To have YOUR Rebbe’s pictures published, email them to [email protected].

A severe heatwave is forcing France to cut nuclear power output, with six reactors expected to be fully offline Friday and heat-related curtailments reaching about 9.4 gigawatts, roughly 15% of the country’s nuclear generating capacity.

The reductions are being driven by unusually high river temperatures, which limit how much cooling water nuclear plants can safely use and return without violating environmental restrictions.

That is creating an unusual energy-market problem.

The same extreme heat that pushes electricity demand higher for air conditioning is also reducing the amount of power available from France’s nuclear fleet, which normally provides the backbone of the country’s electricity system.

French day-ahead electricity prices have already climbed to their highest summer level since June as traders price in tighter supply.

The impact matters well beyond France.

France is typically one of Europe’s largest electricity exporters, supplying neighboring markets when its nuclear fleet is operating normally. When French output drops sharply, those countries may have to rely more heavily on gas-fired generation, imports from elsewhere or higher-priced wholesale power.

The result can be higher electricity costs across a much wider part of Europe.

Nuclear plants are particularly exposed to prolonged heat because many rely on rivers for cooling. When river temperatures rise too far, operators may have to reduce generation even if the reactors themselves remain fully functional.

That means the constraint is not a shortage of uranium or a mechanical breakdown.

It is the temperature of the water outside the plant.

For businesses, the episode highlights another vulnerability in Europe’s power system: extreme weather can reduce energy supply at the same time it increases demand.

Manufacturers, data centers, retailers and other large electricity users can all feel the impact through higher wholesale prices and increased grid stress.

The issue is especially significant for France because nuclear power supplies the majority of its electricity and has historically given the country an advantage in producing large amounts of relatively low-carbon power.

But hotter summers are making cooling-water restrictions more important.

Utilities can sometimes shift generation between plants or adjust output around the hottest parts of the day, but sustained high temperatures leave fewer options when multiple rivers and nuclear sites are affected simultaneously.

The immediate concern is Friday’s expected reduction.

The longer-term business question is whether European utilities will need to spend more on cooling systems, grid flexibility and backup generation if extreme heat increasingly disrupts plants that were designed around cooler historical conditions.

For now, one of Europe’s most dependable sources of electricity is being constrained by the weather precisely when consumers need power the most.

JBizNews Desk | Paris

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

Wildfires in England and Wales have hit a record level, fire chiefs said on Friday, warning that rescue services were battling to keep up with rising risks a day after fires raced from tinder-dry fields to engulf houses on the hottest day of the year.

Britain has not faced anything like the devastation wrought across Spain, France and elsewhere in Europe this year, but as it endures its fifth heatwave of what is expected to be its hottest ever summer, it is dealing with more outbreaks of fire than ever before.

Phil Garrigan, chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, told Reuters the number of wildfires had now exceeded last year’s total of 1,017.

“We’ve well surpassed the figures from the previous high of 2025,” Garrigan said, without detailing this year’s latest figure.

“We’re only in the middle of August, and the wildfire season seems to extend way into November at this moment in time. So, we’re anticipating this being not just a record-breaking year, but a considerable increase on the number of wildfires previously experienced.”

Britain a ‘tinderbox,’ PM says as trees ‘explode’

Prime Minister Andy Burnham urged the public to take extra care during a visit to the town of Stourbridge in central England, one of several locations where on Thursday homes were destroyed and hundreds of people were evacuated.

“Britain is a tinderbox right now,” he warned. “This is not over by any means. We’ve got 37 fires smoldering around the country.”

One Stourbridge resident described the moment he and his family decided to abandon their home.

“I heard a scream, and all the trees along the railway track were exploding. They weren’t just setting fire, they were exploding. So we just grabbed everything and left,” Paul Nash, whose garden was damaged, told Reuters.

Britain is on track for its hottest summer on record, having recorded five heatwaves that have left around 45 million people ⁠living in a drought-hit area and 27 million people ​facing restrictions on water use, according ​to government ⁠figures.

Temperatures reached 38.1 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) in London on Thursday, making it the fifth hottest day on record for the United Kingdom, according to the Met Office. The market town of Pershore in central England hit 38 C and was another area where flames tore through homes and fields.

A major motorway was forced to close temporarily and train timetables were also disrupted on Thursday. Officials have yet to say if a train derailment in southern England was connected to the heat.

“We’ve declared 11 major incidents over the course of the last 24 hours,” Garrigan said.

“The demands and the requests for support have probably outstripped the capability of the UK fire and rescue service … so we’ve struggled to give fire and rescue services exactly what they want.”

Burnham said fire services were working alongside the military in some areas and that he would hold a summit with emergency services to make sure they had the resources they needed.

This post was originally published on here.

White House border czar Tom Homan on Thursday defended plans to equip Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers with gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks, saying the devices could provide agents with another non-lethal option before resorting to deadly force.

“It’s another device to help someone get compliant when they are not,” Homan said during an appearance Thursday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”

“You can’t just go from 0 to 100, right, and the first thing you go for is lethal force,” he added.

Homan’s comments came after the Department of Homeland Security published a notice Monday outlining plans to spend as much as $20 million to purchase the devices for ICE personnel conducting immigration enforcement operations. The devices are formally known as Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters, or G.L.O.V.E.s.

Manufactured by Compliant Technologies, the gloves can administer an electrical charge of up to 380 volts when they make direct contact with exposed skin. Unlike conventional tasers, however, the gloves are not intended to incapacitate an individual, and the electrical charge cannot pass through clothing.

Similar devices have previously been deployed by some law enforcement agencies and correctional facilities. According to a report by Oklahoma News 4 about their use at a local jail, the gloves do not deliver the same voltage as a conventional taser.

Justin Hall, a Kentucky jailer, told the Associated Press on Thursday that his agency began using the gloves four years ago as another means of dealing with inmates who were particularly difficult to control.

Hall said he was personally shocked more than 10 times while officers were being trained to use the equipment. He described the sensation as intensely painful but said the pain stopped once the person wearing the glove was no longer touching him.

According to Hall, his facility has rarely needed to actually use the gloves on inmates. Their presence, he said, can itself serve as an effective deterrent when other efforts to de-escalate a confrontation fail.

“It’s just a safer way. It’s safer on the inmate. It’s safer on the staff. And most of the time, most of the time we get compliance,” he told the AP. “It’s been a great tool for our facility.”

Homan’s remarks represented the Trump administration’s first public defense of the planned ICE use of the devices. He compared the gloves to other non-lethal tools already available to law enforcement officers, including tasers and pepper spray.

The border czar cautioned, however, that ICE agents will not begin carrying the gloves immediately. He said it would “be awhile” before the equipment is deployed because the agency is still developing the training procedures and protocols that will govern its use.

According to a DHS contracting notice, the electric-shock gloves could begin being distributed to ICE personnel as early as March 2027.

{Matzav.com}

A patch of the Pacific Ocean is warming up, and by next year it will show up in what Americans pay for chocolate, coffee, rice and cooking oil. Federal forecasters said Thursday that El Niño now has better than a 90% chance of becoming a very strong event through the fall and winter of 2026-27, with a 69% chance by autumn of the strongest one recorded since 1950.

The mechanism is simple. Trade winds along the equator normally push warm surface water west toward Asia. When those winds slacken, the warm water slides back east toward South America, and because rain forms over warm water, the world’s storm tracks move with it. For the United States, that means the winter jet stream drops south.

Here is where it lands at home. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, the Gulf Coast states and Florida typically run wetter and stormier from December through March in a strong El Niño — more rain, more flooding risk, more mudslides in Southern California, and a heavier commercial insurance loss year along the Gulf. The northern tier is the opposite: Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, upstate New York and New England usually run warmer and drier, which cuts natural gas and heating oil demand and lowers winter utility bills. Washington State and Oregon tend toward a dry winter and a thin mountain snowpack, which matters the following summer for irrigation and hydroelectric output.

One piece of it works in America’s favor. Strong El Niño winters shear apart Atlantic hurricanes, which lowers storm risk for the Gulf and East Coast and takes pressure off property insurers, while pushing storm activity toward Hawaii and Mexico’s Pacific side.

Domestic agriculture comes out mixed. A wet southern winter refills California reservoirs and helps almond, citrus and vegetable growers in the Central Valley, and gives the Southern Plains winter wheat crop in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas moisture it usually lacks. The Corn Belt sees comparatively weak effects. The American grocery problem is not what the country grows. It is what the country imports.

That is where the trouble sits, and it sits in four aisles. Cocoa, meaning nearly all American chocolate, comes overwhelmingly from Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, which turn hot and dry in an El Niño. Palm oil, which appears in a large share of packaged baked goods, snacks and shelf products, comes from Malaysia and Indonesia, which dry out on a three-to-nine-month delay. Rice, sugar and robusta coffee — the base of most instant coffee — come out of the same drought-exposed belt. Arabica coffee, grown in Brazil and Colombia, is the exception and can actually improve, since South American growing conditions often get better. The drip coffee may hold. The candy bar will not.

Markets have already started pricing it. New York cocoa futures pushed past $5,000 a tonne in late June, the highest since January, up roughly 19% that month. Societe Generale data showed agricultural commodity prices up 7% in a month in mid-2026, with cocoa, coffee and wheat rising 8% in a single week.

American shoppers feel it on a delay, which is the part worth planning around. Traders move on the forecast; supermarkets move on the harvest. Retail food prices have historically absorbed the full effect six to twelve months after the event peaks — so a fall peak puts it on the shelf across 2027, long after the weather story has gone quiet.

The trillion-dollar figures come from research that changed how economists think about this. The 1982-83 El Niño is estimated at $4.1 trillion in lost global income and the 1997-98 event at about $5.7 trillion, and Dartmouth’s Justin Mankin has said current forecasts imply this could be the costliest on record. The same research found the drag can persist as long as 14 years — economies do not simply take the hit and recover. Mankin, who directs Dartmouth’s Climate Modeling and Impacts Group, laid that out on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast on Friday.

The American concern is therefore twofold and neither half is abstract. Food inflation returns through imported ingredients roughly a year from now, at a moment when household budgets are already carrying record gasoline and diesel prices. And the southern half of the country faces a wet, storm-heavy winter with flood exposure in states that have spent the year in drought.

The lead time is the advantage. Unlike a hurricane, this is visible months ahead, which is why food manufacturers and restaurant chains are hedging cocoa, sugar and palm oil now rather than at the peak, why utilities in the northern states are adjusting winter demand forecasts, and why emergency managers from Los Angeles County to the Florida panhandle have the runway to prepare drainage and floodplain response before the storm track arrives. Fitch’s analysis found the worst damage falls on poorer agricultural economies, but warned that sustained shortages could lift food prices enough to affect inflation even in wealthy countries.

Impacts vary considerably by location and season and none are guaranteed, and NOAA’s own forecast lead said she sees nothing unusual about how this one is developing or how long it should last. The odds are heavily tilted. They are still odds.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

A Brick man was arrested after police say he intentionally cut down a Flock camera at a local gas station.

On Thursday, Brick Police detectives arrested Matthew Wardell, 32, of Brick, and charged him with fourth-degree criminal mischief.

The investigation stems from July 8, when officers responded to the Exxon at 181 Drum Point Road after a Flock Safety camera was intentionally cut down.

Flock cameras have been gaining increased attention nationwide, with law enforcement agencies using the technology as an investigative tool while communities continue to debate their use.

Brick Police said Flock cameras are automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras designed to assist officers in identifying vehicles associated with criminal activity.

According to police, the cameras can help identify vehicles connected to reported crimes, locate stolen vehicles, investigate burglaries and thefts, provide investigators with leads when a vehicle is captured traveling through a camera location, establish timelines and patterns, and assist with investigations that cross jurisdictional boundaries.

Police emphasized that Flock cameras do not issue tickets, conduct traffic stops, or determine that someone committed a crime. Information obtained from the system is used as an investigative lead and evaluated by officers along with other evidence.

The department also reminded residents that intentionally damaging or destroying police equipment is a criminal offense.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter sharply criticized the escalating political rhetoric surrounding the drafting of Chareidim into the IDF, accusing politicians of exploiting the deeply contentious issue for political gain while failing to produce meaningful results.

Winter directed his criticism particularly at the debate taking place among parties opposed to the current government, arguing that politicians are competing to make increasingly sweeping promises about how many Chareidim they would bring into the military.

“Almost all the politicians have been arguing in recent days. One says he will draft all the Chareidim, one says he will draft 99% of the Chareidim, one says 70%, and on the other side they say that not a single Chareidi will enlist,” Winter said in a video he released.

Winter then challenged politicians and senior figures who have dealt with the Chareidi draft issue over the past two decades to explain what they have actually accomplished.

“All those who were in politics over the past 20 years and those who were politicians in uniform over the past decade – how many Chareidim did you bring into the IDF during all the years that you are arguing over who will bring in more? What did you do, other than trying to gain political capital on the back of the people of Israel and bringing zero results and zero solutions?”

Winter argued that successfully bringing Chareidim into the military cannot be accomplished through political slogans or public confrontations. Instead, he said, any meaningful progress will require sustained effort and the development of trust with the Chareidi community itself.

“Drafting Chareidim and integrating them into the IDF will not be accomplished through populism, but through hard work and building trust. Through working with the Chareidi public itself.”

Winter concluded his message with a blunt demand that politicians stop using the issue as a vehicle for political posturing.

“So come on, enough with all this false populism,” Winter said.

{Matzav.com}

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the White House to continue construction on its $400 million ballroom project while it appeals a lower court’s order to halt the work.

Trump’s solicitor general petitioned the high court to suspend last week’s decision by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The divided panel ruled last week Trump must stop the White House ballroom’s construction because Congress has not approved the project. The panel’s majority said Trump doesn’t have the unilateral authority to build a 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom where the White House’s East Wing stood before he ordered its demolition last fall.

The lower court suspended its own ruling for two weeks to give Trump’s Republican administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to rule on its stay petition before the appeals court panel’s decision takes effect on Aug. 21.

“This case involves an extraordinary and unlawful injunction that will halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security,” Sauer wrote.

The lower court’s 2-1 decision upheld an order to pause aboveground construction on the project, siding with historic preservationists who sued to stop construction of the ballroom.

“Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,” wrote the majority’s two judges, both appointed by Democratic presidents.

A third judge disagreed, finding that the preservationist group that challenged the project had no legal right to sue.

“The district court elevated the aesthetic displeasure of a single passerby over the government’s security interests in the ballroom,” wrote Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by Trump.

The Trump administration argues that the president, not Congress or the courts, has unimpeded authority to renovate the White House. The current state of the project, essentially an open construction site, makes it harder to protect the White House, the Justice Department contends.

The administration also says the National Trust for Historic Preservation does not have the legal right, or standing, to sue over the ballroom, which is part of Trump’s plans to quickly remake Washington. The solicitor general said the ballroom project “should be a matter for the President and the political process, not construction-by-injunction.”

During an appeals court hearing in early June, an administration lawyer defended a broad view of presidential control over iconic public facilities. The government could bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and the White House, Justice Department lawyer Yaakov Roth said in response to a hypothetical question, and the descendants of immigrants who came through Ellis Island and the enslaved people who built the White House would not have standing to sue.

The D.C. Circuit panel upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush. Leon concluded that a pause wouldn’t jeopardize national security. He also exempted any construction work that is necessary for the safety and security of the White House.

The ballroom has been under construction for 10 months. The administration says the work is roughly 65% finished.

“Given those developments, the injunction promises chaos in service of nothing,” Sauer wrote.

The following is an ‘Ask The Mayor’ question submitted to TLS, and the Mayor’s response. Email your questions for the Mayor to [email protected].

Question:

Dear Sir:
Thank you for making yourself available to the people of Lakewood. Its unusual and very much appreciated.
I live on South Lake drive and have several requests.

1. Since the entrance to central avenue has a concrete island it is difficult to turn from central avenue and there should be no parking for at least 6 ca lengths on each side. (the cars parked there are mostly non-residents and are stored there by the repair shop).

2. This has become a high speed runway (shortcut)and should be marked with 25 mph lit up signs like Carronettta and a stop sign at south lake drive and freemen since children live and play on this street.

3. The street lights on the lake do not work and I have called countless times. It would also be nice if the rest of the path had some lishts.

Finally, the wood enclosures around the pond are rotting and it is dangerous because the children play there and are not protected from falling in.
Thanking you in advance for looking into this matter.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me at

Response from Mayor Coles:

Good afternoon

This area falls under the jurisdiction of the state, county & township. I forwarded your letter to our engineer and asked them to reach out to the appropriate agencies to review these issues

Thanks

Ray

Question:

Dear honorable Mayor Coles

I read today’s ask the mayor please I’m begging and begging and begging and begging find a way to alert Waze of street closures. The message made because nobody knows to avoid an area because of closed streets is incredible. Please please please find a way to do that. Thank you so much

Marvin

Response from Mayor Coles:

Good morning

I asked Sgt. Work to look into this. He received this reply

Hi Lakewood Police,

Thanks for applying to become a Waze partner. Our team will review your application and get in touch with you within the next 2-3 business days.

As he said to me. At least it progress!

—————–

Have a question for the Mayor? Send it to [email protected]

Have a question for the Chief? Send it to [email protected]

Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on Friday to federal stalking charges in the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Mangione, 28, entered the plea at a hastily scheduled hearing in Manhattan federal court, resolving one of two cases against him in connection with Thompson’s death. With this guilty plea, his lawyers could seek to have the state case thrown out on double jeopardy grounds.

Mangione was charged by both federal and state prosecutors with ambushing Thompson, 50, outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4, 2024, as the insurance executive walked to his company’s annual investor conference.

Surveillance video of the killing showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims. That detail — and revelations that Mangione’s private writings lambasted health insurers as greedy, according to authorities — made the case a fulcrum for debate about the industry and made Mangione a cause célèbre for some of its critics.

Mangione never was a UnitedHealthcare customer, according to police and the company. A University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, he was arrested five days after the shooting, when he was spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It’s about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

Thompson led one of the United States’ largest health insurers, but he wasn’t well known outside the industry. Trained as an accountant, he had worked at parent company UnitedHealth Group Inc. for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, in 2021.

A trial on state murder charges is scheduled to start next month. It is unclear whether that trial would go forward if Mangione pleaded guilty in the federal case.

The federal charges accuse Mangione of stalking Thompson to cause his death. Both the federal and state cases could lead to a life prison sentence. A federal judge earlier this year tossed out additional charges that could have exposed Mangione to a potential death penalty.

Mangione had complained about the prospect of two trials, telling a judge in February: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

Under New York law, a state prosecution could potentially be barred if the federal case is resolved first.

The state’s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. Mangione’s cases involve different charges arising from the same course of conduct.

In a letter last month, state prosecutors objected to the possibility of a guilty plea in the federal case wiping out the state case.

U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett has delivered some setbacks to the defense, including ruling in January that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione’s backpack during his arrest as evidence against him.

They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to kill an insurance executive.

In June, Mangione’s lawyers said they would pursue a psychiatric defense in the state case but reversed course a day later. The defense, involving claims that he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing, isn’t allowed in federal court.

(AP)

Nearly a year after an Iranian missile slammed into a residential building in Bnei Brak during Operation Rising Lion, plans are moving forward to demolish the heavily damaged structure and replace it with a new residential development containing 84 apartments.

The building, located at 68 Hamaccabim Street, is a four-story structure containing 24 residential units. It will be demolished and replaced as part of a Tama 38/2 urban renewal project.

The project, initiated by Urbanitop, led by Rav Pinchas Zaltzman, calls for the construction of three residential buildings containing a total of 84 new apartments, along with approximately 422 square meters of commercial space.

The original building was struck by an Iranian missile on June 16, 2025, several days after the launch of Operation Rising Lion. The impact caused extensive damage, leaving the structure completely uninhabitable.

Despite the unusual circumstances surrounding the project, the necessary building permit was secured less than a year after the missile strike.

Following the attack, Urbanitop assisted residents who had suddenly lost their homes. The company worked with families according to their individual circumstances, helping some locate temporary housing and assisting others with financial arrangements necessitated by their displacement.

Urbanitop specializes in urban renewal and complex redevelopment projects, including evacuation-and-reconstruction developments and Tama 38 projects. The company is particularly active within the Chareidi community and is advancing several residential projects in Bnei Brak. The new development on Hamaccabim Street is being designed as housing for the city’s Chareidi population.

The real estate financing company Barakate has been involved with the project since the difficult period immediately following the missile strike. Together with an insurance company, Barakate signed an agreement to provide financing and guarantees totaling approximately NIS 247 million for the development.

Attorney Carmel Nodler of the Keren Belcharsky law firm is representing Barakate and the insurance company in the transaction.

Adi Gazit, CEO of Barakate, said the missile strike required the parties involved to react quickly and restructure the financing arrangement around circumstances that could not have been anticipated.

“The damage to the project required a rapid response and an adjustment of the financing structure to the new reality and to the developer’s timetable. Within a short period of time, we formulated a framework that allowed the project to move forward toward receiving a permit and beginning construction. From Barakate’s perspective, which serves as a home for developers throughout the country, this is a significant transaction in Bnei Brak and in the haredi sector, demonstrating the importance of flexibility, creativity and the ability to respond quickly even in exceptional circumstances,” Gazit said.

Rav Pinchas Zaltzman, CEO and owner of Urbanitop, credited Bnei Brak Mayor Chanoch Zeibert and Deputy Mayor and Planning and Building Committee Chairman Menachem Shapiro with helping move the complicated approval process forward rapidly.

“I would like to thank Bnei Brak Mayor Chanoch Zeibert and his deputy, Planning and Building Committee Chairman Menachem Shapiro, for the speed and efficiency with which all the processes were advanced. Special thanks also go to the Reisman Deutsch law offices and all the parties who took part in the project. When necessary, everyone stepped up and went above and beyond to enable the project to move forward and achieve a significant result in record time. About a year after the Iranian missile strike, we are moving forward with a new building with 84 apartments for the families of the city and the community,” Zaltzman said.

Barakate is a publicly traded real estate financing company controlled by chairman Roni Biram, Gil Deutsch and Gazit. The company specializes in financing real estate projects and transactions, structuring customized financing packages based on the requirements and characteristics of individual developments.

Company officials say its approach combines financial experience with an understanding of the needs of developers, allowing it to provide financing and flexibility for complex projects.

The Bnei Brak development will now transform the site of a devastating Iranian missile strike into a significantly larger residential complex, increasing the number of apartments on the property from 24 to 84.

NEW YORK (AP) — As traumatic injuries and deaths surge among children involved in crashes on e-bikes and other electrified vehicles, one California prosecutor is cracking down by pursuing criminal charges against some of the young riders’ parents.

It is just one way officials across the country are trying to tackle the growing issue, while families navigate a patchwork of local laws and guidance on what kind of souped-up cycles and scooters are safe or even legal for their kids to ride.

New York City’s mayor recently sent cease-and-desist notices to dozens of online retailers for selling products marketed as “e-bikes” that aren’t street legal after a 17-year-old died in a crash on an illicit vehicle. In neighboring New Jersey, new regulations require e-bike riders to be at least 15 and obtain a license and vehicle registration.

But do the measures hit the mark? Cycling advocates worry regulations might be too broad — demonizing low-powered e-bikes instead of speedier motos — while some parents question whether localized, piecemeal strategies are enough.

Monica Stafford, a San Francisco-area mother whose teen daughter fractured her skull falling off an e-bike, said officials are “missing the mark” if they’re seeking to lay the blame solely on parents. The San Rafael resident said a unified, national set of rules is needed.

“We’re in a total Wild West of laws,” Stafford said. “Being for common sense laws doesn’t mean that you’re against e-bikes, just like you can be for cars but not think that it’s safe to put keys in the hands of a 10-year-old.”

E-bike injuries disproportionately impact children, experts say
The two-wheeled machines have become nearly ubiquitous in recent years, from packs of teens zipping around California beach towns to the army of delivery drivers dodging traffic on the congested streets of Manhattan.

Hospital visits for injuries from e-bike, e-scooter and other motorized rides have, as expected, soared as they have grown in popularity, study after study has shown. But researchers stress that the more concerning trends are the severity of the injuries and the fact that they’re especially pronounced among children.

“The big takeaway is that people are generally more severely injured than they would be if they were on a traditional, pedal bicycle,” said Dr. John Austin, a doctor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine who led a recently published statewide study. “Overall, these patients tend to be younger, they tend to be unhelmeted and, in turn, be more severely injured.”

Recent youth deaths prompt officials to take action
Most e-bikes are classified as nonmotorized vehicles akin to traditional bicycles under federal law, meaning riders don’t need a license, insurance or to even wear a helmet. Most states, though, have enacted additional requirements for higher powered machines, including minimum age and helmet requirements.

In New York City, the death of 17-year-old just steps from City Hall has spurred renewed debate about the bikes. Gabriel Nacato had been riding a vehicle advertised as an “e-bike” but wasn’t legal on city streets.

Earlier this month, Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned more than 40 online retailers, including Amazon, Walmart and Target, that they could face fines of up to $2,000 for each sale of an e-bike that exceeds city regulations.

New York state requires riders of all forms of e-bikes to be at least 16, and New York City imposes additional restrictions, including a 15 mph (24 kph) speed limit. California, in contrast, has no statewide minimum age for lower-powered bikes, though riders must be at least 16 to use e-bikes that can go up to 28 mph (45 kph).

New Jersey and Illinois are among the states that have enacted statewide regulations recently, and Massachusetts is weighing measures. Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in June vetoed a 10 mph (16 kph) speed limit and other e-bike regulations, saying the measures would lead to “enhanced surveillance” of citizens.

Other jurisdictions seek to hold parents accountable
In Southern California, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer says his office has more than two dozen open investigations against parents after launching a new unit focused on e-bike and e-motorcycles cases involving children.

The office has already brought charges against four, including the mother of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing an elderly pedestrian while riding an e-motorcycle.

That mother’s attorney declined to comment, but Mitchell Krems, the lawyer for another parent, dismissed the charges against his client as “absurd,” suggesting his client was being made a “scapegoat.”

Richard Eyssallenne pleaded not guilty to child endangerment charges after prosecutors say he bought his 12-year-old son an e-motorcycle and helped him illegally modify it to make it go faster. The boy ran through a red light and was injured by a car.

Other jurisdictions have also taken steps to hold parents liable. In Ohio, a Columbus suburb recently issued new e-bike rules making it clear that parents who knowingly allow their children to break the rules are subject to the same penalties as the rider.

Cycling advocates blame electronic motorcycles
PeopleForBikes, a national bicycle advocacy group that tracks state e-bike regulations, stressed that many of the problematic vehicles are actually electronic motorcycles with heavy frames, sturdy tires and sizable motors that are falsely marketed as e-bikes.

Lower-powered and pedal-assisted e-bikes have been used safely for decades on U.S. streets and are key to reducing society’s reliance on cars, advocates argue.

“Many of the dangerous behaviors people cite — running red lights, riding on sidewalks, not wearing helmets — are already illegal,” added Chloé Lauer, executive director of the San Diego County Bike Coalition. “We’d rather see those laws enforced than add new restrictions that limit mobility for kids who are riding responsibly.”

Anya Dalal, a San Francisco-area high school senior who has been advocating for better safety measures, believes the problem requires multiple solutions, including setting age limits.

“It should be a mix of parental accountability, accountability from the manufacturers and retailers and also education for kids to understand e-bike laws and road rules,” said the 17-year-old Hillsborough resident.

Sharon Franke, a San Diego-area mother, agreed, though she said the first step starts at home, with parents doing their research, accompanying their children on rides and reinforcing safety once they set off on their own.

“We want them to have fun, but we also want them to come back safe and we don’t want them to hurt anybody,” she said as her 15- and 12-year-old sons prepared to attend a safety training last weekend. “How do you balance all of it? It’s just overwhelming right now.”

Ukrainian drones struck one of Russia’s biggest fuel-processing plants overnight into Friday, and the damage lands on a global market that already has no spare fuel to give. Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces hit the NOVATEK-Ust-Luga complex at Slobodka in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, reporting a fire at the site and, on preliminary information, two processing units struck.

What that plant does is simple enough. Gas condensate — a light liquid that comes out of the ground alongside natural gas — arrives by pipeline from Siberia. The complex splits it into naphtha, jet fuel, gasoil and heavy fuel oil, then loads the finished product onto ships bound for foreign buyers. Its capacity runs to nearly 8 million metric tons of raw material a year, split across three processing units of roughly 3 million tons each. Knock out two of the three and roughly two-thirds of the plant’s output stops moving.

Russian officials described a night of heavy drone activity without confirming which building burned. Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko said air defenses downed 51 drones over the region and that damage was recorded at the port, with firefighters responding; by morning he put the regional tally at 54. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 10 more were downed approaching the capital, with no casualties reported in either place.

This was not a one-off. It marks the sixth strike on Ust-Luga since March, following the first major hit on the NOVATEK complex overnight on 24–25 March and repeat waves on 27, 29 and 31 March, plus a July raid that reached the wider St. Petersburg port area. It also came two days after Ukrainian drones hit the Sheskharis terminal at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea.

The reason a fire in northwest Russia shows up on an American receipt is arithmetic. Ust-Luga is Russia’s largest Baltic port and handled 47.4% of the Baltic basin’s cargo turnover as of January 2026, and together with Primorsk it normally moves about 40% of Russia’s seaborne oil exports. Call it two barrels in every five that Russia ships by sea.

Russia has spent this year losing the ability to turn its own crude into usable fuel. Ukrainian strikes have driven Russian crude processing to its lowest level since 2005, forcing Moscow to halt exports of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel and to start importing fuel to cover its own drivers. The barrels Russia used to sell as finished diesel now have to come from somewhere else, and that somewhere else is already stretched thin by the Iran conflict and the Hormuz bottleneck.

The strain is visible in the data. Global refinery crude runs stood at 80.9 million barrels a day in July, nearly 5 million below a year earlier, and the International Energy Agency reported that tighter light and middle distillate markets pushed Atlantic Basin refining margins to record highs. The agency now projects a 1.8 million barrel-a-day oil deficit for the current quarter. Crude itself has been the calmer part of the story: Brent traded near $87 a barrel on Friday and West Texas Intermediate near $81. The squeeze is in the refined fuel, not the raw material.

American households are already paying for it. Gasoline averaged $4 a gallon and diesel $5.40 in the second week of August, both record seasonal highs, against $3.20 and $3.70 respectively a year ago. Gasoline is up roughly one dollar in four from last summer. Diesel is up close to half again — the fuel that moves groceries to the shelf, packages to the door and produce out of the field. Trucking companies do not absorb that; it arrives later as a slightly higher price on almost everything hauled.

There are offsets in motion. Refiners in the United States, India and the Middle East are picking up export business that Russia can no longer serve. American forces have expanded tanker escort capacity through the Strait of Hormuz, with Washington estimating as much as 9 million barrels a day still transiting the waterway, and US crude inventories jumped 17.4 million barrels last week. Both the IEA and OPEC have trimmed their demand forecasts, with OPEC cutting 2026 growth to 580,000 barrels a day in its fourth straight downward revision — high prices doing their usual work of cooling consumption. The Energy Department expects gasoline and diesel to ease later this year, though it still forecasts levels well above seasonal norms.

Repair timelines are the variable that matters next. After earlier strikes on this same complex, a single damaged unit took weeks to restart and the worst-hit equipment took months. Until those units are running, the barrels Ust-Luga was supposed to send to market simply are not there, and the American diesel pump keeps carrying the difference.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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Artificial intelligence is increasingly taking control of traffic lights on Israel’s intercity roads, with approximately 170 adaptive systems already installed and initial data indicating that the technology can significantly reduce congestion and travel times.

Israel’s Transportation Ministry and Netivei Israel have been expanding the use of AI-powered adaptive traffic signals in recent years. Unlike conventional traffic lights, which generally operate according to schedules programmed in advance, the new systems analyze traffic conditions in real time and adjust the length of red and green lights according to actual demand.

Early results from approximately 25 intersections where the technology was analyzed have shown substantial savings. On average, an estimated 400 vehicle-hours are saved each day at every intersection equipped with the system.

At the Fureidis Junction, the estimated savings reached approximately 800 vehicle-hours per day. At the entrance to Kiryat Tivon, meanwhile, travel time through the intersection was reduced by as much as 56 seconds per vehicle.

Across the intersections studied, the average reduction amounted to approximately 25 seconds for each vehicle. While that may appear modest for an individual driver, intersections handling thousands or tens of thousands of vehicles each day can collectively save hundreds of hours of travel time.

The impact can become considerably greater for motorists traveling along routes containing several adaptive traffic lights. Netivei Israel estimates that when the systems operate across multiple intersections along a driver’s route, the cumulative savings could reach approximately 10 minutes per trip.

Over the course of a year, officials estimate that those savings could add up to the equivalent of approximately two weeks of working days. The goal, therefore, is not simply to shave several seconds off the wait at an individual red light, but to create meaningful reductions in travel times across entire routes.

The primary advantage of adaptive traffic signals is their ability to react immediately to changing conditions rather than relying primarily on historical traffic patterns.

Traditional signals often operate according to predetermined programs based on traffic measurements taken previously. Actual road conditions, however, can change from minute to minute. Traffic jams form and dissipate, the dominant direction of traffic can shift, and accidents, construction or even relatively minor disruptions at one intersection can quickly produce backups elsewhere.

The AI-powered system uses cameras and computer-vision technology to detect vehicles, measure the length of traffic lines and determine the level of demand from different directions.

Algorithms then analyze that information and continuously adjust the traffic signal, allocating additional green-light time to the directions where it is most needed.

The technology was developed in recent years by ITC in cooperation with Netivei Israel’s Operations and Maintenance Division, Traffic Management Division and Engineering Research and Development Division.

With approximately 170 systems now deployed, officials say the project has progressed beyond the experimental stage and is being used routinely at a variety of intersections under differing traffic conditions.

The broader objective is to determine not merely whether AI traffic management can improve conditions at one particular intersection, but how the technology can eventually be incorporated throughout the country’s transportation network.

Officials say the project could also deliver substantial economic benefits.

According to current estimates, installing the technology at 100 intersections could generate more than half a billion shekels in annual economic benefits to the Israeli economy through the value of time saved alone.

That calculation is based on the methodology used by the Transportation Ministry and Finance Ministry to assess the economic viability of transportation projects.

The estimate does not include other potential benefits associated with shorter waits and reduced congestion, including lower fuel consumption, decreased wear and tear on vehicles, reduced air pollution and possible improvements in road safety.

{Matzav.com}

American investigators are examining whether money tied to a Shanghai-based businessman with longstanding links to pro-Beijing organizations helped finance groups involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Britain, widening a U.S. foreign-influence inquiry that had already reached activist organizations operating inside the United States.

The investigation centers on Neville Roy Singham, an American technology millionaire who lives in Shanghai and has financed a network of nonprofit and activist organizations across several countries. U.S. lawmakers have spent years examining whether that network has acted independently or whether some of its political activity has advanced the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.

The latest scrutiny reaches into Britain.

According to reporting by The Telegraph, a British company connected to the U.S.-based activist organization Code Pink received more than $250,000 in 2020 and 2021 from entities suspected of being part of Singham’s funding network. The same company received another $94,950 in 2024 from a fund also believed by investigators to be connected to that network, with the payment described as compensation for consulting services.

Those financial transfers do not establish that Beijing financed pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and investigators have not publicly produced evidence showing that the Chinese government directly paid organizers of the marches.

That distinction is important.

What authorities are examining is whether money originating within a private funding network closely associated with Singham eventually reached organizations engaged in political activity that aligned with Chinese foreign-policy interests — and whether any of those relationships required disclosure under U.S. foreign-agent laws.

Code Pink has become part of that inquiry because of both its funding relationships and its political activity. The organization has encouraged participation in large pro-Palestinian marches in Britain and has organized demonstrations outside the British Ministry of Defence and the London offices of a weapons manufacturer.

Singham is married to Jodie Evans, one of Code Pink’s founders.

The financial relationship has drawn increasing attention in Washington. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said last year that evidence suggested Code Pink and The People’s Forum had been “funded and influenced” by Singham and the Chinese government and asked the Justice Department to examine whether the organizations should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Sen. Tom Cotton separately asked the Justice Department in November 2025 to investigate Code Pink, saying the organization had received more than $1.4 million since 2017 from sources linked to Singham. Cotton said that represented roughly one-quarter of the group’s funding during the period he examined.

Those claims remain allegations, not findings of criminal wrongdoing.

The inquiry surrounding Singham has nevertheless moved beyond congressional letters.

A federal grand jury in New York is investigating Singham and financial activity involving nonprofit organizations associated with his network. CBS News reported in July that investigators were examining possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act as well as tax and nonprofit-financing issues.

The House Ways and Means Committee has also intensified its investigation. Chairman Jason Smith said in June that a federal grand jury had begun issuing subpoenas as part of the Justice Department inquiry, while congressional investigators have separately sought records involving tens of millions of dollars flowing through organizations tied to Singham.

At the center of the legal question is not whether an American citizen may finance controversial political causes. That is generally protected activity. The issue is whether organizations were acting at the direction or under the influence of a foreign government while engaging in political activity in the United States without making disclosures required by federal law.

Foreign Agents Registration Act cases are built around control, direction and transparency, not simply whether a donor lives overseas or holds views favorable to another country.

Singham has denied acting on behalf of China. He has said he is not a member of any political party, does not represent any government and supports the organizations in his network because of his own political beliefs.

Code Pink has likewise denied receiving funding from the Chinese Communist Party. Co-founder Medea Benjamin has said the organization does not take money from the CCP, and the group has rejected congressional allegations that its activism is controlled by Beijing.

That leaves investigators with a difficult financial trail to establish.

Private foundations, donor-advised funds, nonprofit entities and companies can move money through multiple layers before it reaches the organization that ultimately spends it. A payment originating from a Singham-associated organization is not automatically a payment from the Chinese government, which is why investigators are examining the relationships behind the transactions rather than simply following the final bank transfer.

The British connection raises the stakes because it suggests the inquiry may no longer be limited to political activity inside the United States.

If investigators establish that a common funding network supported activist organizations operating in multiple Western democracies, the question becomes broader than Code Pink or any individual protest. Governments would have to determine whether foreign political influence is being exercised through organizations that outwardly operate as domestic grassroots movements.

For pro-Palestinian demonstrators themselves, there is no evidence that ordinary marchers knew of, received or were directed by any foreign funding network. Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in demonstrations for a wide range of personal, political and humanitarian reasons.

The unresolved question sits farther upstream: who financed the organizations helping mobilize parts of that movement, where that money ultimately originated, and whether anyone else was directing how it was used.

That is now what investigators in Washington are trying to find out.

JBizNews Desk | Washington

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

Jared Kushner marked the sixth anniversary of the Abraham Accords on Thursday with an expansive message touting the agreements’ achievements and suggesting that the Middle East may be on the verge of another potentially historic diplomatic breakthrough.

Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key architect of the Abraham Accords, did not identify any specific country or disclose details of possible negotiations. But his repeated references to new “breakthrough opportunities,” an opportunity to create an “even broader movement” and the possibility of once again surprising the world immediately fueled speculation over what additional agreements could be under consideration.

“Six years ago, President Trump launched the Abraham Accords and opened a new chapter of peace, partnership, and prosperity in the Middle East,” Kushner wrote in a lengthy post on X Thursday morning.

“Many said it was impossible. But with courageous leadership, persistence, and a small group of people willing to challenge old assumptions, we proved that the impossible could be achieved.”

The Abraham Accords, brokered during Trump’s first term, dramatically altered the diplomatic landscape of the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain established formal relations with Israel in 2020, with Morocco subsequently normalizing relations with Israel and Sudan agreeing to move toward normalization.

In his anniversary message, Kushner argued that the agreements represented more than the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab countries. He portrayed them as a rejection of decades of Middle East diplomacy that he said had focused on containing conflicts instead of fundamentally changing the relationships that produced them.

“For too long, the region was trapped by old ideas and failed frameworks that managed conflict rather than solved it, and too often created incentives that perpetuated division and instability,” Kushner wrote.

He said the philosophy behind the Abraham Accords was instead to create practical relationships and mutual interests that would make peace beneficial to the countries and populations involved.

“The idea behind the Abraham Accords was simple: instead of reinforcing the things that divide people, build bonds that bring them together. Increase understanding. Expand trade and investment. Deepen security cooperation. Create tangible benefits that make people’s lives better and give everyone a stake in peace.”

Kushner pointed to the economic and diplomatic relationships that have developed since the accords were signed as evidence that the approach succeeded.

“What began as a bold vision has delivered billions in trade, joint innovation, new friendships and partnerships, and a powerful alternative to the failed approaches of the past,” he wrote.

But Kushner then shifted from looking back at the achievements of the past six years to discussing the current geopolitical landscape — and it was that portion of his message that raised the strongest possibility that additional diplomatic developments could be ahead.

“The Middle East is once again at an inflection point. There are breakthrough opportunities today that many will say are impossible,” Kushner wrote. “But we have seen what can happen when leaders reject conventional thinking, focus on common interests, and have the courage to pursue a better future.”

Kushner did not elaborate on what those “breakthrough opportunities” might entail. His use of the plural also left open the possibility that the Trump administration is looking beyond a single normalization agreement toward a broader restructuring of regional relationships.

“The Abraham Accords showed that a different path is possible,” Kushner continued. “Now we have an opportunity to build an even broader movement around cooperation, shared prosperity and security—and replace the failed ideas of the past with a new model that gives people across the region something better to believe in and build toward.”

The comments are particularly notable because of Kushner’s central role in the negotiations that produced the original Abraham Accords. Working alongside Trump administration officials during Trump’s first term, Kushner helped conduct the diplomatic effort that resulted in the normalization agreements.

Although Kushner’s post contained no explicit announcement that another country is preparing to establish relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia is certain to be at the center of speculation surrounding his remarks.

For years, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia has been viewed as the most consequential potential expansion of the Abraham Accords. An agreement involving Riyadh would carry significance far beyond bilateral relations because of Saudi Arabia’s political, economic and religious influence across the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Kushner, who developed close relationships with Saudi leaders during Trump’s first term, has also remained closely associated with efforts to reshape relations between Israel and the Arab world.

The prospect of Saudi normalization has repeatedly surfaced in diplomatic discussions in recent years, although negotiations have faced significant political and regional obstacles. The possibility has taken on renewed significance amid dramatic changes across the Middle East and the Trump administration’s efforts to capitalize on the new regional balance.

Kushner, however, carefully avoided naming Saudi Arabia or any other country Thursday, making it unclear whether his remarks were intended to signal a specific diplomatic initiative or to articulate a broader vision for the next phase of the Abraham Accords.

The language of his post nevertheless suggested that Kushner believes circumstances now exist for developments that could once again defy prevailing expectations.

His closing words were the clearest indication that he sees the original accords not as a completed diplomatic achievement, but as a model that could be expanded significantly.

“We surprised the world once. With the right leadership, focus, patience and courage, I believe we can do it again.”

The post offered no timetable for such a breakthrough and did not say whether negotiations with any additional countries have reached an advanced stage.

But coming from one of the principal architects of the original agreements, Kushner’s declaration that the region has reached another “inflection point” — coupled with his reference to multiple “breakthrough opportunities” — is likely to intensify attention on the Trump administration’s next moves in the Middle East and, in particular, whether the Abraham Accords may soon be poised for a major expansion.

{Matzav.com}

The Jewish Troopers Association, Inc. hosted and sponsored its second annual scholarship awards ceremony yesterday, presenting three Lt. Sid Spiegel #1047 Memorial Scholarships in the amount of $1,047 each.

The scholarships honor Lt. Sidney “Sid” Spiegel’s badge number and lasting legacy. Lt. Spiegel was a World War II veteran, one of the earliest Jewish members of the New Jersey State Police, and served with distinction for 25 years.

The JTA was honored to hold the ceremony at Rutgers Chabad, where Rabbi Yossi Carlebach and Rabbi Mendy Carlebach graciously welcomed the organization, scholarship recipients, their families, members of law enforcement, and representatives of the Jewish community.

The JTA also recognized New Jersey State Police Superintendent Jeanne Hengemuhle and Lieutenant Colonel Kilcomons for their continued support of the JTA and New Jersey’s Jewish community.

“It was an honor to recognize these outstanding students while preserving Lt. Spiegel’s legacy for future generations,” said JTA President Marc Zislin.

For those interested in learning more about the Jewish Troopers, please visit www.JewishTroopers.org. The website provides information about the organization and offers details on how to donate. Alternatively, you can email [email protected] for more information.

BIRMINGHAM, England — Israeli 400-meter hurdles record holder Omri Schiff competed in the European Athletics Championships this week, but his appearance drew attention after a Spanish public broadcaster appeared to omit his name while introducing athletes before the race.

During the RTVE Play broadcast, the presenter introduced competitors one by one, identifying them by name and country. When the camera reached Schiff, however, the presenter did not mention him and the commentator instead discussed Slovakia’s Patrik Dömötör.

The presenter resumed introducing athletes after the camera moved past Schiff.

The incident prompted accusations of antisemitism from Israeli lawmakers and others, although the circumstances behind the omission were not immediately clear.

Knesset member Oded Forer of Yisrael Beiteinu criticized the broadcast on social media, saying that singling out the Israeli athlete was not an innocent mistake.

“When all the athletes are presented by name and nationality, and suddenly when the camera reaches the Israeli they ‘forget’ him, this is no longer a mistake,” Forer wrote.

He accused the Spanish public broadcaster of giving legitimacy to antisemitism and said Schiff should continue competing proudly under the Israeli flag.

Schiff, 26, of Hod Hasharon, is a five-time consecutive Israeli champion in the 400-meter hurdles. He set Israel’s national record in August 2025 with a time of 49.82 seconds, breaking a record that had stood for years.

The Birmingham championships marked Schiff’s first European senior championships after previously competing in age-group competitions.

He finished his qualifying race in 50.30 seconds and initially placed 16th overall. He did not advance to the final after being disqualified for taking his leg to the side of a hurdle rather than clearing it from above.

The episode comes amid heightened scrutiny over the treatment of Israeli athletes at international sporting events, with Israeli officials increasingly accusing organizations and broadcasters of allowing anti-Israel sentiment to influence coverage.

Here is what is happening, in plain terms. Your state has a housing agency. It borrows money from investors, then lends that money out to homebuyers at a lower interest rate than a bank would charge. Sometimes it helps with the down payment. Sometimes it lends to builders putting up apartments that rent below market.

That borrowing has doubled in a year. States raised about $19 billion this way over the past twelve months, roughly twice the year before.

The reason is simple. A regular 30-year mortgage now costs 6.69%, up from 6.63% a year ago. On a $300,000 loan, that is about $1,935 a month before taxes and insurance. Knock the rate down a single point and the payment drops roughly $200 a month — $2,400 a year, and about $72,000 over the life of the loan. For a lot of families, that one point is the difference between qualifying and being told no.

So more people are walking into these state programs, and states are borrowing more to fund them.

There is a second reason. Washington is spending less on housing. When federal money dries up, states either drop the program or borrow to keep it going. Most are borrowing.

Recent examples give a sense of the size. Illinois raised $200 million. New Mexico raised $120 million. South Dakota moved this month to authorize as much as $600 million for lower-rate mortgages in that state alone.

The people lending the money are, in large part, ordinary savers. Individuals hold close to half of all municipal bonds — the tax-free bonds that state and local governments issue. So the money helping a family in Illinois buy a first house is coming out of a retirement account in New Jersey. The lender gets tax-free interest; the buyer gets a cheaper mortgage.

The loans have been paid back reliably. Fewer than 1 borrower in 100 falls behind in these state pools. Most of the home loans carry a federal guarantee behind them, which is why the bonds get the highest credit ratings.

Investors have done well on them. This slice of the bond market returned 5.53% last year, against 4.41% for municipal bonds overall — better than a full point more.

Not everything in the category is equally safe. When a bond is backed by one apartment building instead of thousands of home loans, the risk sits on that single property, and investors demand about two extra percentage points of interest to take it. Rental buildings aimed at teachers, nurses and other middle-income workers are the softer spot right now, with costs rising and occupancy slipping.

Two things could push the numbers higher. A bipartisan bill sitting in the House Ways and Means Committee would loosen the tax rules so states can reach more buyers with these loans. And on November 3, California voters decide whether to let the state issue up to $25 billion in bonds for a program that would cover as much as 17% of the purchase price on a newly built home.

If you are a builder working on affordable units, the practical point is where the money now sits. It is at your state housing agency, not in Washington. Find out who issues in your state, when they issue, and what they require.

If you are a buyer, find out whether your state has a first-time buyer program and what rate it offers. Most people never check. It is a phone call.

And if you are an investor, the extra yield is real but it is payment for complexity, not a gift. The bond backed by thousands of federally guaranteed home loans and the bond backed by one apartment building are not the same thing, even when they sit on the same page.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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

A routine bus ride turned into a frightening emergency Thursday evening when a driver in his 50s suddenly collapsed behind the wheel on Route 651 near the Pal Yam Junction, causing the bus to collide with a private vehicle.

The driver apparently suffered a serious medical emergency while driving and lost consciousness. Magen David Adom emergency personnel were quickly dispatched to the scene, where they found the driver unresponsive inside the driver’s compartment.

Paramedics and EMTs removed the driver and immediately began intensive resuscitation efforts. The treatment included chest compressions, assisted breathing and eight electric shocks administered with a defibrillator.

After extensive treatment at the scene, the driver was transported urgently to Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in critical condition, with resuscitation efforts continuing during the evacuation.

MDA EMTs Yonatan Yankelowitz, Yosef Friedman and Elimelech Michalowitz described the chaotic scene when they arrived.

“When we arrived at the bus, we saw several frightened and distressed passengers, and the driver lying unconscious. A quick examination revealed that he had no pulse and was not breathing, and we immediately began advanced resuscitation efforts,” they said.

While emergency personnel worked to save the driver, additional MDA teams examined the passengers aboard the bus as well as the woman driving the private vehicle involved in the collision.

None of the bus passengers was found to have suffered physical injuries, and none required evacuation to a hospital. The driver of the private vehicle sustained minor injuries and was transported to Hillel Yaffe Medical Center for further treatment.

The frightening incident follows several other serious episodes involving buses on Israeli roads in recent months.

In one incident several months ago, a driver operating Jerusalem’s No. 2 bus route was violently assaulted by several youths while stopped at a red light. The attack reportedly caused him to lose consciousness and several teeth, though he was forced to continue driving despite his condition.

In another incident in Bnei Brak, an elderly passenger was injured aboard a bus after the driver was forced to brake suddenly when a private vehicle cut into his lane at the Chazon Ish intersection. The woman was thrown forcefully toward the front of the bus and sustained injuries.

{Matzav.com}

On the northbound GSP in the area of mile marker 94

https://thelakewoodscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/wa-1786716746500-bn4428.mp4

FORT LAUDERDALE (VINnews)-Antisemitic U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan is in South Florida this Friday to campaign for progressive primary challengers.

She is backing Oliver Larkin against Rep. Jared Moskowitz, Elijah Manley against Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and state Rep. Angie Nixon against Alex Vindman in the U.S. Senate race.

The main event is a late-night “Chomp the Vote” rally in Broward aimed at generating last-minute energy before Tuesday’s primary.

The original venue in Wilton Manors canceled late Thursday after pushback from state Rep. Michael Gottlieb and others who said the event targeted Jewish incumbents and featured anti-Israel voices.

Organizers say they have moved it to The Downtown Event Center in Fort Lauderdale and plan to continue as scheduled.

Tlaib is also set for a dinner in Miami Beach and a volunteer event in Lauderdale Lakes.

Early voting in Florida ends Sunday.

With summer now in full swing, Boro Park has settled into a quieter pace as many families settled in the Catskills and summer destinations. As the neighborhood adjusts to its seasonal rhythm, many residents are wondering which Rebbes will be in Boro Park this Shabbos to attend the tefillos and their tishen.

• Amshinov - Eretz Yisroel
• Beis Chaim Shia - Boro Park 
• Bobov - White Lake
• Bobov-45 - Private  
• Burshtin - Boro Park
• Chernoble - Boro Park 
• Emunas Yisroel - Boro Park
• Kosov - Eretz Yisroel  
• Liska - Boro Park
• Lelov - Boro Park 
• Lelov - Boro Park 
• Minkatch - Boro Park 
• Rachmastrivka - Boro Park
• Sanz Klausenburg - Tzfas, Eretz Yisroel
• Sanz Zmigrad - Bloombinburg
• Serdaheli - Boro Park 
• Skolya - Machne Skolya, South Fallsburg
• Skulen - Catskills
• Skver of BP - Machne Skver, Woodridge
• Ungvar - Boro Park 
• Viznitz BP - Viznitz Camp, South Fallsburg 
• Viznitz Y-M - Boro Park 

Be sure to check back every Friday as we'll update the list weekly to reflect each Rebbe's Shabbos plans.

U.S. stocks opened little changed Friday, August 14, as Wall Street weighed a surprisingly weak consumer-spending report against lower expectations for another Federal Reserve rate increase, while renewed U.S.-Iran tensions kept oil and inflation risks in focus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened up 2.8 points, or 0.01%, at 53,842.80. The S&P 500 gained 7.6 points, or 0.10%, to 7,806.60, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 48.1 points, or 0.18%, to 26,851.15. The muted opening comes one day after the S&P 500 closed at another record high. 

The biggest economic surprise arrived before the bell. U.S. retail sales fell 0.6% in July, dramatically weaker than the 0.1% increase economists expected and reversing June’s 0.2% gain. More importantly, the closely watched control-group measure — which strips out autos, gasoline, building materials and restaurants and feeds more directly into GDP calculations — fell 0.4% instead of rising the expected 0.3%. 

The weakness does not necessarily mean the consumer suddenly collapsed. June benefited from Amazon moving Prime Day forward from July and competing retailers launching promotions at the same time, while lower gasoline prices reduced July service-station receipts. Still, the report is an important warning that households may be becoming more cautious after months of high gasoline prices and elevated borrowing costs. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy. 

The softer spending report also gives the Federal Reserve another reason to remain patient. Markets had already reduced the probability of a September rate increase to roughly one-in-three after this week’s cooler CPI and producer-price reports. The 10-year Treasury yield was around 4.65% Friday morning, keeping borrowing costs historically high even as shorter-term rate expectations have eased. 

Individual stocks are moving far more dramatically than the indexes. Reddit surged roughly 14% in early trading after S&P Dow Jones Indices said the social-media company will join the S&P 500. JPMorgan estimates index funds tracking the benchmark could ultimately need to purchase about 16.7 million Reddit shares, nearly three times the stock’s average daily trading volume. 

Applied Materials fell about 4% to 5% despite reporting strong results and forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of approximately $10.25 billion, well above the $9.54 billion Wall Street consensus. The problem is expectations: Applied Materials shares have more than doubled this year, and investors are demanding evidence that the semiconductor-equipment giant can grow faster than competitors including ASML, Lam Research and KLA. 

Other AI-linked names are moving sharply as well. Sandisk gained roughly 3%, Nebius rose about 5%, while Broadcom and Strategy fell between 2% and 3%. The dispersion shows how selective the AI trade has become: investors are still rewarding companies tied to the infrastructure boom, but valuations now leave little room for disappointing guidance or slowing growth. 

Oil remains the biggest outside risk. Crude rose earlier Friday after the United States threatened to maintain its naval blockade of Iran indefinitely, adding another layer of uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz. Brent traded near $88.50 a barrel earlier in the morning and WTI near $82.80, with both benchmarks heading toward weekly gains as shipping through one of the world’s most important energy corridors remains disrupted. 

The economic calendar is not finished. The University of Michigan’s preliminary August consumer-sentiment report is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. ET, along with updated inflation expectations, while business-inventory data is also due. At the exact 10:00 a.m. cutoff for this recap, the university had not yet posted the August figures publicly, so JBizNews is not publishing an unverified number. July sentiment stood at 55.2, while one-year inflation expectations were 4.2%. 

For the rest of Friday, investors will be watching consumer sentiment, Treasury yields, oil prices and any new U.S.-Iran or Strait of Hormuz developments. After three days of relatively friendly inflation data but Friday’s surprisingly weak retail report, Wall Street is now confronting a different question: whether slower inflation is arriving alongside a meaningful slowdown in consumer demand.

JBizNews Desk | Wall Street

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Sicily’s busiest airport has now been shut for five straight days because volcanic ash and jet engines cannot occupy the same sky. Ash from Mount Etna has closed Catania’s airport for a fifth consecutive day, stranding holiday travelers during the biggest travel week of the year, and the airport will stay closed until early Saturday — Ferragosto, the August 15 holiday at the peak of the Italian summer season. Etna sits 30 kilometers, about 20 miles, from the runway, and while its activity interrupts flights there regularly, this is the longest such emergency since 2002.

The hazard is mechanical, not theoretical. Volcanic ash is pulverized rock. Pulled into a jet engine, it melts in the combustion chamber and re-hardens on the turbine blades, which can shut the engine down in flight. So when ash drifts into a flight corridor, aviation authorities close that block of airspace outright rather than let planes pick their way through it. Italian authorities have been shutting the affected sectors around eastern Sicily one at a time as the plume moves, most recently extending the closure to a sector labeled B3, while the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology has kept its aviation notice at red, the top level, with vents at roughly 2,750 and 2,360 meters feeding extensive lava fields.

The scale of the disruption is unusual even by Etna’s standards. Between August 6 and 12, roughly 630 flights were diverted to other airports and more than a third of the 1,974 flights scheduled at Catania were canceled. That is better than one flight in three simply erased from the board. Bloomberg put the count at more than 1,350 flights affected over the course of the week. Airport operator SAC’s own figures showed about 400 departures canceled between August 8 and 11 and another 52 on August 12, with roughly 700 flights lost once canceled arrivals are counted. Ryanair, easyJet, ITA Airways and Wizz Air, the four largest carriers at Catania, have absorbed most of the damage.

Passengers have been sleeping in the terminal. Travelers stranded by the prolonged closure have spent days inside the building, bedding down wherever they can and killing time playing cards.

The rest of Sicily is carrying the overflow, and it is showing. On August 12 alone, SAC listed 50 Catania departures leaving instead from Palermo, Trapani and Comiso, with 40 arrivals rerouted to Palermo, 12 to Trapani and five to Comiso; Comiso itself briefly halted flights on the evening of August 11 when ash fell there. Palermo’s mayor said his city’s airport had taken on 190 flights originally booked through Catania, and passengers dumped there complained they got little help getting onward — demand for buses and taxis spiked, and the extra traffic pushed delays at Palermo itself. A traveler landing 130 miles from where the ticket said they were going still has to cross the island, and on Ferragosto weekend that ride is neither cheap nor guaranteed.

The cloud has reached past Italy. A volcanic ash advisory issued Tuesday evening placed the heaviest concentration over Sicily, with thinner ash between eastern Malta and as far south as northern Libya.

For anyone booked through Catania, the practical steps are narrow but they matter. Confirm the flight directly with the airline before leaving for the airport, because the closure has been extended in increments and the terminal has repeatedly filled with people whose flights were already gone. Americans connecting through a European hub should check every leg, not just the transatlantic one — the long-haul segment can operate perfectly while the final hop into Sicily disappears. Under European Union passenger rules, a volcanic eruption counts as an extraordinary circumstance, which means airlines generally do not owe cash compensation for the cancellation. What they do still owe is care and a way out: meals, accommodation where an overnight is forced, and either rerouting or a refund. Passengers should ask for that in writing rather than assume it will be offered.

The repeated shutdowns have also reopened an old argument in Italy about the airport itself. Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci has said he flagged the vulnerability of Catania’s Fontanarossa airport back in 1999, when he was president of the Province of Catania and put forward a plan for the site that never won backing. The proposals under discussion run toward hardening Sicily’s secondary fields — Comiso and Trapani in particular — so that eastern Sicily has real capacity to fall back on rather than an overflow arrangement that buckles the moment Etna clears its throat.

Even once the airspace reopens, the airport will not snap back. Aircraft and crews are scattered across four airports and out of position, and clearing a week’s backlog into a holiday weekend takes days, not hours.

JBizNews Desk | Catania, Italy

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NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City police officer who was the first prosecuted under a local law banning chokeholds and some other methods of restraint was convicted Thursday.

Omar Habib was convicted of the misdemeanor established in the law that was passed after George Floyd ‘s killing, along with felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault, and is facing up to seven years in prison, news outlets reported.

Habib has also been dismissed from the New York Police Department. He had previously been suspended without pay.

Bronx Criminal Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Isales ordered him held without bail, according to the New York Daily News.

Habib, who joined the department in 2007, was responding to a 911 call at a Bronx catering hall in 2023 when a drunk and disorderly man resisted arrest, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said. Habib placed the man in a chokehold so tight it impeded his breathing and circulation and made him pass out, according to the district attorney.

Jacob Z. Weinstein, Habib’s attorney, argued during the trial that other factors could have caused the man to pass out, including drinking without eating enough food.

Patrick Hendry, president of a New York police union, said the verdict was “further proof of a grim reality: every second police officers spend on this job puts them at risk of criminal prosecution, and pervasive anti-police propaganda has made it incredibly difficult to receive a fair trial,” according to the New York Daily News.

Habib was charged under a 2020 city law passed after Floyd’s death that makes it a crime for police officers to use chokeholds or sit, kneel, or stand on someone’s torso during an arrest.

The law was challenged by police unions but was upheld in 2023 by New York state’s highest court.

Police use of chokeholds was already banned in most cases by NYPD regulations at the time the law was enacted, but officers who used them were rarely prosecuted.

A police officer accused of using a prohibited chokehold on Eric Garner, who died during an arrest in 2014, lost his job with the city but faced no criminal charges.

Before his recent arrest, Habib had a history of substantiated misconduct complaints about excessive force and abusing his authority. He was previously cited by the department for using a chokehold in 2017, an incident that was later the subject of news stories about officers continuing to use banned restraints.

Habib was also accused of lying under oath and tampering with evidence in a 2016 gun raid, prompting several defendants to withdraw their guilty pleas.

Ben Gurion Airport is pushing through one of its busiest days of the summer with roughly 90,000 passengers and about 600 aircraft movements expected Friday, but the problem is not simply volume. It is timing.

Within a span of just three hours, roughly 90 flights accumulated in a backlog, compressing arrivals and departures into a window the airport’s ground systems were not built to absorb all at once. Passengers were left sitting aboard aircraft after boarding, families waited for hours at baggage claim, and crews struggled to move luggage quickly enough to keep departures on schedule.

The Israel Airports Authority says there is no strike and no shortage of workers. Instead, it describes a traffic-jam problem in the sky that eventually becomes a traffic-jam problem on the ground.

Flights scheduled across an entire day do not necessarily arrive evenly. Restrictions in European airspace, particularly around Greece, can hold aircraft back and then release them in clusters. Add heavy August vacation traffic and continued U.S. aerial-refueling activity consuming airport capacity, and dozens of flights can suddenly arrive or attempt to depart within the same narrow window.

That is what happened Friday.

Once the wave reaches Ben Gurion, the bottleneck spreads quickly. Aircraft need parking stands. Baggage needs to be unloaded. New luggage has to be sorted and loaded. Ground crews must turn planes around, buses have to move passengers where jet bridges are unavailable, and incoming aircraft still need somewhere to go.

When 90 flights stack up in three hours, one delay begins feeding the next.

Passengers reported sitting aboard aircraft for hours after boarding because their luggage had not yet been loaded. Others who had already landed in Israel waited for extended periods beside baggage carousels, including families traveling with children just hours before the start of the Sabbath.

On a Friday in Israel, that timing matters in a way it would not on an ordinary weekday. As the Sabbath approaches, public transportation begins shutting down and observant travelers face a hard deadline to reach their homes, hotels or hosts before sundown. A delay of two or three hours can therefore become more than an inconvenience, leaving passengers without the train or bus they expected to take and forcing last-minute transportation arrangements at the same moment thousands of others are trying to do the same.

For travelers, that distinction matters. A flight can technically be operating and still leave passengers stranded for hours because the aircraft cannot be serviced, parked or cleared quickly enough to depart.

The airport’s congestion also reflects a broader capacity problem that has been building for months.

Israel Airports Authority Director General Sharon Kedmi warned in May that extensive U.S. military aerial-refueling operations at Ben Gurion were consuming a substantial portion of the airport’s available space and operational resources. At the time, he said civilian operations were effectively functioning at about one-third of normal capacity because of the military presence.

Friday’s congestion shows what happens when that reduced flexibility collides with peak summer demand.

European airspace restrictions add another layer. Greece sits directly along major flight paths between Israel and much of Europe, so disruptions there do not have to close Ben Gurion to cause trouble in Tel Aviv. Aircraft held elsewhere can arrive late together, creating precisely the type of concentrated surge that overwhelms baggage handling and parking capacity.

The Airports Authority says reinforced teams have been deployed and that available personnel are working at full capacity despite the summer heat. Transportation Minister Miri Regev described the situation as an unusually complicated combination of normal seasonal congestion, security constraints and wider aviation restrictions.

That does not make the wait shorter for passengers.

The practical lesson for anyone flying through Ben Gurion Friday is that the departure board alone does not tell the whole story. A flight showing as scheduled may still face a lengthy ground delay, while an incoming aircraft arriving late can push the next departure further behind.

For passengers arriving before the Sabbath, there is another clock running. Travelers should not assume that the train, bus or other ground transportation they planned to use will still be operating if their flight or baggage is delayed by several hours. Building extra time into the trip and having a backup transportation plan can make the difference between a difficult arrival and being stranded at the airport as the Sabbath begins.

Travelers connecting through Europe face an additional risk: delays around Greece or elsewhere can distort the entire sequence of aircraft arriving in Israel. Checking the first flight in an itinerary is therefore not enough. Each segment needs to be monitored separately.

The baggage problem can outlast the flight delay itself. When large numbers of aircraft arrive together, bags from one flight can compete for the same handlers, vehicles and carousel capacity as luggage from several others. Passengers who land on time can therefore still spend hours waiting inside the terminal.

And even after the immediate backlog clears, the airport does not simply reset. Aircraft, crews and departure slots are left out of position, meaning delays can continue rippling through the schedule long after the original surge has passed.

Ben Gurion is not closed. It may be something more frustrating for travelers: open, operating and overloaded at the same time — with the Sabbath approaching and far less room for delays than on an ordinary travel day.

JBizNews Desk | Tel Aviv, Israel

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The U.S. military has lost at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones during the war with Iran, wiping out roughly one-quarter of a fleet that numbered approximately 185 aircraft and inflicting losses valued at more than $1.3 billion, according to officials.

Each MQ-9 is estimated to cost between $30 million and $50 million, depending on the weapons, sensors and other equipment installed aboard the aircraft.

The drones have been deployed extensively for surveillance and precision-strike missions around the Strait of Hormuz. Their relatively slow speed and operations at lower altitudes, however, have reportedly left them vulnerable to attacks by Iran and its proxies in Yemen and Iraq.

Not all of the aircraft were lost to enemy fire. Some Reapers reportedly crashed after their operators lost communications with the unmanned aircraft.

Lt. Gen. David Tabor told the Senate in May that the number of MQ-9s remaining in the American fleet had fallen to approximately 135. The Air Force is now examining ways to rapidly rebuild its inventory following the substantial wartime losses.

The depletion of the Reaper fleet comes amid broader concerns over American weapons stockpiles following years of extensive military assistance to Ukraine and heavy expenditures of sophisticated munitions during the war with Iran.

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute warned that replenishing some of the most critical weapons could take years because of limitations in U.S. defense manufacturing capacity.

One particularly significant constraint involves THAAD missile interceptors. Current production capacity is limited to approximately 96 interceptors annually, while the Pentagon is seeking nearly 2,600 over the next five years. At the present production rate, manufacturing that quantity would take an estimated 27 years.

Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that producing a single THAAD interceptor takes nearly three years. As a result, even orders placed immediately would not begin producing significant quantities of additional interceptors until late in President Trump’s current term.

President Trump has sought tens of billions of dollars to replenish U.S. weapons inventories and expand production capacity.

The Pentagon, however, has pushed back against claims that American weapons stockpiles are becoming dangerously depleted.

{Matzav.com}

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani remains highly popular among voters in the city but faces deeply negative numbers in the surrounding suburbs, according to a new Siena College poll of 811 likely voters statewide.

Statewide, 47% of voters have a favorable view of Mamdani, compared with 44% who view him unfavorably. Inside New York City, however, his numbers are dramatically stronger, with 69% viewing him favorably and just 24% unfavorably.

The picture changes sharply in the suburbs, where 60% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Mamdani and only 34% view him favorably. Upstate voters are more divided, with 41% viewing him favorably and 46% unfavorably.

The numbers could have significant political implications for Gov. Kathy Hochul and other Democrats running in competitive suburban districts. John McLaughlin, a pollster for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman and President Trump, said, “Suburbanites fear Mamdani,” arguing that Republicans could use Hochul’s support for Mamdani against her.

Hochul herself also struggles in the suburbs. Only 40% of suburban voters view her favorably, while 57% have an unfavorable opinion. Upstate voters are nearly as negative. In New York City, however, 59% view Hochul favorably, compared with 31% who view her unfavorably.

Mamdani’s support also varies sharply among demographic groups. Nearly 80% of Black voters statewide view him favorably, as do 72% of voters between the ages of 18 and 34. Among Jewish voters, however, 66% view Mamdani unfavorably — the highest negative rating among any religious group measured in the poll. Among voters 55 and older, 51% view him unfavorably and 38% favorably.

The mayor also polls considerably better than his own political organization, the Democratic Socialists of America. Only 30% of voters have a favorable view of the DSA, while 47% view it unfavorably and nearly one-quarter have no opinion.

Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said Mamdani could be an asset to Hochul in New York City, but described the political dynamic facing both parties as a “double-edged sword,” asking how Hochul handles her association with Mamdani while Blakeman must navigate his relationship with President Trump.

Trump remains unpopular statewide, with 60% of voters viewing him unfavorably and 38% favorably. Blakeman, a close ally of the president, has embraced that relationship, with Trump set to campaign alongside him during a visit to Long Island on Friday.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs of as much as 100% on imported drones and key components, a sweeping move aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on foreign — particularly Chinese — drone technology and forcing more production onto American soil.

The new tariffs were announced Thursday night and are already moving U.S. drone stocks Friday morning.

The highest rate, 100%, applies to drones considered especially sensitive for national security, including aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight above 25 kilograms, or about 55 pounds, and drones equipped with thermal-imaging capabilities.

Docking stations and certain critical components for those systems will also face the 100% levy.

Smaller and less-sensitive drones will generally face a 25% tariff.

Imports from several U.S. allies will receive lower rates if substantially all of their hardware, software and technology originate within those countries or the United States. Qualifying drones and components from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and Liechtenstein will face a 15% tariff, while qualifying British products will face 10%.

Most of the tariffs take effect 21 days after the proclamation was signed, while tariffs covering some less-sensitive drone components will begin after 180 days.

The administration says the move follows a Commerce Department investigation that concluded the United States is too dependent on foreign suppliers to meet its drone needs, creating vulnerabilities in defense, cybersecurity and critical supply chains.

The White House is also authorizing an onshoring program designed to give companies investing in U.S. drone and component manufacturing preferential treatment.

That could have major consequences beyond the defense industry.

Drones are increasingly used in construction, agriculture, utility inspections, surveying, filmmaking, emergency response, policing, infrastructure maintenance and package delivery.

Companies relying on imported equipment could therefore face significantly higher costs unless suppliers shift production to the United States or qualify for one of the lower tariff rates.

Domestic drone manufacturers immediately benefited.

Shares of Unusual Machines jumped roughly 14% in premarket trading Friday, while Red Cat Holdings rose more than 7% and AeroVironment gained about 3%.

The policy also represents another front in Washington’s effort to reduce Chinese dominance of critical technology supply chains.

China has become the dominant producer of commercial drones and many of the motors, batteries, cameras, communications systems and electronics inside them. Even drones assembled elsewhere can rely heavily on Chinese components.

The new tariffs are designed to attack that dependence at both levels — the finished aircraft and the parts inside them.

For U.S. companies, the calculation now becomes straightforward: continue importing and absorb the tariff, raise prices, change suppliers or manufacture more of the product domestically.

That makes the measure more than another trade dispute.

It is an attempt to rebuild an entire American supply chain around a technology that has rapidly become essential to both modern warfare and everyday business.

JBizNews Desk | Washington

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Yisroel R.

Boro Park will see a pleasant start to the weekend, with partly cloudy skies Friday and mostly sunny conditions on Shabbos. Rain will move in Sunday, bringing a cooler and wet end to the weekend.

Friday will be partly cloudy with a high around 87 degrees and a low of 69 degrees, making for a warm but pleasant Erev Shabbos.

Shabbos will be mostly sunny with a few afternoon clouds. Temperatures will be slightly cooler, with a high near 83 degrees and a low of 69 degrees.

Sunday will bring rain showers during the morning, becoming steadier during the afternoon. The high will reach around 80 degrees, with a low of 73 degrees. Rain and breezy conditions will make for a wet and unsettled summer Sunday.

Ahead of the opening of Zman Elul in kollelim, Rav Yisroel Zicherman presented a series of practical and timely questions to his rebbi, Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein, a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, addressing issues ranging from computers and cellphones in kollelim to struggling avreichim, family responsibilities and the importance of learning sugyos through practical halachah.

Rav Zicherman, Rav of Achuzas Brachfeld in Modiin Illit and the nasi of several kollelim, visited Rav Zilberstein at his home as the Torah world prepares for the beginning of Zman Elul in yeshivos and kollelim.

Rav Zicherman himself spent many years learning in Kollel Bais Dovid in Cholon under Rav Zilberstein. Drawing upon contemporary questions facing roshei kollel and avreichim, he presented his rebbi with a wide-ranging series of educational and halachic dilemmas.

The following is the full Q&A as transcribed by Matzav.com staff:

The Importance of Learning a Sugya Through Practical Halachah

Rav Zicherman: In our network of kollelim, we are currently learning the melachos of Shabbos. As we were privileged to learn in Kollel Bais Dovid, we study the sugyos all the way through to practical halachah. There are avreichim, including young men who have just come from yeshivos and are accustomed to the analytical style of yeshivah learning, who are now transitioning to learning asukei shemaitsa aliba dehilchasa — from the sugyos and Rishonim through the Tur, Shulchan Aruch and its commentaries. What is the proper way to instill in them an appreciation for learning halachah so that they become fully immersed in it?

Rav Zilberstein: One must know that an avreich who merits reaching asukei shemaitsa aliba dehilchasa is among the greatest that our nation possesses, because the highest level among Klal Yisroel is attained by one who merits issuing halachic rulings for the public. As explained in Maseches Gittin regarding the child who was imprisoned: “I am certain that he will become one who renders halachic rulings in Yisroel.”

Any talmid who is capable of reaching this level — if he is not lacking in understanding — will jump at the opportunity. He knows that his learning is taking him all the way to a conclusion and to practical application, and there is no greater satisfaction than that. Already while learning Abaye and Rava, one should be thinking about how the discussion emerges in practical halachah and looking into the poskim.

In addition, it is appropriate for the rosh kollel to present a fascinating question connected to the sugya each day, with the avreichim required to derive the answer through their learning.

How to Deal With an Avreich Who Arrives Late or Talks During Seder

Rav Zicherman: Is it appropriate for a rosh kollel to reprimand an avreich regarding keeping the sedorim and talking — only when it disturbs the other members of the chaburah, or also in order to help the avreich himself advance? Similarly, if an avreich sometimes arrives late and disrupts the schedule of the kollel, is it appropriate to remove him after he has been warned?

Rav Zilberstein: Removing him is out of the question. We are speaking about bnei Torah. What must be done is to investigate what lies behind his lateness, determine what is troubling him, and try to resolve the problem and help him.

Primarily, that avreich should be taught that he can merit reaching the King — Hakadosh Boruch Hu — and this is accomplished through studying practical halachah. If a person understands this, his heart opens much more and he will flourish.

Rav Zicherman: I remember when I was privileged to learn under the Rav in the kollel. We would travel by van from Bnei Brak. The moment the van picked up the avreichim, the Rav would immediately raise a question while we were traveling. In effect, the seder had already begun on the way, and there was no possibility of anything else.

Who Should Stay Home With a Sick Child — the Husband or the Wife?

Rav Zicherman: When there is a sick child at home, is the responsibility to care for the child incumbent upon the mother, or should the avreich also share the burden at the expense of his sedorim in kollel? If the burden falls solely on the avreich, it can lead to a weakening in his learning, while if it falls exclusively on the mother, who works to support the family, it can create problems with her employment. Should the kollel take such circumstances into consideration?

Rav Zilberstein: Certainly, when something like this happens, the kollel administration must take it into consideration. However, the family itself should make an effort to seek help from others, such as the grandmothers, so that the husband will not have to interrupt his learning.

An atmosphere should be established in the home that the husband is not a babysitter. A home of yirei Hashem is not built on the premise that the mother works under all circumstances while the husband is absent from kollel. If the wife understands the tremendous power of a Jewish mother and the importance of her husband’s consistency in learning, the family will know how to find solutions without causing him to interrupt his learning.

If a Chavrusa Is Sick, Should His Partner Go Learn With Him?

Rav Zicherman: If one of the avreichim is ill and is at home, should his chavrusa go to his house to learn with him, or should he refrain from leaving the bais medrash?

Rav Zilberstein: There is something very great, and that is chesed. Going to learn with an avreich in his home when he is weak is an unparalleled act of chesed. The Torah must be a Toras chesed.

Rav Zicherman: Even though it may cause somewhat of a weakening in the bais medrash?

Rav Zilberstein: If the chavrusa’s absence will cause a weakening in the kollel, he should remain in the kollel, but he should learn with him over the telephone. He should call him and discuss the learning with him.

Computers and Cellphones in the Kollel

Rav Zicherman: How should we conduct ourselves regarding computers? Should the use of Torah databases be permitted inside the kollel? For some people, it helps them organize the sugya, but on the other hand, there is a need for amal haTorah. Until now, our practice has been not to have computers. What is the Rav’s opinion?

Rav Zilberstein: From the day of Matan Torah, Torah was learned without computers. Because of the weakness of the generation, these things have come along to make matters easier, but the true path is amal haTorah.

Rav Zicherman: Regarding cellphones, in our network of kollelim they are bal yeira’eh u’bal yimatzei — they are not to be seen or found — and there is one public telephone. However, there are avreichim whose wives are approaching childbirth and they are not at ease. Should an exception be permitted?

Rav Zilberstein: Absolutely not. From the day of Matan Torah, there were no telephones.

(In extremely exceptional circumstances and in a situation of great necessity, the rosh kollel may permit an avreich to discreetly keep a cellphone in his pocket, set only to vibrate.)

Learning With a Struggling Avreich and Staying Up Late to Learn

Rav Zicherman: When there is a weaker avreich, is it appropriate for the rosh kollel to learn with him for part of the time, even though doing so will detract from the rosh kollel’s own personal progress?

Rav Zilberstein: Certainly. It is the greatest thing there is. When a rosh kollel sits beside a struggling avreich and learns with him instead of shouting at him, that is a wonderful level to attain.

Rav Zicherman: What about an avreich who remains learning until 3 a.m. because he is immersed in a sugya, and as a result arrives late to kollel in the morning?

Rav Zilberstein: That is literally the counsel of the yetzer hara. When the time comes to sleep, one must sleep, and someone who does not go to sleep at the proper time is acting improperly.

The Obligation of Roshei Kollel to Sacrifice for Others

Rav Zicherman: Roshei kollel are heavily occupied with preparing shiurim and mareh mekomos. To what extent should they sacrifice their own interests for the sake of the broader group?

Rav Zilberstein: That sacrifice is the greatest gain. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu sees an avreich sacrificing his own interests for the sake of another person, He takes him under His protection, because Torah is acquired through chesed.

{Matzav.com}

CLACTON-ON-SEA, England (AP) — Nigel Farage regained his seat in Parliament on Friday, beating a field of fringe candidates led by trash-can-wearing comic Count Binface in a special election boycotted by mainstream parties that called it a farce.

Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party who some see as a possible next prime minister, abruptly quit his seat in July amid an investigation into whether he failed to report a 5 million pound ($6.7 million) gift from an overseas crypto billionaire.

He denied wrongdoing and ran again for the seat to prove he had voters’ support, regaining it with 63% of Thursday’s vote in an unusual election on the hottest day of the year. Binface, a serial candidate who has challenged prime ministers past and present, represented a protest vote and finished second in a field of 34 candidates — many of them also jokers — with about 27%, according to the results announced Friday.

Farage hailed the result as an “overwhelming win” that increased his vote share over the last election, but it’s hard to draw broad conclusions from the election given the lack of genuine rivals and the fact that Farage has long been popular in the conservative constituency on the east coast of England.

“Today the voters in Clacton have stuck up two fingers to the entire political establishment,” Farage said, referring to the British equivalent of a crude gesture that employs the middle finger in other cultures.

The result will send him back to the House of Commons, but an investigation by a parliamentary watchdog that was suspended when he stepped down was resumed hours after the result was announced. That means Farage could be forced out of Parliament — and face yet another election.

Farage reshaped UK politics and led Reform to top of polls
Farage, the chief cheerleader in getting Britain to vote to leave the European Union a decade ago, has shattered the country’s longstanding two-party system by positioning himself to the right of the Conservative Party.

With Farage’s win, the party has just eight of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, but is popular nationally by drawing on a mix of cultural grievances and a vow to stop what he has called an invasion of migrants crossing the English Channel in inflatable rafts. Reform has frequently changed the national conversation and forced the governing center-left Labour Party and the Conservatives, long the dominant parties, to address Reform’s key issues.

But with Farage under scrutiny and a Labour leadership shakeup that installed Andy Burnham as prime minister, some analysts say Labour is regaining popularity.

Farage still faces investigation over an undeclared donation
Pressure will continue to mount on Farage as Parliament’s standards watchdog investigates an undeclared donation he got in 2024 from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. Farage says he didn’t need to declare the money because it was a personal gift he used to fund his security and was made before he was elected.

When he resigned on July 7, he complained of an “establishment hit job” and a media-driven “witch-hunt.”

Farage also faces an investigation into his financial relationship with George Cottrell, an aristocratic crypto-gambling entrepreneur who served eight months in a U.S. prison for fraud a decade ago after offering to launder money for undercover agents posing as drug traffickers.

Cottrell remains close to Farage and has reportedly given him money for security and staff. Farage has denied wrongdoing and stood by the man he calls “Posh George.”

Labour Party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said the election was no victory for Farage, and he needs to come clean over his finances and relationship with Cottrell.

“The mountain of sleaze and scandal he and Reform are now engulfed in has grown and grown while he’s been trying to distract the public by fighting a by-election against a bin,” Phillipson said.

Farage was a no-show at the vote count
Farage’s gambit to resign and run again backfired when other parties refused to participate and he was left facing a massive field of independent and small-party candidates, including novelty acts such as Howling Laud Hope of The Official Monster Raving Loony Party and Marcus White from the Everyone is God Party.

Farage declared victory in the early morning and blew off the official declaration where he would have had to stand alongside the other candidates — a time-honored tradition in British politics.

“I’m damned if I’m going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory … and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies,” Farage told supporters at a victory party.

Farage also said he didn’t attend because police told him about an “organized campaign to disrupt and degrade the result.” A spokesperson for Reform said there was a credible threat against him, though police disputed that.

Binface, who ran on a wacky platform that included a vow to “cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s,” build one affordable home, and nationalize singer Adele, declared himself the “winning candidate of the candidates who bothered to turn up for the results.”

Under the black cape, trash can helmet and ample body armor straight out of a low-budget sci-fi film, Binface’s alter-ego is Jon Harvey, a middle-aged comedian who spent most of the campaign doing media interviews and trying to stay cool in the costume during a sweltering summer.

Binface has hinted that if Farage faces another election, he could return to run again.

“Over one in four people in this constituency would rather have Count Binface as their MP than the leader of Reform UK,” Binface said on X, “and I’m just getting started.”

Commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remained severely restricted Friday morning after two more vessels were attacked, keeping one of the world’s most important energy corridors far below normal traffic levels and renewing pressure on oil prices.

Only nine commercial vessels crossed the strait Thursday, compared with roughly 130 to 140 ships a day before the Iran war.

That means traffic through Hormuz is still running at only a small fraction of normal levels despite limited movement beginning to resume.

The latest disruption followed attacks on two vessels operated by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company while they were transiting the strait. No casualties were reported.

The attacks reinforce the biggest problem facing shipowners: even if a vessel is technically allowed to pass, insurers, crews and operators must decide whether the voyage is worth the physical and financial risk.

That risk is already showing up in energy markets.

Brent crude moved back toward $88 a barrel Friday morning, while West Texas Intermediate also climbed as traders priced in the possibility that Gulf exports could remain constrained longer than expected.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the most important chokepoints in the global economy.

Before the war, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply moved through the waterway, connecting major producers including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar with customers in Asia, Europe and elsewhere.

The disruption is already beginning to redraw global oil flows.

Asian refiners have increased purchases from alternative suppliers, including the United States, as companies try to reduce their dependence on cargoes that must pass through Hormuz.

U.S. crude exports to Asia have risen sharply, giving American producers an unexpected advantage from the disruption.

For businesses that consume fuel, however, the economics move in the opposite direction.

Restricted shipping pushes up tanker rates, marine-insurance premiums, freight expenses and inventory costs even before the higher price of crude itself reaches businesses and consumers.

That means a company does not need to buy oil directly to feel the effect.

Trucking companies pay more for diesel. Airlines pay more for jet fuel. Manufacturers pay more to move raw materials. Retailers eventually absorb higher transportation costs on imported goods.

The important number Friday is therefore not simply the price of Brent crude.

It is nine ships.

Against the roughly 130 to 140 vessels that normally crossed Hormuz every day before the war, the waterway remains effectively operating at emergency levels.

Until commercial traffic begins returning in meaningful volume, Hormuz remains one of the largest unresolved risks hanging over global energy prices, shipping costs and inflation.

JBizNews Desk | Strait of Hormuz

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BREINIGSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA (VINnews) — A former Burger King employee who was fired after telling an Israeli-American customer “Free Palestine” has raised nearly $250,000 through an online fundraiser and has been honored with a mural painted by artists in Gaza.

Arianna Hamilton, who worked at a Burger King location in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, was dismissed earlier this month following a viral video of an interaction with customer Rami Feinstein, an Israeli-American musician. According to accounts of the exchange, Feinstein identified himself as Israeli after initially saying he was from New Jersey, prompting Hamilton to respond with the phrase “Free Palestine.”

Burger King confirmed the employee was terminated. Hamilton later posted a video defending her actions, saying she was exercising free speech and not intending to discriminate or spread hate. She stated her goal was to highlight the situation in Gaza.

Hamilton launched a GoFundMe campaign titled “Support Arianna After Job Loss for Free Speech.” The fundraiser initially sought $140,000 to cover living expenses such as rent, utilities and groceries while she looked for new work. After surpassing that goal, the target was raised to $250,000. As of recent updates, the campaign had raised more than $240,000 from thousands of donors. Hamilton has said any surplus after covering her basic needs would go to families in Palestine.

In a further development, artists in Gaza created a mural depicting Hamilton in her Burger King uniform and headset, alongside a crossed-out Burger King logo and the words “Free Palestine.” Videos of the mural circulated widely on social media, with posts describing it as a show of solidarity.

The incident and subsequent fundraising have drawn strong reactions on both sides. Supporters praised Hamilton for speaking out, while critics called the workplace remark inappropriate and questioned the scale of the donations relative to a fast-food job loss.

Hamilton has not publicly detailed her next employment plans. Burger King has not issued further statements beyond confirming the termination.

American consumers unexpectedly cut spending in July, delivering one of Friday morning’s most important economic signals and adding new pressure to the Federal Reserve’s September rate decision.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported at 8:30 a.m. EDT Friday that retail and food-services sales fell 0.6% in July from June, to a seasonally adjusted $763.6 billion.

Economists had expected sales to edge higher.

Despite the monthly decline, Americans are still spending considerably more than they were a year ago. Retail and food-services sales were 5.0% above July 2025, while total sales during the May-through-July period were 6.3% higher than during the same three months last year.

The report therefore does not show that consumers suddenly stopped spending. What changed is the direction of momentum.

June sales rose 0.2%. July reversed that gain and more.

Several large categories drove the decline.

Motor-vehicle and parts dealers saw sales fall 1.8% from June, while nonstore retailers — which include much of online shopping — dropped 2.2%.

Gasoline-station sales declined 0.9%.

Electronics and appliance stores fell 0.5%.

Excluding both automobiles and gasoline stations, retail sales were still down 0.2%, showing that the weakness was broader than just cars and fuel.

There were pockets of strength.

Clothing and accessories stores posted a 1.9% increase, health and personal-care stores gained 0.7%, miscellaneous retailers rose 0.5%, and food services and drinking places increased 0.5%.

Furniture and home-furnishing stores rose 0.3%, while building-material and garden-supply dealers also gained 0.3%.

The online-sales decline deserves particular attention.

Several major retailers moved promotional events earlier into the summer this year, including Amazon’s Prime Day, creating an unusually strong comparison with the previous month. That means some of July’s drop may reflect when consumers spent their money rather than a fundamental collapse in demand.

The Census figures are also reported in dollars and are not adjusted for inflation, meaning higher prices can make sales appear stronger even when consumers are purchasing fewer actual goods.

Still, the report matters because consumer spending represents the largest component of the U.S. economy.

For much of 2026, American households have continued spending despite elevated borrowing costs, higher energy prices and persistent inflation. That resilience has allowed businesses to keep raising revenue even as interest rates remained restrictive.

Friday’s report introduces a different possibility: consumers may finally be becoming more selective.

That is especially important for the Federal Reserve.

Until this week, investors were largely debating whether persistent inflation would force policymakers to raise interest rates again in September.

Then came softer consumer inflation Wednesday, cooler wholesale inflation Thursday and now weaker retail spending Friday morning.

Taken together, those reports reduce the urgency for another immediate rate increase.

The Fed still has a problem, however.

Inflation remains above its 2% target, and several policymakers continue to argue that keeping monetary policy too loose for too long could allow price pressures to become entrenched.

But raising borrowing costs when consumers are beginning to slow creates a different risk: weakening an economy that may already be losing momentum.

Markets reacted quickly Friday morning, with Treasury yields moving lower after the report as investors reduced expectations for another near-term rate increase.

For businesses, the takeaway is more practical.

Retailers heading toward the fall shopping season now have another reason to watch inventories closely. Restaurants are still showing strength. Apparel held up well. Autos and online retail weakened sharply.

And companies selling discretionary goods may discover that consumers who spent aggressively earlier this year are becoming considerably more careful about where the next dollar goes.

One month does not establish a trend.

But Friday’s report is important because it marks the first clear warning this week that cooling inflation may not simply be good news.

It may also be telling businesses that demand itself is starting to cool.

JBizNews Desk | Washington

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Nearly a week after Israeli mother and daughter Mali and Liel Yahalomi disappeared in Vienna, new evidence has emerged showing the pair leaving their apartment on their own and carrying their belongings, as investigators increasingly examine the possibility that they traveled onward from the Austrian capital.

Security camera footage reviewed by investigators shows 50-year-old Mali and her 23-year-old daughter Liel leaving the Vienna apartment where they had been staying. No other person was seen accompanying them.

According to a report by i24NEWS, investigators who subsequently searched the apartment determined that the two women had taken their belongings with them when they left — a potentially significant detail as authorities attempt to reconstruct their movements before all contact with them was lost.

Investigators have also established that the last known location signal from the women’s phones was recorded Saturday morning in the area of Vienna’s central train station, approximately a 20-minute walk from their accommodations.

Authorities are now reviewing surveillance footage from around the station in an effort to determine where Mali and Liel went next. One possibility being investigated is that the two boarded a train and traveled to another destination.

Based on the latest findings, investigators increasingly believe the mother and daughter are no longer in Vienna. Authorities are also examining the possibility that they left Austria entirely and traveled to another European country, prompting the search to be expanded beyond Austria’s borders.

The developments add significant new information to an investigation that has taken a dramatic turn in recent days and is now being handled on the Israeli side by Israel Police’s Lahav 433 national crime unit. A court has imposed a gag order on details of the investigation.

“The working assumption is that they are alive,” a senior source involved in the investigation told Channel 12, stressing that every possibility remains under examination. “We are checking whether this entire event was planned — meaning whether the mother and daughter planned an escape from the country — or whether this was some kind of criminal incident that we do not know about.”

Authorities are also examining whether there could be a nationalistic motive.

“Nothing has been ruled out. Everything is being checked. There are a lot of question marks,” the source said.

The investigation is being conducted jointly with Vienna Police. Channel 13 previously reported that Austrian law-enforcement officials believe the two women may no longer be inside Austria, while Austrian outlet Heute reported that the Mossad is assisting efforts to locate them, though that report has not been officially confirmed.

The family has strongly pushed back against suggestions that investigators may already have reached conclusions about why Mali and Liel disappeared. After providing Lahav 433 investigators with a detailed statement and all information in their possession, the family said it has information that substantially contradicts some claims surrounding the investigation and demanded that authorities continue examining the possibility of a nationalistically motivated incident.

Mali’s older brother, Ronen Yahalomi, told Ynet that the trip to Europe had been arranged by Liel as a surprise for her mother, who had celebrated her birthday just days earlier. Their itinerary included Prague and Vienna, with Liel arranging the flights, transportation and other details.

Ronen traveled to Austria following their disappearance and has remained in close contact with Austrian authorities, Israeli Foreign Ministry representatives and Vienna’s Jewish community.

Israel Police Commissioner Danny Levy has convened a special situation assessment focused on locating the two women and ordered that all necessary resources and capabilities be made available to the investigation.

Despite the new surveillance footage and phone-location information, the central mystery remains unresolved: What happened to Mali and Liel after they left their apartment, reached the area of Vienna’s central train station and apparently vanished without a trace?

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers unexpectedly cut their spending in July as a boost from government tax refunds faded.

Retail sales slipped 0.6% last month, the biggest drop since May 2025 from a revised gain of 0.2%, according to the Commerce Department data released Friday.

There was a notable bump in spending in both April and May as Americans dipped into their tax refunds.

Excluding sales at gas stations and at auto dealers, retail sales in July fell 0.2%. Gas prices ticked up again overnight to $4.08 per gallon on Friday, up from $3.85 a month ago, according to motor club AAA.

Shoppers pulled back in several areas like consumer electronics and online retailers

The data offers only a snapshot of consumer spending and doesn’t include activities like travel and hotel stays. The lone services category – restaurants – registered a 0.5% increase.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was vandalized Thursday, with bubbles filling a fountain and “Clean hands dirty $” written in red paint.

The Interior Department released a statement late Thursday saying: “Our U.S. Park Police are on the scene and the investigation is ongoing. The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act.”

The World War II Memorial was vandalized with soap in the fountain and graffiti on the memorial itself.

7News obtained a photo of paint graffiti, which appears to read "Clean hands / Dirty $." Meanwhile, the fountains are filled with bubbles formed from the soap.#wjla… pic.twitter.com/fq826ADzh2

— 7News DC (@7NewsDC) August 13, 2026

The Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the site, said: “There are many places in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the vandalism “an act of profound disrespect, a slap in the face to the veterans who served and sacrificed and to the families who carried that burden at home.”

The World War II Memorial is just east of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the Mall. After a botched repair job earlier this year left the pool with peeling blue sealant and green algae, President Donald Trump blamed the issues on vandalism without providing evidence.

JERUSALEM (VINnews)— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the United Kingdom as the “Islamic republic of Britain” during a lengthy podcast interview with Army Radio, according to remarks reported Friday.

Discussing Winston Churchill’s son Randolph Churchill and grandson Winston Spencer Churchill, who like the World War II-era British prime minister worked as journalists, Netanyahu said the pair “came here and covered the Six Day War in a very positive way for us.”

“Try to find that now in Britain, which you could call the Islamic republic of Britain,” Netanyahu said, chuckling.

When the interviewer asked whether “all of Europe isn’t already like that,” Netanyahu replied “yes.” The exchange appeared to reference Muslim communities in European countries and the increasingly critical postures many European governments have taken toward Israel in recent years.

Netanyahu continued the joke: “The first nuclear Islamic republic will be the Islamic republic of Britain. We’re making sure there won’t be another one in Iran.”

Contact 917-859-5507 to claim.

BERLIN (AP) — A fire in a 21-story Berlin high-rise injured an estimated five people and made some residents consider jumping to escape the flames before it was brought under control Friday morning, local media reported.

The severity of the injuries was not immediately known, German news agency dpa reported. All of the building’s residents were evacuated.

One person was forced to jump into a firetruck’s aerial basket, dpa reported. A fire department spokesperson described the rescue operation as “dramatic.”

It wasn’t immediately known how far the person jumped.

The blaze broke out around 6:30 a.m. Friday in the Friedrichshain neighborhood near the Ostbahnhof train station. It was brought under control in under three hours, dpa reported.

It started in an apartment on the 11th floor and spread to the unit above, dpa reported. The fire’s cause was not immediately known either.

Paramount Skydance has discussed creating an editorial board whose job would be to keep the company’s executives out of CNN’s newsroom once it takes ownership of the network. The Wall Street Journal reported the discussions Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. “We always remain open to internal improvements to journalistic integrity,” the company said in a statement.

The idea is not new in American media. The template is the Dow Jones Special Committee, which Rupert Murdoch agreed to create in 2007 as a condition of buying The Wall Street Journal — a standing body that describes itself as safeguarding the editorial independence of the Journal and Dow Jones and monitoring their adherence to professional standards.

Timing matters for how the move gets read. Paramount’s internal discussions began before California and 11 other states sued to block its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN has separately reported that similar conversations occurred at the network’s own highest levels when Warner Bros. Discovery was planning to split itself into two companies, meaning they predate Paramount’s involvement entirely. Warner executives weighed the same maneuver during that split, before Paramount bid for the company.

Whatever its origins, the proposal now sits inside a live legal fight. Twelve state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, filed suit on July 13 in federal court in Northern California to stop the deal. The complaint alleges the merger violates the Clayton Act of 1914, and the Writers Guild of America filed a separate action the following day. The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division had already cleared the transaction in mid-June, so the states are the remaining obstacle. A similar state coalition succeeded earlier this year in freezing Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna ahead of trial, which is the precedent both sides are watching.

Paramount chief executive David Ellison argued last week that the lawsuit is not really a competition case at all, but an attempt to keep him from owning CNN. He made the same case in a guest essay for The New York Times on Aug. 4. An oversight board answers that argument directly: if the objection is editorial control, hand the editorial control to someone else.

Hollywood executive Ari Emanuel, an Ellison ally, floated exactly that on CNBC, calling an editorial board over the news organizations an easy solve for the concerns about the Ellison family controlling both CNN and CBS News.

Here is the part that makes it expensive. An oversight board would complicate the cost savings Paramount will want from a combined company, because merging CBS News and CNN is precisely where the production and newsgathering savings sit. A body with standing authority over editorial matters is a body that can object to consolidating two newsrooms into one. Paramount would be trading operating leverage for regulatory goodwill, and the leverage is worth real money in a business where news divisions rarely carry themselves.

Skepticism about the arrangement traces to what has already happened at Paramount’s existing news operation. The company installed Bari Weiss atop CBS News, and her removal of senior producers and correspondents from “60 Minutes” generated controversy the conglomerate appeared unprepared for. CBS journalists have described political interference in the newsroom, which the news division disputes. That record is what an oversight board at CNN would be asked to reassure people about.

Congressional pressure continued Wednesday on a separate track. Representative Jamie Raskin, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, requested a transcribed interview with Ellison, citing the Times essay in which the executive pledged to stop staying silent, and noting that four prior letters went unanswered. Raskin gave him until Aug. 26. As the minority party, Democrats cannot compel his appearance, and Ellison has declined earlier invitations to testify.

For a board to mean anything, the details will have to be spelled out and enforceable: who appoints the members, what they can veto, and whether the arrangement survives the closing or expires with it. The state attorneys general have already argued in their complaint that one of Paramount’s public commitments was not legally enforceable — the same objection any voluntary board would invite. Structure, not intention, is what will decide whether this counts as a concession or a press release.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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NASSAU COUNTY (VINnews)-President Trump is on Long Island this afternoon to tour the Nassau County Police Academy in Garden City.

He is highlighting the FBI’s 2025 Crime Report, which shows the largest year-to-year drop in violent crime on record, including an estimated 18.1% decline in murder and manslaughter.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman will join him, along with Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel. Officials say the visit will also pay tribute to local police, sheriffs, probation officers, and firefighters.

Trump is expected in the area roughly from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Residents and drivers in Garden City, Mineola, Uniondale, East Meadow, and Hempstead should expect intermittent road closures, delays, and heavier traffic.

A designated protest area has been set up nearby.

Investors in Anthropic expect the artificial intelligence company to go public in October at a valuation of $2 trillion or more, which would make it the largest initial public offering in history — surpassing SpaceX, which listed in June at $1.77 trillion. The company filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June and is in a quiet period. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are leading the offering, targeted at Nasdaq.

One caveat belongs in the first breath: this number is not the company’s. Six Anthropic backers told the Financial Times that revenue growth could support a valuation more than twice the company’s most recent level, and the projections come from investors rather than from Anthropic. Senior executives have not set an IPO valuation target even in private conversations. Investors modeled it themselves.

The arithmetic behind those models rests on one number. Anthropic reported $47 billion in annualized revenue in May. Backers expect $100 billion to $120 billion by year-end — more than tenfold growth inside a single year. The company last raised at a $965 billion post-money valuation, after institutional investors put nearly $100 billion into it during 2026, lifting it above OpenAI for the first time in May.

Set beside SpaceX, the comparison is less lopsided than the headline number suggests. SpaceX priced at $1.77 trillion on 2025 revenue of $18.67 billion and a 2025 net loss of $4.94 billion — a bet largely on Elon Musk, given that the company was burning cash and was far smaller by revenue than any other trillion-dollar company. That works out near 95 times sales. Anthropic at $2 trillion on $120 billion of revenue would be about 17 times sales. On that measure the AI company would be the cheaper of the two record-setters.

Whether the revenue figure means what it appears to mean is the live question. The research firm IDC estimates Anthropic’s annualized revenue at $40 billion to $50 billion, with consumer subscriptions contributing under $2 billion. Part of the gap is accounting: Anthropic books some revenue on a gross basis, counting the full enterprise spend routed through reseller arrangements on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure rather than the portion it keeps. A public S-1 will force a standardized presentation for the first time. At 17 times revenue the multiple looks reasonable; at IDC’s number it is closer to 45 times.

Margins are the other unresolved variable. Anthropic’s gross margin — revenue less compute costs — sits at roughly 40%, and the company has told investors it intends to reach 77% by 2028. Compute is the cost of goods sold in this business, and closing 37 points of margin over two years is the assumption doing the heaviest lifting in any bull case.

The bulls are not shy about it. One investor argued that a company growing at 800% a year would command at least 30 times revenue at the low end, implying $3 trillion, and noted that AI-adjacent names such as Palantir and Nebius have traded near 55 times sales this year. Another told the Financial Times that $2 trillion was a lowball figure. Jim Cramer defended the number on CNBC, arguing that a high multiple is sustainable when it is backed by real revenue growth rather than sentiment.

The risks are specific rather than atmospheric. Anthropic’s top model is priced more than 2.5 times higher than OpenAI’s flagship, while Chinese open-weight alternatives can be run for a fraction of that, and some companies are already capping AI spending or shifting to cheaper, less capable models. Revenue growth slowed measurably in June during an 18-day period when the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security barred foreign nationals from accessing the company’s two most capable models, though investors said business rebounded afterward. The company is also in a dispute with the administration and the Defense Department, which labeled it a supply-chain risk.

Structure will matter as much as valuation. SpaceX set the template in June by selling about 4.2% of the company at a fixed price of $135, using a small float to establish a price for the other 95.8%, alongside staged insider lock-ups and limited public voting power. The offering was heavily oversubscribed, with retail investors allotted an unusually large share. A thin float can hold a headline valuation aloft on modest trading volume, which cuts both ways once lock-ups expire.

For readers weighing what this means beyond the AI trade, the useful frame is that October now carries the largest listing ever attempted, priced off projections that will not be independently verifiable until an S-1 becomes public. A $2 trillion debut asks public investors to place an extraordinary value on continued growth — and to accept, for now, a revenue figure that the company’s own filing has not yet had to defend.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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Speculation that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could seek the White House in 2028 is intensifying, with the New York Democrat climbing into second place in a major online prediction market and polling competitively among potential Democrat primary contenders.

Polymarket announced Thursday that Ocasio-Cortez had moved ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in its 2028 presidential election market for the first time this year, leaving her trailing only Vice President JD Vance.

Vance held the top position with a 23% chance of winning the presidency, according to the market, while Ocasio-Cortez stood at 13% and Rubio at 12%. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and California Gov. Gavin Newsom were each at 9%, while Kamala Harris registered 4%.

Ocasio-Cortez’s rise comes as questions mount over whether she will attempt to move from the House to the White House. While she has not closed the door on a presidential campaign, she has publicly maintained that her immediate attention is on this year’s midterm elections.

“I’m focused on winning the midterms. I’m running for Congress right now,” Ocasio-Cortez told ABC News’ “This Week” on Aug. 2 when asked whether she plans to run for president in two years.

“I haven’t ruled out the possibility. And I’m very humbled to the tremendous amount of support out there,” she added.

Ocasio-Cortez has also shown strength in the crucial early-primary state of New Hampshire. A University of New Hampshire survey conducted last month among likely Democrat presidential primary voters found her narrowly leading a hypothetical field, with 22% support compared to 21% for Pete Buttigieg.

Vance himself has predicted that Ocasio-Cortez could emerge as the Democrats’ standard-bearer in 2028. Appearing on “The Michael Knowles Show” on June 30, the vice president said he views her as the most likely candidate to lead the Democrat ticket.

“I think it’s got to be AOC. I know that’s probably conventional wisdom,” Vance said.

Knowles questioned whether Vance really believed Ocasio-Cortez had a better chance than Ossoff or other potential contenders.

“AOC more than Ossoff, more than any of these other guys?”

Vance responded that the answer depends largely on where the real center of influence within the Democrat Party now lies.

“It’s funny. The AOC versus Ossoff thing, the question would be who do you think really has the power in the Democratic Party,” Vance said.

“And if you think the answer is like Wall Street and the left-of-center business community, then it would be Ossoff. If you think it’s the universities, it would be AOC,” he continued.

Vance then pointed to an observation by author and political commentator David Brooks that he said offered an important explanation for the transformation of the Democrat Party’s political base.

“So [author] David Brooks made an observation. I think David Brooks probably hates my guts; but he, like, occasionally, will say something that I think is genuinely brilliant, and this was one of them,” Vance said.

“He said the fundamental problem with today’s Democratic Party is that the power center has shifted from unions to universities. If that’s right, AOC will be the nominee.”

National polling, however, currently paints a different picture from the New Hampshire survey and prediction markets. The RealClearPolitics average of hypothetical Democrat primary polling has Harris in first place at 28.9%, followed by Newsom at 16.4%. Buttigieg stands at 10.5%, while Ocasio-Cortez is fourth at 8.8%.

On the Republican side, Vance holds a commanding advantage in the RealClearPolitics polling average, receiving 39.8% support compared with Rubio’s 21.6%, an 18.2-point margin.

Rubio has sought to minimize speculation surrounding his own potential 2028 candidacy, saying his attention remains on his responsibilities as secretary of state in the Trump administration.

Still, Rubio recently demonstrated significant support among conservative activists. At the Western Conservative Summit in Colorado, he won a 2028 Republican presidential straw poll by a decisive margin, defeating Vance by 36 points.

{Matzav.com}

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In the last few days we have been witness to a hopelessly tendentious representation of a media event in Samaria, which has led to almost unanimous condemnation from the media both in Israel and abroad.

The way in which the situation was presented – settlers placing a tent in the back yard of an Arab house and blocking the owner’s way out, while dismantling a wall erected there – left little option but to censure the actions of the settlers. Leftists gleefully took the footage and slammed the “terrorists” for their “violent” actions, and the pictures even reached the White House and caused some discomfort, leading even Ambassador Huckabee, probably Israel’s best friend in the US, to condemn the actions without mincing words:

“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting. No excuse for such thuggish behavior.” ( Mike Huckabee)

Even the Yesha Council and settler leaders, many of whom participated in illegal construction of communities in their youth, disavowed the actions of the hilltop youths in Qusra and called them “irreversible damage”. 

The only thing lacking in the media reports was the most important thing – context. Nobody seemed to ask the obvious questions: Why are the settlers harassing this family in particular? Why did they set up a tent in his back yard, even though it would obviously be removed? Why didn’t the army just immediately remove them, like it does so often when they trespass on private property? What is going on here?

The answer to these questions, which no media outlet was objective enough to portray, is that this is no innocent house in the village of Qusra, located north of Shiloh. This house was recently erected on one of the highest promontories in the region, Jebel El-Eina, located well out of the borders of the village and dominating the entire Shiloh region. If the owner had only intended to enjoy the view from his new domicile, nobody would have disturbed him. Yet he had far more nefarious plans.

Kusai Abu Ridi, as he is known, is not the actual owner, as his uncle Loui from Chicago funded the new building, but he is the current occupier of the house.

Abu Ridi and several other rioters from the village recently carried out a brutal lynching attack on a Jewish shepherd. Three of the assailants violently restrained him while another repeatedly punched him, and another attacker raised a pickaxe over his head in an apparent attempt to strike him—images that, according to the account, evoked scenes reminiscent of the October 7 attacks.

The shepherd narrowly escaped the assault and required medical treatment for his injuries.

In an unusual move, Abu Ridi was arrested following the attack after clear video footage of the incident emerged. However, despite the documented evidence, he was later released and allowed to return home. 

Abu Ridi, however, was not yet rid of his craving for Jewish blood. The new house is located in a prime position to throw stones at Jews visiting a nearby spring, and Abu Ridi evidently has several friends and family who can take a good shot:

אבו רידי מרפה להשתפך בראיונות ולספר על בנותיו הקטנות, אולם מסתבר שהוא נוהג לארח בביתו עוד כמה אורחים חביבים. הנה למשל ילדי החמד האלה, רעולי הפנים, שיידו אבנים *מתוך ביתו של רידי* לעבר מטיילים יהודים שהיו בדרכם למעין הסמוך. pic.twitter.com/zNN38lecLR

— אלישע ירד (@ElishaYered) August 12, 2026

Usually the stonethrowing terrorists if not checked will resort to further forms of violence, and Abu Ridi’s clan are no exception. A few weeks ago, ten shots were fired from the vicinity of his home towards a farm located nearby (the farm, unsurprisingly, disturbed his view, so why not take a pot shot). The guard at the farm even succeeded in recording the final shots on video:

ואיך לא, התקיפות האלימות וידויי האבנים הסלימו מהר גם לירי. לפני כשלושה שבועות ביצעו מחבלים מסביבת ביתו של אבו רידי ירי של כעשרה כדורים מאקדח ככל הנראה לעבר גבעת תל תלפיות ששוכנת בראש ההר. השומר עוד הספיק לשלוף את הפלאפון, לתעד את הירייה האחרונה ולהזעיק את כוחות צה”ל אך המחבלים לא… pic.twitter.com/5JsaSqyoVC

— אלישע ירד (@ElishaYered) August 12, 2026

So what do we have here? A terrorist inexplicably released after he attempted to murder a Jewish neighbor, continuing to harass and attempt to murder Jewish neighbors from the comfort of his home with stones and bullets. The solution? Make his home less comfortable for him by establishing a Jewish presence in his courtyard, presumably to show him that the settlers are not afraid of stones or bullets and will not be cowed into submission by violence. 

Abu Ridi now claims that he is besieged but this is also a lie: He can walk out the other side of his house and ascend to the village, but prefers now to play the victim, moaning to the press about the occupiers of his home, but in truth he has only himself to blame. 

None of this background information made the mainstream media, which instead interviewed Abu Ridi and his uncle, who of course derided the settlers for attempting to steal their home. No reporter tried to obtain the perspective of the settlers camping outside.

Ambassador Huckabee, you are a fair man and a good judge of character. It is true that there are good settlers and bad settlers, just as in any other society there may be rotten apples. Do not however be deluded by the media into thinking that these agitators in Qusra are willing to gratuitously throw a man out of his home. There is always a context in every case, always a reason behind the madness, you just have to hear both sides of the conflict.

The yen was hovering around 159.36 per dollar on Thursday, back within sight of the 160 level that has historically signaled Tokyo may step into the market again. That leaves it having given up about half the gains from the rally that followed the record joint yen-buying operation Japan and the United States ran at the end of July. A senior analyst at Gaitame.com Research Institute noted the pair has now completed a 50% retracement of the intervention-driven decline, with the next technical target in the mid-160s.

The reason is not complicated, and it is the same reason the intervention was always going to be a holding action.

American interest rates sit at 3.5% to 3.75%. Japan’s policy rate is 1.0%. Money parked in dollars earns roughly three and a half times what money parked in yen earns. That gap pays a return every single day, to everyone, automatically. An intervention is a one-time purchase — governments spend reserves to buy yen, the price moves, and then the daily arithmetic resumes. Buying a currency once cannot outlast the reason people are selling it.

The scale of what was spent makes the point. Japan’s finance ministry reportedly sold as much as $59 billion to buy yen on July 30, when the currency sat at 40-year lows, and Tokyo and Washington later confirmed they had acted together — the first joint operation since 1998, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama both pledging to repeat it if needed. Other estimates put the Japanese side nearer $75 billion and the much smaller American operation somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion. The yen began the year at 156 to the dollar, weakened to 163 by late July, strengthened to 157 after the intervention, and was back at 159 by Aug. 11. Tens of billions of dollars bought roughly a week.

Tokyo now appears to be reaching for the tool that actually addresses the gap. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government supports a near-term rate increase by the Bank of Japan, with September or October the likely timing, according to people familiar with the matter. The central bank is concerned that yen weakness is raising import prices and feeding inflation, and the government sees a rate move as reinforcing the intervention. The prime minister’s office said the choice of tools belongs to the BOJ’s judgment, and that the bank should work with the government toward stable 2% inflation. The BOJ’s summary of opinions from its July meeting flagged growing risks of faster inflation, with one board member suggesting the pace of hikes could quicken.

The yen firmed briefly on that report, to 159.18 from about 159.46, and then went nowhere. There has been little sign of the dollar-selling that a genuinely narrowing rate differential would produce, reflecting persistent underlying dollar demand and a widespread view that a single BOJ hike would not be enough to lift the currency. A quarter-point move against a gap of more than two and a half points does not change the trade.

What Washington got out of helping is worth spelling out, because it is unusual. Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, and one economist at Julius Baer wrote that the American motive was likely keeping Treasury yields stable by limiting pressure from Japanese selling. Analysts described the operation as an effort to stop a yen and Japanese government bond selloff from spilling over into already-rising U.S. yields. That makes the yen a borrowing-cost story for American companies, not just an exchange-rate story.

There is also a case that the framing itself is off. One analysis this month argued the yen market is not actually disorderly — volatility is not extreme, spreads are not gapping and business is getting done — and that what markets are really pricing is doubt about Japanese policy: an accommodative central bank fueling the carry trade, a bank that owns half of all Japanese government bonds, and an administration planning to expand spending on technology, defense and consumption. Japan’s dependence on imported energy makes the Iran war a further drag on the currency. Dollar-priced oil bought with a falling yen compounds both problems at once.

For businesses on this side of the Pacific, the practical read is that Japanese-made goods, components and machinery stay cheap in dollar terms, and that anyone selling into Japan keeps facing a customer whose purchasing power is shrinking. The weak yen is squeezing Japanese real incomes and has become a political problem at home.

One currency strategist at MUFG put the bind plainly: recent price action makes it hard for the BOJ to skip a September hike without disappointing the market and inviting more yen selling. The central bank has been maneuvered into raising rates to defend a currency rather than to manage its economy. Whether that is enough depends less on Tokyo than on the Federal Reserve, where market pricing has pointed to the possibility of another hike this year — which would widen the gap again and undo the whole exercise.

JBizNews Desk | Tokyo

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JERUSALEM (VINnews)-The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Friday the elimination of Muhammad Bassam Muhammad Mushtaha, a Hamas company commander who participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and held numerous hostages in captivity.

Mushtaha, who served as a company commander in the Shati’ Battalion of Hamas’ military wing, was struck two weeks ago in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF said. He infiltrated Israeli territory on Oct. 7 and took part in the attack that killed about 1,200 people and saw more than 250 others taken hostage.

Throughout the war, Mushtaha was involved in holding multiple hostages captive, including Tsachi Idan, Cpl. Noa Marciano, Ziv Berman, Omri Miran, Ori Megidish, Naama Levy and Matan Angrerst, according to the military.

The IDF said Mushtaha had recently attempted to advance terror attacks against Israeli troops and civilians. He was eliminated to remove that threat.

Prior to the strike, the military took steps to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.

IDF troops under the Southern Command remain deployed in the area in accordance with the existing agreement and will continue operating to remove any threats, the statement said.

Cleveland Clinic is now sending prescriptions to patients by air. A pharmacy technician at its Beachwood campus loads a filled order into a secure drop box, an autonomous drone picks it up, flies to the patient’s address, hovers roughly 300 feet overhead and lowers the package to the ground on a tether. The drone never lands. The pod sets the medication down, winches back up, and the aircraft returns to its charging station.

The service went live Monday, Aug. 3, and has been running daily since. Cleveland Clinic says it is the first long-term deployment of a prescription drug drone delivery program by a U.S. health system, which is the distinction that matters commercially — hospitals have flown medical drone pilots for years, but this one is built to operate as a standing part of patient care rather than a demonstration.

The operator is Zipline, the drone logistics company that has been flying medical payloads since 2016. The company has delivered tens of millions of medical products worldwide and now serves more than 5,000 hospitals and healthcare facilities, and says each aircraft runs more than 500 safety checks every second in flight.

The launch is deliberately small. Deliveries are limited to patients within a five-mile radius of Cleveland Clinic’s Beachwood Administrative Campus, which serves as the drones’ home base. Eligible patients are those already enrolled in the health system’s pharmacy home delivery program; the pharmacy team notifies them through their patient portal when a medication qualifies. The option is voluntary and carries no extra charge.

What flies is limited too. Controlled substances are not being transported by drone at this stage, and refrigerated items are excluded, leaving shelf-stable prescriptions as the initial payload. Patients follow the aircraft through a tracking link sent in the MyChart portal.

The operating case is speed. Matt Soder, executive director for Cleveland Clinic specialty and community pharmacies, said a courier run traditionally takes several hours from notification to the patient’s door, where the drone route is measured in minutes. For a patient starting an antibiotic or waiting on a refill, that compresses a same-day errand into a wait shorter than the drive to the pharmacy would have been.

Volume showed up immediately. Bri Robinson, who manages the health system’s home delivery pharmacy, said on launch day that the pharmacy opened at 7 a.m. and had already sent five to ten orders to patient homes.

Lindsey Amerine, chief pharmacy officer at Cleveland Clinic, framed the program as an extension of the system’s existing delivery operation rather than a standalone experiment, saying it strengthens home delivery and extends the reach of its services beyond the walls of its facilities. Zipline’s president of U.S. healthcare, Hillary Brendzel, made the customer argument in plainer terms: one less errand to run, and more time back in people’s days.

For the healthcare business, the economics sit in the last mile. Pharmacy home delivery has been growing for years, but it is carried by courier fleets and parcel networks whose costs scale with drivers, vehicles, fuel and traffic. An autonomous aircraft that completes a short hop in minutes and returns to a charging station changes that cost curve, and it changes what a health system can promise a patient about timing. That is why the first long-term deployment matters more than any of the pilots that preceded it — a program designed to run indefinitely has to survive on its unit economics, not on grant funding or novelty.

The expansion path is already mapped. Cleveland Clinic plans to add locations and to use the drones for additional medications, lab samples, medically tailored meals and medical supplies. Lab samples are the item to watch: moving specimens between collection sites and central labs is one of the most routine, most vehicle-dependent logistics problems in medicine, and it is the kind of repetitive short-distance run that autonomous aircraft handle best.

Regulation remains the gate on how fast any of this scales. Routine flights beyond a pilot’s visual line of sight require federal approval, and Cleveland Clinic and Zipline say they cleared the regulatory and technical requirements before launching. Every new service area will need the same clearances, which is why a program of this kind starts inside a five-mile circle rather than across a metropolitan region.

For now, the practical picture is narrow and real: a few thousand households on Cleveland’s east side can have a prescription arrive in the yard in minutes, and the rest of American healthcare is watching whether the numbers hold up well enough to copy.

JBizNews Desk | Cleveland

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A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval commander is threatening an unprecedented response to any U.S. attempt to seize Iranian-controlled islands in the Persian Gulf, warning that American forces would find themselves trapped in a deadly ground war.

In an interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, the IRGC field commander claimed that Iranian forces have been preparing for the possibility of a ground assault on the islands since 1995, with defensive and offensive plans updated annually.

The commander warned that Iran would consider virtually nothing off-limits if American forces attempted to establish a presence on the islands.

“The American military cannot establish a presence on the Iranian islands, even if it dares to launch a ground attack against them,” he said. “Maybe it can launch an attack with Marines and then immediately withdraw, but remaining on the islands is impossible. Suppose they occupy the islands and manage to establish their occupation — the islands will become their graves.”

He further threatened that Iran’s retaliation would extend far beyond the islands themselves.

“The response to any attempt to occupy the islands will exceed all expectations,” the commander said. “In addition to our focus on retaking the islands, there will be an unprecedented response that will break all previous red lines. Expect a historic response if such an attack begins.”

The commander also addressed the possibility of another round of fighting between Iran and the United States, saying Tehran believes renewed hostilities could come soon.

“I expect the war between us and them to return in the near future because the United States does not honor promises and agreements,” he said.

According to the commander, the decision over whether to open or close the Strait of Hormuz remains exclusively in the hands of Iran’s leadership. He claimed that during the previous conflict, Iranian forces were capable of rapidly shutting the strategic waterway after receiving orders, issuing warnings over international maritime channels and firing missiles toward vessels attempting to pass.

He also claimed that Iran avoided major direct naval confrontations with the U.S. fleet because large American warships and aircraft carriers did not approach the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian commander said several Persian Gulf countries contacted Tehran during the early days of the war seeking permission for vessels to pass through the area. He claimed the United Arab Emirates was the first to make such contact and later sent a delegation seeking permission to continue importing Iranian vegetables, which Tehran ultimately allowed.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, is in talks to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart in a deal that could value the company at as much as $6 billion, according to Bloomberg.

If completed, the transaction would reportedly be the largest acquisition in Anthropic’s history.

The talks remain ongoing, however, and there is no guarantee that an agreement will ultimately be reached, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

Decart specializes in artificial intelligence infrastructure, working with AI developers to improve how computing capabilities are utilized across a wide range of chips.

The Israeli startup is also developing advanced AI video-generation technology based on so-called “world models,” which can make changes to live video streams in real time.

Real-time generation and manipulation of visual content has emerged as a major frontier in the rapidly expanding AI video industry, and Decart has made the technology a significant focus of its operations.

A deal would mark a major expansion for Anthropic as competition intensifies among leading artificial intelligence companies to develop increasingly powerful models and the infrastructure needed to support them.

Anthropic declined to comment on the report, while a Decart spokesperson did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Three suspects were taken into custody Thursday in Flatbush after Flatbush Shomrim volunteers tracked a vehicle believed to be connected to multiple jewelry scams, including an incident targeting a Jewish victim on Shabbos near Ocean Parkway and Avenue M.

Shomrim had obtained the vehicle’s license plate a day earlier and continued monitoring for it after learning that the same vehicle was also wanted in connection with a similar incident in Yonkers.

The vehicle was later spotted back in Brooklyn, and Shomrim members followed it as the occupants approached another potential victim near East 18th Street and Avenue L. According to information obtained by YWN, the suspects appeared to attempt a similar scam, though no property was taken during that encounter.

Police subsequently stopped the vehicle near Avenue N and Ocean Parkway, where three occupants were taken into custody.

Authorities are investigating the suspects’ possible connection to the earlier incidents in Brooklyn and Yonkers.

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(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

When the federal government began depositing a $1,000 seed contribution into newly launched Trump Accounts for eligible children in July, personal finance expert and Ramsey Solutions personality George Kamel didn’t hesitate to claim the funds for his own young son.

Though Kamel gladly took “a little money back” from Uncle Sam, he issued a cautious warning to parents across America about the program’s tax fine print — and the costly mistake well-meaning families could make.

“As someone who has a 1-year-old and 3-year-old, I took advantage of this. And on the Fourth of July, that $1,000 came into the account for my son, and I went, ‘Woo! A little money back from the government that I’ve given so much to,’” Kamel told Fox News Digital.

“If you can understand the power of compound growth, then this Trump Account was worth it just to get your mind thinking about it,” he continued. “But the truth is, the tax benefits are not great on this.”

The initiative, which debuted as part of the Trump Accounts rollout in 2026, is a provision of the new tax legislation that will provide $1,000 to every eligible newborn U.S. citizen whose parents enroll the child in the program. No contributions are necessary, but parents can deposit up to $5,000 per year, which will be invested in a qualifying U.S. stock index fund.

During a July 31 public Cabinet meeting, President Donald Trump said that more than 7 million Trump Accounts had been opened since the program’s launch date.

“Here’s the math on this: If you get the free $1,000, well, that could grow to almost half a million or more by the time my kid is 65, without ever adding anything to it,” Kamel said before mentioning other ways to invest in children’s futures.

“Save the 529 plan for education. That has way better tax advantages. You’re using after-tax income, you withdraw it tax-free, it grows tax-free. That is the best move for education expenses,” he explained. “When it comes to other things, like a custodial Roth IRA is great, but you need earned income. So the real power of the Trump Account is that there is no earned income needed.”

At age 18, without any additional contributions, the account is estimated to be worth about $5,800. By age 55, it could reach roughly $200,000. Kamel also said it could grow to about $5 million by age 65.

However, Kamel’s primary warning was directed at parents who rush to invest for their children while neglecting their own debt, emergency funds or retirement savings.

“I love that we’re bringing this conversation to the forefront with these Trump Accounts… But the sad truth is most Americans aren’t investing for themselves, let alone have the ability to invest for their kids,” he said. “We tell people, hey, become debt-free, don’t owe other people money, have an emergency fund so that you have the margin to build wealth for yourself. And once you’re investing 15% of your own income into your own retirement, then and only then should you be thinking about investing for your kids.”

“The truth of the matter is, a lot of kids are having to support their aging parents who didn’t plan for their own retirement. So now they’re having to fund their retirement while trying to support their own life and their own kids. So this has put a real bind and burden on the younger generations,” Kamel continued. “And I don’t wanna do that to my kids.”

“So if you can get this early, this mindset, that compound growth is the key… I hope that you have the ability to leave that legacy where your kids went, ‘Wow, I can’t believe the advantage that my parents gave me by setting me up in this way.’”

FOX Business’ Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.

Robinhood is pushing further into private markets, launching a new publicly traded venture fund that gives ordinary investors access to early- and growth-stage startups that historically have been available mainly to venture-capital firms, institutions and wealthy accredited investors.

Robinhood Ventures Fund II began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday after raising about $225.5 million, creating a new vehicle that allows retail investors to buy exposure to a portfolio of private companies through a publicly traded fund.

The strategy is aimed in part at companies connected to Y Combinator and other startup ecosystems where some of the most valuable technology businesses begin years before they ever consider an initial public offering.

That matters because the structure of the American stock market has changed dramatically.

Many high-growth companies now remain private for much longer than they did a generation ago. Instead of going public relatively early and allowing everyday investors to participate in much of their growth, startups can raise billions of dollars privately from venture firms, sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors while delaying an IPO for years.

By the time those companies finally reach the stock market, some of the largest gains may already have gone to private investors.

Robinhood is trying to give its customers a way into that earlier stage.

Rather than requiring investors to qualify as accredited investors or commit large sums directly to venture funds, the new vehicle can be bought and sold through the public market like other listed investments.

That does not make startup investing risk-free.

Early-stage companies fail at much higher rates than established public corporations, private-company valuations can be difficult to determine, and investments may remain illiquid for years. Even when a startup succeeds, there is no guarantee it will eventually go public or be acquired at a higher valuation.

But the launch represents an important shift in who gets access to venture investing.

Robinhood built its original business around making stock and options trading easier for individual investors. It later expanded into retirement accounts, crypto, credit cards and other financial products.

Private-market access is becoming another front in that expansion.

It also puts Robinhood into a much larger competition taking shape across Wall Street.

Asset managers, brokerages and private-equity firms are increasingly looking for ways to package private investments for individual customers as wealthy and institutional investors pour more money into companies outside traditional public exchanges.

The opportunity is large because the number of major private companies has grown alongside their valuations.

Some startups now reach valuations of tens of billions or even more than $100 billion while remaining privately held, creating businesses that are effectively public-company size without public-company access.

For retail investors, that has created an unusual problem: they can easily buy shares of mature companies such as Apple, Microsoft or Amazon, but may have almost no direct access to the next generation of companies competing to become them.

Robinhood’s new venture fund is attempting to bridge that gap.

If the model gains traction, investors may increasingly be able to gain exposure to startups long before a traditional IPO.

And that could gradually change one of the most fundamental divisions in American finance — the line separating Wall Street’s private market from the ordinary investor.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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Vantage Data Centers is exploring a potential public offering that could value the company at about $100 billion, underscoring how quickly artificial intelligence is turning data-center operators into some of the most valuable infrastructure businesses in the world.

The Colorado-based company could seek to raise roughly $10 billion in an IPO as soon as 2027, according to people familiar with the discussions. A transaction at that level would make it the largest data-center IPO on record.

Vantage is also considering alternatives, including a full or partial sale, and no formal process has been launched.

The valuation is striking because Vantage does not make AI chips or consumer software. It owns and operates the massive facilities that provide the power, cooling and connectivity needed to run them.

That business has become increasingly valuable as technology companies race to secure computing capacity for increasingly power-hungry artificial-intelligence models.

Vantage has raised roughly $11 billion since late 2023, including a $9.2 billion equity investment led by DigitalBridge and Silver Lake.

The potential offering would come amid a broader rush by investors to gain exposure to the physical infrastructure behind AI.

The bigger shift is where investors are finding value in the AI boom. The winners are no longer limited to chipmakers and software companies. The buildings, electricity, cooling systems and land required to keep AI running are becoming an investment class of their own.

For Vantage, a $100 billion valuation would put a dramatic number on that transformation.

JBizNews Desk | Denver

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Hertz Global Holdings closed Thursday at $2.47, down almost 12%, after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management disclosed it had sold out of the car-rental company entirely. The stock was off as much as 16% during the session, wiping out an earlier gain. The decline put Hertz’s market value under $1 billion.

The disclosure came in Pershing Square’s interim report published Thursday, which said the firm exited Hertz in July. The sale itself is a month old. The market only learned of it Thursday morning, which is why a stale trade moved the stock.

The reason Ackman gave is more damaging than the sale. On a call Thursday, he said the firm closed the position after Hertz’s June equity offering of roughly 37 million shares priced at $2.70 and tied to exchangeable notes, calling the deal bungled and unnecessary. Chief Investment Officer Ryan Israel said Pershing lost confidence in management after a funding plan the firm did not think was needed, adding that it was unlike anything they had seen a company do. Pershing’s position was that Hertz had just posted solid first- and second-quarter results with strong liquidity, which made an overnight share sale on poor terms hard to explain. Ackman and Israel said they still like the operating team; the objection is to how management handles capital.

That distinction matters, because the operating numbers have been improving. Hertz reported second-quarter revenue of $2.4 billion against a $2.28 billion estimate, an adjusted loss of 11 cents a share where analysts looked for a 24-cent loss, and fleet utilization up 80 basis points to 79% on a 1% smaller fleet. Adjusted corporate EBITDA came in at $81 million, up from $18 million a year earlier and above the top of management’s revised guidance. Renting out a slightly smaller fleet slightly more of the time is exactly the lever a rental company has, and Hertz pulled it.

The June sequence is what broke the relationship. On June 24 the stock fell 41% after the company cut its second-quarter EBITDA guidance to a range of $50 million to $80 million, blaming weak used-car prices — a direct hit, since Hertz continually sells vehicles out of its fleet and falling resale values land straight in earnings. Alongside that, the company unveiled a $400 million financing package of $300 million in convertible senior notes and a $100 million common stock offering, with more than 37 million shares made available for hedging. Investors read that as dilution arriving at the worst possible price and sold.

Ackman’s complaint, in plain terms: the company raised equity cheap while telling the market its business was getting better, and did it in a structure that put a large block of borrowed stock into hedging hands. Thursday’s close sits 8.5% below the $2.70 offering price — meaning the buyers of that deal are also underwater.

The size of the position is worth keeping straight. Pershing held 15.2 million shares, about 5.84% of Hertz’s stock and the tenth-largest holding in its portfolio, but only about 0.27% of the firm’s equity book — roughly one dollar in every 370 Ackman manages. Against near $2.4 billion positions in Brookfield and Amazon, Hertz was a rounding error. It still cost him: the report showed Hertz subtracting 1.1% from Pershing’s gross performance this year through Aug. 11, one of the fund’s worst names. A small stake can do outsized damage when it falls far enough.

For Hertz, the arithmetic runs the other way. Losing a holder of one in every seventeen shares removes the most visible name on the register, and it interrupted something the company badly needed. The stock had been rallying on the earnings beat and on heavy short interest, a combination retail buyers had been pressing. Shares failed to clear $3 and reversed below $2.50, leaving the stock down roughly 52% for the year.

The balance sheet is where the real question sits. Hertz reported $984 million in liquidity, close to the entire market value of its equity — but fleet financing, the revolving credit line and secured noteholders all rank ahead of shareholders for that money. Equity holders are last in line, which makes the stock a bet on recovery rather than a claim on cash.

Management’s own outlook implies the second half has to do the heavy lifting. The company guided to adjusted corporate EBITDA of $275 million to $325 million for the third quarter with positive earnings per share, against a full-year range of $225 million to $275 million. A full-year target below a single quarter’s target only works if the first half was in the hole, which it was. Everything now depends on used-car prices holding up and on the summer rental season delivering. Ackman decided in July he did not want to wait and find out.

JBizNews Desk | Wall Street

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Two 19-year-old men have been convicted and sentenced to prison in France after filming themselves performing Nazi salutes outside a shul in Sarcelles, home to one of the country’s largest Jewish communities.

The incident occurred around 11 p.m. Sunday and was captured on surveillance cameras and a cellphone near a memorial honoring victims of terrorist Mohammed Merah’s 2012 attacks in Toulouse.

A court in Pontoise, in the Val-d’Oise department north of Paris, convicted the two in an expedited proceeding.

One of the men, a Russian citizen, was sentenced to eight months in prison and permanently banned from France. His accomplice, a Ukrainian-born French citizen, was sentenced to six months behind bars.

The pair were arrested three days after the incident in Sarcelles along with a third suspect whose identity has not been disclosed. Local police tracked them down after residents spotted their actions near the memorial.

Moïse Kahloun, president of the Jewish community in Sarcelles, welcomed the sentences, calling tough punishment “the only way to deal with the wave of antisemitism across France.”

France’s Jewish community has reported a sharp increase in antisemitic incidents in recent years, particularly since the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, and the war that followed.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Tapestry owns two handbag brands. Coach is booming. Kate Spade is not. On Thursday the stock fell as much as 16.9%, to $127.78 — about a sixth of the company’s value gone in one morning.

The split between the two brands is stark. Last quarter Coach sold $1.64 billion worth of goods, up 15% from a year ago. Kate Spade sold $235 million, down 7%. Out of every $8 the company took in, roughly $7 came from Coach.

The profits tell it even better. Coach made $546 million. Kate Spade lost $29 million.

The odd part is that the quarter was good. Sales rose 9%. Profit beat what Wall Street expected. For the full year, sales hit $8 billion and profit per share jumped 38%. The company raised its dividend 16%.

So why did the stock get hammered?

Because of the forecast for next year. Tapestry said it expects sales of $8.4 billion to $8.5 billion. Analysts wanted about $8.46 billion. The middle of the company’s range landed roughly $10 million short — about one-tenth of one percent.

One-tenth of one percent cost the company a sixth of its value. That happens when a stock is priced for everything to go right. Shares had already climbed about 20% this year and were expensive by any measure. At that price, a rounding error is enough to knock it over.

Worth noting: the profit forecast was actually a touch better than expected. Investors ignored it and focused on the sales line.

Kate Spade’s trouble is not new. Sales fell 11% over the past year. Chief Executive Joanne Crevoiserat said progress came slower than planned. Last month the company hired Scottish designer Jonathan Saunders to lead the brand’s look, and it has already cut about 30% of Kate Spade’s handbag styles. The idea is to do for Kate Spade what worked at Coach a few years ago: fewer styles, better design, less discounting. That takes seasons to show up, not weeks.

There is a quieter worry in the numbers. Sales in North America grew 7% last quarter. A year ago they grew 8%. The quarter before, about 20%. American shoppers are slowing down. Overseas is the opposite — China up 28%, Europe up 19%. Tariffs are taking a small bite too.

What is clearly working: Tapestry picked up about 11 million new customers over the year, and roughly 1 in 3 were Gen Z. Young shoppers buying Coach is the whole engine behind these results. The company also brought in nearly $2 billion in cash from operations.

For anyone watching the stock, the question is simple. Is this a company growing 14% a year with one weak brand it is fixing? Or a company where the good half has to carry the bad half forever? Thursday’s drop was not a judgment on the business. It was a judgment on the price.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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Israeli defense officials, including figures in both the IDF and Mossad, have been stunned by the speed at which Iran is rebuilding key military capabilities following the 2026 war, with the most alarming recovery taking place in Tehran’s ballistic missile program, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post.

For months after the war, senior Israeli military professionals maintained that the scale of the damage inflicted on Iran’s military-industrial complex had set the country back by years. Four months after the main fighting ended in April, however, the IDF is now seeing a far faster recovery than expected across multiple areas, including the ballistic missile threat.

The concern is especially significant because this is not the first time Israeli assessments have underestimated Iran’s ability to recover. After Israel struck 20 key ballistic missile and military-industrial targets in October 2024, the IDF assessed that Iranian missile production had been set back by at least a year. By early 2025, Iran had already restored its high-speed production pace.

Israel dramatically expanded its strikes in June 2025, hitting roughly 100 missile and military-industrial targets and dropping a far greater volume of munitions. Israeli officials then believed Iran’s production capabilities had been damaged for several years. Yet Tehran once again managed to rebuild rapidly. An estimated arsenal of approximately 1,300 missiles in June 2025 grew to roughly 2,500 by February 2026.

During the roughly 40-day war this year, Israel and the United States struck more than 2,600 missile and military-industrial targets and collectively carried out around 30,000 attacks against Iran. Israeli officials said afterward that virtually every major and minor element of Iran’s military industry had been shattered, with the country sustaining an estimated $300 billion in military damage.

Senior Israeli defense officials are now acknowledging that Iran has developed creative methods to prioritize and rapidly rebuild specific military threats even while large parts of the country remain devastated. The New York Times had previously reported that Iran used bulldozers to reopen underground missile cities that had been blocked during the war, but Israeli officials are now also seeing evidence that Tehran has resumed producing new weapons at a significantly faster pace than anticipated.

That development is changing the nature of Israel’s calculations. Until now, much of the debate centered on whether Iran retained closer to 500 or 1,000 long-range missiles capable of reaching Israel after the war. That question becomes far less important if Iran can rapidly replenish its stockpile.

If Iran succeeds in returning to a production rate of 100 to 300 ballistic missiles per month, it could rebuild its arsenal to June 2025 levels by early or mid-2027 and potentially become an even more serious threat by 2028. Even at a slower pace, steady rebuilding could restore a major ballistic missile threat within several years.

The unexpectedly fast recovery is also likely to influence future Israeli decisions over whether another military strike may eventually be necessary, regardless of negotiations involving the Strait of Hormuz or Iran’s nuclear program. Another possibility raised in the report is that Israel could place less emphasis on the ballistic missile issue if the United States prioritizes reducing Tehran’s nuclear threat instead.

Responding to the report, the IDF said that throughout the war it had “substantially harmed a diverse range of central components relating to Iran’s military capabilities,” damaging both Tehran’s ability to use certain capabilities and its ability to restore them at their previous scale and pace.

The military added that it has since been “closely and continuously” monitoring Iranian efforts to rebuild and that its assessments are constantly being updated based on developments on the ground. The IDF declined to provide specific estimates for the speed of Iran’s rehabilitation, saying that doing so could expose intelligence sources and methods.

The emerging picture is therefore more troubling than Israeli officials initially expected: after three separate rounds of major strikes, Iran has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to restore missile production faster than anticipated, forcing Israel to reassess how lasting even extremely large-scale damage to Tehran’s military infrastructure may ultimately prove to be.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A Frontier Airlines flight reportedly declared a medical emergency Thursday after four flight attendants became sick with headaches and nausea shortly before landing in Florida.

Frontier Flight 1046 was traveling from Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when the pilots requested that emergency medical personnel meet the Airbus A321 at the gate, according to air traffic control communications reported by PYOK.

The aircraft landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport without incident, where emergency responders were waiting, according to the outlet.

As the aircraft approached South Florida, one of the pilots alerted air traffic controllers to a “developing medical” situation on board.

“If you could call the tower and have them meet at our gate for a developing medical,” the pilot said in the radio call.

When asked about the nature of the medical emergency, the pilot said multiple flight attendants were experiencing symptoms.

“All my flight attendants have headaches, and now three, now four, are nauseous,” the pilot said.

The aircraft, a 10-year-old Airbus A321, departed Cleveland shortly before 8 a.m. on Thursday. It was scheduled to return to Cleveland at 11:30 a.m., but that flight was canceled, according to PYOK.

The cause of the flight attendants’ illnesses was not immediately known, and their conditions after landing were unclear.

FOX Business has reached out to Frontier Airlines for comment.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has reportedly issued an ultimatum to Iran-aligned armed militias operating in the country: surrender their weapons to the state by September 30 or risk a confrontation with Iraqi government forces.

Two Iraqi political sources said al-Zaidi has informed political leaders that he is prepared to confront armed factions that refuse to disarm after the deadline.

The Iraqi government has already developed a plan to forcibly restrict and eventually dismantle the militias’ independent military capabilities if they fail to comply, according to the Saudi-aligned Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Under the reported plan, regular Iraqi Army troops, Counter Terrorism Service forces and elite units would deploy around militia strongholds and along roads leading to their positions. Security forces would restrict the movement of vehicles and supplies before gradually establishing monitoring units tasked with tracking and confiscating weapons, with a particular focus on drones and missiles.

Authorities reportedly hope the pressure will convince the militias to abandon their positions and turn them over to government forces without bloodshed.

The plan is said to focus heavily on two militia strongholds south of Baghdad: Jurf al-Sakhar, a stronghold of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah, and Jurf al-Naddaf, associated with the Iran-backed Harakat al-Nujaba.

Iraqi sources said elements of the plan are already being tested, with military and counterterrorism forces deploying officers to observation posts along several roads earlier this week. Security forces have also reportedly intercepted shipments of drones traveling to various locations in Iraq in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said Iranian officials have expressed willingness to assist Baghdad with efforts to bring militia weapons under state control.

Barzani said that during recent talks in Tehran, Iranian officials told him to inform al-Zaidi that they were “ready to help him” with the issue.

The September 30 deadline sets up a potentially major showdown between Baghdad and powerful Iran-backed armed groups that have maintained extensive military capabilities outside the direct control of the Iraqi state.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Jared Kushner is expected to travel to Israel next week for high-level talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the Trump administration continues pushing a U.S.-backed plan aimed at securing Hamas’ disarmament, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and one of the architects of the Abraham Accords, is expected to be joined by Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nikolay Mladenov. The exact date of the visit has not yet been finalized.

According to the source, Kushner will urge Netanyahu to allow the Board of Peace’s disarmament initiative to move forward. Hamas reportedly accepted the framework two weeks ago, but the proposal has stalled after Netanyahu publicly rejected provisions requiring the IDF to gradually withdraw from Gaza.

Despite that public opposition, Israel quietly refrained from conducting airstrikes in Gaza for more than a week before resuming operations earlier this week.

Kushner and Mladenov are also expected to press Israel to restore the pause in military operations and fulfill humanitarian commitments made as part of the October 2025 ceasefire agreement. The Board of Peace reportedly believes those steps could pave the way for Hamas to begin surrendering its weapons.

However, diplomatic sources remain skeptical that significant progress can be achieved before Israel’s October elections, noting that Netanyahu is unlikely to publicly soften his opposition to the proposal during the campaign.

According to an Arab diplomat quoted in the report, both Kushner and Mladenov have grown frustrated with Netanyahu’s public criticism of the plan.

Kushner last visited Israel following his role in brokering the October 2025 ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman)  The 3rd of Elul, which falls on Motzai Shabbos this week, marks the 91st yahrtzeit of Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Kook. Most people view Rav Kook as the founder of a specific form of Religious Zionism. While that is certainly true, perhaps his greatest and most lasting contribution actually had nothing at all to do with Zionism.

Before we get to that thesis, there are a few questions that need to be asked.

Rav Yoseph Chaim Sonnenfeld embarked upon a famous trip with Rav Kook — across the width and breadth of Eretz Yisroel. How did that happen exactly? Could it happen now? Would, say, one of the Satmar Rebbeim take a tour across America with a leading Zionistic Rabbi — say Rav Shlomo Aviner?

Another question: how is it that the Chofetz Chaim had such a unique and special relationship with Rav Kook, and yet did not adopt his outlook on the Zionist movement? How was it that Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, who sat on the Moetzes of Agudas Yisroel, defended him publicly against his attackers? How was it that Rav Yitzchok Hutner had a picture of Rav Kook in his Sukkah in the early years? How is it that he initially printed Rav Kook’s Haskamah on his sefer?

The classic response from the Chareidi world will explain with something along the lines of “Oh, well they were unaware of his exact thoughts on the matter,” or “Yes, but his remarkable Ahavas Yisroel made him more acceptable to them,” or something else along these lines. The thesis presented below will answer these questions in a different way entirely. So here goes.

The Thesis

In Rav Kook’s lifetime, huge numbers of Jewish young people were walking away from Torah observance. The usual explanation at the time was that these young people had been badly taught, or badly influenced, or that they were simply weak. In other words, the perception in the Torah observant world was that the problem was with them.

Rav Kook, however, looked at the same situation and asked a far different question. He asked whether the way that Torah was being presented had somehow failed to show these young people what it really contained. He did not excuse the youth, nor did he state that they were right to leave.

Rather, he said that when Jews leave in enormous and unprecedented numbers, the first people who need to examine themselves are the ones doing the teaching.

That is not a political idea. It is rather an idea that exists in the domain of Mussar — the kind of honest self-examination that Jews have practiced for hundreds and even thousands of years using seforim like Sefer Devarim, Sefer Mishlei, Chovos HaLevavos and Mesillas Yesharim.

Those seforim teach a person to look at his own failures before he looks at anyone else’s. Rav Kook took that same discipline and applied it to an entire community instead of to a single individual. Saying “they weren’t taught properly” still puts the blame on the student. Rav Kook put the question to the teacher.

The remainder of this article will attempt to demonstrate that this is not a novel reading imposed upon Rav Kook from the outside, but rather what he himself wrote, and what those who have studied him most closely have understood him to be saying. A claim of this sort, however, can be tested in two directions — against what a man wrote, and against what he actually did with the years he was given. Both will be examined here, and it is the second that turns out to be the harder evidence.

In Rav Kook’s Own Words

Three passages, all from Rav Kook’s own hand, establish the point.

The first is from Shemonah Kevatzim 1:476, which appears also in Orot HaTechiya, chapter 51. Rav Kook writes there that the destructive wind of kefirah will purify the accumulated filth that had gathered in the lower realm of the spirit of emunah, after which everything will grow in purity and strength out of the firm and exalted kernel that no negativity can touch, and its light will shine upon Tzion as a new light.

There are actually two separate claims are being made at once. The first is that dross had accumulated — and not among the defectors, and not in the surrounding culture, but in the lower stratum of the spirit of emunah itself. That is to say, within the religious world’s own presentation of emunah. The second claim is the safeguard: the kernel is described as exalted and untouchable, immune to any negativity. Nothing whatsoever is being said against the Torah. What accumulated dross was the outer layer, the manner in which emunah was being conveyed.

The second passage is Arfilei Tohar 120. Kefirah, Rav Kook writes there, displays the power of life; and therefore the truly great in spirit draw out from it sparks of great chessed and turn its bitterness into sweetness. Note where the burden falls. Not upon the kofrim, who are not being asked to do anything at all in this sentence, but upon the gedolei ruach — upon those with the spiritual stature to do the work.

The third passage is the sharpest, and it is Arfilei Tohar 21, which was published also in Orot. Rav Kook writes there that the nefesh of the sinners of Israel in ikvesa d’Meshicha — meaning those who attach themselves lovingly to the cause of the nation, the Land, and the national revival — is in a more repaired state than the nefesh of the complete believers of Israel, who lack the essential feeling for the good of the people and for the building of nation and land.

A ben Torah reading that sentence for the first time may find it startling. But the passage does not end there, and the continuation is what makes it usable. Rav Kook writes immediately that the ruach — the higher faculty — is far more repaired among the yirei Shomayim and the shomrei Torah. The tikkun, he says, comes about through both groups together: the nefesh of the observant is corrected by the better transgressors in matters of communal life, while the ruach of those transgressors is corrected by the influence of the God-fearing and the great in emunah, and both groups thereby receive great light.

Rav Kook is stating in his own words that the shomrei Torah of his generation were missing something specific — and he is stating with equal clarity that in the higher faculty they were far ahead, and that the defectors needed them. He neither excused the youth nor said they were right to leave. He said each side possessed a chisaron that the other could repair.

The primary sources for the full model, for those who wish to go to them directly, are Orot page 129, the essay Milchemes HaDeios v’HaEmunos, together with Shemonah Kevatzim 1:16 and 1:71; the return of souls following the repair is at Shemonah Kevatzim 8:51; and the observation that a generation becomes dissatisfied with flaws that earlier generations had accepted is at Arfilei Tohar 2 and 68.

The question is not whether Torah contains what a searching young person needs. It obviously does. The question is whether those doing the teaching had shown it to him.

Rav Kook was formed by the Mussar controversy, not merely adjacent to it. Yehudah Mirsky documents this at length. Sitting in Boisk during the upheavals of 1897, Rav Kook was riveted by the drama. His conclusion was that something in Mussar was deeply precious and something in it had gone too far, and that the Mussarniks were right to insist on the disciplining of the mind and the middos. He wrote Mussar Avicha. He began Eyn Ayah as an alternative Mussar sefer, designed to channel the energies of Mussar into limud rather than into ecstatic recitation.

One detail of that project deserves notice now, because it will matter later. The sefer he sat down to write was a commentary upon the Aggados of Berachos and Shabbos — which is to say, upon precisely that portion of Torah that he believed was going untaught in the yeshivos of his day.

What Rav Kook then did with that discipline is the pivot of this entire article, and he states it himself. In Orot HaTeshuvah 15:10, written during the London years, he writes that the first teshuvah, the one that immediately lights up the darkness, is the return to oneself, to the root of one’s own soul — and he adds explicitly that this holds equally for a lone individual, for an entire people, for all of humanity, and for the tikkun of all being. Teshuvah without a return to oneself, he continues, is a fraud.

Two further passages from Orot HaTeshuvah complete the picture. In chapter 1, Rav Kook writes that natural teshuvah begins when a person becomes aware that he himself caused the damage, and only then moves to repair it. And in chapter 5:5 he describes the obstinacy of remaining with the same outlook and using it as the excuse for failings that have become entrenched — and calls that a sickness deriving from slavery, one that blocks the light of freedom.

Applied to a community rather than to a person, that last passage is the sharpest formulation available of what this article is arguing. Refusing to revise the outlook, and then using the outlook itself as the excuse, is a slave’s illness.

The Torah’s own model of teshuvah works the same way. The Gemara in Avodah Zarah 17a records that Elazar ben Durdaya, having resolved to return, first appealed to the mountains, then to heaven and earth, then to the sun and moon, then to the stars — his location, his human nature, his corrupt generation, his temperament. Every plea was rejected. Only when he said ein hadavar talui ela bi did the teshuvah take hold, and take hold so completely that a bas kol accepted him and Rebbi wept that some acquire their world in a single hour.

The structure of “they were badly taught, badly influenced, simply weak” is the structure of Elazar ben Durdaya’s first four appeals. It locates the cause outside the one doing the accounting.

Once the principle is seen, it turns out to be everywhere in his comments on Chumash — and the pattern is consistent enough that it can hardly be accidental.

Moshe Rabbeinu at the s’neh protests that the people will not believe him. His staff becomes a nachash, and the Midrash reads this as a rebuke: he spoke ill of Klal Yisroel as the nachash did, and they are ma’aminim bnei ma’aminim. His hand then turns white with tzaraas — a second punishment for the same evil speech. The people stood on a low madreigah; that was not in dispute. It was nevertheless forbidden to speak ill of them, because they were believers by nature, and what was required was a leader capable of turning latent emunah into a living one. And then: hashev yadcha el cheikecha. If the leader can bring them near to his heart, they return to their whole state.

Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap, Rav Kook’s closest talmid, reads Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh in this light. A leader ordinarily sees the nation as it stands before him and perceives its present deficiency. The Ribbono Shel Olam taught Moshe to see instead what it will become. The failure being corrected is a failure of vision in the leader, not a failure of level in the people.

Bnei Eli are the clearest case in Tanach. The kohanim seized meat by force, and the posuk states that they caused the people to despise bringing korbanos to Hashem (Shmuel I 2:17). The nation’s alienation from the avodah is charged to the account of those serving in the Mishkan. The priesthood was forfeited.

Yaakov Avinu’s rebuke of Shimon and Levi carries a second charge alongside the first. Achartem osi — you have made me repellent in the eyes of the inhabitants of the land. The consequence is that people would no longer be willing to come and drink from the spiritual wellspring that Yaakov represented; the nations would come to see the whole Torah as one more collection of barbaric customs. The entire concern is the effect of the representatives’ conduct upon those who might otherwise have drawn near.

And the affirmative case is Avrohom Avinu. Avodah zarah had removed the Divine from life and rendered it irrelevant to daily existence. Avrohom’s success came from living and presenting a worldview that fused the spiritual with the physical — and when he restored spirituality to the realm of the relevant, it became immediately attractive and was adopted in very large numbers. Read in reverse, that is this article’s claim: a Torah presented as irrelevant to a person’s actual life will not hold him.

Three further sources from Ein Ayah state the principle directly. In Berachos, chapter 5, note 33, Rav Kook writes that in order to influence a generation the leader must be near enough to them in stature to be capable of influencing them, and that a leader positioned far above the people will not be accepted and will be unable to persuade them in anything. In chapter 4, note 22, he writes that the leader must strive to understand each and every individual, and that by attending to the individual he raises the standing of the entire congregation, since the generation is composed of diverse individuals each of whom must be met according to his own need. And in chapter 5, note 31, he writes that leadership must concern itself not only with the nation’s present condition but with what it will become.

The Record of the Life

A thesis of this kind is worth relatively little if it rests only upon passages. A large enough body of writing can be assembled to prove nearly anything. The stronger test is whether a man’s decisions — particularly the ones that cost him something — line up with what the passages say. In Rav Kook’s case they do, with a consistency that is difficult to account for in any other way.

Begin with 1904. Rav Kook was thirty-eight, had held the rabbanus of Zeimel and then Boisk for seventeen years, and was an established figure in the Lithuanian rabbinic world. He left it for Yaffo and not Yerushalayim, or Tzefas, nor even one of the settled Torah communities of the old yishuv — but the port city that served as the entry point and the administrative center for the new agricultural settlements.

The single location in Eretz Yisroel where he would be surrounded daily by precisely those young people whose departure from observance constituted the crisis of the age. A man who has concluded that the fault lies with the defectors has no particular reason to go and live among them. A man who suspects the fault may lie in the presentation has every reason in the world to.

The Yaffo decade, 1904 to 1914, was the most productive writing period of his life. Much of the material later assembled as Orot and Orot HaKodesh was written there, as were Olas Re’iyah and Ein Ayah.

The more telling fact about Yaffo is one that is barely known, and is barely known because Rav Kook took deliberate steps to keep it that way. Somewhere around 1909 or 1910 he opened a yeshiva of his own in Yaffo. It ran until roughly 1915 and then vanished. No archive of it survives; reconstructing even a list of its talmidim required painstaking research, most of it done by Moshe Nachmani of the Hesder yeshiva in Ramat Gan, whose findings Rabbi Bezalel Naor has written about at length. What is established is that the curriculum included the Kuzari and the Rambam’s Shemoneh Perakim — both of them a departure from the standard yeshiva curriculum of the day. Nachmani’s explanation for the silence surrounding the yeshiva is that Rav Kook himself suppressed publicity about its internal life, out of concern that word of what was being taught would bring the zealots of Yerushalayim down upon it. The concern was not theoretical. His teaching of the Kuzari drew a sharp public attack from Rav Yeshaya Orenstein of Yerushalayim.

Rav Meir Goldberg was born near Kiev around 1890, boarded a ship from Odessa to Yaffo before the war, sought out Rav Kook’s yeshiva, and lived in Rav Kook’s own home. He later settled in California and died in 1992 at over a hundred years of age. In 1977 he told Rabbi Bezalel Naor what he had carried away from those years. Before encountering Rav Kook, the term yiras Shomayim had conveyed to him only something constricting — a narrowing, a closing down. Rav Kook used that identical term to convey the opposite: the enormity of the universe, its vastness, its endlessness.

That is this article’s thesis in a single sentence, delivered by a talmid who had no thesis to defend. The term was not altered. The obligation was not lightened. What changed was that a young man who had been handed the concept in a form that felt to him like a cage was handed it again in a form that opened outward — and it held him for the next seventy years.

Rav Kook also committed the critique of yeshiva education to writing. In Oros HaTorah 9:6 he addresses the curriculum of the European yeshivos directly: the near-exclusive concentration upon the halachic sugyos of the Gemara, to the practical exclusion of Tanach and machshavah. His claim is that this drove people out. A talmid whose neshama was drawn toward Aggadah was nonetheless required to spend his day elsewhere, and grew estranged from the world of Torah altogether — whereas a schedule that answered to what his soul actually wanted would have left him with a healthy relationship to all of it. Every talmid, he argues, needs some exposure to each of the chambers of Torah, since each contributes a different quality to the building of a Torah personality.

In 1911 he opened a correspondence with the Jews of Yemen. He put twenty-six questions to their rabbanim, addressing them as the honorable shepherds of Hashem’s congregation, and sent the letter by way of Shmuel Yavne’eli, a Zionist emissary. Two observations. A man persuaded that his own world has nothing left to learn does not send out questionnaires to distant communities. And the choice of courier reflects a willingness to use whatever instrument was at hand to reach them.

Then 1914. In the summer of that year Rav Kook boarded a ship for Europe. His destination was the Knessiah Gedolah of Agudas Yisroel, the newly organized movement of European Orthodoxy, and his purpose in making the trip was to press the delegates on the religious importance of building Eretz Yisroel. Where a man carries his argument tells you whom he believes needs to hear it. He was not sailing to a Zionist congress to persuade the chalutzim. He was sailing to the assembled Torah leadership of Europe in order to argue with them. The conference was cancelled when the war broke out on Tisha B’Av; he was stranded on the continent for its duration, first as a private guest in St. Gallen and afterward in London as Rav of Machzikei Hadass in the East End. Yaakov Rosenheim, who had organized the Knessiah and issued the invitation, subsequently wrote him a letter of apology for having been the indirect cause of his exile.

It was during those London years that Oros HaTeshuvah was written — the sefer containing the sentence, quoted above, that the first teshuvah is the return to oneself, and that this holds for a nation exactly as it holds for an individual.

Then 1924, which supplies two facts from a single year. In March, Rav Kook travelled to America together with Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein of Slabodka and Rav Avrohom Duber Kahana Shapiro, the Rav of Kovno, to raise funds for Torah institutions in Eretz Yisroel and in Europe. It is worth registering the company: the Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka spent the better part of a year travelling the United States at his side.

And in that same year he founded his yeshiva in Yerushalayim. It had grown out of an evening program begun in 1920 by Rav Yitzchok Levi, a talmid from the Yaffo years, who had gathered young scholars to hear the newly appointed Rav of Yerushalayim deliver shiurim in halacha and in Aggadah, and who called the gathering Mercaz HaRav — the Rav’s center. Rav Kook’s own name for the institution was the Yeshiva Merkazis Olamis. He never succeeded in raising the funds for the full institution he had envisioned.

The point once again is what he built. By that stage he possessed a national platform, a chief rabbinate, and every opportunity a man could want to found a movement. He founded a yeshiva instead, and spent his last decade on it. That is where a man puts his final years when his diagnosis is that the teaching failed.

In 1904, after speaking at a memorial gathering for Herzl in Yaffo, Rav Kook wrote to his father-in-law describing what he had actually said there. He had spoken pleasantly and politely, he reported, but had laid out the fundamental failure of the entire Zionist enterprise — namely that the sanctity of Hashem and His great Name did not stand at the top of its list of priorities. He added that he had offered no tribute whatsoever to Herzl himself.

When Eliezer Ben Yehuda published the claim that the Jewish people had turned their backs upon their past and that this was to their glory, Rav Kook answered him at length and without softness, writing that Ben Yehuda was welcome to his dreams but not to testify publicly that the rest of the nation had severed itself from the source of its life.

He issued a public appeal against the desecration of Shabbos, against forbidden foods eaten openly and without embarrassment, against immodest fashions imported from a dying Europe, and against the wholesale adoption of the worst customs of other nations — an appeal whose opening words are a call to the children to turn back.

And in the 1928 letter to Rav Yoseph Messas of Algeria, written to correct the misquotations circulating about his Hebrew University remarks, he recorded that he had warned the university’s founders explicitly of the michshol that might come from their hands, brought them the precedent of the Berlin Enlightenment and the groups that had abandoned the source of living waters, and told them outright that Torah does not come forth from secular studies but from the holy yeshivos.

That is not the record of a man making room. It is the record of a man who left the demands of Torah exactly where they had always stood and moved only the question of who is accountable when large numbers of Jews walk away from them. These are entirely different operations, and conflating them has done more to obscure Rav Kook than all the pashkevilin ever printed against him.

His own account of the division of labor is characteristically direct. He was perfectly capable of rejecting, he remarked, but since there were already enough people occupying that role, he preferred to fill the role of one who draws close.

Back to the Questions

Let’s return now to the questions with which this article began.

The trip with Rav Sonnenfeld took place in the fall of 1913, twelve years before the chief rabbinate existed. Rav Kook had a year earlier appointed Rav Ben-Zion Yadler to supervise the agricultural mitzvos in the settlements of the Shomron and Galil, and the masa grew out of that into a program of rabbinic visits for drashos and religious revival. Rav Kook had originally intended to travel only with local rabbanim from Haifa, Teveria and Tzefas. As he was preparing, he learned that one of the Yerushalayim rabbanim wished to join — the dayan who had by then emerged as one of his chief critics.

They were ten in all: Rav Kook and an attendant, Rav Charlap, Rav Yadler, Rav Sonnenfeld and his son, the local rabbanim, and a representative of the funders. They left Yaffo on the nineteenth of November 1913, traveled by carriage, horse and mule for just under a month, and made twenty-six stops, reaching as far north as Metulla.

Rav Kook told their hosts repeatedly, in settlement after settlement, that the rabbanim had come not only to exert influence but to be influenced in turn. That is the thesis of this article, spoken by Rav Kook himself, on the road, in the presence of Rav Sonnenfeld.

At Merchavia the delegation was asked to eulogize two murdered laborers, and Rav Sonnenfeld cited yadeinu lo shafchu; the evening broke up in argument. At Poriah, after the workers apprehended three thieves and then gathered around a fire to sing, Rav Kook wrapped himself in a watchman’s cloak and danced with them, while Rav Sonnenfeld sat by the fire and told stories of Yerushalayim rather than delivering drashos. By any measure the trip was less than successful. But it happened.

As for whether it could happen now — the trajectory in the sources runs from a shared month on the road in 1913 to a mock heresy trial staged by an Agudah youth chapter on Erev Purim 1932. And it is worth noting who did and did not do that. It was the work of a youth movement. Rav Sonnenfeld died days later, and his passing is described as having removed the last restraint upon the zealots.

As for the relationships with gedolim: the Chofetz Chaim is described as a revered tzaddik and family friend who encouraged the young Rav Kook to seek a rabbanus, which led to the position in Zeimel. He later condemned a pamphlet issued against Rav Kook and said of him that he was holy and pure, and that whoever harmed him would not be absolved. Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, a Volozhin classmate who sat on the Moetzes, defended Rav Kook publicly and was known for the line that any of them should daven on Yom Kippur the way Rav Kook davened on an ordinary weekday. He was at the bedside at the petirah. And more generally, a number of chareidi figures — especially those who knew him personally — privately expressed reverence for him notwithstanding their ideological differences.

The conventional explanation is that they did not fully know his views, or that his Ahavas Yisroel outweighed them. This article proposes something else: that what they recognized in him was not a political position at all, but a mussar posture toward their own generation that any of them could recognize, whatever they thought of Zionism. They were, after all, Volozhiners and Slabodkers themselves. A man who insists that the accounting begins at home was speaking a language they had been raised inside.

One further incident belongs here, because it shows that posture holding under conditions in which almost nobody holds a posture. Returning home from a bris in the Old City, Rav Kook’s group was set upon by a band of zealots and sewage water was thrown over him. Later that same day the Attorney General of the British Mandatory government came to his home to express his outrage and to press him to file criminal charges against the perpetrators. Rav Kook declined. He had no interest in legal proceedings, he said; he loved them despite what they had done to him, and would be prepared even to kiss them. The account appears in Simcha Raz’s biography.

A man who spends his life arguing that the correct response to failure is to examine one’s own side and add, rather than to prosecute the other side, has to be willing to do it on the afternoon when the sewage is running down his own coat. He did.

This is why a ben Torah from any background can take Rav Kook’s central insight seriously. Rav Kook put it more concisely than any paraphrase can. In Shemonah Kevatzim 2:99 he writes that the pure tzaddikim do not complain about wickedness but add righteousness; they do not complain about kefirah but add emunah; they do not complain about ignorance but add wisdom.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

Here is how the scheme works. A software developer sitting in Pyongyang, China or Russia applies for a remote American IT job using the name, Social Security number and date of birth of a real American whose identity was stolen or rented. Artificial intelligence writes the résumé and cover letter, and pastes the applicant’s face onto forged identity documents. When the video interview comes, AI generates a live deepfake so the face on screen matches the stolen paperwork. Once hired, the company ships a laptop to a U.S. address belonging to a paid American accomplice, who plugs it in and installs remote-access software so the login traffic looks like it is coming from Phoenix rather than North Korea. The salary lands in a U.S. bank account, and the bulk of it is wired to the regime.

That pipeline has now reached inside the federal government. Todd Hemmen, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, disclosed during a July 28 panel at the Digital Government Institute’s conference in Washington that the bureau had identified a North Korean remote IT worker employed by the federal government the week prior. The individual reportedly worked for the agency for several months before being detected. The FBI has not named the agency or described the worker’s duties, and it remains unclear whether sensitive information was accessed or taken. The case marks a rare confirmed instance of a sanctioned North Korean working inside a government agency.

The disclosure landed days after Washington and its allies escalated their warnings to American employers. On July 31, authorities from eleven countries — the United States, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands — issued a joint alert urging companies to strengthen identity verification and hiring controls, warning that the labor was generating foreign currency for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. It was the first time France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands co-signed a warning on this specific threat, a signal that the targeting has spread well beyond American and South Korean employers.

The dollar figures already established in U.S. courtrooms explain the urgency. An Arizona woman, Christina Chapman, helped North Korean workers obtain jobs at 309 U.S. companies including Fortune 500 corporations, using 68 identities stolen from American victims, and was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in a scheme that generated more than $17 million for the regime. In a separate case, Kejia Wang of Edison, New Jersey, and Zhenxing Wang were sentenced for placing North Korean workers at more than 100 U.S. companies using the stolen identities of at least 80 Americans, producing over $5 million for the North Korean government. Kejia Wang received 108 months. The cleanup cost businesses in 28 states and the District of Columbia at least $3 million in legal fees and computer remediation. The FBI said eight individuals have been sentenced to prison in 2026 alone.

The exposure is broader than the prosecutions suggest. Security researcher Stykas told WIRED ahead of a Black Hat briefing that he found evidence of 1,640 companies across 57 countries affected by North Korean operations, with roughly 700 to 800 suffering damaging intrusions including root-level access to servers and cloud environments. CrowdStrike reported that the North Korea-linked group it tracks as Famous Chollima accounted for 47% of all state-backed hands-on-keyboard intrusions against the technology sector between April 2025 and March 2026. The workers are not only collecting salaries. They have also stolen proprietary data from U.S. companies and used it for extortion.

For employers, the practical fix starts at the point of hire, not at the firewall. The joint alert recommends rigorous review of identification documents, a preference for in-person interviews or closely scrutinized live video, and monitoring systems that flag anomalous account behavior — frequent changes to names or bank details, payment accounts whose names do not match the employee, multiple accounts sharing an identification document or IP address, altered identity images, unnaturally long login sessions, and profiles full of translation errors. Payment preferences are a recurring tell: applicants who refuse direct deposit and ask instead for money transfer services, cryptocurrency, or wages routed to a third party.

The harder problem is that the one control most hiring managers trusted has been compromised. The alert lists in-person interviews as an example of stronger verification, but also warns that third-party proxies may sit for interviews or make in-person contact on the operative’s behalf — in one documented case, a real American walked into a facility with a genuine government ID and passed screening for someone he had likely never met. Hemmen said AI now runs through the entire operation, from application through employment.The federal case suggests gaps in government hiring and contractor vetting despite years of warnings

, and it moves the question out of the security department and into human resources. Verification of who is actually doing the work — not just who appeared on the call — is now a continuing obligation rather than a one-time check at onboarding.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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Rav Shlomo Moshe Amar, Sefardic Chief Rabbi of Yerushalayim, has issued a sharply worded letter condemning those distributing materials encouraging Jews to ascend Har Habayis, accusing them of falsifying the positions of leading rabbonim — including his own.

The letter, sent on Erev Shabbos Parshas Eikev, 17 Av 5786, was addressed to an unnamed talmid chochom in the Jewish Quarter of Yerushalayim who had asked Rav Amar to state his position clearly regarding the severity of the prohibition against ascending Har Habayis today.

Rav Amar opened his letter by lamenting what he described as the growing brazenness of the current generation, citing the teaching of Chazal that in the period preceding the arrival of Moshiach, brazenness will increase. He wrote that with each passing day and hour, that brazenness appears to be growing and intensifying.

He then described his shock after being shown several photographed pages bearing the headline, “Daas Torah Regarding the Mitzvah of Ascending Har Habayis in Our Time.” Rav Amar characterized the presentation as a new level of brazenness, devoid of truth and based on distortion.

Addressing the halachic issue itself, Rav Amar wrote that the leading poskim of previous generations, as well as the gedolei Torah of the present generation, have prohibited entering Har Habayis with the utmost severity. According to the Rambam, he noted, entering prohibited areas can carry the punishment of kareis, while even the Raavad maintains that entering is prohibited on a Torah level.

Rav Amar therefore rejected any attempt to present ascending Har Habayis as representing the accepted Torah position.

He further accused those behind the publications of attributing fabricated or distorted positions to prominent rabbonim, including both gedolim who are no longer alive and those living today.

Rav Amar said his own name had also been improperly inserted into the materials, despite what he described as his well-known and longstanding opposition to ascending Har Habayis.

He wrote that his position is widely known and that, in shiurim delivered in yeshivos and kollelim, he regularly presents what he considers strong evidence demonstrating that there is no reliable way today to make the measurements necessary to determine precisely which areas may be entered.

Rav Amar acknowledged that a minority of rabbonim have taken a different position on the issue, noting that virtually every subject is subject to disagreement. Had the activists simply stated that they rely upon the minority opinion, he wrote, he would have remained silent.

Instead, Rav Amar charged, they are attempting to portray their position as far more broadly accepted because they recognize that halachah generally follows the majority — particularly when the majority is so overwhelming. He accused them of deliberately misleading the public and causing others to stumble.

Concluding his letter, Rav Amar issued an unusually forceful warning against relying upon the publications or those responsible for them.

“The Jewish people should know that all the words and writings of those distributors are lies and deception,” Rav Amar wrote, adding that anyone concerned for his spiritual wellbeing should distance himself from them and their sphere of influence.

He further declared that they had demonstrated that fear of Hashem was not before them, and therefore “they cannot be relied upon, and it is forbidden to believe their words in anything they say.”

Rav Amar concluded with a tefillah that Hashem remove the spirit of impurity from the land, that Moshiach Tzidkeinu be revealed peacefully, and that the Bais Hamikdash be rebuilt in its proper place speedily in our days.

A potentially tragic incident was narrowly avoided Thursday afternoon in Netivot after a young child became trapped inside an abandoned vehicle during extreme summer heat and was unable to escape until a passerby noticed the situation and rushed to help.

The child remained inside the sealed vehicle during the hottest part of the day until the owner of a local delivery company happened to pass by and spotted the child in distress.

According to a report by the local news outlet Netivoti, the delivery driver saw the child desperately trying to open the car doors but unable to get out. He immediately ran to the vehicle and succeeded in rescuing the child. By the time the child was freed, he was reportedly sweating heavily and appeared dehydrated after spending a prolonged period inside the sweltering vehicle.

The vehicle was reportedly abandoned, not in use, and had neither a valid inspection nor insurance. Authorities have not yet determined how the child managed to get inside the car or how long he remained trapped before being discovered.

Baruch Hashem, the incident ended without injuries. Nevertheless, it once again highlighted the serious danger posed by abandoned vehicles that remain unlocked and accessible to children, particularly during the summer months, when temperatures inside a closed vehicle can climb rapidly to life-threatening levels.

In recent years, Israel has witnessed numerous tragic cases involving children who were forgotten or became trapped inside vehicles. According to data from the Beterem Child Safety Organization, 23 children have lost their lives over the past five years after being forgotten or trapped in vehicles. During the same period, 53 children were injured, while another 1,513 were rescued safely.

Child safety experts warn that the temperature inside a closed vehicle can soar to approximately 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit) within about 30 minutes, even when the outside temperature is only around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). They stress that parking in the shade or leaving a window slightly open does not eliminate the danger. Infants and young children are especially vulnerable because their bodies heat up three to five times faster than those of adults, and they are unable to free themselves.

ZAKA and the Beterem Child Safety Organization are urging parents never to leave a child unattended in a vehicle, even briefly. They also recommend slowing down and consciously checking that every child has exited the vehicle before walking away by using multiple senses—looking at the children, confirming they are with you, physically touching them, and listening for them. According to safety experts, engaging sight, hearing, touch, and movement together helps reinforce the routine and reduces the risk of forgetting a child.

The Netivot incident also underscores the importance of securing or removing abandoned vehicles from residential neighborhoods to prevent similar potentially deadly situations in the future.

{Matzav.com}

A Russian man convicted for participating in the violent antisemitic riot at Makhachkala Airport in Dagestan in October 2023 has been killed while fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine.

Omar Zhanburuaev, was convicted for joining the mob that stormed the airport searching for Jewish and Israeli passengers after rumors spread that a flight from Israel was arriving.

In June 2025, Zhanburuaev was sentenced to more than five years in prison for his role in the riot and the extensive damage caused at the airport.

While serving his sentence, Zhanburuaev signed a military contract allowing him to leave prison and join the Russian military.

In a video released in January, he said he had signed the contract in an effort to change his life and atone for his actions. He claimed that he had gone to the airport to “show support for the Palestinians,” but acknowledged that he had instead caused damage to his own country.

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Zhanburuaev was subsequently deployed to the war in Ukraine, where he was killed in combat. His body was returned to Dagestan and buried in the village of Tarki.

According to Shvadil Gadulaev, chairman of a council representing civil society organizations in Dagestan, Zhanburuaev is the latest participant in the airport riot to be killed after joining the Russian military. Of seven participants who enlisted, five are reportedly still alive, including one who was seriously wounded.

Another participant in the riot, Muhammad Said Murtazalibov, was previously killed fighting in Ukraine and buried in January.

The October 2023 riot erupted after rumors circulated on social media claiming that Israeli “refugees” were arriving in Dagestan. A mob stormed the airport terminal and runway searching for Jews and Israelis and clashed with security forces.

Russian investigators ultimately filed charges against 142 suspects accused of participating in the violence.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

LEANDER, TEXAS (VINnews) — Two gun owners walked out of a Texas firearms dealer early Thursday with suppressors without completing the federal registration and approval process that has governed such transfers since 1934, following a federal judge’s ruling that key National Firearms Act restrictions are unconstitutional.

The transfers occurred just after midnight Central Time on Aug. 13 at Silencer Shop in Leander. Gun Owners of America members Brandon Herrera and Texas state Rep. Wes Virdell received the devices after the organization and Silencer Shop notified the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of their plans. Federal authorities did not object, according to GOA.

“This is the first time in 92 years that any gun owner has been able to do this,” said Aidan Johnston, GOA’s director of federal affairs. “Previously, this would have been punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine per violation.”

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas issued the ruling on Aug. 5 in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and a consolidated case. Hendrix held that registration, application, fingerprinting and related requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and certain other weapons lost their constitutional foundation after Congress reduced the associated National Firearms Act taxes to zero in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 had relied on Congress’s taxing power. With the taxes eliminated effective Jan. 1, 2026, the judge rejected the government’s argument that the regulations could be sustained under the Commerce Clause, writing that Congress had never invoked that power for the challenged provisions.

The permanent injunction applies to the plaintiffs — including GOA, the Silencer Shop Foundation, other industry groups, an individual plaintiff and 15 states that joined the challenge — as well as their members and customers. It is not a nationwide order. The judge declined to rule on broader Second Amendment claims.

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who attended the midnight transfers, said the Justice Department is not expected to appeal. “Literally, the greatest Second Amendment win in the history of our country,” Clyde said.

Erich Pratt, senior vice president of GOA, described the transfers as putting the court victory into action. “The era of federal registration for constitutionally protected arms must end,” he said.

Suppressors, also known as silencers, have grown in popularity among hunters and recreational shooters primarily for hearing protection. State laws governing their possession and transfer remain in effect, and the federal changes apply only where the injunction covers the parties involved.

Gun rights advocates called the development a major legal victory. The Justice Department had argued the remaining regulations retained constitutional support, but the deadline to appeal the Texas ruling passed without action.

American officials have reportedly expressed frustration after learning that some money donated in the United States to Magen David Adom was used to purchase European-made ambulances rather than American vehicles.

According to a report by ynet, the funds in question were raised through American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA), which has spent 86 years raising money in the United States to support the Israeli emergency medical organization.

For years, American-made Ford and Chevrolet ambulances purchased with the assistance of donors in the United States were a common sight on Israeli roads. Over the past three years, however, Magen David Adom has purchased almost no American-made vehicles, with much of its recent fleet procurement consisting of Mercedes ambulances manufactured in Poland.

American administration officials reportedly became aware of the situation over the past month and were unhappy to learn that money donated in the United States was ultimately being spent on vehicles manufactured outside the country.

A senior US administration official sent a sharply worded message to Magen David Adom officials, writing, “Using American donation funds to purchase ambulances from European countries that hate Israel is not an acceptable practice.”

A senior Israeli official familiar with the matter said American officials were surprised to discover that substantial sums raised from donors inside the United States were not being channeled back into the American economy through purchases of US-made vehicles and other products.

The criticism carries additional significance because of the Trump administration’s “America First” policy. The administration has emphasized strengthening American industry and the domestic economy across a broad range of policies involving trade, investment, energy, immigration and foreign affairs.

The dispute now raises questions over whether Magen David Adom will alter its procurement practices and increase purchases of American-made ambulances or continue using some US-raised donations to purchase vehicles manufactured in Europe.

Magen David Adom responded to the report by saying it was unaware of any such communication from American officials.

“MDA is not aware of any such inquiry. The friends associations purchase the ambulances in accordance with the organization’s operational needs and the types of vehicles required. Most of the ambulances are purchased in the US. MDA is the only organization in Israel that uses US-made ambulances,” the organization said.

{Matzav.com}

Iran makes its money selling oil. Right now it can barely sell any, because American warships are sitting at the only door out.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week the United States is preparing economic measures against Iran “that have never been seen.” He described the plan as “economic isolation like the world has never seen,” combined with the ongoing blockade at the Strait of Hormuz that keeps anything from moving in or out of Iranian ports.

Here is why that hurts. Nearly every barrel Iran sells has to travel through the Strait of Hormuz — a narrow neck of water at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, with Iran on one side. There is no back door. No pipeline that gets around it, no land route big enough to matter. When the U.S. Navy stops ships from reaching Iranian ports, Iran’s main source of income simply stops arriving. And it works the other direction too: the goods Iran needs to import can’t get in either.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Thursday the military can keep it up indefinitely, because the Navy has enough ships to rotate fresh ones in as tired ones come home. One of those swaps is happening now — the carrier USS George Washington is on its way from the Pacific to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been at sea since November. The point is not the ships themselves. The point is that the blockade doesn’t have an expiration date built into it.

You can see the pressure landing by watching what Tehran does. Iran announced Thursday it is joining the BRICS New Development Bank, with its central bank governor saying the country wants monetary cooperation with member states. That is a government looking for a new way to move money because the old ways are shut. Iran’s military command, for its part, has declared that no ship may pass through the strait without Tehran’s permission — a statement, not a fact on the water. Traffic through the waterway stays severely constrained and the world is drawing down its oil stockpiles.

Now the part that matters at your kitchen table, because pinching Iran pinches the shipping lane everybody else uses.

Fertilizer prices paid to manufacturers are up more than 20% from a year ago, and nitrogen fertilizer is up 46%, tied to the disruption in that strait. Fertilizer is what farmers put in the ground now to grow what you buy next year, so that number is a preview of future grocery bills. Diesel has passed $7.50 a gallon in some states, and diesel is what moves every product in America from the port to the shelf. Inflation ran 3.4% in July. Before the war started, it was 2.4%. That extra point is roughly what the conflict is costing an average household.

There is a bright spot, and it’s a real one. Oil prices have been falling — crude traded around $81 a barrel Thursday — because traders long ago factored in the blockade. Only news that changes how long it lasts moves the price now, and the market has stopped fearing a sudden shock.

What comes next is the piece Bessent left blank. He didn’t say what the new economic measures are. In practice, “isolation the world has never seen” means going after the workarounds: the buyers still quietly taking Iranian cargo, the shipping companies that move it, and the banks that settle the payments. That is a slower squeeze than a blockade, but a harder one to escape, because it follows the money instead of the ship.

For American families, the honest bottom line is that the pressure campaign is working on Iran and costing us something too. Iran is scrambling for financial lifelines. Americans are paying about a point of extra inflation. Both those things are true at once, and Thursday’s statements from Treasury and the Pentagon say the arrangement holds for a while yet.

JBizNews Desk | Washington, D.C.

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