלֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב, “How goodly are your tents, Yaakov,” came from the fact that we historically built our lives so we weren’t looking into each other’s windows. That was never coldness. It was the thing worth blessing.

What it asks of us

To walk modestly with G-d doesn’t mean walking invisibly. It means knowing some things are between you and Him, or between you and the people closest to you, and that this isn’t a deficiency to be fixed with more disclosure. It’s the whole point.

Klal Yisroel’s beauty was never that we had nothing to say. It’s that we understood some of what we carry is holy specifically because it’s unseen. That instinct isn’t old-fashioned. It’s part of our DNA, baishanim, rachmanim, gomlei chasadim. As Chazal teach us, “אֵין הַבְּרָכָה מְצוּיָה אֶלָּא בְּדָבָר הַסָּמוּי מִן הָעָיִן”, “Blessing is found only in that which is hidden from the eye” (Taanis 8b). May we be zoche to internalize that truth, to guard what deserves to be guarded, and through that zechus, be zoche to the ultimate brachah, bimheirah b’yameinu.

Larry Brigson

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LES DEUX ALPES, France (VINnews) — A business owner at a French Alps resort was questioned by authorities after a video showed her telling Jewish tourists that there were “too many of you,” prompting a national outcry and an investigation into possible antisemitic discrimination.

🚨BUVETTE INTERDIT AUX JUIFS ‼️
Voici comment on accueille les Juifs à l’une des buvettes d’activité de luge d’été aux 2 Alpes.@NunezLaurent @GDarmanin @AmisDuCrif @ObservatoireOjf @_LICRA_ @OudyB @Association_OJE @CNEWS @i24NEWS_FR @ftapiro @BFMTV @LCI @celine_pina pic.twitter.com/k34GC9DCwm

— Jugé Coupable (@JCoupable) August 14, 2026

The woman, who operates a food stand at the Les Deux Alpes resort, was questioned by France’s National Gendarmerie and later released while investigators gather additional evidence, according to a report by ynet News.

French prosecutors said the woman acknowledged making the remarks but provided investigators with what she described as the context surrounding the exchange. No decision has been made on whether she will face charges.

Dès que la vidéo a été portée à ma connaissance, la gendarmerie nationale a ouvert une enquête en lien avec le parquet.
La personne concernée devra répondre des propos tenus, que je condamne fermement, et qui n’ont pas de place dans notre République. pic.twitter.com/6cn8lijdzi

— Laurent Nuñez (@NunezLaurent) August 15, 2026

The controversy began after a video circulated widely on social media. In the recording, a customer asks the woman whom she meant when she said there were “too many” people. She responds that she was referring to the Jewish community.

The video quickly drew condemnation in France. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said an investigation had been opened after authorities were alerted to the footage, while government officials responsible for combating discrimination said antisemitic or racist conduct would not be tolerated.

The Grenoble prosecutor’s office said investigators are continuing to collect testimony and other evidence before determining the next steps in the case.

An Israeli Air Force officer with the rank of major is expected to be charged, pending a hearing, with breach of trust after allegedly using Polymarket to place wagers connected to Israeli strikes in Iran and Yemen, N12 reported Sunday.

The case is the latest development in an expanding betting scandal inside the Israeli Air Force. According to the report, the officer in the new case is currently facing only a breach-of-trust allegation, distinguishing it from a separate and significantly more serious case that surfaced earlier this year.

In February, another Israeli Air Force officer was charged with grave security offenses after allegedly exploiting sensitive information for financial gain. That officer was held for several months before later being released under restrictive conditions.

According to the indictment in that case, the officer violated basic secrecy obligations and was prepared to “sell” highly classified security information in exchange for money. Prosecutors alleged that his actions created a real danger to Israeli Air Force pilots and to IDF operational activity, while representing a serious breach of the trust placed in him as part of his military role.

During court proceedings, the officer claimed that “the entire Air Force is involved in betting,” arguing that a desire for excitement and financial profit had driven his conduct. The court responded by calling on senior Air Force officials to examine the broader allegations regarding gambling inside the service.

The court also issued a sharp warning over the alleged phenomenon, stating that personnel serving in one of the IDF’s most sensitive branches are expected to maintain far higher standards of conduct

The latest case now places renewed scrutiny on the use of prediction and betting platforms by personnel who may have access to sensitive operational information, with the major expected to receive a hearing before any final indictment is filed.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Arab Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad registered a new political party ahead of the upcoming elections and has been holding talks with various figures about joining his slate, Haddad’s office confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Haddad is a vocal supporter of Israel, advocating consistently for the country on news outlets and social media. He has also gone on numerous international speaking tours.

Haddad’s spokesperson said that he has been in contact with several political figures about joining the party, including Brig.-Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter, a controversial figure on the Right who has reportedly been weighing which political framework to join ahead of the elections.

“Yoseph Haddad hasn’t hidden that he’s considering entering politics and has recently been weighing his options,” his spokesperson told the Post.

“Among other moves, he’s registered a new party with partners who believe in his path.”

“At the same time, he’s been holding discussions and meetings with various figures to examine his possible next steps,” he added.

Haddad has recently returned from an advocacy trip to the US, and “will soon decide how he can best affect positive change for the State of Israel,” his office noted.

Especially after the start of Israel’s war, Haddad’s online platform grew rapidly, and he became a prominent and well-known voice on social networks, often appearing as a guest on TV programs throughout the country.

Haddad was seriously wounded in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, while serving in the IDF.

Together Vouch for Each Other aims to connect Arab and Israeli society

He has also established a nonprofit foundation, Together Vouch for Each Other. It calls to connect Arab society with Israeli society at large and to find solutions to the issues of Arab society.

In February, a Midgam Institute survey was released that showed a party led by Haddad could win four Knesset seats.

The survey found that a party led by Haddad would cross the electoral threshold, outperforming some parties currently represented in the Knesset, including MK Benny Gantz’s Blue and White.

The survey also showed that he would receive support from voters both from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc and the rivaling opposition bloc, creating the possibility for his potential party to shift the dynamic in the political sphere.

In May, sources close to Haddad told the Post that he was considering partnering with former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum in a political alliance.

Haddad aims to translate his social media following into real influence

Haddad is aiming to translate his social media support to the general public and into real influence from within the political apparatus in Jerusalem, a source close to Haddad said at the time.

Hassan-Nahoum currently serves as special envoy for trade innovation at the Foreign Affairs Ministry. In 2024, she became secretary-general of Kol Israel, a faction of the World Zionist Congress.

She led the Yerushalmim party in 2013. From 2018 until 2023, she served as deputy mayor of Jerusalem and was previously a member of the Jerusalem city council.

In 2022, Hassan-Nahoum ran in the Likud primaries ahead of the elections, where she scored 73 on the party’s list and therefore did not make it into the Knesset.

General elections are set to take place on October 27.

This post was originally published on here.

Fifty people standing on one San Francisco dead-end street, each tapping the ride button at the same moment, were enough to take a slice of Waymo’s fleet out of service for the night. The total cost to them was about $250.

That is the incident now driving a much larger conversation about who really controls a driverless fleet. The stunt itself was pulled in July of last year by a San Francisco tech prankster named Riley Walz, who publicized it that October and jokingly called it the world’s first Waymo denial-of-service attack. What is new is the scrutiny it is drawing this week from cybersecurity specialists and the questions it raises about California’s rules for autonomous vehicle operators.

Here is what happened, in plain terms. Fifty participants gathered on the city’s longest dead-end street and ordered rides simultaneously. Fifty driverless cars did exactly what they were built to do and came. None of the riders got in. The vehicles clustered at the dead end, blocked traffic, idled for roughly ten minutes and then left. Each no-show triggered a $5 fee, which is where the $250 figure comes from. Waymo responded by shutting off pickups and drop-offs in that area until the following morning.

No one hacked anything. That is the point. The system was not broken into — it was simply used as designed, all at once, and it buckled. Fifty ordinary phone taps, at five dollars apiece, redirected a working commercial fleet and forced the operator to take a neighborhood offline. For an American reader trying to size up the risk, the ratio is the story: roughly one dollar of cost for every ten dollars a single Waymo ride might generate, and a service area dark until morning.

That is what has security professionals uneasy. Louay Abdelkader, director of product management at QNX, told Fortune that lawmakers should treat vehicle cybersecurity as a primary design requirement in the way airbags are, rather than as something bolted on afterward. His concern is not pranksters. It is that generative AI has collapsed the time and expertise a real attacker needs. Finding vulnerabilities, automating attacks and writing exploits used to take significant resources; tools now available compress that work dramatically, and a bad actor would not stop at a $5 no-show fee.

The reason robotaxis are more exposed than an ordinary car comes down to how many parts are talking to each other. A driverless vehicle runs on dozens of interconnected electronic control units plus high-speed networking, cloud connectivity, GPS, cameras, lidar, radar and AI models continuously reading the road. Every one of those is a door. Security people call the total number of doors the attack surface, and a robotaxi has far more of them than a car with a steering wheel.

Hollywood imagines someone seizing the wheel remotely. Specialists say the realistic threat is the ecosystem around the car — the booking system, the mapping and positioning feeds, the communications links. An attacker who never touches the driving software can still degrade what the vehicle knows about the world around it, or, as fifty people with phones demonstrated, decide where the fleet goes.

California already has rules on the books. The state requires autonomous vehicle manufacturers to show they can safely monitor, update and maintain their fleets while complying with federal vehicle cybersecurity guidance. Waymo runs commercial service in both San Francisco and Los Angeles under that framework. The prank happened anyway. Waymo and the California Department of Motor Vehicles did not respond to requests for comment.

Other states have moved in the same direction. Arizona has folded cybersecurity planning into its broader autonomous vehicle deployment policy, and Michigan has stood up cybersecurity initiatives through partnerships with industry and research institutions. International regulators have gone further still, with United Nations vehicle cybersecurity rules that require manufacturers to manage cyber risk across a vehicle’s life.

The scale involved is why this is now a commercial question rather than a curiosity. Alphabet-owned Waymo has grown from its Arizona start to 11 major American cities, partnering with Uber in several of them, and the company says it delivers hundreds of thousands of fully autonomous trips a week across a fleet of more than 2,000 vehicles.

The fix is not complicated, and parts of it are standard practice in every other online business. Booking systems need the same abuse controls that airlines, ticketing sites and payment processors already run: rate limits on simultaneous requests to a single location, verification that flags a coordinated surge, and dispatch logic that refuses to send an entire neighborhood’s worth of cars to one address. Beyond the app, the harder work is what Abdelkader is arguing for — writing cybersecurity into the vehicle and fleet design at the start, and having regulators check it the way they check crash protection, rather than discovering the gap after somebody films it.

JBizNews Desk | San Francisco

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

Thousands of Vizhnitz Chassidim spent Shabbos in the presence of the Vizhnitzer Rebbe in Bnei Brak for the aufruf of his grandson, chosson Mordechai Hager, son of the Rebbe’s son-in-law, HaRav Menachem Mendel Hager.

Ahead of the simcha, the Rebbe returned to the Vizhnitz neighborhood in Bnei Brak from his vacation residence in Moshav Ora.

Throughout the Shabbos tefillos, the Rebbe recited Kaddish for his uncle, the Vizhnitzer Rebbe and author of the Damesek Eliezer, zy”a.

Following Shalosh Seudos on Motzei Shabbos, the Rebbe conducted the traditional “furshpiel” accompanied by music and spirited singing. During the celebration, the Rebbe enthusiastically encouraged the singing as the assembled Chassidim joined in the simcha.

The chasunah is scheduled to take place this coming Wednesday in the Vizhnitz Beis Medrash Hagadol in Bnei Brak, with thousands of Chassidim expected to participate.

PHOTOS BY SHUKI LERER FOR YWN

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Granola marketed to breastfeeding mothers and sold nationwide is being recalled over concerns that it may be contaminated with salmonella.

The Hampton Grocer, Inc., a New York-based company, is recalling certain 8-ounce packages of its Lacnola Lactation Granola after an ingredient used in the product was linked to a positive salmonella test, according to a company announcement posted Aug. 14 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The granola was sold nationwide through The Hampton Grocer’s website, Amazon and other online retailers between Oct. 21, 2025, and Aug. 12, 2026.

“The Hampton Grocers, Inc. of Montauk, NY is recalling Lacnola Lactation Granola, 8oz, because it has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems,” the announcement noted.

The recalled product comes in a pink stand-up pouch with UPC 850035324554. 

Consumers should check their packages for either of the following lot codes and expiration dates:

The lot code and expiration date are printed in black ink on the upper-left side of the back of the package.

No illnesses have been reported in connection with the recall, according to the notice.

The potential contamination was discovered after a supplier said one of its products tested positive for salmonella. The granola contains the same organic moringa powder used in that product.

Production has been halted while the company and FDA investigate.

Consumers who purchased the recalled 8-ounce packages are being urged to throw them away and contact the place of purchase for a full refund.

The Hampton Grocer could not immediately be reached by FOX Business for comment.

Central Elections Committee Chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg on Sunday rejected a request from Likud to reconsider a ruling barring polling station representatives from providing political parties with real-time information identifying which voters have already cast their ballots.

Sohlberg ruled that parties will not be permitted to receive information revealing the identities of individual voters during Election Day, citing privacy protections under Israeli law.

The justice said the decision does not constitute a last-minute change to election rules, but rather clarifies existing law and enforces an explicit provision of Israel’s Privacy Protection Law. He noted that previous Central Elections Committee chairmen had already raised questions regarding the legality of transmitting voter-identification information to political parties.

At the same time, Sohlberg sought to preserve the ability of parties to encourage voter turnout without compromising individual privacy.

Following consultations with political factions and other parties involved in the proceedings, Sohlberg ruled that the Central Elections Committee will publish turnout figures for every regular polling station across Israel at least four times during Election Day.

The information will be made equally available to all political parties, allowing campaigns to identify areas with lower turnout and encourage voters to head to the polls without revealing whether any specific individual has already voted.

The Central Elections Committee said the arrangement is intended to balance the ability of political parties to boost voter participation with the need to protect voter privacy and the integrity of the election process.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for Israel to kill dozens of people in Gaza every night, saying during a conversation with released hostage Rom Braslavski that he believes Israel should dramatically expand targeted killings in the Strip. His remarks, which surfaced Sunday, were quickly picked up by Palestinian media.

Ben-Gvir made the comments during an appearance on Braslavski’s podcast as the two discussed the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and Israel’s response. The minister criticized the recent reduction in Israeli strikes in Gaza and openly acknowledged that his position differs from that of Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu.

“It’s no secret, I disagree with the prime minister,” he said. “I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those who pose an immediate threat — there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

During the same podcast interview, Ben-Gvir also renewed his support for encouraging large-scale Palestinian emigration from Gaza and for rebuilding Jewish communities throughout the Strip.

“I see all of Gaza as ours,” said Ben-Gvir in the interview. “Settlements not just in Gush Katif but throughout Gaza, encouraging as much emigration as possible, sending them to their countries, and for the terrorists, no emigration, nothing, just to kill them one by one.”

{Matzav.com}

Dear Mayor Mamdani, 

Local politics is complicated, believe me I know more than most. 

People run for local office without knowing the job. Without ever stepping foot in a public meeting. Without knowing how to read an agenda packet, let alone how to make a motion. Most run without understanding that campaigning and governing are two entirely different things. It baffles me. 

The first act of a mayor matters.

It tells everyone who you are going to be once the lawn signs come down. It tells your colleagues how you intend to lead and your constituents what matters to you. One oft he most powerful things I have ever watched a mayor do on day one was apologize. 

Imagine that. The first act as mayor for Michael Pagan was to publicly acknowledge that a vote he had cast on a Planning Board appointment had hurt a colleague and the community he served. That is leadership. 

Yours? You inherited a city in the middle of an antisemitism crisis you had already helped fuel. You also inherited the largest Jewish population outside Israel. That should have imposed a special seriousness on the way you approached this issue from your first hour in office. So your first act was to walk into City Hall and rip the protections in place for your Jewish constituents out from under their feet! You played politics with your constituents lives and safety by revoking the IHRA definition of antisemitism. You revoked mayor Eric Adams’s order directing the NYPD and Law Department to figure out how to better protect people going to pray. 

Why? 

Seriously.

Why? 

Antisemitic protestors were already screaming “we are Hamas.”

Jews were already being harassed walking into shul, school, showing their Magen David or wearing a kippah. 

Your predecessor looked at that and said “this is dangerous, we need to do more.” 

No, Eric Adams did not eradicate antisemitism. Antisemitism surged after October 7 while he was mayor too, but he looked at what was happening and said this is dangerous, we need to do more, and he did! He understood his job and he protected his constituents, every one of them! 

So let’s stop pretending the IHRA decision was some meaningless administrative cleanup. You knew exactly why it mattered.

Antisemites figured out a long time ago that they can say “Zionist” instead of “Jew” and suddenly everyone gets very confused about whether they are allowed to call it antisemitism. Your first act as mayor made that easier. Your first act as mayor gave progressive Nazis exactly what they wanted, permission to target Jews while escaping the one label society only knows how to condemn when the Nazi happens to be on the right. You told every Jew in New York and worldwide watching what was happening outside our shuls that your ideological purity mattered more than the warning signs sitting right in front of you and now look where we are! 

I do not care what you intended when you signed your first executive orders. Intent is for campaign speeches. 

Consequences are what you govern. 

We’ve see what happens when people put ideological purity over safety of the people they serve, whether they voted for them or not. We have seen where that train ends, Mr. Mamdani! 

We watched you defend “globalize the intifada.” 

Do you understand what Jews hear when someone says “globalize the intifada”? We remember the intifada. 

We remember buses exploding. 

Restaurants. 

Cafes. 

Families. 

Blood.

Bodies.

Fear. 

It is very easy to find a different definition for a word when your children are not the intended target. 

Friday night, Larry Montes walked into Central Synagogue, one of New York City’s most prominent shuls during Shabbat services, disrupted services, struck a 63-year-old Jewish woman in the face, spat on a 65-year-old security guard and head-butted him, and damaged shul property. 

Jews worldwide already need police officers standing guard while we pray, and a woman was still attacked inside the shul while praying on your watch! 

You say you are horrified.

What are you going to do with that horror?

Your job is not commentator-in-chief.

Mayor Mamdani, I am tired of horror after the fact.

I am tired of your thoughts and prayers!

You were not blindsided by what is happening to Jewish New Yorkers, you were warned! The outgoing mayor literally left you an executive order telling you that Jews and houses of worship needed more protection. 

This very week, Jewish leaders sat across from you at City Hall and told you directly that the way you continued to talk about Israel endangered the Jewish community at large. They were not asking you to become a Zionist. They were asking the mayor of New York City to be a leader. 

You are the mayor, act it! 

You made Israel, Zionism and the Jewish state a recurring target of your politics in a city where Jews were already being attacked at grotesquely disproportionate rates, and every time Jews told you there was a connection we got another lecture about the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. 

 !די 

We know the definition. There is no difference! When you say Zionist, you mean Jew! 

The person screaming “Zionist” at a Jew does not stop and ask whether the Jew has ever voted in an Israeli election. 

The person showing up at a synagogue is not checking everyone’s position on Netanyahu. The man wearing a kippah on the Upper West Side is not suddenly protected because someone insists their hatred is technically about Israel. 

A shul full of Jews does not become a legitimate political target because you call the people inside “Zionists.” 

This distinction you keep defending so carefully on paper is collapsing on Jewish bodies. We am tired of watching Jews have to become victims before everyone suddenly discovers it’s too late.

Words matter, Mayor Mamdani! 

Why does a Jew have to bleed before the vocabulary gets easy? 

You do not get to spend years pouring gasoline into an already combustible argument about Jews, Zionism and Israel and then stand over the flames expressing shock that the room is hot. Jews have been standing in front of you telling you exactly what the atmosphere feels like, but you keep arguing with the weather report while we are standing in the rain. 

You said your administration would do everything in its power to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe. It’s too late. The intifada is globalized!

Listen to the Jews, and not only the Jews who make your politics comfortable. Listen to the Jews who are angry with you. 

Listen to the Jews who hear “intifada” and remember what intifada actually looked like. Listen to the Jews who hear crowds screaming about Zionists and know exactly who is being addressed. 

Listen to Jewish parents wondering how much security their children need to go to school. Listen to the Jew who sees a police officer outside synagogue and feels both grateful and sick that he has to be there. 

Listen before someone else is hurt. 

We were afraid

We told you. 

So no, Mayor Mamdani, “horrified” is not enough. 

Your words carry the authority of City Hall. 

What you normalize matters. 

What you condemn matters. 

What you refuse to condemn matters. 

What you repeal matters. 

What you excuse as political debate matters. 

At some point, you have to govern the city that actually exists instead of the semantic distinction you wish existed. 

There is a reason hatred aimed at a country thousands of miles away keeps landing on Jews in New York. 

I say this to you not as someone unfamiliar with public office. 

I know what it means when residents come before government and tell us they are afraid. Our responsibility is not to tell them their fear and experiences are wrong! Our responsibility is to hear the warning while there is still something we can do about it. 

Restore the protections your predecessor left for Jewish New Yorkers today, or resign! 

Stop treating “globalize the intifada” like a linguistic misunderstanding. 

Stop using the mayoralty of New York as a platform for an obsessive prosecution of the Jewish people and their homeland. 

Tell your political allies that a protest does not become progressive because Jews are the ones being intimidated. 

Tell them that t replacing the word “Jew” with “Zionist” does not give them moral immunity. Most importantly, Listen! 

Friday night should have been Shabbat. A woman should have been able to enter Central Synagogue without becoming another hate-crime statistic. A security guard should not have been spat on and head-butted while protecting Jews at prayer. A police officer should not have to stand between a Jewish congregation and violence for Jews to worship in Manhattan. That is where New York is and you are its mayor. 

I will put this on the table. 

I publicly offer a public open meeting with Mayor Mamdani and his team to offer any help that will keep Jewish New Yorkers safe, and by extension mine. Name the time and place and let’s get to work. The ball is in your court Mr. Mayor. Motion to adjourn.

The writer is a councilwoman in Teaneck, New Jersey.

This post was originally published on here.

Family getting up: Shacharis: 7:30 am Mincha: 7:35 pm And Mariv

Harav Yisroel Weinberg
Father

Mrs. Chava Weinberg
Mother

Harav Shmaryahu Weinberg
Brother

Will also be sitting in Bayswater. Check for time and location.

Harav Meir Weinberg
Brother

Mrs. Chaya Hayum
Sister

Will also be sitting in Minkatch camp. Check for time and location.

Mrs. Shayna Leshem
Sister

Mrs. Blima Lazenga
Sister

Will be sitting at 7615 Quail Meadow Drive Houston Texas from Thursday morning.

Mrs. Leah Netaneli
Sister

Will also be sitting in Bayswater. Check for time and location.

Fourteen months ago Elon Musk accused the president of being named in the Epstein files, threatened to primary every Republican who voted for the White House’s signature tax bill, and announced he was starting his own political party. That party is now dormant, and Musk has authorized his super PAC to spend up to $120 million getting Republicans to the polls on Nov. 3.

The reconciliation happened in stages, and money moved even when the words were hostile. Musk cut $15 million in checks to three Republican committees roughly two weeks after apologizing for the Epstein post, saying he had gone too far — and then, days later, resumed threatening Republicans who backed the bill. Federal Election Commission filings showed the money split among Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund.

The thaw ran through Vice President JD Vance, who is close to Musk and organized a dinner at the Naval Observatory attended by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, former deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, and Jared Birchall, the low-profile lieutenant who manages Musk’s political giving. In early January, Musk posted a photograph from Mar-a-Lago describing a dinner with the president and first lady and predicting a strong year ahead.

The result, reported in late July, is a commitment of $100 million to $120 million for a field program in at least eight states. The initial targets are Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan and Ohio, with possible involvement in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas, alongside several House contests. The group has described the plan as a large-scale get-out-the-vote operation working both offensively and defensively. Axios reported the focus is on mobilizing Republican voters who typically skip non-presidential elections.

The commercial logic is not hidden. Musk’s companies depend heavily on the federal government: SpaceX holds substantial NASA and Defense Department contracts, its Starlink business runs on federal spectrum and licensing decisions, and Tesla operates under vehicle-safety and autonomous-driving regulators. SpaceX is also moving toward the public markets, a process in which regulatory posture and political stability carry real value. A third party competing for conservative votes would have split the coalition Musk’s businesses do business with, which is the practical case against the America Party that observers cited when it went quiet.

The scale is smaller than last cycle. Musk gave roughly $291.5 million in 2024, most of it to elect Trump, making him the largest donor of that campaign. America PAC has spent about $52.3 million since January 2025 against roughly $50.3 million raised, nearly all of it from Musk, who has personally contributed more than $85 million to political organizations this cycle. The new authorization would roughly triple that.

It lands on top of an already lopsided money picture: Republican super PACs and committees hold an advantage of more than $300 million over Democratic counterparts, before counting the $400 million in Trump’s MAGA Inc. Axios reported the cash edge is meant to offset a political environment favoring Democrats, with the president’s approval ratings weak on the economy and the Iran war putting House control, and possibly the Senate, in play. A senior White House political adviser, James Blair, called the PAC’s return a significant boost for Republicans nationally.

There is reason for caution on the number. Announced super PAC spending is an authorization, not a wire transfer, and Musk’s political commitments have moved quickly in both directions before. Commentators noting his record have cautioned that the pledge should not be treated as fixed, nor assumed to grow toward 2024 levels. The 2024 operation itself drew scrutiny when Reuters reported that canvassers had fallen short of door-knocking targets and that some were alleged to have overstated their work.

For business readers, the takeaway is less about the personalities than about what the episode demonstrates. The wealthiest individual in the country severed ties with an administration his companies depend on, discovered the cost of that position, and rebuilt the relationship inside a year — with a nine-figure check as the closing argument. Whether the money delivers turnout in November is a separate question, and one the filings will answer only after the votes are counted.

JBizNews Desk | Washington, D.C.

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