The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations advanced the nomination of Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun to be the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism in a bipartisan vote on Wednesday.
If confirmed by the full Senate, the Chabad rabbi would become the second Chassid to be approved by the Senate for a senior administration position after Mitchell Silk was confirmed as assistant secretary of the treasury for international markets during the first Trump administration in 2020.
Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) voted with every Republican to confirm Kaploun, who faced opposition from some Democrats over his partisan commentary about their responses to Oct. 7 and antisemitism.
“Democrats are afraid to even say the words ‘radical Islamic terror’ while Trump says it openly,” Kaploun told Mishpacha magazine in 2024. “Democrats refuse to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists. How can you go along with that?”
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) all voted to oppose Kaploun’s nomination.
The Anti-Defamation League and Orthodox Union Advocacy Center welcomed the committee’s vote to advance Kaploun and recommended his Senate confirmation.
A Miami-based businessman who was born in Israel and raised in Connecticut, Kaploun has a lower profile than his predecessor, Deborah Lipstadt, who had a decades-long career as an academic expert on Holocaust denial before assuming the antisemitism envoy role.
At his confirmation hearing in November, Kaploun said that he would focus on education as a means to combat Jew-hatred.
“We must educate, educate, educate about the history of the Jewish community in America and the Judeo-Christian values our country was founded on,” the rabbi said. “Antisemitism is anti-American. Those who chant ‘death to the Jews’ all too often chant ‘death to America.’”
The U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism is a position within the State Department and has a mandate to fight antisemitism overseas.
On Wednesday, the Foreign Relations Committee also advanced the nomination of former Fox Nation host and current State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce to be the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations on a party-line vote. JNS
{Matzav.com}
In a dramatic escalation of the year-long battle over control of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Trump administration has officially rebranded the institution with the president’s name and placed new signage on the headquarters, even as the courts continue to wrestle with who actually runs the organization.
The renaming marks the latest chapter in a tug-of-war that began after the Department of Government Efficiency targeted the institute early this year. What had once been a largely academic, congressionally funded think tank devoted to conflict resolution has turned into the center of a fierce constitutional dispute.
The State Department announced on Wednesday that the facility will now operate as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, saying the title was chosen to “reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history.” Fresh signage bearing the new name went up at the building located near the State Department.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly offered a blistering assessment of the institute’s past performance, declaring: “The United States Institute of Peace was once a bloated, useless entity that blew $50 million per year while delivering no peace.” She continued, “Now, the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, which is both beautifully and aptly named after a president who ended eight wars in less than a year, will stand as a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.” She closed her statement with, “Congratulations, world!”
The legal fight over who controls the headquarters has seesawed since March, with the building shifting hands multiple times through court orders following the DOGE takeover. A final ruling from the federal appeals court remains unresolved.
The institute insists it is an independent body created by Congress and therefore not subject to executive authority. Washington’s stance, however, is that the organization falls squarely within the executive branch.
When Trump dismissed the institute’s board earlier this year, the entire staff was removed as well and the building was transferred to the General Services Administration. A federal district judge later overturned that move, returning control to the institute’s leadership, but the appeals court reversed the ruling only weeks later.
As a result, employees have been terminated twice, and the GSA currently holds the keys to the building.
Despite the institutional turbulence, the headquarters is slated to host a major diplomatic signing ceremony on Thursday. Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame are expected to sign a peace accord there, with senior figures from the African Union, Qatar, Uganda, the UAE, Angola, Burundi, Kenya and Togo in attendance, according to Kagame adviser Yolande Makolo.
Online, the institute’s website had not been updated with the new name as of Wednesday night, but its main headline read, “President Donald J. Trump to Sign Historic Peace Agreement at USIP Headquarters,” highlighting the Congo-Rwanda deal set to take place at the site.
The U.S. Institute of Peace traces its origins to the mid-1980s, when Congress founded it as an independent, federally funded nonprofit aimed at conflict prevention and resolution outside the purview of the State Department. President Ronald Reagan signed the enabling legislation in 1985. Before DOGE shut down its operations, the institute had an active presence in 26 conflict areas, including Afghanistan, Mali, Burkina Faso and Pakistan.
Adding to the swirl of attention around the rebranding, speculation is mounting that Trump will be honored with a new peace prize from FIFA during events surrounding the World Cup draw in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
{Matzav.com}
The White House unveiled a sweeping proposal on Wednesday aimed at dramatically softening the fuel economy benchmarks that Joe Biden locked into place last year, marking another effort by the administration to ease the pathway for selling gasoline-powered cars.
Under the plan released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the required fleetwide average for model year 2031 would drop to 34.5 miles per gallon—far below the 50.4 mpg level set under Biden. The agency also wants to reset the standards for earlier years and then raise them incrementally between 0.25% and 0.5% each year through 2031.
NHTSA noted that the Biden-era policy had demanded much steeper annual increases: 8% for models built in 2024 and 2025, and 10% for 2026. By contrast, the new plan represents a significant rollback that the administration argues will reduce the cost of purchasing a new vehicle by an estimated $900 on average, even though it would lead to substantially higher fuel consumption nationwide.
The agency is also seeking to overhaul the program itself. A key element of the proposal would scrap credit trading between automakers beginning in 2028 and discontinue certain credits tied to efficiency-enhancing features. In its explanation, NHTSA said the current system has become a “windfall for EV-exclusive manufacturers that sell credits to other non-EV manufacturers.”
President Donald Trump is expected to present the proposal alongside the chief executives of Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent company of Chrysler.
Earlier this year, Trump signed a measure eliminating fuel economy penalties for the auto industry, and according to NHTSA, companies will not face any fines retroactive to the 2022 model-year period.
The effort to eliminate credit trading has major implications for companies like Tesla and Rivian, which have generated sizable revenue streams by selling credits to manufacturers still producing gas-powered vehicles.
Ford’s CEO Jim Farley applauded the move ahead of Wednesday’s event, saying Trump was “aligning fuel economy standards with market realities. We can make real progress on carbon emissions and energy efficiency while still giving customers choice and affordability.”
GM’s Mary Barra, speaking at an event on Tuesday, underscored the pressures the industry faced under California’s now-blocked zero-emission rules. Before Congress intervened in June, states following California’s model were preparing to require that “35% of new vehicles sold in 2026 must be EVs,” she said. “We were going to have to start shutting down plants because we weren’t going to be able to build and sell those vehicles.”
NHTSA had previously projected that the 2022 standards for passenger cars and trucks would cut fuel use by 64 billion gallons and eliminate 659 million metric tons of emissions, delivering a net financial benefit of roughly $35.2 billion to American drivers.
Long-range projections from the same 2022 rule estimated more than 200 billion gallons of gasoline saved through 2050.
Environmental groups immediately blasted the new proposal. Kathy Harris of the Natural Resources Defense Council argued that “The Trump administration is sticking drivers with higher costs at the pump, all to benefit the oil industry. Drivers will be paying hundreds of dollars more at the pump every year if these rules are put in place.”
Trump has repeatedly advanced policies to ease the sale of gasoline vehicles and slow the shift toward electric models, including revoking EV tax credits and preventing California from imposing a 2035 phase-out of gas-powered car sales.
{Matzav.com}
A recently completed Pentagon inspector general review concluded that War Secretary Pete Hegseth did not follow certain internal protocols earlier this year when he relayed sensitive operational information through the Signal messaging platform.
According to a source who reviewed the findings and spoke with Newsmax’s Carla Babb, the technical breach does not appear to cross legal lines because Hegseth possesses the authority to declassify Pentagon material himself. This, the source said, indicates that “he did not break federal law.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, after examining the report on Wednesday, brushed off the uproar around the episode—mockingly dubbed “Signalgate”—as yet another politically motivated strike against Hegseth. “The arc of the story is that it’s just a never-ending stream of efforts to undermine Pete Hegseth, right? The whole controversy,” Schmitt told The Wall Street Journal.
“So, they didn’t get him in the confirmation process? Make a big deal out of this. … So, it’s just an ongoing effort. I wouldn’t expect it to end with this, but I think again, the president has faith in Secretary Hegseth. I think he’s doing a great job.”
The inspector general’s conclusions were released as Hegseth remains at the center of criticism from both parties over a deadly September 2 operation targeting a suspected narcotics vessel in the Caribbean. The mission resulted in 11 fatalities, including two individuals who died following a second strike. Members of Congress have openly rebuked Hegseth for permitting Navy Vice Adm. Frank Bradley to carry out that follow-up attack.
Although Hegseth chose not to meet in person with IG investigators, he provided a written account maintaining that he deliberately downgraded the information in question and insisted that its disclosure would not—and did not—jeopardize troops or compromise active missions.
Yet Babb’s source said the IG determined that the details Hegseth posted in Signal conversations—threads that included senior national security personnel and, mistakenly, a journalist—might have created risks had any of the material been intercepted.
A public, unclassified version of the inspector general’s report is set to be released Thursday.
The inquiry stems from an April episode in which Hegseth circulated specifics about U.S. airstrikes in Yemen to a Signal chat shared with high-level national security aides and Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. He also forwarded the same material to another Signal group that included his wife.
The information he passed along came from a SECRET//NOFORN message sent by Gen. Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, via the Pentagon’s secure Secret Internet Protocol Router Network.
Multiple sources familiar with the exchange say Hegseth sent the strike details through a private Signal channel, omitting the original classification labels.
Although the watchdog completed its review in September, the document did not reach Capitol Hill until this week—delayed partly due to the government shutdown.
{Matzav.com}
Israel announced on Wednesday that the remains transferred a day earlier by Hamas were not those of the two hostages whose bodies are still being held in Gaza.
According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, forensic specialists at the Abu Kabir institute in Tel Aviv completed their examinations and notified the families of the two missing victims — Israeli police officer Master Sgt. Ran Gvili and Thai citizen Sudthisak Rinthalak — that the material handed over did not match either man. “The efforts to bring them home will not stop until the mission is complete — returning them for a proper burial in their country,” the PMO said.
Kan News reported that both Hamas and the Red Cross were continuing efforts to locate the bodies of Gvili and Rinthalak and were expected to keep searching over the coming days.
Separately on Wednesday, the Al Quds Brigades — the military arm of Palestinian Islamic Jihad — said it was working with a Red Cross team in northern Gaza in an attempt to locate the remains of a hostage. A senior Red Cross official told The Times of Israel the previous day that the items delivered to the IDF consisted of “small remains, pieces” of a body.
Unlike past instances in which Hamas announced in advance that it intended to hand over remains, the terror group did not issue any such statement this time. After receiving the material from the Red Cross, IDF personnel carried out an initial inspection and held a brief ceremony led by a military rabbi before police escorted the remains to the Abu Kabir institute for identification.
Palestinian media outlets claimed the remains had been found in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
Throughout the week, conflicting reports circulated suggesting that Hamas had located a hostage’s remains but was delaying their return. Defense officials initially said they anticipated that some remains might be transferred on Monday, only to later clarify that none would be.
Gvili and Rinthalak were among the 251 people abducted during the October 7, 2023 massacre, when Hamas-led terrorists stormed communities across southern Israel and murdered roughly 1,200 individuals, most of them civilians.
{Matzav.com}
During an appearance at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, age 76, sidestepped the question of when he planned to retire from political life.
“I don’t measure it by time,” he says. “I measure it by missions, by tasks.”
Netanyahu, already the longest-serving premier in Israel’s history, has contended with several health issues over the past few years. Even so, he insisted that his political base remained strong, pushing back against polling that shows his bloc facing headwinds ahead of next year’s elections.
“I’m supported by a great majority of the people in the country,” he says. “You’d never know that by the foreign reporting, but that’s it. That’s why I keep winning these elections.”
Looking ahead, Netanyahu said he intended to focus on advancing technological breakthroughs — especially artificial intelligence — as well as expanding regional diplomacy toward what he described as a “broader peace.”
“I think there’s another revolution coming,” he says regarding technology. “I intend to steer it, along with the achievement of a broader peace. These are two enormous tasks that I’d like to take on. And you know, when history is within reach, you don’t step aside. You step forward, and that’s what I’m doing.”
{Matzav.com}
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