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An antisemitic sign reportedly posted at a hotel in the city of Osh, Kyrgyzstan, declaring that entry is forbidden to both animals and Jews, has drawn strong condemnation from Israeli officials.

According to a report by Ynet, the sign explicitly stated that “no entry is allowed for animals and Jews,” and included images of a dog and a Star of David crossed out.

Israel’s embassy responsible for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan issued a sharp response, denouncing the display and its offensive message.

In an official statement, the embassy described the sign as a deeply offensive and unacceptable expression that contradicts fundamental principles of human dignity, equality, and tolerance. The statement emphasized that the message contained clear antisemitic content and labeled it “a serious act that harms universal values.” Officials stressed that any form of discrimination—whether based on ethnicity, religion, or any other factor—must be met with a firm and unequivocal response.

The embassy also stated that Israel expects local authorities in Kyrgyzstan to take appropriate action to address the incident and ensure that similar occurrences do not happen again.

Osh, the country’s second-largest city, has a predominantly Muslim population. Israel does not maintain a permanent embassy in Kyrgyzstan, with diplomatic relations handled through its embassy in Kazakhstan.

{Matzav.com}

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) delivered an impassioned speech in Detroit over the weekend, warning of what he described as a “storm” facing the nation and calling on supporters to take action ahead of upcoming elections.

Speaking at the Michigan Democratic Women’s Caucus Legacy Luncheon, Booker sought to energize Democrats ahead of the midterm cycle, portraying the current moment as a critical test for the country.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is a storm in our nation!” Booker yelled. “There is darkness and wind! People are getting hurt!”

He then emphasized the need for grassroots political engagement rather than outside intervention. “What we need is not from on high!” the Democrat continued, pointing his finger upward toward the sky. “We need foot soldiers of our democracy, who, in times of trial, are willing to stand up.”

Booker continued by urging the audience to mobilize and take an active role in the political process. “Will you stand for our democracy? Will you stand to get out the vote? Will you stand for our children? Will you stand up for our elders? And will you stand together, unified, strong. Be the hope that people need. We are Democrats. It’s time for a new deal, it’s time to redeem the dream of America.,” he said, adding, “God bless you” after essentially admitting that he believes Democrats do not need God’s help.

Booker, who has served in the U.S. Senate and previously ran for president in 2020, has continued to draw attention with his high-profile appearances and political messaging. Last year, he made headlines for delivering a marathon Senate speech that lasted 25 hours and 5 minutes.

His extended address raised concerns among family members about his health and safety during the ordeal. His wife, Alexis Booker, spoke about the experience in a TikTok video.

“It’s not super safe to stand for 25 hours,” Alexis Booker, whom he wed last year, said in a TikTok video. “Like, your body kind of just like breaks down. And if you fall over, you could hit your head. So those are the things that were going through our head.”

“Like, yes, I wanted him to break the record, but I also wanted him to not die or like get injured,” she continued.

“He wasn’t going to eat for a really long period of time — just being dehydrated alone was worrying me,” she said, explaining that she and Booker’s mother could not be there, so she would call his mother because “everybody was just nervous.”

“At that point, I was living in L.A. and I was preparing to move to live with Cory. And so I didn’t want to bother him, but I would send cute messages or I made a cartoon with my face on it,” she added.

{Matzav.com}

The Trump administration has begun re-evaluating immigration cases approved under President Joe Biden, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services now reviewing individuals who were granted green cards, asylum, and other benefits, according to agency leadership.

USCIS Director Joe Edlow said over the weekend that the agency has significantly ramped up its fraud investigations, focusing in particular on cases processed during the previous administration.

“In terms of the people that are perpetrating fraud: Stop, because we are going to find you,” Edlow said during an interview with One America News, which he later posted on X.

“And even if you’ve already [committed fraud], and you think you’ve gotten away with it, we’re going back,” Edlow said. “As you noted earlier, we are looking at old cases, we are going back and re-vetting cases for people who were granted green cards and granted other benefits during the Biden administration, when there was no vetting. There’s vetting now, and we’re looking at these old cases, so be prepared to face the consequences.”

Edlow had previously told lawmakers in February that investigators were finding high rates of fraud in the cases they reviewed.

“Since January 20, 2025, USCIS officers have made nearly 33,000 fraud referrals to our Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate — a 138% increase compared to the average yearly referrals of the previous administration,” Edlow said.

“Our Fraud Detection and National Security team completed investigations into more than 21,000 cases, identifying fraud in 65% of them,” he revealed. “Our officers conducted over 7,000 site visits and more than 26,000 social media checks to identify national security, public safety, fraud, and anti-American concerns.”

Earlier this year, the agency also launched Operation PARRIS, a targeted effort to reexamine refugee cases in the Minneapolis–St. Paul region, with a particular focus on applicants from Somalia, which officials have identified as a source of widespread immigration fraud.

The Justice Department is demanding all ballots from the 2024 election in the Detroit area, a highly unusual move that comes shortly after prosecutors seized 2020 ballots in Georgia and obtained 2020 election records in Arizona.

The push to collect thousands of election records in swing states is part of a sweeping effort by President Donald Trump and his administration to scrutinize elections that has cast doubt on how they are run. Trump has spent more than five years stating that the 2020 election was rigged against him. In recent months, he has shifted his focus to this fall’s midterm elections by seeking to restrict voting by mail and urging Republicans to “take over” voting in “at least 15 places,” such as Detroit.

The latest demand is for ballots, ballot envelopes and ballot receipts in Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit. It came from Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who oversees the Civil Rights Division and is widely viewed as auditioning to replace Pam Bondi as attorney general. Dhillon sent her letter Tuesday, and Democratic state officials released a copy of it Sunday.

Those officials – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, state Attorney General Dana Nessel and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson – decried the demand as a baseless attempt to undermine the public’s confidence in elections.

“If this administration wants to bring this circus to our state, my office is prepared to protect the people’s right to vote,” Nessel said in a statement.

Dhillon wrote in her letter to Wayne County that DOJ wants the 2024 ballots so it can determine whether election laws were followed that year in a place with a “history of fraud convictions and other allegations.” She cited three examples of voter fraud in 2020 and a lawsuit alleging election officials did not properly process absentee ballots that year. A judge dismissed that lawsuit, finding the allegations were “not credible.”

Voting fraud is very rare, and Nessel noted it has often been caught in Michigan by election officials. Courts rejected dozens of lawsuits over the 2020 election, and independent reviews have found Trump lost that year to Joe Biden.

Dhillon asked that the ballots be produced within two weeks and said the Justice Department might sue to get them if they are not.

The Justice Department is seeking about 865,000 ballots and hundreds of thousands of other records, according to a letter Nessel sent to the Justice Department on Friday. Dhillon made her demand to the wrong place, Nessel said, because the ballots are held by 43 municipal clerks, not Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett (D).

A spokesperson for Garrett did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday. A Justice Department spokesperson had no comment.

In statements, Benson called the demand the administration’s “latest attempt to interfere in our elections” and Whitmer said it was a “poorly disguised attempt to justify more doubt and misinformation about our elections.”

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Patrick Marley 

After Henry Stern found swastikas drawn on his backpack and faced threats at his Malibu, Calif., school, the then eighth grader readied for a fight. He asked a Jewish friend, who knew karate, to stand by him and use his martial arts skill if necessary and he intended to run a tape recorder to document the violence.

“We had this whole plan,” the now California state senator, told JNS. “I thought I was going to get beat up that day.”

Stern described his identity as a teen as he “happened to be Jewish.” He told JNS that he is “good at talking my way through things” and is “not a super tough guy, but I at least can joke my way around stuff.” He didn’t need to, though, because the class was learning about the Holocaust at the time, and his teacher stopped the regular schedule to invite survivors to come address students.

“I met all these survivors, and they changed my life,” Stern said. “Not every kid has that magical bullying-into-leadership redemption moment. A lot of other kids have to duck it, take their Magen David off and lay low.”

“Going through all that stuff made me realize it doesn’t really matter if you’re religious or not,” he told JNS. “You’re still vulnerable just being a Jew,” and “someone’s going to come for you.”

The swastikas weren’t a once-off. “There was a whole weird thing that was happening at the school newspaper at the time, and they were embedding swastikas into the school newspaper cartoons,” he said. “We found there was a whole crew of guys who were really getting into neo-Nazi stuff, and we had a whole intervention in my eighth grade social studies class where we basically stopped class for the week.”

“That’s my own personal origin story,” the 44-year-old Democrat, who represents about 1 million people, including in heavily-Jewish parts of Los Angeles and Ventura County, in the state Senate.

The Malibu native, whose father is the actor Daniel Stern, graduated from Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He worked as an environmental lawyer and as a senior adviser on energy policy before being elected to the state Senate in 2016 as the youngest member elected at the time.

In his nine years in the state legislature, Stern has focused on climate policy and Holocaust education. He has also become more religiously observant.

“I wear a kippah now and keep Shabbat much more strictly,” he told JNS.

‘Shabbos island’

The issues of antisemitism and Jewish identity prompted Stern to introduce SB 1387, which would require state agencies to recognize Jewish identity as an ethnicity in demographic data collection, on April 15. If passed, it would help document increasing threats against Jews, he told JNS.

The state senator started observing Shabbos more intentionally in his 30s. “I started sort of experimenting with it on my own, and then I would have these very contemplative, meditative, but somewhat lonely Shabbats by myself,” he said.

He felt at the height of his personal career. “I was a real hot shot. I felt so cool. I’m on TV and all this stuff’s happening,” he told JNS. But observing biblical and rabbinic prohibitions would mean having to “back off” and skip Shabbos events and things like press conferences on Pesach.

“I found a way to be beautifully humbled by it all,” he said. “The world actually goes on without me, even when I step back a little bit.”

He married Alexandra Kaufman, an Israeli-American whose parents were Holocaust survivors, and they have two children, ages 3 and 4, and live in the Jewish community in the Valley where they attend the Orthodox shul Shaarey Zedek.

“Shabbat took on this other dimension,” Stern told JNS. “Everyone’s around. There’s all these people. It wasn’t a lonely experience at all when I integrated into her life.”

“I wasn’t on a lonely Shabbos island by myself,” he added.

Living in the Valley, Stern has befriended “so many types of Jews: Iraqi Jews and Syrian Jews and different types of folks and backgrounds,” he told JNS. “I’m in the Valley cholent.”

‘Great influence’

Jewish lawmakers in California are in a strong position, according to Stern, who is one of 18—a fortuitously Jewish number—members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.

“We’re a really diverse group of people,” he told JNS. “We have really great influence.”

That strength has helped the caucus advance legislation, including a major Jew-hatred bill signed into law last year, even amid what Stern described as “very nasty objections and threats.”

“We’re kind of strong right now,” he said. “The governor’s got our back over the last few years in a big way, so we feel we’re in a pretty confident position at the moment.” He’s not sure how long that will last though, so he figures “in a weird way, we gotta get as much done as we can right now.” (The current legislative session ends in September.)

Stern told JNS that he endorsed the billionaire Tom Steyer, a Democrat, for governor.

Steyer described AIPAC as “dark money” recently, and Stern responded on April 5 and told the governor candidate that his rhetoric was “dangerous.”

“We can win Tom Steyer without making Jewish Californians like me feel like we don’t belong just because we believe in Israel’s right to exist and that we can eliminate the leverage of petro-states like Iran through clean energy, not with dog whistles about AIPAC and dark money,” he wrote.

Stern told JNS that Steyer is a “very good guy” who will be an “excellent governor.” He also said that “we’ve had this whole trendy thing of everyone wanting to dog whistle about ‘I don’t take AIPAC money,’ or ‘AIPAC is dark money.’”

“There’s a war going on. There’s a lot of weird trends, and you can get advisors that pull you in a lot of strange directions,” he said. “I’m deeply committed to the team. I’m in there as the religious Jewish guy. There’s got to be room for me, too.” JNS

Tasi Malala was driving with his friend to grab some breakfast outside Scottsdale, Arizona, last month when he noticed that his Toyota pickup was very low on gas and quickly getting lower. He pulled into a station and started to fill up with premium. That’s when he spotted the leak.

“I looked under my truck, and it’s literally gas just pouring out the bottom,” said Malala, 31. “It’s pouring out like crazy. I was freaking out.”

It turned out he had been a target of a newly popular way to steal gas: just drilling a hole. All the thief would have required was a few minutes alone with a handheld electric drill and a gas can – or even some milk jugs. Malala was left with a perfectly round hole in his tank and a nearly $3,000 repair bill. His truck was in the shop for about a week.

This sort of drilling-and-draining thievery appears to be increasingly common as the war with Iran has pushed gasoline prices to their highest level in four years, and as older – and less-destructive – methods of stealing fuel have gotten harder to pull off.

In Los Angeles, where gas prices are among the nation’s highest at about $6 a gallon for regular, service adviser Lupes Armas said his repair shop is fixing a drilled-out gas tank about once a week these days. It used to be a couple times a year at most.

“It’s definitely a problem,” Armas said.

Insurers are starting to see more damage claims, too, although at this point, just weeks into the war and spiking gas prices, the reports are mostly anecdotal, according to the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies. It will take time to see how bad it gets.

“Let’s hope this is a short-lived phenomena,” said Brett Odom, policy vice president at the insurance group.

The repairs are covered by comprehensive auto policies, experts say.

The drilled-out gas tanks are similar to the occasional waves of stolen catalytic converters, which can be removed from vehicles with a power saw and then sold for the precious metals inside, said Bob Passmore, vice president of personal lines for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

That, too, is an expensive repair.

The shift to drilling holes in fuel tanks comes as an old method of stealing gas has faded: siphoning.

In the 1970s, the country’s chronic gas shortages led to a surge in people dropping plastic tubing – even garden hoses – into the gas tanks of parked cars to drain their fuel. The image of someone sucking on the end of a hose to initiate the suction (and spitting out the gas when it reached their lips) became a pop culture trope.

The ploy was annoying, but it didn’t cause permanent damage.

Car owners responded by buying locking gas caps and keeping a watchful eye on their parked vehicles.

Malala said he definitely would’ve preferred that the thief who struck his pickup had gone with the older method.

“I wish they would’ve just siphoned it,” he said.

But siphoning today is much harder than it used to be.

Most newer vehicles have narrow, curved filler necks leading to the gas tank, making it difficult to force a tube inside. Some vehicles also have internal flappers or baffles to thwart siphoning. And anti-pollution regulations mean fuel systems are often better sealed.

Gas thefts of all kinds tend to follow pump prices. Filling stations report more drive-offs, although that, too, has gotten harder thanks to prepay pumps. Some people have been caught dropping tubes into the underground storage tanks at service stations to steal gas. Others have used electronic tools to trick pumps into dispensing fuel for pennies on the dollar.

There have been sporadic reports of thieves drilling into car gas tanks going back at least a decade.

But high gas prices spur more incidents, such as when the national average price briefly reached an all-time high of $5 a gallon in mid-2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Now, high gas prices are back – along with the consequences.

One morning this month, workers at the Catholic charity St. Vincent de Paul in St. Louis noticed a dark stain on the ground next to the panel truck they use as a mobile food pantry.

Someone had drilled a hole in the gas tank, draining the pricey diesel.

Michael Meehan, the charity’s executive director, said they lost a full tank of gas. And the damage meant they would be without their truck for a while. They had to find a replacement to use for their mobile food pantry in the meantime.

Meehan said he was sympathetic to whoever did it.

“This is just another indication that these are difficult times for lots of people,” he said.

But he wished they’d chosen a different way to get what they wanted.

“Siphoning probably would’ve saved us some money,” he said.

Federal agents arrested Shamim Mafi at Los Angeles International Airport before the Iranian national boarded a flight out of the country, for allegedly trafficking weapons for the Iranian regime, the Justice Department said.

Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and faces up to 20 years in federal prison, the department said on Monday.

“This individual came from Iran and gained legal status under the Obama administration,” stated Todd Blanche, acting U.S. attorney general. “While enjoying a life in the United States, this woman was allegedly breaking the law by brokering lethal weapons deals with Iranian adversaries. This will not stand, and anyone who breaks our laws and threatens national security will be prosecuted to the fullest extent.”

According to the department, Mafi, who owns and runs a company in Oman, became a lawful permanent resident in October 2016.

“In early 2025, Mafi brokered weapons deals on Iran’s behalf through her company,” including a contract worth more than $70 million “for the sale of the Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drone from Iran’s defense ministry to Sudan’s military,” the Justice Department alleged. “She coordinated the Sudanese delegation’s travel to Iran and was paid more than $7 million.”

“She also brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to Sudan and submitted a letter of intent to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to purchase the bomb fuses for Sudan,” per the department. “Mafi also brokered the sale of millions of rounds of ammunition from Iran to Sudan.”

Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Americans must receive permission from the U.S. Treasury Department to do business with goods or services tied to the Iranian government, and they cannot work with people whom the federal government has blocked, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S.-designated terror group, and the Iranian defense ministry.

“At no time did Mafi apply for or obtain the required licenses from the U.S. Treasury Department to engage in any transactions alleged in the complaint’s affidavit,” the Justice Department stated. “She also never registered with or applied for approval from the U.S. Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls to engage in brokering activities with respect to U.S. or foreign defense articles.”

The Justice Department added that records, which the federal government obtained after executing a search warrant, showed that Mafi and an Iranian intelligence officer contacted one another 62 times between December 2022 and June 2025. JNS

Iran is working to coordinate closely with allied militias as the ceasefire with the United States nears its end, amid growing concern that fighting could resume in the near future.

A political source in Iraq told Kan News that Tehran is actively engaging with Shiite militias in the country in preparation for a possible renewal of hostilities with the United States.

In recent days, Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani visited Iraq, in what was described as an effort to preserve Iran’s influence in the neighboring country amid tensions with Washington. Qaani, who survived the war and had not been seen publicly since its outbreak, arrived in Baghdad for a visit that was characterized as an attempt by the Iranian regime to help secure the appointment of a prime minister aligned with Tehran.

However, according to the Iraqi political source who spoke with Kan News correspondent Roi Kais, Qaani’s trip also had a military dimension, aimed at coordinating and “aligning positions” with leaders of pro-Iranian militias.

During the course of the war, these Iran-backed militias carried out attacks on American targets in Iraq and across the region. The Iraqi source said that officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards closely supervised their operations throughout the conflict.

Qaani’s visit appears intended to ensure that these forces are prepared for another round of fighting if Pakistan’s mediation efforts fail. At the same time, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have also signaled that they are ready to resume hostilities if the ceasefire collapses.

{Matzav.com}

FBI Director Kash Patel sued the Atlantic and staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick in federal court, alleging that the magazine ran a “sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece” against him on Friday with the intention of marring his reputation.

In the complaint, filed in federal district court in D.C. on Monday, Patel says he is seeking $250 million in damages plus any proceeds from the article.

The Atlantic’s article contained extensive reporting – attributed to anonymous people – alleging Patel engaged in “excessive drinking” and “unexplained absences” while leading the FBI. The FBI declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The complaint alleges that several incidents detailed in the article are defamatory. These incidents include that Patel was often intoxicated with White House and Trump administration staff, that meetings had to be rescheduled following nights on which he drank, and that staff had to use “breaching equipment” to access rooms when Patel had reportedly been unreachable.

“We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit,” Anna Bross, a spokeswoman for the Atlantic, said in a statement to The Washington Post.

The Post has not independently verified the Atlantic’s reporting.

Under defamation law, Patel – as a public official – would probably have to demonstrate that the Atlantic acted with “actual malice,” a legal standard established in the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan.

To reach that standard, Patel would have to prove not only that the Atlantic’s claims were false but also that they knew they were false and published with reckless disregard for the truth. “They are so demonstrably and obviously false, or easily refuted,” the complaint said of the allegations, “that it was at best reckless to publish them.”

On Friday, Jesse R. Binnall, an attorney for Patel, posted on social media a letter sent earlier that day to Fitzpatrick and David Baumgarten, the Atlantic’s general counsel. “Should you publish these false allegations, Director Patel will take swift legal action to uphold his reputation,” Binnall wrote in the letter. In his accompanying post on X, Binnall said the Atlantic was “on notice” that its reporting was false and defamatory. “They published anyway,” he wrote. “See you in court.”

“Defamatory speech is not free speech, and it is an honor to represent Kash Patel in this lawsuit seeking accountability for The Atlantic article’s malicious falsehoods,” Binnall said in a statement to The Post on Monday.

Patel, formerly a staunch critic of the FBI, has led the bureau since February 2025.

Since taking the job, Patel has overseen a purge of dozens of career agents, many of whom were involved in investigations of President Donald Trump and his allies, and has shifted bureau resources from intelligence gathering and complex investigations of white-collar fraud toward assisting in Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts and policing violent crime.

Those efforts have at times been overshadowed by public scrutiny of Patel’s personal life. His frequent use of an agency Gulfstream jet for various trips, including to visit his girlfriend, a country music singer, and to see the 2026 Milan Olympics, has drawn public criticism.

During his Olympics trip, a video circulated showing Patel drinking beer with members of the U.S. men’s hockey team during a locker room celebration of their gold medal win.

Federal regulations require the FBI director to use government aircraft for all travel. Patel and his spokespeople have maintained that he uses the jet for personal trips far less than his predecessors. He flew to Milan for official meetings with law enforcement partners in Italy, they said, before he attended the hockey game.

Patel’s boss, Trump, has sued several news outlets following unfavorable coverage.

Trump, who has for years called the media “the enemy of the American people” has sued several news organizations for defamation over critical reporting about him, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC. Some, including ABC and CBS, have settled with Trump out of court.

Trump has long railed against the Atlantic, deriding the publication as a “failing Radical Left Magazine” and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, as a “con man.” Last year, Goldberg was accidentally added to a Signal group chat where Defense Department officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, detailed military plans for strikes in Yemen.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Scott Nover, Jeremy Roebuck 

Apple has announced a major leadership change, with CEO Tim Cook set to step down and John Ternus taking over the role, marking a significant transition for the company after more than a decade under Cook’s leadership.

The transition has been in progress behind the scenes for some time, but is now entering a public phase. It is expected to be finalized later this year.

As part of the shift, Cook will move into the position of executive chairman of Apple’s board, while Ternus, who currently serves as senior vice president of hardware engineering, will assume the role of chief executive officer. Following Ternus’s move, Johny Srouji will expand his responsibilities, and Tom Marieb will also take on a more direct role within the company.

The leadership change is scheduled to take effect on September 1, 2026, when Ternus officially replaces Cook as CEO. In the interim, Srouji and Marieb are stepping into their expanded roles immediately to support the transition.

Apple confirmed the leadership change in an official Newsroom announcement, stating that the board unanimously approved the move following a long-term succession planning process.

Cook will remain in his position as CEO through the summer, working closely with Ternus to ensure a smooth handover. In his new role as executive chairman, Cook is expected to focus on select company matters, including engagement with policymakers around the world—a role that reflects his experience in global relations over the past decade.

In a statement included in the announcement, Cook reflected on his tenure and expressed confidence in his successor.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company. I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people who have been unwavering in their dedication to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world,” said Cook. “John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor. He is a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count, and he is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future. I could not be more confident in his abilities and his character, and I look forward to working closely with him on this transition and in my new role as executive chairman.”

Ternus also issued a statement, expressing gratitude and outlining his vision for the company’s future.

“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” said Ternus. “Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor. It has been a privilege to help shape the products and experiences that have changed so much of how we interact with the world and with one another. I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in the years to come, and I am so happy to know that the most talented people on earth are here at Apple, determined to be part of something bigger than any one of us. I am humbled to step into this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century.”

Cook has led Apple since 2011, when he succeeded Steve Jobs, who passed away later that year.

During Cook’s leadership, Apple’s market value has grown dramatically, rising from under $350 billion to approximately $4 trillion.

He has overseen every iPhone release since the iPhone 4S, along with the introduction of major products and services including the Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Pay, Apple Vision Pro, and the company’s transition from Intel processors to its own Apple silicon in Mac computers.

Cook also expanded Apple’s services division, driving significant growth in the App Store and launching platforms such as Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple TV, further reshaping the company’s business model.

{Matzav.com}