An unusual incident occurred over the weekend on an Arkia flight from Amsterdam to Israel, after it was discovered while the aircraft was already taxiing toward the runway that one of the passengers on board did not have a ticket for that flight. As a result, the aircraft was forced to return to its parking position at the airport.

Eran, a passenger on the flight, told Mako that during preparations for takeoff, the pilot informed the passengers that the aircraft would have to return to the gate. He said the flight attendants later explained that there was a security incident involving a passenger who had boarded without the proper ticket.

According to Eran, security personnel arrived at the aircraft shortly afterward and removed the passenger.

“Within a few minutes, security personnel arrived and took him off the plane,” Eran said. “How is it possible for someone without a ticket to reach the boarding gate, get past the flight attendants during the final check before boarding, and sit down on a plane about to take off for Israel? This is not a routine delay, but a serious security failure that requires an investigation and clear explanations.”

Eran added that the passengers were not given a clear explanation of what was happening during the incident.

“We were not given proper information, and we did not receive clear answers to our questions,” Eran said. “People were stressed. There was a feeling that some of those involved did not understand the seriousness of the incident or the distress of hundreds of passengers who had been confined inside the aircraft for a long time.”

After the passenger was removed from the aircraft, the flight did not immediately depart. A technical malfunction was subsequently discovered on the plane, resulting in an additional delay before takeoff.

Arkia said in a statement: “During preparations for the departure of an Arkia flight from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv, while conducting a passenger count before takeoff, it was discovered that one passenger had mistakenly boarded the aircraft while holding a ticket for another flight.

“The passenger, who had no luggage with him, had undergone all screening and security procedures at Amsterdam Airport. As soon as the mistake was discovered, he was removed from the aircraft and transferred to the flight for which he was booked.

“We emphasize that the technical malfunction subsequently discovered on the aircraft, which caused the plane to return to the gate before departing again following repairs, was entirely unrelated to the passenger incident. These were two completely separate incidents.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday outlined his vision for a world where personal superintelligence is available to everyone rather than only a select few.

In a 14-page letter titled “The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future,” Zuckerberg argued that broadly distributing superintelligent AI represents both an economic opportunity and a safeguard against concentrating too much power in the hands of governments, businesses and other institutions.

“We propose a philosophy based on individual empowerment as the source of prosperity, invention as the primary purpose of superintelligence, and balance of power as the foundation of safety,” he wrote.

His broader argument centers on individual empowerment, using AI primarily to help people invent rather than simply automate work, distributing power through checks and balances and ensuring communities benefit from Meta’s AI infrastructure investments.

“All new technologies create opportunities and challenges. Superintelligence will be among the most important technologies in history, so its opportunities and challenges will likely be greater than any we’ve seen in our lifetimes. We should take this very seriously,” he added.

Zuckerberg said empowering individuals would allow people to compete with and check one another economically, socially and politically, while also helping balance the power of businesses and governments.

“But if the power of superintelligence is held by a small number of individuals, businesses, governments, or AI itself, then that will naturally lead to outcomes that are less favorable for everyone else,” Zuckerberg said. “This is not a technological principle. It is about the balance of power. There is no such thing as a singular benevolent superintelligence.”

He said the key to a positive future for everyone is achieving a balance of power that favors individuals, arguing that superintelligence should be broadly distributed to empower people.

“Meta is the company primarily focused on building personal superintelligence for everyone,” he said. “Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals. Meta’s mission since our founding has focused on putting power in people’s hands. If our beliefs and principles lead, then the balance of power will favor individuals and a better future for everyone.”

Zuckerberg also called for close cooperation between frontier AI labs and the government, saying government policy will be necessary to help ensure a positive future.

As part of that broader strategy, Zuckerberg said Meta will soon resume releasing some open-source AI models, which he described as a “positive and important force” for empowering people and preventing centralization he argues could harm safety and the economy.

“Meta continues to be strongly supportive of open source, including open source AI models. The current open source ecosystem is strong, and we think it would be a mistake to restrict it. Now that Meta Superintelligence Labs are up and running, we will resume releasing some open source models soon,” he said.

Meta also announced new open-source model releases Monday. The company is releasing the weights for Muse Glimmer, a 30-billion-parameter dense model that can run on a laptop or single consumer GPU, which Meta described as one of the highest-performing models of its size.

In the coming weeks, Meta said it will also open the weights for a version of Muse Spark 1.2, which the company described as one of the world’s leading foundation models.

Zuckerberg also previewed a new $1 billion Future is for Everyone Fund to invest directly in US communities where Meta owns and operates data centers. Meta said it will work with communities to develop investments and programs tailored to local needs.

The commitment was inspired in part by what Meta said it observed in Richland Parish, Louisiana, where teachers received bonuses tied to increased tax revenue from the company’s investment.

“Sustainable infrastructure development means that communities must benefit significantly from each project,” Zuckerberg wrote in his letter. “This includes high-paying local jobs, investment in schools and public services, ensuring energy prices don’t rise, and taking care of the environment. As tax revenue grows, this also benefits teachers, law enforcement, fire departments, and more. We call these local benefits our community compact, and we are launching a Future Is For Everyone Fund to support each community we work in directly.”

“For example, in Richland Parish, Louisiana, where Meta is building a large data center, teachers received a $50,000 bonus this year because of the increased tax revenue from our investment. The superintendent told us that teachers are now moving there from across the country and he believes it will become one of the nation’s best school districts,” he continued.

Zuckerberg concluded by calling it “an incredible moment to live through” and arguing that developing superintelligence “will be the most profound technological advance we will see in our lifetimes.”

“Meta is committed to building with the principles of individual empowerment as the source of prosperity, invention as AI’s purpose, and a balance of power favoring people as the foundation for addressing safety risks,” he said.

America’s hottest housing markets are all located in the Northeast and Midwest, according to a new ZIP code-level analysis of the most in-demand housing markets.

Realtor.com released its hottest ZIP codes report for 2026, which found that those two regions swept the top 10 rankings for the fourth consecutive year.

Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com, told FOX Business in an interview that “a lot of these ZIP codes fall in suburbs that are on the outer ring of major metro areas like Boston, New York, Philadelphia.”

“It kind of paints this picture that you can still commute to the busy city center for your job, but you’re taking your big city income where you can get a little more bang for your buck, more space, more of that established suburban quiet life,” she said.

Housing supply in the communities that comprised the top 10 of this year’s rankings is especially tight, as Jones noted that inventory levels are running about 60% below pre-pandemic levels in those communities – whereas inventories across the country are just 11% below where they were before the pandemic.

She also said that many home shoppers in these markets are coming from within the metro area they’re closest to, as opposed to being from outside the region to move, adding that “we’re not seeing as much of that cross-country migration type of buyer demand.”

Another characteristic of those markets is that the scarcity is driving buyers to pay above asking price, with nine of the top 10 seeing homes sell at or above asking price with an average sale-to-list ratio of 103.8%. Around the country, the typical home sold for about 2.3% below its list price in the first half of 2026.

Buyers are also putting more money down when purchasing a home in the ZIP codes that make up the top 10 rankings as opposed to the national average.

“When we’re looking at these buyer profiles, we see that they tend to put down a lot as a down payment. Across these 10 top ZIP codes, the typical buyer is putting down about 17% as the down payment, compared to about 13% nationally – and both of those figures are also higher than they were even before the pandemic,” Jones said.

“We also know they tend to have higher credit scores, and all this is pointing to this idea that today’s borrowers have to be more financially equipped and financially ready to participate in today’s housing market because with mortgage rates in the mid-to-high 6% range,” she said.

Jones added that the buyers who are participating in these markets “tend to be very financially able to participate, they have a little bit more money to put down and they’re more financially robust than the typical U.S. buyer.”

Realtor.com’s rankings are based on an algorithm that considers market demand based on unique viewers per property on the Realtor.com website, as well as the pace of the market as measured by the number of days a listing remains actively listed on the platform.

Here’s Realtor.com’s list of the hottest ZIP codes in America:

1. 01960 – Peabody, Massachusetts

2. 07042 – Montclair, New Jersey

3. 08080 – Sewell, New Jersey

4. 14450 – Fairport, New York

5. 01085 – Westfield, Massachusetts

6. 48154 – Livonia, Michigan

7. 17543 – Lititz, Pennsylvania

8. 06473 – North Haven, Connecticut

9. 53151 – New Berlin, Wisconsin

10. 60187 – Wheaton, Illinois

Take-Two Interactive said Friday that preorders for Grand Theft Auto VI have reached levels the company described as unprecedented, reinforcing expectations that the November release could become one of the biggest entertainment launches ever.

The company is still keeping its fiscal 2027 bookings forecast at $8 billion to $8.2 billion, even as early demand for the game has surged. Management said that caution reflects a simple accounting reality: preorders are not final sales, and customers can still cancel before release. 

The bigger business story is that GTA VI is not just another game launch. It is becoming a major consumer-spending event with implications for consoles, subscriptions, advertising and digital commerce.

Grand Theft Auto V has sold more than 230 million copies since 2013, giving Take-Two one of the most valuable franchises in entertainment. The new installment is scheduled for release in November after years of anticipation and multiple delays. 

Shares of Take-Two rose more than 4% Friday as investors reacted to the preorder figures. The company also reported quarterly bookings of about $1.39 billion, slightly above expectations. 

The long-term economics may matter even more than launch-week sales.

Grand Theft Auto V generated years of recurring revenue through GTA Online, where players spend money on in-game content long after buying the original game. Investors are therefore watching closely for details about GTA VI’s multiplayer and online strategy.

That recurring-revenue model can turn a blockbuster title into something closer to a digital platform, generating spending for years rather than weeks.

The launch could also lift other parts of the gaming ecosystem. A major new title can encourage consumers to upgrade consoles, storage, televisions and gaming accessories, while bringing more users into subscription and online-payment systems.

Take-Two’s decision not to raise its forecast despite the preorder surge shows how much uncertainty remains between enthusiasm and realized revenue.

But the early numbers make one thing clear:

GTA VI is shaping up to be less like a normal software release and more like a global entertainment event with billions of dollars riding on its success.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

The new right-wing parties recently formed by Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein and Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel fail to cross the electoral threshold, Kan News reported on Sunday evening, citing a poll conducted by the Kantar Institute.

The poll shows the Likud and Yashar, led by Gadi Eisenkot, tied at 23 seats each. Yair Golan’s Democrats party and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party secure 10 seats each, while Otzma Yehudit, UTJ and Shas receive eight seats each.

The Ra’am Party secures six seats, and the Religious Zionist party and Hadash-Ta’el each take five seats.

As for suitability for prime minister, Netanyahu continues to lead Bennett by 41% to 31%, virtually unchanged from the previous poll. Netanyahu, however, widened his lead over Eisenkot from four percentage points in the previous poll to seven, with 41% saying Netanyahu is more suitable to serve as prime minister compared with 34% for Eisenkot.

In a head-to-head matchup between Bennett and Eisenkot, the Yashar chairman leads with 31%, compared with 20% for Bennett. The 11-point gap is half the 22-point margin between the two candidates in last week’s poll.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Officials in a Middle Eastern country advised officials in another country to reach an agreement with Israel in order to “lull it to sleep,” while simultaneously preparing for a large-scale military confrontation against it, Kan News revealed on Monday morning, citing a foreign source.

According to the report, during talks between the sides, the officials told their counterparts that they should reach an agreement with Israel in order to violate it afterward, while continuing their preparations for war.

Journalist Roi Kais, who presented the report, noted that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar adopted precisely the same approach, lulling Israel to sleep by signaling that he was prepared for “quiet in exchange for quiet,” while at the same time preparing the plans for the October 7 massacre.

The revelation raises troubling questions about whether Israel, in a post-October 7 world, is once again falling for the “conceptzia” of reaching peace with its neighbors.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Eli Lilly’s two flagship medicines brought in almost $15 billion between them in a single three-month stretch, driving a revenue beat large enough that the drugmaker lifted its full-year sales forecast by $3 billion at both ends of the range.

Worldwide Mounjaro revenue rose 91% to $9.9 billion in the second quarter, with U.S. sales of $4.8 billion, up 45%, and international revenue climbing 172% to $5.2 billion. U.S. Zepbound revenue increased 44% to $4.9 billion, driven by demand and partly offset by previously announced cuts to cash-pay prices.

Combined, the two drugs produced $14.9 billion and added $6.3 billion in year-over-year sales. That represented 64.7% of the company’s quarterly revenue.

Total revenue climbed 48% to $23.0 billion, driven by a 60% jump in volume that was partially offset by a 13% drop in realized prices. That figure blew past a consensus estimate of $20.73 billion. Shares rose more than 5% in early trading.

The Guidance Raise

Lilly lifted full-year revenue guidance to a range of $85 billion to $87 billion, up from $82 billion to $85 billion.

The earnings line is more complicated. Reported earnings per share rose 26% to $7.94 and non-GAAP earnings rose 33% to $8.38, both including $3.03 per share in acquired in-process research and development charges against just $0.14 a year earlier. The company raised its underlying non-GAAP earnings guidance by $2.78 at the midpoint, but the acquisition-related charges more than wiped that out, producing a narrowed range of $35.50 to $36.50.

Net income came in at $7.10 billion versus $5.66 billion a year earlier.

Injectables Are Not Losing to Pills

The most consequential finding in the report has nothing to do with the top line.

The industry consensus heading into this year was that oral weight-loss medications would begin pulling patients away from weekly injections. That is not what the quarter showed. The results widened Lilly’s lead over Novo Nordisk even as the Danish rival launched an oral version of Wegovy in the U.S.

Volume growth carried both products past pricing pressure and intensifying competition, which suggests the constraint on this market has never really been patient preference for a pill. It has been access and cost.

Where the Growth Is Coming From

The international numbers deserve more attention than they typically get.

Mounjaro sales outside the U.S. jumped 172%, and Chief Executive David Ricks said the global adoption beat both the company’s own expectations and Wall Street’s by a wide margin. He noted that most patients in large middle-income markets — Brazil, China and India — are paying out of pocket, where Lilly is seeing what he described as strong and durable demand.

Revenue outside the U.S. rose 80% to $8.6 billion, with lower realized prices there driven mainly by Mounjaro’s addition to China’s National Reimbursement Drug List. U.S. revenue increased 33% to $14.4 billion.

That trade — accepting materially lower prices in exchange for national formulary access — is the strategy driving the volume, and it is working.

Ricks has estimated that global GLP-1 use will rise from roughly 20 million patients at the end of last year to 30 million by the end of 2026.

Beyond the Franchise

Lilly is spending heavily to avoid being a two-product company. Research and development expenses rose 14% to $3.8 billion, or 17% of revenue, while marketing, selling and administrative costs increased 25% to $3.4 billion on promotional support for current and planned launches.

There is early evidence the diversification is landing. Key product revenue in immunology, oncology and neuroscience grew 121% year over year. Regulatory wins in the quarter included FDA approval of Ebglyss for an eight-week maintenance dose in moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis, European approval of Jaypirca as a monotherapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia across all lines of therapy, and a U.S. submission for orforglipron in type 2 diabetes.

Ricks pointed to the next-generation weight-loss candidate retatrutide with its full clinical data package in hand, new manufacturing capacity coming online, and pipeline additions from business development.

Gross margin reached 85.8% of revenue, up 1.5 percentage points from a year ago on better production costs and favorable product mix.

Lilly crossed a roughly $1 trillion market capitalization earlier this year — a valuation built almost entirely on two molecules that just delivered nearly two-thirds of a quarter’s revenue.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

LISTEN:

https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Bitachon4Life-Shiur-1843-Seiver-Part-43-Together.mp3

​​For more info, email [email protected].

SK Hynix approved about 54.3 trillion won, or roughly $38.3 billion, of new semiconductor investment through 2031, committing tens of billions of dollars to additional factories as artificial-intelligence systems drive demand for advanced memory chips.

The South Korean chipmaker said its board approved 35.2 trillion won for the second phase of its Yongin fabrication complex south of Seoul and another 19.1 trillion won for its M17 plant in Cheongju.

The scale matters because AI chips do not operate on processors alone. Systems built around Nvidia and other accelerators require enormous amounts of fast memory to continuously move data in and out of those processors.

That has turned high-bandwidth memory from a relatively specialized semiconductor product into one of the most strategically important components of the AI buildout.

SK Hynix has emerged as one of the largest suppliers of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, used in AI servers. Unlike ordinary memory found in PCs and phones, HBM stacks multiple layers of memory together so massive quantities of data can move between the memory and processor at extremely high speeds.

That makes memory capacity a potential bottleneck.

If companies can obtain advanced processors but not enough HBM to feed them data, expensive AI servers cannot operate at their full potential. SK Hynix is therefore investing years ahead of expected demand, building fabrication capacity before customers actually need all of it.

The company’s Yongin expansion is part of a much larger semiconductor cluster being developed in South Korea, while Cheongju will add additional production capacity across both advanced memory and NAND products.

The spending also illustrates how the AI investment cycle is moving beyond software companies and data centers. Chipmakers, utilities, construction companies, equipment suppliers and materials producers are now committing enormous amounts of capital based on the assumption that AI computing demand will remain strong for years.

That creates opportunity but also risk.

Semiconductor factories cost billions of dollars and take years to build. If AI demand continues accelerating, the new capacity could become extremely valuable. If growth slows materially, manufacturers can be left with expensive plants producing more chips than the market needs.

For now, SK Hynix is clearly betting on the first scenario.

The AI boom is increasingly becoming a manufacturing boom, and memory is emerging as one of the physical constraints determining how quickly the computing infrastructure can grow.

JBizNews Desk | Seoul

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

In a first boost for the new party founded by former Likud MKs Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein, former Beit Shemesh Mayor Aliza Bloch announced Monday morning that she is joining the party.

Bloch’s announcement follows several weeks of talks with Erdan and Edelstein, as well as discussions with figures from other parties. She is the first prominent public figure to officially join the new party, which has yet to be named.

Last week, it was reported that Likud attempted to prevent Bloch from joining the new party by offering her a reserved spot on the party’s Knesset slate. Bloch rejected the offer, while her talks with Erdan and Edelstein continued, culminating in an agreement over the past day.

Her decision comes four days after Erdan and Edelstein announced the formation of their new party, which has made the hatred of Chareidim in the guise of “military enlistment for all” the center of its platform.

At the party’s launch, Erdan stressed that it would not provide the 61st seat needed to form a narrow government — whether headed by Binyamin Netanyahu or Gadi Eisenkot. He said the party is intended “for right-wing voters who voted for the coalition and do not want to continue perpetuating draft evasion, and for right-wing voters in the opposition who do not want a left-wing government.”

Meanwhile, Channel 13 journalist Michael Shemesh reported that Naftali Bennett approached Erdan several months ago to explore the possibility of political cooperation.

Erdan declined to meet with Bennett, and no meeting ultimately took place. According to the report, Erdan’s refusal stemmed from his opposition to the former “change government” and his reservations about cooperating with parties that had participated in it.

Bennett’s office responded: “Former Prime Minister Bennett is working and will continue to work to create a Zionist government so that together we can fix Israel.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

LISTEN:

https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Tefila4Life-Shiur-1120-Everything-Vayevarech-Dovid.mp3

In recent days, the IDF has halted proactive strikes in the Gaza Strip, shifting from a policy of offensive operations to one of near-total restraint.

The report comes after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced during Sunday’s security cabinet meeting that Israel is rejecting the Peace Council’s 15-point plan for Gaza, declaring that the IDF will not withdraw from the Strip until Hamas has been fully and genuinely disarmed. Channel 12 later reported that Trump administration officials were not concerned by Netanyahu’s declaration, viewing his remarks as driven by election considerations and noting that Israel has, in practice, refrained from carrying out strikes in Gaza for the past five days.

Commanders told Ynet that any operation beyond the Yellow Line — even opening fire on armed terrorists — now requires approval from the highest levels, with some strikes requiring direct authorization from the IDF Chief of Staff. Senior officers and soldiers said that while targeted killings had previously been carried out on a daily basis thanks to broad operational freedom, the Gaza Strip has now been almost completely quiet.

The shift marks a significant departure from the IDF’s previous policy, under which troops, guided by military intelligence, carried out daily targeted strikes against terror targets.

“There were targeted killings here every day, sometimes several times a day,” one officer said. “We were hunting them down. They felt hunted and kept moving from place to place, but because we were constantly pursuing them, many operational opportunities arose. When you don’t have to seek approval from too high up the chain of command, you can act quickly and take advantage of those opportunities. Now it’s quiet. There’s nothing happening.”

Officers emphasized to Ynet, however, that the new policy does not place IDF troops in Gaza in immediate danger, since forces remain authorized to respond immediately to threats. Battalion commanders on the ground can eliminate any immediate threat to their forces without waiting for higher-level approval.

Nevertheless, an officer interviewed for the report warned against the shift to a static posture, saying Hamas is likely to exploit the quiet to rebuild its capabilities. He compared the situation to the period in Lebanon following Operation Northern Arrow, when IDF forces enjoyed broad freedom of action against Hezbollah before the “ceasefire” took effect.

“We were constantly firing at Hezbollah terrorists there, and we had freedom of action until Operation Roaring Lion. It’s true that the situation was different because they had been pushed back, but in terms of the use of fire, we were routinely striking them without coming under fire ourselves. The same was true in Gaza. Now that has changed.”

Soldiers stationed in Gaza told Ynet that the enemy quickly recognizes and exploits changes in the IDF’s operational behavior.

“They see what’s happening. They’re not stupid. After months of constantly hearing strikes, suddenly everything is quiet. They understand that something has changed,” one officer said. “I assume they’ll start rebuilding things they wanted to rebuild but couldn’t while the strikes were continuing. The terrorists haven’t disappeared. They’re trying to adapt to the new situation.”

Another officer serving in Gaza said: “No one is under any illusion that Hamas is going to disarm. It’s only a matter of time before something happens — tunnels, weapons transfers or something else — and then we’ll return to the previous approach.”

In addition, although IDF troops remain authorized to respond to threats within the Yellow Line, the rules of engagement there have also changed.

“We are stunned by the recent change in the rules of engagement,” a reserve officer told Ynet. “Going from the straightforward order to neutralize any enemy who crosses the Yellow Line toward us to a suspect-arrest procedure that ends with a shot to the legs is the beginning of a slippery slope.”

“The command has become complacent and believes Hamas is deterred, but we can see them reorganizing, and we know that the crossings of the Yellow Line are part of a systematic effort to test our deployment. The enemy has the intent, the means and the ability to carry out significant offensive operations.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Spanish satellite operator Hispasat has been selected to lead a major portion of the European Union’s planned €15.6 billion IRIS² satellite network, giving the company responsibility for key ground infrastructure and communications systems in one of Europe’s largest new space projects.

Hispasat will serve as prime contractor for antennas, control systems and ground links that will connect the network’s satellites with users across Europe. Its immediate share of the program carries a budget of more than €1.6 billion, with another roughly €600 million potentially tied to low-Earth-orbit connectivity.

The significance is that Europe is no longer treating satellite communications as ordinary telecom infrastructure. It is increasingly treating them as strategic infrastructure that must remain under European control.

IRIS² — short for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite — is designed to give European governments, militaries and critical industries secure communications even if terrestrial networks are disrupted or foreign satellite providers become unavailable.

That puts the project in direct strategic competition with commercial systems such as Starlink, but with a different mission.

Starlink is primarily a private broadband network. IRIS² is being built around sovereignty, cybersecurity, government communications and resilience. The European Commission wants member states to have access to encrypted connectivity that does not depend entirely on companies headquartered outside the bloc.

Hispasat’s role is therefore much larger than supplying antennas.

Ground stations act as the bridge between satellites and terrestrial networks. They control traffic, authenticate users and move data into the broader communications system. Whoever operates that layer sits close to the most sensitive part of the network.

The project also shows how Europe’s rising defense and security spending is creating opportunities beyond weapons manufacturers.

Satellite operators, cybersecurity companies, telecom-equipment suppliers, launch providers and ground-infrastructure contractors are all becoming part of a much larger security supply chain as governments spend more heavily on communications systems that can continue operating during war, cyberattack or natural disaster.

For Hispasat, the contract could provide years of predictable infrastructure spending while strengthening its position in government and secure communications.

Europe is effectively building its own strategic communications backbone in space — and Hispasat has now been handed one of the most important pieces on the ground.

JBizNews Desk | Madrid

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

More than 3,200 pounds of ready-to-eat pastrami and corned beef products are being recalled over concerns they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

The products were shipped to foodservice locations in Illinois, Iowa and Michigan before being distributed nationwide. FSIS said the potential contamination was discovered during routine inspection activities.

The recall includes 10-pound cardboard boxes containing 2- to 5-pound pieces of “Midamar Premium Beef Pastrami” with case code “19410” printed on the box label.

Also included are various-weight 20- to 30-pound cardboard boxes containing two to three pieces of “Bea’s Best Cooked Corned Beef Brisket” with case code “18919,” as well as various-weight 20- to 30-pound boxes containing two to three pieces of “Kirsch Delicatessen Style Cooked Corned Beef Brisket” with case code “19751.”

The products were produced on July 16 and have a 60-day shelf life, FISA said.

The food items were shipped to foodservice locations in Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan before they were further distributed nationwide.

The issue was discovered during routine inspection activities, the agency said.

There have been no confirmed reports of illness in connection with the consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about illness is urged to contact a healthcare provider.

FISA warned that consumption of food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects older adults, people with weakened immune systems and pregnant women and their newborns, although others can also be affected.

“Listeriosis can cause fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms,” the agency said. “An invasive infection spreads beyond the gastrointestinal tract. In pregnant women, the infection can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn. In addition, serious and sometimes fatal infections in older adults and persons with weakened immune systems.”

“Listeriosis is treated with antibiotics. Persons in the higher-risk categories who experience flu-like symptoms within two months after eating contaminated food should seek medical care and tell the health care provider about eating the contaminated food,” it added.

FISIS is concerned that some products may be in consumers’ homes. Anyone who has purchased these products is instructed not to consume them and to either throw them away or return them to the place of purchase.

The Torah and rabbinical community in France is mourning the passing of Rabbi Chaim Peretz, zt”l, a respected dayan who served on a rabbinical court in France and was among the rabbis of the Torah V’Rachamim Yeshiva in Paris. He was 80 years old.

Rabbi Peretz’s passing was reported Sunday, August 9, 2026, bringing a wave of mourning to the Torah communities of both France and Tunisia, where his roots and early Torah development were closely connected.

A distinguished Torah scholar, Rabbi Peretz was counted among the prominent students of Rabbi Matzliach Mazuz, hy”d, the renowned Tunisian Torah leader who was murdered in 1971. Over the course of his life, Rabbi Peretz carried forward the traditions of Tunisian Torah scholarship and halachic learning while serving the Jewish community in France.

In Paris, he devoted himself to Torah study and teaching and served as one of the rabbis of the Torah V’Rachamim Yeshiva. His work as a dayan also placed him in a position of responsibility within the French Jewish community, where he was involved in matters of Jewish law and rabbinical leadership.

Despite enduring severe suffering and physical hardship for years, Rabbi Peretz continued his dedication to spreading Torah. Those reports describing his final years emphasized his extraordinary perseverance and self-sacrifice, as he remained committed to teaching and serving others despite his personal difficulties.

His passing marks the loss of a scholar whose life connected generations and communities from the rich Torah heritage of Tunisia to the vibrant Sephardic Torah world of France. Rabbi Chaim Peretz leaves behind decades of Torah teaching, rabbinical service and a legacy of dedication to Jewish learning.

May his memory be a blessing.

At least 18 ready-to-eat meat and poultry products have been recalled following a salmonella outbreak linked to fresh jalapeño peppers that has sickened 345 people and hospitalized 36, according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

The outbreak has been reported across 27 states and linked to jalapeños grown in Sinaloa, Mexico, and distributed in the US by Coast Citrus Distributors, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Many of the reported illnesses have been tied to Mexican-style restaurants rather than the prepared foods covered by the alert.

The meat products, which contain the recalled FDA-regulated jalapeños, fall under the “Fully Cooked – Not Shelf Stable” category and include ready-to-eat wraps, bowls and salads.

They were sold at major retailers including Walmart, Kroger, H-E-B, Albertsons, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Wawa, Hannaford, RaceTrac and Dillons. 

There have been no confirmed reports of illnesses linked to the recalled meat and poultry products. 

The recalled products were distributed in 24 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia. 

Federal regulators said several major brands and retailers were impacted, including Taylor Farms, Deli Kitchen, H-E-B’s Higher Harvest and Meal Simple brands, Marketside, Wawa, Albertsons, Randalls, Tom Thumb and Hannaford.

The prepared meals have use-by dates primarily ranging from Aug. 3 through Aug. 16, 2026. 

Taylor Farms and Deli Kitchen: Products include the Chipotle Cheddar Chicken Wrap, sold at Kroger and Dillons, with use-by dates from Aug. 7 to Aug. 13, 2026; Cajun Chicken Mashed Potatoes & Corn, sold at Kroger, with use-by dates from Aug. 7 to Aug. 14; Taylor Farms Chicken Enchiladas, sold at Kroger, with use-by dates from Aug. 7 to Aug. 16; and RaceTrac Southwest Style Salad Chicken, with use-by dates from Aug. 7 to Aug. 13.

H-E-B: Recalled products sold under the Higher Harvest and Meal Simple brands include the Chicken & Beef Chimichurri, with use-by dates of Aug. 6, Aug. 9 and Aug. 13; and Creamy Cilantro Chicken, with use-by dates between Aug. 4 to Aug. 12.

Additional recalled H-E-B products include the Southwest Chicken Shake Rattle Bowls, with use-by dates from Aug. 7 to Aug. 15; Meal Simple Pork Carnitas Bowl and Chicken & Rice with Cilantro Jalapeño Sauce, both with use-by dates of Aug. 3, Aug. 7, Aug. 10 and Aug. 14. 

Marketside and Wawa: Recalled products include Marketside Southwest Style Salad with Chicken, sold at Walmart, with use-by dates from Aug. 8 to Aug. 16, and Wawa Spicy Chipotle Chicken Wrap, with use-by dates from Aug. 6 to Aug. 8.

Albertsons, Randalls and Tom Thumb: Recalled ready meals include pre-made Beef Barbacoa Bowls, Chile Lime Rice Chicken Bowls, Pork Chile Verde Bowls and Chipotle Chicken Wraps, with use-by dates ranging from Aug. 7 to Aug. 12. 

Hannaford: Recalled products include Taylor Farms Classic Beef Burritos, Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Wraps and Chicken Verde Burritos, with use-by dates ranging from Aug. 7 to Aug. 12. 

For a full list of recalled products, visit the FSIS website here. 

Federal regulators said illnesses linked to the jalapeño outbreak began between June 19 and July 20, 2026. 

Among 191 infected individuals interviewed by investigators, 93% reported eating at a Mexican-style restaurant before becoming ill. The reported meal dates ranged from June 14 to July 14. 

No deaths have been reported. 

Both Chipotle Mexican Grill and QDOBA received contaminated jalapeños imported from Sinaloa, according to officials. 

Chipotle reportedly switched its jalapeño supplier for affected locations beginning July 20 and is no longer serving the affected product. 

QDOBA also stopped using jalapeños at all of its restaurants on July 28. 

Coast Citrus Distributors agreed to recall the remaining implicated product and is no longer importing jalapeños from the grower linked to the outbreak. 

Because of those containment measures, the FDA said there is no current ongoing risk to consumers eating at those establishments. 

FSIS said it expects additional downstream products to be identified as the ingredient recall progresses. 

Eating food contaminated with Salmonella can cause salmonellosis, with symptoms including diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever. 

Symptoms can begin within six hours to six days after exposure, and most people recover within four to seven days without treatment. 

Severe illness can occur, particularly among older adults, infants and people with weakened immune systems. Those concerned about possible illness should contact their health care provider.

The United States and Iran are approaching a decisive point in negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz, with Tehran saying that a framework for an agreement with Oman has already been formulated and that the final text and details will be released soon.

US Vice President JD Vance has also confirmed that progress has been made in the negotiations in recent days.

At the same time, the possibility of renewed US strikes remains on the table, along with the possibility of an independent Israeli strike.

Discussions are also continuing in the United States over how the underground nuclear site at Pickaxe Mountain could be targeted if US President Donald Trump concludes that the negotiations have failed.

“I’m trying to remind people that we really are in the middle of the game here. This thing is not over,” Vance said to Fox News on Saturday morning

Vance said the United States was using “a whole range of diplomatic, economic and military tools” simultaneously in an effort to secure the best possible outcome for Americans.

Oman has expressed optimism over a deal

Addressing Iran’s position after months of fighting and US pressure, Vance said, “They are suffering very badly. They want this thing to end. The question is whether they are capable, whether their system is capable, of giving the things that are necessary for us to be satisfied, for us to feel like we got what we need out of this particular conflict.”

“That is still undecided, but I do think that we’ve made some progress over the last couple of days.”

Vance added, “There are active talks taking place, which also involve additional countries in the Gulf.”

The current negotiations are focused in part on creating conditions that would maximize the flow of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz, with the aim of lowering fuel and energy prices in the United States, according to the vice president.

Vance also rejected claims that Iran was preparing to tighten its control over the strait, saying that talks involving other Gulf countries were underway in an effort to ensure the safe passage of vessels.

Oman also expressed cautious optimism on Saturday, saying that negotiations with Iran were taking place in a “positive and constructive atmosphere.” Muscat called on the parties to avoid actions that could damage the talks or undermine the progress already made.

The comments came after the United Arab Emirates accused Iran of attacking a vessel associated with Abu Dhabi’s national oil company in the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite the diplomatic efforts, however, a significant gap remains between the negotiations and developments in the strait.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has continued to take a harder line. IRGC spokesman Gen. Hossein Mohebbi said reopening the Strait of Hormuz was “completely separate” from negotiations between Iran and Oman, and that the timing and manner of reopening the strait depended on the acceptance of conditions set by Tehran.

Mohebbi also demanded that the United States refrain from interfering in negotiations between Iran, Oman, and other countries in the region, which he said were already in their final stages.

Military strike against location not ruled out

Against the backdrop of the diplomatic talks, Trump continues to keep the military option open.

One of the sites still at the center of attention is Pickaxe Mountain, an underground complex near Natanz where, according to reports, Israel has intelligence indicating that Iran transferred centrifuges.

Trump repeatedly referred to the site last month and threatened to strike it if an agreement was not reached.

Any such operation would present major challenges. The site is protected by a layer of rock whose depth could reach approximately 450 feet.

Satellite images indicate that some of the tunnels have been blocked and reinforced with soil and rocks, while other entrances remain open. Trucks and construction equipment have also been observed operating around the site.

According to experts, bunker busting bombs could struggle to penetrate hundreds of meters of granite. A ground operation that would allow forces to reach deep inside the facility and plant explosives would also be particularly dangerous.

Another option would be to carry out precision strikes on the tunnel entrances themselves. Such an operation might not destroy everything located deep inside the mountain, but could block access to the facility while allowing the United States to continue monitoring it from the air.

Trump has already publicly signaled that Pickaxe Mountain could become a target if the negotiations fail.

In an interview last month, Trump said the United States was “watching very closely” what was happening at the mountain. He later issued a stronger warning, saying, “We’re going to eliminate Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready.”

On July 28, Trump said that if an agreement was not reached, “we’ll have to eliminate the Pickaxe.”

The exact status of the facility, however, remains unclear.

An analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security concluded last month that satellite imagery alone cannot determine when the site could become operational. It also remains unclear whether Iran still intends to establish a large centrifuge assembly facility there following the severe damage suffered by its centrifuge program.

Despite reports that a framework for an agreement has been formulated and cautious optimism from Washington and Muscat, a key question remains unresolved: whether the conditions Iran is prepared to accept will be enough for Trump to halt the campaign, or whether the president will decide to carry out the threats he has made in recent weeks.

“That is still undecided,” Vance said in summary of the situation.

This post was originally published on here.

Wall Street spent last week betting that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen soon. Over the weekend, Iran said it is not even talking to Washington directly about it. That denial is the reason U.S. stock futures turned lower Sunday evening while oil moved higher — the market had priced in a deal that suddenly looks further away.

Trading in futures contracts, which run Sunday night ahead of Monday’s regular session, showed S&P 500 futures down about 0.2%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures off 99 points, or 0.2%, and Nasdaq-100 futures up 0.1%. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1% to just above $79 a barrel on Sunday.

The reversal came after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is not currently in direct talks with the United States to end the war and open the strait, even as Washington maintained that an agreement is close. Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil moves through that waterway, so every shift in the odds of a deal shows up first in the crude price and then in everything that runs on fuel — airlines, truckers, chemicals, food distribution.

Coming off the best week since April

The soft open follows a powerful five days. The S&P 500 closed Friday at a record 7,757.64, up 0.62%, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.3% to 26,690.62 and the Dow added 151.83 points, or 0.28%, to 54,036.93. For the week, the Nasdaq jumped 5.2%, the S&P 500 gained 3.6% and the Dow rose 3% — the strongest weekly showing since April.

What drove it was a jobs report that came in badly and was received well. The Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, against economist forecasts for a gain of 80,000, with the prior two months revised sharply lower. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.2% as workers left the labor force. The combined May and June revisions took 103,000 jobs off the books.

In an economy where the Federal Reserve’s next move is widely expected to be a rate increase, a weak labor market is read as relief. Odds of a hike at the September meeting fell to roughly 44% on the CME FedWatch tool, down from 55% the previous session and 67% a week earlier.

Rates, dollar and gold

Treasury yields fell across the curve Friday: the 10-year down four basis points to 4.64%, the rate-sensitive two-year off five basis points to 4.19%, and the 30-year down three to 5.19%. The dollar index dropped 0.3% to 99.60 as the euro touched a seven-week high near $1.1567. Cheaper money lifts the two assets that respond most to it. Gold rose 2.4% Friday to about $4,347 an ounce, a seven-week high, capping a weekly gain near 7.5% — its best week in seven months.

Market movers

Atlassian surged 35% after fourth-quarter revenue rose 28% from a year earlier, remaining performance obligations climbed 44% to $4.82 billion, and the company guided first-quarter revenue to $1.705 billion to $1.715 billion, above the $1.67 billion consensus. Twilio gained 23% on a second-quarter beat and a dollar-based net expansion rate of 116%, ahead of the 110% estimate. Palantir finished its best week since 2024, and Airbnb rallied after beating on earnings. Earnings season has been unusually strong: of 440 S&P 500 companies reported so far, 87% have topped expectations, versus an 82% beat rate a year ago.

Commodities

Crude closed Friday lower after wide intraday swings, with West Texas Intermediate down 0.41% to $76.97 a barrel and Brent off 0.52% to $82.06. Sunday’s move back above $79 wiped out that decline and then some.

Overseas

Asia opened Monday firmer despite the U.S. futures dip. Japan’s Nikkei 225 added more than 0.54% with the Topix marginally higher, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.53% and the Kosdaq advanced 1.48%, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.54%.

What’s next

Inflation is the week’s main event. The July consumer price index lands Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern alongside hourly earnings, followed by the producer price index and weekly jobless claims Thursday and July retail sales Friday. Existing home sales are due Tuesday. On the earnings calendar: Simon Property Group Monday, Super Micro Computer, Lumentum and Cardinal Health Tuesday, Coherent Wednesday, and Applied Materials and Tapestry Thursday.

A hot CPI print would put the September rate-hike question straight back on the table and undo much of Friday’s relief. A cool one, paired with any concrete movement on Hormuz, gives this rally room to keep running.

JBizNews Desk | Wall Street

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

The Sanzer Rebbe said that while the media has fueled hostility toward the Torah world, most secular Israelis still respect Torah and those who study it. His remarks came during a special meeting with a young bochur who had recently been released from military prison after refusing to leave Torah study. The Rebbe also addressed the ongoing campaign against bnei yeshiva and proposals to unite leading rabbonim in response.

The meeting took place on Thursday night, Parshas Eikev, at the Rebbe’s home. The Ziditshov Bnei Brak Rebbe visited together with his son-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Pinter, a descendant of the Sanzer dynasty, and his son, Shmuel Shmelke Pinter, who had recently completed a prison sentence imposed after his arrest by the military police for remaining in yeshiva.

The Sanzer Rebbe warmly encouraged the young man and his family, recalling a story his father, the Klausenberger Rebbe zt”l, often told about Rav Aharon of Kriz zt”l, who was imprisoned. When people asked the Divrei Chaim to daven for Rav Aharon’s release, he reminded them that Yosef HaTzaddik, the Maharam of Rottenburg, and the Ruzhiner Rebbe had all been jailed. When someone suggested that imprisonment was a chilul Hashem, the Divrei Chaim answered that the true chilul Hashem is forgetting Hashem, even for a single moment.

The Rebbe explained that he intentionally refrained from sharing the story while the bochur was still incarcerated.

“I did not want to say this while he was still sitting in prison… Not everything can be imitated… But now that, Boruch Hashem, he has been released, it is appropriate to tell this story.”

The discussion then shifted to the draft crisis and the treatment of Torah learners. The Ziditshov Rebbe raised the idea of convening leading rabbonim to place a cherem on those leading the campaign against the Torah world. The Sanzer Rebbe responded by recalling that his father had long ago proposed organizing chareidi attorneys to defend the interests of Torah Judaism through the legal system in Eretz Yisroel.

“He was wise and could foresee the future… He wanted to gather chareidi attorneys who would coordinate everything related to protecting the interests of Torah Judaism through the legal system in Eretz Yisroel.”

The Rebbe said that government authorities today often act arrogantly and without restraint.

Despite his criticism of government officials and institutions, the Rebbe emphasized that they do not represent the feelings of the general public. He said most Jews in Eretz Yisroel have faith in Hashem and maintain a genuine respect for Torah and religious life, while the media creates the false impression that anti-Torah voices represent the majority.

The Rebbe related that he has personally experienced this in places such as Netanya and even Caesarea, which he described as a left-wing city. During visits there, many non-observant Jews approached him to ask for brachos or treated him with great respect as he walked through the streets.

“This is the majority of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisroel,” he said.

Speaking about the ongoing war, the Rebbe said it has created confusion among many Israelis who do not understand the sanctity of Torah, but it has also inspired countless others to strengthen their faith and seek brachos and tefillos.

Addressing hostility toward the chareidi community, the Rebbe said many secular Jews cannot be judged harshly because they are tinokos shenishbu who were never properly taught Torah. However, he added that when one encounters intense hatred of religion and an organized campaign against Torah-observant Jews, his father attributed such behavior to the influence of the Eirev Rav.

The Rebbe concluded by expressing absolute confidence in the eternity of Torah, recalling his father’s frequent assurance that Torah will never collapse regardless of the challenges facing the Torah world.

Before the young bochur departed, the Sanzer Rebbe gave him a heartfelt bracha, telling him that he had been chosen from Heaven to sanctify Hashem’s Name on behalf of Klal Yisroel and expressing the hope that the future joy of the Torah world would far outweigh its present suffering.

Following a heartbreaking day in which three fatal incidents claimed multiple lives, United Hatzalah spokesman Avi Suissa is calling on the public to exercise greater caution during bein hazemanim, warning that many of the tragedies unfolding across the country are preventable.

Speaking on Kol Chai Radio’s main evening news program, Suissa described the emotional toll on emergency responders, whose volunteers were dispatched to several fatal scenes throughout the day while continuing to respond to numerous other emergencies nationwide.

“You can’t simply move on after a day like this,” Suissa said. “We have to stop and ask ourselves what we’re doing. United Hatzalah volunteers are deployed across the country and are seeing these tragedies up close. Beyond the incidents that make the headlines, we have responded in recent weeks to dozens of near-drownings, dehydration cases, and hikers who became lost. Boruch Hashem, those situations ended safely, but every one of them had the potential to become a tragedy.”

Suissa directed a heartfelt appeal to bochurim and avreichim taking advantage of bein hazemanim to travel and enjoy the outdoors, stressing that recreation must never come at the expense of safety.

“We understand that every bochur and every avreich deserves the opportunity to get away, hike, relax, and recharge during these weeks,” he said. “But we also have to recognize that we’re entering environments and conditions that we aren’t accustomed to during the rest of the year. Our rescue boat on the Kinneret is operating almost nonstop to assist people who are drifting away. We are pleading with the public: Go out, travel, and enjoy yourselves—but make sure you know how you’re going to return home safely. Understand the enormous impact of every one of these tragedies and how it completely changes the lives of an entire family and everyone around them.”

To help prevent additional tragedies, United Hatzalah urged the public to follow basic safety guidelines when traveling or spending time outdoors during bein hazemanim.

The organization recommends wearing appropriate clothing, hats, and sunscreen when heading outdoors, swimming only at officially designated beaches or swimming areas while lifeguards are on duty, strictly following the instructions of lifeguards and rescue personnel, and avoiding strenuous hikes during periods of extreme heat in order to reduce the risk of dehydration and heat-related illness.

{Matzav.com}

Israel’s navy has taken possession of the most expensive warship it has ever ordered, a German-built attack submarine designed to stay hidden at sea for weeks at a time so the country retains a way to strike back even if its land forces are knocked out in a surprise attack.

The vessel, named the INS Drakon, was handed over at the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems shipyard in Kiel, Germany, in late July, with the transfer confirmed in early August. It is the sixth Dolphin-class boat in the Israeli fleet and the third built to the upgraded Dolphin II design. Delivery had originally been set for 2025.

The price is what sets it apart from anything Israel has bought before. The submarine runs more than 70 meters, or roughly 230 feet, displaces over 2,000 tons, and is described as the largest submarine Germany has built since the Second World War, at an estimated cost of $634 million.

That figure buys a specific kind of insurance. Israel’s air bases, missile batteries and naval facilities are concentrated in a country the size of New Jersey, and Haifa harbor — where much of the submarine fleet ties up — is a known, fixed target. A boat at sea is not. Ehud Eilam, an Israeli national security researcher who previously worked for the country’s defense ministry, said keeping a submarine continuously deployed is a matter of national survival.His argument is straightforward: if Iran struck in a way that crippled Israeli forces on land, the boat already at sea would be the one able to answer.

Submarines sitting in port, he noted, could be hit and left unable to sail.

Israeli defense reporting has long described the Dolphin fleet as the country’s sea-based second-strike layer — the piece of the deterrent an adversary cannot destroy in a first blow because it cannot find it. Israel has never confirmed what the boats carry.

Size, in this case, is a range calculation. Eilam said the larger hull points to Israel wanting more options, including longer-reaching missiles that could cover targets inside Iran while the submarine remains in the Mediterranean. The alternative routes are unattractive: transiting the Suez Canal brings the boat close to Iranian reach and can be risky or unavailable outright, while sailing around Africa would take weeks. A missile with enough legs removes the need to make that trip at all.

The economics behind the program are as notable as the hardware. Germany has underwritten a substantial share of Israel’s submarine purchases over three decades, a commitment rooted in postwar policy and one that has drawn periodic criticism inside Germany. For ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, the Israeli order book has been a steady anchor at a moment when European naval yards are running near capacity on rearmament work tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine and NATO spending increases. TKMS chief executive Oliver Burkhard told Israeli outlet Ynet that the current program is running to schedule, including the delivery of the final boat in the earlier series and its voyage home to Israel.

That backlog matters commercially. Submarine construction is among the slowest, most capital-intensive work in defense manufacturing, with build cycles measured in years and a small number of yards worldwide capable of doing it. Orders placed today lock in industrial capacity well into the 2030s, which is why delivery slippage — the Drakon arrived roughly a year behind its original date — is common across the sector rather than unusual.

The boat’s day-to-day work is intelligence gathering and reconnaissance across the Mediterranean, with the strategic mission held in reserve.The name carries its own weight. Drakon, Hebrew for dragon, was chosen partly because its letters echo Dakar — the Israeli submarine that vanished in the Mediterranean in 1968 with all 69 crew aboard — and the defense ministry has said the naming honors that crew.

The wreck was not located until 1999.

Fox News Digital said it had requested comment from the Israeli navy, the defense ministry, TKMS and the Israel Defense Forces.

The delivery lands with the U.S.-Iran conflict still unresolved and Gulf shipping lanes under strain, and it hands Israel a capability that does not depend on airfields, runways or ports remaining intact.

JBizNews Desk | Jerusalem

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

Ukraine has purchased 70 U.S.-made M39 ATACMS ballistic missiles and 12 M270 multiple launch rocket systems from Turkey as part of a major weapons package that also includes tens of thousands of cluster munitions.

The planned transfer was disclosed in a U.S. State Department report published in the Congressional Record on August 6. The documents were submitted to Congress on August 3, beginning a mandatory 15-day review period before U.S. authorization for the re-export can take effect.

Because ATACMS and the M270 systems are American-made, Washington’s approval is required before Turkey can transfer them to Ukraine.

Congress does not need to hold a separate vote approving the transaction. Unless both chambers pass a joint resolution blocking the transfer during the 15-day review period, U.S. consent will automatically take effect.

With the House currently in recess until August 31 and the Senate until September 14, the congressional review window is expected to expire without lawmakers taking action to stop the transfer.

The package includes 70 M39 ATACMS missiles, an early variant of the Army Tactical Missile System capable of carrying a cluster warhead, along with 12 M270 tracked multiple launch rocket systems.

Ukraine is also set to receive 2,524 unguided 227mm M26 rockets equipped with DPICM cluster warheads.

Another 47,000 M509A1 203mm cluster artillery shells are included for use with heavy artillery systems such as the Soviet-designed 2S7 Pion and the U.S.-made M110 self-propelled howitzer.

The weapons transfers are expected to be handled by Turkish, Bulgarian and American defense and logistics companies acting as authorized exporters.

The acquisition would provide Ukraine with a significant new stockpile of long-range missiles and heavy munitions as Kyiv continues its war against Russia and seeks to replenish weapons expended during years of fighting.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and the Ministry of Religious Services have issued a joint statement clarifying that no private organization is authorized to represent them in matters of marriage registration, warning the public against relying on groups that claim to operate under their auspices without official approval.

The statement was released in response to advertisements and social media posts circulated in recent weeks by the nonprofit organization “Anachnu Techelet,” which, according to the government agencies, has presented itself as working “in full cooperation with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel” to assist couples seeking to register for marriage.

The Chief Rabbinate and the ministry categorically rejected those claims, stating that no such relationship exists. “No approval has been granted, no authorization has been issued, and there is no institutional relationship whatsoever between the Chief Rabbinate, the Ministry of Religious Services, and ‘Anachnu Techelet’ or anyone acting on its behalf,” the statement said.

Officials emphasized that the clarification applies not only to this specific organization, but to any private nonprofit, association, or other entity that claims to operate in cooperation with, on behalf of, or under the sponsorship of the Chief Rabbinate or the Ministry of Religious Services without receiving formal authorization.

The ministry and the Chief Rabbinate also reiterated that Israel’s official marriage registration process is handled exclusively through authorized government channels. “The marriage registration process in Israel is conducted solely through the regional rabbinate offices and the official systems of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and no private entity or nonprofit organization is authorized to act on their behalf,” the statement said.

The agencies concluded by urging couples to work directly with their local rabbinate offices when registering for marriage and to avoid relying on private organizations that claim to represent the Chief Rabbinate unless they have received explicit official authorization.

{Matzav.com}

Hungary’s only nuclear plant sits on the Danube and uses river water to cool its reactors. The river has fallen so low that the plant’s pumps can no longer draw enough of it, so the country switched the plant off — and is now buying replacement electricity from its neighbors at a far higher price than it costs to make at home. That swap, repeated day after day through a heat wave, is what officials and economists in Budapest are warning will show up in the national accounts.

The shutdown is not a forecast or a contingency. The Paks plant, about 75 miles south of Budapest, went fully offline for the first time in its 44-year history, a consequence of sustained drought across central Europe. Officials said record-low Danube water levels had disrupted reactor cooling. Output had already collapsed before the final shutdown, falling to 965 megawatts on a Friday and then to 240 overnight, against a normal 2,000 megawatts. The plant accounts for 40% of Hungary’s electricity generation.

The immediate bill is for imported power. Hungarian politicians have put the cost of the energy crisis at 100 billion to 200 billion forints, roughly €273 million to €547 million, because electricity bought abroad is far more expensive than what Paks produces. Reuters has put the potential cost as high as $632 million. Those outlays land on a budget the government was already trying to consolidate.

The growth arithmetic is smaller but harder to undo. Paks contributes about half a percentage point to Hungary’s GDP, and an outage of roughly twenty days within a quarter could shave about 0.1 percentage point off quarterly output, according to Gábor Regős, chief economist at Gránit Capital Management. The distinction that matters: electricity Paks does not generate today cannot be generated later, so it is a permanent loss, whereas factories running below capacity can make up some lost production once power returns.

Industry is absorbing the shock in real time. The government is boosting power imports to cover part of the shortfall and has asked large industrial firms, including car and battery makers, to cut consumption voluntarily, while warning that mandatory reductions may follow. A crisis plan prioritizes cutting electricity to companies and treats household limits as a last resort — rail freight was halted at peak hours starting Monday, and decorative lighting on state buildings has been switched off.

Agriculture is the second front. The drought is expected to hit farm output hard, restraining growth and potentially pushing food prices higher — a complication for central bankers who had penciled in a third consecutive monthly rate cut in August. More than 100 cities and villages have been placed under water-use restrictions.

Currency markets moved first. The forint, one of the world’s best performers earlier this year, slid to a three-month low against the euro and posted its steepest monthly decline since October 2024 as the energy crisis unsettled investors. It has since given up only modestly, though its failure to recover has been read as a sign the market is still pricing risk. The trade picture is being squeezed from both sides: weaker industrial exports on one hand, larger and costlier electricity imports on the other, with global oil and gas prices — still shaped by the Iran conflict — determining how much damage lands on the current account.

This is a regional problem, not a Hungarian one. Romania shut both Candu reactors at its own Danube-cooled plant and is leaning more heavily on imported electricity, driving up prices already lifted by air-conditioning demand. Danube flow fell to 1,650 cubic meters per second in late July against a July average of 4,750, approaching the record low of 1,400 set in 1985. On the Rhine, Germany’s most important inland trade corridor, vessels are carrying significantly less cargo, requiring more ships to move the same volume at higher cost.

The politics are sharpening. Economy and Energy Minister István Kapitány has said a low-water pumping station costing roughly 10 billion forints could have prevented the shutdown, and has ordered an inquiry into why it was never built. Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who urged the public to conserve electricity and water, has partly blamed infrastructure gaps inherited from the previous government.

There is a path out, and it runs through the weather. By Tuesday evening the Danube had risen five centimeters and the plant’s last turbine was running steadily, reducing the odds of a total shutdown for now. Forecasters expect weak industrial figures for late July and worse for August, but see a chance of recovery starting in the autumn if a complete outage is avoided and manufacturers can lift capacity utilization to recoup lost production. Budapest, meanwhile, faces temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit for days ahead with no rain in the forecast.

JBizNews Desk | Budapest

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

Wildfires continued to burn across the western United States and Canada on Sunday, leaving many residents anxiously watching for evacuation orders while others who had already escaped their homes waited to learn what damage they might face when they return.

In western Canada, a rapidly spreading wildfire forced more than 20,000 people from communities along British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake over the weekend, destroying homes and requiring dozens of residents to be rescued by aircraft. Meanwhile, in Washington state, firefighters battling three blazes in the Spokane region for more than a week continued cleanup efforts around containment lines.

Laurie Allen fled her Nine Mile Falls home, north of Spokane, last weekend with her husband, dog and two kittens as flames burned nearby. Although roads leading into her neighborhood remained closed Sunday, she said a friend had told her that her ash-covered home, along with others nearby, was still standing.

“I’ve been here 65 years. It’s never happened,” Allen said. “We didn’t think about anything but grabbing our animals and leaving. But now it’s affected so many of our friends and family around. So it’s pretty dang devastating.”

More Than 20,000 Forced From Canadian Communities

In Canada, Anette Boulet was among those who evacuated Summerland, a community of roughly 12,000 residents along Okanagan Lake. When she and her family fled at about 4:30 a.m. Saturday, thick smoke had engulfed the area.

“You couldn’t see barely. It was, it was just dark, and the ridge, the ridge of fire just coming towards you,” said Boulet, who evacuated to a center in Penticton.

“There’s no words to express it,” she said. “The fear.”

The Bald Range fire, which was first reported Friday evening, prompted evacuations not only in Summerland but also for roughly 8,000 people in and around nearby Peachland. British Columbia declared a state of emergency on Saturday.

Eleanor Olszewski, Canada’s minister of emergency management and community resilience, said Sunday on social media that she had authorized federal assistance requested by British Columbia to help provide shelter and accommodations for evacuees.

Spokane-Area Wildfires Keep Communities on Alert

Fire crews battling three major wildfires in the Spokane area continued “mop-up operations” near containment lines Sunday, according to the team overseeing the response. None of the fires were expanding, but the blazes that have burned over the past week have damaged or destroyed about 920 structures.

Earlier in the week, authorities arrested and charged a man with allegedly deliberately starting the largest of the three Spokane-area fires.

Residents of the small rural town of Malden, about 35 miles south of Spokane, were ordered to evacuate immediately on Saturday. By Sunday, officials had lowered the warning level, advising residents to remain prepared to leave quickly if conditions changed.

“The wind is fairly calm. The fire is not progressing,” said John Goyke, whose company operates Malden’s water under contract, “but we’re using social media and Facebook to keep in contact with everyone.”

Goyke, who also serves as mayor of nearby Rosalia, said Malden residents were asked to conserve water so supplies would be available for firefighting if needed. Malden’s fire department has also been receiving trucked-in water from Rosalia.

Malden was largely destroyed by a wildfire in 2020, which wiped out the town’s fire station, post office, city hall and library.

Two Pilots Killed in Utah Firefighting Helicopter Crash

In Utah, two helicopter pilots died after their aircraft crashed Friday morning while battling a wildfire in Fishlake National Forest. Rescue crews were not able to reach the crash site until Saturday, when they confirmed both deaths.

Officials said intense fire activity, combined with steep and rugged terrain, delayed efforts to reach the area.

“When we first got there we could see two different plumes of smoke, one from the crash site, one from an active fire coming towards us,” Sevier County Sheriff Nathan Curtis said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what caused the helicopter crash.

Iran cannot move dollars through ordinary banks, so it moves them as crypto through small exchanges that ask few questions. On Friday the Treasury Department blacklisted one of the biggest of those exchanges, a Dubai storefront called Shelbit, along with the Iranian expatriate who built it and a chain of shell companies stretching across four countries.

The designation puts every one of those entities on the sanctions list, which means American banks, payment processors and crypto platforms are now barred from touching them and must freeze any assets they hold. Foreign firms that keep dealing with them face their own exposure.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the action targets two digital asset exchanges the Iranian regime relies on, along with the ringleader of a network of front companies operating across multiple jurisdictions. Iranian actors used unlicensed or lightly regulated platforms to move large volumes of digital assets, running the proceeds through corporate networks and an online gambling operation that hid where the money came from before it reached the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and regime-connected individuals.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed it as evidence the pressure campaign is landing, saying the department will “hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial networks” keeping the regime solvent, whether the money moves in dollars, rials or crypto.

The numbers Treasury put on the record are specific. Wallets belonging to the Revolutionary Guard sent more than $1 million in digital assets to Shelbit Exchange addresses, and more than $2 million moved back the other way from Shelbit to Guard-controlled wallets. Addresses owned or controlled by the exchange’s founder, Siavash Kayvanpour, sent over $2 million to Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, which the US designated earlier. Kayvanpour was born in Iran, holds citizenship in Dominica and Afghanistan, has lived in the United Arab Emirates, and runs the exchange through a Republic of Georgia company while a UAE entity, Shelbit General Trading, operates it commercially. He also owns a Poland-based affiliate and manages two more Dubai companies, all of which were designated Friday.

The gambling piece is the part that turns a sanctions case into a story about how the money actually cleared. Shelbit served a large Persian-language gambling network run by two Iranian influencers living abroad, and tens of millions of dollars of that network’s digital assets were washed through the exchange. Both men were convicted of illegal gambling inside Iran in 2023, yet their websites retain access to Iran’s online payment systems, which the central bank controls tightly.

Dubai’s regulator had already been circling. The UAE’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority took enforcement action against the trading company in January 2025 and again in July 2026, and it remained open for business.

Treasury hit a second target the same day. Aban Tether, an Iran-based exchange, was designated for operating in the Iranian financial sector after processing millions of dollars in transactions with previously blacklisted platforms including Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex.

The action followed a press investigation rather than preceding it. Reuters published a report on July 31 identifying Shelbit as the hub of a $4 billion Iranian sanctions-evasion operation, finding that the exchange moved crypto for Iran’s central bank, for one of the world’s largest illegal online gambling networks, and to addresses Israeli authorities have tied to the Revolutionary Guard. The exchange’s public website had been dark for months while money kept flowing through it, including during the war, and it came back online the day after that report ran.

Shelbit disputes the case. In an August 1 statement posted on its revived site, the company said it “categorically rejects any suggestion” that it knowingly took part in money laundering, terrorist financing, illegal gambling, sanctions evasion, or work for any sanctioned, military or government body, and said it had shut down operations in January 2026. Neither the company nor Kayvanpour responded to requests for comment.

For compliance officers at US banks and crypto firms, the practical takeaway is the reach of the order. Any entity owned 50 percent or more by the blocked parties is automatically blocked as well, penalties can be imposed on a strict-liability basis, and non-US persons are barred from causing Americans to violate the rules even unwittingly. The case was built with the IRS criminal investigation division, and the State Department is offering up to $15 million for information that disrupts Revolutionary Guard financing.

JBizNews Desk | Washington

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

WASHINGTON ‒ The Trump administration’s sweeping effort to roll back Head Start regulations is drawing resistance from both parties in Congress,

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Aug. 5 that his department plans to eliminate or significantly scale back many of the federal regulations governing the multibillion-dollar Head Start program. The current rules span more than 100 pages.

The proposed changes would eliminate requirements for disability screenings, smaller class sizes, daily toothbrushing assistance and bus monitors. Rules requiring comparable pay for staff and prohibiting student expulsions would also be removed.

Several Senate Republicans have voiced concern in recent days about cutting back those standards, which advocates argue are important for protecting children’s health and safety.

Teaching assistant Anna Muniz reads a book with children during a Head Start preschool class in Wisconsin on Thursday, April 4, 2024.

“We’ve been hearing from our Head Start folks back home that are concerned about what they’re seeing,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told USA TODAY. “That’s something that we’re monitoring.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, said he previously examined potential Head Start reforms at the state level while serving as speaker of North Carolina’s legislature. Still, he questioned whether an overly broad rollback of regulations would be beneficial.

“Just walking away and turning a blind eye toward it, I don’t think that’d be a good idea,” he told USA TODAY.

The Republican concerns carry considerable weight because opposition from influential GOP senators can provide one of the strongest checks on Trump administration policies. Last year, resistance from lawmakers including Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, to fully eliminating Head Start was widely seen as a key factor in preserving the program.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) arrives for votes at the U.S. Capitol on August 7, 2026.

Sen. Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, said he supports efforts to improve Head Start but warned against changes that could undermine a program he said already serves many children successfully.

“When we start tweaking with stuff, a lot of times we can make it better,” he said in a brief interview. “But there are ways we can make it worse, too.”

Cutting Red Tape, or Going Too Far?

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is interviewed after announcing new nutrition guidelines at the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 7, 2026.

Kennedy maintains that the proposed overhaul would simplify Head Start operations, reduce federal bureaucracy and potentially allow the program to serve more low-income children each year.

Alex Adams, a Kennedy deputy who oversees the Administration for Children and Families, said during a recent call with reporters that Head Start providers would remain subject to applicable state and local rules. He emphasized that reducing federal requirements would give programs more discretion rather than force them to abandon effective practices.

“Flexibility is permission. It’s not a mandate,” he said.

Democrats sharply rejected that argument.

“They’re saying they might be able to serve more children by promising each child less,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said. “President Trump has all but declared war on Head Start.”

Cassidy Reviewing Proposed Head Start Overhaul

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, walks in the Capitol on August 7, 2026, after announcing his intention to vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate committee overseeing health and education issues and has jurisdiction over Head Start, said he and his staff are examining the proposed regulatory overhaul. Speaking Aug. 6 amid the political battle over Todd Blanche’s attorney general confirmation, Cassidy said he had not yet had the opportunity to fully review the changes.

“I’d like to see what they actually put out,” he told USA TODAY.

The 75-page proposed rule, formally published in the Federal Register on Aug. 7, does more than eliminate existing regulations. It would also establish new requirements, including making English the primary language of instruction and requiring children whose first language is different to learn English while enrolled. The proposal also sets new nutrition standards and requires 30 minutes of physical activity for every 3.5 hours of classroom instruction.

The rulemaking process remains at an early stage, and the proposal could also face legal challenges. Khari Garvin, who led the Office of Head Start during the Biden administration, noted that the public will have 60 days to submit comments. He encouraged concerned teachers and families to participate in the process.

“There still is an opportunity for their voices to be heard.”

“No one should surrender and feel like, well, all is done,” he said.

Saudi Arabia hosted the International Nuclear Science Olympiad for the first time in the Middle East, bringing together 120 students and scientific experts from 19 countries for a program focused on nuclear science and technology.

The competition, held in Jeddah, included studies in nuclear physics, radiation protection, peaceful applications of radiation, and practical training involving nuclear measurements and experiments.

The event comes weeks after Saudi Arabia received approval to move forward with the construction of a nuclear reactor, drawing additional attention to the Kingdom’s rapidly developing nuclear ambitions.

Twelve of the 19 participating countries were Muslim-majority nations, including two countries bordering Israel — Jordan and Syria. Turkey and Pakistan, which have strengthened security ties with Saudi Arabia, also participated.

The full list of participating countries included Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mongolia, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand and Turkey.

The International Nuclear Science Olympiad was approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2024.

According to the IAEA, the competition is intended to promote the safe and peaceful use of nuclear technologies, encourage young people to pursue careers and education in nuclear science, and foster innovation in nuclear applications.

The event also provided participants with hands-on scientific training, including nuclear measurements, alongside theoretical instruction.

Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the competition comes as Riyadh continues expanding its involvement in nuclear technology and pursuing plans for a domestic civilian nuclear program.

The Kingdom has repeatedly maintained that its nuclear ambitions are focused on peaceful purposes, including energy production, while developments surrounding the program continue to receive close attention across the Middle East.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

“Those who donate to alleviate the tremendous shortage of kollelim, will receive tremendous ashirus that will flow for generations.”

– The Posek Hador, HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shternbuch, shlita

This is an exclusive opportunity for a very limited time to get the Posek Hador’s Shmirah Coin for parnassah. A promise of prosperity, personally guaranteed by HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shternbuch shlita. His golden coin, for wealth that will pass down for generations.

Only 1000 golden coins have been minted, for the first 1000 donors who donate $1000 to help the Posek Hador establish more kollelim in this time of crisis.

There is a severe shortage of kollelim in Eretz Yisroel. As Torah learning reaches a critical turning point in Eretz Yisroel, HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shternbuch shlita pours his kochos, his heart and soul into expanding Limud HaTorah throughout the country.

By supporting the Posek Hador’s mission to grow Torah, you are supporting the future of Torah – with a guarantee to support your family with ease, abundance and prosperity.

With the economy in a precarious state, nothing is certain except for one thing: Give for the Torah and the Torah repays you beyond measure.

Donate today to receive your golden Shmirah coin from the Posek Hador, HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shternbuch, shlita, for ashirus, for hatzlacha, and for nachas.

The greatest riches await those who don’t wait to support the Torah and the next gedolei hador.

Donate now

Israeli authorities have reportedly been secretly holding senior Hamas military commander Basel Salahiya for the past two years after he was captured during fighting in Gaza. Salahiya, who allegedly orchestrated the deadly 2011 Kornet missile attack that killed Israeli teenager Daniel Viflik Hy”d, is expected to stand trial in Israel for his role in multiple terrorist attacks. The revelation was first reported by journalist Avishai Grinzaig on i24NEWS.

According to the report, Salahiya’s capture followed an extraordinary chain of events that began years before the current war. Roughly five years ago, a bitter dispute erupted within Hamas’s military leadership after Salahiya accused senior commander Marwan Issa of betrayal. The accusations reportedly triggered a deep rift between Salahiya and the organization’s top military leaders, including Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif. As tensions escalated, Sinwar allegedly ordered Salahiya’s arrest, and he was imprisoned inside the Gaza Strip.

When the war in Gaza broke out, the prison where Salahiya was being held was reportedly destroyed in an Israeli Air Force strike. Hamas subsequently transferred him to house arrest in the Hamad neighborhood of Khan Younis. During the IDF’s ground operations in the area, Israeli forces raided the building where he was being held, took him into custody, and transferred him to Israel, where he has remained ever since.

His arrest comes as Israel continues targeting Hamas terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre. In recent weeks, the IDF has eliminated several senior Nukhba commanders who participated in attacks on Israeli communities, including the commander of the unit that infiltrated the Re’im military base and another who led the assault on Kibbutz Nirim.

Salahiya’s anticipated prosecution is expected to bring a measure of justice for one of the most notorious terrorist attacks carried out before the current war. According to the report, he was directly responsible for the April 2011 Kornet anti-tank missile attack on a school bus near Sha’ar HaNegev.

That attack claimed the life of 16-year-old Daniel Viflik Hy”d after Hamas terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at the bus, an incident that had a significant impact on Israel’s security policy at the time. Years later, after first being imprisoned by Hamas itself, Salahiya now faces prosecution in an Israeli court for his alleged role in the attack.

The report noted that Salahiya’s story highlights the intense internal rivalries that have existed within Hamas. His conflict with Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar—both of whom were later eliminated by the IDF—ultimately led to his imprisonment by the terrorist organization, a development that eventually enabled Israeli forces to capture him during the war.

Meanwhile, IDF forces under Southern Command continue operations throughout Gaza aimed at eliminating immediate threats to Israeli troops and civilians. Military officials say the terrorists targeted in recent weeks had been working to rebuild Hamas’s operational capabilities and advance additional terror plots against Israel.

{Matzav.com}

A major new phase of Israel’s traffic enforcement reform has officially taken effect, significantly changing how many drivers can challenge speeding tickets and other moving violations. Under the expanded system, motorists cited for a broad range of offenses will no longer be able to automatically request a court hearing. Instead, they will first have to appeal through a newly established administrative traffic tribunal.

The latest stage of what has become known as the “Sa’ar Reform” went into effect over the weekend, extending the administrative process to traffic offenses carrying fines ranging from 750 to 1,500 shekels, as well as many speeding violations that previously qualified for an automatic court appearance.

The reform was originally introduced while Gideon Sa’ar served as justice minister in the Bennett-Lapid-Abbas government. Its goal was to move a substantial portion of traffic offenses out of the criminal court system and into an administrative framework, reducing the burden on Israel’s courts while handling most cases through a digital process. When promoting the initiative, Sa’ar said it reflected a policy of decriminalization and would spare drivers unnecessary criminal proceedings and court appearances.

The first phase of the reform took effect on February 8, 2026, covering violations carrying fines of between 100 and 500 shekels, excluding speeding offenses. As of August 8, the system now also includes qualifying speeding tickets and violations carrying fines between 750 and 1,500 shekels. During Knesset Economic Affairs Committee discussions, lawmakers noted that the expanded system covers several significant offenses, including using a cellphone while driving, running a red light, and certain speeding violations.

Under the new process, drivers who believe a citation was issued in error will no longer submit a request for a traditional traffic court hearing. Instead, they must file an appeal with the administrative traffic tribunal. In most cases, the matter will be decided based on written submissions and evidence filed electronically by both sides. The tribunal may hold a hearing only if it determines one is necessary to achieve justice, generally through remote technology and, in exceptional circumstances, in person.

One of the most significant changes involves sentencing authority. Unlike a criminal traffic court, the administrative tribunal cannot increase or reduce the statutory fine. It may uphold the citation, dismiss it, modify the decision, or even change the traffic offense attributed to the driver. As a result, while the tribunal reviews the facts and evidence independently, it does not have the discretion to tailor the amount of the fine based on individual circumstances if the violation itself is upheld.

Although some critics have claimed the new system leaves drivers with little opportunity to appeal, the law still provides judicial review. Final decisions by the administrative tribunal may be appealed to the Traffic Division of the Magistrate’s Court. Appeals of interim rulings require permission from the court, with additional review procedures available under the law. In other words, court oversight remains in place, but the courts are no longer the first stop for challenging most citations.

The reform has drawn criticism since it was first proposed. The Israel Bar Association’s Traffic Law Committee warned during the legislative process that the changes could weaken motorists’ legal protections by replacing traditional court proceedings with a more limited administrative process. Supporters countered that there is little justification for processing hundreds of thousands of routine traffic violations through the full criminal court system and argued that the new framework would resolve cases more efficiently.

Questions about the system intensified following its initial rollout. During a June meeting of the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee, the chairman of Israel’s Trucking and Transportation Council said that only nine of approximately 500 appeals filed under the new process had been accepted. At the same hearing, committee chairman MK David Bitan criticized the Transportation Ministry and called for greater flexibility for law-abiding drivers.

At the same time, the committee approved changes to Israel’s driver’s license point system to align with the reform. Under the revised rules, offenses carrying up to six penalty points will now be removed from a driver’s record after one year, while penalties have been increased for dangerous violations such as using a cellphone while driving, running red lights, and driving on road shoulders.

For many Israeli motorists, the practical effect is immediate. Drivers cited for speeding or other higher-value traffic offenses may now discover that the legal process has fundamentally changed. Rather than automatically requesting a hearing before a traffic judge, they must first pursue a digital appeal through the administrative tribunal, with the courts serving only as the appellate forum if necessary.

The Quebec government has revoked the operating licenses of three Belz educational institutions in Montreal: a kindergarten, Talmud Torah, and yeshiva ketana, serving approximately 600 students, shortly before the start of Elul zman.

Authorities said the decision followed a series of educational and safety deficiencies identified during inspections. Among the issues cited were a shortage of qualified teachers who speak English or French, failure to meet required instructional hours in mandatory subjects, use of unapproved educational materials and deficiencies involving emergency exits.

Surprise inspections also reportedly found students spending school hours in areas used for davening, classrooms without teachers and staff members who spoke neither French nor English. The girls’ educational institutions are continuing to operate normally but remain under supervision.

The institutions reject the allegations and have sought an injunction from Quebec’s administrative court, arguing that the decision was based on “incorrect factual assumptions, inconsistent analysis and a disproportionate measure.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

NEW YORK (VINnewws) — Tomer Tzaban, a former Israeli counterterrorism operative who spent a decade conducting undercover missions in Gaza, has detailed his experiences in a podcast interview about his book, “The Ghosts of Rafah: An Undercover Counter-Terrorism Agent in the Heart of the Middle East Conflict.”

Tzaban spoke with Alan Skorski on the Alan Skorski Reports podcast about his years with the elite Shimshon unit, where he served from 1986 to 1996.

The unit operated undercover inside Gaza, with agents frequently assuming Arab identities and relying on disguises and carefully developed cover stories. Tzaban described operations that involved tracking terrorist suspects, preventing attacks and targeting members of armed groups.

One operation involved a group of terrorists who, according to Tzaban, had disguised themselves as young Orthodox Jewish men as part of a plan to abduct Israeli soldiers and hold them for ransom.

Tzaban also described an operation in which an intended target was located in a heavily populated area. The team abandoned the mission after a large number of children emerged from a nearby school, he said. Protecting civilians took precedence over completing the operation, consistent with the procedures under which the unit operated.

Maintaining a convincing disguise required attention to details that went far beyond clothing and appearance. Tzaban said operatives had to understand local customs, speech patterns and even seemingly insignificant differences in daily life.

He recalled that agents avoided strongly scented personal-care products because unfamiliar fragrances could make them appear out of place. Teams also worked with local Arabic speakers who could navigate regional dialects and social nuances.

According to Tzaban, Gaza’s different areas had distinct dialects, making language a potentially dangerous vulnerability. An operative could speak Arabic well and still attract attention by using words or pronunciation associated with another region.

The conversation also touched on “Fauda,” the Israeli television series about undercover counterterrorism operatives. Tzaban said he knows several actors involved with the series and believes some of the show’s early storylines drew heavily on the kinds of missions conducted by units such as Shimshon.

His book recounts individual operations while also examining the personal cost of spending years working undercover. Tzaban described the constant pressure of maintaining a false identity and the psychological effects that could continue long after an operation ended.

Tzaban also discussed security concerns in Europe, arguing that some extremist organizations have pursued strategies for decades that are now becoming more visible. He warned that Western countries, including the United States, should study those developments rather than wait until similar threats emerge at home.

The interview concluded with a discussion of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the intelligence failures that preceded it.

Tzaban said the attack represented a profound turning point for Israel and had consequences that extended far beyond the immediate security failure, changing the way many Israelis and Jews view the country’s security and the threat posed by Hamas.

“The Ghosts of Rafah” draws on Tzaban’s experiences to provide a firsthand account of Israel’s undercover counterterrorism operations in Gaza during the 1980s and 1990s.

Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to Jared Kushner and pledged to give Trump’s 15-point plan a chance, Axios reported Sunday evening citing a US official.

Additionally, the IDF has began a gradual return to the Yellow Line in Gaza, the report stated.

According to the report, the US and the mediators in talks are demanding that Hamas begin the process of disarmament.

This is a developing report.

This post was originally published on here.

White House staff secretary Will Scharf, will become White House counsel and assistant to the president effective September 1, US President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

Scharf, who is Jewish, was “a top student at both Princeton University, and Harvard Law School,” Trump added.

“Will is Tough, Strong, and Smart! He also loves our Country, and respects the Law. Will Scharf will do a great job as White House Counsel!”

Scharf will become the White House‘s top lawyer after overseeing the administrative work of the Oval Office in his current role.

He also led the National Capital Planning Commission, which approved the president’s construction of the White House ballroom.

Trump said David Warrington, the current White House counsel, is going to the private sector. Warrington formerly served as a personal counsel and a lawyer for Trump’s 2024 campaign.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here.

Artificial intelligence is no longer limited to analyzing genetic code. A new study shows that AI models can design entirely new viral genomes, with researchers successfully creating functioning viruses capable of reproducing inside bacteria.

Researchers from Stanford University and the Arc Institute used AI models to generate approximately 700,000 candidate genetic sequences. Of those, 16 ultimately became functioning viruses.

The study, published in the journal Science and reported by The New York Times, was deliberately restricted to viruses that cannot infect humans, animals, plants or fungi.

Researchers used the Evo 1 and Evo 2 AI models, which were trained on trillions of nucleotides, the basic building blocks of DNA. The models were subsequently trained using approximately 15,000 viruses from a family that includes Phi X-174, a tiny virus that infects E. coli bacteria.

From the roughly 700,000 sequences generated by the AI models, researchers selected 285 candidates they considered particularly promising. Scientists then produced their DNA and introduced it into bacteria.

Sixteen of the designs successfully developed into functioning viruses capable of reproducing.

According to the study, the newly designed viruses were at least as viable as Phi X-174, while some reproduced more rapidly than the naturally occurring virus.

Researchers say the technology could eventually have beneficial applications, including advancing genetic therapies, studying genomes and developing new tools to combat harmful bacteria.

At the same time, the breakthrough raises significant questions about the potential risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems capable of designing biological material.

The researchers emphasized that the experiment did not involve viruses capable of infecting humans and was specifically limited to bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria.

Still, the ability of an artificial intelligence model to generate genetic sequences that can be physically produced and become functioning, self-replicating viruses demonstrates how rapidly AI capabilities in biology are advancing.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The U.S. Navy has launched a sweeping modernization plan for its submarine fleet, announcing that 19 advanced attack submarines will be converted into guided-missile platforms as Washington seeks to strengthen its military position against China’s rapidly expanding naval power in the Pacific.

The announcement comes as concerns continue to mount over America’s missile inventory following the conflict with Iran and reflects a broader effort to reinforce U.S. military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region.

Under the initiative, Virginia-class submarines will be equipped with a specialized payload module approximately 25 meters (84 feet) long, adding 28 new missile launch tubes to the 12 already built into each vessel. The enhanced submarines will be capable of carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles for long-range strikes against land targets, as well as advanced hypersonic weapons designed to penetrate sophisticated Chinese air and naval defense systems.

Military analysts say submarines remain one of the few assets capable of operating undetected close to an adversary’s territory. Sidharth Kaushal, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, explained, “Submarines are one of the few capabilities that can stay near or inside the first island chain in relative safety,” adding that positioning missiles closer to their targets significantly reduces an opponent’s response time.

The overhaul comes as the Navy gradually retires its four aging Ohio-class guided-missile submarines. Those vessels were originally built as nuclear missile submarines before being converted to carry conventional weapons, with each capable of launching up to 154 Tomahawk missiles. Former Navy captain and RAND Corporation researcher Bradley Martin described the Ohio-class boats as “the platform with the greatest capability to launch conventional missile payloads.”

One of those submarines, the USS Georgia, entered the decommissioning process last month, while the remaining three are expected to retire over the next several years. According to the Washington-based Submarine Industrial Base Council, the retirement of the Ohio-class fleet will temporarily reduce the Navy’s undersea strike capability by as much as 60%.

The first upgraded Virginia-class submarines are not expected to enter operational service until 2029, with the final vessel in the program scheduled for delivery in 2038. Despite the temporary decline in firepower, senior Navy leaders have expressed confidence in the transition. Rear Adm. Rob Gaucher, head of the Navy’s submarine programs, said, “These submarines will ensure the Navy continues to dominate the undersea domain for decades.”

Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, said the next generation of submarines will build on the Ohio-class legacy while offering “greater survivability and adaptability.” Analysts note that although each new submarine will carry only about one-quarter of the missile load of an Ohio-class vessel, distributing those weapons across a larger number of submarines will make them far more difficult for China to detect and track.

The move comes in response to China’s accelerated military buildup. Between 2021 and 2025, China’s navy launched 10 nuclear-powered submarines, compared with seven built by the United States during the same period. Over those four years, Beijing also expanded its missile arsenal by approximately 50% and recently unveiled a new unmanned underwater vehicle during a military parade, highlighting its preparations for a potential conflict involving Taiwan.

The Navy’s restructuring also follows the depletion of portions of the U.S. munitions stockpile after the 2025 “Operation Midnight Hammer” strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, ordered by President Donald Trump. In announcing the new submarine strategy, the Navy emphasized that “the submarines will operate unhindered in contested waters, ensuring the U.S. Navy maintains absolute undersea superiority.”

{Matzav.com}

To join via Zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/645572066

📞 929-205-6099  ID: 645572066

By Julia Parker – JBizNews Desk

KPMG said a survey of its interns found career growth is Gen Z’s top workplace priority, outranking work-life balance, culture and salary, with 93% of respondents aspiring to reach the C-suite. The findings matter for employers competing for young talent as retention strategies increasingly depend on training, internal mobility and visible promotion paths, not just pay packages.

The survey challenges a common corporate assumption that younger workers are primarily motivated by flexibility and lifestyle benefits. For business owners and executives, the message is more practical: entry-level employees may stay longer where they see a clear route to advancement, broader responsibilities and leadership development.

The results come as companies continue to recalibrate hiring after several years of uneven labor-market conditions, rising wage costs and changing expectations around hybrid work. Many employers have invested heavily in wellness benefits and flexible schedules, but the KPMG findings suggest those programs may not be enough if workers believe their careers are stalling.

For large companies, the issue is tied directly to succession planning. A generation that says it wants senior leadership roles could help strengthen management pipelines, but only if employers provide early access to mentorship, skills training, client exposure and measurable advancement opportunities.

The survey also has cost implications. Companies may need to shift more spending toward structured development programs, rotational assignments and manager training. Those investments can be expensive, but they may reduce turnover, a recurring problem for employers that spend heavily to recruit graduates only to lose them within the first few years.

Compensation remains important, but the ranking indicates that pay alone may not secure loyalty among ambitious younger employees. That could alter how companies market entry-level roles, particularly in professional services, finance, consulting, technology and other sectors that rely on a steady inflow of junior workers.

Employers are also likely to face pressure to make promotion criteria more transparent. Younger workers seeking rapid career growth may be less willing to wait through informal or opaque advancement systems, especially in a labor market where skilled employees can compare opportunities across industries.

The findings should be read in context. A survey of interns at a professional-services firm is not the same as a broad measure of all Gen Z workers, and interns are already more likely to be career-focused than the overall population. Still, the results offer a useful signal for companies trying to understand the expectations of students and recent graduates entering corporate roles.

For small and midsize businesses, the takeaway may be especially important. They often cannot match the salaries or brand recognition of larger competitors, but they can offer faster responsibility, direct access to senior leaders and clearer learning opportunities. Those advantages may become more valuable if career acceleration is a decisive factor for younger workers.

The data also complicates the debate over work-life balance. Rather than rejecting flexibility, the respondents appear to be prioritizing advancement when forced to choose among workplace values. That creates a management challenge: companies may need to offer both flexibility and credible career growth to remain competitive.

Recruiting teams are likely to use the findings to refine campus hiring messages ahead of future internship and graduate recruitment cycles. Employers that can show defined career ladders, leadership training and internal promotion rates may have an advantage in attracting young candidates who view their first job as a launchpad to senior management.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

One of the most revealing parts of architect Liran Shukrun’s thinking is the way he speaks about the home itself. A frum family does not always live inside the standard Israeli apartment formula. In many Torah homes, the center of gravity is different. It may be the dining room table. It may be the seforim. It may be the constant flow of children, guests, learning, meals, and Shabbos. A home like that needs scale, flexibility, and a different kind of attention.

That understanding shaped the apartments at Givat Hashalvah. The homes are large, open, and planned to adapt over time. Structural elements are kept away from the center of the living space wherever possible, allowing rooms and layouts to remain flexible as family needs change. Liran speaks about this almost as a moral responsibility: if a family is going to live here for many years, the home must be able to grow with them.

The same thinking appears in the windows and balconies. Bedrooms were planned with unusually tall openings so a person standing inside the room meets the landscape at eye level. Living rooms and bedrooms open toward the view, not through small, incidental windows, but through panoramic glass that makes the hills and courtyards part of the home experience. The balconies are large enough to live on, not just step onto, creating real space for hosting, sitting, breathing, and bringing family life outdoors.

That is what makes the planning feel so specific. Givat Hashalvah is not only responding to a market need for larger homes. It is responding to a way of life. The project understands that a home for a frum family carries learning, hosting, children, guests, privacy, flexibility, and daily rhythm all at once. The architecture was asked to respect that. And in the best parts of the plan, it does.

Explore Givat Hashalvah

The Pentagon is pressing U.S. defense companies to sharply accelerate weapons production and delivery as the war with Iran continues to deplete American munitions stockpiles, according to a Defense Department memo obtained by The Washington Post. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg told industry leaders they have 21 days to submit plans for substantially faster delivery schedules and increased production of critical weapons systems.

“Years-long development cycles are not acceptable,” Feinberg wrote. “We must dramatically accelerate our program schedules and expand our production capacity now.” The Pentagon is also asking companies to identify investments and facility expansions that could support higher and sustained order volumes, with Feinberg telling industry leaders to demonstrate their willingness to “put skin in the game.”

The scale of U.S. weapons use during the Iran war has intensified the pressure. The report says that during the first month alone, the U.S. fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles and more than 1,000 Patriot and THAAD interceptors, while the Army used more than 1,300 tactical ballistic missiles during the opening weeks of fighting. A CSIS analysis cited in the report estimated that the global Patriot missile inventory fell from roughly 2,200 before the war to fewer than 827, while the THAAD inventory declined from 452 to fewer than 278.

The Pentagon has also been working with both traditional defense contractors and newer Silicon Valley companies. Officials have held meetings with representatives from companies including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Anduril and Palantir, while separate framework agreements have been pursued to expand missile production and acquire lower-cost weapons.

A major obstacle remains funding. Many of the Pentagon’s framework agreements are not final purchase contracts and require congressional appropriations before they can become binding orders. The broader effort is tied to a $1.15 trillion defense spending bill that remains stalled in Congress. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed the Feinberg memo and said it is part of an effort to rebuild the U.S. defense industrial base and will help shape the fiscal 2028 budget.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Nickolay Mladenov, the director-general of the Board of Peace charged with overseeing Gaza’s postwar future, sought to ease Israeli concerns in an exclusive interview with Channel 12 News political commentator Amit Segal.

Mladenov said the complete dismantling of Hamas’s tunnel network across the Gaza Strip would take 10 years. He emphasized that Israel would not be required to withdraw from its current positions at this stage of the process.

On the issue of personal weapons, Mladenov indicated that the framework does not call for large quantities of Kalashnikov assault rifles remaining in private hands. The plan addresses heavy weapons, manufacturing workshops, tunnels, and personal arms held by factions, with the goal of transferring control to a transitional authority.

Mladenov’s comments come amid ongoing efforts to implement the U.S.-backed plan for demilitarization, governance transition, and reconstruction in Gaza. The Board of Peace has insisted that concrete steps on disarmament must precede any significant Israeli pullback.

The interview reflects Mladenov’s efforts to address skepticism in Israel about the pace and reliability of demilitarization commitments by Palestinian factions.

Concrete plants established along the Gaza border to help seal Hamas tunnels are reportedly being transferred from Israeli control to full American management and funding, marking another expansion of the U.S. role in Gaza.

The facilities, located near Nahal Oz and Kerem Shalom, were established in recent months and have been operated by private contractors on behalf of Israel’s Defense Ministry.

The plants were built to produce the large quantities of concrete needed to seal underground tunnels discovered by IDF forces in Gaza, including tunnels still being located in areas along the Yellow Line.

According to a report by Army Radio correspondent Doron Kadosh, responsibility for the facilities is now being transferred to the U.S. command center in Kiryat Gat, which will assume responsibility for both their management and financing.

Contractors currently operating the concrete plants have reportedly been informed by Israel’s Defense Ministry that their employer will soon effectively become the United States.

The move raises questions about whether the facilities will continue to be used exclusively for sealing tunnels or could eventually be redirected toward reconstruction projects inside Gaza.

Neither Defense Minister Israel Katz’s office nor the Defense Ministry has commented on the report.

The development comes amid a growing American role in postwar arrangements for Gaza. Recent steps have included Israeli approval for a multinational force to operate in Gaza and a green light for reconstruction work to begin in Rafah.

Kadosh noted that the transfer of the concrete plants, when viewed alongside those developments and increased U.S. involvement in Israeli policy regarding Gaza, could indicate a broader shift in responsibility for developments inside the enclave.

The report also comes against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s previous statements about the United States taking a major role in Gaza and its future, with Washington increasingly involved in security, reconstruction and diplomatic arrangements surrounding the territory.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Dear Lakewood Scoop,

I am writing to raise a concern about a practice that seems to be becoming increasingly common in shuls around town: individuals collecting tzedakah while displaying explicit medical images of patients’ illnesses or injuries in order to elicit donations.

There is no question that many of these people are facing genuine and heartbreaking medical situations, and that their families may be in desperate need of financial assistance. The community has always shown tremendous compassion and generosity toward people in need.

At the same time, I believe there should be a line when it comes to how those appeals are presented.

Displaying graphic medical images in a shul can be deeply uncomfortable and disturbing, particularly for children and teenagers who may be present. A person should not have to encounter explicit images of a serious illness or injury simply because they walked into a shul and someone is collecting money.

Our community understands the importance of tzedakah and does not need graphic images to teach us to care. There are many ways to communicate the seriousness of a medical situation—through written descriptions, letters, or discreet informational materials—without putting explicit images on display.

This is not a criticism of the individuals or families seeking assistance. Their circumstances may be extremely difficult, and they deserve our support. My concern is specifically with the method of fundraising and whether there are more appropriate ways to appeal to the generosity of the community.

I think this is actually hurting their chances of someone coming over to donate.

We can—and should—remain a community that gives generously without sacrificing dignity, sensitivity, and basic standards of appropriateness.

Thank you for considering this.

TLS welcomes your letters by submitting them to us via  Whatsapp  or via email  [email protected]

By Julia Parker – JBizNews Desk

NEW YORK — Google DeepMind Chief Operating Officer Lila Ibrahim said the risk that artificial intelligence could contribute to human extinction is not zero, underscoring the governance challenge facing Alphabet, enterprise AI users and investors as the technology moves deeper into business operations.

Ibrahim, who signed a widely circulated statement warning that advanced AI could pose an existential risk, pushed back against confident forecasts from technology billionaires about how quickly AI and space technology will reshape daily life. Her comments highlight a widening gap between Silicon Valley’s most optimistic projections and the more cautious stance being adopted by executives responsible for deploying AI systems at scale.

“Nobody actually knows that,” Ibrahim said, referring to predictions such as Elon Musk saying money will not matter by 2036 and Jeff Bezos saying people will live in space by 2045. She said the odds of extreme harm from AI are “not zero,” while emphasizing that specific timelines remain unknowable.

The remarks matter for companies spending heavily on AI because safety concerns are increasingly linked to regulatory risk, customer trust and capital allocation. Businesses adopting generative AI are weighing productivity gains against concerns over data security, intellectual-property exposure, workforce disruption and potential liability from automated decision-making.

For Alphabet, which owns Google and Google DeepMind, AI is both a growth engine and a strategic risk. The company is investing billions of dollars in computing infrastructure, AI models and cloud services as it competes with Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon and others to supply businesses with tools that can write software, summarize documents, automate customer service and support scientific research.

That commercial opportunity has made AI safety a boardroom issue. Large corporate customers are demanding more assurances about accuracy, explainability and privacy before moving sensitive workloads into AI systems. Insurers, banks, healthcare companies and government contractors face especially high compliance hurdles because mistakes can create financial, legal or safety consequences.

Ibrahim’s position also reflects the balancing act inside leading AI labs. Executives must promote products that can generate revenue while acknowledging risks that could invite tighter oversight. Governments in the U.S., Europe and Asia are developing rules for powerful AI models, with policymakers focused on transparency, cybersecurity, election misuse and potential systemic risks.

Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and founder of xAI, has repeatedly warned about AI risks while also investing aggressively in the sector. Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, has made expansive predictions about human activity in space. Ibrahim’s comments contrast with those forecasts by stressing uncertainty rather than fixed milestones.

Investors are watching whether AI spending will translate into durable earnings growth. Alphabet and its peers are under pressure to show that rising capital expenditures on chips, data centers and talent can support higher revenue from cloud computing, advertising, enterprise software and consumer products.

The debate is likely to intensify as more businesses embed AI in core operations. For executives, Ibrahim’s warning adds weight to a practical conclusion already shaping procurement decisions: AI may offer major efficiency gains, but companies will be expected to manage the technology with tighter controls, stronger oversight and clearer accountability.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

Orange County, NY (VINnews) – A homicide suspect who prompted a massive, multi-day manhunt in Orange County was safely apprehended early Sunday after authorities received a tip that led investigators to a vehicle connected to the case, New York State Police said.

Thomas D. Ryan was wanted in connection with the Aug. 6 killing of his father, Robert Ryan, 70, at his residence on Greenville Turnpike in the town of Greenville.

Ryan was taken into custody at about 12:10 a.m. Sunday by the New York State Police Special Operations Response Team in the town of Gilboa in Schoharie County, about 100 miles northwest of Greenville.

The search intensified Saturday evening after police received a tip that a Toyota Prius associated with the investigation had been found unoccupied in a parking lot on State Route 990V in Gilboa. Officers from multiple agencies searched the surrounding area before another tip helped lead police to Ryan.

Ryan was treated at the scene for injuries sustained before his apprehension and was taken to a hospital, where he remained in stable condition Sunday. He remained in State Police custody and is expected to be charged and arraigned when his medical condition permits.

Investigators said Ryan did not live with his father and had no known current ties to the Greenville community. They also determined that he had lived a transient lifestyle and had stayed at shelters in New York City, Long Island and northern New York.

The investigation was led by the State Police Troop F Bureau of Criminal Investigation, with assistance from multiple State Police troops and local, state and federal agencies, including the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, FBI, NYPD, New York State Park Police and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Police and Forest Rangers.

Authorities credited members of the public with providing information that helped locate Ryan.

“The information provided by alert members of the public, combined with the relentless efforts of our investigators, Troopers, and law enforcement partners across multiple jurisdictions, allowed us to locate Thomas Ryan and bring this search to a safe conclusion,” Troop F BCI Capt. Brad Natalizio said.

The investigation remains ongoing. State Police said additional information about Ryan’s apprehension and criminal charges will be released when appropriate.

TORONTO (AP) — A Porter Airlines flight in Canada was canceled last week after a young child refused to sit down and buckle up, forcing the plane back to the terminal and delaying it past the airport’s runway closure.

The Toronto-based airline said Sunday the parent and crew repeatedly tried unsuccessfully to secure the child in the seat before returning the plane to the terminal in Victoria International Airport in British Columbia to remove the parent and child.

Porter said removing the parent and child and their baggage delayed the Toronto-bound flight on Thursday past the airport’s 12:30 a.m. runway closure, forcing the remaining passengers to disembark.

Porter apologized to the other passengers, who were rebooked on a flight the following day.

Just one week after the ceasefire took effect in Gaza, Hamas is rapidly reestablishing its grip on the territory by recruiting new operatives, intimidating civilians, and imposing steep taxes on merchants, according to Gaza residents who spoke with Israel’s Channel 12 News.

Residents said the terrorist group has begun enlisting young men between the ages of 18 and 20, paying them between 600 and 700 shekels a month and arming them with Kalashnikov rifles. According to those interviewed, the recruits wear civilian clothing and face masks while manning intersections and other strategic locations throughout the Strip.

Despite the lull in fighting, Gazans say Hamas continues to maintain control through fear. Residents reported that masked gunmen quickly open fire on anyone who publicly criticizes the organization, insults it, posts negative comments on social media, or attempts to organize protests. They also claimed that Hamas has established operational and interrogation centers inside hospital complexes while its operatives closely monitor activity throughout the streets.

Many residents remain deeply skeptical that Hamas will ever surrender its weapons. Hussam al-Astal, commander of an armed militia in Khan Younis that opposes Hamas, said, “If Hamas gives up its weapons – neither our forces nor Israel will kill them, but the people themselves, because they killed many people.” Another resident, identified only as “M,” said he believes Hamas is deceiving the public and, at most, would stage a symbolic handover involving only a negligible number of weapons.

Residents also said Hamas is attempting to rebuild its financial base by imposing heavy taxes on local merchants. According to the report, traders are being forced to pay levies ranging from 18% to 40%, with additional taxes imposed on products such as cigarettes as the terrorist organization seeks to replenish its resources and strengthen its control over Gaza.

{Matzav.com}

Tensions between Israel and the United States are deepening as Washington presses Israel to move toward ending active fighting in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, Channel 13 reported.

Israeli security officials have protested to the political leadership in recent days over a demand that, while not explicitly included in the framework, has emerged in discussions between Israel and the United States: to halt targeted killings and moderate IDF operations in the Gaza Strip.

The United States wants Israel to end the fighting on all three active fronts. That message was also conveyed by U.S. Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper during his weekend visit to Israel. A senior IDF officer told Channel 13 that the American message to the military is to “move toward closing all three fronts.”

Regarding Iran, the IDF has told its American counterparts that Israel intends to preserve the option of acting if intelligence indicates that Iran is continuing to advance toward a nuclear capability or rebuild its ballistic missile array.

In Lebanon, the Americans want the IDF to withdraw from additional positions in the security zone in the south of the country. In Gaza, Washington wants to see progress and the deployment of the multinational force, which currently includes several hundred troops from Morocco and Uganda.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the opening of Sunday’s Cabinet meeting that “Israel rejects the 15-point document,” and said the IDF would not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is fully disarmed.

“The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed, and when I say Hamas is disarmed, that means the heavy weapons, the less-heavy weapons, all the weapons. Real disarmament, not fictitious disarmament,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel is now discussing the issue with the Americans.

Netanyahu said the Americans have ideas, some of which Israel accepts and some of which it does not, and stressed that the IDF will continue thwarting threats against Israeli forces and civilians.

On Iran, Netanyahu said he greatly appreciates President Donald Trump and the historic partnership with the United States against Iran’s attempts to arm itself with nuclear weapons. “With an agreement or without an agreement, as long as I am prime minister, Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” he said.

Addressing Lebanon, Netanyahu said Israel has operated forcefully there in recent days, eliminating terrorists, including in the Ali Taher Ridge area, and said Israel remains engaged in an important operation to eliminate threats.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Greenland’s government has issued a sharp rebuke to a Texas-based oil company with ties to President Trump after drilling equipment was brought ashore without official authorization, as the firm pushes ahead with plans to explore for massive oil reserves beneath the Arctic territory.

The dispute comes as President Trump has renewed his public calls for the United States to take control of Greenland. In recent days, equipment intended for exploratory drilling was unloaded along Greenland’s eastern coastline, prompting officials to stress that the operation had not been approved.

In a strongly worded statement, Greenland’s government said no authorization had been granted for the delivery of the equipment and reminded the company that, “All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority – before they are carried out.”

Just two days after the warning, Trump intensified attention on Greenland by posting an image on Truth Social depicting himself towering over a Greenlandic village.

The company at the center of the controversy, Greenland Energy, was established in Texas last year. Its executives believe the Jameson Land region could contain as much as $1 trillion in crude oil and have announced plans to invest $60 million to drill two exploratory wells to determine the area’s potential.

Although Greenland halted the issuance of new oil exploration licenses in 2021 because of environmental concerns, British company 80 Mile already held exploration rights in Jameson Land. According to Greenland Energy’s corporate filings, the Texas firm plans to acquire a controlling interest in the project by financing the exploration effort, though it still requires formal approval from Greenland’s government before drilling can begin.

The company has enlisted Phil McGraw, widely known as Dr. Phil, the conservative former television host who previously served on President Trump’s religious freedom commission, to produce a documentary series that will “capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters.”

Greenland Energy has also added to its board a retired U.S. Navy veteran who is involved in developing the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, a project for which Trump has argued that control of Greenland is “vital.”

Company chairman Larry Swets, a major shareholder with reported connections to Trump’s political circle, has insisted that the drilling project “not related to American annexation.”

Following a community meeting in Jameson Land in June, where a company representative incorrectly stated that permission had already been granted to bring drilling equipment ashore, Swets acknowledged the mistake, saying, “Our enthusiasm for the project led us to communicate in a way that created confusion.”

Despite that clarification, residents in the remote region reported seeing a tugboat towing a barge to shore the following month and unloading roughly a dozen shipping containers. Greenland’s government later confirmed that “The goal was to get the equipment onshore at Nunap Qeqqa [Jameson Land] in connection with planned oil exploration drilling.”

The Danish investigative outlet Danwatch reported that the head of the shipping company confirmed the cargo had been delivered on behalf of Greenland Energy.

The company has not responded publicly to questions about the controversy. However, in a letter sent to shareholders on Thursday, Greenland Energy stated: “Recent high-level meetings between project leadership and Greenlandic regulatory and oversight authorities have been constructive, and we continue to be encouraged by the progress being made toward the remaining approvals required for drilling.” The company also indicated that it now intends to begin with a single exploratory well rather than two.

As a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland controls its own natural resources, placing the decision squarely in the hands of its elected officials. Those leaders now face mounting pressure as they weigh whether to authorize drilling in an area that appears to overlap with land protected under the Ramsar Convention on wetlands or reject the proposal, a move some fear could further inflame Trump’s interest in the territory.

While Greenland’s government said it believes it “would not be proportionate” to order the removal of the equipment already delivered, officials emphasized that the company’s application remains under review and no drilling approval has been issued.

A representative for Greenland Energy has said another vessel carrying approximately 300 containers of drilling equipment is scheduled to depart Canada on September 12, with drilling operations expected to begin in October if approval is secured.

Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who serves as Trump’s envoy to Greenland, has predicted that oil production on the island could begin as early as next year.

{Matzav.com}

Israel is considering Switzerland as a possible country to provide a civilian force to supervise implementation of a future agreement with Lebanon, i24NEWS reported, citing sources familiar with the negotiations.

Senior Swiss officials have held several meetings in Jerusalem and Washington in recent months, including in February, as Switzerland has emerged as one of the leading candidates for a supervisory role.

During the latest round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon in Rome, Israeli officials made clear that there would be no expansion of the existing buffer zone before examining how the current zones function. Israel also rejected several other possible supervisory arrangements, including Turkish or Qatari involvement, and said international courts in The Hague would not be acceptable for overseeing implementation of the agreement.

Switzerland is being considered in part because Swiss Ambassador to Israel Simon Geissbühler has strong relations with Israel’s political leadership, while Switzerland also maintains close ties with the Lebanese government. Sources involved in the talks said Switzerland has a proven record as an independent country in similar missions and is viewed as an option Israel could accept.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

NORAD dispatched F-16 fighter jets Sunday after two civilian aircraft entered restricted airspace over Bedminster, New Jersey, where President Donald Trump was expected to spend the weekend at his golf club during the LIV Golf New York tournament.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said the aircraft violated temporary flight restrictions established over the area. Air Forces Northern, part of the 1st Air Force, later confirmed that two general aviation aircraft were involved in the incident.

Military officials said the aircraft were safely intercepted and escorted out of the restricted airspace by NORAD fighters without incident.

Ahead of the president’s arrival in New Jersey, NORAD had announced that it would actively enforce the Federal Aviation Administration’s temporary flight restrictions throughout the weekend to secure the airspace surrounding the Bedminster property.

Officials also advised pilots and the public that U.S. Army ground-based air defense systems could be operating in the region under the Continental U.S. NORAD Region as part of the military’s layered homeland defense network.

“These systems are operating under NORAD authorities, constitute a routine component of the command’s layered defense posture and work in tandem with the command’s airborne assets to monitor and protect the airspace,” information published by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service said.

Following the interceptions, military officials reminded general aviation pilots to review all Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) before every flight to ensure they are aware of temporary airspace restrictions and other FAA flight requirements.

“Check NOTAMs before EVERY flight!” 1st AF/AFNORTH said in a post on X.

Officials also reiterated the procedures pilots must follow if intercepted by NORAD aircraft. Pilots should immediately switch their radios to frequencies 121.5 or 243.0 and, according to guidance published by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, “turn around to reverse course until receiving additional instructions on one of those frequencies.”

Temporary flight restrictions are routinely established during presidential travel, major sporting events, national security operations, and other special events. NORAD relies on a combination of radar systems, satellites, fighter aircraft, and other surveillance capabilities to detect, monitor, and respond to potential threats within North American airspace.

{Matzav.com}

Chrysler is recalling more than 1.27 million pickup trucks in the U.S. over a possible seat belt issue that could increase the risk of injury in a crash.

The recall covers 1,271,294 model-year 2019 through 2026 Ram 1500 vehicles. Chrysler estimates that about 0.1% of the recalled vehicles actually have the defect, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

NHTSA said the second-row seat belt buckle anchors may have been improperly installed, leaving the vehicles out of compliance with federal safety requirements.

“Reduced load management by the seat belt buckle may result in injury to vehicle occupants in certain types of driving conditions or crashes,” the report states.

The recalled trucks were produced between Feb. 17, 2018, and April 27, 2026. 

Production and service records were used to determine the potentially affected vehicles, according to NHTSA.

NHTSA said the recall stems from a vehicle assembly issue rather than a defective component.

Dealers will inspect the second-row seat belt buckle anchors and, if necessary, properly attach them to the vehicle’s body structure at no cost to owners.

“The remedy will be to ensure that the second-row seat belt buckle anchors are properly affixed to the body structure,” the report states.

Dealers were notified on or about Aug. 6, with owner notifications set to begin Aug. 18.

Stellantis, Chrysler’s parent company, could not immediately be reached by FOX Business for comment.

Nearly three years after the October 7 massacre, Israel continues its relentless campaign to hunt down every Hamas terrorist connected to the atrocities. A specialized task force created in the aftermath of the attack is still working around the clock to locate and eliminate everyone involved—from senior planners to the terrorists who guarded and abused Israeli hostages, Arutz Sheva reports.

In the wake of the massacre, Israel’s security establishment launched an extensive effort to identify and eliminate every individual who played a role in planning, supporting, or carrying out the attacks, as well as those who participated in the captivity and mistreatment of hostages.

To lead that effort, the IDF and the Shin Bet created a joint task force known as NILI, an acronym for Netzach Yisrael Lo Yishaker (“The Eternal One of Israel Does Not Lie”). The unit was named after the famed Jewish underground intelligence network that operated in Eretz Yisroel during World War I.

Channel 12 recently provided a rare glimpse inside NILI’s operational strike center, speaking with members of the unit who continue their mission of identifying and eliminating Hamas terrorists linked to the October 7 massacre.

Since the war began, Israeli forces have succeeded in eliminating much of Hamas’ senior leadership and operational command, including Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Sinwar, Saleh al-Arouri, and, more recently, Izz al-Din al-Haddad.

One officer involved in the operation said NILI’s mission reaches far beyond Hamas’ top commanders and includes everyone who played any role in the attacks or hostage-taking.

“This can be the driver who drove a tractor, and it can be the Hamas officer who led a raid,” he said.

As the war progressed, the unit steadily expanded its target list. According to the head of its target division, investigators eventually broadened their focus to include Hamas members who held Israeli hostages, abused them, or even came into contact with them during captivity.

Among those pursued was the terrorist who phoned his father after October 7 to boast that he had murdered 10 Jews, as well as terrorists involved in the beheading of several hostages. The man responsible for murdering IDF soldier and lookout Noa Marciano remained on NILI’s target list for a year and a half before Israeli forces ultimately eliminated him.

“This was a Sisyphean task, work that also included failures and missed opportunities. But you do not forget it. You do not forget your responsibility to kill this evil.”

The unit maintains a database containing thousands of suspected terrorists. One soldier described the painstaking process of working through the list day after day.

“We have an Excel file; we consolidate all the terrorists’ names there, and every day we ‘delete a line,’” the soldier said. “I’ve already deleted dozens of lines. I delete a line and immediately think about the next one, even before I process what I feel about it.”

To locate its targets, NILI draws on a wide range of intelligence sources, including footage recovered from GoPro cameras carried by Hamas terrorists during the massacre, artificial intelligence technology, and intelligence gathered by agents operating in the field.

Since the ceasefire with Hamas took effect last October, the pace of operations has accelerated significantly. With Israeli hostages no longer being held in Gaza, the IDF and Israeli Air Force have gained greater operational flexibility. At the same time, testimony from released hostages and intelligence obtained from captured Hamas operatives has enabled Israeli security forces to identify and strike an increasing number of terrorists connected to the October 7 atrocities.

{Matzav.com}

No serious injuries being reported.

U.S. law enforcement authorities reportedly thwarted multiple credible threats targeting soccer superstar Lionel Messi during the 2026 World Cup, including alleged plots involving explosives and assault rifles.

According to a Spanish media report citing leaked classified documents from an FBI joint investigation file, authorities confronted several serious threats against prominent players during the tournament, with Argentina captain Messi among the primary targets.

One of the most serious incidents reportedly occurred ahead of Argentina’s match against Jordan in Dallas. Authorities received an anonymous warning call claiming that three individuals were traveling toward the stadium armed with improvised explosive devices and AR-15-style rifles.

The caller allegedly threatened to attack police officers and players from both teams while specifically identifying Messi as the primary target.

Another major security scare occurred surrounding Argentina’s match against Egypt in Atlanta.

According to the report, an individual posted a threat on X claiming he intended to enter the stadium as a suicide bomber carrying four explosive devices and assassinate Messi.

Police also received an anonymous call claiming that three explosive devices had been planted inside trash cans around the stadium. Additional security personnel and canine units were deployed to conduct extensive searches of the complex.

The reported threats were not limited to Messi.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was also reportedly targeted by credible threats during the tournament. Authorities arrested a suspect on June 16 at the Houston hotel where Portugal’s national team was staying.

French referee François Letexier was also subjected to an extraordinary wave of threats, reportedly receiving more than 6,000 death threats through his personal WhatsApp account during the tournament.

The incidents highlight the massive security operation surrounding the 2026 World Cup and the challenges facing U.S. authorities tasked with protecting some of the world’s most recognizable athletes amid threats against players, officials and tournament venues.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Iran said Sunday it is not negotiating directly with the United States and will not return to formal talks until Washington meets key demands — making clear that a possible shipping agreement with Oman does not mean the Strait of Hormuz is reopening. 

That distinction is now the most important part of the story for oil markets, shipping companies and businesses around the world.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran and Oman are close to completing an agreement governing shipping routes through the strait. But he said reopening Hormuz is a separate issue tied to broader negotiations with Washington. 

In simple terms: Iran and Oman may agree on where ships can travel, while Iran still decides which ships are allowed through.

Tehran is demanding major U.S. concessions before restoring full access, including an end to American economic and military pressure and compensation connected to the conflict. Iran says messages are still being exchanged through intermediaries rather than direct U.S.-Iran negotiations. 

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important energy routes, historically carrying roughly one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments. Traffic has been severely disrupted since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began February 28. 

The Trump administration remains more optimistic.

Vice President JD Vance said Saturday that Washington is still talking with Iran and is focused on getting as much oil and gas as possible moving through Hormuz. He described the negotiations as still being in the “middle of the game.” 

But Iran’s latest comments show how large the gap remains.

A technical agreement with Oman could therefore produce headlines suggesting progress without actually restoring normal commercial shipping.

That matters because continued disruption keeps pressure on oil prices, tanker availability, freight costs and war-risk insurance throughout the Gulf.

Regional tensions also worsened Sunday when Iran-backed Houthi forces said they attacked Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery. Saudi authorities said a fire at the facility was extinguished without casualties. 

For businesses, the takeaway is straightforward:

Do not mistake an Iran-Oman shipping agreement for the reopening of Hormuz.

The real breakthrough comes only when commercial vessels can again move freely through the strait. Iran is now making clear that this requires a much larger political agreement with Washington — and that agreement has not been reached.

Until then, one of the world’s most important shipping routes remains a major risk for energy prices, transportation costs and global trade.

JBizNews Desk | Tehran

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

The Trump administration has revoked the security clearance of former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, accusing him of disclosing classified information to the media about Air Force One, The Washington Post reports.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Kendall was being stripped of access to classified information and of his ability to hold any sensitive position following what he described as an “unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Air Force One’s capabilities.” Parnell added that safeguarding classified information is a “non-negotiable duty.”

Kendall, who served as Air Force secretary under President Joe Biden and previously held a senior Defense Department post during the Obama administration, denied revealing classified information and said he is considering his legal options. “I’ve been extremely careful to not say anything that could be classified, and as far as I know I have not said anything classified,” he told The Post. “So far no one has told me what I’m supposed to have revealed.”

Kendall had recently spoken to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal about the Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar that President Donald Trump is using as his official presidential aircraft. He told the Times he was “surprised to see this plane used outside the U.S.” given how quickly it was modified after being transferred to the United States, and told the Journal he was skeptical that the aircraft had been fully equipped with the security features Trump said it would have.

The White House said last month that Trump would tentatively return to using an older Air Force One while the Qatari-gifted aircraft underwent unspecified “additional upgrades and enhancements,” which were expected to take about a month.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei appointed two figures who played key roles in the formation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to senior political positions in statements attributed to Khamenei published on Sunday.

Mohsen Rezaee, who commanded the IRGC from 1981 until 1997, was appointed as Khamenei’s representative on the Supreme National Security Council.

Rezaee has run in at least three presidential elections, coming third in 2009 with 1.7% of the vote, fourth in 2013 with over 3.8 million votes, and second in 2021 with 3.4 million votes.

He has served as a member of the Expediency Discernment Council since 1997, and was appointed as Khamenei’s military advisor in March.

Additionally, Mohammed Bagher Zolghadr, who held several senior positions across the IRGC since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, including being deputy chief from 1997 until 2006, was appointed as Khamenei’s political advisor.

Zolghadr previously called for IRGC to hold stronger control over Iranian politics

In March, Zolghadr, who had just been appointed as the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council following Israel’s killing of Ali Larijani during Operation Roaring Lion, was cited by The New York Times as saying that the IRGC should gain more control over Iran. He was also described by The Economist as an “IRGC apparatchik” at the time.

“He is one of the last remnants of the radical revolutionaries that armed themselves against the Pahlavi monarchy,” historian Shahram Kholdi told Iran International in March.

This post was originally published on here.

After serving 24 years as a Shas lawmaker, former minister Yaakov Margi has stepped away from political life. In a candid interview on the Mischak HaKisaot podcast produced by Yisroel Hayom and hosted by Shirit Avitan Cohen, Margi offered unusually sharp criticism of both his former party and the broader chareidi political leadership, particularly over its handling of the military draft issue.

Reflecting on the current state of the chareidi community, Margi argued that today’s rabbinic leadership lacks the unified authority that once existed.

“The chareidi community is very complex, and there is no strong Torah leadership like there once was. In the Sephardic community, there was Maran Rav Ovadia Yosef, who knew how to make decisive rulings, and among the Ashkenazi leadership there were also Gedolei Yisroel who knew how to do so. Today there is rabbinic leadership, but it is fragmented. Everyone is looking backward, wondering what people will say about them. And what happened? We all rejected the Peleg Yerushalmi. Now all of us—and when I say all of us, I mean the entire chareidi leadership, including the chareidi members of Knesset—have pushed the entire chareidi community into their hands.”

Margi described the ongoing draft crisis as “a bleeding wound” and expressed regret over what he believes was a missed opportunity to resolve the issue legislatively.

“This is a bleeding wound. I cry over it. They should have been wise rather than simply right, and they should have passed Edelstein’s framework. The army would never have been able to fully implement it anyway. Instead, we failed to regulate the status of the yeshiva bochurim. We didn’t draft those who aren’t learning, nor those in the middle. The army accomplished nothing. I was there in the past when the army genuinely wanted to recruit. We worked together with the Defense Ministry, created enlistment tracks, and large numbers enlisted. I couldn’t walk through the streets of Geulah or Bnei Brak. People chased after me because I was encouraging enlistment.”

Asked to summarize his broader philosophy on military service, Margi said he believes responsibility toward the country cannot simply be ignored.

“It is impossible to be a Jew with values and merely pay lip service to the idea of sharing the burden, or visit wounded soldiers at Tel Hashomer, or attend funerals, and then do nothing. I recognize the value of Torah learning—don’t misunderstand me—but the two are not mutually exclusive. Even before discussing the sefer and the sword model of the Religious Zionist community, if you’re needed now, then come. I was told to stay quiet. I remained silent for a year, and it frustrated me. But if they made a mistake, it was a serious one. On the contrary—that’s exactly how we surrendered to the extremists.”

When asked whether the chareidi parties should have publicly declared that those who are not learning Torah should serve in the military, Margi replied that they failed to do so.

“They didn’t say it, so I’m saying it now. The solution will not come from the chareidi politicians or from the rabbinic leadership because, objectively, they cannot deliver it. We missed the momentum. The chareidi public is not monolithic. There are different segments, and there are segments that are ready—they just need a small push.”

Margi also criticized what he described as Shas aligning itself too closely with the Ashkenazi chareidi leadership.

“That was a serious mistake. We should have said less publicly. We should have led this legislation. I look at Klal Yisroel as a whole. Sadly, and I hope I’m wrong, I believe that part of the Ashkenazi chareidi worldview still lives with the mentality of the shtetl in Eretz Yisroel, where preserving the shtetl is the supreme interest. That’s not my outlook. For me, Toras Yisroel, Eretz Yisroel, and Am Yisroel are one. They are not three separate things.”

Margi also questioned the necessity of recent legislative initiatives aimed at protecting Torah study.

“As far as I’m concerned, there was no need for a Basic Law on Torah study. There was no need for the arrests law. We should have advanced a draft law and enlisted those who are not learning. Everyone should have done their job. The army also had responsibilities. What are you waiting for—the legislature? You already have a draft law that applies to everyone. Start drafting people. Start creating a reality where uniforms are hanging from clotheslines in chareidi neighborhoods.”

{Matzav.com}

This series of articles will introduce you to various parts of your body to help give you a better understanding and appreciation for what they do. With this awareness, I hope people reading this will be able to improve their health.

By Aharon Elkayam

The heart, like the brain, is among the most fundamental organs in the human body. Most everyone knows where it is located and what it does — pump blood. But there is so much more to this remarkable organ.

Hopefully, by the time you finish reading this, you will have a deeper understanding of — and appreciation for — this extraordinary muscle that keeps you alive every single moment of your life.

A gift that works without your thinking

One of the most astonishing things about the heart is that it works involuntarily. You do not need to think about it, remind it, or manage it. It just beats — roughly 100,000 times a day, over 35 million times a year, decade after decade.

Amazing, right?

Most of us never think about our hearts. Yet from the day we are born until the day we leave this world, the heart faithfully serves us without asking for recognition. Perhaps one of the healthiest things we can do is simply appreciate it.

The coronary arteries: Keeping the roads clear

The heart is a muscle, and like all muscles, it needs to be nourished to function. It receives its blood supply through a network of vessels called the coronary arteries, which wrap around the outside of the heart and feed its tissue with oxygen and nutrients.

As people age — especially those eating a diet high in processed foods, refined oils, and animal fats — these arteries can gradually accumulate fatty deposits along their inner walls, a process known as atherosclerosis.

Over time, this buildup narrows the arteries, reducing blood flow to the heart. The consequences can include chest pain (angina), shortness of breath, fatigue, and reduced stamina.

In more serious cases, a piece of that buildup — called plaque — can break loose and trigger a heart attack or a stroke.

The encouraging news: the research is unambiguous that a whole-food, plant-based diet can not only slow this process but actually reverse it.

The pioneering work of Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn has demonstrated that people who adopt a low-fat, plant-based diet can see measurable improvements in arterial health — without surgery or medication.

Think of this dietary approach as keeping the roads of your cardiovascular system clean and wide open.

The heart and emotions: More than a metaphor

When we say someone “died of a broken heart,” we often assume it is poetic language. But the science says otherwise.

Japanese researchers have documented a condition called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy — also known as “broken heart syndrome” — in which sudden emotional shock or grief causes a temporary but dramatic weakening of the heart muscle. The heart actually changes shape in response to extreme sadness or stress.

In severe cases, it can be fatal.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the heart has long been considered the organ most closely connected to the emotions — particularly excitement and sadness. Too much excitement (which in modern terms we call stress or overstimulation), or an excess of prolonged grief, were understood to weaken the heart over time.

Modern research increasingly supports this ancient intuition.

Studies have found that people who experience chronic anger, hostility, loneliness, or depression have significantly higher rates of cardiovascular disease.

Conversely, those who maintain close social connections, a sense of purpose, and emotional resilience tend to have healthier hearts — and live longer.

The takeaway: caring for your heart means caring for your emotional life, too. Nurture your relationships. Find outlets for grief. Cultivate joy.

The heart and blood pressure: Helping the pump

The heart’s job is to push blood throughout the entire body — from the tips of your toes all the way up to your brain. Getting blood down to the feet is relatively easy (gravity is a big help). But pushing blood up against gravity to the brain requires real force.

When the blood becomes thick and sluggish — often due to a diet chronically high in saturated fats and oils — the heart has to work much harder to move it.

Think of the difference between pumping water versus pumping thick syrup. The harder the heart has to push, the more pressure builds up inside the arteries. This is what we call high blood pressure, or hypertension.

The good news is that this is largely a lifestyle-driven condition — which means it is also a lifestyle-reversible one. A whole-food, plant-based diet is naturally low in the fats that thicken the blood and restrict circulation.

People who adopt this way of eating often see their blood pressure normalize within weeks, sometimes dramatically reducing or eliminating their need for medication (always in consultation with their doctor, of course).

Stress reduction is equally important. Chronic stress keeps the body in a state of “fight or flight,” which constricts blood vessels and raises blood pressure. Practices like relaxing breathing techniques, meditation, tai chi, and other forms of gentle exercise all help bring the nervous system back into balance — and with it, healthy blood pressure.

But these practices have their limits if the underlying sources of stress remain unaddressed.

If you hate your job, no amount of tai chi will fully protect your heart.

So alongside these practices, look honestly at what is causing the stress in your life and take steps to change it.

Movement: Strengthening the muscle

The heart is a muscle, and like any muscle, it responds well to regular, appropriate use.

Moderate exercise — walking, swimming, or cycling — strengthens the heart over time, improves circulation, and helps the cardiovascular system work more efficiently.

The key word is moderate. As I’ve discussed in my article “E is for Exercise,” more is not always better.

Overexercising can actually put undue strain on the heart, particularly in people who are already depleted or stressed. Aim for movement that leaves you feeling energized, not exhausted.

A daily walk is one of the best gifts you can give your heart.

Breathing: The free medicine

Here is something most people don’t realize: how you breathe directly affects your heart. Slow, deep, nasal breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system — the “rest and digest” mode — which lowers heart rate and reduces blood pressure. Shallow, rapid mouth breathing does the opposite.

Taking a few minutes each day for intentional deep breathing — inhaling slowly through the nose, expanding the belly — is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do for cardiovascular health.

Sleep: When the heart recovers

Sleep is when the body repairs itself — and the heart is no exception. During deep sleep, heart rate and blood pressure drop, giving the cardiovascular system a chance to rest and recover. Chronically poor sleep is associated with higher rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.

If you are not sleeping well, it is worth treating this as a health priority — not just a minor inconvenience. Address the causes: stress, screen time before bed, irregular hours, or poor diet. Your heart needs that nightly rest just as much as you do.

The whole picture

The heart is extraordinary — not just as a biological machine, but as a reflection of how you live. What you eat, how you move, how you breathe, how you sleep, and perhaps most importantly, how you love and connect with others — all of it shows up in this one remarkable muscle.

Treat it with the care and gratitude it deserves, and it will faithfully return the favor, beat by beat, for many years to come.

Until next time, wishing you good health and a happy, healthy heart.

Aharon Elkayam, M.S., is a practitioner trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine and functional medicine, with clinical internships in the U.S., Taipei, and Beijing. He has spent over a decade in clinical practice as an acupuncturist, herbalist, and functional medicine practitioner, with more than 10,000 patient visits, and now focuses on guiding people in improving their diet as a health coach. He can be reached at [email protected] or visit his website at aharonelkayam.com.

Chipotle Mexican Grill is facing a lawsuit from a Minnesota woman who alleges a burrito bowl from a restaurant in the state caused a severe Salmonella infection that left her hospitalized with sepsis.

Kristen Behne filed the complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, accusing Chipotle of strict product liability, negligence and violations of Minnesota food-safety law. She is seeking more than $75,000 in compensatory damages.

According to the lawsuit, Behne ate a chicken burrito bowl from a Chipotle restaurant in Roseville, Minnesota, on June 24. The meal included guacamole, Fresh Tomato Salsa and Roasted Chili-Corn Salsa — all of which the complaint claims contained raw jalapeño peppers.

Days later, Behne developed fever, chills, vomiting, abdominal cramping and severe diarrhea, the complaint alleges. She eventually sought emergency care, was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with sepsis.

“Three days later she was in a hospital bed, febrile, tachycardic and septic — a life-threatening complication of the Salmonella infection caused by Chipotle’s grossly contaminated food,” the lawsuit alleges. “She has not been the same since.”

According to the suit, the Minnesota Department of Health classified Behne as a confirmed case tied to a multistate outbreak that has sickened at least 345 people.

“MDH recorded her illness as outbreak-associated, identified the outbreak by name as the Salmonella Javiana outbreak, and classified Plaintiff as a confirmed case,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit alleges Behne continues to experience effects from the illness.

“Plaintiff’s health has not returned to its pre-illness baseline,” according to court documents. “She continues to experience the effects of her acute Salmonella infection and her septic episode, and is at increased risk of well-recognized post-infectious sequelae, including reactive arthritis and post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome.”

The legal action comes as health officials investigate a multistate Salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers.

Chipotle said Tuesday it had removed jalapeños from some restaurants after health officials linked the outbreak to recalled peppers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that 345 people in 27 states had been sickened, including 36 who were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

Epidemiologic and trace back evidence identified jalapeño peppers grown in Sinaloa, Mexico, and distributed by Coast Citrus Distributors as the source of the outbreak.

The CDC said Chipotle and QDOBA stopped serving the affected peppers after being notified. Because the products were removed, the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration said they do not consider the restaurants to pose a current ongoing risk to consumers from this outbreak.

Chipotle and an attorney for Behne could not immediately be reached by FOX Business for comment.

FOX Business’ Brittany Miller contributed to this report.

Last Thursday, in what at the time seemed out of the blue, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X/Twitter that he had received a phone call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that they “exchanged views on the current situation in West Asia.”

He also wrote, “We reviewed progress on various aspects of the India-Israel Special Strategic Partnership which continues to grow from strength to strength.”

Modi posted the message in English and Hebrew, and Netanyahu reposted it.

Only the next day would the full context become clear. On Friday, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signed a sweeping mutual defense treaty, dubbed the Mecca Pact because of the city where it was finalized.

It is difficult to imagine that the looming pact was not a major focus of the Netanyahu-Modi conversation. While the public only saw the treaty signed on Friday, Jerusalem and New Delhi would almost certainly have been aware that a significant regional realignment was in the works.

When the leaders exchanged views “on recent developments in West Asia,” they were addressing one of the largest structural shifts in the region’s security architecture in years.

For years, Washington pushed a vision of a US-led regional security architecture integrating Israel with Saudi Arabia and other pragmatic Arab states. But that’s not what transpired in Mecca, and Modi and Netanyahu were surely discussing the ramifications of a very different tripartite alignment.

One major ramification Modi alluded to was the “progress on various aspects of the India-Israel Special Strategic Partnership.”

The announcement in Mecca will certainly add fuel to moving that partnership forward at full speed. That’s the way the world works: actions cause reactions, which in turn spark new arrangements.

Pakistan: Mecca Pact contains NATO-style Article 5 clause

On Friday, after the signing of this accord – which the Pakistani Foreign Ministry confirmed contains a NATO-style Article 5 clause meaning an attack on one is an attack on all – The Wall Street Journal summarized the moment perfectly: “When a superpower flails about, regional powers begin to make arrangements for themselves.”

The superpower here is the US, and the flailing is its execution of the war in Iran. Saudi Arabia, having lost confidence in the American security umbrella alone to provide the protection it feels it needs, is looking elsewhere.

That’s a rational calculation, considering the pounding the Gulf states have taken from Iran and its proxies despite – and perhaps, at times, because of – the presence of US bases on their soil, paired with Washington’s waffling over how to respond.

What is deeply disappointing from Israel’s perspective is where Riyadh looked for its new partners. By joining up with Turkey and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia chose an architecture that fundamentally complicates Jerusalem’s long-term regional strategy.

Saudi-Pakistani defense ties predate new defense pact

Pakistan is not a new security partner for the Saudis. The two countries have had close defense ties for decades, and signed another security pact last year. But those arrangements did little to shield Riyadh when it came under attack from either Iran or the Houthis.

There is also an internal logic to the Saudis seeking out fellow Sunni states to build a new security architecture. But it nevertheless shatters Jerusalem’s hope that the recent upheaval in the Mideast would shuffle the deck in the region and lead to a clear-cut alliance between Israel and the pragmatic Sunni states.

The Saudis had different ideas. They wanted an alliance, but not with Israel. Hence the disappointment. But disappointment is not policy, and that explains the Netanyahu-Modi call.

This new trilateral alliance, though ostensibly a bulwark against Iran, is as much a concern for India – Pakistan’s bitter enemy – as it is for Israel. The combination of Saudi money, Turkish defense manufacturing capabilities, and a nuclear-armed Pakistan is causing just as much alarm in New Delhi as it is in Jerusalem.

The strongest evidence that this deal dominated the Modi-Netanyahu phone call is what happened immediately afterward.

On August 7, Turkish and Pakistani media outlets published reports claiming that India had urgently approached Israel to sign a reciprocal bilateral defense pact to counter the new Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey axis. The rumors grew so intense that India’s Ministry of External Affairs Fact Check unit issued an immediate statement dismissing reports of a new formal pact as “fake news.”

Crucially, however, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal explicitly confirmed that New Delhi is “closely following the development” of the Turkey-Pakistan-Saudi deal.

That is an understatement. India has ample reason to be alarmed by any framework that enhances Pakistan’s military position, especially given Turkey’s history of supplying advanced drones and other military hardware to Islamabad.

For Israel and India, moreover, the concerns are not only military; they are economic as well.

Saudi Arabia sits at the geographic center of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) – the grand, multi-billion-dollar transit network intended to bind India, the Gulf, and Haifa’s port to Europe. Turkey was explicitly excluded from the original IMEC route and has actively promoted a rival transit project.

By drawing Saudi Arabia into a much closer strategic relationship, Ankara potentially gains a new avenue of influence over a country central to the very economic corridor India and Israel have spent years trying to promote.

The Mecca Pact also complicates the already difficult path toward Saudi-Israel normalization.

By binding itself more closely to Ankara and Islamabad – two capitals fiercely hostile to Jerusalem – Riyadh is entering a strategic framework whose other members would strongly oppose any Saudi move toward the Abraham Accords.

That does not give Turkey or Pakistan a formal veto over Saudi policy, but it raises the political and strategic price Riyadh would have to pay for normalization with Israel.

And it makes it even less likely that the Saudis will soften their insistence on movement toward Palestinian statehood as a prerequisite for normalization.

There is an irony here.

Some analysts thought the weakening of Iran would naturally lead to a strengthening of Israel’s ties with the pragmatic Arab states. Instead, Iran’s weakening – and Israel’s demonstration of its own military reach – has apparently led some of those states to now fear Israeli dominance, and this alliance is one way to counter it.

But as The Wall Street Journal noted, when superpowers flail, regional powers make other arrangements. The Turks, Pakistanis, and Saudis are not the only wise men in town. Israel, too, will make other arrangements.

We have seen this script play out before.

When Israel’s once-strategic relationship with Ankara collapsed following the 2003 rise to power of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Jerusalem was forced to readjust. And readjust it did, forging close security and energy ties with Turkey’s historic rivals, Greece and Cyprus, and, to a lesser extent, Bulgaria and Romania.

Those ties with Greece and Cyprus are also likely to get a boost from the Mecca Agreement. Athens and Nicosia are as concerned about an expanded Turkish footprint in the eastern Mediterranean as Jerusalem is.

And India, faced with a new framework that strengthens its archrival Pakistan and gives Turkey – already a close Pakistani ally – a larger regional role, has its own reasons to draw still closer to Israel.

That brings the story back to the seemingly out-of-the-blue Netanyahu-Modi phone call on Thursday.

It may have looked at the time like just another diplomatic conversation between two friendly leaders. In retrospect, it looks more like an early glimpse of the counter-alignments that the Mecca Pact may produce.

This post was originally published on here.

Israel and the United States have dramatically intensified their financial campaign against Hezbollah, targeting the terrorist organization’s banking network, smuggling routes and sources of Iranian funding in an effort to cripple its ability to finance both military operations and its extensive social-services network.

When fighting between Israel and Hezbollah resumed in March, some of Israel’s first targets were not rocket launchers or tunnels but financial institutions. Israeli fighter jets destroyed more than 10 branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, the financial institution that effectively served as Hezbollah’s banking system in Lebanon.

Additional strikes targeted currency-exchange businesses allegedly used by Iran to transfer funds to Hezbollah, as well as gas stations that generated revenue for the terrorist organization.

The campaign has been accompanied by close coordination between Israel, the Trump administration and the Lebanese government aimed at cutting Hezbollah off from its financial lifelines.

According to U.S. State Department estimates, Iran has historically provided Hezbollah with approximately $700 million annually, representing a significant portion of the organization’s budget. Tehran reportedly attempted to increase its support as Hezbollah faced enormous expenses from the ongoing conflict.

The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in late 2024 dealt another major blow to Hezbollah by disrupting key land-based smuggling routes previously used to move weapons and money from Iran into Lebanon.

Iran subsequently sought alternative methods of transferring money, including through Beirut’s international airport. According to The New York Times, U.S. and Israeli officials said Iranian diplomats transported suitcases containing large amounts of cash aboard civilian flights.

Following warnings from Washington and Jerusalem, the Lebanese government took a series of significant steps to restrict the flow of Iranian money. Direct flights from Iran to Beirut were suspended, airport personnel considered close to Hezbollah were removed, and security officers coordinating with the United States were deployed.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also warned Iranian officials that Lebanon would not tolerate interference in its internal affairs.

At the same time, the Trump administration pushed for reforms within Lebanon’s financial system. Lebanon’s central bank governor, Karim Souaid, has moved to remove individuals linked to Hezbollah, increase oversight of money-transfer companies and tighten scrutiny of Lebanon’s cash-based economy, which Hezbollah has allegedly exploited for money laundering.

With access to conventional banking channels increasingly restricted, Hezbollah has reportedly become more dependent on informal hawala networks operating through countries including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Iraq. Increased international scrutiny, however, has made those channels more difficult to use.

The financial pressure is now reportedly affecting Hezbollah’s support base within Lebanon’s Shiite community.

Hezbollah operates an extensive network of hospitals, schools and welfare programs, but the organization is increasingly prioritizing its military budget as available resources decline.

Hezbollah spokesman Youssef al-Zein acknowledged that the organization has completely frozen compensation payments previously promised to hundreds of thousands of displaced residents and families whose homes were destroyed during the fighting. Families had previously been promised payments of between $12,000 and $14,000.

While salaries for Hezbollah operatives and full-time fighters are reportedly still being paid in most cases, supporters have complained that medical assistance and reconstruction commitments have been suspended.

Hezbollah is now attempting to find alternative sources of cash, including establishing companies involved in gold trading and selling gold reserves and foreign-held gold.

The efforts come after Israeli strikes reportedly destroyed a significant portion of Hezbollah’s foreign-currency and gold reserves.

Despite Hezbollah’s history of adapting to financial pressure, the combined Israeli, American and Lebanese measures have reportedly left the terrorist organization facing one of the most severe financial crises in its history.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The IDF is continuing its investigation into the deadly explosion in Majdal Zoun that killed two Israeli reservists, with the military increasingly assessing that the Hezbollah explosive device responsible for the blast was planted before the ceasefire took effect.

The fallen soldiers were Maj. Harel Birenstock, 34, from Nokdim, and Master Sgt. Tamir Vaknin, 33, from Eilat. Both served in the 2855th Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade’s 55th Reserve Brigade.

According to a Ynet report, the IDF believes the explosive was an older Hezbollah device that had been planted before the ceasefire but remained undiscovered.

The military is now conducting an extensive investigation into how the explosive went undetected, particularly because IDF forces had been operating in and around the structure where the blast occurred for several weeks.

Despite the assessment that the device was planted before the ceasefire, the IDF has classified the deadly incident as a serious violation of the agreement. Military officials said that the killing of Israeli soldiers by an explosive device during the ceasefire constitutes a violation regardless of when the bomb was originally planted.

The investigation comes amid continued Hezbollah activity in southern Lebanon.

Over the weekend, it was revealed that Hezbollah recently launched an explosive-laden drone toward IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon. No soldiers were injured and no damage was reported.

The IDF did not initially disclose the drone incident, saying it would not publish information that, based on operational assessments, could endanger Israeli troops operating in combat zones.

The military is also closely monitoring developments in the southern Lebanese village of al-Mansouri, where residents have begun returning despite continued IDF activity in the area.

According to military officials, seven Hezbollah terrorists have been eliminated in the village over the past month. IDF forces continue surveillance and operations aimed at eliminating threats in the area.

Warnings have also been distributed to local residents informing them that the village remains within an active combat zone and that returning to the area could be dangerous.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

YSR.

Growing piles of garbage and persistent foul smell at one of Sunset Park’s main entrances have become a source of frustration for residents, who say the conditions have worsened throughout the summer at one of Brooklyn’s busiest public parks. 

Much of the concern centers on the park entrance near Sixth Avenue and 44th Street, where bags of trash are regularly left in a designated collection area before being removed by city crews. Neighbors say the garbage often sits long enough to produce strong odors, attract pests, and leave behind leaking waste that makes the entrance unpleasant to use. 

Residents said that the problem has become especially noticeable during the summer months, with some saying the smell can be overwhelming on hot days. Several neighbors have also raised concerns that the area has effectively become an unofficial dumping site, as household garbage and other refuse are sometimes left alongside park waste. 

City officials say the collection area is intended to temporarily hold bagged trash from busy park weekends and large gatherings until sanitation crews remove it. They maintain that the garbage is regularly collected, though some nearby residents dispute that claim and say trash often remains for extended periods. 

The ongoing complaints have renewed calls for the city to improve how trash is handled at the park, in order to reduce odors and discourage illegal dumping. Others say the current system is no longer keeping up with the amount of waste generated during the busy summer season. 

While city officials say that enclosed dumpsters are expected to arrive at the end of 2026, neighbors say they hope changes are made before conditions deteriorate further, arguing that one of Brooklyn’s most heavily used parks should remain clean, welcoming, and enjoyable for everyone throughout the summer.

Three of America’s biggest AI companies say their models accidentally broke into real computer systems during security testing — and all three incidents were linked to the same Israeli startup.

OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta were testing whether their AI models could find and exploit software weaknesses inside what was supposed to be a closed simulation. But a configuration mistake connected the testing environment to the real internet.

The models did not know that.

They continued following their instructions and attacked real websites and computer systems because they believed those targets were part of the exercise.

The company running the testing environment was Irregular, a Tel Aviv startup that specializes in stress-testing advanced AI models before they are released.

Anthropic disclosed July 30 that several Claude models gained unauthorized access to systems belonging to three organizations after the testing environment was mistakenly connected to the public internet. In another incident, an Anthropic research model recognized that it had reached a real organization and stopped its own attack.

OpenAI later disclosed a similar incident tied to the same testing setup. Its model was told it was operating without internet access, but the configuration mistake allowed it to reach a real website.

Meta became the third company to disclose an incident on August 6. The company said one of its models gained internet access during an Irregular evaluation and exploited a security weakness at another company.

Irregular said the incidents came from the same evaluation-environment problem and that there are currently no unresolved issues.

The Israeli startup has quickly become an important player in AI security. Founded three years ago, Irregular has raised roughly $80 million from investors including Sequoia and Redpoint Ventures and was valued last year at about $450 million.

The bigger issue goes beyond one startup.

AI companies increasingly rely on outside firms to test whether powerful models can hack systems, discover vulnerabilities or carry out cyberattacks. These incidents show that the testing environment itself can become a security risk.

The models largely did what they were instructed to do. The failure was that they were accidentally given access to real systems while believing they were still inside a simulation.

That creates a major question for businesses adopting powerful AI agents: who is responsible when an AI security test causes real-world damage?

As AI systems become more capable, companies may need to pay as much attention to how those models are tested and contained as they do to the models themselves.

JBizNews Desk | Tel Aviv

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

A newly published UNICEF-coordinated nutrition survey is casting fresh doubt on longstanding claims that Gaza is experiencing a famine, finding that acute malnutrition among children remains at very low levels. Israeli officials say the report directly contradicts accusations that widespread starvation is taking place in the enclave.

The survey, which followed World Health Organization standards and was released on July 22, assessed children’s nutritional health by measuring weight, height, and mid-upper-arm circumference (WHZ). Researchers found acute malnutrition rates ranging from just 0.2 percent in Khan Younis and Rafah to 0.8 percent in Gaza City and northern Gaza—levels they said are similar to, or even lower than, those recorded before the Israel-Hamas war began.

Researchers collected data covering approximately 1.72 million residents, representing about 83 percent of Gaza’s population. Roughly 360,000 people—about 17 percent of the population—were not included because security conditions and access limitations prevented researchers from reaching them.

The findings place Gaza far below the 30 percent acute malnutrition threshold required to meet the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) standard for a Phase 5 famine, indicating that famine conditions are not present.

The report also found that child malnutrition rates in Gaza compare favorably with those of several neighboring countries and even some European nations. According to the survey, approximately 3.3 percent of children under age five in Egypt suffer from malnutrition, while the figure stands at about 4.3 percent in Iran and 2.3 percent in Jordan.

By comparison, the UNICEF 2025 Joint Child Malnutrition Survey reported child malnutrition rates of 0.5 percent in Germany and 1.4 percent in Finland, placing Gaza’s figures in a similar—or even lower—range.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said the report disproves allegations that Israel is intentionally starving Gaza’s civilian population.

“Facts prevail over fiction,” Danon said, arguing that Israel has continued both its military campaign against Hamas and the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza while accusing the terrorist group of exploiting civilians throughout the war.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry likewise pointed to the report as evidence that Gaza’s nutritional conditions fall nowhere near internationally recognized famine thresholds.

“In other words: There is no famine in Gaza. Malnutrition is not only significantly below the critical values—it is exceptionally low in regional comparison. Anyone who is still open to arguments can look at the empirical data themselves,” the ministry said in a statement.

Although the survey found little evidence of widespread acute malnutrition, researchers did identify several longer-term nutritional concerns. About one in eight children was found to suffer from stunted growth, a condition associated with chronic nutritional deficiencies rather than an immediate lack of food. The report also noted that childhood overweight remains present, suggesting that poor nutrition and limited dietary quality—not simply food shortages—continue to pose health challenges.

“Acute malnutrition remains low, but nutritional vulnerability remains high,” the study contends.

The survey found that unhealthy eating habits remain common across Gaza. In Khan Younis and Rafah, as many as 78 percent of children were found to consume unhealthy diets, while approximately 64 percent of children in Gaza City and northern Gaza reportedly do not regularly eat fruits or vegetables. Researchers also found that only about 30 percent of Gaza’s population receives a sufficiently varied diet.

The results are consistent with a July assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which concluded that food security and nutritional conditions in Gaza improved after the October 2025 ceasefire as humanitarian aid increased. While the IPC cautioned that humanitarian needs remain significant, it classified Gaza’s nutrition status at its lowest acute malnutrition phase beginning in mid-April 2026.

The survey also challenges the widely circulated narrative that Gaza is experiencing an ongoing famine. Beginning in late 2023, the United Nations asserted that more than one-quarter of Gaza’s population was facing starvation, claiming hunger levels had exceeded those in conflict zones such as Yemen and Afghanistan. The UN later accused Israel of causing a famine in Gaza in July 2024. In August 2025, Tom Fletcher, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, cited what he described as “irrefutable” evidence of famine and criticized the international community for failing to intervene more aggressively.

Those allegations have faced growing scrutiny. In December 2024, the Biden administration challenged a report issued by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), which claimed that famine conditions were emerging in northern Gaza and estimated that between 65,000 and 75,000 residents lacked adequate access to food.

The newly released UNICEF survey is expected to become a central reference point in the ongoing international debate over humanitarian conditions in Gaza, as governments and aid organizations continue evaluating both the extent of civilian needs and the effectiveness of relief efforts throughout the conflict.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump signaled Sunday that he is prepared, for now, to allow mounting economic pressure on Iran to do more of the work rather than order a new military offensive, telling Axios, “We are low keying it.”

“We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” Trump said during a brief phone call. He said Iran is “in very bad shape” economically and lacks the money to pay its troops, adding that the U.S. naval blockade has worsened the regime’s economic crisis.

Trump also pointed to oil prices, saying that with crude slightly above $75 a barrel, American consumers are feeling less pain from the war. “It will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game,” he said.

The comments come as an agreement negotiated among Iran, Oman and the United States over traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains stalled. Under the proposed arrangement, Iran would receive partial control over traffic in the strait. Qatari and Pakistani mediators had expected an announcement Wednesday, but the prospects for a deal have since faded.

Axios reports that Iranian officials are increasingly divided over how to proceed. One camp, led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, is deeply concerned about a possible economic collapse and favors reaching an agreement with Washington. Another, led by IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi, opposes making concessions.

On Saturday, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, issued additional conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. They included demands that the U.S. never threaten or insult Iran, permanently end the war against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Iraq, lift the naval blockade and withdraw forces from areas surrounding Iran.

Zolghadr also demanded full compensation for war damages, the lifting of all sanctions and the release of frozen Iranian funds. The demands had previously been tied to a broader nuclear agreement but are now being presented as conditions for reopening the strait.

U.S. officials told Axios that Trump had been leaning toward resuming major combat operations against Iran about a week ago before deciding, for now, to de-escalate. One official said that when Iran is not actively fighting, the regime is forced to confront the damage to its infrastructure and the deepening economic crisis.

At the same time, around 8 million barrels of oil are moving out of the Gulf each night through the southern lane of the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the U.S. military, and U.S. officials say they intend to increase that flow while negotiations remain unresolved.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

U.S. carriers are quietly setting limits on where federal immigration officers can operate inside their terminals, as a wave of gate-area detentions turns a policy fight into a commercial problem with measurable costs.

Southwest Airlines, the Dallas-based carrier at the center of the most widely circulated incidents, has told its workforce to demand paperwork before cooperating. The airline said it has given employees guidance to ensure appropriate legal documentation is presented by law enforcement agencies before any interaction in gate areas, while maintaining that it complies with applicable state and federal law. That is a narrow statement, but for an industry that typically declines to comment on law enforcement activity at all, it amounts to a public boundary.

The incidents driving it have been unusually visible. A video showing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining a woman as she tried to board a Southwest flight in Colorado has been viewed more than a million times, prompting travelers to say they would cancel bookings and boycott the carrier. A separate arrest took place on a jet bridge at Denver International Airport on July 20 as a passenger attempted to board. Weeks earlier, on July 14, agents detained Southwest flight attendant Lorenzo Thompson at Nashville International Airport as he returned from a work trip. Homeland Security said Thompson entered the country lawfully in April 2021 with permission to remain six months and stayed past that authorization; supporters say he had an active asylum case. Transport Workers Union Local 556, which represents more than 21,000 Southwest flight attendants, said it is providing legal counsel and monitoring the case.

The airline’s response to questions about the arrests was that federal screening gives the Transportation Security Administration and Homeland Security access to passenger information. That is the part carriers cannot control, and it is the part reshaping the calculus. Passenger information flows from airline booking systems to the screening agency for vetting, and that vetting now includes a hand-off to immigration authorities — with records on more than 31,000 travelers supplied for possible enforcement through February 2026. Officials have disputed the characterization, with a senior screening agency official telling a House Homeland Security hearing that the agency does not transmit passenger information but instead assists in checking against existing records.

The operational footprint has widened considerably. Immigration officers have been deployed to at least 15 airports under a data-sharing arrangement with the screening agency. Attorneys report the arrests are occurring more frequently, part of a broader effort to lift arrest numbers toward an administration target of roughly 2,000 a day, and now extending to travelers with expired visas rather than only those under removal orders. That expansion moves enforcement from a narrow category into one that touches a far larger share of the flying public — and, by extension, ticket sales.

Trade groups have already shown they will fight when the revenue math turns against them. Seventeen industry organizations, including Airlines for America, the U.S. Travel Association and the Cargo Airline Association, urged Homeland Security to avoid actions carrying operational and economic consequences, warning that changes at a small number of gateway airports would ripple across the country and hit travelers, cargo shipments and supply chains. Airlines for America warned separately that drawing down customs staffing could have a devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries. The International Air Transport Association told Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that eliminating customs processing at Newark Liberty would force carriers to reroute international flights and absorb substantial costs reshuffling aircraft, crews and schedules.

Some operators have exited the business entirely. Avelo Airlines ended its Homeland Security charter contract for deportation flights and closed its Mesa Gateway base in Phoenix, saying the program delivered short-term benefits but not enough consistent revenue to justify its operational complexity and cost. Denver’s city council voted 11-1 to reject a contract expansion for Key Lime Air, an operator that flew 83 immigration flights in a single month.

The commercial exposure is what distinguishes this from earlier rounds of the immigration debate. Carriers hand over passenger data because federal rules require it, then absorb the reputational damage when that data produces an arrest at their own gate, on camera, with their logo in the frame. Guidance requiring agents to produce documentation before approaching a boarding line is the one lever airlines hold — and they are now pulling it.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

TALLAHASSEE (VINnews)-No one matched all six numbers in Saturday night’s Powerball drawing, pushing the jackpot to an estimated $905 million for Monday’s drawing.

The winning numbers were 5, 9, 35, 54 and 63, with a Powerball of 7. The Power Play multiplier was 3.

The previous jackpot of $856 million was the largest of the year and the eighth-largest in Powerball history. While no ticket claimed the grand prize, several players won substantial secondary prizes, according to the Powerball website.

One ticket sold in Texas matched all five white balls and included the Power Play option, winning $2 million. Four other tickets matched the five white numbers for $1 million each. Those tickets were sold in Arizona, Florida, Michigan and New York.

The new estimated $905 million jackpot will be available in the next drawing, set for Monday.

The most recent jackpot win occurred May 2, when two players in Florida and Texas split a $20 million prize.

Vice President JD Vance says federal investigators have uncovered a recurring pattern of fraud tied to certain migrant communities, as the Trump administration intensifies its nationwide effort to root out abuse in government benefit programs. According to Vance, investigators have already uncovered an estimated $230 billion in fraud, while suspending $55 billion in payments to individuals and organizations suspected of fraudulent activity.

Speaking in an interview with Fox News Digital from his West Wing office, Vance discussed his role leading President Trump’s anti-fraud task force and said investigators have repeatedly seen fraud spread within specific communities once weaknesses in government programs become known.

“You definitely see patterns where certain communities,” Vance said. “It’ll start as maybe one Somali person takes advantage of the system, or realizes you don’t even have to have children to get money from these programs. You could just claim that you have children, there’s no verification. Then, word spreads like wildfire, and that program gets tapped into by the same members of that community.”

In addition to overseeing negotiations with Iran and carrying out other White House responsibilities, Vance has been directing the administration’s anti-fraud initiative since earlier this year. The effort intensified following major fraud investigations in Minneapolis and is being coordinated with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and several federal agencies.

As part of the crackdown, federal payments have been suspended for hundreds of hospice and home healthcare providers in Minnesota and California that are suspected of fraud, while investigators continue examining similar operations in other states. Vance said the damage extends well beyond financial losses.

“The first and the most obvious victim is the American taxpayer,” Vance said. “You give your money to the federal government, and you expect the federal government, even if you disagree with the policy behind it, you expect that money to go to the people that it’s supposed to go to.”

He argued that fraudulent claims also deprive vulnerable Americans of services they legitimately need.

“When a new mom goes to apply for help for herself and her baby, the money isn’t there anymore,” Vance said.

“Or, you have autistic kids who benefit from services that are meant to go to the families of children with autism, and you have fraudsters who get rich off these programs,” he added. “Sometimes they don’t even have children, much less autistic children enrolled.”

Vance said investigators have identified approximately $230 billion in suspected fraud since President Trump returned to office and have prevented roughly $55 billion in federal payments from being distributed to suspected fraudsters.

The administration’s enforcement efforts continue to produce criminal cases. Last week, federal and state authorities charged 19 individuals accused of participating in schemes involving more than $4 million in fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims, according to the Department of Justice. Separately, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced a plea agreement involving the final defendant in a previously charged 21-person case connected to more than $1.7 million in fraudulent claims.

While criminal prosecutions remain important, Vance acknowledged that recovering stolen taxpayer money is often far more difficult once it has already been paid out.

“Getting money back is very hard,” Vance said. “Once it’s gone out the door, it’s very hard to get it back.”

“What we’ve done most effectively is actually just stop the money from going out the door in the first place, because that’s the only real way to ensure the American people don’t lose it.”

Vance pointed to investigations that gained national attention late last year after independent journalist Nick Shirley published reports alleging widespread fraud involving daycare centers in Minnesota, including the “Quality Learing (sic) Center,” which he reported were largely operated by Somali immigrants.

Those reports prompted a federal response, with then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem deploying DHS and ICE personnel to Minneapolis to locate and deport Somali immigrants who were in the country illegally. The operation led to confrontations between federal agents and local residents and eventually sparked violent riots across the Twin Cities.

President Trump has assigned Vance an unusually broad portfolio for a vice president, including multiple diplomatic missions involving Iran and leadership of the White House anti-fraud initiative after appointing him the administration’s “Fraud Czar” in May.

Despite those responsibilities, Vance recently welcomed his fourth child with Second Lady Usha Vance, becoming the first sitting vice president in more than 150 years to have a child while in office.

“Kids have a way of forcing you to focus on them, even when things are crazy at work,” Vance said. “[I was] with my six-year-old this morning, who was making like zoo animal noises, and I was like, ‘Buddy, what are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I just want you to get off the stupid phone.’ And I said, ‘Alright, this can wait.'”

Vance said fatherhood helps keep him grounded despite the demands of public office.

“Kids are so, they’re so in their own little world that they sort of force you to go into their world, and that’s a very, very good thing,” he said. “It’s good for my psychology. I think it’s good for my soul, but it’s a very good thing. The job obviously has its demands and the schedule can get kind of crazy.”

Although Vance has consistently declined to discuss a potential 2028 presidential campaign, speculation continues over whether he could eventually succeed President Trump. Trump recently said it is “way too early” to endorse a successor, but according to a source familiar with the remarks, he told donors during an Oval Office meeting last month: “At the end of the day, we need to elect JD.”

{Matzav.com}

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fallen to his lowest suitability rating for prime minister in recent months, with 31% of respondents backing him while 56% prefer a candidate other than Netanyahu, according to a Channel 12 poll.

The figure represents a six-point drop for Netanyahu in less than a month, from 37% in the previous poll. The gap between Netanyahu and respondents who prefer a candidate other than him now stands at 25 percentage points.

Asked what should happen if neither bloc secures 61 seats without the Arab parties, 23% favored a change government supported through abstention by the Arab parties, 22% preferred a unity government with Likud led by Netanyahu, 21% supported a unity government with Likud without Netanyahu, and another 21% preferred new elections.

On whether the ethnic background of a party leader affects voting intentions, 79% said it has little or no influence, while 13% said it has a significant influence. Among Netanyahu supporters, 80% said ethnic background has no influence. By contrast, 64% said whether a party is perceived as right-wing or left-wing has a significant impact on their vote, while 31% said it has little influence.

The poll also examined whether the change bloc could rely on Yoav Segalovich as a “61st vote” in forming a government, amid his expected move toward Mansour Abbas. Among the general public, 44% said the bloc could not rely on him and 28% said it could. Among change-bloc voters, 45% supported relying on Segalovich, while 27% opposed it.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The Israeli government is set to approve an additional NIS 2.6 billion, approximately $700 million, for urgent Defense Ministry procurement amid intensified fighting and emerging operational needs.

According to the government decision, the funding will be used to purchase military equipment and weaponry urgently required by Israel’s defense establishment. Details of the specific equipment being acquired remain classified for security reasons.

The proposal has already been approved by the Ministerial Committee on Procurement and is being brought before the full government for approval on Sunday.

Security officials said the additional funding is intended to address immediate armament requirements that have emerged as Israeli forces continue operating across multiple fronts.

Under the current funding plan, NIS 1.5 billion will be redirected from money allocated for government interest and commission payments.

Another NIS 1.1 billion will be taken from the operating budgets and financial commitments of government ministries.

However, the government decision provides a mechanism that could reverse the cuts to individual ministries if the 2026 state budget receives final approval from the Knesset.

In that case, the NIS 1.1 billion would instead come from a dedicated budget allocation established under previous government decisions, allowing the ministries to recover the funding currently slated to be cut.

The emergency allocation comes as Israel continues seeking to replenish and expand military stockpiles following sustained combat operations and increased demands on the IDF’s weapons and defense systems.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Emergency medical teams from United Hatzalah and Magen David Adom (MDA) rushed to Tzemach Tzadik Street in Lod on Tuesday following reports of a child found unconscious inside a vehicle. The five-year-old boy, who was named as Betzalel David Giller was later declared dead in the hospital.

According to first responders, had apparently been forgotten inside the car for an extended period.

United Hatzalah paramedic Netanel Eitan, together with EMTs Aryeh Mendelzon and Itzik Mishkovsky, said: “We were told at the scene that the child had been left in the vehicle for a prolonged period. We provided initial medical treatment before he was evacuated to the hospital in critical condition.”

MDA crews also administered advanced life support and performed prolonged resuscitation efforts after finding the child unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, and suffering from severe signs of heatstroke.

MDA senior EMT Chaim Shavit and EMT Yosef Yitzhak Sagiv said: “We received a report of a child found unconscious inside a vehicle. When we arrived, a 5-year-old boy was brought to us unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, and showing severe signs of heatstroke. We immediately began advanced resuscitation efforts, including chest compressions and assisted ventilation, and evacuated him by intensive care ambulance to the hospital in critical condition while fighting to save his life.”

Hatzalah EMT Mordechai Stein added: “When I arrived at the scene with my MDA ambulance, I found a 5-year-old boy unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, after being forgotten inside a vehicle. Together with EMTs and paramedics from Hatzalah and MDA, we carried out advanced resuscitation efforts before transporting him, while continuing CPR, to the trauma room at Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh) in Tzrifin.”

United Hatzalah once again urged the public to follow strict safety precautions and never leave children unattended in vehicles, even for a moment. The organization also called on members of the public to remain vigilant during the hot summer months and check parked vehicles for children who may have been accidentally left behind.