(AP) – Pushing through dense, shoulder-high brush near a river in west Michigan, a trooper yells out: “Make some noise!”

A boy’s scream can be heard in the distance on body camera footage released by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources showing how rescue teams last week found two women and a 9-year-old boy who had been stranded for three days when their river tubing trip went wrong.

This is the unedited version of the video. pic.twitter.com/FQozKfSPsH

— MSP Sixth District (@mspwestmi) August 11, 2026

“We’re coming, guys,” says Cameron Wright, a conservation officer from Newaygo County, his breath heard in ragged gasps.

The team picks up their pace, pushing through sharp switchgrass and stinging nettle. A few moments later, they find Sarah Vida, 28, and her son Kayden Kovalcik, 9, along with Jazmin Hock, 28; wearing just their swimming suits.

Hock’s legs are almost entirely covered in deep, red cuts from scrapes after walking for days through the brush. They have a broken phone and a single water bottle with only a few sips left.

“You’re talking about vegetation that’s higher than your eyes and switchgrass that cuts you when you touch it and stinging nettles that makes your skin set on fire,” Anna Cullen, a conservation officer from Muskegon County who helped with the rescue, said Tuesday.

The trio had been on a tubing trip on the Muskegon River in the small community of Twin Lake on Tuesday when they’d hit logs and their tubes popped, according to officials. They were reported missing after one of the women didn’t show up to her dentist appointment.

“I was just in disbelief at finding them because we were just running out of ideas and places to search and it was nothing short of a miracle that we ended up finding them the way we did,” Wright said.

For days, teams had scoured the river and rugged terrain.

The group was found Friday about 7 miles (11.27 kilometers) from where they entered the river, according to Wright. The rescuers had tracked them from a tube next to the river, following footprints, broken twigs and knocked over grass.

In the video, Kayden explains that they’ve been eating bark and flowers, while Hock says they had to drink river water.

Hock explains that they’d been tubing down the river and kept hitting log jams.

“The last one that we ran into just popped everything,” she said.

They started walking and soon realized they were going in circles, she said.

Members of the rescue crew handed over their own shirts to protect them from the bugs swarming their cuts and put medical gloves on some of their hands and feet. Wright inflated his life vest for Hock to sit on. As she answered the rescue team’s questions, her legs, lined with scratches, shook.

“There was not even an inch of their exposed skin that was not just covered in cuts and bug bites and mud and scrapes where they were just physically not able to go any further,” Wright said, explaining that he still had cuts on his arms.

Cullen said the women later explained that when they saw the rescuers, they thought they were hallucinating.

The two women couldn’t walk, so they put them in Stokes baskets, a type of stretcher, to get them out of the brush, while Wright carried the boy on his back. Along with their scrapes and cuts, they were also dealing with dehydration and exhaustion, and were taken to the hospital, according to Lt. Pat Agema, a spokesperson for the Michigan State Police.

“The entire hike out, he’s just telling me about all of the root beer he’s going to drink and the slushies and the pizza and doughnuts he’s going to eat,” said Wright.

He adds: “You would have no idea that he had just spent 72 hours in the woods from how happy he was.”

(AP) – Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers may soon be outfitted with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks intended to gain compliance from combative individuals.

ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security.

The devices are known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky. They have been used in recent years by some jails and police departments.

DHS said Tuesday that it was working on a response to an Associated Press inquiry and offered no immediate comment. Jeff Niklaus, the founder and CEO of Compliant Technologies, wrote in an email, “Unfortunately, we are unable to speak on this subject.”

The notice said the solicitation for a no-bid contract could be published as early as Friday.

Civil rights advocates expressed alarm at the plan, saying ICE officers already face criticism for their use of force with little oversight or accountability while enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Compliant Technologies says the devices function as a normal pair of patrol gloves until officers press a switch to activate their electrical mode. The gloves must be applied directly to someone’s skin to deliver a pain stimulus that typically helps an officer gain compliance within seconds, according to the company.

“It’s immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting,” said John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, who is studying how the device has been used. “If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool.”

Peters said he believed ICE’s planned purchase would likely be the largest from the company to date. He said he could envision ICE officers using the gloves to help remove uncooperative subjects from cars and houses and in and out of detention facilities.

“For smaller officers or weaker officers or older officers, I think it has a great advantage” because it can produce faster takedowns and shorten confrontations, he said.

The manufacturer warns the device should not be used as punishment, against people merely exhibiting “verbal defiance or belligerence” or on high-risk populations such as children, pregnant women or elderly or disabled people.

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the public should have no confidence that ICE officers will use the devices appropriately. She questioned why the devices would be necessary for civil immigration enforcement and noted those getting shocked might have no advance warning.

“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” she said. “Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public.”

Supporters say the devices are generally used in specific jail and transport situations, rather than broadly to patrol on the streets. They have been used to subdue violent suspects who are refusing to get into squad cars and inmates who are harming themselves and threatening officers, according to Compliant Technologies.

Peters said he expected the devices to be misused by a small number of employees, as with other policing technologies, but he said they are unlikely to cause injuries. He said it would be important for ICE to have robust policies and training in place.

To use the device, officers must complete a course and be recertified every two years, the manufacturer says.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidents have taken secret overseas trips in the past for security reasons, with schedules and logistics kept classified until after the fact to protect the commander in chief.

But not like the one President Donald Trump took in July.

After a NATO summit in Turkey, Trump stowed away in an airport catering container to slip into another plane while Air Force One — filled with White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters — was sent into the sky essentially as a decoy, just in case Iran made good on a credible threat of an attack.

Upon stopping in Britain, Trump sneaked back aboard the presidential plane undetected and scoffed when asked about potential danger.

“If I go, you go. Right?” he told reporters — gliding past the fact that if the plane had been shot down, the president wouldn’t have been aboard.

That Trump’s whereabouts were concealed then, and for weeks afterward, is believed to be unprecedented — even in a modern world where security-related subterfuge is not uncommon.

“We have absolutely seen the president fly on unmarked or decoy planes before, into Iraq, Afghanistan, other war-zone-like places,” said Garrett M. Graff, author of “Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die.”

“But this was an ongoing secret that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.”

The White House hasn’t denied reports,
but also isn’t providing details
The president’s flight out of Turkey made headlines at the time because Trump had arrived aboard a luxury jet gifted by Qatar, which was not equipped with some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems found on older presidential jets.

He ended up traveling in a smaller government aircraft from Turkey to the United Kingdom. There, he sneaked back onto the decoy jet, descended from the aircraft and boarded the Qatari plane.

The White House hasn’t confirmed reporting on the extraordinary lengths officials took to protect Trump, which were first reported by The Washington Post, but administration officials haven’t denied it.

Instead, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, relied on similar wording that he used during the trip itself. “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats,” Cheung said in a statement Monday.

Past presidents put themselves in dangerous areas
Presidents have regularly tested the confines of their office, pushing their security advisers to visit war zones as a show of American presence and their own leadership. Usually, this happens in the form of trips that aren’t announced until the president is deemed to be out of harm’s way.

What’s different this time is that Trump was covertly separated from the rest of his travelers — including the press pool meant to provide independent coverage of the president and his actions — and, instead of informing the public about what occurred once the risk had passed, the White House still hasn’t fully revealed what took place.

Graff said the presence of the White House press corps is as much about protecting “the presidency and democracy” as it is about covering the story.

“This shows that the White House just fundamentally doesn’t understand how important that role is, for the press corps to be able to provide independent and transparent corroboration about the status and whereabouts of the president of the United States at any given moment,” he said.

Officials have gone to great lengths to keep presidents safe on covert trips before.

In 2023, a motorcade pulled away from the White House around 3:30 a.m. on a Sunday, and President Joe Biden later boarded an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports, and flew to Poland. Biden then took a secret, 10-hour overnight train ride to Kyiv meant to show solidarity with Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.

A press pool at the White House had been expecting a quiet Sunday for Biden in Washington. However, two journalists went to Ukraine with him and documented the trip, capturing images of Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy striding past a memorial to fallen soldiers in Ukraine’s capital as air raid sirens sounded.

In Trump’s first term, he made a secret trip to Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day in 2019, when officials kept a separate press pool and decoy plane in Florida to maintain the illusion that the president was spending the holiday at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Instead, Trump and another group of reporters flew to the sprawling U.S. military base at Bagram, where the president spent more than three hours on the ground serving turkey to troops, giving a speech and meeting with Afghanistan’s then-president, Ashraf Ghani, while journalists documented what was occurring.

When President George W. Bush made his first trip to Iraq in 2003, news was not released until he was in the air on the way back to the United States. President Barack Obama made a furtive nighttime visit to Afghanistan in 2010, when he was meant to be spending the weekend at Camp David. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon visited war zones in Vietnam.

Other risky trips featured presidential subterfuge
President Bill Clinton went secretly from India to Pakistan in 2000, attempting to calm tensions in the disputed Kashmir region. He was seen talking with officials in front of a military plane that he appeared to board. Instead, Clinton ducked around the front of the aircraft to another jet parked nearby.

Both planes took off for Islamabad, as did a third jet painted with the familiar baby blue markings of Air Force One.

Joe Lockhart, a White House press secretary for Clinton, noted that reporters knew the president was on one of the planes, “but not which one.” He said he and other officials had briefed the press pool ahead of time and “although they didn’t know all the details, it was made clear” that Clinton “was not going to travel on the plane they were on.

“There was no attempt to hide anything, much less lie about it later,” Lockhart wrote on social media.

Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, during the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and, after all commercial air traffic was grounded, officials wanted to move him to an undisclosed location.

The full White House traveling press pool flew with Bush from Florida to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, where officials reduced the number of reporters and staff on the plane. Bush and the smaller traveling party next flew to Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base before eventually returning to Washington.

Bush’s location remained secret throughout the day. However, the White House did not suggest that the president was somewhere he was not — unlike when Trump was whisked out of Turkey.

“You can imagine the different ways that this could have gone wrong, where, for a period of time, no one would have been able to independently corroborate the status of the U.S. president, or who was in charge of the U.S. government,” Graff said. “And that’s an incredibly dangerous moment for the world.”

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the sea on Wednesday, its neighbors said, the second such weapons testing activity in less than a week.

The series of launch events were likely a protest of the upcoming Korea-U.S. military drills that North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the launch from North Korea’s eastern coastal Wonsan area in a direction of the North’s eastern waters around 6 a.m.

South Korea’s military said it boosted its surveillance posture and that Seoul was closely exchanging information on the launch with Washington and Tokyo.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said it also spotted a suspected ballistic missile launch from North Korea. It said it didn’t detect the weapon reaching Japan’s exclusive economic zone, suggesting it was believed to have fallen further away from the Japanese coast.

The latest launch came two days after South Korea and the United States announced they will kick off their annual large-scale military drills next week to beef up readiness against North Korean threats.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield training is to start on Monday, Aug. 17, for an 11-day run. Its scale will be similar to previous years with 18,000 South Korean soldiers taking part, according to South Korea’s military.

North Korea has previously responded to the training and other major South Korea-U.S. military exercises with provocative weapons tests and harsh rhetoric. North Korea calls such drills a practice to attack the country and forces it to bolster its nuclear arsenal, though the U.S. and South Korea have repeatedly said their training is defensive in nature.

On Aug. 6, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan detected the launch of a short-range ballistic missile from North Korea in what was the North’s first ballistic weapons testing activity since late June. North Korea didn’t confirm the reported launch, though it usually releases details of weapons tests a day later.

North Korea has been engaging in a run of weapons tests since its leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to disputes over international economic sanctions on North Korea.

(AP) – The first night in a new place is always the same for Robinson Leoni: He takes longer to fall asleep, wakes up more often during the night and gets less sleep overall.

At home he averages seven hours. The first night away — with or without earplugs and regardless of the bed’s quality — his smartwatch tells him he gets about five.

“I feel normal, you know, no stress, nothing, but it’s just I notice I wake up continuously,” said Leoni, a sales director for a tech company who travels once or twice a month for work.

He is a victim of what sleep specialists call the first-night effect. The phenomenon has been confirmed by dozens of studies and is believed to have evolutionary roots, said Anna Wick, a senior sleep researcher at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland.

“It’s assumed to be an adaptation response that the sleeping brain remains vigilant in this unfamiliar environment,” Wick said.

You stay alert while sleeping
Ahmad Mayeli, a psychiatry professor and sleep researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, said most people experience it, and even those who may not notice it probably do on a small level. On average, people sleep about 20 to 30 minutes less in a new environment.

His research found that the frontal lobe, an area associated with the deepest stage of sleep, was more active, indicating a sense of alertness. In other words, not only do people sleep less, but also less deeply.

“They are saying that, like in dolphins, part of the brain is awake when you are sleeping,” Mayeli said. “It’s not exactly like dolphins, but still, studies show part of the brain is sleeping less.”

He noted that age makes a difference. The effect is more pronounced in children, adolescents and older adults, and it typically worsens with age. Those in their 20s are the least affected.

“Maybe it’s the sweet spot,” he said.

Anxiety can play a part
Mayeli suspects that the brain may be wired to be wary of new places because, historically, they were the most dangerous to rest.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a Marriott hotel or it’s the savannah,” he said. “Your brain hasn’t gotten the memo that this place is completely safe.”

Wick said evidence suggests the effect fades after the first night.

Lisa Strauss, a psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral treatment of sleep disorders, said several factors can impact sleep in a new place beyond evolutionary vigilance.

Travel itself can have a negative effect, even within the same time zone. Environmental factors may get in the way, like a flashing smoke alarm light in a hotel room. Relational tension, perhaps while visiting family members you’re not close with, could also contribute.

Strauss noted that some people may sleep better the first night if they’re tired after a long day of travel or if the location provides a sense of disconnection from daily stressors. And people who have trouble sleeping at home might fare better because they don’t associate the new place with a history of difficulty sleeping.

While anyone can experience the first-night effect, Strauss said those who are more anxious at baseline are especially vulnerable. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy — the worry about whether they can sleep is what keeps them awake.

Leoni acknowledged there are times he goes into the first night thinking about how he’ll sleep.

“Sometimes the thoughts come automatically,” he said. “You talk with your colleague, and you say, ‘I’m going back to the room, but I’m not going to sleep anyway.’”

How to sleep better on the first night
Strauss recommends general sleep hygiene practices such as going to sleep in a cool, dark room at the same time every night, following a nighttime routine and turning off screens well before going to bed. Those are especially helpful if you start (or restart) doing them in the days or weeks before an important trip.

She suggested people try to make the environment their own by spending a little extra time in the new bed. They could read or do another peaceful, familiar activity to make the experience less novel. They could also bring familiar objects, like a favorite pillow or blanket.

For someone who is particularly anxious, Strauss recommended they visualize themselves in a safe, familiar environment out in nature, such as on a favorite hike or beach. They should notice the anxiety they’re feeling, then repeat positive phrases to help lower feelings of hypervigilance. Her suggestion: “May you know that you are safe. May you know that you are loved. May you be at peace.”

Mayeli said the first-night effect is not really anything to worry about, and people can easily make up for missing an hour or two of sleep for one night. But he recommends arriving a day early to acclimate if you have an important meeting or event.

“If tomorrow matters, get there a night early,” he said, “so you’ll sleep like yourself when it counts.”

NEW YORK (VINnews)— Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch issued a stark warning about the growing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America and radical Islamist movements during a wide-ranging discussion about New York politics, antisemitism, Israel and the future of the Democratic Party.

Appearing with Giuliani, Schonbuch argued that the political changes taking place in New York should be viewed as a warning to the rest of the country.

“America, not just New York City, is in existential danger right now,” Schonbuch said, pointing to the rise of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other candidates associated with the socialist left. He described what he called a growing “Red-Green Alliance” between far-left political movements and Islamist activists.

Giuliani agreed that the threat extends far beyond ordinary partisan politics.

“We have no excuse now,” Giuliani said, arguing that radical movements are increasingly open about their desire to fundamentally transform American institutions. He warned that many Americans lack the historical knowledge necessary to recognize the ideological movements developing around them.

Schonbuch compared the current political environment to revolutionary movements of the early 20th century and argued that the DSA’s growing political influence should be taken seriously beyond New York.

“The DSA has infected, parasitically, the entire Democratic Party,” Schonbuch said, pointing to socialist candidates emerging not only in New York but across the Midwest and elsewhere in the country.

The conversation also turned to Israel, where Schonbuch recently spent time. He described a striking disconnect between international portrayals of the Jewish state and everyday life inside the country.

“When you go there, you get into the airport, you see Jews, you see Muslims, you see Christians living together in an advanced democracy,” he said, pointing to the participation of Arab citizens throughout Israeli society.

Giuliani recalled visiting Israel during the Second Intifada following terrorist attacks and meeting victims of the violence. He said that although he traveled there intending to strengthen Israelis, their resilience ultimately strengthened him.

“They gave me support and morale,” Giuliani recalled.

Both men argued that Americans need a better understanding of history to recognize the ideological forces now shaping politics.

Giuliani said generations of Americans have not been adequately taught the history of communism, revolutionary movements and radical Islam, leaving younger voters particularly vulnerable to political extremism.

“We have to get the American people to understand the danger that they face from this dual threat,” Giuliani said.

Schonbuch said the response should begin by rebuilding the broad political coalition that once helped define New York City — bringing together Jews, Catholics, Italians, Irish, African Americans, Latinos and other communities around shared civic values.

With the midterm elections approaching, he argued that voters who oppose the socialist movement cannot afford to remain politically disengaged.

“Vote as your life depended upon it right now,” Schonbuch said. “There’s no room to sit back.”

The discussion concluded with Schonbuch predicting that political developments in New York and Michigan could accelerate a broader realignment among Jewish voters who have traditionally supported Democrats.

He argued that mainstream Jewish voters increasingly concerned about antisemitism, Israel and the direction of the progressive movement may begin reconsidering their longtime political loyalties.

Giuliani praised Schonbuch for continuing to speak publicly about the issue.

“I know you’re doing a lot of good by spreading this message because you’re so effective,” Giuliani said.

Follow Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch and the Viktor Frankl Podcast for more interviews and analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/@rabbiforamerica

Family getting up: Sunday (8/16/26)Morning

Harav Yisroel Eliezer Szklarz
Husband

R` Yossi Szklarz
Son

Sitting at main address until Thursday night, Friday, MOtzei Shabbos & Sunday sitting in Monsey at 38 Besen Pkwy

R` Yanky Szklarz
Son

Mrs Devoiry Pfeiffer (Kish)
Daughter

Mrs Leahla Pollak
Daughter

Family getting up:

Mrs. Toby Rosenfeld
Wife

Will be sitting in Eretz Yisrael at
88 Nahar Hayarden
Ramat Beit Shemesh Aleph Until Wednesday night
SHACHRIS is at 8;00
Sitting from after Shachris until 2 and then 2-10
Sitting in New York from either Thursday morning or Thursday night until Monday morning.
Exact timing for Thursday will be updated when it is finalized.

Miss Idy Rosenfeld
Daughter

Will be sitting in Eretz Yisrael at
88 Nahar Hayarden
Ramat Beit Shemesh Aleph Until Wednesday night
SHACHRIS is at 8;00
Sitting from after Shachris until 2 and then 2-10
Sitting in New York from either Thursday morning or Thursday night TBA until Monday morning

Mrs. Chezky Feldman
Sister

Please call the following numbers between the hours of 11-1 and 4-8, Wednesday only 4-8. Shiva is over on Friday morning.

MIAMI (VINnews) — Raúl G. Rodríguez Castro, the 42-year-old grandson of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, has become a central intermediary in secret negotiations between Havana and the Trump administration and is being discussed as a possible future leader of Cuba, according to a New York Times report.

The Interior Ministry colonel, long known primarily as his grandfather’s bodyguard and personal aide, has never held elected public office. Yet he has recently met separately with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the two governments pursue talks aimed at easing U.S. sanctions.

His name has also surfaced in discussions among some U.S. officials as someone Washington might find acceptable to lead Cuba, the Times reported.

Rodríguez Castro first drew public notice a decade ago during his grandfather’s state visit to France. As Raúl Castro walked a red carpet at the Élysée Palace, the younger man stayed so close that French honor guards and then-President François Hollande signaled him to step back.

Over time his role expanded. People familiar with Cuba’s leadership told the Times that he evolved into a trusted political aide who attended nearly every important meeting involving his grandfather, including sessions with Pope Francis.

His rising profile comes despite allegations that he helped protect a major smuggling network operating between Cuba, Mexico and the United States. Two men convicted in the case, known as the “Cuban Mafia in Quintana Roo,” accused Rodríguez Castro of facilitating the movement of illicit goods and migrants and of receiving luxury items — including a speedboat, a Rolex watch, a motorcycle and designer clothing — in return. Prosecutors examined text messages and recordings that allegedly supported the claims.

Rodríguez Castro has never been charged. Senior Cuban officials dismissed the accusations as “slander.” Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told the Times there is “no link with the Cuban government.”

People who have spoken with Rodríguez Castro say he has made little secret of his ambition to become Cuba’s president one day. Whether he commands enough support inside the country’s political and military leadership remains unclear.

He is the son of Raúl Castro’s eldest daughter, Déborah Castro Espín, and the late Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, who built the powerful military-run conglomerate GAESA. Within Cuba he is sometimes known as “El Cangrejo” — the Crab.

In a recent interview with USA Today, Rodríguez Castro addressed criticism of his lifestyle, which has included luxury clothing and high-end vehicles. “It pains me that many people can’t live the way I do,” he said. “And I’m working every day to change that situation.”

Arturo López-Levy, a research associate at the University of Denver and Rodríguez Castro’s second cousin, told the Times the former bodyguard has matured politically. “He has not been outside the door; he has been inside every meeting.”

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Tuesday that his wife, Rama Duwaji, will travel to Syria and Lebanon next month without an NYPD security detail.

Mamdani told PIX11 that a “miscommunication” led to conflicting statements from City Hall and the police department over whether officers would accompany Duwaji.

“She has not yet taken that trip and when she takes that trip it will be without any NYPD detail,” Mamdani said, according to the New York Post.

The clarification came after the NYPD said it does not send officers to countries under Level 4 U.S. travel advisories for discretionary trips that are not connected to investigative work.

Duwaji is expected to visit family in Syria and Lebanon beginning Sept. 20. Both countries are subject to U.S. travel warnings.

(AP) – While issuing an executive order on Monday aimed at getting states to revise childhood vaccine recommendations, President Donald Trump and others in his administration repeated several false claims about those vaccines, as well as their relationship to autism.

The order recommends separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three separate single-disease shots and administering childhood vaccines at separate appointments whenever possible.

But many public health experts expressed concern about the recommendations, saying that spacing out the shots could increase the risk that children would become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. They noted that childhood vaccines and how they should be given have been rigorously studied around the world for decades, and continue to prove to be safe and effective at protecting children.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

___

TRUMP: “In many cases, we were requiring 72 jabs for our beautiful, healthy, lovely, delicate little children.”

THE FACTS: That’s misleading. In 2025, the government’s childhood vaccination schedule recommended routine protection against 18 diseases. How many separate injections that added up to between birth and age 18 varied. It depended on things like the brand used, the availability of combination shots and the child’s starting age. But unless you counted once-a-year flu vaccines (which some kids can get as a nasal spray) or COVID-19 shots, the number of injections was closer to three dozen.

Those shots have been proven to protect children from preventable and sometimes devastating diseases. Even so, vaccines were never “required,” as families could opt out. States do require children to get certain vaccines before enrolling in school, but the state lists of school shots were narrower than the federal vaccine schedule, and many states offer different types of exemptions.

The Trump administration in January cut the national vaccine recommendations to injections against 11 diseases, with additional vaccines now separately categorized for at-risk children or as available through “shared decision-making” with a doctor. This drops the total number of injections to about 23 if children receive only the recommended-for-all vaccinations on the administration’s new schedule.

___

TRUMP: “You have the MMR, we want it in three separate vaccinations given at separate times. Together there could be a possibility they are quite lethal and separately, it looks like they are not at all lethal but just very effective.”

THE FACTS: This is false. Doctors say, and years of real-world evidence prove, that the current combination MMR vaccine is both safe and effective at protecting children from illness. Common side effects are mild and include a sore arm from the shot, fever, mild rash and temporary pain and stiffness in the joints. Doctors point out that separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella are not available in the United States.

“I’m concerned about an unintended consequence of people under vaccinating because of fear that giving a single dose of the MMR is going to put their child at risk when there’s no evidence to suggest that’s the case,” said Dr. Aaron Milstone, pediatric director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Health System and a fellow with the American Academy of Pediatrics. “There are many, many, many years of scientific data highlighting the safety of vaccines in children.”

___

TRUMP: “Large amounts of vaccine, large amounts of like vats of vaccine are currently pumped into your child’s body.”

THE FACTS: This is false. Dr. Molly O’Shea, a Michigan pediatrician, said amounts vary slightly by vaccine, but doctors give less than 0.5 milliliters per vaccine — usually 0.1 to 0.3 milliliters per vaccine. By comparison, a teaspoon is about 5 milliliters.

“It’s a teeny amount,” she said. “So there are no vats.”

Trump also said during the executive order signing: “I’ve seen proof of it. Where they have a vaccination that looks like the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child’s body.” A typical plastic bottle of soda contains 500 milliliters, or about 2,500 times more than a typical vaccine.

___

TRUMP: “There’s nothing that we lose with this. The worst thing that would happen would be nothing happens. We’re not going to lose anything.”

THE FACTS: Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can lead to an increased risk that children become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Doctors say, and real world evidence proves, that vaccinations save millions of lives.

“Vaccines are among the most thoroughly studied, effective tools we have to protect children from serious vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Dr. Willie Underwood, president of the American Medical Association. “Altering a proven vaccination schedule without credible evidence risks weakening public confidence and putting children’s health at risk.”

Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that “delaying or skipping shots is risky, especially as measles continues to spread and children go back to school.”

Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but rates are now climbing as vaccination rates decline. The number of cases this year has already surpassed the record-breaking tally for all of 2025, which was the worst year for measles in more than three decades.

___

HEALTH SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: “In 1970, the biggest epidemiological study at that time in history was performed. And the university scientists from across this country looked at all the 8-year-olds in Wisconsin, about 900,000 children, and they were looking for autism. And they knew what autism looked like. And they came back with an incidental rate of .8 per 10,000. So less than one in 10,000. The rate according to CDC today in this country is one in every 31 children.”

THE FACTS: It’s true that in the 20th century, only 1 in 10,000 children were diagnosed with autism —- the diagnosis was rare and given only to kids with severe problems communicating or socializing and those with unusual, repetitive behaviors. But the term became shorthand for a group of milder, related conditions known as ″autism spectrum disorders,” and the number of kids labeled as having some form of autism began to balloon.

Health officials have largely attributed growing autism numbers to better recognition of cases, through wide screening and better diagnosis. In April 2025, the CDC said the diagnosis rate was 1 in 31 children.

During the executive order signing, Kennedy and Trump suggested that childhood vaccines may play a role in causing autism. But studies by the CDC and others have ruled that out. A fraudulent single study that claimed a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was later retracted by the journal that published it.

There are no blood or biologic tests for autism; it is diagnosed by making judgments about a child’s behavior. Research has looked at a variety of other possible explanations, including genetics, the age of the father, the weight of the mother and chemicals in the environment.

“No environmental factor has been better-studied as a potential cause of autism than vaccines,” said Dr. Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation. “That includes vaccine ingredients as well as the body’s response to the vaccines. All this research has determined that there is no link between autism and vaccines. This is consistent across multiple studies, repeated in different countries around the world, including those mentioned in today’s press conference.”

Last year, Kennedy promised to conduct exhaustive studies to identify any environmental factors that may cause the developmental disorder. He said on Monday that his department will deliver research findings “as soon as they are ready.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slowed again in July as record prices and the highest mortgage rates in a year prove to be an insurmountable hurdle for many prospective homebuyers.

Existing home sales fell 1.7% last month from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.06 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. That’s slightly above the 4.05 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

July sales, however, were up 0.7% compared with last year.

Home prices continued to rise, hitting unprecedented levels for the month of July, NAR said. The U.S. median sales price increased 2% from a year earlier, to $434,100.

In June, the median sales price hit $442,800, an all-time high for any month on data going back to 1999, NAR said. Home prices have risen on an annual basis for 37 months in a row.

Last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported that the benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate rose to 6.69%, its highest level in just over a year. It was the fifth consecutive week that the average rate rose, marking the latest strain for prospective homebuyers who are facing steep borrowing costs.

It is difficult to find good news about the U.S. housing market from the July report, said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.

“No one who has a home already can afford to sell it,” said Weinberg. “People with ultra-low COVID-era mortgages cannot afford to give them up. If no one is selling, no one can be buying, and inventories are low.”

Home sales have been mostly hovering close to a 4-million annual pace for about three years, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2 million.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low.

Sales remain sluggish as mortgage rates have mostly trended higher in the months since the war between the U.S. and Iran started. Expectations of higher inflation amid surging oil prices have pushed up the long-term bond yields that lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans, causing mortgage rates to climb.

Home inventory levels also remain well below historical norms.

There were 1.54 million unsold homes at the end of last month, down 1.9% from June and 0.6% less than July last year, NAR said. That’s well short of the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the COVID-19 pandemic.

July’s month-end inventory translates to a 4.6-month supply at the current sales pace. Traditionally, a 5- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers.

Regionally, prices in the Northeast continue to rise faster than the rest of the country, jumping 5.2% year-over-year, driven by a shortage of inventory.

NAR said that 29% of sales were first-time homebuyers, down from 33% in June but up slightly from 28% in July 2025. Historically, first-time buyers make up closer to 40% of home sales.

NEW YORK (AP) — The president’s media company has tried its hand at a half-dozen new lines of business to lift its stock, but nothing has worked.

Now it’s getting back to its roots.

In a conference call with investors Monday, the company behind Truth Social said it will be unwinding much of its expansion and doubling down on its original media business by selling a form of White House access, a move that has raised big ethical questions among Democrats and government watchdogs.

Trump started Truth Social after he was kicked off Twitter and Facebook, but the two reinstated him more than three years ago, so the company has had to transform itself. Instead of a “free speech” forum, it now acts more like a “hear it here first” site, a second White House press office where people get scoops from the president on everything from the Iran war to tariffs to the future of the U.S. central bank.

But shares of the parent company, Trump Media & Technology, kept falling so it decided to become more than a media company, and branched into unrelated industries like online betting, finance, investment funds, buying and storing bitcoin and nuclear energy.

Now it’s returning to its original mission, with a twist: It’s offering a special new service that grants fast access to President Trump’s posts for a fee.

The new business could double or triple revenue
In a conference call with investors, the company’s new chief executive, Kevin McGurn, said it had already signed up several high speed trading firms, each paying between $60,000 and $100,000 a month.

“We’re in the early innings,” said McGurn, noting that the potential market included data center companies, news organizations and developers of large language models, not just traders, and he was talking to them all.

McGurn has rejected the idea that the new business is an ethics quagmire as good-government groups have said, noting that other social media companies provide a similar service. As for the White House, it denies conflicts even exist between Trump the president and Trump the businessman where his private interests may influence his public policy.

Traders on Wall Street can make big money if they get White House news faster and so are signing up — 10 in the week since the service began, which may seem like a tiny number but translates into a major boost for the company. The monthly customers collectively are paying as much as $7 million and $12 million annually — two to three times the revenue the company took in for all its businesses last year.

Trump Media needs the money — and a lot more.

It’s lost more than $1 billion since the start of last year, and its earnings report released Monday for the three months ended June 30 showed relief is not on the horizon. It lost another $238 million, though much of that was due to paper losses from the plunging value of its bitcoin holdings.

Time is running out
The clock is ticking to fix the company.

Trump Media depends partly on outside funding, specifically $1 billion raised from lenders with a special agreement that allows them to get paid back early. They can demand the company buy back their convertible notes on Nov. 30, 18 months before the loans mature.

That cashout date is just after the November midterms, which could impact the company should Democrats get control of Congress. Several current members, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, say they will hold formal investigations of Trump’s businesses, including Trump Media, should they take over.

A third deadline is farther out, but the most consequential — the end of Trump’s presidency.

Trump is a big draw for the platform’s users, but it’s not clear how many will read his posts after he leaves office, much less why traders will pay as much $1.2 million a year for sneak peeks at his posts if he’s no longer able to declare on the site that the Strait of Hormuz is open or that he’s hiking tariffs on dozens of countries.

Would Vance in the White House help Truth Social?
The special, high-speed service, called Truth API, includes posts from other top posters on the site, but no one comes near the president in popularity. He has 13 million followers. The second biggest poster, his son, Donald Jr., has 7.5 million.

Other heavily followed posters include Trump administration members who also may fall in popularity once out of office, including FBI director Kash Patel and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A wild card is JD Vance, who will be out of his vice presidential job in 2028 but, if he runs for president and wins, may continue to post on the site where he has five million followers.

The other business line that McGurn is choosing to hold onto is nuclear fusion, a technology still not commercially available but that is getting a big boost by the current administration.

The U.S. government has a helping hand
In June, the U.S. Department of Energy released a “road map” committing to government funding to speed the development of nuclear fusion as a national priority and calling for public-private partnerships.

Despite the help, investors still aren’t convinced Trump Media has a rosy future.

After closing at about $62 shortly after it went public in 2024, the stock has plunged into the single digits, wiping out billions in stock market value.

On Monday, Trump Media dove again, down 8% to $9.39 a share.

(AP) – It’s possibly the most important job of any Israeli prime minister: maintain good relations with the United States while pushing back on demands seen as undermining Israel’s security.

No one has managed the balancing act longer than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader. But with the Iran war at a stalemate, and U.S. President Donald Trump looking to advance peace efforts elsewhere, Netanyahu’s task is getting harder less than three months away from Israeli elections.

On Sunday, Netanyahu rejected Trump’s latest plan to advance the stalled ceasefire in Gaza, saying Israel will not withdraw from any of the roughly 60% of the territory it controls until Hamas has been completely disarmed — something the militant group controlling the other 40% has long resisted.

Netanyahu risks angering Trump, who he has repeatedly said is the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House. But even a hint of compromise with Hamas could be fatal for Netanyahu’s reelection in a country deeply traumatized by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that happened on his watch.

Trump, meanwhile, is under pressure to deliver on his promise of being a global peacemaker as talks with Iran stall and gas prices stay elevated ahead of U.S. congressional elections in November.

Netanyahu says there will be no progress on Gaza ceasefire until Hamas disarms
The Gaza plan announced by Trump last month grew out of his October ceasefire deal, which ended major Israeli military operations there and brought about the release of all remaining hostages but has otherwise largely stalled.

Under the latest agreement, Hamas would gradually give up its weapons while Israeli forces halt their attacks and begin withdrawing from Gaza. Hamas accepted the deal, even as the group linked the surrender of its heaviest weapons to the creation of a Palestinian state, something Israel’s current government and most of its political class adamantly reject.

Netanyahu rejected the plan, saying Israel would not retreat from any of its positions in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed. That would leave other elements of the ceasefire, including the deployment of international forces and any reconstruction of the devastated territory, on hold.

At the same time, the Israeli military seems to have eased off on its strikes on Gaza that have killed over 1,250 people since the ceasefire came into effect, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Israeli media reported that the authority for carrying out strikes has been limited to the army’s chief of staff, apparently in a quiet gesture toward Trump’s ceasefire efforts. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.

“We are focused on actions, not rhetoric or politics,” an official with the Board of Peace, the Trump-led entity overseeing the ceasefire, told The Associated Press. “There have been some results on the ground in the last few days,” the official added, including “restraint from strikes” and new Israeli military procedures.

“There is constructive cooperation behind the scenes and our conversations continue,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the ongoing discussions.

Oct. 7 looms over a tough campaign for reelection
In his election campaign, Netanyahu has boasted of Israel’s military achievements in the wars that followed the Oct. 7 attack. Israeli forces have seized territory in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, and launched two major air wars against Iran and its disputed nuclear program.

But the “total victory” Netanyahu promised in Gaza has yet to materialize. Many Israelis blame him for the security failures that led to the initial attack, as well as previous attempts to contain Hamas that at times included allowing Qatar to deliver suitcases filled with cash to Gaza.

Netanyahu’s far-right allies, who will likely be crucial to his Likud party’s ability to form a government after the elections, have welcomed his rejection of the Trump plan.

Trump “wants to see real steps taken toward rehabilitating Gaza, while Netanyahu’s two right-wing partners and the Likud’s faltering election campaign is keeping him from yielding even a millimeter,” wrote Jonathan Lis, the diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

Ghaith al-Omari, a former Palestinian negotiator who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that even if the White House ignores Netanyahu’s rejection of the plan, Trump is still stuck unless he can persuade the Israeli leader to change course.

Hamas is meanwhile winning the “blame game” by appearing to be the more reasonable of the two sides, he said.

Trump’s standing in Israel has fallen as he has tried to wind down the Iran war
Trump was wildly popular in Israel during his first term, when he lent unprecedented support to Israel’s claims to territory seized in war, including by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

The trend continued in his second term, as he backed Israel’s actions in Gaza and joined it in bombing Iran. The alliance was particularly beneficial to Netanyahu, whose political future remained uncertain. The prime minister relied on Trump to improve his image at home.

But the allies’ interests diverged last spring, as Israel pressed for further strikes on Iran and against Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Trump looked to wind down the regional conflict in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ease pressure on the world economy.

Since then, Trump has said that he would “likely” endorse Netanyahu ahead of the Israeli election but has not yet given his full backing. And while a formal endorsement from a U.S. president still carries weight in Israel, the rift between the two leaders suggests it could also complicate Netanyahu’s campaign.

“A few months ago, a significant majority of Israelis assumed that when President Trump is making decisions, he’s taking Israeli security interests into account. This is no longer the case,” said Yohanan Plesner, head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank in Jerusalem.

The closeness between Netanyahu and Trump “used to be an asset,” he said, but not anymore.

Netanyahu has defied past US presidents, but the risks are greater now
Netanyahu has a long history of defying U.S. presidents, particularly Democratic ones. During his first term, in the late 1990s, he resisted efforts by President Bill Clinton to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. He clashed publicly with President Barack Obama over the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

But that approach carries greater risks now, as Israel’s military campaigns have left it increasingly isolated diplomatically and upended its historic support among Democratic voters in the U.S., leaving Trump as one of Israel’s few strong allies.

Netanyahu’s dependence on Trump is “tremendous,” Plesner said, and voters will punish him if he is seen as mismanaging the key relationship.

“If Trump will insist on carrying on, I think Netanyahu will have no choice but to tag along rather than take on the president, since he’s left Israel with very few diplomatic cards to maneuver.”

WASHINGTON D.C  (VINnews)-President Trump announced Tuesday that American citizen and former U.S. Marine Robert Gilman is returning home from Russia after more than four years in detention.

Gilman, 32, was imprisoned in 2022 during the Biden administration following his arrest in Voronezh on charges of assaulting a police officer. His sentence was later extended. Trump said Russia agreed to free him on humanitarian grounds after discussions with President Vladimir Putin, with no prisoner exchange required.

“I am proud to announce that American Citizen Robert Gilman, a former United States Marine, is coming HOME!” Trump said in a statement. “After my discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him, very much on a Humanitarian Basis. We appreciate this decision, and the fact that Russia asked for no one in return — No exchange took place.”

Gilman was scheduled to land Tuesday night at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., accompanied by U.S. representatives and his mother, Nancy. Trump said he spoke with Gilman, who requested a cheeseburger upon arrival.

Trump credited members of his team, including Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy for Hostage Response Adam Boehler, Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka and Jared Kushner, among others.

The president highlighted his administration’s efforts to secure the return of Americans detained abroad, stating that hundreds have been brought home and that non-Americans held in various countries have also been freed.

Gilman’s health had deteriorated in recent months, with advocates reporting he had been in a serious condition, including periods of unresponsiveness. U.S. officials had pressed for his release on humanitarian grounds.

Trump concluded: “Robert Gilman has been reunited with his wonderful mother, Nancy, who is also on the plane with him, and will soon get to see all of his loved ones. … GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

NEW YORK (AP) — Government lawyers said a Court of International Trade judge overstepped his authority by ordering the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to issue refunds to all companies that paid tariffs that were deemed illegal in February, even those that didn’t file a lawsuit in trade court.

The government filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in June and filed its opening brief on Monday.

In it, government lawyers point to a case that went before the Supreme Court in June 2025, over birthright citizenship. Part of the decision in that case limited the use of universal injunctions, which apply a ruling to all people or companies affected, not just specific litigants.

Judge Richard Eaton, who is overseeing the tariff lawsuits in the Court of International Trade, has said the limits on universal injunctions don’t apply in this case, but the government disagrees.

“The CIT’s universal injunctions, requiring the government to refund IEEPA duties for all importers (including non-party importers), cannot possibly be squared with CASA,” — the court case that limited universal injunctions, the government wrote it its brief.

The majority of tariff refunds have already been paid out. CBP has already processed and certified $100 billion in refunds. At issue are companies that paid tariffs that went through the customs process and entries were finalized. There’s a Congressional rule that the CBP cannot reprocess tariffs for which the administrative refund process is no longer available. Those companies are free to file a lawsuit to get that money back, the government said.

“The Court of International Trade (CIT) has already entered hundreds of such orders in suits brought by importers seeking that relief, and importers who have not yet brought such suits are free to do so within the statute of limitations,” government lawyers wrote in the brief.

Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law, said it appears the government has the better legal argument, but businesses, especially smaller businesses, might suffer.

“The government took this money under a law the Supreme Court said never authorized it. Getting it back should not turn on whether a business could afford to sue,” he said. “Refunding an unlawful tariff should not be a reward for litigating. … You cannot really ask a small company to sue for money it does not know it is owed, on a deadline it has never heard of.”

(AP) – The meeting in the Oval Office between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a diplomatic car crash.

“Your country is in big trouble. You’re not winning,” Trump said, dressing down Zelenskyy in front of the world’s media. “You don’t have the cards.”

The blowup in February 2025, three years into the war, was more than just a heated public exchange: The Ukrainian delegation was asked to leave the White House, and Washington briefly suspended intelligence sharing with Kyiv. In the ensuing months, as Russia made slow but steady gains on the battlefield, Trump warmly welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and seemed ready to push Ukraine into an unfavorable peace deal, including forcing it to give up territory.

But even as Zelenskyy sat next to Trump, his forces were preparing an operation that would reveal Ukraine’s ability and ambition to take the war to Russia: Months later, drones smuggled into the country attacked Russian bombers, destroying or damaging planes worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Since then, Kyiv has ramped up a campaign of longer-range strikes inside Russia and in areas Moscow has seized, increased production of weapons, targeted Russian air defenses, and hit oil infrastructure and the warehouses of a major retailer in a bid to ensure ordinary Russians feel the impact of the conflict.

In an embarrassment to Putin, Ukrainian drone strikes sent thick plumes of smoke billowing over St. Petersburg shortly before the opening of an international economic forum in June. Concern over Ukraine’s attacks led Russian authorities to scale down the May 9 military parade commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany. Strikes on oil refineries have caused a summer fuel crisis.

By the time Trump and Zelenskyy met at a NATO summit in July, the American president said the Ukrainian leader had “been very effective” in the war. “We’ve actually developed a good relationship,” Trump added.

But as Ukraine’s strikes have intensified, so have Russia’s — and Kyiv faces major challenges in defending against them because of shortages of American Patriot air defense missiles.

In the first six months of the year, 1,396 civilians were killed in Ukraine, according to the U.N. Meanwhile, the world body said Russian authorities reported 250 civilians killed in the same period. On Monday, a strike that Ukraine said hit an oil refinery in Russia killed 13 people, according to local officials.

And while Ukraine’s effort appears to have shifted the narrative about the war in Washington, it’s still not clear if it will be able to push Putin toward the negotiating table.

Ukraine’s strikes are aimed at undermining the idea that Russia can afford to “just let this roll,” said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the London-based RUSI think tank.

The question of whether it will succeed depends on how much pain Ukraine can exact. “Logically, above a certain threshold, it does work but whether they can reach that threshold is an interesting question” — and one that depends at least partly on factors outside Kyiv’s control, like continued European financial support, he noted.

Ukraine brings the war to Russia
While most of Ukraine’s strikes have a range of less than 200 kilometers (125 miles), its longer-range attacks have increased dramatically this year. It launched three times as many of those strikes in July as it did in January, according to data from ACLED, an independent conflict monitor. Repeatedly hitting deep into Russia has forced its military to stretch air defenses over a larger area.

Many of its strikes have focused on four key categories of targets, according to an Associated Press analysis of hundreds of Ukrainian attacks this year — compiled from statements by Russian officials and state media and the Ukrainian military.

As the Iran war pushed up energy prices, leading the U.S. to ease sanctions on Russian oil, Kyiv ramped up strikes on oil infrastructure to deny the Kremlin revenue from fuel exports and force shortages on ordinary Russians. It is also striking defense manufacturing to damage Russia’s long-term ability to produce weapons, targeting air defenses to clear a path for its own arms, and hitting retail warehouses to bring the effects to ordinary Russians.

— As part of the campaign against oil infrastructure, Kyiv said it hit Russia’s largest oil refinery, more than 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from Ukraine.

— Kyiv has also targeted defense manufacturing centers. It hit a factory making navigation systems multiple times, including with its own Flamingo missile.

— In July and August, Ukraine struck Wildberries warehouses. Kyiv said the company helps supply the Russian military. Moscow denies that.

— Many of Ukraine’s strikes on Russian air defenses and radar are around Russian-held Crimea and are often carried out with drones.

Maj. Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, the commander leading Ukraine’s drone war, told the AP its strikes in Crimea are also aimed at rendering the peninsula unusable as a staging ground for Russian forces.

Starlink gives Ukraine an advantage — for now
It’s not always clear if Ukraine’s attacks are effective — and some may have resulted in minimal or no damage. In May and June, Ukraine said it hit several satellite, reconnaissance or signals intelligence facilities in Russia, but satellite images analyzed by AP did not show major damage.

Still, Ukraine has one advantage that can help it strip back Russian air defenses and make its drone strikes more precise.

It has access to Elon Musk’s satellite communications service Starlink — which means its operators can control drones in real time in Russian-held Ukrainian territory. Russia has been blocked from using Starlink.

But Russia is also building its own version of Starlink, and is installing jamming systems that hamper Starlink connectivity, Brovdi said.

Ukraine is investing heavily in weapons production
Even before the Oval Office meeting, Ukraine scrambled to invest in new weapons — but that moment was “a real wake-up call,” said a European military official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the front-line situation in detail. It became clear that U.S. support could be stopped “from one day to the next.”

Ukraine doubled down on production, churning out a growing array of weapons in larger numbers and shortening traditional research and production cycles from decades to years or even months.

Even so, Ukraine is still not able to produce as many missiles as it needs. It also took Ukraine time to make systems that could target facilities precisely enough that Kyiv felt comfortable using them to strike deep into Russia, Watling said.

And while Ukraine has begun to resolve navigational issues with its missiles, such as the Flamingo, those weapons are still not as accurate — or as stealthy — as their Western analogues. That often means hundreds of drones must be fired to overwhelm Russian air defenses to allow a missile to get through.

It’s an expensive and time-consuming way to wage war since only 5% to 9% of what Ukraine fires gets past Russian air defenses, according to Watling.

But, although Russia’s weapons are more powerful, Zelenskyy suggested at the NATO summit that Putin is “losing the initiative” in the war as Ukraine has moved the fight from the stalled battlefield to the sky.

Sitting next to Trump at the summit, the Ukrainian leader even cracked a joke, demurring when Trump asked him if he would accept Moscow as a venue for peace talks, as Putin has suggested.

“There are a lot of Ukrainian drones in the air,” Zelenskyy said. “It would be dangerous.”

PEREIRA, Colombia (AP) — Search and rescue efforts resumed Tuesday in dozens of cities and towns in western Colombia after a powerful earthquake left over 3,000 missing, with many trapped under the debris.

Mayors and governors from Cali, Pereira, Choco and Manizalez said Tuesday at least 179 people had died in those four areas; the federal government, which last updated its estimates in the hours after the 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Monday, has said at least 111 died.

Around 1,600 buildings across the region have been reported damaged or collapsed. Soldiers, rescue personnel and families picked through the rubble, passing large pieces of concrete by hand along lines of volunteers.

Standing near the remains of his brother’s collapsed apartment building in Pereira, Jairo Vargas said he made the 220-kilometer (135-mile) drive from Medellin, hoping to find him alive.

“I’m absolutely certain he’s here. Absolutely certain,” Vargas said, adding that his brother’s car was parked outside. But he fears his sibling did not survive.

“The debris surrounding my brother is soft,” he said, as heavy machinery rumbled through the debris. “It’s possible that it’s protecting him, but we can’t hear any noises anymore. I don’t know. I have little hope.”

Colombia’s new president faces his first serious challenge
Choco, the region surrounding the quake’s epicenter, is one of Colombia’s poorest and most neglected regions, often beset by warring armed groups. Much of Choco is accessible only by boat, through the jungle or by airplane. Little was known about the extent of damage there.

President Abelardo De la Espriella, who was inaugurated just days earlier, traveled to Choco’s capital, Quibdo, on Monday night and announced he was mobilizing “the entire military and police apparatus” to respond, deploying engineers, rescue workers and search dogs.

“Choco will never again be the ‘land of the forgotten,’” he said.

The earthquake presents the first major test for de la Espriella, who is a divisive figure because of his pledge to crack down on criminal groups in the Andean nation.

Desperate residents seek news of their loved ones
Families posted information about missing loved ones on citizen-run websites.

Dana Carolina Zamora posted an image of her missing 60-year-old uncle, Miguel Ángel Zamora, cradling his dog. The farmer was living in a rural area of El Cairo, not far from the quake’s epicenter in San Jose Del Palmar.

Local authorities said 80% of El Cairo, a town of about 7,000 people, was damaged. Zamora said her uncle lived in a traditional house of sticks and mud.

“We are afraid. We hope that is not the case, that he is all right and that it is only a communication failure. But we haven’t heard anything from him,” Zamora said.

A neighbor looks at a collapsed building the day after and earthquake struck Pereira, Colombia, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

The earthquake left many people unnerved after back-to-back quakes devastated neighboring Venezuela in late June, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing more than 6,300 people.

Mónica Sánchez owns a small company that makes work uniforms. Her home city, Pereira, was one of the worst hit, and a wall inside the factory collapsed. Sánchez and her 12 workers got outside just in time.

“It was shocking — the city fell down around us,” she said.

Pereira’s municipal government said at least 58 buildings collapsed, while Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder said at least 40 buildings had collapsed.

Both cities enforced curfews Monday night to prevent looting. And in Pereira, the city government has banned privately owned vehicles from circulating, to clear the way for ambulances, police and rescue workers.

The U.S. State Department has announced it would provide $15.5 million for emergency shelter, food and other aid. Governments across Latin America have also lined up to help.

“This has been a tragedy for the whole city, for thousands of families,” Pereira Mayor Mauricio Salazar told local media, his voice quavering. “But here we are, and we will continue forward with the hand of God.”

CHICAGO (AP) — Toyota is recalling about 655,000 of its Camry vehicles globally, the automaker confirmed Tuesday, due to a display error that may deactivate safety indicators like turn signals and hazard lights during startup.

Most of the now-recalled cars were sold in the U.S. — where more than 508,000 model year 2025-2026 Camry Hybrids are affected.

According to documents published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, these vehicles are equipped with a 7-inch (17.8 centimeters) display combination meter that can become blank at startup. And beyond turn signals and hazard lights, certain warnings like seat belt reminders and “key left in ignition” buzzers may also not function as a result.

These display failures increase crash risks — both for drivers who may not be able to see telltale indicators and “the ability of other road users to recognize the driver’s intent to change direction or indicate a vehicle hazard,” the NHTSA warns.

Texas-based Toyota Motor North America — a subsidiary of the larger Japanese automaker — says it will notify all known owners of the affected Camrys to bring their vehicles into a certified dealer. To remedy the issue, those dealers will later provide a software update free of charge.

Owner letters are set to be mailed starting Sept. 21 in the U.S., and Toyota expects to complete those notifications by early October. In the meantime, customers can check the NHTSA’s and Toyota’s online recall lookups to see if their car is affected.

Toyota confirmed to The Associated Press via email Tuesday that its recall affects markets in North America, the Middle East, Asia and some countries in other regions. The company said the 655,000 vehicles impacted globally were produced between December 2023 and July 2026 — across three plants located in the U.S., Japan and Thailand.

For more information, customers can visit Toyota’s website or contact customer support at 1-800-331-4331.

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (VINnews) — An American Airlines Boeing 737 returned safely to Myrtle Beach Monday after a bird strike shortly after takeoff caused severe engine vibrations and flames visible from the aircraft.

Flight 1760 was headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, with 172 passengers and nine crew members when the crew reported an engine problem and requested an emergency return to the airport.

Air traffic control recordings captured the pilot declaring an emergency shortly after departure. Passenger video showed flashes and flames near the left engine as the aircraft continued over the coast.

A second pilot monitoring the flight reported seeing birds strike the engine. Airport personnel later found bird remains on the runway.

American Airlines said the aircraft landed safely and was removed from service for a detailed inspection. Passengers were transferred to another aircraft for the remainder of their trip.

No injuries were reported.

Passengers said the plane shook noticeably after the bird strike but praised the flight crew for remaining calm and quickly returning the aircraft to the airport.

Initial information indicated the flames were caused by birds entering the engine and did not indicate a continuing engine fire.

New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman)  It was Elul, 5711. Rav Refael Reuven Grozovsky zt”l, chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah and rosh yeshiva of both Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and Beis Medrash Elyon, was struck by a car in the street. There are people,who over the years, have said that the collision was no accident. The kosher meat interests, so the account runs, arranged it.

Regardless, a heart attack followed shortly after car hit, and then a devastating stroke. Many people don’t realize that a serious car accident can and often does cause injuries to the cardiovascular system. Rav Reuven zt”l never again delivered a shiur or led the affairs of Klal Yisroel, and was niftar six and a half years later on 22 Adar 5718.

It seems also that much of the printed Torah literature suppressed even the bare fact of the collision. It was a hit-and-run, and the driver was never apprehended. A prominent Gadol HaDor was knocked down and hospitalized for half a year, and no one was ever charged.

A lot of people do believe that there was Mafia involvement.

Was It Plausible in September 1951?

The question is – was it shayach so late in 1951? There are two arguments that have been raised against it, but both are weaker than they look.

The first holds that the kosher meat rackets belonged to an earlier era. It is true that the great scandals came earlier: the Live Poultry Commission Merchants’ Protective Association, the 1914 assassination of Barnet Baff after he testified against extortionists, the Kashruth Association affairs of the 1930s, Thomas Dewey’s prosecutions, and Louis Buchalter’s execution in 1944.

Why is this argument weak?

Because the meat trade did not become clean afterward. Organized crime remained entangled with the New York meat locals for decades.

 The assertion that the industry was no longer mob-controlled by 1951 is wrong in this author’s opinion, and in the view of those with whom this author has communicated over the past 42 years. Some of those conversations were had on the condition that no names would ever be printed, and that condition is being honored here.  Also, Johnny Dio and the Lucchese family took over Consumers Kosher Provision and merged it with American Kosher Provisions in the mid-1960s, then used Amalgamated Meat Cutters locals under Lucchese and Genovese control to strike their competitors selectively. That was fifteen years after Elul 5711 — which is precisely the point. The kosher meat trade was still worth seizing by force in 1966.

The second argument holds that federal and state scrutiny was too intense that season for anyone to move against a public figure. The Kefauver Committee had held eight days of televised hearings in New York that March, watched by an estimated thirty million Americans, and issued its final report on August 31, days before the accident. Governor Dewey had a state crime commission in the field.

The problem with that dismissal is that scrutiny does not necessarily stop violence. Rather, it changes its form. Under those conditions no one shoots a Rav on the street. A car does the work and leaves no traffic report. That same spring, Vincent Mangano vanished and his brother Philip was found shot in Brooklyn, and no one was ever arrested for that either. Deniability was how they conducted things even when things were hot.

It should also be stated plainly what Rav Reuven zt”l was in 1951. He was the Gadol HaDor. As chairman of the Moetzes he was someone whose single sentence could close a butcher shop. Few individuals in American Jewish life held that kind of commercial power over anyone’s parnassah.

If It Was Arranged, Who Could Have Arranged It?

What follows is speculation and should be read as nothing else. No document names anyone. No witness statement identifies a driver. No source, printed or oral, has ever attached a name to this. The purpose of the speculation is, if the allegation is true – threefold – 1] to ask who in New York in September 1951 had the motivation, territory and capability to do it 2] to inspire readers about the Ish Emes that Rav Reuvain Grozovsky zt”l was, and 3] to ensure that these type of things not happen again.

It is a sad reality that unscrupulous people – even in our own world sometimes get involved with unsavory people in the underworld.  Someone that this author knows

In the spring of that year the crime family that essentially controlled Brooklyn changed hands violently. Vincent Mangano disappeared on April 19, 1951. His brother Philip was found shot the same day. But if Rav Reuven zt”l was involved in rectifying a kashrus problem a likely affected party was perhaps a shop, a supplier, or the union local that covered them. The kosher retail trade in New York was organized under the Hebrew Butcher Workers Union, roughly three hundred members, alongside the kosher meat markets’ employer associations.

Who led that local in 1951 is not fully established. [Bais Gimel Daled]. The broader retail meat locals were run by Max Block, who was open in his own memoir about a decades-long friendship with Carlo Gambino. It must be said in fairness that Block’s account contains no kashrus war of any kind, but he does have pages on shechitah. It must equally be said that no man writing a memoir confesses to running down a Rabbi

Arthur “Tootsie” Herbert and his brother Charlie ran the kosher chicken union rackets under Louis Buchalter. Buchalter went to the electric chair in 1944 and a third brother was murdered in Los Angeles in 1949, but the foot soldiers did not retire. The live poultry markets remained a hard trade well past mid-century.  Let’s remember why New York State Kashrus inspectors do carry a gun.

If the collision was deliberate, the butcher frame, according to some conspiratory theorists, may be narrowing the field prematurely. The public battles Rav Reuven actually fought that year are a matter of record, and they were ideological rather than commercial: the Yaldei Teheran, gius banos, and the delegation to Ben-Gurion, after which he told those close to him that he expected to lose his position over it.   Many of those who have grown up in the 1960’s and 70’s remember older people who placed blame on almost everything on either the Nazis or anti-Semitism.  In this author’s view laying blame on any of the latter two ideas is unwarranted.

The likeliest explanation of any hit-and-run in 1951 remains a frightened driver who had been drinking or was just plain scared. This is far more likely than any of the other theories.

The main thing we should be concerned about, however, is Rav Reuvain’s legacy – both in terms of Mussar and in terms of history.

Rav Reuvain Grozovsky zt”l, was one of the Gedolei HaDor, who almost single-handedly changed the face of the Torah world as we know it. He was the person responsible for bringing Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l and Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l to the Slabodka Yeshiva – and literally saving them from grave spiritual dangers. He married the daughter of Rav Boruch Ber, was a member of the Vaad Hatzolah, Moetzes Gedolei Torah and Torah uMesorah. He was a Rosh Yeshiva in Torah V’Daas, Beis Medrash Elyon and Kamenetz. Imagine. No Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l. No Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l. No Lakewood Yeshiva.

Also, all of the Yeshiva Bochurim that were saved by Rav Reuvain and Rav Aharon. One shudders to think of what would have been without him. What follows are ten thoughts and sayings of Rav Grozovsky.

1. The Holiness of Shabbos pre-existed creation and is the culmination of the world’s completion. The verse states that G-d completed His work on the seventh day. Before the Holiness of Shabbos existed – the world was incomplete. This can only be understood by those who perceive that Holiness. The seventy two sages who translated the Septuagint for Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Greek king of Egypt in 72 different rooms – thus all translated that G-d completed His work on Friday (Bretton translation on Genesis 2:2). This is because they knew that only Jews would understand why the world’s real completion was on Shabbos. (Sichos Rav Reuvain, Moadim, Maamar 1).
2. If a person is cruel and shows no concern about embarrassing another and does not care about the other being mortified – this is not of the “lighter sins” at all – rather it is of the gravest of sins (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p. 13)
3. Sometimes a person will use Torah to chas veshalom cause pain or tzaar to another human being. He makes the Torah into a sword to stab another human being. This is the very opposite of Torah – which is a Torah of chessed and gives Everlasting life. (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p. 8)
4. The trait of humility is what strengthens the trait of fear of Heaven (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p.32)
5. The purpose of Vidui is so that a person will be filled with a fear and dread of his aveiros, (Lev Reuvain p.410)
6. Just like we count our money in gashmius, we should also be counting our Mitzvos (See Rav Broan Brachos 9b) – this way he will understand, appreciate and value the mitzvah. He will also take pride and joy in it and seek to work harder in the performance of Mitzvos. (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p.3)
7. Torah is life itself. Since Torah is so precious and valuable, a person should be in a state of great joy for every insight in Torah that he creates – for every question he has, and for every answer. As a result he will endeavor to sharpen it, clarify it, write it and spread it. He should do this also for his friend’s insights too (Maamarei Rav Reuvain p.22)
8. If one does not feel the simcha in the learning of Torah it is because he never truly tasted Torah in the correct and proper manner. (Lev Ruevain p.416)
9. When explaining a lomdisha shiur to Talmidim – it is important to leave out everything that does not directly pertain to understanding the concepts being conveyed – no matter how interesting that extraneous idea is. (Heard from a talmid).
10. A person is obligated to honor his limbs and his body. It is part of the Mitzvah of Zeh Kaili v’anveihu since man was created b’Tzelem Elokim. (Maamrei Rav Reuvain p.45)

If anyone has any letters, notes, recollections, stories or personal encounters of or with this remarkable Gadol HaDor and would like to share them please contact the author.  The picture featured above was Rav Reuven zt”l in Kamenentz in Eurupe.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Human Rights Watch and three other advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday to challenge its campaign against the International Criminal Court, arguing that sanctions against ICC judges and prosecutors are undermining the ability to prosecute people responsible for humanity’s worst crimes.

The complaint — filed in the Southern District of New York — says that President Donald Trump’s executive order last year targeting the Hague-based criminal court and the U.S. sanctions issued against a U.N. human rights expert and three Palestinian rights groups represent a “blatantly illegal attack on international justice and should be struck down,” according to a press release.

The lawsuit is the latest example of organizations pushing back on what they call the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine international law and prevent efforts to combat impunity by governments around the world.

“The fact that so many leading human rights and humanitarian organizations have come together to challenge Trump’s unlawful executive order demonstrates the widespread harm it is causing across civil society groups dedicated to bringing those responsible for grave crimes to justice,” said Andrew Loewenstein of Foley Hoag LLP, the lead counsel representing the plaintiffs.

The groups assert that the financial and legal penalties against the ICC have forced them to “curtail a wide range of human rights and legal work in violation of their First and Fifth Amendment rights under the US Constitution and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

Other organizations joining the lawsuit are the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Open Society Institute.

Efforts to retain the global tribunal’s power come as the ICC faces enormous pressure, both internally and from its more than 120 member states. Among those sanctioned by the U.S. last year was Karim Khan, who was the ICC’s chief prosecutor until he was removed from the post last month, nearly two years after sexual misconduct allegations against him first emerged, as detailed in stories by The Associated Press.

The Trump administration had issued those sanctions against Khan and a dozen other ICC staff in retaliation for warrants the court has issued for top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the war in Gaza and investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

Since then, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that the U.S. was launching a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”

In a video message last month, Rubio said the U.S. would pressure member states to withdraw from the institution, sanction organizations that work with the court and ban staff from traveling to the United States. Countries that “enjoy the benefits of the U.S. security umbrella” will be called upon to reject the court’s jurisdiction over U.S. citizens, he added.

Several countries, including U.S.-allied Venezuela, announced they would withdraw from the court shortly after Rubio’s statements and Khan’s removal.

NEW YORK — A former New York judge appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to his judicial advisory committee is facing scrutiny over allegations that he failed to act on complaints of antisemitic and racist conduct at a nonprofit where he serves as board chairman.

Milton Tingling, a retired New York County Supreme Court judge and Manhattan County Clerk, was appointed last month to Mamdani’s 18-member Advisory Committee on the Judiciary. He also chairs the board of the West Harlem Development Corp.

The allegations are contained in a federal lawsuit filed by former WHDC board member Vincent Morgan, who accused the nonprofit’s executive director, Zaed Ramadan, of making racist and antisemitic remarks.

Morgan said he reported his concerns to Tingling in February 2024 but that the chairman failed to take action. He further alleges that Tingling retaliated against him after he raised the complaints.

The lawsuit alleges that Ramadan made statements portraying Jews as controlling New York politics and accused Jews of taking Palestinian land. It also alleges that he made inflammatory statements about Israel and the war in Gaza.

Morgan, who is Black, said he was disturbed by Ramadan’s alleged comments about Jews and other minorities and recorded some of the conversations as evidence, according to court documents cited by the New York Post.

The lawsuit also describes a meeting following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack involving Ramadan, state Assemblyman Charles Fall and Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj to discuss the nonprofit’s response to the attack.

The West Harlem Development Corp. has denied the allegations. Neither Tingling nor Ramadan responded to requests for comment from the New York Post, according to the newspaper.

In May 2024, former Community Board 9 chairman Larry English proposed hiring outside counsel to investigate Morgan’s complaints, but the proposal was not approved, according to the lawsuit.

Tingling served on the New York County Supreme Court until his retirement in 2014 and later became Manhattan County Clerk.

Mamdani included Tingling among the members of his new judicial advisory committee, saying the panel would help ensure that the city’s judicial system reflects the population it serves and applies the law equally.

The panel has also faced criticism over its lack of Jewish representation.

Morgan was fired from the West Harlem Development Corp. in January 2025. He has alleged that his termination was partly connected to questions he raised about the organization’s finances and procedures.

The allegations against Tingling and Ramadan remain claims in litigation and have not been established in court.

NEW YORK (VINnews) — A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday evening, killing more than 130 people and injuring hundreds of others, according to initial reports. Rescue teams and volunteers worked throughout the night in a race against time to locate survivors trapped beneath the rubble.

The Jewish community in Cali, Colombia, is the second-largest in the country after Bogotá. Estimates place Cali’s active Jewish population at roughly several hundred to a couple of thousand members.

Meir Partush, a resident of Cali who runs the city’s Jewish House, told Behadrei Haredim that the Jewish community felt the earthquake intensely at around 7 a.m. local time, causing extensive damage throughout the city.

“Families in our community, G-d forbid, lost their homes,” Partush said. “Thank G-d, there are no physical or emotional injuries, but there is enormous property damage. The community itself was also affected. A wall collapsed onto the roof of our synagogue, causing damage, and ceilings collapsed in some of the rooms.”

Partush explained that the Jewish House serves as a central address for Jews visiting or living in Cali. The organization operates a synagogue, provides kosher food and assists Israelis and Jews who find themselves in need, including accompanying people to hospitals or police stations when necessary.

“It’s similar in concept to Chabad’s activities, but we established the Jewish House because there is no Chabad center here,” he said. “We operate the place through donations. We also have a local Jewish community with three daily prayer services, Torah classes and educational activities for children.”

Following the earthquake, the Jewish House also opened its doors to non-Jews seeking assistance.

“What’s happening right now is that non-Jews are also coming to us and asking for help with food, water, or assistance with repairs,” Partush said. “We help anyone who turns to us, including non-Jews who are coming and asking for assistance. This is also a Kiddush Hashem.”

Throughout the night, the Jewish House team assisted numerous members of the Jewish community, including people who had been left homeless.

“It’s simply not easy,” Partush said. “Homes have collapsed and there is enormous damage. The people here are not wealthy. This is not a rich or well-established community, so everything depends on donations and assistance from people outside who come to help.”

Despite the devastation, Partush said the community was doing everything possible to care for those affected and expressed hope for better days ahead.

“We pray and hope that the Almighty will send us the redemption soon, and with G-d’s help, everything will be restored to normal.”

As the rescue and recovery efforts continued, Partush’s first priority was checking on Israelis and Jewish visitors staying in the city.

“One of the first things I did in the morning was call the hostels where Israelis and travelers stay and ask how they were doing, to make sure everything was okay,” he said. “I also called Israelis themselves to make sure that no one had been injured.”

At this stage, Partush said, the Jewish House had received no reports of Jewish residents or visitors being physically or emotionally injured.

“For now, we have no information about any Jew who was physically or emotionally injured, G-d forbid,” he said. “There is enormous property damage across the city, and at the moment, that’s what we’re dealing with.”

BEERSHEBA (VINnews)— An Israeli man who recently returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo is isolated at Soroka Medical Center under suspicion of Ebola after developing a fever, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

The man sought medical treatment days after his return and was placed in isolation while undergoing testing. Results are expected within 24 hours, according to the ministry, which stressed that Ebola remains only a suspicion at this stage.

An epidemiological investigation is underway.

The Health Ministry reiterated warnings against nonessential travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, particularly areas with active infections. Travelers who must visit those countries are advised to consult a travel clinic beforehand.

Anyone returning from either country who develops a fever or other unusual symptoms within 21 days of return must stay home, avoid contact with others, and contact the Health Ministry hotline at *5400, noting the country of travel.

There has never been a confirmed case of Ebola in Israel. Two suspected cases reported in June tested negative.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is experiencing an ongoing Ebola outbreak. As of Aug. 7, the World Health Organization reported 4,209 confirmed cases and 1,916 deaths since the outbreak was declared in mid-May. Uganda has recorded 20 confirmed cases and two deaths.

The ministry said Israel’s health system prepared in advance for the possibility of cases arriving from the affected regions.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The IDF on Sunday presented bereaved families with the findings of its investigation into the attack on the Re’im East roadside shelter, where 29 people were murdered, 12 survived, and one person was abducted to the Gaza Strip during the October 7 Hamas-led assault.

Following the presentation, relatives of the victims shared some of the information they had received, along with their emotional reactions.

Menashe Mansouri, whose daughters Norel and Roya were among those killed in the shelter, wrote: “Yesterday, the IDF presented us with the investigation into the shelter near Re’im, where 29 young people were murdered, 12 survived, and one was kidnapped—including my beloved daughters, Norel and Roya.”

Mansouri described what the family learned during the briefing.

“What they went through—the suffering—is impossible to describe, impossible to bear,” he wrote. “One hundred terrorists massacred them. Grenades exploded inside the shelter, and they fired into it. It was hell here.”

He also criticized the pace at which those responsible have been eliminated.

“The IDF identified most of the terrorists. How many have been killed so far? Three. Most of them are still alive in Gaza. Tell me again about ‘total victory.'”

Chen Zander, whose sister Noa was murdered in the shelter, also commented after attending the presentation.

“Two years and ten months after October 7, the IDF presented us yesterday with its investigation into the Re’im East shelter,” she wrote.

Zander said she would not disclose the details of the investigation out of respect for the families but highlighted one statistic that particularly troubled her.

“I won’t share the details so I don’t ruin your night,” she wrote. “But you should know that out of the 100 terrorists who seized the junction and massacred my sister along with so many others, only three have been killed to date. Three terrorists, only three.”

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Likud MK Dan Illouz submitted his resignation from the Knesset to Speaker Amir Ohana on Tuesday morning, following his announcement that he is joining the Yisrael Beiteinu party.

Illouz’s departure paves the way for Shabtai Katash, a Chabad Hasid and resident of Lod, to enter the Knesset. Katash is set to become the first charedi lawmaker ever to serve on behalf of the Likud party.

An attorney and real estate entrepreneur, Katash has held several public positions over the years. He previously served as secretary of the community of Neria and as a member of the Lod City Council, where he chaired the municipal tenders portfolio.

He also served as a member of Israel’s Central Elections Committee and chaired local election committees.

Within the Likud party, Katash is a member of the party’s Central Committee and the Lod branch council, and serves on the secretariat of the Likud’s Georgian Forum, comprised of members who hail from the former Soviet province of Georgia.

Katash holds a bachelor’s degree in law, practices as an attorney, and has received rabbinical ordination from Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A Syrian court sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad along with his younger brother to death in absentia on Tuesday for crimes against humanity and war crimes during Syria’s 14-year conflict that left about half a million people dead.

The sentences at the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus are the first against Assad or members of his inner circle since the Assad family’s five decades in power came to an end 20 months ago.

“Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan during a court session that was aired live on state TV.

Also sentenced to death was Assad’s maternal cousin Atef Najib, who was convicted of overseeing a crackdown in the southern province of Daraa that led to the uprising and later the civil war. Al-Aryan said Najib can appeal.

Under tight security, Najib stood inside a cage wearing a prisoner’s uniform as the judge read the sentence. A crowd gathered outside the courthouse in central Damascus to hear the verdict.

“Today is the day of justice for all the wounded, martyrs, detainees and Syrians who were forced to leave their country,” said attorney Adnan al-Masalmeh who represented families of Najib’s victims. “Today marks a victory of right against injustice, a victory of the Syrian people against the ousted regime.”

Assad and his brother Maher fled to Russia after the government’s fall in December 2024 and received political asylum. Syria’s new rulers have asked Russia to hand the Assads over.

Najib, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in April 2011, was later detained and is one of the highest-ranking security officials to be put on trial.

Najib is a former army brigadier general who was head of the Political Security Branch in Syria’s southern Daraa province under Assad in 2011.

During his tenure, more than a dozen teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a school wall in Daraa were arrested and tortured. The case became a catalyst for mass protests against the repressive policies of Assad’s security forces.

The protests were met by a brutal government crackdown that spiraled into a 14-year civil war that ended with Assad’s ouster in a lightning rebel offensive.

Some of Najib’s victims were present at the courthouse including two who were teenagers in 2011 and expressed their opinions to The Associated Press.

“Today we reached a point where the blood was not wasted,” said Mouawiya Sayasneh, about those who died in the crackdown. Fifteen years later, “there is happiness that Atef Najib was sentenced to death,” he said.

Another man, Nayef Abazeid, who was detained at the age of 13 in 2011, expressed his satisfaction with the sentence, adding that “our biggest happiness will be when Bashar Assad is executed.”

Maher Assad was a former commander of the Syrian military’s 4th Armored Division — which opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers.

“Today’s scenes outside the courthouse reflect 15 years of pain and a justice long denied. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases, including this one,” said Hiba Zayadin, Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It’s cruel and irreversible, especially when a fair trial isn’t guaranteed.”

Zayadin added that Najib has the right to appeal, and that process “needs to meet fair trial standards too.” Real accountability for Assad-era crimes depends on Syria building a justice system that lasts, she said.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with missiles, drones and glide bombs Tuesday, killing at least nine civilians, officials said, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow is getting new military help from North Korea for its more than 4-year-old invasion.

Zelenskyy said Russian forces used ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea in an overnight attack on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where officials said six people were killed and 19 wounded.

Three more people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed by Russian drones and artillery in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, authorities said.

In addition to the ballistic missiles, North Korea is preparing to deploy more of its troops to Russia, Zelenskyy said late Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a strategic partnership agreement in 2024, pledging mutual aid if either country faces aggression.

Kim has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of weapons to support Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Some experts say the engagement with Moscow is helping improve North Korea’s military capabilities, and Zelenskyy said the battlefield experience would help Pyongyang menace other countries in its region.

Ukraine says Russia is scaling up its production of ballistic missiles, aiming to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Patriot air defense interceptors that can stop them, and claims Moscow is preparing to recruit more troops for a new push on the front line that stretches 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) along eastern and southern Ukraine.

“Every step Russia takes — increasing ballistic missile production, bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilization — all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the war have fizzled as Washington grew frustrated with the lack of progress and its attention turned to the Iran war.

“The Kremlin will not enter serious negotiations or make meaningful compromises on its demands as long as Putin believes that he has a viable military path to achieving his full objectives,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an analysis Monday.

“Ukraine’s Patriot shortages offer Russia an opportunity to cause very serious damage to Ukraine over the coming winter and will therefore contribute to delaying meaningful negotiations and protracting the war,” it said.

Russia hits the grounds of a Kyiv children’s hospital
Russian forces also struck parts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, overnight, according to officials. One strike hit the grounds of a children’s hospital, leaving two craters and shattering windows, the State Emergency Service said. Children and medical workers were in bomb shelters and nobody was hurt, it added.

At another location in Kyiv, a Russian strike started a fire in a warehouse that spread across about 1,200 square meters (nearly 13,000 square feet), according to emergency officials.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces overnight struck “military industrial facilities and transport and logistics centers” in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia with “ground-based precision weapons.”

It said in a statement that it hit civilian storage facilities housing drones in Kyiv and a metallurgical plant in Zaporizhzhia.

Russia targeted both cities with Zircon anti-ship missiles and Iskander ballistic missiles, while launching 120 long-range strike drones across the country, Ukraine’s air force said.

Russia’s biggest e-commerce company hit again
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted nearly 400 Ukrainian drones over 14 regions and Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed from Kyiv in 2014.

Russia’s biggest online retailer, Wildberries, said in a statement its logistical facilities in the Voronezh region on the border with Ukraine came under attack and caught fire. It added that the fire was extinguished and goods stored there were “largely undamaged.”

Ukraine has repeatedly struck Wildberries warehouses and has also bombarded Russian oil facilities in what it says is a strategy to compel Putin to negotiate an end to the invasion.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck an oil refinery in the city of Orsk in Russia’s Orenburg region near the border with Kazakhstan, about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Ukraine, causing a fire.

The refinery, with an annual processing capacity of about 44 million barrels of crude oil, produces gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel, among other products. The extent of the damage was being assessed, the military said.

Tel Aviv (VINnews)-Former NBA MVP Russell Westbrook is in advanced talks to join Hapoel Tel Aviv, according to U.S. reports, potentially marking one of the biggest signings in European basketball history and a landmark moment for Israeli basketball.

Discussions between the 37-year-old free agent and the Israeli club continue to advance, journalist Marc Jacobs posted on X. If completed, the deal would be Westbrook’s first professional stint outside the United States.

About two weeks after earlier reports of interest from Hapoel Tel Aviv were denied, the sides have maintained contact that has progressed, the reports said. Westbrook is seriously considering a move abroad for the first time in his career, according to The Athletic.

Westbrook remains a free agent after finishing last season. Over his NBA career he won the league’s Most Valuable Player award, earned nine All-Star selections, set the all-time record for triple-doubles and was named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest point guards of his generation.

No agreement has been reached. At this stage the talks remain advanced negotiations, with Westbrook weighing a new chapter away from the NBA. A completed signing would rank among the most significant player acquisitions ever seen in European basketball and especially in Israeli league history.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Former hostage Sagi Dekel-Chen took to the stage Monday evening at Kibbutz Nir Oz to perform, for the first time, the nine songs he composed entirely in his mind during the 498 days he was held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

The deeply emotional performance, held as part of the Israel Festival, took place in the very kibbutz where Dekel-Chen grew up and where the October 7 massacre forever changed the community. For him, returning to perform there was not just a celebration, but another chapter in an unfinished story.

“לשיר מפה שירי חופש זה דבר קשה נורא”, כתב, הלחין ושיר שורד השבי שגיא דקל חן, ב”שיר השירים”. בשעה זאת שגיא מקיים מקיים מופע מרגש ומיוחד על הדשא של קיבוץ ניר עוז, ממנו נחטף בטבח ה-7 באוקטובר, בפני כ-3000 אנשים. במופע, “מהשבי אל הדשא: הסיפורים והשירים” שמו, הנערך במסגרת פסטיבל… pic.twitter.com/5h87npK3yj

— Sagi Bin Nun שגיא בן נון (@sagibi) August 10, 2026

Unable to write, play an instrument, or even sing aloud during his captivity, Dekel-Chen turned to music as a lifeline. Month after month, he composed melodies and lyrics in his head, rehearsing them over and over so they would not be forgotten. The nine songs became a source of strength and hope, preserved entirely through memory until the day he regained his freedom.

Following his release on February 15, 2025, Dekel-Chen immediately set out to ensure the songs would survive.

“Two days after I was freed, late at night in the hospital,” he wrote in a personal letter to audience members, “I went into a side room and, with the voice of a frog deprived of oxygen, quietly—even with a little embarrassment—I recorded all nine songs on my phone, words and melody.”

The songs were later arranged and produced by musicians Liad Grushka and Idan Shneor. During the concert, Dekel-Chen interwove the music with personal stories from captivity, accompanied by a live band and special guests.

The Israel Festival said the event featured some of Israel’s leading musicians, former hostages, bereaved families and close friends, creating an evening that reflected both personal resilience and national grief.

In his letter, Dekel-Chen emphasized that he never intended to become a performer.

“I am not a singer,” he wrote. “I am a father who sings. I never dreamed of becoming a singer or standing on a stage.”

Explaining why he chose Nir Oz for his first performance, he wrote, “My first concert will be in Nir Oz, my home. This is the same lawn where I ran as a child, where I first met my wife, Mili, where we raised our two daughters, where I fought, and where my friends fell.”

He stressed that the evening was “not a celebration, not a party, not closure, not victory… It is simply part of the story.”

Expressing hope for the future of the devastated community, Dekel-Chen added, “I hope Nir Oz will be rebuilt with new life. I hope this event will become one of the foundation stones of its future.”

He concluded his invitation with a simple message: “This is your story too. You are invited.”

Kibbutz Nir Oz described itself as “a place of memory, resilience, hope and the future,” inviting visitors to walk its paths and visit sites that became symbols of the October 7 attack.

“We invite you to look reality in the eye,” the kibbutz said, “and to face the future through the music and the stories that Sagi brought back with him from the deepest darkness. Come, we are waiting for you at home.”

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The IDF’s first reserve battalion of the Hasmonean Brigade, the Shimon Battalion (1200), successfully completed its first battalion-level military exercise in the Golan Heights last week, marking the unit’s official establishment and its readiness for operational service.

During the exercise, the troops trained in a range of combat scenarios, including open-field warfare, raid operations, and urban combat, as part of their final preparations for deployment.

The battalion is expected to begin operational missions in Israel’s northern sector over the coming months and throughout the High Holiday period, according to operational requirements.

Battalion “Shimon” is the first reserve battalion established within the Hasmonean Brigade and is composed in part of graduates of the IDF’s “Phase B” enlistment track, incorporating charedi men who had previously received exemptions from military service but later volunteered for reserve duty. They serve alongside charedi soldiers who transferred from other IDF frameworks.

As part of their training, the recruits completed a full infantry training program at the Hasmonean Brigade’s training base, specially adapted to accommodate the charedi lifestyle. The battalion is also expected to absorb graduates of the brigade’s regular-service track in the future.

To prepare the unit for combat operations, its soldiers completed specialized courses in explosives and demolition, fire support, drone operations, anti-tank warfare, combat medicine, and mortar operations. The courses were tailored to the needs of charedi servicemen and were designed to enable the battalion to operate as a fully self-sufficient combat unit.

According to the IDF, dozens of new regular and reserve battalions have been established since the outbreak of the war as part of a broader effort to expand the military’s manpower. The initiative is intended to increase the number of active servicemen while easing the burden on existing regular and reserve forces.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Prof. Haim Sompolinsky, one of the world’s foremost theoretical physicists and neuroscientists, has been awarded the prestigious Dirac Medal and Prize by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, in recognition of his pioneering contributions to theoretical physics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

The 76-year-old scientist is professor emeritus at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) and the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also serves as professor of molecular and cellular biology and professor of physics in residence at Harvard University.

He also received Smicha from the Ponovech Yeshiva.  Legend has it that he wrote his doctorate in the breaks between Sedorim. (YH)

The ICTP honored Sompolinsky for his groundbreaking work bridging the principles of physics with the study of the brain and artificial intelligence. His research laid the foundations of the field of theoretical neuroscience, transforming the understanding of how neural networks learn, process information and store memories in both biological brains and artificial intelligence systems.

“This remarkable honor recognizes Professor Sompolinsky’s extraordinary scientific vision and his ability to reshape entire fields of research,” said Prof. Tamir Sheafer, president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “By forging deep connections between physics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, Haim has fundamentally changed the way we understand intelligence, both natural and artificial.”

Established in 1985 in honor of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Paul A.M. Dirac, the Dirac Medal is regarded as one of the world’s most prestigious awards in theoretical physics. It recognizes scientists whose groundbreaking research has fundamentally advanced the field.

Sompolinsky shares this year’s award with Prof. Deepak Dhar of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Prof. Bernard Derrida of the Collège de France, and Prof. Marc Mézard of Bocconi University in Italy.

Born in Denmark, Sompolinsky is the son of the late Prof. David Sompolinsky, a distinguished microbiologist who played a key role in rescuing hundreds of Danish Jews during the Holocaust.

Two years ago, Sompolinski received the Brain Prize for his pioneering contributions to computational and theoretical neuroscience. The prize is considered the world’s most prestigious for neuroscience research.

NEW YORK (VINnews) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani heard a largely unified message from 10 rabbis Monday: His repeated criticism of Israel is hurting Jewish New Yorkers and making it harder to work with his administration on shared concerns.

The hourlong, closed-door meeting at City Hall included rabbis from Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Modern Orthodox congregations and was organized by the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.

According to Jacob Kornbluh of the Forward, participants urged Mamdani to change the tone and frequency of his statements about Israel and to focus more on issues where City Hall and Jewish leaders can cooperate.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said there was a broad consensus in the room that Mamdani’s current approach was causing harm. Rabbi Rachel Timoner of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn said even rabbis who are highly critical of Israel expressed concern about the mayor’s rhetoric.

Rabbi Jon Leener of Prospect Heights Shul, a Modern Orthodox congregation, told Mamdani that some of his comments about Israel have contributed to heightened anxiety among Jewish New Yorkers.

But two major rabbinic organizations said they were not involved in organizing the meeting and were not invited.

The New York Board of Rabbis, which represents more than 750 rabbis from different denominations in the New York area, told JNS that Mamdani’s office did not contact the organization about the roundtable.

“I don’t know who he went through,” a representative of the board told JNS. “He didn’t go through us.”

Rabbi Etan Tokayer, president of the Rabbinic Council of America, also said he was not invited.

Tokayer said he had previously written to Mamdani’s Jewish liaison regarding reported past antisemitic comments attributed to Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji. He said the letter was strongly worded but balanced and that he never received a response.

The absence of the two organizations adds another dimension to Mamdani’s effort to engage New York’s Jewish community, particularly Orthodox and traditional Jewish leaders who have been among his strongest critics.

The meeting comes as Mamdani faces continued scrutiny over his positions on Israel, his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his response to antisemitism in New York.

Participants said Mamdani listened carefully and indicated he would consider their concerns. City Hall described the discussion as “open, positive and constructive.”

The mayor has also pursued relationships with other Jewish constituencies, including leaders of the Hasidic Satmar community and progressive Jewish organizations.

The contrasting outreach reflects the difficult political landscape surrounding Mamdani and the city’s Jewish community, with some rabbis seeking engagement with the mayor while others remain deeply critical of his views on Israel.

According to NYPD data cited by the Forward, anti-Jewish hate crimes increased 8.5% during Mamdani’s first seven months in office and accounted for 57% of reported hate crimes citywide during that period.

The meeting was part of the mayor’s broader effort to develop a strategy for combating antisemitism and maintaining relationships with Jewish communities across New York.

(AP) – Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Monday said he’ll sue to force the Trump administration to restore his security clearance, which it revoked Friday after claiming he had disclosed sensitive information about the Qatari-gifted jet now serving as Air Force One.

Kendall, a West Point graduate who served as President Joe Biden’s head of the Air Force, said on CNN Monday that he’ll sue the administration, noting it has a history of retaliating against critics by stripping their clearances. “As my mother taught me years ago, you stand up to bullies,” said Kendall, who has denied disclosing classified information.

Mark Zaid, a prominent national security attorney who sued the administration after his own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, confirmed in a post on X that Kendall had hired him. “More to come,”” Zaid wrote.

Zaid specializes in helping a variety of military and civilian clients maintain security clearances in the face of investigations.

Last year he became a target of the Trump administration’s efforts to strip security clearances from people they perceived to be enemies when he was named among 14 other people in an executive order signed by Trump. In a March 2025 executive order, Trump named former President Joe Biden and members of his family, Biden-era Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and New York state Attorney General Letitia James as being unsuitable to retain their clearances because it was “no longer in the national interest.”

In August 2025, Trump revoked the security clearances of 37 more current and former national security officials, some of whom worked on matters that have long infuriated Trump, like the intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf.

Trump has tried to squelch reports of problems with the jet that Qatar gifted him last year, which he intends to use as Air Force One for the remainder of his term. His Justice Department last month subpoenaed New York Times reporters who wrote about security concerns with the jet, which lacks the advanced anti-missile technology of its predecessor. After being criticized by a federal judge for sloppy legal work, the government grudgingly withdrew the subpoenas.

(AP) – Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision Monday of what he said artificial intelligence can do for the world, imagining a future where everyone has their own, all-knowing AI agent that strives to improve all aspects of their lives.

Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favors open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon.

In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working toward an era where everyone will have the tools to create new businesses, receive Ph.D.-level tutoring and provide personalized lifestyle tips. His 8-year-old daughter, he wrote, can already code her ideas and quickly produce videos.

“Everyone will soon have invention superpowers,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Zuckerberg warned of risks if control of advanced AI is concentrated with a select few companies, institutions or governments. On Monday, Meta also announced the release a new open-source AI model, Muse Glimmer, which can run on a personal computer, and Zuckerberg said the company would also would provide a way for developers to access a more powerful AI model, Muse Spark 1.2.

Meta makes AI models, like several other tech companies, and uses them to power platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. The Menlo Park, California, company also makes them available to developers who can create their own apps and features.

Skeptics urge a slower pace of AI development
Critics said Zuckerberg was not reckoning fully with the risks inherent in AI’s rapid development.

Noting recent incidents where AI models, including Meta’s own, hacked other companies on at least three separate occasions, Anthony Aguirre, president and CEO of the AI safety nonprofit Future of Life Institute, asked “what on Earth makes Meta think they — or anyone — could control something exponentially smarter, faster, and more capable?”

“Meta’s chosen path is ultimately one of human replacement and disempowerment, but there is an alternate, pro-human path — one that brings about individual flourishing and scientific breakthroughs with controllable AI tools. What’s urgently needed now is for governments to facilitate a pause on advanced AI development and steer us onto the pro-human path — before it’s too late,” Aguirre said.

Meta chief says AI should be broadly distributed
In his essay, Zuckerberg outlined why he thought open source is a better path for fair development of AI. He warned that if control of AI “superintelligence” is too concentrated, it will lead to less favorable outcomes for everyone else. The key, he wrote, is finding a balance that ensures advanced AI is “broadly distributed” to empower billions of people equitably.

Meta has long been a proponent of open-sourcing its AI models, but has struggled to keep up with rivals such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google that have not taken the same approach.

Zuckerberg made what could be a veiled reference to Meta’s rivals without naming specific companies.

“Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals,” he wrote.

Zuckerberg also included policy recommendations for keeping the U.S. ahead of rivals, including China. The United States and its allies need to speed up building energy capacity and infrastructure to stay competitive, he said.

Zuckerberg called for authorities to reconsider their position on “ distillation,” which involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one. The Trump administration has vowed to crack down on Chinese AI companies using distillation to extract technical features from U.S. AI models. Anthropic earlier this year accused China’s DeepSeek of using distillation.

“Some have tried to frame distillation as harmful, but I think it is important to protect the principle that you can learn from anything you can observe,” Zuckerberg said. “This is how the world works, and the U.S. will not be able to lead if we restrict ourselves on this front.”

Critics see a self-serving message from Meta
Matt Lane, senior policy counsel at the nonprofit digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, called Zuckerberg “annoyingly out of touch on his best day,” but said the CEO is right about the importance of open-source AI.

Shared access to open-source AI systems is important for protection in a world where AI can be used to hack into electronic systems, like voting systems and benefits infrastructure, he said.

But he said only Meta will benefit if everyone were to use Meta-designed AI systems, even if they are fully open-source. “Open source AI needs to be supported beyond these corporate interests. We, unlike Zuckerberg, hope for as much competition as possible,” he said.

(AP) – President Donald Trump secretly flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on an alternate military aircraft while the White House made it appear that the Republican president was flying on Air Force One, according to a report published by The Washington Post on Monday.

The Post said the operation was prompted by an Iranian assassination threat against Trump. The ruse was carried out as journalists and some White House staff members were led to believe they were on the same plane as the president as he began his journey back to Washington from the annual gathering of NATO country leaders.

The Post cited material reviewed by the newspaper, a U.S. official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the president’s travel. The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the report.

Trump had flown to the summit in a new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet. But ahead of departing Turkey, he said he would fly partway home on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead.

The president at the time said the new luxury jet was being flown out ahead of his departure from Ankara to give some U.S. troops based in Eastern England a chance to check out the new Air Force One.

In Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras ahead of the plane flying to Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom.

However, according to the Post report, after boarding the legacy Air Force One jet, he was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane — an Air Force C-32A — via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies. Trump flew to Mildenhall on that smaller jet.

The White House did not respond directly to questions about the Post report of the secret operation to whisk Trump out of the country on a third aircraft, or the reported elaborate ruse to make it appear he was on the baby blue Air Force One jet flying to Mildenhall.

“As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The U.S. Secret Service declined to comment. The Air Force, which maintains the fleet of executive travel aircraft, referred questions to the White House.

There have been questions about the safety of the new Qatari-gifted plane
While Trump was in Turkey, the U.S. military conducted a series of large strikes in Iran in retaliation for its attacks on merchant shipping in the region.

The New York Times and CBS News reported last month that intelligence officials had raised concerns about a potential attack on the president or his jet, triggering additional precautions and the decision not to use the newly inaugurated aircraft gifted to Trump by Qatar for the first leg of Trump’s trip home from Ankara.

The swap had spurred questions about the security of the Qatar-provided aircraft, and Trump said last month after the trip that it would undergo additional upgrades.

Cheung on Monday maintained that the new, Qatari-gifted plane was “a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff.”

The new Post report on clandestinely putting Trump on a third aircraft and quietly whisking him out of the country adds a fresh layer to just how seriously concerned U.S. security officials were about the threat against Trump during the ongoing war with Iran.

Paul Eckloff, a former special agent with the Secret Service, said such an unusual move could either reflect actionable intelligence or an abundance of caution given volatility in the region with the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

“I would not say unprecedented, but it is an unusual occurrence,” said Eckloff.

The Post reported that to exit that plane without being seen by those uninvolved in the operation, Trump and several aides stepped aboard an airport catering truck, which was elevated planeside using hydraulics and positioned at a door on the opposite side of Air Force One’s entrance.

The small group of reporters who thought they were traveling with Trump were advised to lower their window shades ahead of takeoff.

After arriving at Mildenhall, news photographers captured images of Trump getting off the presidential plane — suggesting he reboarded Air Force One out of sight of the pack of journalists who thought they were traveling with him.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called for a congressional investigation.

“It is unprecedented and it is surreal,” he said Monday on CNN, calling the incident “downright scary.”

After the brief visit to the base at Mildenhall, Trump boarded the new Air Force One aircraft to fly the rest of the way to Washington.

During a gaggle with reporters aboard the aircraft, Trump was asked directly if there was any credible threats on Air Force One by Iran.

“Well, I have a threat all the time. I’m number one on their list before you,” Trump said. He added to the traveling reporters, “But if I go, you go.”

NEW YORK (VINnews) – New York City first lady Rama Duwaji is expected to travel to Syria and Lebanon next month with members of the NYPD security detail assigned to Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his family, according to the New York Post and a source familiar with the plans.

The trip is expected to begin Sept. 20 and is described by the mayor’s office as a family visit. Both countries face significant security concerns, with the State Department warning Americans against travel to Syria and advising heightened caution in Lebanon.

A spokesperson for Mamdani confirmed that an NYPD detail will accompany Duwaji, saying the department strongly recommended the protection.

The mayor’s office did not disclose the expected cost of the security operation. A source cited by the Post said the trip is not official city business.

Duwaji, 29, is a Syrian-American artist whose parents are from Damascus. She has previously lived and worked in Lebanon and has been active in pro-Palestinian political and cultural initiatives.

The decision to provide NYPD protection overseas has drawn criticism from former Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who questioned whether officers should be deployed to areas he described as dangerous.

Duwaji has also faced scrutiny over past social media activity and her criticism of Israel. She has apologized for some previous posts while continuing to participate in pro-Palestinian activism.

NEW YORK (VINnews) – Former New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind criticized Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, after the Hasidic leader defended New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani against accusations of antisemitism.

In a video, Hikind compared the defense of Mamdani to Jews marching alongside Hamas supporters and expressed dismay over the position.

Hearing the Satmar Rebbe defend Mamdani is like seeing fellow Jews march with Hamas supporters.

With despair I say:
God, please forgive our people. pic.twitter.com/qF7Ygn69l3

— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 10, 2026

Hikind also invoked the history of Satmar founder Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, noting that he was among the Jews rescued aboard the Kastner train during the Holocaust. The rescue effort was organized by a Jewish committee that included Zionist activists, although it also involved Orthodox Jewish leaders and others.

The comments followed Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum’s remarks at a gathering marking the 47th yahrzeit of Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum. The Williamsburg Rebbe criticized attacks on Mamdani and warned that labeling him an antisemite could amount to what he called “provocation against the nations.”

He urged religious Jews in the United States to follow Torah principles and recognize their responsibilities while living in exile.

Both major Satmar factions — the Williamsburg-based Zalunim and the Kiryas Joel-based Aronim — have developed close relationships with Mamdani, a strategy that has drawn criticism and questions from other Jewish New Yorkers.

Mamdani, a Muslim progressive and outspoken critic of Israel, has faced criticism from Jewish organizations over his positions on Israel, the Gaza war and antisemitism.

The Satmar leadership has emphasized maintaining a working relationship with city officials and protecting the interests of its religious communities, even as critics argue that engagement with Mamdani risks legitimizing positions they consider hostile to Israel.

NEW YORK (AP) — The president’s media company posted a massive loss in the second quarter and announced plans to ditch new business lines and refocus as a forum for users to post their views.

Trump Media & Technology, the company behind the Truth Social platform, said Monday that it lost $238 million in the three months through June as it branched into businesses unrelated to media, including crypto. That was more than 10 times the loss from a year earlier. The per share loss widened to 86 cents from 8 cents.

In a conference call after the earnings release, the new chief executive, Kevin McGurn, said a yearlong effort to expand by branching into several new industries including online betting and crypto would now be largely abandoned as he refocuses the business on its social media mission.

“We made the disciplined choice to pivot in order to invest more time and resources in our most important initiatives,” McGurn said. “We will say no to things or change course as warranted.”

Trump Media stock fell slightly in after-hours trading following the earnings report. The stock had fallen 8% in regular trading.

Key to McGurn’s plan is a service called Truth API that offers early access to Wall Street trading firms to top posters on the Truth Social platform. That includes the user with most followers, President Donald Trump, who often moves markets by breaking major U.S policy shifts on the site.

Trump Media has been attacked by good government watchdogs from the start of Trump’s second term as a vehicle for him to profit off the presidency. The new service has only heightened those concerns, with Democrats vowing to investigate the paid service if they get control of Congress in the midterms.

McGurn has dismissed such concerns, noting that other companies sell special, fast access to traders.

“Providing licensed real-time public data through commercial APIs is a well-established business practice across the technology, financial information and media industries,” he said. “This is no different.”

One previously announced new venture, nuclear fusion, will continue. McGurn said Trump Media hopes to close a previously announced merger with energy company TAE Technologies by the end of the year.

“We continue to believe it’s the single most important driver of long-term value for this company,” McGurn said of the fusion business.

Much of the damage last quarter was due to unrealized paper losses from the falling values of Trump Media’s holdings of bitcoin and a crypto token called Cronos.

Excluding those paper losses as well as taxes, interest and other items, so-called operating losses still increased, but much less than the unadjusted results — a $164 million loss from a $44 million loss a year earlier.

The new Truth API service is charging $60,000 to $100,000 a month, McGurn said, adding that Trump Media has already signed up 10 customers, mostly so-called high frequency trading firms that buy and sell in milliseconds

“We’re in the early innings,” said McGurn, noting that the potential market was much bigger than traders, including data center companies, news organizations and developers of large language models.

Ten customers translates into a big new revenue source for Trump Media, possibly bringing in between $7 million to $12 million a year, or roughly two to three times the company’s entire revenue last year.

In the second quarter, Trump Media posted $1.7 billion in revenue, more than double from a year earlier.

The company has $1 billion in debt from special convertible notes that doesn’t come due until 2028, but the lenders have an option to demand they be cashed out in November, a possible hit to finances though the company appeared to have ample cash.

At the end of the quarter, Trump Media had more than $400 million in cash and short term investments. It also had $1.2 billion in bitcoin and bitcoin-related assets.

TALLAHASSEE (VINnews) — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday demanded that The New York Times Co. open its corporate books and records, citing dozens of corrections the newspaper issued for what he described as incorrect and biased pro-Hamas coverage following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

In a 28-page letter sent on behalf of the State Board of Administration of Florida, which oversees the Florida Retirement System Trust Fund, Uthmeier asserted the state’s rights as a shareholder. The pension fund holds approximately 148,000 to 160,000 shares of New York Times stock, valued at more than $12 million.

“After 10/7/23, the @nytimes issued dozens of corrections for incorrect and biased pro-Hamas coverage. As a trustee over FL’s retirement fund—a NYT stockholder—we are demanding their corporate board open the books,” Uthmeier posted on X. “The First Amendment protects speech—not ignoring shareholders!”

The letter, grounded in New York Business Corporation Law Section 624, seeks internal board documents, meeting minutes, reports and materials related to the company’s oversight of editorial standards. Uthmeier argued that repeated failures in applying those standards expose the company to reputational harm, potential defamation litigation and financial risk that could hurt shareholders, including Florida retirees.

Uthmeier’s letter specifically referenced a study documenting 72 corrections the Times issued for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war between October 2023 and June 2024, stating that many of those errors favored Hamas. It also highlighted other instances of alleged editorial shortcomings, including a May 2026 opinion column by Nicholas Kristof that drew a defamation threat from Israeli officials.

The New York Times was given 14 days to permit inspection of the records or commit to a production schedule. Failure to comply could lead to a special proceeding in New York Supreme Court.

In a statement, Danielle Rhoades Ha, senior vice president for communications at The New York Times, said the company was aware of the demand letter. “While positioned as a request under corporate law, [it] is a clear attempt to chill First Amendment-protected journalism,” she said. “We will respond more fully in due course.”

Uthmeier, who serves as legal counsel and a trustee for the State Board of Administration, emphasized that the action is about corporate governance and protecting the value of the state’s investment rather than dictating editorial content.

AVENTURA, FLORIDA (VINnews) — Condo associations representing hundreds of unit owners at Turnberry Isle have sued developer Jeffrey Soffer and the city of Aventura, alleging officials improperly approved plans for two new condominium towers without required resident consent.

The associations for the North and South towers filed the federal lawsuit in Miami on Friday. They accuse the city and YCM Acquisition, an entity managed by Soffer, of bypassing legal requirements for neighboring owners’ approval. The suit claims Soffer exerted “unrelenting pressure” on the city to advance the project.

Soffer, who leads Aventura-based Fontainebleau Development, seeks to build towers with 264 units, parking and amenities on the site of Turnberry Isle’s tennis courts and spa, according to the complaint. The associations represent 565 unit owners in the existing pair of 29-story buildings.

The lawsuit alleges the city approved a 2023 ordinance and the project itself last year “for an improper motive and by pretextual means.” It says the ordinance was designed to work around rules requiring unanimous consent from Turnberry Isle parcel owners for new construction or material changes to the site plan. Those requirements stem from earlier legal settlements finalized in agreements around 2012.

“Through the favor-laden actions of city government,” the owners’ rights “have been cast aside,” the complaint states. It further contends the ordinance and project approval occurred without public hearings and that the project is the only one treated this way due to Soffer’s influence and the city’s “lack of fortitude.”

The suit also alleges zoning violations, including shortfalls in setbacks, open space and parking, and questions whether a standalone marina is allowed under the site’s zoning.

The associations seek a court declaration that the project cannot proceed without their consent, an injunction barring the city from issuing permits, damages and attorneys’ fees. Claims include alleged due process violations under the 14th Amendment and breaches of community agreements.

Fontainebleau Development declined to comment. The city of Aventura and attorneys for the associations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Soffer’s family has deep ties to Aventura. His late father, Don Soffer, developed much of the area and is widely regarded as a key figure in the city’s growth. The family still holds significant local assets, including the Turnberry Isle Country Club and golf course.

POMPANO BEACH (VINnews)- A 79-year-old Pompano Beach man living with Alzheimer’s disease has had the amyloid plaques cleared from his brain after a year and a half of treatment with a new anti-amyloid medication, according to his doctors.

Scott Milinsky was the second person in Florida to enroll in treatment with Kisunla, a drug developed by Eli Lilly that targets amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. He received 18 infusions over 18 months at Broward Health North’s Memory Disorder & Alzheimer’s Center under the care of Dr. Hazel Wiley.

A final PET scan confirmed the plaques were gone.

“I was shocked,” Milinsky said. “I just sat there and said, ‘Oh my God.’ I didn’t know what to think. I felt so grateful. So, so grateful. I felt so happy. It was overwhelming.”

Milinsky, a grandfather, said the diagnosis brought back painful memories of his father, who died with the same disease.

“Suddenly all of that came back. I’m gonna be like my father,” he recalled. “What a mess. It’s terrifying to die that way, not knowing who you are.”

Kisunla is designed to slow the progression of early symptomatic Alzheimer’s by breaking up and removing amyloid plaques.

“It makes its way to the brain where it essentially breaks up and removes the amyloid plaque,” Wiley said. “By removing the plaque is where we see the benefit of the slowed cognitive and functional decline.”

Wiley cautioned that the treatment is not considered a cure because it does not address tau tangles, another feature of the disease. Still, she called the results significant.

“It’s exciting. It’s emotional at the same time,” she said. “It’s exciting to see some benefit, to see something that is really making a difference, because for many, many years, we haven’t really had much of anything.”

Milinsky described the outcome as a turning point.

“This is a game changer, and there’s going to be more game changers in this field,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”

The Memory Disorder & Alzheimer’s Center at Broward Health North is currently providing the treatment to more than 60 patients.

SEATTLE (JNS) – The Seattle Police Department will work with local Jewish communities to ensure their safety during the High Holidays amid surging anti-Jewish violence nationwide, Katie Wilson, mayor of Seattle, told JNS.
“Seattle has no place for antisemitism or hatred of any kind,” the mayor, who identifies as socialist, told JNS.

“I know Seattle’s Jewish community is acutely aware of a rise in antisemitism and is feeling anxiety and concern,” Wilson said. “I believe every Seattle resident needs to be able to participate fully in civic life without fear, and my office welcomes dialogue with the Jewish community for sharing what they need to improve safety.”

Wilson’s comment to JNS appears to be the first time she has addressed Jew-hatred in the city publicly since she became mayor in January.

Rosh Hashanah begins this year on Sept. 11 at night and lasts two days. Yom Kippur, which lasts a day, begins on Sept. 20.

Wilson, who has said that Israel is guilty of “genocide,” asked for Shon Barnes to resign as Seattle police chief in July after a shooting at Seattle Center, a campus with five museums, the Space Needle and a professional hockey arena. At the time, the mayor said that she will engage community stakeholders as she searches for a new police chief.

“As they do each year around the High Holidays, the Seattle Police Department will work closely with Jewish institutions and community leaders to help ensure people can gather safely,” the mayor told JNS.

The department “has two Jewish community liaisons and a dedicated hate crime detective who maintain strong relationships with the community throughout the year, and the department typically increases patrols around synagogues and other Jewish institutions during the High Holidays,” Wilson told JNS.

In December, video footage circulated of the mayor apparently saying at an American Muslim Advancement Council event that she would talk with her team about ending the police department’s relationship with Israeli law enforcement partners.

There are no active or scheduled plans to train with Israeli law enforcement listed on the Seattle Police Department website.

“Folks may have misconstrued an international visit 10 or 12 years ago with some sort of ongoing training, which, to my knowledge, does not exist,” Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, a spokesman for the mayor, told JNS.

Wilson told JNS that “as our local Jewish community prepares to welcome Rosh Hashanah and begin the High Holidays, I want to extend my warmest wishes to everyone celebrating in Seattle.”

“Shanah tovah,” she said. “May the coming year bring peace and health to you and your loved ones.”

“Seattle’s Jewish community is deeply woven into the fabric of our city’s history, fighting against housing, job and social discrimination,” Wilson told JNS. “It’s a diverse community with a long history of civic leadership, community building and public service.”

“The community’s strong tradition of engagement has made it an enduring part of Seattle’s story,” she added.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, was sworn in Monday as attorney general after a bruising confirmation fight that exposed bipartisan concerns about the Justice Department’s direction under the Republican president.

Another former Trump attorney — Emil Bove, now a federal appeals court judge — administered the oath of office to Blanche at the White House following early Saturday’s Senate confirmation vote by the narrowest of margins. Shortly after, the newly sworn-in attorney general arrived at Justice Department headquarters to cheers from employees lined up along the entrance.

Blanche, a former federal prosecutor in New York, is officially taking command of a Justice Department he has been leading in an acting capacity since Pam Bondi’s firing in April.

Staff at the Department of Justice held a “clap in” for Todd Blanche at the department’s headquarters on Monday after Blanche was sworn in as attorney general at the White House. The Senate narrowly voted to confirm the president's former defense lawyer to helm the Justice… pic.twitter.com/C7BnsHtiK2

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 10, 2026

With the confirmation battle behind him, Blanche now faces the challenge of having to navigate the demands of a president who has made no secret his desire to use the law enforcement agency to target his political foes. Blanche will do so with an agency that has been hollowed out by resignations, firings and voluntary departures while also confronting mounting pushback from the courts.

Blanche was confirmed in a 50-49 vote, opposed by two Republicans who cited concerns about what they described as increased politicization of the department under Trump.

Under deputy attorney general and later as acting attorney general, Blanche has overseen the investigations of numerous Trump foes, including former FBI Director James Comey, whom the Justice Department indicted in April for a second time since Trump returned to the White House last year.

Blanche has strongly defended the Trump administration against accusations that it has weaponized the Justice Department. Blanche has said he feels no pressure to placate Trump and insists he sees no problem with the president’s interest in Justice Department matters, calling it the president’s “right” and “his duty.”

Blanche entered the president’s orbit when he left his law firm in 2023 to represent Trump against multiple criminal cases, including two brought by the Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden. Blanche has said that experience afforded him a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

Blanche’s defenders say the close relationship he developed with Trump as his defense lawyer can make him more successful than Bondi was at pushing back on the president’s demands.

Blanche’s nomination was almost scuttled over bipartisan concerns about Trump’s controversial settlement of his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. His nomination only moved forward after he confirmed in writing, under pressure from Republicans, that the administration was rescinding plans to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they were wronged by the department.

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing a City Council proposal that would require Amazon and other large delivery operators to directly employ workers who handle last-mile deliveries, putting the mayor at odds with Amazon and businesses that rely on its delivery network.

The Delivery Protection Act would limit the use of subcontractors for key warehouse and delivery operations and require covered companies to put those workers on their own payrolls.

Mamdani said Monday that the proposal would give delivery workers greater protections and make major corporations more accountable for the conditions surrounding their operations.

Amazon has warned that the legislation could fundamentally change its New York delivery network and lead the company to move some operations outside the city.

The company says that could jeopardize thousands of jobs at local delivery businesses and make deliveries to New Yorkers slower and more expensive.

Amazon currently works with dozens of independent Delivery Service Partners in the city, collectively employing more than 5,000 people. The company says those businesses could be undermined if the direct-hiring requirement takes effect.

An economic analysis cited by opponents estimated that the legislation could cost the average New York household hundreds of additional dollars annually for deliveries. The estimate is disputed and would depend on how companies respond to the new requirements.

Business groups and delivery operators have also raised concerns about the impact on small companies that contract with Amazon.

Rudy Cazares, who operates an Amazon delivery company and also works as a FedEx contractor, said the proposed rules could force him to close his business. He said his company employs about 130 workers and provides full- and part-time jobs with benefits.

Supporters of the legislation, including the Teamsters, argue that delivery companies should be directly responsible for workers performing essential parts of their business rather than relying on layers of subcontractors.

The New York Delivers coalition, which opposes the bill, planned a demonstration in East Harlem featuring delivery workers and small-business owners who say the measure threatens their jobs and businesses.

The coalition estimates that up to 10,000 delivery positions could be affected.

The debate has placed Mamdani alongside organized labor in a growing fight over how packages are delivered throughout New York City.

City officials have said lawmakers should examine possible unintended consequences before adopting the measure, while the City Council continues to consider the legislation.

NEW YORK (AP) — The driver of a speedboat that capsized in New York Harbor over the weekend, killing a 27-year-old woman and her infant daughter, was charged Monday with causing their deaths through misconduct or neglect.

Manuel Hernandez, 46, wiped his eyes with his hand as he arrived for his initial appearance in Manhattan federal court. He was not required to enter a plea and was released on bail.

Sara Sanchez and her 5-month-old daughter, Antonella Garcia, died after the 22-foot Yamaha speedboat overturned late Saturday near the Statue of Liberty. Twelve others were rescued and are in stable condition, authorities said.

MANHATTAN — Manuel Hernandez, the captain of a boat that capsized and killed a mother and her 5-month-old daughter on Saturday, leaves court after getting federally charged for the incident.

More soon @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/KCvo4Js4Qq

— Erik Uebelacker (@Uebey) August 10, 2026

The vessel was pulled from the water and taken to the New York Police Department’s harbor unit facility on Randall’s Island.

After state charges were lodged against Hernandez over the weekend, prosecutors said Monday that he will be tried in federal court, not state court.

Capt. Doreen McCarthy, the Coast Guard Sector New York commander, credited the rescue of survivors to “heroic, swift actions” by those who responded from various agencies, along with a good Samaritan vessel.

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign that began Sunday to help Andres Garcia pay for the funeral and other expenses for his partner, Sanchez, and their daughter had topped $25,000 by Tuesday afternoon.

Antonio Russo, general manager at Il Punto Ristorante, said Garcia is an “amazing guy” who has been working long hours each week as a waiter, driver and food-runner, to provide for his family here and in Colombia.

Diego Naranjo, a neighbor of Sanchez in Queens, said he first met her last spring when her son threw a ball into their backyard. After recovering the ball, Naranjo invited her son to play on a trampoline with his children.

“They were really nice people. You can see when a person is noble,” Naranjo said.

He said he last saw Sanchez last Tuesday as she brought groceries into her home. He said he was shocked by the deaths.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits.

The order advocates separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different shots administered in separate appointments, and directs the nation’s health department to improve vaccine research, according to a White House fact sheet on the order. Separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines for children are not currently available in the United States, and vaccines are already extensively researched.

Speaking about the order at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump repeatedly suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder, even as scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link. He also touted several changes to the childhood vaccine schedule that his health department has already attempted, but that have been blocked by a federal judge.

The renewed focus on vaccines marks a departure from his administration’s recent efforts to emphasize less controversial health policies related to healthy eating, drug price negotiations and medical fraud crackdowns ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can lead to an increased risk that children become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Childhood vaccines — and how and when to give them in combination — go through rigorous studies, and safety tracking continues for years as the shots are used.

Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases, said parents should continue to rely on vaccine recommendations developed by medical and public health experts such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Today’s Executive Order does not change the underlying scientific evidence supporting childhood immunization. That data has been built over decades — through large clinical trials, real-world effectiveness studies and continuous safety monitoring involving millions of children,” he said in a statement.

Who’s in charge of vaccine policy?
Even as the order calls for revised vaccine recommendations, states, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. The order advises states with school vaccine mandates to consider updating their laws to reflect the administration’s preferred schedule, the fact sheet said.

Last December, Trump ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising U.S. guidance accordingly. The department responded by cutting the number of vaccines it recommends for every child, a move that has since been blocked in court.

Changes to federal childhood vaccine recommendations customarily require approval from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The newly Senate-confirmed CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, oversaw policies promoting vaccination of service members while in a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard.

However, public health law expert Lawrence Gostin at Georgetown University said the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Trump’s power may allow him to supersede Schwartz if she does not agree to new recommendations.

“This is clearly the first test for Dr. Erica Schwartz,” Gostin said in an email. “The President is placing her in an untenable position.”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist before he entered politics, set out to overhaul immunization guidance at DHS in the first year of Trump’s term. He fired an entire 17-member vaccine advisory committee, installing replacements who made far more restrictive recommendations that have since been halted by a federal judge. He also personally directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change.

In the months leading up to Monday’s announcement, Trump’s administration had largely pivoted away from talking about vaccine policy in favor of less polarizing topics like healthy eating and efforts to lower drug prices ahead of November’s elections. Polls show most Americans still support school vaccine requirements, though Republicans are less likely than Democrats to see them as important.

Still, Trump has been fixated on connecting autism to vaccines. He has recently ramped up pressure on Kennedy to identify the cause of autism, something Kennedy had pledged to do with new research unveiled last year. Trump publicly prodded the health secretary for an update on autism research in a Cabinet meeting last month.

“How are you doing on the autism research?” Trump asked.

“We will have an answer for you,” Kennedy said.

Scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism. On Monday, Kennedy repeated his assertion that he believes an unknown environmental factor is to blame for rising autism diagnoses and said that his department will deliver research findings “as soon as they are ready.”

Monday’s order comes as students are returning to classrooms around the country and the nation contends with a measles outbreak that experts say could result in the U.S. losing its measles elimination status.

Doctors have raised concerns that Trump’s falsehoods on vaccines could stoke vaccine hesitancy. Federal data shows U.S. kindergarten vaccination rates have been dropping, with the share of children with exemptions rising to an all-time high in the 2024-25 school year.

___

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews)-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Monday sharply criticized pharmaceutical companies and elements of the medical industry for what he called a “medical travesty,” accusing them of pressuring parents to give newborns multiple vaccines shortly after birth with insufficient study of long-term effects.

Speaking in the Oval Office amid discussion of childhood immunization policy under the Trump administration, Miller said millions of parents have felt compelled to accept five, six or seven shots at once for infants just weeks out of the hospital.

“They’re told it will be normal. Your kid will have a fever of 103 for three or four days. Your kid will stop eating for a week,” Miller said. “Your kid’s going to change all their sleep. Don’t worry. It’s totally fine. It’s totally normal. Nobody has studied it. Nobody’s looked at it.”

He continued: “Nobody’s thought about it. The pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and from aspects of the medical industry to pump your kids full of shots days after birth with no understanding the long-term consequences has been a medical travesty.”

Miller’s comments came as the administration continues efforts to narrow and increase flexibility in the childhood vaccine schedule. Federal recommendations for universal childhood vaccinations were previously reduced to cover 11 core diseases, down from a broader set of recommendations that critics and some officials have counted as high as 72 doses when including annual influenza and COVID-19 shots through adolescence.

The remarks reflect ongoing Trump administration priorities under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to emphasize parental choice, review of the schedule against practices in peer countries, and greater scrutiny of combination shots and timing.

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews)-The State Department announced Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals since President Trump began his second term, a sharp increase from the roughly 100,000 figure reported earlier in the administration.

“Under President Trump, the United States Department of State has revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals who violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, called for violence against U.S. citizens, defrauded Americans, abused our immigration system, or endangered national security,” the department said.

The majority of the revocations stemmed from law enforcement encounters. Assault, driving under the influence, theft and drug crimes ranked as the leading causes, according to the department. A significant share also involved reckless driving, sexual assault, child abuse, fraud and embezzlement.

The pace of revocations accelerated in 2026, averaging more than 10,000 a month, compared with just over 8,000 for all of 2025.

Officials cited specific cases, including a foreign national charged with felony rape and sexual battery of a mentally disabled victim, and another charged with felony kidnapping, human trafficking and sexual exploitation of a minor. The department also highlighted birth tourism, noting that a U.S. embassy in North Africa revoked more than 100 visas for parents who primarily came to the United States to give birth so their children would obtain citizenship.

Some immigration lawyers have raised concerns that visas are being revoked over minor encounters or charges that never proceeded through the full judicial process.

The administration has separately said it has overseen more than 2.5 million voluntary departures and deportations since Trump returned to office.

“Under President Trump and Secretary Rubio’s leadership, the State Department will continue to identify, investigate, and revoke the visas of foreign nationals who threaten the safety of the American people,” the department said. “A U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right.”

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Software engineer Josh Dersch loves old computers. He spends countless hours tinkering in his garage, trying to coax decades-old machines back to life. He estimates he owns more than 200 vintage computers and devices in his Seattle home.

“It’s always been fascinating to me to see the origins of things,” Dersch said. “It’s a fun challenge to debug and repair. You can understand the entire system from top to bottom.”

Dersch is part of a growing community of vintage computer collectors who are preserving the classic machines that helped launch the digital revolution. While Silicon Valley has since moved on to shaping the future of artificial intelligence, these hardware enthusiasts are intent on saving the Atari, Commodore and IBM machines that are ancestors to today’s laptops, wearable devices and smart phones.

Where others see junk, people like Dersch see artifacts of computer history that are worthy of attention and respect. They delight in hearing the beeps and chimes of their childhood and firing up a low-def game of “Pong” or “Space Invaders.”

Software engineer Josh Dersch, standing, shows a 1970s Xerox Alto computer he restored at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

“The enthusiasm for the history of computers and all the stuff around it is growing,” said Erik Klein, president of the Vintage Computer Federation, which organizes an annual festival at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Vintage computer festivals bring collectors together
This year more than 3,500 people attended the two-day Vintage Computer Festival in early August that celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apple, founded in 1976 in nearby Cupertino, Calif. It featured a panel with co-founders Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne reminiscing about the company’s early days as a scrappy startup led by the late Steve Jobs.

More than a dozen such gatherings have since sprung up in cities across North America, South America and Europe.

Growing interest is reflected in more demand for vintage computers in online marketplaces, Klein said. Rare, iconic computers like the Apple-1 — the company’s first product — can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Collectors exhibited the computer systems that they have painstakingly restored to their original working condition, allowing attendees to play with the computers built long before the internet, social media and AI transformed the world.

Restoring the ‘grandfather of the modern computer’
Dersch drove down from Seattle to showcase the pride of his collection: the Xerox Alto. He spent years restoring what’s considered “the grandfather of the modern computer,” which was developed at the pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s.

The Alto was one of the earliest computers to move beyond text on screen and use the mouse and graphical user interface — such as windows, icons and cursors — that became the industry standard. The model famously inspired Jobs and Bill Gates to incorporate the technologies in their early products.

Dersch’s exhibit featured a fully functioning Xerox Alto workstation with its boxy vertical monitor, chunky keyboard and mouse, as well as pizza-sized spinning disks that store tiny amounts of data by modern standards.

“It’s fun to share what I’ve done with people. It’s fun to share in what other people have done,” Dersch said. “Also, there’s a consignment area where I can buy more junk to take home with me, so that’s always fun.”

Klein, a Silicon Valley software engineering manager, was a passionate collector until his hobby overwhelmed his home and family life. He had as many as 150 computer systems — complete with accessories, documents and packaging — crammed into his closets and garage.

He said his beloved collection had become an “albatross” and he worried about burdening his family. So he started selling and giving away his machines until he only had a few favorites left at home.

Arion Paylo repairs a circuit board at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Similar events for collectors spread around the worldNow Klein channels his passion for vintage computers into organizing festivals, repair workshops, swap meets and other events as president of the Vintage Computer Federation.

“So it’s really about evangelizing that history and evangelizing this hobby of maintaining, collecting and enjoying this vintage technology,” Klein said.

Sellam Ismail is thrilled to see the collector community develop and mature since he organized the first festival in 1997, drawing about 150 hobbyists to a venue east of San Francisco. He ran the events for a decade.

He later co-founded the Vintage Computer Federation, which runs festivals in the US and Canada. He’s helped other groups launch similar festivals in Argentina, Germany and Switzerland.

“The community grew up. More and more people started getting old computers, started collecting them,” said Ismail, who once had a massive collection he stored in a warehouse. “Next year is the 30th anniversary. And I expect this to continue and grow even bigger.”

JERUSALEM (VINnews)-Israel Defense Forces Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Monday led an operational forum with senior IDF commanders, emphasizing that the military’s gains across multiple fronts stem primarily from the efforts of troops and officers on the ground, at sea, in the air, and in support roles.

The forum, which included operational commanders at the rank of lieutenant colonel and above, featured a multi-front operational and intelligence assessment along with discussions on the continuation of operations. Commanders presented case studies, reviewed developments in the fighting, and shared lessons learned from activity in all arenas.

Zamir also hosted U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper. Cooper reviewed the deep strategic partnership between the IDF and the U.S. military, describing it as historic and built on trust, commitment, and close cooperation. He said the alliance has repeatedly proven itself during operations and remains a significant factor in regional security and stability.

Zamir thanked Cooper for the cooperation and presented him with a token of appreciation. He described the partnership as unprecedented and a strategic anchor for Israel.

In his remarks, Zamir said the IDF is at a strategic crossroads amid a prolonged, multi-front campaign.

“Diplomatic negotiations are currently underway across all of the main arenas — all of these are the result of the IDF’s historic achievements,” Zamir said. “We must ensure that we fully capitalize on and maximize the achievements of the operations. We are well prepared in defense, while maintaining immediate readiness and preparedness to return to high-intensity combat.”

He credited the troops directly: “The achievements we have achieved across all arenas are first and foremost your achievements — the commanders and troops on land, at sea, and in the air, and the personnel in intelligence, communications, logistics, and administration — together, you led the IDF to significant achievements and changed the security reality.”

Zamir described the IDF as a fighting force implementing a systematic operational plan for victory and said the military has proven itself a victorious force with a spirit of strength since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

He noted that the IDF remains in an interim period, vigilant and prepared for all challenges while keeping its ranks united. Alongside efforts to allow troops time to recuperate, he stressed the need to maintain high readiness for a rapid return to high-intensity combat, respond quickly to developments, and continue defending civilians.

“Our challenge now is not only to preserve our achievements, but to continue shaping the reality, build our capabilities, and ensure that the IDF is prepared for every scenario,” Zamir said.

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, sharply criticized attacks against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and warned that labeling the mayor an antisemite could create unnecessary tensions between Jews and the broader society.

Teitelbaum made the remarks during a gathering in Kiryas Joel, Monroe, New York, marking the 47th yahrzeit of Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the founder and spiritual leader of the Satmar community.

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, who died in 1979 and is buried in Kiryas Joel, rebuilt the Satmar Hasidic community in the United States after the Holocaust and became one of the most influential leaders of the postwar Orthodox Jewish world.

Addressing what he described as growing tensions in New York, Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum said some Orthodox Jews were engaging in what he called “provocation against the nations” by attacking the mayor.

He urged observant Jews living in the United States to conduct themselves according to Torah principles and recognize the responsibilities of living in exile.

Citing the biblical instruction of the prophet Jeremiah to Jews living in exile to seek the welfare of the cities where they reside, Teitelbaum said religious Jews should accept the circumstances of exile and act accordingly.

He then specifically addressed the campaign to portray Mamdani as an antisemite.

“By attacking the mayor and labeling him an antisemite, they are increasing the real provocation against the nations,” Teitelbaum said, according to a recording of his remarks.

He also warned against transferring tensions surrounding Israel into the United States, saying that disputes taking place in Israel should not lead to confrontation between American Jews and the government.

The remarks come as both major Satmar factions — the Williamsburg-based Zalunim and the Kiryas Joel-based Aronim — have developed notably close relationships with Mamdani, despite the mayor’s controversial positions on Israel and the concerns raised by many Jewish New Yorkers.

The two Satmar factions have emphasized engagement with Mamdani and maintaining a working relationship with the incoming mayor, a strategy that has drawn questions and criticism from some other members of New York’s Jewish community.

Mamdani, a Muslim progressive and outspoken critic of Israel, has faced scrutiny from Jewish organizations and political figures over his past statements and positions on Israel, the war in Gaza and antisemitism.

The Satmar leadership’s approach has instead focused heavily on the interests of the Orthodox Jewish community in New York, including maintaining access to government officials and protecting the community’s ability to operate its religious schools and institutions.

Teitelbaum’s remarks did not amount to an endorsement of Mamdani’s political positions. Rather, he focused on how religious Jews should conduct themselves toward the government and wider society while living in the United States.

The Satmar movement has a longstanding anti-Zionist religious position and teaches that Jews should live according to Torah while awaiting the redemption. Its leaders have also historically emphasized maintaining peaceful relations with the governments under which Jewish communities live.

The relationship between Satmar leaders and Mamdani has nevertheless become an increasingly visible political issue, particularly as other Jewish groups have taken a much more confrontational approach toward the mayor.

Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum leads the Williamsburg faction of Satmar, while Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum leads the Satmar community based in Kiryas Joel. Together, the two factions represent one of the largest Hasidic populations in New York.

The latest comments from the Williamsburg Rebbe underscore the Satmar leadership’s preference for engagement and cooperation with the city’s government, even as Mamdani’s views on Israel remain deeply controversial among many Jewish New Yorkers.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP/VINnews) — Ugandan statesman Olara Otunnu has entered the race to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations, bringing decades of diplomatic experience — and a record that includes strong criticism of Israeli policies toward Palestinians as well as condemnation of Palestinian terrorism.

Backed by Uganda, Otunnu is traveling to New York to meet with delegations and engage in discussions with the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council, said Adonia Ayebare, Uganda’s permanent representative to the United Nations.

Otunnu, 75, is a veteran of the U.N. system who served as Uganda’s representative to the world body from 1980 to 1985 and was president of the Security Council in 1981. He later served as Uganda’s foreign minister and, from 1997 to 2005, was U.N. under-secretary-general and special representative for children and armed conflict.

His record on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to his years on the Security Council. As Uganda’s representative, Otunnu participated in Security Council proceedings concerning the territories occupied by Israel.

As the U.N.’s top official dealing with children in armed conflict, he repeatedly criticized Israeli actions that he said harmed Palestinian children. In 2002, Otunnu urged Israeli authorities to fully comply with international humanitarian and human rights law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He cited restrictions affecting Palestinian schools and access to health care.

At the same time, Otunnu took an unequivocal position against Palestinian terrorism. In a 2003 Security Council debate, he said suicide bombing was “entirely unacceptable” and called on Palestinian authorities to prevent children from participating in the conflict. He specifically noted that children had been used as suicide bombers and that children had also been killed in suicide attacks.

That record has made Otunnu’s position more complicated than a simple pro-Israel or anti-Israel label. He has criticized Israel over its treatment of Palestinians and called for adherence to international humanitarian law, while also explicitly rejecting suicide bombings and the involvement of Palestinian children in violence.

Otunnu’s international career began long before his U.N. appointment. Educated at Oxford University and Harvard Law School, he became an outspoken opponent of Idi Amin’s government and later emerged as one of Uganda’s leading diplomats.

In 1997, then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Otunnu as his special representative for children and armed conflict. During his eight-year tenure, he helped establish international mechanisms for monitoring and reporting violations against children in war and pushed for stronger protections for child soldiers. The U.N. credits him with helping establish the framework that eventually led to Security Council Resolution 1612 and its monitoring system.

Otunnu won the Sydney Peace Prize in 2005 for his work protecting children affected by armed conflict.

He had previously been considered for the secretary-general’s post in 1997, but Uganda’s government opposed his candidacy. Kofi Annan ultimately won the position.

Otunnu later returned to Uganda and unsuccessfully ran for president in 2011. He has remained largely outside frontline politics since then.

“Even though the U.N. is now occupied with a number of issues across the board, the most important single mandate for the U.N. remains the issue of peace and security,” Otunnu told reporters last week.

He also points to his role in developing the informal “straw ballot” system used by the Security Council to narrow candidates for secretary-general. The procedure became known as the “Otunnu Formula” after it was first used during the 1981 selection of Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.

Otunnu’s late entry makes him a potential dark-horse candidate in a crowded field. Other candidates include Senegal’s Macky Sall, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, Ecuador’s Maria Fernanda Espinosa and Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett.

The secretary-general is nominated by the 15-member Security Council, where the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France hold veto power, and must then be approved by the 193-member General Assembly.

The next secretary-general is expected to begin the five-year term Jan. 1.

BOGOTA, Colombia (VINnews) — Colombia has recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, citing Israel’s security needs and the strategic importance of the territory amid continued instability in the Middle East.

In a statement issued Saturday, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry said Israel faces persistent security threats along its borders and has a right to defend itself against external threats.

The statement specifically cited the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and said the violence underscored the “gravity and changing nature” of the threats facing Israel.

#Atención | Colombia reconoce la soberanía de Israel sobre los Altos del Golán. pic.twitter.com/D7dDZ6lxzy

— Cancillería Colombia (@CancilleriaCol) August 10, 2026

Colombia said maintaining Israeli control and sovereignty over the Golan Heights is an important part of Israel’s national defense and its ability to protect its citizens.

The government said the decision also reflects Colombia’s commitment to promoting a stable and lasting peace in the Middle East.

The Golan Heights, captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, was effectively annexed by Israel in 1981. Most of the international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory.

The Colombian statement was issued as part of an agreement between the two countries, according to the Foreign Ministry.

I thank Colombia and my good friend, Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella @ABDELAESPRIELLA, for his historic decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, following our meeting in Barranquilla, Colombia, last Thursday.

With this, one of his first… https://t.co/wisVitfs8J

— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) August 10, 2026

WOBURN, Mass. (AP) — At a Massachusetts lab, pebble-sized pellets are transformed into forks and films that won’t leave persistent microplastics in the environment.

These are bioplastic pellets. CJ Biomaterials ferments sugar to make plant-based polymers that microbes will consume. These alternatives to traditional plastics made of fossil fuels are seen by some as one of many solutions needed to confront global plastic pollution.

At the company’s Woburn research facility, lab technicians recently poured pellets into a molding machine to make forks. The test forks were thin enough for home composting, though too bendy for stabbing a steak. Other batches have been rigid, similar to a typical plastic fork. The technicians melted pellets to roll out flexible films for food packaging, like a bag for baby carrots. The film was quite strong but not stretchy like cling wrap.

They are figuring out how their biopolymers can make products with attributes similar to conventional plastics, but that can go in a composting bin instead of a trash can. Forks and films are breaking down in the lab’s compost bin. Straws that were added are long gone. A recently tossed-in knife showed pitting on the surface as bacteria colonized it, starting to consume the material.

Plastics have never really fundamentally been disrupted. Now, interest in bioplastic is growing because of concern over microplastics. It’s the new “wild card” in this market, said the company’s marketing director Leah Ford.

Lab technician Fen Spinney calibrates a machine that is used in compounding bioplastic pellets at CJ Biomaterials, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026, in Woburn, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

“I’ve been doing this for a long time and the compostability has always been a really strong driver. But with the greater understanding of microplastics, I think, that’s going to change how people think about materials,” she said.

Traditional plastics last for decades or even centuries as they fragment into harmful microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics. Microplastics have been found in the ocean and the air, in our food and water, and in a wide range of body tissues. The Trump administration, while rolling back many environmental regulations, says it will address contamination from microplastics.

The most common use for bioplastics is packaging
Bioplastics are biobased, meaning they are made completely or partially from a renewable resource, commonly corn or sugar cane; or they are biodegradable, meaning that they break down completely via a natural process. They can also be both, like the polymers made by CJ Biomaterials. It’s a leader in manufacturing polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHAs, as a polymer that is marine and soil biodegradable.

CJ Biomaterials is trying to replace conventional plastics that are single use or can’t be recycled when contaminated with food scraps. Food waste decomposing in landfills emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas that warms the planet. A container made of pellets from CJ Biomaterials with food scraps could be sent to a composter, unlike a traditional plastic container.

The Woburn lab’s shelves display the company’s successes: compostable cutlery; straws; coated cups for hot beverages and frozen food pouches used in the United States; sushi trays; ramen containers; and reusable paper towels. Lab employees dine with compostable cutlery, drink from compostable cups and make coffee with compostable pods. These products last on shelves because they are not exposed to microorganisms in water or soil.

CJ Biomaterials feeds sugar to microbes that convert it to PHA for energy. The company collects the PHA and turns it into granules. Pellets of this are then sold to other companies that can melt them down and mold them into products. These same bacteria will consume PHA in a compost pile, breaking it down within six months, Ford said.

CJ Biomaterials is part of the $32 billion South Korean conglomerate CJ Group. It has been producing PHA at a manufacturing facility in Pasuruan, Indonesia, since 2022.

Paul Milonopolous rinses out the dump box after offloading fresh organic matter, which included biodegradable cups, cutlery and bin liners that were mixed in with food scraps and lobster shells, that will be used to make compost at Black Earth Compost, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026, in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

One solution with potential to help address the plastic pollution crisisWorld Wildlife Fund sees biobased plastics as part of a suite of solutions that are needed. They can reduce the world’s dependency on fossil fuels that cause climate change, said Erin Simon, a WWF vice president. She said the world needs to reduce the amount of plastic being produced, then make the rest sustainably.

Nations are trying to confront the spiraling plastic pollution crisis by crafting a landmark treaty. They have yet to agree on any effective methods to stop plastic pollution, though negotiators plan to meet again early next year.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley has held congressional hearings on plastic pollution, including one exploring alternatives for single-use plastics. He also views bioplastics as one option with potential, among many that are needed. But, he said, more information is needed about how they break down and impact ecosystems and health.

Environmental groups, including the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, argue that bioplastics maintain the single-use paradigm and distract from real solutions. Some say farmland shouldn’t be used to grow crops for plastic instead of food.

Bioplastics are a small, but growing, share of the market
Globally, biobased plastics represent roughly 0.5% of the more than 400 million metric tons (440 million tons) of plastics produced annually, according to the industry group European Bioplastics. Production is projected to double by 2030 due to rising demand and the emergence of more advanced applications and products, it said.

China, Sweden and the United States are major exporters of natural polymers.

Large sports stadiums and major restaurant chains such as McDonald’s are experimenting with biobased packaging and utensils. The Tous les Jours bakery, part of the CJ Group, uses PHA straws.

There are obstacles to widespread adoption. Bioplastics typically cost more than conventional plastics. Major cities have municipal composting programs, but they are limited elsewhere. A growing number of composting facilities accept compostable bioplastic products, though some refuse out of concern about degraded soil quality. And because bioplastics and conventional plastics often look and feel identical, they can be mixed up and cause problems for composters.

Compostable straws and a fork, which were made from plastic made from plants, are displayed at CJ Biomaterials, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026, in Woburn, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Thirty minutes from the Woburn research lab, Black Earth Compost accepts certified compostable materials. On Monday, compostable cups, cutlery and bin liners were mixed in with a delivery of food scraps and lobster shells. Accepting bioplastics increases the amount of food scraps they receive because people can put an entire compostable container into an organics bin, instead of scraping food out.

Research organization tests biomaterials
The 5 Gyres Institute tested 22 items made of traditional plastic, biobased and biodegradable materials and other alternatives, such as paper and bamboo. Straws, utensils, thin film and bottles were put in different environments across Florida, California and Maine. By the end of the 64-week study, many of the biodegradable materials were gone, or were pitted and cracked as they fragmented. Traditional fossil fuel-based plastics persisted.

Marcus Eriksen, the institute’s co-founder and a researcher, said the synthetic plastic spoon was almost the same as when he first put it in the ocean, but little was left of the spoons made from biodegradable materials.

The California-based nonprofit released the results in 2023. It’s currently repeating the study to evaluate end-of-life scenarios for the new generation of packaging.

Eriksen thinks people should use biodegradable options, especially for packaging. Otherwise, he said, “we’re going to flood the entire biosphere with micro- and nanoplastics.”

Justin Sandler adds a bag of compost to a pallet at Black Earth Compost, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026, in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 47 people, trapping residents under debris of collapsed buildings and forcing people to evacuate their homes as far as the capital of Bogotá.

The epicenter was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Bogota, the U.S. Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported. The USGS said it struck at a depth of 66 miles (107 kilometers). The quake also was felt in neighboring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.

Local officials confirmed that at least 18 people had been killed in the city of Pereira, two in the city of Manizales, and 27 people in the Valle del Cauca department, where Colombia’s third-biggest city, Cali, is located. At least three killed in Valle del Cauca were children, the governor reported.

The quake left cities across the west of the country — Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales — ravaged. A mix of residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks. Colombia’s interior minister said more than 20 municipalities across the country had been hit.

Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city from his home in hills of the city as buildings collapsed. Residents in the city and rescue workers were searching the rubble for survivors.

“My entire house shook. I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake,” he said. “We’re thanking god we’re alive.”

Colombia’s Geological Service said Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks. Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago y Buenaventura and Pereira.

The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back-to-back quakes devastated neighboring Venezuela in late June, destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people. At the same time the quake brought down buildings in Colombia, desperate families in Venezuela continued to search the ruins for the bodies of their loved ones.

In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling down on travelers taking shelter and screaming, and people running through rubble in a panic.

Pereira’s mayor, Mauricio Salazar, told a local radio station that at least 18 people had died and that many more were trapped under “a massive quantity of collapsed buildings.”

In nearby Manizales, a city nestled in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave. Jorge Eduardo Rojas, the mayor of Manizales said two people had died in the city “because of the quake” and asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks.

Authorities in the rural state of Choco, the epicenter of the quake, reported injured people and damaged buildings in the capital, but provided few details.

In Cali, a city 2 million people, Mayor Alejandro Eder said that residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.

Small earthquakes, known as “temblores,” are common in central and western Colombia, but those above 6.0 magnitude are rare. In 1999, a 6.2 magnitude quake near the city of Armenia, killed more than 1,100 people.

Colombia’s newly inaugurated President Abelardo de la Espriella said Monday that he had personally taken charge of the government’s response to the emergency in San José del Palmar following the earthquake that struck the country.

“You are not alone. The state is present and taking action,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials on Monday proposed a rule change that would require food manufacturers to notify regulators before introducing new ingredients or additives into processed or packaged foods.

The proposal would change a decades-old policy that advocates have called a regulatory loophole, blaming it for allowing thousands of unvetted ingredients into the U.S. food supply.

Under the proposed rule from the Food and Drug Administration, companies would have to document and submit their safety findings for new ingredients, giving regulators the opportunity to investigate if they see a potential safety risk. Currently companies can decide for themselves if an ingredient or additive is “generally recognized as safe” and there is no requirement for companies to notify or submit evidence to the FDA, although some do.

“Shifting to a mandatory notification system closes a decades-old information gap, giving the FDA the comprehensive visibility needed to enhance postmarket safety,” acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas told reporters on Monday.

The FDA will take comments on the proposal for 120 days.

Consumer advocates who have long pushed for changes said FDA’s proposal should require more than giving advance notice about new ingredients.

“It must also include strong, science-based safety standards and thorough, independent FDA review before chemicals are allowed in our food,” said Melanie Benesh of the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

Government scrutiny of ultraprocessed food continues, but with few details
In a separate move, the FDA said it completed work on the federal government’s first-ever definition of ultraprocessed food, but did not release any details or the proposed language. The agency said it has submitted the definition to the White House for further review.

Health advocates consider an official definition of ultraprocessed food a key step toward bringing greater scrutiny to packaged foods that are blamed for multiple chronic health problems afflicting Americans. A government-backed definition could pave the way for more federal research and, eventually, possible labeling or other restrictions on processed foods.

Neither of Monday’s announcements are likely to immediately impact American diets, which are packed with fats, sodium and sugar and are blamed for a host of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. But both initiatives are considered top priorities for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who entered government vowing to crack down on artificial colors, additives and other ingredients.

“These two actions will change how the federal government oversees what’s in our food and how we understand the foods that Americans eat,” Kennedy said at an event Monday at HHS headquarters.

Ultraprocessed foods are made using industrial processing and additives, colors, preservatives or other ingredients not found in home kitchens. The foods include sugary cereals, sodas, chips, frozen pizzas and other grocery items.

Scientists have been working to define and classify processed foods for well over a decade. But sweeping definitions come with downsides. They can be often applied to foods like whole grain bread, yogurt and granola that are all highly processed but still considered nutritious. Some recent efforts to define ultraprocessed foods include carve-outs for foods that meet nutrition standards, despite having processed ingredients.

FDA proposal would bring new insights on additives used by food companies
In the U.S., an estimated 10,000 additives are allowed in food, including thickeners, preservatives and packaging ingredients.

Consumer advocates have long argued that many of those ingredients have never been properly vetted because of the FDA’s policy allowing manufacturers to certify for themselves that new additives are “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS.

FDA’s Diamantas stressed Monday that the new policy would not require all new ingredients to undergo FDA review. He said that type of mandatory review would need to be enacted by Congress to rewrite FDA’s food authorities.

“What we’re doing is requiring companies that utilize the pathway to notify us of their conclusions so that we have greater visibility into those conclusions and consumers have awareness,” Diamantas said.

Under the proposal, the FDA would be expected to review new ingredient submission within 180 days. If FDA regulators have safety concerns they could request additional information from manufacturers or request that they delay introducing the ingredient.

Kennedy said the Trump administration would ask Congress to grant FDA additional powers over food ingredients.

“Congress needs to give FDA the additional tools it needs to keep pace with the changing food supply and protect the American people,” Kennedy said.

A rule change in the 1990s created what advocates call a loophole
Any substance intentionally added to food is supposed to undergo formal review — unless the additive is considered safe. Since the late 1950s, the government recognized that many common ingredients in foods, such as spices and vinegar, were widely consumed and understood to be safe for consumption.

The FDA policed the GRAS exemption for years, but it took time and resources. Starting in 1997, the FDA began allowing companies to independently determine that a new additive is safe based on publicly available scientific evidence and the consensus of qualified experts.

However, the list of products deemed GRAS by companies grew to include many synthetic and natural additives, all incorporated into the food supply without independent review.

The process has created a “secret GRAS loophole,” according to the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, that “undermines the integrity of our food safety system.”

Food industry officials contend their internal reviews of additives are as rigorous as the FDA’s own processes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s been 12 months since President Donald Trump announced a crime emergency in Washington, pledging to make the city “safe and beautiful” and deploying the National Guard.

But a mission that seemed temporary has been extended through January 2029. Residents and a new cadre of local officials see in it an unacceptable attempt by the federal government to restrict the heavily Democratic city’s autonomy and, a year in, still question why having troops on the streets of the nation’s capital is necessary.

“There’s a deep irony that here we are in the capital of the free world, and our president is treating it like a police state,” said Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia. “D.C. residents have lived with our National Guard troops in our neighborhoods for about a year, despite the absence of any genuine emergency and really any reason for them to be here.”

The continued deployment will be a major test for a new batch of political candidates expected to take office after the midterms this fall. Residents will look to them to push back on the Republican president’s encroachment into the city’s affairs — although they are limited in what they can do to counter it.

A temporary deployment goes on and on
On Aug. 11, 2025, Trump announced that he was launching a federal law enforcement surge in Washington aimed at fighting crime. As of Aug. 4, more than 4,600 military personnel from D.C. and 24 states and territories were still deployed alongside unknown numbers of less visible federal law enforcement officers. Some are expected to be withdrawn toward the end of the summer.

Small groups of armed guard members have become a routine presence on the streets of Washington. They have supported arrest operations but are also seen patrolling tourist areas, such as along the Tidal Basin during the Cherry Blossom Festival and in neighborhoods such as Georgetown where violent crimes are rare. They have helped with medical emergencies, snow removal and beautification projects — initiatives that have received support from some residents.

Extending the deployment into 2029 will cost about $1.4 billion, according to a Defense Department estimate.

“President Trump has transformed D.C. from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in an email.

Figures posted to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia credit the surge with more than 13,000 arrests.

Crime, which was falling before the surge began, continues to drop. Metropolitan Police Department statistics show overall crime was down 20% through Aug. 7, compared with the same period in 2025. That includes a 32% drop in homicides, from 97 to 66.

But there’s a debate over how much of that success is owed to Trump’s mission or to yearslong local efforts to chip away at the crime rate.

What is certain is that locals feel the weight of the deployment and do not see a clear way to push back against it. National Guard deployments to other cities have been blocked by courts, and a lawsuit challenging the deployment is pending, but critics of the surge are not hopeful.

“The fact that we still have the National Guard walking our streets a year later with no end in sight is really demoralizing,” city council member Brianne K. Nadeau said.

Autonomy is a top priority for newly elected candidates
Because Washington is a congressionally established federal district, Trump has much greater influence over the police and D.C. National Guard, which he controls directly, including its commander.

The Home Rule Act, passed in 1973, allows residents to vote for local leaders, including the mayor and council members. Congress has oversight over the local budget and review authority of all laws passed and the ability to summon district officials to the Capitol routinely to explain themselves. The D.C. delegate to Congress is a nonvoting position.

The city’s governmental structure under home rule made it easy for Trump to do what he has done, Nadeau said.

“There isn’t really any political liability for national leaders to mess with D.C. because nobody really cares,” outside of those directly impacted, she said.

The law enforcement surge played a major role in Democratic primary elections in June, which elevated candidates who have made Washington’s autonomy and statehood top priorities.

Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist who in the overwhelmingly Democratic city is likely to be its next mayor, has already rankled Trump. He threatened to put the city under federal control if she wins.

Robert White Jr., another pro-statehood candidate, won the Democratic primary for the city’s seat in Congress.

And while they are hamstrung by the city’s status, both hope they have strategies that can help fight back against the president and the deployment.

White told The Associated Press he plans to build “an army of residents” and allies to target swing districts and work at “un-electing” people critical of the district and “electing those who do support D.C.”

The action is similar to one a former D.C. congressional delegate, Walter Fauntroy, successfully pursued in 1972, mobilizing Black voters and allies against a South Carolina Congress member who had long opposed D.C.’s independence.

“He didn’t deploy that strategy a bunch of times, but it sent a signal to people to lay off of D.C.,” White said.

The city’s outgoing mayor, Muriel Bowser, avoided the kind of biting rhetoric and personal attacks typical of other high-profile Democratic leaders, despite the unprecedented intervention into her city. A major part of that was to avoid raising Trump’s ire and threaten what independence the city has.

An emailed statement from Bowser’s office said that despite challenges to its independence the city has progressed in achieving its goals. “The safety and well-being of everyone in our city remains our top priority and protecting home rule remains our North Star,” the statement said.

“We’re more than monuments and politics,” Bowser said in a 48-second video pinned to her X account.

She said the city is made up of more than 700,00 taxpaying Americans who serve in the military, run businesses and raise families and “we don’t have voting representation in Congress. We don’t control the D.C. National Guard, and we don’t have full access to full American democracy.”

Concerns over troops in the city during elections
Donna Powell, who is living part time in the city, said she and her husband walk and metro everywhere. “We’re already safe and beautiful,” she said. “We don’t need all these National Guard here.”

The money could be better spent “on healthcare and food for families that need it.”

The National Guard deployment has raised concerns among some over what the upcoming midterms and the 2028 presidential election will look like with troops on the streets.

“The last time this president was supposed to come out of power, Jan. 6 happened,” said Alex Dodds, co-founder of FreeDC, an activist group that has protested the deployment by following and filming National Guard troops in quiet areas of the city far away from crime concerns. “Imagine if that happens again but this time he has 5,000 troops standing at the ready to be part of that situation. You know, that’s our worry.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Berkshire Hathaway’s new CEO Greg Abel spent a significant chunk of the company’s massive pile of cash as it invested $10 billion in Google’s parent company and repurchased about $4.5 billion of its shares.

The conglomerate that legendary investor Warren Buffett built reported its second-quarter earnings Saturday morning and disclosed that its cash holdings had shrunk to $365.5 billion from nearly $400 billion at the end of March.

Berkshire’s report suggested that it had added more than $21 billion worth of commercial, industrial and other stocks to its portfolio, but the earnings report doesn’t name the stocks it bought. That won’t be revealed until a separate filing later this month.

Abel took over as CEO in January when Buffett retired after six decades leading the company. But Buffett remains chairman.

CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert said investors should be encouraged by the amount of shares Berkshire’s repurchased although Geico’s performance was a concern because its underwriting profits fell 45% and lagged far behind other big auto insurers.

“I think there are two key takeaways that should encourage investors: The fact that they bought back shares after not having done things of this magnitude for several years now. And the other positive thing is the ability to produce the 10% operating revenue growth in the quarter,” Seifert said.

Abel announced in March that Berkshire had resumed buying back its own shares for the first time in more than two years, but investors were underwhelmed when the company only repurchased about $234 million worth of Berkshire stock in the first quarter.

The purchases in the second quarter that were disclosed Saturday demonstrate that Berkshire is serious about buybacks, but it is on the low end of the range that investors were expecting. Buffett watchers had been predicting repurchases somewhere between $5 billion and $11 billion based on a filing Buffett made when he announced his annual charitably donations in July.

The company’s standard is that it only repurchases shares when Abel and Buffett believes they are selling for less than they are worth. They do not plan to spend a specific amount like many companies do. Most of Berkshire’s repurchases were made in June. They may not be buying much now as the stock just hit a new 52-week high on Thursday.

Berkshire previously repurchased $78 billion worth of its own stock between 2018 and 2024.

In addition to the Google stock Berkshire bought this spring, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company also completed a $6.8 billion acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison but that didn’t close until July so it’s not reflected in these quarterly figures.

Berkshire’s bottom line profit more than doubled to $25.667 billion, or $17,868.44 per Class A share, on a big paper gain in the value of its investments as the company lapped last year’s $3.8 billion writedown in the value of its Kraft Foods stake. A year ago Berkshire reported earning $12.37 billion, or $8,600.89 per Class A share,

But Buffett has long urged investors to pay more attention to Berkshire’s operating earnings to get a better sense of how its dozens of companies are performing because those numbers exclude investments. By that measure, Berkshire’s operating profit grew to $12.983 billion, or $9,038.30 per A share, from $11.16 billion, or $7,759.58 per Class A share.

Berkshire owns several major insurers, including Geico, a collection of big utilities, BNSF railroad and a varied assortment of manufacturing and retail companies, including Precision Castparts and See’s Candy.

Family getting up: Shacharis: 8:45 am Mincha: 6:30 pm Maariv: 9:45 pm

WASHINGTON (AP) – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she is freezing her eggs as she decides her next political moves ahead of the 2028 presidential election campaign.

“This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” Ocasio-Cortez, 36, said on Instagram about her decision regarding her reproductive options.

The New York congresswoman, a leading figure of Democrats’ progressive left flank, did not say explicitly whether she plans to have children. She said in her social media posts that she was taking a “political risk” in talking so personally about her potential family plans.

She said later on ABC “This Week” on Sunday that she has not ruled out running for president or for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrats’ floor leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, in 2028. She explained that she wants to normalize conversations about what women face in their professional and personal lives, while also highlighting the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration.

“In this political environment, where this administration is denying reproductive care to women across the country, from abortion rights to the ability to carry out a healthy pregnancy, I think it’s important for us as leaders to have these conversations,” she said.

Trump’s administration opposes abortion rights, and the Republican president’s first-term appointees to the Supreme Court provided the margins in the 2022 ruling that struck down the Roe v. Wade decision that had established a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

Separately, however, Trump in 2025 signed an executive order designed to lower the costs of in vitro fertilization.

Ocasio-Cortez sponsored a Democratic bill in 2022, when the party controlled the House, to codify abortion rights into federal law after the Supreme Court’s abortion decision.

As part of her weekend announcement, Ocasio-Cortez noted that women — in politics and other fields — face different standards and scrutiny about their family status.

“Men run for office, or frankly they interview for jobs, and people don’t think in the back of their minds, ‘OK, this guy’s running for office, how old is he? Oh, well, is he going to want to start a family?’” she said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (VINnews) – Colombia’s newly inaugurated president, Abelardo de La Espriella, said Sunday that his government intends to strengthen relations with Israel and described the country as a potential partner in combating terrorism and organized crime.

De La Espriella, who took office Aug. 7, made the comments on X while responding to congratulations from Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon.

“Israel will find in Colombia a friend and a determined ally in the fight against terrorism and organized crime,” de La Espriella wrote, adding that Colombia could learn from the experience of other countries as it seeks to improve its security policies and prison system.

Thank you, @dannydanon, for your warm words.

Colombia and Israel share a friendship that we are determined to strengthen. This new chapter will bring new opportunities for cooperation, innovation, security, and prosperity for both our peoples.

From Colombia to Jerusalem, we… https://t.co/nE5DUEYxC4

— Abelardo De La Espriella (@ABDELAESPRIELLA) August 9, 2026

The Colombian president also responded to a message from Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who invited him to visit Israel and observe changes implemented in the country’s prison system, including tougher measures involving convicted terrorists.

De La Espriella said Colombia was entering a new period in its relationship with Israel and pledged that the two countries’ friendship would grow stronger.

The remarks represent a sharp shift in tone from Colombia’s previous government, which under former President Gustavo Petro adopted a highly critical position toward Israel and suspended diplomatic relations with Jerusalem in 2024 over the war in Gaza.

During his campaign, de La Espriella made security and the fight against organized crime central themes, promising a tougher response to violence that has plagued parts of Colombia.

His government is expected to focus on strengthening law enforcement and the prison system, areas in which he suggested Israel could provide useful experience.

The president’s comments came shortly after taking office, signaling that closer cooperation with Israel could become part of his administration’s broader security agenda.

Family getting up:

Mr. Shaye Lieberman
Son

Sitting at
Boro Park Center
4915 10th Avenue
in the third floor family room
Hours: 10:00-1:00 and 2:00-5:00

Mrs. Faygie Friedman
Daughter

Mrs. Malky Weiss
Daughter

NEW YORK (VINnews) — William Shakin, a 25-year-old former Israeli soldier from Great Neck, New York, died in New York after struggling with severe psychological distress following his military service in Gaza, according to people who knew him and advocates who had worked with him.

Shakin immigrated to Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and volunteered for military service through the Mahal program for overseas volunteers. He served as a combat soldier in the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion and fought in Gaza, where he lost friends and fellow soldiers.

After completing his service, Shakin’s mental health deteriorated significantly, according to people close to him. He was not formally recognized by Israeli authorities as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Chaim Meizlish, a volunteer with Navigating, a nonprofit that assists lone soldiers dealing with mental health challenges in the United States.

During his military service, Shakin lived at HaBayit Shel Benji, a home that provides housing and support for lone soldiers. Staff members became concerned about his condition after he completed his service and contacted his parents, according to reports.

Shakin eventually returned to the United States. People assisting him continued to provide support before his departure for New York, but advocates say the assistance available through the IDF and Israel’s Defense Ministry ended once he was outside Israel.

Meizlish said Shakin faced particular difficulty obtaining official recognition for combat-related trauma because he would have been required to return to Israel to appear before Defense Ministry committees.

For Shakin, advocates said, that presented a significant obstacle because returning to Israel would have meant leaving the family and support network he had in the United States.

The case has also highlighted broader concerns about support available to Israeli veterans living abroad. Meizlish said Navigating is aware of about 1,200 cases involving Israeli veterans and others dealing with combat-related trauma in the United States, while only two Defense Ministry representatives are assigned to handle such cases, according to his account.

Shakin’s death has also led to a dispute over where he should be buried.

His parents are seeking to have their son brought to Israel for burial in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl. The request has faced opposition from the Defense Ministry, in part because Shakin had not been formally recognized as a combat-trauma victim, according to reports.

The family has criticized the ministry, arguing that Shakin’s service and the psychological consequences he experienced afterward should qualify him for recognition and burial in Israel.

Israeli Minister of Aliyah and Integration Ofir Sofer has pledged to try to help the family bring Shakin’s remains to Israel for burial.

Before his death, Shakin spoke with friends about the trauma he was carrying from his time in Gaza. In one message, he described losing a member of his platoon and the effect it had on him.

“A friend from my platoon was killed,” he wrote. “I’m shaking from trauma … I just lost it.”

Friends and members of his Chabad community remembered Shakin as a warm and generous young man who remained deeply connected to Jewish life.

He regularly attended Shabbat dinners, volunteered to help with community events and readily participated in mitzvot. Friends recalled his willingness to help with everything from setting up tables and chairs to building a sukkah, as well as his enthusiasm for putting on tefillin.

Following his graduation, Shakin chose to leave the United States and serve in Israel, ultimately becoming a combat soldier in one of the IDF’s most prominent infantry brigades.

His death has renewed calls from advocates for stronger systems to assist lone soldiers and other Israeli veterans living outside the country who experience psychological difficulties after combat.

Shakin’s family and friends are seeking to have him laid to rest in Israel, where he served and fought alongside his fellow soldiers.

CARACAS, Venezuela (VINnews) – — Venezuela’s chief rabbi has asked interim President Delcy Rodríguez to consider restoring diplomatic and consular relations with Israel, citing the needs of the country’s Jewish community.

Rabbi Isaac Cohen, chief rabbi of the Israelite Association of Venezuela, delivered a letter to Rodríguez during a meeting Sunday with Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia González at the Foreign Ministry in Caracas.

The request seeks to reopen diplomatic channels between Venezuela and Israel, which have been without formal relations for more than 17 years.

Plasencia said the proposal was presented in the context of serving Venezuela’s Jewish community, which he described as an important part of the country’s history and development.

“Venezuela has historically welcomed” a significant Jewish community and recognized its contributions to the country, Plasencia said in remarks reported by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.

The appeal comes weeks after Israel sent a humanitarian and technical delegation to Venezuela following devastating earthquakes that struck the country on June 24.

Israeli teams assisted with assessments of damaged and potentially unstable buildings and helped develop emergency and reconstruction plans. Venezuelan officials publicly thanked Israel for the assistance, despite the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Rodríguez also met with members of the Israeli delegation before they concluded their work in Venezuela and expressed appreciation for their assistance.

Cohen played a role in establishing contact between the Venezuelan government and the Israeli relief mission. Rodríguez previously publicly thanked the rabbi for helping facilitate the arrival of Israeli experts after the earthquakes.

The earthquake response marked an unusual opening between Caracas and Jerusalem after years of hostility. Venezuela broke diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009 under then-President Hugo Chávez.

The Israeli mission ultimately spent several weeks in Venezuela, with experts working on structural assessments and a broader reconstruction plan. The delegation’s presence was extended at Rodríguez’s request before returning to Israel in July.

Cohen’s request now raises the possibility that the humanitarian cooperation could develop into a broader diplomatic thaw.

For Venezuela’s Jewish community, the restoration of formal relations could help address practical needs involving consular services, travel and communication with Israel, while also reopening an official channel between the two countries.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said Plasencia also expressed appreciation for Israel’s assistance following the June earthquakes.

No decision by Rodríguez on the request was immediately announced.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — An Israeli health official says a planned BBC interview was abandoned after he questioned the network about the accuracy of its coverage of health-related issues connected to the war in Gaza.

Prof. Mitch Schwaber, who heads Israel’s National Center for Infection Control at the Ministry of Health, discussed the episode in an interview with Beni Teitelbaum on Kan Moreshet Radio.

Schwaber said a senior BBC correspondent contacted him while preparing a special report on the health effects of the war and initially sought an off-the-record or background conversation.

Rather than immediately agreeing to the interview, Schwaber said he asked the journalist what safeguards would be used to prevent inaccurate information from appearing in the final report.

He said he then sent the correspondent a letter outlining six incidents that concerned him. Four, he said, involved what he regarded as inaccurate reporting about medical or health matters, while the other two raised broader questions about the journalist’s handling of information.

Schwaber said he was willing to participate if he could be confident that the resulting report would accurately reflect the information he provided.

His concern, he explained, was that a correction issued after publication may not reverse the effect of an initial report, particularly when the original claim has already been widely circulated.

The interview never took place, according to Schwaber.

He said the correspondent did not answer his questions and eventually stopped pursuing the interview. Schwaber said he has not heard from the reporter since.

One of the cases Schwaber pointed to was the October 2023 explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, an incident that generated competing claims about who was responsible and how many people were killed.

Schwaber said he objected to the BBC’s early coverage, arguing that it attributed the explosion to Israeli fire and initially reported a large number of deaths before the available evidence had been fully established.

Subsequent assessments by multiple sources concluded that the explosion was likely caused by a rocket launched from Gaza that failed or broke apart, although questions surrounding the incident and casualty figures continued to be disputed.

Schwaber said the hospital incident was only one of several examples he had raised with the BBC.

He argued that reporting on medical conditions and public health during wartime requires particular care because disputed or inaccurate claims can influence public opinion and have consequences well beyond the original story.

The BBC did not respond to Schwaber’s questions, according to his account, and the planned interview was ultimately dropped.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, causing serious damage to buildings in the region and prompting evacuations as far away as in the capital, Bogota. The regional governor said there had been an unspecified number of injuries.

The epicenter was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Bogota, the U.S. Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported. The USGS said it struck at a depth of 66 miles (107 kilometers).

The quake also was felt in neighboring Ecuador.

Choco Gov. Nubia Córdoba said on social media that “there are injuries and serious damage to buildings” in the regional capital of Quibdó, a city of about 130,000 people. She didn’t provide further details.

Footage shared by local media outlets showed homes and small buildings collapsing in the cities of Pereira, Cali and Quibdo. In Manizales a city about 190 miles (300 kilometers) west of Bogota, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave.

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella said in a post on X that he will personally supervise recovery efforts and install an emergency center in San Jose del Palmar.

The temblor follows two back-to-back 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes in Venezuela in late June. Those earthquakes destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.

(AP) – The crew of a yacht owned by Mark Zuckerberg did not hear a radio call for a maritime assist from a small skiff that ran out of fuel off the coast of Alaska, and by the time it did, another nearby ship had already rendered assistance, a spokesperson for the Meta CEO said.

The Alaska Beacon reported that the skiff had issued a call for assistance through the U.S. Coast Guard last week and a nearby small cruise ship, the Wilderness Legacy, towed it into nearby Farragut Bay in Southeast Alaska and refueled it.

Mark Zuckerberg faces backlash after his $300M superyacht declined repeated requests to help a stranded boat in Alaska — despite being closer than the cruise ship that eventually rescued it

Reportedly he wasn’t onboard and his team says the crew missed the call pic.twitter.com/dolur0MFfk

— RT Intl (@RT_on_X) August 10, 2026

Although it was closer, Zuckerberg’s yacht, called Launchpad, had not responded to the call.

“I’m on a small-ship Alaska cruise with my son,” Michael Love, a passenger who said he was on the Wilderness Legacy cruise ship, wrote on Bluesky on Aug. 5.

“Our boat rescued a stranded vessel last night and apparently we did that after the Coast Guard radioed Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht — which was closer — and they repeatedly refused to respond. (There was near unanimous booing when the captain announced this),” he said.

The Alaska Beacon reported that the spokesperson told them via email on Sunday that the yacht Launchpad did not initially hear the call for assistance.

“Mark and his family were not on board at the time of the incident. As the Coast Guard noted, the boat was not in distress, and by the time the crew reviewed the Coast Guard contact on a different radio channel from the one they were operating on, the assist was already underway. We’re grateful all parties are safe,” the email to the Alaska Beacon said.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — An unusual manuscript entitled Daas Mechona (Machine Knowledge) has been circulating online in recent days, attracting interest in the Torah world. The work, which runs to hundreds of pages, is devoted entirely to the increasingly unavoidable encounter between the world of Jewish law and artificial intelligence.

The cover states that the book deals with “an examination of the issues arising from the development of artificial intelligence in Jewish law and Jewish thought.” It is attributed to “Feivel Finef” of Boro Park. The author’s identity cannot be independently verified from the file itself, although contact information appears in the manuscript and the name is presented as that of the author.

The work does not limit itself to the question of whether it is permissible to ask a chatbot a halachic question. It covers a wide range of subjects, including halachic rulings, rabbinical courts, reliability and establishing facts, Shabbat and holidays, monetary law, damages, copyright, kosher law, STaM (the writing of Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot), Torah study, and even questions of faith and Jewish thought.

The author, however, makes one point particularly clear near the beginning of the book: the work does not constitute practical halachic rulings, and no one should rely on it for practical guidance without consulting a qualified halachic authority.

This caution connects directly to one of the central problems discussed in the book: an AI model’s answer can sound fluent, authoritative and precise even when it is wrong.

The book explains that a language model does not necessarily retrieve an answer directly from a book or from a properly verified Torah database. Rather, it generates the answer anew, piece by piece. As a result, even a citation that appears trustworthy and a source reference that sounds precise may turn out to be fabricated. The work even demonstrates how a system can refer a user to a particular section of the Shulchan Aruch or the Shach that has nothing at all to do with the subject being discussed.

And this is where the practical problem lies. A person might ask, for example, whether a driver who received an expensive package and had it stolen while it was in his possession is obligated to pay for it. The question may sound straightforward, but from a halachic perspective, the answer could depend on the driver’s legal status, the conditions under which he accepted the item, the nature of his responsibility for safeguarding it, the circumstances of the theft, and other details.

An AI system can formulate a lengthy, scholarly-sounding answer within seconds. It may even provide sources. But confident wording, by itself, does not demonstrate that the conclusion is correct.

“Machine Knowledge” therefore distinguishes between relying on a machine as a halachic authority and using it as a tool to assist a halachic authority. The work suggests that such systems can be used to locate sources, organize material, analyze and compare information, but emphasizes that their output should be regarded as raw material requiring examination and verification by a Torah scholar.

In other words, the more convincing artificial intelligence becomes, the more important it is to know where to stop. It can serve as a digital study partner, a sophisticated search engine and a powerful research assistant. But when a question moves beyond learning and exploration to an actual practical halachic ruling, the responsibility still rests with the halachic authority.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Two families in northern Israel were mourning Sunday after separate accidents during recreational outings claimed the lives of an 11-year-old boy and a 16-year-old yeshiva student.

In the first incident, emergency crews recovered the body of 11-year-old Elchanan Karni from the Jordan River near Yesud HaMa’ala following an extensive search.

Authorities said the boy had been aboard a boat that overturned for reasons that remained under investigation. A caller reported seeing the child disappear beneath the water.

Police, firefighters, Magen David Adom paramedics and volunteer rescue teams established a joint command center and searched the river and surrounding area. Firefighters and volunteers from the Golan Rescue Unit eventually located Karni.

Karni was the son of Rabbi Yisrael Karni, a scholar at the Chatzot Kollel in Modi’in Illit, and Sarah Michal Karni. The family lives in the city.

In a separate incident Sunday afternoon, 16-year-old Yehonatan Kalimian, a resident of Katzrin and student at Hispin Yeshiva High School, died after falling while rappelling at Keshet Cave in northern Israel.

Rescuers estimated that Kalimian fell between 30 and 40 meters, or roughly 100 to 130 feet. Israel Air Force Unit 669 was dispatched as part of the rescue and recovery operation.

Magen David Adom paramedics Maimon Gabai and Ligal Dror said they reached the teenager after descending by rope and found him unconscious and without vital signs.

They performed prolonged resuscitation and other advanced medical treatment but were unable to save him, according to MDA.

Katzrin Mayor Yehuda Dua expressed condolences to the Kalimian family and described Yehonatan as a compassionate teenager who regularly volunteered to help others.

Dua said Kalimian was active as a counselor with the Bnei Akiva youth movement, where he worked with younger children and taught them about Torah, the Land of Israel and community service.

The mayor also praised Kalimian’s parents, Rabbi Alon and Michal Kalimian, describing the family as deeply committed to kindness, generosity and Jewish values.

Funeral services for Kalimian were held Sunday night at the cemetery in Katzrin. The family is observing the mourning period at its home in the city.

Hispin Yeshiva High School expressed shock over the death of its student and offered condolences to his family, asking that his memory be a blessing.

Authorities were investigating the circumstances of both fatal accidents.

NEW YORK (VINnews) — The family of Jason Spindler, an American Jewish businessman who was killed in the 2019 terrorist attack on the DusitD2 hotel and office complex in Nairobi, Kenya, has filed a lawsuit against Iran in a federal court in Washington, D.C., according to Kenyan media reports.

Court documents filed on Thursday, August 6, allege that Iran played a key role in establishing the support network that enabled the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab to carry out the deadly attack. The lawsuit claims that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite Quds Force provided the group with weapons, funding, training, and logistical assistance, citing U.S. government and United Nations information.

Spindler, 40, was among the 21 people killed in the attack. The assault began when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a restaurant before four armed militants stormed the mixed-use complex, opening fire on civilians and throwing grenades until they were eventually killed by Kenyan security forces.

The lawsuit comes at a particularly tense moment in U.S.-Iran relations, amid escalating exchanges between President Donald Trump and senior Iranian officials, as well as ongoing diplomatic efforts surrounding tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the complaint, al-Shabaab said the attack targeted Western and Israeli interests in retaliation for Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the subsequent relocation of the U.S. Embassy to the city.

Iran has not been formally held responsible for the Nairobi attack by either U.S. or Kenyan authorities, and the allegations contained in the lawsuit remain before the court.

At the time of the attack, Spindler was attending a business meeting when gunmen entered his office and opened fire. He was critically wounded and later died from his injuries. A co-founder of international development firm I-DEV International, Spindler worked in an office building adjacent to the hotel that was targeted and was reportedly shot while working on a balcony.

In the aftermath of the attack, his mother, Sarah Spindler, remembered her son as someone dedicated to improving lives through economic development.

“He was trying to create positive change in developing countries by helping build new markets,” she told NBC News in 2019. “We all miss him so much, and it’s incredibly tragic that such a brilliant young man was taken by terrorism.”

Spindler was also a survivor of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, having escaped the World Trade Center attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — A heartwarming initiative brought smiles to dozens of lone soldiers serving in northern Israel this week, as they received personalized birthday care packages prepared and sent by their families overseas, according to a Yisrael Hayom report.

The initiative was organized by the Otzma LaChayal (Strength for the Soldier) project in partnership with the WOMMYZ (Women in LA) community in Los Angeles. The program aims to bridge the distance between lone soldiers serving in the Israel Defense Forces and their families abroad.

Ahead of each soldier’s birthday, family members prepared personalized gifts, handwritten messages, and small surprises, which were then shipped to Israel. Volunteers from Otzma LaChayal personally delivered the packages to military bases, surprising the soldiers on their special day.

In addition to the gifts from home, the volunteers included gift vouchers and other treats, providing what organizers described as a tangible reminder that the soldiers remain connected to their loved ones despite the distance.

For many lone soldiers, who often go months without seeing their families, the surprise carried deep emotional significance.

“It was a little hug from home,” one soldier said after receiving the package. “It reminded me that I’m not alone.”

Avraham Yechezkel, director of the Otzma LaChayal initiative, said the project is about much more than delivering presents.

“There are moments when you realize that a gift is far more than what’s inside the package,” Yechezkel said. “When a soldier is here alone while their family is thousands of miles away, we want to be the hand that connects them.”

He added that families in Los Angeles entrusted the organization with delivering their love directly to their children serving in Israel.

“The families in Los Angeles sent their love, and we had the privilege of bringing it directly to their sons and daughters,” he said. “Seeing the emotion in their eyes when they receive the surprise is something that’s difficult to put into words. As far as we’re concerned, no soldier should ever feel alone.”

The birthday initiative is part of a broader series of programs designed to support lone soldiers serving far from their families, reinforcing the message that even across continents, personal connections can help bridge the distance.

NEW YORK (VINnews)  — Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed hit back at President Donald Trump on Sunday after the president shared a social media post contrasting the candidate and his wife with Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, in a post which was widely criticized as Islamophobic and racist.

Trump has repeatedly attacked El-Sayed since the progressive Democrat secured a decisive victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary last week, advancing to the November general election. His latest post on Truth Social featured side-by-side photographs of the two couples alongside the caption, “Two very different Americas.” The post identified El-Sayed by his full name, a practice increasingly adopted by Republican critics since his primary victory. El-Sayed’s wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku, wears a hijab.

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, El-Sayed dismissed Trump’s attack and responded with a personal jab at the president.

“Yes, you’ve got two different visions of America,” El-Sayed said after host Jake Tapper displayed Trump’s post. “One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other but joined together in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you, or two people who genuinely love each other and enjoyed some pancakes together.”

He continued, “Sara and I actually like each other. I don’t know about the first lady and the president, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a bit of a rocky road.”

El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health official who has positioned himself as a progressive, pro-Palestinian candidate, defeated centrist Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens in a closely contested primary last week. He will face Republican Mike Rogers in November in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races.

If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim to serve in the U.S. Senate and could help Democrats regain control of the chamber, dealing a significant setback to Trump’s legislative agenda.

Following his primary victory, El-Sayed celebrated the result on social media, writing: “Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All. Michigan… We won. I am so proud to be your Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Let’s win in November.”

Rogers has sought to portray El-Sayed as a political extremist and, shortly after the primary results were announced, Trump labeled the Democrat a “communist” on social media.

Despite the attacks, El-Sayed signaled he would continue campaigning on economic populism, focusing on the rising cost of living and expanding the social safety net.

“Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries?” he asked during the CNN interview.

Explaining his motivation for running, El-Sayed said he and his wife want a better future for their daughters.

“Sara and I are running because when we look our daughters in the eye, Emmalee and Serene, we want them to believe they’re every bit as capable of having a better future than the one they would have had under the Trump administration,” he said.

El-Sayed also revealed that he recently spoke with former President Barack Obama but declined to say whether Obama would campaign on his behalf.

“I’d like to keep that conversation private,” he said. “But it was a really warm conversation.”

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Officials in one of the countries in the region recently advised counterparts in another country to show flexibility toward Israel and move forward with an agreement, not with the intention of preserving the deal over the long term, but rather as part of a strategy reportedly aimed at lowering Israel’s level of alert while preparations for a broader confrontation continued beneath the radar.

The details were first revealed Monday morning on “This Morning”, a program on Kan News’ Reshet Bet, citing knowledgeable sources. According to the report, during discussions between the sides, a clear recommendation was conveyed to move ahead with an agreement with Israel and subsequently violate it, while preparations for war continued in parallel.

According to information provided by a foreign source, the idea behind the recommendation was to adopt tactical flexibility, pursue a diplomatic track and create a sense of calm in Israel, while secretly continuing preparations for a significantly larger confrontation.

The report compared the approach to the conduct of Yahya Sinwar in the period leading up to October 7. Hamas had signaled for an extended period that it was interested in maintaining calm and reaching an arrangement, while simultaneously preparing for its surprise attack.

The report said the information has now been cleared for publication by Israeli military censorship after its release had been prohibited for several weeks. Due to censorship restrictions, the identities of the two countries involved cannot currently be disclosed.

The information raises concerns that a diplomatic agreement, if reached under such circumstances, could serve not only as a mechanism for maintaining calm, but also as a tool for lowering Israel’s level of alert while the other side continues its military preparations.

The report underscores the possibility that diplomatic overtures and apparent de-escalation could, in certain circumstances, be used as part of a broader strategy of deception rather than as a genuine effort to establish lasting stability.

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Prediction market Polymarket assigned roughly a 30 percent chance Sunday that the United States and Iran would reach a diplomatic agreement on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz by Aug. 31, down from higher levels in recent weeks amid stalled.

As of Sunday evening, the market priced the August 31 outcome near 27-28 percent (with a separate nearer-term August 15 window far lower), according to Polymarket data. Traders have dialed back expectations as talks remain incomplete.

Iran has tied any full reopening of the strategic waterway — a chokepoint for a large share of global oil shipments — to further U.S. concessions. These include compensation for damages from earlier conflict, sanctions relief, an end to the naval blockade, and other measures following a June memorandum of understanding that aimed to pause hostilities and restore transit. Iranian officials have said the strait will not fully reopen until Washington “corrects its behavior.”

Negotiations involving Oman continue. Iran and Oman have advanced work on shipping routes and coordinates for an interim management framework, with reports of a draft nearing final stages pending higher-level approval. U.S. involvement has been indirect through intermediaries, and a broader U.S.-Iran accord on Hormuz traffic has not been finalized.

The uncertainty has supported higher oil prices. Brent crude climbed above $84 a barrel as markets weighed risks to one of the world’s most important energy transit routes.

The Strait of Hormuz remains a focal point of regional diplomacy and energy security concerns. Officials on multiple sides have expressed interest in restoring commercial traffic, but core disagreements over conditions and implementation have kept a comprehensive agreement elusive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews) — President Donald Trump announced Sunday that Will Scharf, a Jewish attorney who serves as White House staff secretary, will become assistant to the president and White House counsel effective Sept. 1.

Scharf will succeed David Warrington, who is leaving the administration for the private sector after serving as White House counsel since January 2025.

Trump praised Warrington for his work as White House counsel and previously as counsel to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Trump described Scharf, who also chairs the National Capital Planning Commission, as having done an “amazing job” in his current roles.

The appointment elevates Scharf, a close legal adviser to Trump, to the administration’s top in-house legal position. He will advise the president on legal matters and help oversee the White House legal operation.

Scharf previously represented Trump in several legal matters, including cases that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. A former federal prosecutor, he clerked for two federal appeals court judges before working as a private attorney.

He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and became deeply involved in Jewish life during his years at Princeton, serving as president of the university’s Chabad student board.

Scharf was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish family with roots in New York and North Florida. He has maintained an observant Jewish lifestyle, including keeping kosher, putting on tefillin daily and attending Shabbat services at a Chabad synagogue, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

His Jewish observance has occasionally drawn attention during his time at the White House.

At a White House Hanukkah reception, Scharf led participants in reciting a blessing. Trump then reacted publicly to Scharf’s level of Jewish observance, saying he had not realized how Jewish Scharf was and calling him “seriously Jewish.”

Scharf has also participated in Jewish events within the administration. He has helped host a Passover gathering for White House staff and participated in a Purim Megillah reading organized with American Friends of Lubavitch, the Chabad movement’s U.S. organization.

Before the yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, on the third of Tammuz, Scharf hosted participants in the Living Legacy conference at the White House. He spoke about the influence Chabad had on his life.

His observance has also surfaced in lighter moments. After White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted a photograph of Scharf aboard Air Force One showing lobster tacos nearby, Scharf clarified that he had eaten vegetarian tacos.

Rabbi Eitan Webb, co-director of Chabad at Princeton, has praised Scharf’s character and work ethic, describing him as exceptionally organized, thorough and respectful.

Trump described Scharf in announcing his appointment as “Tough, Strong, and Smart,” adding that he “loves our Country, and respects the Law.”

Scharf’s legal career includes work as a federal prosecutor and private attorney, as well as representing Trump in litigation. He became closely associated with Trump’s legal team and defended the president in cases that Trump has characterized as politically motivated “lawfare” during the previous administration.

Trump selected Scharf as White House staff secretary after his victory in the 2024 presidential election. In announcing that appointment, Trump described him as a highly skilled attorney who would be an important member of his administration.

Scharf has since taken on additional responsibilities, including chairing the National Capital Planning Commission, which approved plans for a new White House ballroom.

His move to White House counsel marks another significant rise for the Jewish attorney, shifting him from overseeing the documents and information reaching the president’s desk to becoming one of Trump’s principal legal advisers.

Warrington, meanwhile, will leave the administration for the private sector. Before becoming White House counsel, he served as Trump’s personal attorney and as counsel to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Scharf is scheduled to assume the White House counsel position on Sept. 1.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Emergency medical teams from United Hatzalah and Magen David Adom (MDA) rushed to Tzemach Tzadik Street in Lod on Tuesday following reports of a child found unconscious inside a vehicle. The five-year-old boy, who was named as Betzalel David Giller was later declared dead in the hospital.

According to first responders, had apparently been forgotten inside the car for an extended period.

United Hatzalah paramedic Netanel Eitan, together with EMTs Aryeh Mendelzon and Itzik Mishkovsky, said: “We were told at the scene that the child had been left in the vehicle for a prolonged period. We provided initial medical treatment before he was evacuated to the hospital in critical condition.”

MDA crews also administered advanced life support and performed prolonged resuscitation efforts after finding the child unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, and suffering from severe signs of heatstroke.

MDA senior EMT Chaim Shavit and EMT Yosef Yitzhak Sagiv said: “We received a report of a child found unconscious inside a vehicle. When we arrived, a 5-year-old boy was brought to us unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, and showing severe signs of heatstroke. We immediately began advanced resuscitation efforts, including chest compressions and assisted ventilation, and evacuated him by intensive care ambulance to the hospital in critical condition while fighting to save his life.”

Hatzalah EMT Mordechai Stein added: “When I arrived at the scene with my MDA ambulance, I found a 5-year-old boy unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, after being forgotten inside a vehicle. Together with EMTs and paramedics from Hatzalah and MDA, we carried out advanced resuscitation efforts before transporting him, while continuing CPR, to the trauma room at Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh) in Tzrifin.”

United Hatzalah once again urged the public to follow strict safety precautions and never leave children unattended in vehicles, even for a moment. The organization also called on members of the public to remain vigilant during the hot summer months and check parked vehicles for children who may have been accidentally left behind.

WASHINGTON (AP) — When George W. Bush wrote an essay this year about another president named George, he avoided mentioning the one named Donald.

So did Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The three ex-presidents joined a roster of historians and authors in contributing to the In Pursuit project, a 250th-anniversary series that had each writer produce an essay about a president or first lady.

Though the project was explicitly designed to transcend today’s politics, some of its essays nevertheless reflect anxieties that are flaring in the era of President Donald Trump over the use of power, the health of the democracy and the integrity of the presidency.

The project is being curated by Colleen Shogan, the U.S. archivist who was fired without explanation by Trump last year. She instructed contributors not to be partisan or ideological. “Everybody took those instructions and that guidance very seriously,” she told The Associated Press. The goal was for all Americans to “feel welcome to be able to read these lessons and essays and learn something from them.”

The mission, Shogan said, “is to surface the lessons from the past 250 years of American history, so that we can learn from those lessons, from both our successes and our failures, so we can plan for the present and the future. It’s what has been described as debriefing the American story.”

The essays cover 43 presidents — all but Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Trump — and 30 first ladies. They are being published chronologically and weekly into December.

Trump and Biden were judged too fresh to be appraised by history, a call that may have also set aside passions of the moment.

Without naming Trump, Bush’s essay is difficult to read without thinking of Trump’s reluctance to cede power after his 2020 election defeat and his musings about a third term in defiance of the Constitution’s two-term limit.

Bush hails the heroism of humility
Bush’s essay celebrates George Washington, the original “No Kings” guy. Bush, a Republican, hails a man whose legacy only grew larger because he modeled the limits of the presidency for centuries to come.

“Our first president could have remained all-powerful,” Bush writes, “but twice he chose not to. In so doing, he set a standard for all presidents to live up to.” First, Washington resigned as commander in chief of the Continental Army, then set the precedent of serving only two presidential terms before that limit was enshrined in the Constitution.

Bush went on: “George Washington’s humility in giving up power willingly remains among the most consequential decisions and important examples in American politics.” Bush’s essay, released Presidents Day as the first in the series on Substack, drove heavy engagement.

Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led U.S. and international forces in the Afghanistan War, sized up a fellow general, Ulysses S. Grant, in another essay that drew much attention for its parallels with today.

History offers lessons on ‘law over loyalty’
McChrystal presents the Union general and post-Civil War president as a leader who displayed “an absolute commitment to principles larger than personal ambition” and who, before his presidency, resisted pressure on military leaders to “align with political factions and be loyal to a person rather than the Constitution.”

The emphasis on personal loyalty resonates in a time when Trump has repeatedly demanded fealty from officials in his administration.

The “temptation to bend institutions toward personal power is not unique to Grant’s era,” McChrystal writes. “Our future still depends on whether our leaders choose law over loyalty.”

This month, in the latest In Pursuit installment, Democrat Clinton writes about Theodore Roosevelt, focusing on that president’s drive to expand the universe of “we the people” at the expense of powerful corporate interests, while also emphasizing Roosevelt’s exclusionary views on Black and Indigenous people.

The essays frequently address presidents’ failures alongside their accomplishments, a contrast with Trump’s calls for federal cultural institutions to stick to patriotic interpretations of American history.

Presidents, the chief justice and first ladies contribute
Among the In Pursuit contributors are Chief Justice John Roberts (writing about William Howard Taft, the only president who also served on the Supreme Court); Hillary Clinton ( Eleanor Roosevelt ); Michelle Obama ( Jacqueline Kennedy ); GOP operative Karl Rove ( William McKinley ); documentarian Ken Burns ( Franklin D. Roosevelt ); and historian Michael Beschloss ( Lyndon Johnson ). Democrat Barack Obama presents Abraham Lincoln.

The project is being staged by More Perfect, a nonpartisan alliance of dozens of presidential centers along with academics and organizations dedicated to advancing democracy. It is where Shogan now practices her archivist craft that Trump shut down by firing her in February 2025.

She still has not been told why. Nor has Congress apparently been notified of the reason. The law requires Congress to be told but does not specify a deadline. The National Archives is the central repository of federal documents both precious and routine, and its leader has discretion over which records to preserve and display, and how.

“That is a position that used to be a nonpartisan position, much like the Librarian of Congress, the secretary of the Smithsonian,” she said. “And I took that very seriously and acted the entire time when I was archivist in a nonpartisan way.”

The White House did not respond when asked why Trump fired the archivist and whether the administration will tell Congress the reason.

Trump has long begrudged the archives for notifying the Department of Justice of his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office following his first term, though Shogan was not working for the agency then.

Shogan sees hunger for history without a slant
Shogan said she has been overwhelmed with the public response to the series so far and figures that speaks to a hunger for history shorn of partisanship. The essays have received more than 1 million cumulative views on Substack and her podcast of the same name registered 160,000 audio downloads and nearly 64,000 YouTube views at last count. A documentary about the series is scheduled to air on PBS in October.

In the essays, readers learn something new not just about the giants, but about presidents such as Millard Fillmore — “a historic punchline — best remembered, ironically, for being so forgotten,” in the words of his essayist, former New York congressman Steve Israel.

Then there was Franklin Pierce, presented by his essayist as a pro-slavery president and “permanent victim” of Washington’s alcohol-soaked culture.

Yale history professor David W. Blight recounts how Pierce won the presidency for the Democrats in 1852 despite vicious trolling by the Whigs. Fielding Mexican War veteran Gen. Winfield Scott in that election, they labeled Pierce, who also served in the war, the “hero of many a well-fought bottle.”

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews)-President Trump has been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the conflict with Iran if Tehran fully reopens the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials cited by The Wall Street Journal.

Trump has even raised the idea privately with senior aides of walking away from the confrontation without securing a nuclear deal, the officials said.

The Journal reported that for weeks the president had positioned the full reopening of the strategic waterway — a critical chokepoint for global oil shipments — as a potential basis for claiming success in the months-long conflict. Officials indicated that if Iran’s nuclear program can be kept in check and shipping traffic resumes through the strait, Trump would be more inclined to extend the current ceasefire indefinitely.

A White House official told the Journal that the United States has “completed all of its military objectives against Iran” and that the president’s focus is now on securing the flow of the world’s energy through the Strait of Hormuz, while keeping military options available should Iran further target ships.

The report comes amid ongoing diplomatic efforts involving the United States, Iran and regional partners such as Oman aimed at restoring free passage through the waterway. Iranian officials have recently advanced more extensive demands in exchange for reopening the strait, including significant financial payments, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region and an end to the American naval blockade.

The conflict, which began earlier in 2026, has centered in part on control of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program. Trump has publicly expressed optimism that the war could end soon while emphasizing U.S. naval control over the area.

WASHINGTON (VINnews) – Marla Maples, the former wife of President Donald Trump, says Trump carries an Aramaic copy of the Zohar over his heart for protection and healing, offering a rare glimpse into what she described as the president’s spiritual side.

Maples made the comments in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, in which she discussed her relationship with Trump, her longtime connection to Kabbalah and Judaism, and her ties to Israel.

Maples said Trump carries the Book of Pinchas, part of the Zohar, inside his clothing and keeps it over his heart. She said the book is intended to provide “protection and healing.”

She also described Trump as having “a very big heart,” saying his desire to help others was part of what drove him toward public service and ultimately the presidency.

Maples said she and Trump had discussed the possibility of him becoming president as far back as the late 1980s, years before his political career began. She said Trump had a strong vision and intuition about world events and a desire to help the country.

Maples, who was married to Trump from 1993 to 1999, said her own spiritual journey led her to Kabbalah and Israel. As a Christian, she said she wanted to better understand Israel and visited the country numerous times, including spending extended periods in Safed and visiting the graves of Jewish religious figures.

She said she has followed a kosher lifestyle for more than 20 years and has observed Shabbat for many years. Maples also noted that Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism, giving Trump extensive exposure to Jewish traditions.

Maples recalled a frightening incident in Nigeria about 20 years ago when she said three armed men stopped her group, pointed guns at them and forced them to lie on the ground.

During the ordeal, she said she began reciting the Shema, the central Jewish declaration of faith.

“I said, ‘God, your hand is in everything,’” Maples recalled. She said the men eventually left and that the experience strengthened her connection to the prayer, which she said she now recites every morning.

Maples also spoke about her relationship with Trump’s family. She said she and Melania Trump exchange messages and that the first lady has always been kind to her and her daughter, Tiffany.

She said she has also worked to maintain close relationships between Tiffany and Trump’s children from his first marriage, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump. She said the family now spends time together during holidays.

Maples expressed strong support for Israel following the Oct. 7 attack and criticized rising antisemitism in the United States.

“The antisemitism that we see here in the United States breaks my heart,” she said, adding that she prays and “sends light” and was moved by how Israelis came together after the attack.

Maples also discussed her connection to Israel through her daughter Tiffany’s marriage to Michael Boulos. Boulos’ father, Massad Boulos, has served as a Trump adviser on Africa and the Middle East. Maples said she believes Trump wants peace rather than war.

Beyond her spiritual interests, Maples is working with Israeli entrepreneur Niv Yaakobi on a wellness venture that is expected to launch first in Israel and in Hebrew. She also described Israeli singer Eden Ben Zaken as her favorite Israeli singer after the two worked together.

Maples said her spiritual practices, including meditation and wellness, remain an important part of her life.

But her account of Trump carrying the Zohar close to his heart stands out as one of the most unusual details she has publicly shared about the president’s personal spiritual life.

NEW YORK (JNS/Josnathan Tobin) – Members of the Jewish community, as well as Democrats and Republicans of all backgrounds with a moral compass, have been expecting too much of Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Decent people who oppose the normalization of Jew-hatred may have hoped that the Senate Minority Leader would have moved heaven and earth to stop Dr. Abdul El-Sayed from winning his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate in Michigan. And once El-Sayed narrowly won that primary this week, principled political observers might have hoped that Schumer would have refused to endorse a man whose campaign centered on an effort to stigmatize and drive American Jews out of the public square in the general election.

A victory for antisemitism

Adding another left-wing populist allied to the Democratic Socialist faction who seeks to revive destructive ideologies of the past is one thing. So, too, is the accession to a position of influence of yet another politician who has been steeped in the toxic leftist ideas of the present, such as critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism, all to exacerbate racial divisions. Several already represent the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Once you officially accept that the progressive extremists that comprise “The Squad” in that legislative body are legitimate colleagues, the start of a Senate version isn’t much of an innovation.

But El-Sayed is more than just another leftist.

At a time when there is an unprecedented surge of antisemitism around the globe and in the United States, the notion of simply shrugging off the possibility of someone who rationalizes terror against Jews and seeks to demonize the State of Israel and its people (who make up half of the world’s Jewish population) ought to be unacceptable for any decent person. For a person with Islamist beliefs of his own, El-Sayed has the chutzpah to seek to redefine Judaism so as to eliminate a key element of faith and Jewish peoplehood—the love of and devotion to the land of Israel, and the obligation to support its Jewish citizens. That alone would be reason enough to oppose him.

With respect to Schumer, that was never going to happen.

There are two reasons for this. One is simply a matter of the nation’s political organizational chart. Schumer, for better or worse, is the Senate Minority Leader. The responsibilities that go with that position make it impossible for him to stand aside from the battle for the open Michigan seat that Democrats desperately need to take back control of the Senate.

The other reason is personal. It would have been entirely out of character for a man whose entire adult life has been singularly devoted to partisan politics, rather than principled advocacy or good governance, to suddenly grow a conscience and say he will have nothing to do with El-Sayed.

A life of partisanship

After all, politics is Schumer’s life. He has literally never had any other job, having won a seat in New York’s State Assembly right after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1974. He won election to the House in 1980, where he served for 18 years before winning a Senate seat. He spent his first 18 years in the Senate (1999-2017) working assiduously to climb to the top of his party’s Senate caucus and the last decade busily defending that position. And he knows he will have a battle on his hands to retain it next January, whether or not the Democrats gain a majority.

Over the course of his 52 years in elective politics, he has employed every piece of partisan artifice and skill imaginable—not to mention every dirty trick in the book—to get ahead. As such, there was simply no way for him to say that El-Sayed’s open antisemitism was a bridge too far and that he would oppose his election. It didn’t matter that the 41-year-old political hopeful has pronounced claims to defend Jewish safety, which are as disingenuous as the ones touted by another Islamist, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Doing so would not only have made it impossible for him to retain his leadership position when the 120th Congress convenes next year and organizes itself. The drift to the left among congressional Democrats is painfully obvious to a person who is as single-minded as Schumer about obtaining every advantage on Capitol Hill, as opposed to pursuing ideological goals. Indeed, it’s entirely possible that a Senate Democratic caucus, whose membership voted 40-7 in April of this year to block arms sales to Israel, might have ousted him sooner than that, had he openly opposed El-Sayed.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), another relentless foe of Israel, is already making noises about deposing Schumer as leader. And New York’s progressive activists and Democratic Socialists, who elected Mamdani nine months ago, are already chomping at the bit to unseat him when his term is up in 2028. “Squad” ringleader and fellow New Yorker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a possible challenger, if she doesn’t run for president that year.

Once you grasp these facts, his decision is easy to understand.

The same is true for New York’s junior senator, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. She is the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). And it’s her job to elect Democrats.

It’s true that Schumer privately opposed El-Sayed during the primary. But fearing the anger of his party’s base—not to mention Senate colleagues like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who warned him to stay out of the race—he confined his efforts to private conversations with donors.

Much like his “private” opposition to former President Barack Obama’s disastrous Iran nuclear deal in 2015, Schumer wouldn’t stick his neck out even on a matter of life and death. He may have spent his career boasting to Jewish audiences that he was the shomer, or “guardian,” of the State of Israel in Congress.

But that was never true—or at least not when it might have required some courage or a willingness to pay a political price for defending Jewish security in the Middle East or the United States. In 2024, Schumer did it again with a speech attacking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give cover to his party’s leaders, former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, for their retreat from a position of support to a Jewish state fighting for its life.

Gillibrand and Schumer see their task as being concerned about picking people who can win elections and help them obtain power, not to judge their moral character. That’s why they were prepared to stand by Graham Platner—the Nazi-tattooed, Israel-bashing Maine oysterman—after he won the Maine primary earlier this year until allegations of sexual misconduct finally ended his run for the Senate.

As Schumer said in an interview with Punchbowl News this week when explaining his decision on El-Sayed: “The issue isn’t me. It’s about winning.”

A Democratic majority and the ability to thwart, if not impeach, President Donald Trump is the only thing that matters to Democrats. And that is the agenda that Schumer will follow.

A new ‘Profiles in Courage?’

Nobody expects Schumer to write a new chapter in President John F. Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage about courageous senators who paid a heavy political price for voting as their conscience, rather than their party, dictated. But this is no ordinary moment in American politics.

At no previous time in American history has antisemitism been such a potent factor in public discourse.

Since the Hamas-led Palestinian-Arab terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the volume of Jew-hatred in the American academy, media, culture, the arts, politics and online chatter has grown to a level unknown in living memory. The demonization of Israel and the Jewish people by toxic leftist ideologies that falsely labeled them as “white” oppressors didn’t just lead to all those demonstrations on campuses and city streets, where mobs openly called for Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews everywhere (“Globalize the intifada”).

It has created an atmosphere where blood libels against the Jewish victims of an intended genocide were accused of falsey implementing genocide against the Palestinians. Such lies became normalized in newspapers like The New York Times and in political debates. Liberal Democrats who wouldn’t bend their knees to the new Jew-hatred have been ousted from their seats in the House. And now, Jews have good reason to fear that the incitement against them from people in power like Mamdani is putting them in imminent danger of physical violence.

At such a moment, business and politics as usual of the sort that Schumer has practiced during a half-century of his grubby and grasping efforts to win political prizes is simply insufficient to the challenge of the moment.

The ‘shomer’ that wasn’t

Perhaps Schumer never thought that he’d be required to behave in a manner that would conform to his Jewish stump speech about being a shomer. His own life story exemplified the classic 20th-century American Jewish success story, in which a member of the community rose to great heights while not having to shed his Jewish identity. Had he left politics a decade ago when he finally achieved his ambition to be the Democrats’ Senate leader, he would have been able to escape that charge. But it was the 75-year-old’s fate to last long enough to be in a position of great influence when his fellow Jews were in danger.

We have already seen how uninterested he has been in defending Jewish security. That was amply demonstrated when Americans learned in 2024 that he had advised the Board of Trustees of New York’s Columbia University that “only Republicans” were concerned about their toleration and encouragement of antisemitism on their Morningside Heights campus after Oct. 7. He may have dared to write a book about antisemitism that was published in 2025 as part of his ongoing efforts to pose as a defender of the Jews. But by the time it came out, revelations about his communications with Columbia, as well as the atmosphere of Jew-hatred simmering within his own party, forced him to cancel his book tour.

Characteristically, that humiliation left him undaunted. Indeed, Schumer may well imagine that he can go on indefinitely as one of the nation’s most powerful men without being held accountable for being as bereft of principles as he is of shame.

A moral test

Yet the El-Sayed candidacy isn’t just another embarrassment for the country’s most prominent liberal Jew. Along with every other element of the current surge of vile bigotry that is changing the face of American politics in ways we are only beginning to understand, it is the kind of moral test that comes along once every generation or two.

It’s a moment when lifelong legislators are required to step up and respond to the challenges of history. And we know that most Democrats, including almost all of those who seek their party’s presidential nomination in 2028, are siding with the antisemites like El-Sayed—or staying silent.

Republicans have done better, but if they allow someone like Vice President JD Vance to succeed Trump, then they, too, will fail.

Fair or unfair, public figures are judged not so much on the sum of their lifework but on how they respond to those singular moments in time, whether it is the debate about slavery and the Civil War in the 19th century or the rise of the totalitarians in the 20th. We don’t know what will happen in the coming years, but it is becoming apparent that the explosive growth of antisemitism will, in one way or another, create yet another pivotal chapter in history. Many people will likely emerge from this struggle with their reputations either destroyed or enhanced.

At such a time, it is a pity that rather than a person of courage and character, American Jews are stuck with the likes of the feckless Schumer to represent them.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS. Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

JERUSALEM (VINnews)-New right-wing party leader and former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said the government has abandoned the fight over Israel’s global image and called for an “army of hasbara” led by a public diplomacy “chief of staff.”

Erdan made the remarks in an interview with The Jerusalem Post after announcing the launch of his new right-wing party. He said Israel needs a coordinated public diplomacy and public relations effort headed by a figure equivalent to the IDF chief of staff.

“You need an army of hasbara (public diplomacy) and PR that would be led by ‘Ramatkal’ (IDF chief of staff) of hasbara,” Erdan said. “It never happened. You don’t have it. You have only one agency here, one agency there. You have few people with little money. They can’t fight with their arms tied behind their backs.”

He accused the government of neglecting one of the country’s most important battles. “The Israeli government abandoned maybe one of the most important battles that we were supposed to fight: the fight for the truth and the narrative,” Erdan said.

Erdan warned that the approach has contributed to declining support among American Democrats and younger Republicans. He said leaders of Turning Point USA told him Israel is “losing the young generation of the Republican Party.”

He described his own public diplomacy budget upon arriving at the U.N. as starting at $10,000 for activities in New York and argued that Israeli diplomatic missions lack sufficient resources for effective outreach. Erdan said he has a comprehensive plan to put Israel on the offensive in the narrative war and to better expose its adversaries.

NEW YORK (AP) — Two drivers of Mercedes AMG cars have filed a class action lawsuit against the luxury car company, claiming that the AMG logo on their driver’s seat gets so hot that it literally brands them and causes burns.

Gabriel Lahijani and Karendeep “Karina” Bath allege the front seats of certain Mercedes AMG vehicles have a design defect where the raised metallic AMG logo is “reasonably expected to contact an occupant’s upper back, neck, or shoulder,” according to the court document filed earlier this week in the U.S. District Court of California’s Western division.

The plaintiffs want Mercedes to compensate them for any medical expenses, as well as any pain, suffering and emotional distress they can prove at trial. They also want Mercedes to pay for other owners to have the logo removed from their cars.

Mercedes-Benz couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.

Lahigani, a Los Angeles resident, had leased a new 2026 Mercedes-AMG E-Class vehicle from an authorized Mercedes-Benz dealership in Los Angeles, according to the suit. He reported receiving second-degree burns on his back on May 31, after entering his vehicle wearing a tank top. A board-certified dermatologist subsequently documented first- and second-degree burns, describing the injury as “AMG inscribed.”

Roughly six weeks later, Bath, a Chatsworth, California resident, received similar burns allegedly from the logo design while wearing a sleeveless top. After parking her Mercedes-AMG vehicle in Los Angeles, Bath returned to the vehicle and entered the driver’s seat, the suit said. Her shoulder immediately touched the logo, causing a burning sensation. In the following days, a mark in the shape of the AMG logo “darkened and became visible on her skin, consistent with a thermal contact burn,” the lawsuit said.

In December, Mercedes-Benz USA and parent company Daimer AG agreed to pay $149.6 million to settle allegations that the automaker secretly installed devices in hundreds of thousands of vehicles to pass emission tests, according to an announcement by a coalition of attorneys general.

According to the coalition, between 2008 and 2016 the German automaker equipped more than 211,000 diesel passenger cars and vans with software devices that optimized emission controls during tests but reduced the controls during normal operations.

NEW YORK (VINnews)-The captain of a boat that capsized near Liberty Island in New York Harbor, killing a woman and a 5-month-old girl, was arrested early Sunday and charged with reckless endangerment, police said.

Manuel Hernandez, 46, of Manhattan, was taken into custody around 2:30 a.m. Sunday and charged with 13 counts of reckless endangerment, according to the New York Police Department.

Police received a 911 call at about 10:25 p.m. Saturday reporting an overturned vessel near Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty. The NYPD Harbor Unit, SCUBA Team and Aviation Unit responded.

Twelve people had already been pulled from the water by the time officers arrived. Divers later located a 27-year-old woman and a 5-month-old girl in the water. Both were taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in critical condition and later pronounced dead, police said. Their identities were being withheld pending family notification. Authorities have not confirmed whether the two victims were related.

A total of 14 people were aboard the vessel, police said. Twelve were rescued. Eleven of them were saved by the captain and crew of the first boat to reach the scene, a hot tub boat called See the City II, according to the company’s owner, Adam Schwartz.

The capsized vessel was a 22-foot bowrider, a common type of recreational powerboat, according to CNN affiliate WABC. The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating the cause of the incident.

Witnesses described a large emergency response involving helicopters, boats, ambulances, police and firefighters.

This is a developing story.

NEW YORK (VINnews)  — A teenager in China who had just completed his national college entrance examinations found himself hospitalized in serious condition and unable to walk after spending weeks lying on the couch and in bed while using his mobile phone intensively.

According to reports in local media, the teenager spent more than five hours each day playing video games and browsing social media, often without getting up or engaging in even minimal physical activity.

After two weeks of almost complete inactivity, the teenager began experiencing severe pain, significant swelling, and extreme tenderness in his right calf. Eventually, even simple walking became impossible for him. His family initially believed he was suffering from ordinary muscle pain caused by prolonged sitting. However, as his condition rapidly deteriorated, they rushed him to a local hospital for urgent medical attention.

Following a comprehensive medical examination, doctors diagnosed the teenager with deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a serious condition in which a blood clot forms in a deep vein, most commonly in the leg.

Doctors explained that while the teenager may have had a genetic predisposition to excessive blood clotting, the main immediate trigger for the dangerous condition was his prolonged immobility and spending extended periods lying down in front of his phone.

The medical team issued a warning to the public, noting that common symptoms of DVT include unusual swelling in one leg, pain, a feeling of heaviness, redness, and localized warmth.

Doctors also stressed that additional symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain, or coughing up blood could indicate a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism. Such symptoms constitute a medical emergency and require immediate evaluation in an emergency department.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reaffirmed Israel’s opposition to a reported 15-point framework for Gaza, declaring that the Israel Defense Forces would not withdraw from the Strip until Hamas is completely disarmed and insisting that Israel would continue military operations against threats to its forces and civilians.

Opening the weekly Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu also dismissed what he described as growing speculation that Israel was retreating on multiple security fronts, arguing that recent reports of Israeli concessions were unfounded.

“We reject the 15-point document,” Netanyahu said. “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed. When I say disarmed, I mean all weapons—heavy weapons, lighter weapons, every weapon. We are talking about a real disarmament, not a fictitious one.”

He added that Israel is discussing the issue with the United States, saying Washington has proposed several ideas, some of which Israel accepts and others it does not.

“We know how to stand firm on matters that are vital to Israel’s security,” he said.

Netanyahu also addressed Iran, expressing appreciation for U.S. President Donald Trump and the strategic partnership between Jerusalem and Washington in preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“With or without an agreement, as long as I am prime minister, Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu declared. “The existence of our state is not negotiable.”

Referring to recent regional tensions, Netanyahu argued that Iran has refrained from attacking Israel directly because it understands the consequences.

“Iran attacks countries throughout the region, and even beyond it, but there is one country it has not attacked—Israel,” he said. “It knows the powerful blow we would inflict if it did.”

Turning to Lebanon, Netanyahu said Israel has continued military operations against Hezbollah despite reports suggesting otherwise.

“In recent days, Israel has acted forcefully in Lebanon and eliminated terrorists, including in the Ali al-Taher Ridge area,” he said. “We are conducting an important operation, acting with determination and wisdom alongside the Israel Defense Forces to eliminate threats.”

On Gaza, Netanyahu reiterated his longstanding opposition to Palestinian statehood.

“As long as I am prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state,neither in Gaza nor in Judea and Samaria. There will be neither a ‘Fatahstan’ nor a ‘Hamastan,'” he said.

He stressed that Israel’s security and the safety of its citizens remain non-negotiable, adding that the military would continue targeting threats against Israeli troops and civilians.

Netanyahu concluded by defending his government’s security record, citing Israel’s military operations in Rafah, along the Philadelphi Corridor, in Lebanon, including the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and two rounds of strikes against Iran.

“We have proven time and again that we act where necessary to protect Israel’s security,” Netanyahu said. “We know how to stand our ground, even with our closest allies, when it is required.”

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The Israeli NGO Regavim filed a landmark appeal with the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg late last week, seeking the complete annulment of sanctions imposed on the organization by the Council of the European Union.

In early June, the EU announced sanctions against several Israeli organizations, including Regavim and its director, alleging that the group was responsible for legal action against an EU-funded structure built illegally near Herodium in the Judean Desert that was later demolished.

The appeal marks the first legal challenge filed by an Israeli organization or citizen against European Union sanctions.

According to Regavim, the appeal argues that the EU’s evidentiary file is fundamentally flawed, relying on what it describes as unprofessional analysis and reports published by media outlets and organizations identified with the far left.

The appeal, submitted by an international team of senior attorneys led by Paris-based lawyer Salomé Lamason and Jerusalem attorney Nick Kaufman, identifies what it calls numerous factual distortions.

Among them, the filing challenges the EU’s attribution of the demolition of a school in the Palestinian village of Jib a-Dhib to Regavim. The organization argues that the demolition was carried out by Israeli authorities pursuant to an order issued by the Jerusalem District Court because the building posed an immediate risk of collapse.

Beyond disputing the evidence, Regavim argues that the sanctions themselves represent an anti-democratic and heavy-handed practice, imposed without any hearing or due process.

“The sanctions create an atmosphere of intimidation for every citizen,” the appeal states, arguing that no individual can know whether, when, or on what grounds similar sanctions might be imposed on them.

The organization further contends that the measures significantly infringe upon the rights of European Union citizens to donate to or otherwise support Regavim’s lawful activities. It also argues that the sanctions effectively prohibit business relationships with European-registered companies, including banks, credit card companies, payment processors, and other international financial service providers.

Regavim also argues that the sanctions constitute a serious violation of freedom of expression and the rule of law because they punish a lawful civil society organization solely for exercising its right to petition Israeli courts and participate in democratic legal proceedings.

“The European Union has constructed an embarrassing legal smokescreen to persecute a legitimate civil society organization simply because it publicly criticizes the EU’s unlawful activities,” said Regavim Director-General Meir Deutsch.

According to Deutsch, the appeal seeks not only to reverse the substantial financial damage caused by the sanctions but also to challenge what he described as an attempt by European institutions to intimidate Israeli civil society.

He further accused the European Union of pursuing broader efforts to advance the establishment of a Palestinian state that, in his view, would endanger Israel’s future.

“Anyone who believes in democracy and free elections should be deeply concerned by Europe’s decision to impose crippling sanctions on civil society organizations simply because they dare to hold views that differ from those of the governing establishment,” Deutsch said.

New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) Something unusual appeared in the New York Times this morning: a long, warm, photograph-rich feature about Holocaust survivors in Borough Park. It followed a tzadeikes, Rizy Horowitz, of the Nachas Health and Family Network, who has served the survivor population there since 1990, and it centered on the hundredth birthday party of Reb David Einhorn z”l, an Auschwitz survivor who was niftar four days after the celebration.

The tone was unusually affectionate. The chassidishe crowd was portrayed quite positively and appeared accurately as devoted, joyous, and multigenerational. Rav Dovid Goldwasser shlita’s retelling of the cabbage that rolled to Mr. Einhorn’s feet before Yom Kippur 1944 was reported without a raised eyebrow.

For readers in Borough Park and across the tri-state area who have spent the last several years reading a rather different New York Times, the question forms instantly: why this article, and why now?

The conjecture offered here is that the piece functions, whether consciously or not, as a kind of ballast. It is an attempt to restore what the paper has been steadily losing — credibility with Jewish readers, and specifically with Orthodox Jewish readers — at a moment when that erosion has become expensive.

The most immediate example is that Israel’s Consul General in New York, Ofir Akunis, ordered the cancellation of every New York Times subscription held at the Israeli Consulate in New York. Akunis accused the paper of publishing “false blood libels” against the Jewish state, said it consistently demonizes and delegitimizes Israel, and charged that it leans on anonymous sources while turning to anti-Israel activists and even Hamas figures when it does name them. Someone in management must have said, “Okay, let’s run that positive piece Helene Stapinski was working on.”

In 2022 and 2023, the Times ran a sustained series attacking chassidishe yeshivos in New York. The series was experienced in Borough Park and Williamsburg as an assault on a community’s right to educate its children according to its mesorah. It generated regulatory pressure, legislative hearings, and a durable sense that the paper of record was anti-Semitic and regarded the chassidishe world as a serious problem rather than a community to be understood.

It had also depicted Israel as a cruel caricature attacking Gazans, and not as acting in self-defense against the largest anti-Jewish murder spree since the Holocaust. In April 2019, the international edition published a cartoon depicting the Israeli prime minister as a dog on a leash held by a blind, yarmulke-wearing American president. The paper apologized and subsequently ended syndicated political cartoons in that edition altogether. The image itself was drawn from a visual vocabulary with an unmistakable lineage.

In October 2023, the Times fronted casualty figures from the Gaza health ministry regarding the al-Ahli hospital blast, attributing them in a headline before verification. An editors’ note followed, conceding the paper had relied too heavily on unverified claims.

And underneath all of it sits Laurel Leff’s Buried by the Times, the scholarly account of how the Sulzberger-era paper systematically minimized and back-paged the destruction of European Jewry as it was occurring. That history is documented, and is known to every literate Jewish reader over the age of thirty.

THE ACCUMULATED RECORD OF PROTEST

The consulate cancellation is the latest entry in a file that has been thickening for years, and the identity of the complainants are the central institutions of Jewish communal and political life.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has made the Holocaust-coverage history an explicit part of his standing indictment of the paper. Responding to a Times editorial about his incoming government, he wrote that the paper had buried the Holocaust on its back pages for years and demonized Israel on its front pages for decades, adding that he would simply ignore its advice. That is a head of government invoking Laurel Leff’s thesis as settled fact.

He has since gone further, telling Fox News that he was examining whether a country can sue the Times, calling its Gaza reporting clear defamation. The occasion was a front-page photograph of an emaciated Gazan child; the paper later issued a correction acknowledging that the child had a preexisting medical condition contributing to his appearance, a fact omitted from both the article and the caption.In May 2026, a Nicholas Kristof opinion piece alleging that Israel used dogs to attack in unprintable terms Palestinian detainees drew a threatened lawsuit and was dismantled by HonestReporting’s Rachel O’Donoghue in the Wall Street Journal, who showed that the central claim rested on Euro-Med, a Hamas-linked NGO with a documented record of provably false assertions.

Professional media monitors have reached the same conclusion from the inside of the industry. Zvika Klein, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, said American coverage was strong in the days after October 7 but that the Palestinian narrative quickly took over, and named the Times as by far the worst offender — systematically anti-Israel, and dramatically more so than any other outlet.

On the yeshiva series, the communal response was organized, sustained, and unusually public. Agudath Israel of America mounted an aggressive media and billboard campaign — the billboard placed within sight of the Times building itself — under the banner “Know Us,” calling the coverage a smear campaign that presented a grossly distorted picture of the yeshivos and of chassidishe life generally. When the paper ran a front-page piece on special education funding, Agudah’s response noted this was the thirteenth such front-page article in three and a half months, and observed that attacks on visibly Jewish New Yorkers had risen sharply over the same period.

Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudath Israel’s executive vice president, addressed the substance directly. He described the yeshivos as warm learning environments that transmit the mesorah, said the portrait of children subsisting in a cruel and abusive setting was simply untrue, and pointed out that the data showed them to be safer than the public schools. Agudah also noted the state’s public comment period had produced some 350,000 letters, overwhelmingly from parents asking that the yeshiva system be left alone — and asked whether the Times could not have found a single one of them to interview.The Anti-Defamation League — no one’s idea of a chassidishe advocacy group — issued its own statement of concern, following earlier criticism from Jonathan Greenblatt. The ADL warned that with hate crimes against visibly identifiable Orthodox Jews rising sharply, such stereotyping can add fuel to the fire, and asked that the paper’s readers refrain from generalizing about these communities.

The ADL raised the alarm twice, even while acknowledging that the yeshiva system warranted scrutiny.The Know Us campaign eventually took its case to the Pulitzer committee in an open letter alleging bias and ethics violations, noting that the Times had quoted Yaffed board members without disclosing their affiliation and had claimed credit for state policy changes that were years in the making.

Read together, this is a decade’s worth of the Jewish world’s most established institutions — a sitting prime minister, a consul general, the Agudah, the ADL, the editor of Israel’s English-language paper of record — telling the same newspaper the same thing.

Clearly, an institution carrying that cumulative record, and facing organized cancellation campaigns from Jewish subscribers and institutional advertisers, has an interest in producing coverage that demonstrates warmth toward precisely the community it has most alienated. A feature about beloved elderly survivors in Borough Park, with a righteous nonprofit administrator at its center and no policy argument anywhere in it, is close to an ideal instrument for that purpose. Nobody can object to it. It costs the editorial page nothing. And it can be pointed to.

THE OTHER SIDE

Aristo, whom the Rambam writes was the smartest person that had lived, writes that one should always state the other side when presenting an argument or a theory and then analyze its arguments.

First, the Times has run human-interest features on Holocaust survivors for decades, including during periods when no one was accusing it of anything. The Claims Conference’s Vanishing Witnesses data — half of living survivors expected to be gone within five years, ninety percent within fifteen — is a legitimate news hook that any paper would recognize. The story of a man who lives to see his hundredth birthday and is niftar four days later writes itself.

Second, the Times’ overall subscription numbers have continued to grow. A cancellation campaign that is loud is not necessarily a campaign that is large, and there is no public evidence of a subscriber exodus of the magnitude the conjecture requires. A consulate’s institutional subscriptions, however symbolically weighty, are a rounding error on the balance sheet.

Third, and most important: large newsrooms are not single-minded. The features desk that assigned this piece and the editors who handled the yeshiva investigation are not the same people, do not report to the same person, and in many cases do not speak to one another. Attributing coordinated strategy to an institution of that size usually says more about the observer’s need for coherence than about the institution.

WHAT REMAINS

The strongest version of the conjecture does not require a conspiracy. It requires only that even callous New York Times editors respond to sustained criticism — that a paper repeatedly told it has a Jewish problem becomes marginally more receptive to a pitch about Jews it can admire without complication.

But the community that the Times investigated in 2022 and the community it celebrated this month are the same community. The grandchildren in the photographs at the Seville Manor, in matching striped polos, attend the yeshivos the paper had spent two years describing as failures. The survivors being served falafel and knishes on 48th Street built those institutions deliberately, out of ash, as their answer to what had been done to them. A publication capable of holding both facts in view at once — that the schools and the survivors are one enterprise, not two — would not need any ballast.

Reb Dovid Einhorn z”l ate half a cabbage and saved the rest for after the fast. Whatever the Times’ reasons for printing that, it was worth printing, and there are fewer than 187,000 people left in the world who can supply such a story.

But what the New York Times did here was not Teshuvah. They have furthered the anti-Semitism that is visibly tangible to anyone, and for that they must do far, far more penance.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

NEW YORK (VINnews) — In a wide-ranging and candid interview published Saturday, Megan Romer, co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), outlined the organization’s uncompromising positions on Israel while presenting its broader vision for the U.S. economy, policing, and foreign policy.

Speaking on The New Yorker’s podcast with editor David Remnick, Romer described support for Israel as a “red line” within the DSA, one of the leading organizations on the American left and a political home for many progressive activists and elected officials.

Asked about the DSA’s position on Israel and the Jewish state, Romer said the organization considers any support for Israel unacceptable.

She cited the DSA’s recent decision to withdraw its endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after the congresswoman voted in favor of a House resolution stating that denying Israel’s right to exist constitutes antisemitism.

“Our convention debated it and decided that this is a firm red line,” Romer said. “There will be no military or economic support of any kind for Israel.”

When asked about the organization’s preferred solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Romer said the DSA supports “a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital,” adding that the position “can safely be read as a one-state solution.”

The interview’s most controversial exchange centered on Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

Romer was asked about her support for a DSA-backed candidate who attended a pro-Hamas demonstration on October 8, just one day after the massacre. She acknowledged that had she been in New York at the time, she likely would have attended the demonstration herself.

“I think the events of October 7 were, in many ways, inevitable,” Romer said. “If you put people into an open-air concentration camp and deny them basic rights, dignity, food, and the ability to live with minimal security for so long, you have to expect that eventually they will rebel.”

When challenged over Hamas’ record on LGBTQ rights, Romer responded that while she would not describe Hamas as an LGBTQ-friendly organization, she believed that “most LGBTQ people killed in Palestine were killed by Israeli bombs.”

Beyond the Middle East, Romer outlined the DSA’s broader political agenda. She said democratic socialism means giving citizens democratic control over their workplaces, housing, and essential industries such as energy, water, and internet infrastructure.

According to Romer, the goal is not merely to create a more humane version of capitalism but to establish a democracy genuinely governed by the working class, which she defined as people who earn wages rather than income from investments.

On domestic policy, Romer advocated eliminating police funding altogether.

“That means zero funding,” she said. “It means taking money away from police departments and investing it elsewhere—fully funding social services, schools, and after-school programs.”

She argued that the safest communities are not those with “a police officer on every corner,” but those that invest heavily in social services, public spaces, and community programs.

Economically, Romer said the DSA supports significantly higher taxes on the wealthy.

“We definitely believe in taxing the rich heavily,” she said. “Most billionaires accumulated their wealth by exploiting the working class in a very significant way.”

Asked to identify an existing socialist country worthy of emulation, Romer pointed to Cuba, praising its Family Code as an example of participatory democracy and describing it as “the most LGBTQ-friendly constitution in the world.”

She dismissed criticism of Cuba’s authoritarian government, arguing that many of the country’s economic hardships stem from decades of U.S. efforts to undermine the regime.

On the war in Ukraine, Romer criticized Western foreign policy and opposed continued U.S. military assistance to Kyiv.

“We don’t believe in pouring American money and weapons anywhere in the world,” she said. “It doesn’t make anything better.”

Instead, she called for a large-scale diplomatic effort aimed at negotiating an end to the war and reducing Russian pressure on Ukraine.

Romer also explained why the DSA declined to endorse Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, arguing that the organization must remain politically independent.

“Our credibility depends on being socialists first and offering a genuine alternative to the system, not serving as a rubber stamp,” she said.

Looking ahead to the 2028 presidential election, Romer said the DSA hopes to field its own candidate, mentioning United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and Rep. Ro Khanna as possible contenders.

“In the end,” Romer concluded, “we make our decisions democratically from within. We go into communities, have a million conversations, and change the minds of real people.”

NEW YORK (VINnews)-New York Police Department officials are warning that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s public rhetoric targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is elevating the security risks surrounding the Israeli leader’s planned visit to the city next month, according to law enforcement sources.

Netanyahu is expected to travel to New York for the United Nations General Assembly and address the body on Sept. 26. Police sources told The New York Post that the visit will require substantial, presidential-level security measures because of the mayor’s repeated criticisms, calls for his arrest and encouragement of protests.

“Basically, he’s making what would be considered a Category 1 hurricane that we deal with every year into a Category 5 because of his words,” one law enforcement source said.

Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, has described Netanyahu as a war criminal who belongs in The Hague and declared him unwelcome in New York. In July, the mayor initially explored whether city authorities could enforce an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Netanyahu before acknowledging that the NYPD lacked the legal authority to do so. He subsequently urged supporters to “take to the streets” during the visit, citing protest as a bedrock of the city.

Police sources said officers will need to secure hotels, dining locations and other sites associated with the visit. The size of the protective detail has not been finalized but could involve 60 or more officers, far exceeding the typical assignment of one sergeant and eight detectives for most dignitaries.

Officials expressed concern that the mayor’s statements could embolden agitators. “What’s going to stop one of the protesters from becoming a vigilante and trying to hurt or God forbid kill him?” one source said. They also warned of risks to officers and the public, noting that protesters acting in what they believe is the mayor’s interest could lead to injuries or worse.

Sources pointed to earlier security challenges, including a bomb discovered outside Gracie Mansion in March involving two men allegedly inspired by ISIS, as a reminder of potential threats. A city government insider described the situation as a “powder keg,” linking Mamdani’s rhetoric to a reported rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the city.

Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro said the mayor’s comments “only fan the flames,” making protection of UNGA dignitaries more difficult. “It’s time for the mayor to do his — stand with the city and the men and women in blue protecting it, not with those on the radical protest line,” Munro said.

An NYPD spokesperson said the department will determine the size of the detail based on a threat assessment and will coordinate with the Secret Service, State Department and other federal agencies, as it does annually for foreign dignitaries.

TEL AVIV (VINnews)-Israeli startup Hemispheric says it has developed an artificial intelligence system that can diagnose a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions through a 15-minute brain-wave test.

The company claims its system, called Descartes, is the first to offer a precise, objective method for measuring and decoding human brain activity. It says the technology can identify conditions including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia risk, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, obsessive-compulsive disorder, tinnitus, ADHD, sleep disorders and early cognitive decline, while also assessing their severity.

Patients wear a sensor-equipped cap connected to an app and perform tasks on a screen. The process generates data that the company’s AI model analyzes. Founders compare the approach to a blood test or X-ray, providing doctors with an objective tool in a field that has long relied on interviews and questionnaires.

The system is built on a database of 100,000 test subjects and roughly a quarter-million hours of brain-activity data. It contains 6 billion parameters.

Co-founder and CEO Dr. Hagai Lalazar, a computational neuroscientist, and CTO Gidi Littwin, a computer vision expert who helped develop Apple’s Face ID and led hand-tracking work for Vision Pro, founded the company.

Hemispheric employs more than 110 people across three countries and has raised $52 million from venture investors. It operates data-collection sites in Tel Aviv and the Philippines and plans to open new research facilities in Tel Aviv and Boston by the end of September. Together the sites are expected to handle about 85,000 diagnostic tests a year.

The company has presented its system to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. It plans to submit results from a PTSD clinical trial to the agency as early as next year. Hemispheric has also conducted a pilot study of 122 Israeli combat veterans who served in Gaza to assess PTSD.

by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Those that knew the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Yoel Teitelbaum zt”l, loved him. After the Nazi beasts yimach shmam almost completely destroyed European Jewry, the Rebbe faced one of the most enormous challenges a spiritual leader could face. And he succeeded. The Satmar Rebbe rebuilt a broken nation, one person at a time.

He took broken men. He taught them. He inspired them.

Since his passing in 1979, two generations have passed. Those that knew him are getting older. Many of his Bnai Bayis are no longer with us, r”l. How then can we gain insight into this great Tzaddik and builder of our nation?

In this tribute, it is suggested that we can see a tiny vignette of the Satmar Rebbe from an as yet un-mined and untapped source. The source is one whose existence is not so well known — his oeuvre of responsa.

The two volumes of the Satmar Rebbe’s responsa were compiled by Rabbi Ephraim Yoseph Dov Ashkenazi and were printed twice. The first edition was printed in 1982, the second sixteen years later in 1998. Both were printed at the Printing House of Rabbi Sender Deutsch in Brooklyn. But let us get back to the content of his writings, and the insights.

A brief example: Insight can be gained into this extraordinary giant from a mere few words hidden in responsa #31 of his halachic writings.

It is an answer to someone who is bitter because of his own sins. He first tells him how to lift himself out of the abyss but he also tells him how not to give up. What follows is an exact translation.

“For one that does not believe that the Holy One forgives those who have angered him, even if they have angered him without limit, recites a bracha l’vatalah every day, Chas v’shalom. “Chanun HaMarbeh lisloach” Gracious is He who forgives exceptionally. For the Creator forgives without limit. Our sages have already discussed the greatness of a Baal Teshuvah — for where they stand even the greatest of people do not stand.”

They are a few simple words. But they inspire and build.

It is well known that the Satmar Rebbe built an extraordinary community. He built a community that gave the world Hatzolah, outstanding Bikkur Cholim, Kimpatoriums and much much more.

However, all of these accomplishments and his genuine ahavas-Yisroel-imbued interactions with individuals and their vivid personal recollections, tend to obscure another aspect of this extraordinary man.

They obscure the fact that the Satmar Rebbe zt”l was a giant of a Talmid Chochom with deep insight and chiddushim in every corner and facet of Torah. There are thirty three Teshuvos in the Orech Chaim section of his responsa. We will review them all, and a few others in the other sections as well:

Responsa Divrei Yoel — Orech Chaim

Netilas Yadayim

The Orech Chaim section begins with the heart-wrenchinging question (OC #1) of, “May saliva be used for the ritual washing of hands in the morning?” It is a holocaust era question that speaks volumes not only of Jewish deprivation and suffering, but of Jewish dedication, and idealism in their all-encompassing commitment to fulfill Halacha. His response to Rav Chaim Elazar of Munkatch, of course, was that it may not be used, the halachic status of saliva being something unclean, in and of, itself.

Tefillin

In a letter to Rav Yitzchok Isaac Lieberman of Chicago, dated Tuesday, January 1st, 1952 (Parshas VaYigash 5712) the Rebbe advised left handed people to try to fulfill the opinion of the Arizal that they should also wear their Tefillin on the left hand, but to do so at home and without a Bracha (OC responsa #2).

The Rebbe also dealt with (OC #3) the halachos of a weakened right arm that got better and the person still showed a preference to use his left hand— did the person now become a left-handed person in terms of Tefillin? His response to Rav Simcha Bunim Sofer of Yerushalayim on Tuesday, March 22, 1955 (Parshas VaYikra 5715), differentiated between whether he now uses his left hand because he became used to it (which would be a halachic debate) or because his original right hand is weaker (in which case he has become a de facto lefty).

***A Yesoma is getting married soon. If anyone wishes to donate toward the chasunah please click here. https://shulspace.org/yeshiva-of-kings-bay/donationForm?CN=1487

Newly Discovered Seforim

He also addressed (OC #4) the halachic status of the newly unearthed commentary of the Meiri which was found in an Italian monastery in 1948 in a letter to Rav Yoseph Scheinberger of Yerushalayim. He cites the responsa of the Chsam Sopher (Vol. VI CM #61) that one should not learn any sefer that does not contain haskamos — approbations of the greatest of the leading Rabbis, and not just any approbations. He discusses how his grandfather, the Yetiv Laiv gave a haskama to a great Talmid Chochom, only to discover to his chagrin that the work contained heresy. He withdrew the haskama.

[YH This position was the same one taken by the Chazon Ish, although neither referred to the other in their responses to the new Meiri.]

In Responsa #5, written to his student Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Kahn of Yerushalayim, he deals with a number of issues, including that his grandfather, the Yetiv Lev’s custom in Tefillin regarding Stumos and Psuchos (the indents) was like the opinion of the TaZ (OC 32:26) and not like the Rambam. He found this out after he inherited the Tefillin of his grandfather and they were opened. He also deals with when the War of Gog and Magog will take place, before Mashiach arrives or after. He brought many proofs that it will be after and the arrival of Eliyahu may be before but it is unclear.

The Satmar Rebbe also addresses the fact that he was uncomfortable taking payments from the Germans — but never told others not to do so, because he was not entirely clear on the issue. He discusses the nusach of the Shabbos zemer “L’saadah b’hada” or “b’hadei” — concluding that on Friday night B’hada should be said while on Shabbos day it should be b’hadei.

In Responsa #6 to Rabbi Akiva Blau of Kehilas Krasnow, the Satmar Rebbe discusses whether an old pair of beloved Tefillin can be restored by writing over the letters or is it a problem of shelo k’sidran — that the Parshios would not have been written in consecutive order. It is a long analysis and he concludes that it may only be done if the Parshios were at least minimally kosher.

A Sefer Torah that Fell r”l

In Responsa #7 to Rav Shlomo Boruch Prager, the Satmar Rebbe deals with a case of a Sefer Torah that fell, but it is unclear whether any part of it had touched the ground or whether it was saved adequately during the fall. He concludes, after a long analysis that a doubt regarding a sin is often worse than a sin itself and advises that the Kehillah adopt certain measures.

Shuls, Torah Readings, & Mechitzos

In Responsa #8 written to Rav Michoel Eliezer Lipman Perslager, a student of the Avnei Nezer, he deals with an elderly person who can no longer walk to a distant shul and the only shul within walking distance is one where the majority of its minyan are Shabbos violators. The Satmar Rebbe recommends that he daven at home.

In Responsa #9 to Rav Shalom Yechezkel Shraga Hash, the Satmar Rebbe deals with the issue of the Torah readings during the beginning of Nissan and whether it is proper to initiate the reading of the Nesiim prior to Mussaf. He concludes that it should not be done in this manner.

In Responsa #10, to Rav Chananya Yomtov Deutsch the former Av Beis Din of the town of Helmitz, the Satmar Rebbe discusses the status of low Mechitzos even among the Orthodox in America. He discusses his amazement at Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l’s position that the purpose of a Mechitzah is to prevent mixing and not to prevent Histaklus — glancing. He cites a number of proofs that clearly state that the purpose is to prevent Histaklus.

In Responsa #11, also to Rav Deutsch, he discusses a halachic argument he had with Rav Elya Meir Bloch, the Telze Rosh Yeshiva zt”l concerning the Satmar Rav’s opinion that adding onto Binyan on Shabbos is a biblical prohibition regarding Mechitzos. He also rules that television is certainly to be considered Avodah Zarah and Gilui Arayos, non-kosher and apikorsus.

***A Yesoma is getting married soon. If anyone wishes to donate toward the chasunah please click here. https://shulspace.org/yeshiva-of-kings-bay/donationForm?CN=1487

Wine and Brachos

In Responsa #12 the Satmar Rebbe discusses with Rav Yonasan Shteif zt”l a distinction between making wine from small raisins versus larger raisins. He questions whether it is permissible with the smaller raisins on account of the fact that the blessing may not be HaGafen according to a number of Achronim.

In Responsa #13 to Rav Levi Yitzchok Greenwald, the Av Beis Din of Arugas HaBosem in Brooklyn, he discusses in a very long responsa that the Borei Nefashos can serve as a general Bracha Achronah when there are some other doubts [YH: It is interesting to note that Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l held to a similar position and was attacked for it in the Me’aneh l’Igros].

In Responsa #14 he discusses with the Rav in Montevideo, Uruguay, Rav Asher Shmuel Katz, a forthcoming Chanukas HaBayis of a shul, and rules that regarding whether to recite a Shehecheyanu or a Boruch HaTov v’hamaitiv that they should take a new fruit and recite the Shehecheyanu on that, having the building in mind. [YH: Rav Chaim Kanievsky advises the same in his sefer on Hilchos HaMikdash]

Shabbos

In Responsa #15 to Rav Moshe Dovid Teitelbaum, he deals with whether there is a Mitzvah of honoring Shabbos or any other Mitzvah in placing a date upon a letter. The Satmar Rav explores the issue extensively and concludes that there is not even a hint of such a Mitzvah.

In Responsa #16 to Rav Moshe Yisroel Feldman, he discusses whether there is an issue of Yahareg ve’al ya’avor — giving up one’s life when there is a governmental decree that the stores must be open on the Shabbos. He ruled that it is only applicable when they are doing it for the purpose of religion but when not on account of an anti-religious decree (but an economic one) it is not Yaharog ve’al yaavor.

In Responsa #17 the Rebbe discusses his position that a lock and key cannot address the issues of Shehiya — leaving non-fully cooked food on an uncovered flame before Shabbos begins. [YH: The Satmar Rebbe’s position here disagrees with that of Rav Moshe Feinstein (IM OC IV #74 Bishul 22,23,35) and that of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach SSK 1:71 and Rav Vosner in Shaivet HaLevi 1:91 “U’b’Emes. It agrees with the Chazon Ish cited by Rav Moshe Shternbuch in Teshuvos V’Hanhagos OC I #207:8 and the position of Rav Elyashiv cited in Meor HaShabbos IV p. 149]

In Responsa #18 the Satmar Rebbe re-establishes his position that the Halacha regarding when Shabbos ends and begins is like the majority of the Rishonim and the Shulchan Aruch that held of the two Shkiyas theory (like Rabbeinu Tam). Nonetheless, he writes that it is worthy to be concerned for the view of the Gaonim that sunset is the time.

In Responsa #19 the Satmar Rebbe deals with whether an item that is for sale can be used by the storeowner himself on Shabbos or whether it would be considered Muktzah. He rules that he may do so if it is for the destined use of the item — i.e. if the item is shoes then it would be permissible to wear the shoes. He rules that they may not be used for a different purpose.

In Responsa #20 to Rav Shlomo Yitzchok Levin, the Rebbe answers an attack on a question that his father had posed regarding why the resting of a man’s child on Shabbos (Shvisas Bno) shouldn’t be derived from the verse demanding the rest of a man’s servant and animal on the Shabbos. He cites proof from a responsa of the Rashba that the question is indeed quite valid.

In Responsa #21 he deals extensively with the question of whether an invalid height of a Mechitzah will invalidate a Tzuras HaPesach in an Eiruv. He ruled that it does.

In Responsa #22 the Satmar Rebbe deals extensively with city Eiruvs where the Tzuras HaPesach is more than four tefachim away from the walls of the city’s Eiruv. He ruled that it is problematic.

In Responsa #23 he deals at length with an attack from Rabbi Naftoli Tzvi Brach on his interpretation of Omed Merubah al haparutz regarding Mechitzos, particularly as to whether the Mogain Avrohom is in conflict with a Maharit.

In Responsa #24 he writes that he was not too sharp against Rabbi Brach but if he was — he apologizes for his tone. He discusses another aspect of the issue in that responsa.

Pesach

In Responsa #25 the Satmar Rebbe deals with why regarding the obligation of v’higadeta l’bincha on Pesach the Rambam didn’t list as a separate Mitzvah the obligation to mention the exodus from Egypt each night? He answers that the obligation is from the same root and the main Mitzvah recited and explained on Pesach just needs to be reviewed in the regular nights.

Sefirah

In Responsa #26 the Satmar Rebbe writes to Rabbi Yeshaya Asher Zelig Margolios regarding the date of his grandson’s wedding that the Minhag in Satmar is not to get a haircut until Erev Shavuos and certainly not to conduct a wedding. He also discusses a solution to the problem of the Rambam’s view of a Chuppah when the woman is in a state of impurity — that merely informing the groom of her status negates the Rambam’s animadversions. [YH: This is a revolutionary position]

In Responsa #27 in a letter to Rav Menachem Paam in Eretz Yisroel he writes that the custom is to hold the upsherin in Meron Lag Ba’Omer and that he should uphold this custom.

Yomim Noraim

In Responsa #28 he tells the congregation in Margareten that they may indeed retain their Chazan, Reb Yechiel, for Shabbos, Yom Tov and the Yomim Noraim even though he is a mourner. His reasoning was that since there is no one better than him, the Halacha permits it. [YH: This is a revolutionary view The love of the Satmar Rebbe in this responsa is readily apparent].

In Responsa #29 he writes to Rav Meyer Greenwald in Toronto not to worry about being too ill this year to blow shofar and that Hashem counts the desire to fulfill the Mitzvah as if he did it. He differentiates this situation with that of wanting to be in a Sukkah and it is raining because that is not in the norm of the weather patterns in Eretz Yisroel, but illness due to the infirmities of age are quite normal. He blesses him with a complete recovery. [YH: The love of the Satmar Rebbe in this responsa too is readily apparent].

In Responsa #30 he recommends to Rav Avrohom Yitzchok HaKohain against excessive fasting for sins and suggests that charity be given instead. As far as an amount — he suggests that it should be equal to the tzaar of a fast to that individual.

In responsa #31 he advises someone who sinned terribly how to go about making things right. In explaining the element of “Azivas HaChait — no longer doing the sin” he advises the repentant sinner to make personal fences and boundaries. As far as expressing regret he advises him to do so in a heartfelt manner each day privately with Hashem, but to do so for a brief time and the rest of the day to serve Hashem with joy and hope that Hashem will certainly help him. Thridly, he advises him to engage in more Torah study, Tefilah and charity as much as he can and to do so with a sense of humility. He then offers additional encouragement

In responsa #32 to Rav Yuda Krauss, he explains the parameters of eating on Yom Kippur for an ill person. If there is any doubt whatsoever as to whether it could endanger life then one should eat. He did explain that care should be taken to ensure that the doctor is not saying these things because he wishes to undermine religious observance. Therefore, he advises that care must be taken to research a reliable doctor.

Mechias Amalek

In Responsa #33 he disagrees with the suggestion of the Maharam Shick (on Taryag Mitzvos 605:2) that in a Jewish leap year one should try to fulfill the Mitzvah of remembering Amalek in Parshas Ki saitzay so that 12 months do not pass without this Mitzvah.

Other Responsa

In Even HoEzer #107 the Satmar Rebbe argues with Rav Moshe Feinstein zatzal on the controversial issue of artificial procreation. Rav Moshe tells us that the Midrash tells us that Ben Sira was conceived in such a manner involving Yirmiyahu and his daughter, and concludes that Yirmiyahu would never have later consulted with Ben Sira in spiritual matters if he was a halachic Mamzer. Artificial procreation, according to Rav Moshe’ s psak does not cause mamzeirus. The Satmar Rebbe dissents. He rules that even if all Rav Moshe’s suppositions were correct, Yirmiyahu’s daughter performed no real “maaseh —active deed.” Going to the doctor, on the other hand, would constitute an active deed.

In Responsa #157 he provides a remarkable explanation in the complex area of Hilchos Shabbos. There is a difficult Rosh that has eluded all the commentaries on the notion of Psik Raisha Delo Nicha Lay regarding other prohibitions other than the prohibition of Shabbos. The Satmar Rebbe’s reading resolved all the problems completely.

IN CM #98 the Satmar Rav discusses his opinion the notion of relying on lone opinions in times of difficulty (Daas Yachid BeShaas HaDeChak). It is a controversial area of halacha. Some take the idea at face value. Chazon Ish ruled that the concept is true only when the bottom line halacha was like that sole opinion and it was rejected out of a stringency, but not because the underlying was rejected. The Satmar Rebbe took a middle ground — it is a halacha that is true that during times of difficulty we rely on lone opinions, but the step may nly be taken by the leaders of the generation. The logic of his position is remarkable. Those unattuned to the underlying halachic difficulties that he is addressing between the lines will not fully appreciate the beauty of his remarkable intellect and pen.

Of course there were hard line positions that he had taken that were not understood by others. But no matter where anyone stands, and by any yardstick, he was a Tzaddik Gammur and a Gadol HaDor.

In conclusion, what we had in the Satmar Rebbe zatzal was a remarkable individual with the charisma to rebuild a nation, he combined his love for others with his charisma, and with the vast knowledge of the depth and breadth of the entirety of Torah.

Chaval al de’avdin.

***A Yesoma is getting married soon. If anyone wishes to donate toward the chasunah please click here. https://shulspace.org/yeshiva-of-kings-bay/donationForm?CN=1487

The author can be reached at [email protected]

ROME (VINnews)-The latest round of talks between Israel and Lebanon concluded Thursday in Rome, with Israeli officials saying several options remain under discussion for a foreign monitoring force to oversee implementation of the Lebanon pilot zones.

Sources emphasized that Israel will not approve any country actively pursuing cases against it in international courts in The Hague.

Switzerland is currently viewed as one of the leading candidates to deploy personnel to monitor the agreement on the ground in Lebanon, according to Israeli diplomatic correspondent Guy Azriel.

Senior Swiss officials have held multiple rounds of talks with their Israeli and American counterparts on the matter since February. Swiss Ambassador to Israel Simon Geissbühler maintains close ties with Israel’s leadership, while Switzerland also enjoys strong relations with the Lebanese government — a combination that makes it potentially acceptable to both sides.

Switzerland’s long-standing neutrality and proven record in similar international monitoring missions further strengthen its candidacy. The prevailing assessment is that Israel could live with a Swiss role, positioning the country as one of the most serious contenders for the monitoring force.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito confirmed Friday he’s staying on the nation’s highest court, weeks after a swell of speculation about a possible retirement.

“Obviously, I’m here for another term,” Alito, 76, said in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal’s editorial section.

Discussion of Alito’s future hit a fever pitch in June, when a mistake by a veteran Supreme Court reporter at National Public Radio resulted in the erroneous publication of a previously prepared retirement story.

The story was quickly retracted and the court confirmed it was inaccurate, but that did not stop the talk about what Alito might do. A retirement would likely have given Republican President Donald Trump a chance to name a fourth Supreme Court justice.

In a rare interview in his chambers, Alito also discussed the state of the court, rejecting the idea that political partisanship affects his decisions.

“I vote in every case the way I think the case should be decided,” he said. “If that means a high correlation with what Trump wants, fine. If it means zero correlation with what Trump wants, fine as well.”