Nine people were arrested and a demonstrator was taken to the hospital after clashes erupted during a hafganah Monday evening at the Geha Junction, as police moved to clear blocked roadways and restore traffic flow in the area.
According to Israel Police, officers operated near Geha Junction, close to Bnei Brak and Givat Shmuel, after demonstrators protesting the arrest of yeshiva students blocked Highway 4. Police said protesters sat on the road, physically blocked vehicles and confronted officers, actions that endangered both themselves and other motorists.
Police commanders declared the gathering an illegal demonstration prior to any enforcement measures. Despite repeated warnings, authorities said the protesters refused to comply with instructions and continued blocking traffic.
As the situation escalated, police used crowd-dispersal measures and force to extract vehicles trapped at the scene. During the disturbances, officers reported that stones and pyrotechnic devices were thrown at police forces. Two officers were injured, and windows of a police patrol vehicle were shattered. All roadways in the area were later reopened to traffic.
Police said nine individuals suspected of disorderly conduct were taken into custody.
In a statement, police said: “The Israel Police views the right to protest as a cornerstone of a democratic state and allows demonstrations as long as they take place within the framework of the law; however, the police will not permit disturbances of any kind, harm to freedom of movement, or any behavior that could endanger public safety.”
Separately, volunteers from Hatzalah treated a man injured during the protest. Together with paramedics from Magen David Adom, responders provided medical care to a 23-year-old man suffering a head injury. He was evacuated in moderate condition to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva.
Hatzalah medics Eli Biton and Moshe Ashkenazi said: “When we arrived at the scene with a MDA ambulance that we staff, we found a 23-year-old man who was semi-conscious and suffering from a head injury after being harmed by violence during a protest taking place at the location. Together with Hatzalah and MDA medics, we provided him with initial medical treatment, including stabilization and bandaging, and evacuated him in moderate condition for further care in the trauma room at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva.”
{Matzav.com}
The Israel Defense Forces have confirmed that there are currently no tunnels extending from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, according to the deputy commander of the Alexandroni Brigade, as IDF troops continue to hold and operate in key areas of Gaza.
While the Alexandroni Brigade maintains control over strategic sectors inside the Strip, the brigade’s deputy commander, Lt. Col. M., said Israel’s territory is secure from underground infiltration originating in Gaza. “The IDF knows for sure today that there are no tunnels crossing from Gaza into Israeli territory,” he said.
Lt. Col. M. attributed this assessment to improved technological capabilities that give forces a detailed understanding of underground activity. “The threat of tunnels crossing into Israeli territory is almost non-existent. Inside the ‘perimeter’ and in the areas controlled by the IDF, there are still infrastructures, and the forces continue to operate daily to locate and destroy them,” he explained.
According to the deputy commander, combat operations above ground are continuing at a high tempo along the so-called “yellow line.” He noted that enemy operatives attempt to exploit IDF rules of engagement. “The enemy knows we don’t shoot at women and children, and he tries to operate within this space,” Lt. Col. M. said. “What has changed is the precision in the use of force and the adjustments we’ve made in the rules of engagement. We are prepared for attempts to approach, drones, and hostile presence that emerges from the rubble.”
Lt. Col. M. also described a recent incident underscoring the constant vigilance required of troops in the field. During a nighttime offensive operation roughly two weeks ago, IDF forces encountered a terrorist cell. A company commander was wounded during the clash and evacuated for medical treatment, while the troops continued the engagement and killed two terrorists shortly afterward.
“This is an operational routine where we are always alert. The threat can emerge at any moment, and there’s no room for surprises,” he said. “Our positions are meant to protect the forces, while the offensive activity continues to push forward, up to the yellow line, to ensure no threat approaches our communities.”
{Matzav.com}
Despite repeated assurances that the Palestinian Authority has no role in Gaza, new information indicates that its symbols are already being used in practice at the Rafah border crossing.
According to a report by Ynet, ISA chief David Zini told cabinet ministers that passports belonging to Gazans passing through the Rafah crossing are being stamped with the designation “State of Palestine.” Zini raised the issue while responding to a question from Minister Orit Strock during a cabinet meeting.
During the same exchange, Minister Zeev Elkin pressed officials on whether the guards and administrative staff working at the crossing are receiving their salaries from the Palestinian Authority.
In response to the disclosure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed that the matter be examined immediately and ordered that the passport stamp be altered. He directed that the approving authority for Gazans entering or exiting be listed instead as the Board of Peace.
The development follows a separate dispute last week, after the board’s committee overseeing Gaza released a logo that incorporated the emblem of the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu’s office later clarified that the logo officially shown to Israel was different and reiterated that Israel would not allow the use of Palestinian Authority symbols.
“The Palestinian Authority will not be a partner in the management of Gaza,” the Prime Minister’s Office stated.
{Matzav.com}
South Korea is investigating how cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb initiated an exchange of $40 billion in Bitcoin that it apparently didn’t have.
Regulators have formed a task force to investigate industrywide practices after the Seoul-based exchange on Feb. 6 started crediting accounts with the small fortune rather than the 2,000 won ($1.37) per person authorized for a promotional campaign. The incident stemmed from an employee inputting the payout as Bitcoin rather than won, according to a statement from the Financial Services Commission on Sunday.
The Financial Supervisory Service said on Monday that it was looking into the incident and had initiated on-site inspections, with a formal investigation to be initiated if legal violations are found.
“It was nothing more than erroneously entered virtual data, yet it ended up being traded,” FSS Governor Lee Chan-jin said at a press conference on Monday. “That is the essence of the issue: The transaction was actually executed.”
In the 20 minutes it took to recognize the mistake, 620,000 “ghost Bitcoin” ($40 billion) – rather than 620,000 won ($423) – appeared across the balances of hundreds of customer accounts, according to Bithumb.
Some customers immediately tried to sell their serendipitous crypto, resulting in the sale of 1,788 Bitcoin. None of the tokens appeared to leave Bithumb, according to the exchange, but payouts were made. It had recovered 93% of the value of those sales by Saturday in either won or other tokens, Bithumb said in a statement.
The company reconciled the remaining outstanding Bitcoin using its own assets, it said in a statement on Sunday.
– – –
Beyond Bitcoin Balance
A transfer orders of magnitude larger than what should have been possible happened because of a quirk in how centralized exchanges operate.
In the third quarter of 2025, Bithumb held just 175 Bitcoin on its balance sheet, while custodian holdings for clients totaled 42,619 Bitcoin, according to a regulatory filing.
Those balances, though, are tracked on an internal ledger instead of directly on the blockchain. Trades are initiated by updating the internal records first, while on-chain settlement comes later.
This makes trading fast, but it opens the door to big mistakes if internal bookkeeping doesn’t match an exchange’s actual holdings.
“The so-called ghost Bitcoin incident clearly revealed that, beyond a mere input error, there are structural weaknesses in internal controls and ledger management systems of cryptocurrency exchanges,” Kim Jiho, a spokesperson for the ruling Democratic Party, said in a briefing on Saturday. “This is an issue that cannot be taken lightly.”
Bithumb said on Saturday that it is taking multiple corrective measures to tighten oversight of transfers, including a multi-level approval process for distributing awards.
“We will supplement previously missing processes to ensure that approvals are carried out in two or more stages, thereby preventing incidents,” the company said.
Compounding matters on Friday, the rush to sell temporarily tanked the price of Bitcoin on Bithumb, leading to panic selling, according to the company. A price chart on the exchange’s website showed a crash of more than 15% in the price to 81 million won ($55,365) between 7:20 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in Seoul.
Chief Executive Officer Lee Jae-won pledged that the company would reimburse those who saw losses with an additional 10% as compensation.
– – –
Regulatory Rush
The response to the mistake has been swift.
Regulators convened two emergency meetings over the weekend. DAXA, an alliance of South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, announced that it would conduct a review of internal controls across all exchanges.
Authorities are also pursuing new legislative measures to require exchanges to establish internal controls comparable to those required of traditional financial institutions.
“The incident has exposed fundamental weaknesses in the virtual asset information system. Specifically, regulatory blind spots that existed in virtual asset legislation,” the FSS’s Lee said. “This has identified a task that must be strongly reinforced in the second legislature phase of virtual assets.”
Bithumb is South Korea’s second-largest exchange by trading volume, according to CoinGecko. The incident occurred during a particularly volatile week in cryptocurrency that saw Bitcoin fall to nearly $60,000, less than half of its October peak above $126,000, before rebounding to roughly $70,000 by Monday.
(c) 2026, Bloomberg
{Matzav.com}
The Trump administration plans to appeal a temporary court order that blocks the federal government from withholding funds for a $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
The Gateway Development Commission is building the new tunnel but had to stop construction late Friday because it’s exhausted all of its funding sources.
The Trump administration has been in a standstill with Gateway since October, when it halted funding for the tunnel over a new rule that prohibits contracting requirements based on race or sex. New York and New Jersey sued the administration on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan after Gateway filed its own suit late Monday in an effort to unlock more than $205 million of federal funds in the Court of Federal Claims.
US District Judge Jeannette Vargas on Friday sided with the states and ordered the federal government to release the funds. That money may not be coming soon as the US Department of Transportation late Sunday filed a notice of appeal, according to a court filing.
The Gateway tunnel under the Hudson River is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the US. It connects New Jersey with Manhattan and will help relieve congestion in the existing tube, which is more than 100 years old.
“We are encouraged by Friday’s court decision and will continue to pursue all avenues to regain federal funding,” a spokesperson for Gateway said in a statement late Sunday.
A status conference in Gateway’s lawsuit is set for Tuesday in the US Court of Federal Claims.
(c) 2026, Bloomberg
Keir Starmer pledged to press on with his agenda as the departure of a second senior aide in 24 hours left the UK prime minister’s grip on power appearing increasingly tenuous.
The resignation of Starmer’s communications director, Tim Allan, on Monday, after just five months on the job will feed the sense of crisis engulfing 10 Downing St. The prime minister was already reeling from the departure on Sunday of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, a key architect of the Labour Party’s landslide election win 18 months ago.
In his remarks to staffers in No. 10, Starmer praised McSweeney’s contribution to Labour’s political revival in recent years and signaled that he intended to fight on as prime minister.
“We must prove that politics can be a force for good. I believe it can. I believe it is,” Starmer said, according to a statement. “We go forward from here. We go with confidence as we continue changing the country.”
Starmer is also due to address members of parliamentary Labour Party later on Monday. His spokesman, Tom Wells, told reporters the prime minister wasn’t planning to resign.
The renewed speculation over Starmer’s position knocked long-maturity gilts and the pound early on Monday. Yields on 10-year government bonds rose as much as five basis points to 4.57%, before paring the move to 4.55%. The pound weakened as much as 0.5% to 87.3 pence per euro.
Investors have tended to react negatively to the prospect of Starmer or Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves leaving their posts, out of concern they could be replaced by colleagues more willing boost spending.
Starmer, who has been struggling with historically low approval ratings and faced rebellions by backbench Members of Parliament, has come under fire over his decision in late 2024 to appoint Labour grandee Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US. That decision is being reexamined after the extent of Mandelson’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was revealed in files released by the US Justice Department late last month.
While McSweeney took the blame for Mandelson’s appointment in his resignation statement, the decision ultimately rested with Starmer. The criticism has fueled questions about Starmer’s ability to hang on as prime minister, with his leadership already weakened by series of policy reversals and the rise of Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK in the polls.
No. 10 officials were bracing for cabinet ministers to privately tell the premier to stand aside or threaten their resignations if he doesn’t, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously in order to be candid about the turmoil at the top of the Labour Party. One aide to a cabinet minister said it was 50-50 whether Starmer would last the week.
Allan’s exit will leave another void inside Starmer’s depleted brain trust. McSweeney and Allan had been locked in a power struggle and aides risked descending into open infighting, according to people familiar with the matter.
“I have decided to stand down to allow a new No. 10 team to be built,” Allan said in a statement on Monday morning. “I wish the PM and his team every success.”
(c) 2026, Bloomberg
As the Trump administration seeks to sweep away obstacles to developing artificial intelligence, the president’s team has brought its zeal for the new technology to the federal government itself.
Orders came down from the White House budget office in April urging every corner of the government to deploy AI. “The Federal Government will no longer impose unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions on the use of innovative American AI in the Executive Branch,” the White House said in a statement announcing the push.
Officials across the government answered the call, according to a Washington Post analysis of more than two dozen recent agency disclosures on AI use. On top of automating rote tasks, government agencies have launched hundreds of artificial intelligence projects in the past year, many of them taking on central and sensitive roles in law enforcement, immigration and health care.
The Department of Homeland Security has adopted new, more sophisticated facial recognition tools. The FBI has purchased novel systems to sift through reams of images and text to generate leads for investigators. And the Department of Veterans Affairs is developing an AI program to predict whether a veteran is likely to attempt suicide.
Revoking – even scorning – the Biden administration’s caution, the White House has directed government departments to cut through any red tape that might slow the adoption of AI. “Simply put, we need to ‘Build, Baby, Build!’” the Trump administration’s AI action plan says.
Federal agencies are doing just that: The 29 that had posted data last week listed 2,987 active uses for AI by the end of 2025, up from 1,684 the year before. The disclosures are required by the budget office and provide basic details about each use of AI. Hundreds of those uses were marked as “high impact,” meaning they are being used as the main basis for making significant decisions or have implications for people’s rights or their safety, according to federal standards.
The White House argues the technology is a way to make the government vastly more efficient, though it’s impossible to tell from the disclosures how well used any of the thousands of tools are.
The practical value of many of these tools remains uncertain. The public, meanwhile, remains deeply skeptical of the technology.
The administration’s focus on speed may come at the expense of ensuring the tools are being used safely, said Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a Brown University computer science professor. AI could spit out erroneous information, leading officials to make bad decisions, or a facial recognition tool could lead to someone being wrongfully placed on a watch list, he said. Venkatasubramanian, who worked on AI safety in the Biden administration, argued that officials previously placed a greater emphasis on oversight and managing risks.
“It’s not the use case itself that raises the question, it’s do you have the guardrails in place to use what can be very noisy and powerful tools in the right way,” he said. “Any particular use case – even the most innocuous sounding ones – could backfire.”
The White House Office of Management and Budget, which is overseeing the government’s AI rollout, did not respond to a request for comment. Its April memo directs agency leaders to ensure “that rapid AI innovation is not achieved at the expense of the American people or any violations of their trust.”
– – –
Turbocharged law enforcement
As the administration has dramatically ramped up its deportation efforts, DHS has increasingly turned to advanced technology to turbocharge its work. The department’s disclosures reveal a suite of facial recognition tools deployed in the past year and another system to help identify people to deport. In all, 151 AI use cases mention either “immigration” or “border” or were filed by immigration and customs agencies.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of DHS, reported adding new facial recognition functions, including the Mobile Fortify app, which is used to scan individuals’ faces in the field. It also disclosed its use of an unspecified system to identify “vulnerable populations,” which the agency defined as including “unaccompanied minors who have crossed the border.”
ICE also said it began in June using a new generative AI system from the defense contractor Palantir that trawls through handwritten records such as rap sheets and warrants, to automatically extract addresses to aid Enforcement and Removal Operations, the agency’s deportation division. The AI-powered system, called Enhanced Leads Identification and Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE), is not supposed to serve as a “primary basis for enforcement actions,” the agency said. Officers manually review the data and make decisions, it added.
Another Palantir system helps quickly review ICE’s tip line, summarizing and categorizing each tip, whatever language it is submitted in.
“Employing various forms of technology in support of investigations and law enforcement activities aids in the arrest of criminal gang members, child sex offenders, murderers, drug dealers, identity thieves and more, all while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests,” DHS previously said in a statement.
The Justice Department disclosed multiple tools designed to generate leads for investigators, including a facial recognition system at the FBI and another to prioritize tips coming into bureau offices around the country. But many of the department’s descriptions are vague: The output of one FBI tool is described merely as “text.”
Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Washington-based think tank Brookings, said a lack of detail in some agency disclosures makes it difficult to fully judge some of their more sensitive uses of AI.
The Justice Department and Palantir did not respond to requests for comment.
– – –
A Veterans Affairs boom
The Department of Veterans Affairs listed more high-impact uses of AI than any other agency, disclosing 174 such tools either in development or operation to revamp how it provides health care and benefits. The department said it is developing AI helpers to prepare patients for surgery, use computer vision to more precisely measure wounds and identify potential suicide risks that human clinicians might have missed.
Another system is designed to help veterans claim their benefits. “This project harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to analyze vast amounts of data, providing personalized recommendations and streamlined access to a wide array of veteran benefits,” the department said in its disclosure.
Pete Kasperowicz, a VA spokesman, said those four systems “are still being assessed for their viability and have not been tested or deployed.” He said the department uses AI only as a “support tool,” leaving final health care and benefits decisions to agency staff.
Chris Macinkowicz, an official at Veterans of Foreign Wars, a service group, said that while VA’s use of AI promises to help the agency serve millions of veterans more efficiently, it needs to be carefully overseen.
“Our experience has shown that, although AI can be a valuable tool, it is not infallible,” Macinkowicz said in an email. “Human judgment is essential to ensure accuracy, fairness, and accountability in decisions that have a direct and lasting impact on veterans and their families.”
The Department of Health and Human Services disclosed an additional 89 projects connected to medical care. They include using AI to oversee clinical trials and to track the availability of vaccines. The department did not respond to a request for comment.
– – –
Chatbots
Many government uses are similar to those available to the general public. Agencies operate at least 180 chatbots designed to not only help federal employees complete mundane tasks such as scheduling travel and IT help, but also support them in more sensitive work like understanding labyrinthine internal rule books. Several agencies are using similar tools to help with writing federal rules and deciding how to award contracts.
In a year that saw hundreds of thousands of federal employees laid off or take buyouts under cuts engineered by the Trump administration, a Defense Department official described at a conference last month how one team was able to use AI to still get a mandatory report finished despite losing the help of a team of about 20 contractors.
“There’s four people, and guess what?” said Jake Glassman, a senior Pentagon technology official. “They generated the report, and I would dare anyone to see any type of difference on that.”
– – –
National security
The Pentagon is exempt from the disclosure process, but other government records show how it is aggressively accelerating its AI experimentation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered officials to avoid being hamstrung by undue concerns of risks in a memo issued last month. Future AI contracts with vendors must allow for “any lawful use,” he wrote, without further usage constraints.
“We must eliminate blockers to data sharing,” the memo said. “… We must approach risk tradeoffs … and other subjective questions as if we were at war.” The Pentagon told vendors in recent weeks that it is seeking to acquire cutting-edge “agentic” AI systems that exhibit “decision-making capabilities” and “human-like agency” for its elite Special Operations forces. One potential use for such systems is to weigh various “constraints” that govern when units can initiate or continue combat and the risk of killing or injuring civilians.
“These constraints overlap and sometimes include conflicting guidance,” the department said in a request for industry input, adding that the AI agents should understand how certain constraints have priority over others.
The request said the tools are expected to adapt and learn in real time, though they will be prohibited from “online” learning in contexts such as “kinetic fires” – the use of live ammunition – “since it may lead to undesired behavior.”
The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.
– – –
Science and research
Government scientists are experimenting with using AI to solve problems in hundreds of niche areas, including eight related to whales and dolphins. Some at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working on “Automated whale blow detections” – part of a population-tracking effort. (Some of these biologists are having fun, titling one project “Artificial Fintelligence: Automating photo-ID of dolphins in the Pacific Islands.”) Some 49 other projects use AI to evaluate satellite and aerial imagery to detect ice seals, track invasive species, estimate soybean yields, and locate cooling towers that might be vectors for the spread of Legionnaires’ disease.
NOAA did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal archivists have also turned to AI to help make the nation’s history more accessible.
Jim Byron, a senior adviser at the National Archives and Records Administration, said the agency launched an AI-powered tool last month to let the public search through newly digitized records. They include documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the disappearance of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart.
Byron said in a statement that the agency plans to build on its work, calling the tool a “giant leap into the present.”
(c) 2026, The Washington Post
{Matzav.com}
