War Secretary Pete Hegseth reaffirmed Wednesday that the Trump administration will continue using military force to target drug-running vessels in South American waters, insisting that Washington has full legal authority to act. “We got lawyers on lawyers, all the authorities necessary to do so, treating these terrorists like the al-Qaida of the Western Hemisphere,” Hegseth declared during remarks at a defense industry conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The statement came as America’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier entered the Southern Command’s area of operations — a region that has already seen deadly U.S. airstrikes sink numerous suspected smuggling boats. Military officials estimate that at least 75 people aboard those vessels have been killed in recent strikes.
The heightened naval presence has intensified talk that President Trump may be weighing more aggressive action in the hemisphere, possibly targeting Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, who remains wanted in the United States on narcoterrorism charges.
Efforts by Senate Democrats to restrict Trump’s ability to launch a military operation against Venezuela were struck down by Republicans, leaving the White House with broad latitude to continue its campaign in the region.
{Matzav.com}Russia announced its willingness to return to peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul, according to a statement reported Wednesday by the state-run TASS news agency. The Kremlin says the initiative for restarting dialogue lies entirely with Kyiv, as the war grinds toward the end of its fourth year.
The last direct encounter between the two sides took place on July 23 in the Turkish city, marking the first attempt in months to revive diplomatic communication. That session, which lasted only 40 minutes, ended without progress.
During that brief meeting, Ukrainian officials suggested arranging a summit in August between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of breaking the deadlock. The Kremlin later declared that Putin was open to such a meeting — but insisted it take place in Moscow, a demand Ukraine flatly rejected.
TASS quoted Russian Foreign Ministry official Alexei Polishchuk as saying that Turkey has consistently encouraged both parties to return to the table. “The Russian team is ready for this, the ball is in the Ukrainian court,” he said, framing Moscow as prepared to engage whenever Kyiv agrees.
Ukrainian officials, however, have dismissed Moscow’s narrative, maintaining that Russia’s ongoing aggression and refusal to withdraw troops are the real reasons talks remain frozen. They argue that the Kremlin’s statements are merely an attempt to shift blame for the stalled peace efforts.
{Matzav.com}
President Donald Trump’s initiative to phase out the penny — once dismissed as a symbolic gesture — has rapidly reshaped the nation’s cash economy, leaving retailers, banks, and consumers grappling with the sudden absence of the one-cent coin.
The administration began winding down penny production earlier this year, framing it as a move toward fiscal efficiency. In February, Trump had declared his intention to “rip the waste out of our great [nation’s] budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.” That message set off a chain of actions at the Treasury Department and U.S. Mint, culminating in the official end of penny circulation this week.
On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will travel to the Philadelphia Mint to strike the final batch of one-cent coins for general use, bringing closure to a chapter in U.S. monetary history that began with the Coinage Act of 1792.
Although collectors will still be able to obtain special-edition pennies in small quantities, the Mint’s massive penny-making machinery — responsible for more than 3.2 billion coins in the last fiscal year — is now being retired. Yet, the process has underscored how deeply the penny remains ingrained in daily commerce. Transitioning away from a coin that’s been part of American life for over two centuries has proved anything but simple.
Retailers, grocers, and gas stations have been scrambling for months to adapt. By early September, reports of shortages were already mounting, and since Labor Day, the scarcity has intensified across the country. The Federal Reserve, which manages coin distribution, has temporarily halted penny orders at more than half of its regional distribution centers, with more expected to follow.
“People didn’t realize how quickly this was going to spread,” said Austen Jensen, senior executive vice president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents some of the nation’s largest retail chains.
Treasury officials are now weighing the release of guidance to help businesses adjust — including how to round cash prices and manage transactions without the one-cent coin. Still, many trade associations argue that a consistent, national policy is essential.
Groups representing retailers, restaurants, and banks are urging Congress to pass a federal law standardizing how cash transactions are rounded to the nearest nickel. Without such legislation, they warn, companies could face lawsuits under state consumer protection laws from customers claiming to have been shortchanged.
Efforts to pass that measure have been delayed by the ongoing government shutdown. Although a bipartisan bill establishing a national rounding rule cleared the House Financial Services Committee in July, it has not advanced to the full House, which was out of session for much of the fall.
Banks, too, are caught in the uncertainty. Steve Kenneally, senior vice president of payments at the American Bankers Association, said many financial institutions have been rounding check-cashing transactions in customers’ favor but need official guidance to avoid regulatory pitfalls. “We want to make sure banks don’t suffer any inadvertent regulatory mishaps, because we’re trying to do the right thing and round in favor of the customer,” he said. “We would like to have something, whether it’s from a regulator or legislation, that gives us guidance and that makes it a consistent customer experience everywhere. Having different businesses have different policies just doesn’t feel right.”
The American Bankers Association has also criticized the Federal Reserve’s decision to stop accepting penny deposits at many coin terminals, a policy that prevents banks with surplus coins from redistributing them efficiently. “This policy is accelerating the slowdown of penny circulation drastically,” the group warned in a recent letter to Treasury and the Fed.
A Federal Reserve spokesperson responded that “coin distribution locations accepting penny deposits and fulfilling orders will vary over time as localized inventory is depleted at certain coin distribution locations.”
According to Treasury estimates, ending the penny will save the government roughly $56 million each year. The U.S. Mint reports that manufacturing a single penny now costs 3.69 cents — more than triple its face value — due to rising metal and production costs. Officials concluded that “ongoing increases in production costs and the evolution in consumer habits and technology” have made the penny “financially untenable.”
Bessent’s move followed a formal finding that the one-cent coin was “no longer necessary to meet the needs of the United States,” a first in Treasury history.
While an estimated 300 billion pennies remain in circulation, the Treasury Department has clarified that all existing coins “remain legal tender and will retain [their] value indefinitely.” The penny, though no longer being minted, will continue to exist as a reminder of a bygone era in American currency — one that, for now, is ending a cent at a time.
{Matzav.com}
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed Wednesday that the Biden administration is preparing major steps to ease costs on consumer staples such as coffee, bananas, and other imported goods not produced domestically.
Speaking on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” Bessent said Americans should expect “substantial announcements” in the coming days designed to bring prices down rapidly. “Very quickly,” he emphasized, predicting that by the first half of 2026, “Americans would start feeling better about the economy.”
Bessent also addressed a key part of President Donald Trump’s proposed economic relief initiative — a $2,000 rebate check for households earning under $100,000 annually. He noted that the payments would be funded through tariff revenues but clarified that “no decisions had been made” yet regarding final implementation.
{Matzav.com}
Chicago has seen a sharp and unprecedented drop in violent crime since the Department of Homeland Security initiated “Operation Midway Blitz,” a Trump-directed effort to dismantle networks of violent illegal aliens shielded by Illinois’ sanctuary laws.
Fresh DHS data shows that shootings have plunged by 35%, reaching their lowest level in four years. Robberies are down 41%, and carjackings have fallen a striking 48% since the campaign began in September. Homicides have decreased by 16%, while transit-related offenses have dropped 20% — a turnaround the agency called “a historic win in the fight against violent criminal illegal alien crime.”
“I am proud to announce that Chicago, Illinois, despite all of the radical opposition and obstruction we have from the Mayor and Governor, has seen Car Theft, Shootings, Robberies, Violent Crime, and everything else drop dramatically,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, listing the improved statistics.
He continued, “And this is with just a small initial Federal Force, not the full ‘surge’ we have done in … Memphis. As we ramp up more assets, these numbers will continue to drop.”
Trump credited the success to federal resolve in the face of what he described as open hostility from local leadership. “This has been achieved despite the extraordinary resistance from Chicago and Illinois Radical Democrat ‘Leadership,’ and the constant Violent Leftwing Terrorism against ICE Officers and Federal Agents that Insurrectionist Democrat Officials refuse to stop or prosecute, including constant physical assault and attempted assassination,” he wrote.
The operation was named in memory of Katie Abraham, an Illinois resident who lost her life in a hit-and-run accident caused by an illegal alien. The initiative’s central goal was to apprehend violent offenders who had been shielded from deportation under policies supported by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
“For decades, sanctuary policies exasperated the crime crisis in Chicago,” explained DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin. “Now, thanks to our brave DHS law enforcement, Chicago is experiencing a historic drop in violent crime. It’s common sense — when you remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country, crime rates plummet.”
Reports surfaced this week that Gregory Bovino, the senior U.S. Border Patrol official overseeing Operation Midway Blitz, might soon be reassigned. According to Reuters, Bovino could be transferred first to Charlotte, North Carolina, and later to New Orleans, where similar federal crackdowns are reportedly in development.
When asked by Newsmax whether Bovino’s departure from Chicago was imminent, DHS declined to comment. McLaughlin, however, dismissed talk that the initiative was ending.
She wrote on X: “We aren’t leaving Chicago.”
{Matzav.com}
The U.S. State Department delivered a blistering condemnation of Iran’s leadership, warning that decades of corruption, theft, and negligence have pushed the nation toward total collapse. The statement, issued in Farsi on the department’s official X account, painted a grim picture of a country unraveling under economic chaos and a spiraling environmental disaster.
“Iran is collapsing under the weight of the regime’s corruption and mismanagement. Economic instability, soaring inflation, and now a growing water crisis have led to nationwide water rationing, placing millions of families in Tehran at risk of potential evacuation,” the message declared.
The department accused Tehran of choosing to fund terror instead of feeding its own people. “Instead of responding to these urgent needs, the regime has this year smuggled $1 billion in hard currency to its terrorist proxy group Hezbollah. For this regime, financing terrorism and sowing instability in the region take precedence over meeting its people’s basic needs,” the statement continued.
It concluded with a scathing rebuke of Iran’s rulers, saying, “The Iranian people deserve leaders who care about their health, prosperity, and future – not a regime that sacrifices their well-being for its destructive aims.”
The warning comes amid one of the worst environmental emergencies Iran has faced in modern history. Nearly half of Tehran’s water reservoirs have been drained, forcing officials to cut water pressure each night to conserve supplies. President Masoud Pezeshkian has cautioned that unless substantial rainfall arrives by December, the capital could face formal water rationing — and even partial evacuation of residents.
At the Amir Kabir Dam, one of Tehran’s primary water sources, levels have fallen to a mere 8% of capacity. Other key reservoirs across the country tell a similar story. At least 19 major dams are now considered functionally dry, leaving major cities such as Mashhad and Isfahan struggling with dangerous shortages.
The crisis has been decades in the making, fueled by mismanagement, corruption, and poor long-term planning compounded by climate change. Officials have focused on short-term fixes, encouraging households to buy private storage tanks and limiting public water use. Critics, however, say these measures are cosmetic at best, accusing the regime of ignoring structural reforms and appointing unqualified political loyalists to oversee critical infrastructure.
While the government scrambles for emergency solutions, growing anger among Iranians reflects a deeper sense of despair — a belief that the regime’s obsession with exporting revolution has left its own citizens literally running dry.
{Matzav.com}
At a searing UN hearing in Geneva on Wednesday, Keith and Aviva Siegel — Israeli civilians who survived Hamas captivity — detailed the physical torment, humiliation, and psychological agony inflicted on them and fellow hostages during their imprisonment in Gaza. Their testimony before the UN Committee Against Torture painted a vivid and painful picture of systematic cruelty.
Keith Siegel began by addressing the committee with a plea that cut through the silence of the room: “I am not asking for your sympathy. I am asking that you ensure the horrors the terrorists committed against me and others in captivity will never happen again.” He described the months that followed his wife’s release — a blur of terror and solitude. “Altogether, I spent about six months completely alone – a 66-year-old man, cut off from the world, terrified, not knowing the fate of my loved ones,” he said.
He then described the twisted cruelty of his captors. “Just for ‘fun,’ the guards compared parts of our bodies, threatened us with knives, humiliated us, and prevented us from going to the bathroom until we could no longer hold it. Every basic human right was taken away. I was starved and denied water. More than once, I was forced to strip naked in front of them while they shaved my body.”
The emotional toll extended far beyond the physical. Siegel shared that he had clung to the thought of seeing his mother again — a reunion that would never come. “Throughout my captivity in Gaza, I imagined the moment I would come home and visit my elderly mother. The first thing I asked my wife when I returned by helicopter on the way to the hospital was how my mother was doing. She had died two months before my release. She never knew I came back. I never got to say goodbye.”
Aviva Siegel’s account echoed the same anguish. She spoke of blood, fear, and despair in the tunnels beneath Gaza. “When we were taken underground in Gaza, there was a boy from my community. Hamas terrorists tied his hands with plastic cuffs. He was covered in blood, we were covered in blood. Later, when one of the terrorists came to cut off the cuffs with a cutter, he cut the boy’s hand. I just wanted to scream, and I saw the terrorist smiling as he did it.”
Her 51 days of captivity were marked by hunger and hopelessness. “For 51 days I was certain I would die. They threatened me, starved me, didn’t give me enough water. I lost ten kilograms in 51 days. I hid food for Keith. I saw him losing weight. We were starving while the terrorists gained weight. They ate and chewed in front of us while refusing to give us anything.”
Aviva also spoke of the young female hostages who suffered unimaginable violations. “One day, a young girl came out of the shower trembling. I wasn’t allowed to hug her, but I did anyway. Later she told us that one of the terrorists had touched her.”
Her voice trembled as she recalled her helplessness. “The most terrible thing for me was watching how they tortured my husband Keith and what they did to the girls. I wasn’t allowed to hug, help, or even cry. I tried all that time to hold on to my humanity.”
The captors’ sadistic control left no space for dignity or rest. “They forced us to lie down from 5 p.m. until 9 a.m. the next morning. We weren’t allowed to move. My body ached. I wanted to stretch, to sit, to scream, ‘Just let me sit for five minutes.’ They didn’t allow it. They threatened to kill me. One night, I took my foot out from under the blanket – a Hamas terrorist came and screamed at me that I wasn’t allowed to do that. It sounds small, but that was the level of control they had over us. Most of my time in Gaza I suffered from stomach pain and diarrhea because they made us drink contaminated water. I’m 62 years old, and I had to ask permission just to go to the bathroom.”
{Matzav.com}
In a candid address, Rav Eliyahu Diskin, rosh yeshiva of Netiv HaDaas and Imrei Moshe in Yerushalayim, offered sharp insight into the current situation in Israel, declaring that the Israeli army never had any real desire to recruit yeshiva students, drawing a striking comparison to the Russian army under Vladimir Putin.
Rav Diskin’s remarks were delivered as part of the Vaad Darchei HaChizuk gatherings, which take place weekly at Yeshivas Maseches Chochmah and are led by the talmidim of the late rosh yeshiva, Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l.
Addressing the motives behind mass rallies and protests, Rav Diskin cautioned against viewing the upcoming atzeres as a battle of “us versus them.”
“Why do people go to a protest?” he asked. “Because ‘they’ are against ‘us.’ The chilonim are against the chareidim, and now ‘we’ will show them our strength. That’s the same yetzer hara that fuels nationalism — dying for the country, dying for the party, dying for the team. Boruch Hashem, our people are yirei Shamayim, but this cannot be our mindset.”
He emphasized that participation must come from a higher purpose. “We must remember — everything depends on the machshavah. We’re not fighting for honor; we’re fighting for kavod Shamayim.”
Rav Diskin continued by explaining that the protest itself would not directly impact government policy. “One of the reasons the army has never drafted bnei yeshivos until now is not because they valued Torah learning,” he said. “The army — anyone thinking realistically — doesn’t want yeshiva bochurim. It’s simple logic. When Putin went to war with Ukraine four years ago, everyone thought it would be over in a day or two. What’s Ukraine compared to Russia? But what happened in the end?”
He elaborated: “The reason is simple. Ukrainian soldiers were patriots. The Russian soldiers didn’t love Russia the way Ukrainians loved their country. An army built on coercion is worthless! You can’t build an army out of people forced to serve. It destroys the entire army. That’s why, until now, neither the army nor the state ever wanted the bnei yeshivos to enlist.”
Turning to the judiciary, Rav Diskin sharply criticized Israel’s High Court and the Attorney General’s Office. “We are now in the exile of that great klipah called the Bagatz and the yo’etz mishpati. They don’t care about the army or the country. Let everything burn down — all they care about is having a secular state, ‘al Hashem v’al Meshicho.’ That’s why protests don’t interest them at all.”
Citing Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l, he explained the true purpose of attending the atzeres. “Rav Gershon said that what we need are zechuyos — merits. That’s the point. When we gather, we’re not demonstrating politically; we’re gathering to create zechuyos for Klal Yisroel.”
Rav Diskin referenced the nevuah in Malachi: “‘You have said it is futile to serve Hashem… and now we call the arrogant happy.’ This describes a situation where people lose sight of the value of avodas Hashem. Many have been inspired since Simchas Torah, but those few leading the current government — that’s another story.”
He pointed out that despite the demographic balance in Israel, a small secular elite dominates the centers of power. “Today, a third of the country is religious or chareidi, a third traditional, and a third secular — and within that secular third, only a tiny fraction truly hates religion. But they control everything — the courts, the media, the Bagatz. Nowhere else in the world does such a minority hold such power.”
Quoting the Gra on the Zohar, Rav Diskin explained that this phenomenon was foretold. “The Zohar says that in the end of days, the Erev Rav — the ‘maidservants’ — will come first, followed by the masses, and only then the bnei Torah. The Gra writes that the Erev Rav — the nefilim, gibborim, amalekim, rephaim — will rule. So even if elections take place every few years, it won’t change anything. The ruling class doesn’t represent the people. This is a gezeirah — the klipah will rule at the end of days.”
He concluded with a call to introspection and tefillah. “There’s no one to talk to — they’re deaf to reason. The protest itself may not be worth a klipas ha-shum, but what it is worth — as Rav Gershon said — is zechuyos, zechuyos, zechuyos. That’s what we need. The essence is not the demonstration itself, but the collective tefillah and the declaration: ‘Az nedabru yirei Hashem ish el re’eihu’.”
{Matzav.com}
In an address delivered Tuesday night at Yeshivas Daas Aharon in Yerushalayim, the rosh yeshiva, Rav Dov Landau, spoke sharply about the growing governmental pressure and legal uncertainty surrounding the draft law and the official status of yeshiva students.
Speaking before hundreds of talmidim and local residents, Rav Landau lamented what he described as targeted harassment against bnei yeshivos and avreichim.
“We are now living in a time,” he said, “when those who have never tasted the sweetness of Torah persecute yeshiva students and lomdei kollelim, tightening their steps through various decrees and forms of harassment.”
The rosh yeshiva expressed hope that those driving these measures would soon reconsider. “We hope, with siyaata diShmaya, that they will retract and cease these actions,” he said.
At the same time, Rav Landau called on yeshiva students not to be disheartened but to continue their mission with renewed strength. “Our role as bnei yeshiva,” he emphasized, “is to continue with full energy in fulfilling our sacred purpose — to ensure that Torah flourishes more and more here in Eretz Yisroel. And through that, we will merit the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, speedily in our days.”
{Matzav.com}