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A devastating loss has struck the community in Flatbush, as 25-year-old Yossi Loriner z”l was killed in a serious car accident in Pennsylvania.

Yossi, the son of R’ Yitzchok Loriner of Flatbush, was studying law in Pennsylvania and was on his way home to visit his parents when the fatal crash occurred.

Authorities reported that the accident took place shortly before 8:15 p.m. in the northbound lanes of a Pennsylvania highway. Yossi sustained fatal injuries at the scene and was pronounced dead there.

Pennsylvania State Police have opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash, which involved a truck. Volunteers from Chesed Shel Emes remained at the scene throughout the night to ensure kavod hameis and handle the necessary arrangements.

Yehi zichro boruch.

{Matzav.com}

Donald Trump said Tuesday that Washington could step in to assist Spirit Airlines as the budget airline confronts the prospect of shutting down operations.

Speaking on Squawk Box on CNBC, Trump said: “I don’t mind mergers. I think I’d love somebody to buy Spirit, as an example. You know, Spirit’s in trouble. … Maybe the federal government should help that one out.″

According to individuals familiar with the situation, the airline has recently approached the administration for financial support, though they were not authorized to speak publicly about the discussions. The request was initially reported by The Air Current.

Spirit has been grappling with ongoing financial instability after seeking bankruptcy protection in August for the second time within a year.

The carrier had planned to exit bankruptcy proceedings by mid-2026, in part by offloading aircraft and concentrating service on a smaller group of core markets. However, rising fuel costs following U.S. and Israeli military strikes on Iran in February have intensified the strain. Fuel remains the second-largest expense for airlines after labor.

Prices for jet fuel have climbed sharply this year in the wake of the Iran conflict, nearly doubling overall. Data from Airlines for America, based on figures from Argus, showed that as of Monday, a gallon averaged $3.87 in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and New York—roughly 55% higher than before the war began on Feb. 28.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is scheduled to meet later Tuesday with several low-cost airlines to review how higher fuel costs are affecting their operations. People briefed on the plans said carriers are expected to raise the possibility of tax relief during the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions had not yet been publicly disclosed.

It remains uncertain whether the administration will extend direct assistance to the Florida-based airline. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government provided billions of dollars in relief to the aviation sector, though the funds were distributed broadly across the industry rather than directed to a single company.

{Matzav.com}

When researcher Nicholas Tiller began to feed health questions into chatbots as a test, he expected some imperfections – but not this level of failure.

Five AIs, 250 questions and a total score of just over 50 percent correct responses.

And 1 in 5 of the ones that were wrong were, in Tiller’s estimation, dangerous.

“It would more than likely cause somebody harm if they were to follow the advice,” he said. “It was a bit of a shock.”

Millions of Americans regularly use AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini as a first stop for health questions related to colds, cancer and beyond. Two studies published this month suggest that may not be such a good idea – at least without a lot of skepticism.

Tiller, a research associate at the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, published his study in BMJ Open. A separate team from Mass General Brigham approached the question in an entirely different way, and the study appeared in JAMA Network Open.

Both studies were designed as real-world tests, with humans posing open-ended questions as well as more structured, closed questions that push for brief, discrete responses – often just a few words – or yes-or-no answers. Tiller’s study focused on subjects frequently distorted by misinformation, posing questions such as: Does 5G cause cancer? How much raw milk should I drink for health benefits?

In the JAMA Network Open paper, testers gave 21 models realistic medical situations involving patients and asked them to “play doctor.” That paper also gave the AI tools failing grades.

The findings echo a recent experiment that tested how easily falsehoods can seep into AI systems. In 2024, a team of researchers invented a condition -“bixonimania”- and seeded the internet with fabricated studies describing it as a disorder marked by red, irritated eyes from too much screen time. They didn’t exactly try to hide the ruse.

The papers included conspicuous tells: a nonexistent university, a made-up city, even a line stating, “this entire paper is made up.” It didn’t matter. Within weeks, chatbots were citing the condition as if it were real, invoking it in response to users describing their symptoms. A study published in January in the Lancet suggests the problem is not an isolated quirk. The most reliable chatbot the researchers tested still treated more than 10 percent of fabricated claims as true with the worst accepting more than half.

The tests were conducted using general purpose AI tools. Several companies have since been working to enhance their health capabilities or roll out more specialized AI apps, and many of the models evaluated have been updated since the study period, which may improve their performance.

One in 4 people are using chatbots for health information, and younger people are more likely to have used AI for health-related information or advice in the 30 days prior, according to research released this month from a third source, the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of about 5,600 adults. And a not insignificant portion of them – 14 percent, or about 14 million people – report not seeing a provider they otherwise would have because of information or advice they received from AI.

“Obviously it’s deeply concerning that people are relying on unvalidated chatbots for their health care,” said Tim Lash, president of the West Health Policy Center, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group focused on aging and health care affordability. But he also sees hopeful signs in the data. He said respondents were split in thirds from a trust perspective: a third were using AI and trusted it, a third used it and didn’t trust it and the rest were unsure.

“It tells you there’s a healthy amount of concerns about guardrails and protecting the quality of information,” Lash said.

Why chatbots struggle to think like doctors
Many popular chatbots today are trained on large language models (LLMs), vast amounts of text to understand, and their original purpose was to generate humanlike language. The models can pull from well established authorities in medicine such as journals and pages set up by Harvard Medical School or the Cleveland Clinic, but they also look at things like social media and Q&A forums.

The physician’s task, on the other hand, has been more or less unchanged for centuries: to treat and manage illness, with a central challenge being to determine what, exactly, ails the patient – what medicine came to call a differential diagnosis. It is a process of gathering symptoms, weighing evidence from tests and narrowing the field to the most likely cause based on scientific literature – with some human instinct thrown in.

Aligning the design of AI chatbots with the complex reasoning required of doctors has been a challenge.

In the JAMA Network Open study, conducted January 2025 to December 2025, researchers presented 29 case vignettes based on cases in the professional version of the Merck Manual, a widely used medical reference, in a similar way they might have been posed to medical students or residents in training. An example might be telling the chatbot that there’s a female patient, 30 years of age, with abdominal pain and asking what to do.

The AIs – which included different updates of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek and Grok – were prone to draw premature conclusions, and got it wrong 80 percent of the time.

“They didn’t do well when asked to reason through uncertain limited data,” Marc Succi, one of the co-authors and executive director of the MESH Incubator at Mass General Brigham. In contrast, the models performed well at later stages of the investigation into patient cases when more complete information was available.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and Google (Gemini) declined to comment. DeepSeek and xAI (Grok) did not respond to requests for comment.

Anthropic, which makes Claude, said that when people ask medical questions it is trained to acknowledge its limits as an AI. “Our usage policy is clear that medical diagnosis and patient care are classified as high-risk uses and require a qualified professional to review any AI-assisted content or decision,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Girish Nadkarni, chief AI officer for Mount Sinai Health and chair of the department of AI and human health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said the discrepancy exposes a major weakness of the current generation of chatbots, which is that they mostly operate through pattern matching – an approach that struggles when information is scarce.

“Humans have more general intelligence. We reason our way through situations,” said Nadkarni, who was not involved in either of the new studies. “The AI chatbots interpolate with data you have and not extrapolate data they don’t have.”

The researchers explained the problem this way in their conclusion: “Clinicians preserve uncertainty and iteratively refine differential diagnoses, whereas LLMs collapse prematurely into single answers.”

Confident and compliant, even when wrong
The BMJ Open group used what Tiller called an adversarial framework to create “strain” on the AI models, which included versions of ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, DeepSeek and Grok in February 2025. The researchers posted 10 open-ended and closed questions on five topics in the news: cancer, vaccines, stem cells, nutrition and athletic performance.

They scored the responses for accuracy and completeness and put them into three categories: non-problematic, somewhat problematic or highly problematic.

The AIs did better on closed questions versus open-ended ones, but the quality of the responses was similar across all five chatbots.

Chatbots are not designed for health. … They are just good at talking, like a salesperson when you to a car dealership.

One big issue for Tiller was the confidence with which the models expressed their answers. Out of the 250 questions, there were only two instances where an AI, Meta AI, refused to answer. One question had to do with the best anabolic steroids for building muscle and the response was that the AI can’t provide information on the illegal use of substances. The other was about alternative therapies to chemotherapy to which the AI suggested the questioner consult a medical professional.

Tiller said both were the reasonable and responsible responses, but that it was “unbelievably infrequent” for an AI to admit it did not know something, did not have sufficient information to respond or questioned the question.

Another area the AIs had trouble with was nuance. For example, on the covid-19 and vaccines question, Tiller said, Grok included what he called “elements of false balance,” which made it seem as though there was a debate when the scientific consensus is that the vaccines help protect against severe illness, hospitalization and death.

“When people read an authoritative answer it gives it false credibility,” Tiller said, adding that people need to know that for the most part these AI chatbots do not weigh information based on the reliability of the source or look at its validity.

A previous study published in October in npj Digital Medicine, a Nature publication, suggested one vulnerability may be that AI chatbots are designed to be excessively helpful and agreeable, which leads them to not challenge illogical medical queries.

“Results showed high initial compliance (up to 100%) across all models, prioritizing helpfulness over logical consistency,” the authors wrote.

Companies are already moving to strengthen how their AI systems handle health questions. Meta said on April 8 that it had released an updated version of its AI with a major focus on health, noting that it collaborated with “over 1,000 physicians to curate training data that enables more factual and comprehensive responses.” OpenAI, meanwhile, has been working with more than 250 practicing physicians across specialties to improve its latest model’s responses, including better recognizing uncertainty and being more likely to ask follow-up questions.

Nonetheless, Nadkarni believes third-party testing and guidance are needed, along with a broader public discussion about whether that oversight should take the form of formal regulation through agencies like the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Trade Commission, or whether a trade group could be established to conduct testing and provide a seal of approval.

“There need to be some guardrails,” Nadkarni said.

Meanwhile, Tiller and Succi recommend that consumers think of AI as a supplement rather than a replacement for medical professionals.

“Chatbots are not designed for health,” Tiller said. “They are designed for one thing: to mimic conversational fluency. They are just good at talking, like a salesperson when you try to buy a car.”

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Ariana Eunjung Cha 

SAN FRANCISCO – Florida’s attorney general announced a criminal investigation of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, alleging the company’s chatbot advised the man accused of killing two people in a shooting at Florida State University last year which ammunition to use and where and when to strike.

“The chatbot advised the shooter on what type of gun to use, on which ammo went with which gun, on whether or not a gun would be useful at short range,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said at a news conference Tuesday. “If it was a person on the other end of that screen, we would be charging them with murder.”

Uthmeier’s office sent subpoenas to OpenAI on Tuesday, asking for the artificial intelligence company’s policies on how to respond when its users make threats to harm others during conversations with ChatGPT, according to a statement. The criminal investigation announced Tuesday follows a civil inquiry Uthmeier announced this month.

“Last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime,” OpenAI spokesperson Kate Waters said. “After learning of the incident, we identified a ChatGPT account believed to be associated with the suspect and proactively shared this information with law enforcement.”

ChatGPT provided “factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity,” Waters said. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

Two people were killed and six others injured in the shooting at Florida State in Tallahassee last April after a college student opened fire on campus, authorities said at the time. The suspected shooter, Phoenix Ikner, was shot by police who had swarmed to the campus and was later hospitalized. Ikner has been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.

“ChatGPT advised the shooter on what time of day would be appropriate for the shooting to interact with more people and where on campus would be the place to encounter a higher population,” Uthmeier said at the Tuesday news conference.

OpenAI faces intense scrutiny from law enforcement and elected officials after authorities alleged that the shooter in Florida and suspect in a February mass shooting in Canada that killed nine people discussed their intention to harm others in conversations with ChatGPT. Several families of people who died by suicide have filed lawsuits claiming the chatbot contributed to the deaths of their loved ones.

The tragic incidents have fueled a debate about what responsibilities AI companies have to monitor user conversations and flag concerning ones to law enforcement.

In a December 2025 document outlining how its AI models operate, OpenAI said that it has a system to monitor and automatically flag conversations that might indicate a user is planning to harm someone to its human reviewers. Those reviewers then decided whether to escalate the situation to police. It is unclear whether the FSU shooter’s conversations triggered human review by OpenAI.

AI companies train their chatbots not to answer questions with offensive content or information that could be used to harm people, but the nature of how the technology works means it is difficult to predict how a chatbot may react in every possible scenario, said Ramayya Krishnan, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has advised the White House and Department of Defense on AI policy and governance. “The guardrails are not 100 percent effective.”

Concerns about AI’s impact on people and on the economy are becoming political issues, and Florida’s attorney general and its governor, Ron DeSantis, have expressed their own skepticism about the AI industry.

The state has also become a battleground in a growing split inside the Republican Party over how to regulate AI. DeSantis pushed the state’s legislature to pass an “AI bill of rights” that would have instituted a series of limits on how companies could use AI in consumer products, but after opposition from President Donald Trump, legislators did not pass the bill.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Gerrit De Vynck 

[Video below.] The Iranian consulate in Hyderabad on Wednesday circulated an AI-generated clip ridiculing Donald Trump and his recent move to prolong a ceasefire tied to the ongoing conflict involving Iran.

Trump had said he would “extend the ceasefire” to create additional space for diplomatic talks, even as he ordered U.S. forces to maintain a naval blockade on Iranian ports. The decision came amid continued uncertainty over negotiations, with Tehran not confirming whether it would take part and plans for a visit by JD Vance reportedly shifting at the last moment.

The roughly 45-second video, uploaded to the consulate’s official account on X, presents a staged negotiation scenario intended as satire of the announcement.

The video begins with a digitally created version of Trump sitting in what appears to be a conference room, facing a lineup of empty chairs symbolizing the absent Iranian delegation.

“We are having very great negotiations with Iran,” the AI-generated Trump says, addressing the empty room.

The tone then sharpens as he continues, “If Iran doesn’t come to negotiate, we’re gonna bomb them,” still speaking to the vacant seats.

Shortly afterward, he asks, “So where are the Iranians?” before an aide approaches and hands him a note. The message reads: “Shut up.”

The clip concludes with the AI portrayal of Trump declaring, “Alright, then I will extend the ceasefire at Pakistan’s request,” and then exiting the room.

Accompanying the post, the consulate added a caption: “How was the ceasefire extended? The video is getting viral in Iran,” referring to the clip’s spread online.

[Video below.] New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday unveiled an additional $35 million in funding for the state’s Securing Communities Against Hate Crimes Grant Program, bringing the total available funding to $70 million and marking one of the largest investments to date in protecting vulnerable institutions across the state.

The announcement was made at a public event attended by community leaders and government officials, including Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Director of New York Government Relations at Agudath Israel of America, and Rabbi Ephraim Gurell, Government Affairs Associate in Agudath Israel’s New York Office of Government Relations.

Governor Hochul emphasized the urgency of the initiative amid rising threats against religious and community institutions.

“As governor, I’ll never rest until I know that all New Yorkers are safe. …Since 2021, we’ve invested $131 million in securing communities against hate crimes, securing more than 1,700 projects and nonprofit organizations because of a heightened risk. Today, I’m making up to over $70 million in new funding available through this program.”

The newly announced funding is included in the FY27 Executive Budget and builds upon the $35 million already allocated in the FY26 Enacted Budget. The program is designed to support nonprofit, community-based organizations that face heightened risks of hate crimes or terror-related threats, particularly in light of ongoing instability in the Middle East.

“There’s a saying I’ve used many times, but I really mean it: Hate has no place in our state. This is a state that was built on being a welcoming beacon for people who are oppressed in other nations, who came here in search of a better life and practiced their religions freely. And now there are times when that commitment, that belief, is being challenged in our streets and our schools and our places of worship,” Hochul said.

She also described the growing normalization of visible security measures at religious institutions, recalling a recent visit. “Last month, I went to the Park Avenue Synagogue and spoke with Rabbi Cosgrove, and he told me something that stayed with me. He said it has become normalized for people to see law enforcement with long guns outside the doors to protect their right to go worship their G-d. This is New York City…and no one should have to encounter that specter which automatically triggers fear.”

The governor added that her administration is also pursuing additional security measures. “As governor, I’ll never rest until I know that all New Yorkers are safe…. And in this budget, I’m calling for a 25-foot buffer upheld by our police around places of worship — I want to get that done.”

During the event, Hochul singled out Rabbi Silber for his advocacy work. “Rabbi Silber, I want to thank you for your leadership and your leadership and your voice in this important matter.”

Rabbi Silber, who then addressed the gathering, expressed appreciation for the administration’s continued support. “Thank you, Governor Hochul. You have been a strong voice moral voice in this issue ever since you took office,” he said.

He added, “Your words and actions have demonstrated your commitment to fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate… Today’s announcement is a continuation of your commitment to protect and be there for our vulnerable communities.”

The grants have already made a significant difference on the ground, said Rabbi Silber. “Because of these funding increases, many summer camps in remote areas have been able to install high tech fencing to keep out intruders. Many schools have greatly enhanced their security systems and many yeshivos have been able to hire full-time security guards to protect their students.”
WATCH:
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{Matzav.com}

Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency issued a firm denial Wednesday to assertions linked to Donald Trump that Tehran had sought to prolong a ceasefire, releasing an extensive report insisting no such appeal was ever made.

The statement pushes back against comments Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social, where he declared that the pause in hostilities would continue indefinitely.

In that message, Trump wrote that the extension came at the urging of Pakistani officials, including Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. He also argued that Iran’s leadership was “seriously fractured,” and said U.S. forces would keep a naval blockade in place while remaining ready to act until Iran presents a unified position.

Tasnim, citing multiple sources, said Iran neither requested nor endorsed any continuation of the ceasefire, portraying Trump’s remarks as misleading—while acknowledging that he did not explicitly claim Iran had made such a request.

The outlet outlined several possible explanations for what it described as a unilateral move by Washington.

One interpretation suggested that the United States may have reached the practical limits of its current military approach, with Trump seeking to step back from further escalation by framing the situation as an extended ceasefire.

Another possibility raised by Tasnim is that the announcement could be a strategic ruse, cautioning that despite public messaging about de-escalation, the United States or Israel could still carry out military actions—a scenario Iranian officials are said to be watching closely.

The report also proposed that Washington might attempt to withdraw from direct confrontation while allowing Israel to remain engaged, potentially citing alleged violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon as justification.

Tasnim further argued that the ongoing U.S. naval blockade itself amounts to continued aggression, stating that Iran would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz under those conditions.

According to the report, Tehran would be prepared to take decisive action if needed to break the blockade.

Another theory put forward by the agency is that Washington intends to sustain prolonged instability around Iran, maintaining pressure on the country’s economic and political systems.

In a separate development, Tasnim reported that Iran has decided against participating in anticipated talks in Islamabad, contradicting earlier expectations and signaling further deterioration in diplomatic efforts.

Sources cited in the report said Iran had originally agreed to a ceasefire and follow-up negotiations based on a 10-point framework that had reportedly been accepted by the United States through Pakistani mediation.

Tasnim alleged that Washington later failed to uphold key elements of that framework, including not enforcing a ceasefire involving Israel in Lebanon.

The report added that during initial discussions in Islamabad, U.S. officials introduced demands that Iran viewed as excessive and outside the agreed terms, leading to a stalemate and derailing any chance of progress.

After those talks broke down, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was said to have signaled a willingness to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic under the original agreement, but that prospect faded as the U.S. blockade remained in effect.

Tasnim concluded that ongoing contacts between the sides have produced no meaningful breakthroughs, with U.S. positions unchanged and, from Iran’s perspective, incompatible with its sovereignty and national interests.

Israel’s Chief Rabbinate is examining whether any legal action can be taken against a man who has been appearing in public dressed as the Rishon LeZion, raising concern after multiple incidents in which members of the public—and even security officials—mistook him for the Sephardic Chief Rabbi.

The individual, identified as Eyal Tzionov, has been showing up at official ceremonies wearing the distinctive robe and turban associated with the Rishon LeZion, offering blessings to attendees who believe they are meeting the chief rabbi himself.

A senior official in the Chief Rabbinate indicated that legal avenues may be limited. “The legal history teaches that there is really no way to prevent an individual from dressing as he wishes,” the official said.

According to reports, Tzionov does not explicitly claim to be the chief rabbi and at times has even described himself as “Moshiach,” a factor that complicates potential legal action despite his use of attire closely identified with the office.

The issue came to a head Tuesday night during Israel’s national torch-lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl. As Rabbi Avraham Zerbiv lit a torch and dedicated it to the rabbinical courts, broadcast cameras captured Tzionov seated nearby, dressed in the traditional garments of the Rishon LeZion.

Members of the public, unaware of his true identity, approached him for brachos, assuming he was the sitting Sephardic Chief Rabbi.

It remains unclear how Tzionov was able to gain access to the high-profile state event and be seated near senior national leadership. Witnesses reported that as he made his way to his seat, numerous attendees sought his blessing, convinced they were encountering the official Rishon LeZion.

The incident left officials in the Chief Rabbinate stunned, prompting renewed efforts to determine how to address what they view as a troubling and misleading phenomenon.

In a separate incident last week, Tzionov ascended the Har Habayis dressed in the same rabbinic attire. Initially, Shin Bet personnel believed he was the serving chief rabbi and contacted senior rabbinical officials to clarify the circumstances of his visit, which had not been coordinated in advance.

Security officials soon realized that the individual was an impostor, underscoring the risks posed by such impersonation—particularly when it can mislead even high-level security agencies and create confusion around the movements of prominent rabbinic figures.

The garments worn by the Rishon LeZion carry deep symbolic significance. According to Sephardic tradition, the chief rabbi wears a dark blue or black robe adorned with gold or silver embroidery in floral patterns, along with a matching turban accented by a blue-and-white band.

These garments, whose origins trace back to the Ottoman era, have become a recognizable symbol of the highest rabbinic office in the Sephardic community. Their use by an unauthorized individual at public events or holy sites has caused widespread confusion.

Officials at the Chief Rabbinate say they are continuing to explore possible legal responses, though they acknowledge that their options may be constrained given that Tzionov does not directly present himself as the chief rabbi.

{Matzav.com}

The Trump administration’s contract governing hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to build President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom shields donors’ identities, excludes the White House from conflict of interest protections and was disclosed only after a lawsuit and a judge’s order, records obtained by The Washington Post show.

The agreement establishing the legal and financial framework for the planned $400 million undertaking – the most significant change to the White House in decades – was signed in early October, less than two weeks before demolition crews started destroying the East Wing. Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, sued to obtain the contract between the White House, the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit managing donations for the project, and shared the document with The Post.

“The Trump administration’s failure to disclose this contract was flatly unlawful,” said Wendy Liu, a Public Citizen attorney and lead counsel on the lawsuit, filed after the Park Service and the Interior Department failed to fulfill a public records request for the document. “The American people are entitled to transparency over this multi-million-dollar project.”

The secrecy surrounding the contract mirrors the administration’s broader approach to the project. White House officials have declined to disclose the total amount raised, the identities of all donors or, until recently, basic details about the building’s design. Court documents show Trump knew he was going to tear down the East Wing at least two months before doing so, but he never told the public.

The contract provisions, taken together, allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public.

“President Trump is working 24/7 to Make America Great Again, including his historic beautification of the White House, at no taxpayer expense,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement defending the administration’s process.

White House officials said not publicly posting the agreement was standard practice for contracts involving the executive residence, citing security concerns. They also said offering anonymity for donors was standard for significant projects and framed the use of private funds as a boon for taxpayers. The administration did not respond to questions about failing to respond to the public records request for the contract or fighting the release of the document in court. Trump has said that the administration has raised about $300 million for the project.

The contract resembles templates used by the Park Service for more routine fundraising partnerships – with several notable differences: Provisions peppered throughout the agreement prevent the signatories from revealing the identities of anonymous donors, and a review process for detecting conflicts of interest with the Park Service and Interior Department makes no mention of doing the same for the president, other White House officials or the 14 other executive departments he oversees.

Dozens of the project’s known donors – which include Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Palantir and Google – collectively have billions of dollars in federal contracts before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.) Critics have argued that allowing anonymous gifts to a sitting president’s signature project creates precisely the kind of conflict the contract itself states it seeks to prevent.

“This document reveals that anonymous donations are the heart of this agreement,” said Jon Golinger, a lawyer and public policy advocate with Public Citizen. “Who are these anonymous donors, and what are they hiding?”

Charles Tiefer, a retired law professor at the University of Baltimore who spent three years on a congressionally authorized commission scrutinizing wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the anonymity provisions potentially set up the Trump administration to block congressional inquiries into the project’s funding.

“If Congress knocks on the door, the White House is going to slam it shut and say, ‘You’re not allowed to know these donors,’” Tiefer said.

The National Park Service did not immediately respond to questions about the agreement. The Trust for the National Mall said the Park Service asked it to accept and manage private donations for the project and that it is “not involved in the fundraising, planning, design, contracting, or execution” of the ballroom, spokeswoman Julie Moore said in an email. Donations are subject to the same vetting process the Trust uses for other Park Service projects, and donor names are disclosed in its annual report, website and tax filings, she added.

Except those who don’t want to be.

“Some donors may wish to remain anonymous and we respect donor wishes, while in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations,” Moore said.

The Trust has performed a similar role on previous White House projects, including first lady Melania Trump’s Rose Garden restoration and tennis pavilion during her husband’s first term.

The contract excludes the White House from its conflict of interest review, which explicitly obligates the Trust and the Park Service to ensure that fundraising does not give rise to “an appearance of a loss of integrity or impartiality.” But the Executive Residence at the White House, the party responsible for identifying and referring donors to the Trust – and which the Trump administration has said in court filings is helping manage the overall ballroom project – is not required to face that scrutiny.

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics lawyer and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, called the agreement’s review process “nothing more than a sham,” because it mandates the Trust conduct a narrowly scoped conflict of interest examination while ignoring the vast majority of the federal government. Meanwhile, companies and individuals could be anonymously donating tens of millions of dollars as they stand to gain billion-dollar government contracts, want to avoid a Justice Department criminal investigation, or rid their companies of onerous labor or environmental regulations, she said.

The contract was signed as work on the ballroom project was already underway. Crews had begun clearing trees and foliage from the White House grounds in September. Twelve days after it was signed, demolition crews started tearing down the East Wing. The existence of the contract was not disclosed at the time. Trump, who says the ballroom is needed to host VIPs at larger functions, is pushing to finish it before the end of his second term in 2029.

Congressional Democrats have pressed the Trust for months to share more information about the project. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and colleagues sent a letter in January demanding to know how much money had been raised, whether donors had been promised special access or other perks, and whether the organization had internal controls to prevent preferential treatment. The Trust declined to disclose the amount raised but said it was adhering to all Park Service guidelines.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, demanded answers from dozens of ballroom donors and contractors about their involvement and questioned the “rapidly changing and secretive terms” of Trump’s planned ballroom. He also sent letters to several people who attended a White House dinner in October, which Trump held to honor ballroom donors. Blumenthal asked whether they had contributed and under what terms, noting that the administration had acknowledged it had not publicly identified all donors.

“At every turn, President Trump has sought to conceal the facts about his monstrous multimillion-dollar ballroom,” Blumenthal said in an statement to The Post. “His Administration has kept the contract under wraps, the identities of big dollar donors secret, and the American people in the dark about what big corporations have to gain by funding this boondoggle.”

Blumenthal, Warren and other Democrats have introduced legislation to ban anonymous donations for the ballroom and other projects on the White House grounds.

“There’s only one good explanation for why Trump’s ultra-wealthy ballroom donors want to stay anonymous: They have something to hide,” Warren told The Post.

A federal judge last month also criticized the Trump administration’s approach to soliciting private donors through its contract with the Park Service, calling it a “Rube Goldberg contraption” that allowed the president to avoid congressional oversight while building the ballroom. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled last month that construction must be halted on the ballroom until Congress authorizes the project. The Trump administration has appealed that ruling, and a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has allowed construction to continue while the case proceeds.

The White House has repeatedly declined to release the government’s contracts with the private companies designing, engineering and building the ballroom.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Jonathan Edwards, Dan Diamond
 

Moderna is launching a large-scale clinical trial of a shot to combat bird flu in humans after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department had canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in funding previously committed to aid in vaccine development.

The company is developing the vaccine using messenger RNA (mRNA), which is the technology used in the most commonly administered coronavirus vaccines and was hailed during President Donald Trump’s first term as a major medical achievement. It has since come under intense scrutiny from Kennedy and other conservatives, and the Department of Health and Human Services last year announced a winding down of investments in 22 mRNA vaccine development projects.

Last May, HHS pulled millions of dollars that President Joe Biden’s administration had said it would provide to Moderna to accelerate mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccines amid an outbreak of bird flu in dairy cattle. The move delayed a large-scale clinical trial for several months as Moderna sought alternative funding sources, according to Chris Ridley, a Moderna spokesman.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a global partnership to speed up the development of vaccines and other countermeasures, is investing up to $54.3 million to support the bird flu vaccine. On Tuesday, Moderna said the first participants in the large-scale clinical trial have received the vaccine in both the United States and Britain.

The trial is expected to enroll about 4,000 adults ages 18 and older. Moderna had previously announced positive interim data about immune response and safety from an early-stage clinical trial of roughly 300 healthy adults ages 18 and older.

Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO, called the launch of the trial a milestone for efforts to “strengthen global pandemic preparedness.”

“Our platform technology’s efficiency and scalability are critical to supporting global health security and responding to potential future threats,” he said in a press release.

Last year, HHS said the decision to pull Moderna’s funding was made after a “rigorous review,” adding mRNA technology “remains under-tested” and accused the Biden administration of concealing “legitimate safety concerns.”

In a statement Tuesday, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the department “sees promise in mRNA technology for recurrence of hard-to-treat cancers” and recently committed to a public-private partnership.

“Last year, HHS wound down its investments in mRNA vaccines for upper respiratory viruses because they do not protect effectively against infections from mutating strain of viruses such as COVID and flu,” Nixon said. “Also, these companies had already been massively subsidized by the government, and we decided to reinvest the money in other more promising technologies.”

Medical experts say coronavirus vaccines using mRNA technology have been shown to be safe and effective. Unlike traditional vaccines, which use dead or weakened versions of the virus or viral proteins to train the immune system, mRNA vaccines deliver genetic instructions that prompt the body’s cells to trigger an immune response. Because they rely on genetic sequencing rather than growing the virus in a lab, they can be developed more quickly than conventional vaccines.

On Monday, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary was questioned by CNN on the health department’s cancellation last year of mRNA vaccine research contracts. He said he was “excited” about the potential technology.

“We just felt like it should be the companies that made $50 billion from mRNA technology during the covid pandemic that should be funding their own research, not taxpayer dollars,” Makary said. “Taxpayer dollars should be going for research that nobody else in the market or investor community will fund.”

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Rachel Roubein 

An appellate court ruled Tuesday that Texas may require that public school classrooms display the Ten Commandments, a significant win for the conservative campaign to break down the legal walls between church and state and inject more religion into the public square.

The 9-8 ruling came from the conservative Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans. The case is widely expected to head next to the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority has been steadily removing restrictions on government support for religion.

Texas passed its Ten Commandments law in 2025, one of several efforts in recent years to infuse religion into public education. The Texas Board of Education, for instance, has also approved Bible-infused teaching materials and the state lets chaplains serve as school counselors.

A similar law requiring display of the Ten Commandments was approved in Louisiana in 2024. Federal judges blocked both statutes from taking effect, and a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals called Louisiana’s law “plainly unconstitutional.” Both states appealed to the full court, and the 17 active judges heard the case in January.

In February, the court ruled that it was too soon to challenge Louisiana’s law because it had not yet taken effect. On Tuesday, the court rendered its narrowly divided decision in the Texas case.

“This is a major victory for Texas and our moral values,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a post on X. “ … The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups representing challengers to the law said they were “extremely disappointed” and anticipate appealing to the Supreme Court.

“The Court’s ruling goes against fundamental First Amendment principles and binding U.S. Supreme Court authority,” the groups said in a statement. “The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction. This decision tramples those rights.”

Central to the case is the reach and interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, where the court allowed a football coach to pray at midfield after a game, calling it a personal religious observance protected by the right of free expression of one’s beliefs. In its decision, the court disavowed a long-standing legal standard known as the Lemon test, which for decades was used to invalidate policies that have a religious purpose or foster excessive government entanglement with religion.

A landmark Supreme Court decision in 1980 had relied at least in part on that test in invalidating a Kentucky law very much like recent laws passed in Texas and Louisiana mandating display of the Ten Commandments. In the Kentucky case, the court ruled that the mandatory displays were unconstitutional because the law had no secular purpose.

The question now is whether the football coach’s case means that other religious expressions are also permissible. In that case, the court endorsed considering “historical practices and understandings” in assessing the constitutionality of religious actions.

In its ruling Tuesday, the appellate court noted that the Lemon test had been jettisoned and said the Kentucky precedent no longer applied. Instead, it said, the court must consider whether the Texas law would have been considered an unconstitutional establishment of religion at the time of the nation’s founding.

Using this lens, the appellate court said Tuesday, displaying the Ten Commandments does not look like the establishment of religion.

“It does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams. It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason. It levies no taxes to support any clergy. It does not co-opt churches to perform civic functions,” it said.

The court said that students would not be coerced into any religious exercise or observance.

“All the law requires is a poster on a classroom wall. To be sure, Plaintiffs disagree with the poster’s content, but that disagreement alone does not transform S.B. 10 into religious coercion,” the court wrote.

Michael A. Helfand, a law professor at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law who is an expert in church-state law, said the court was right to look to how this practice would have been viewed at the founding of the country but said the court’s answer to that question was wrong.

“The historical record provides evidence that when government acts to manipulate the religious preferences of its citizens, it violates the Establishment Clause. And requiring the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom should have been interpreted as an attempt to do just that,” Helfand said.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Laura Meckler 

The Trump administration is broadening its effort to combat fraud in federal healthcare programs, requiring every state to outline how it will recheck the credentials of certain Medicaid providers, marking a shift from earlier actions that focused on select states.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Tuesday at a Politico healthcare summit that states will soon be formally asked to take responsibility for addressing fraud. He indicated that each state will be required to submit its plan within 30 days.

“It’s an example of what we’d like them to do to prove that they’re serious about this,” Oz said. “And if you don’t take it seriously, it indicates to us that we might have to take the audits that we’re doing to the different states more aggressively.”

The move is part of a broader initiative aimed at reducing waste, fraud, and abuse within Medicaid and Medicare, efforts that until now have largely concentrated on states governed by Democrats.

Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a government-wide task force focused on fraud in federal benefit programs, led by Vice President JD Vance. It remains unclear whether the latest directive is formally tied to that initiative, although Oz has been coordinating with Vance on related probes. When asked for additional specifics about the audits, a CMS spokesperson said the agency is reviewing questions submitted by the Associated Press.

Oz defended the expanded effort by pointing to concerns that some states have allowed large numbers of providers into federal health programs who may not be delivering legitimate care, instead exploiting the system for financial gain. He said the verification push would concentrate on “high risk areas,” though he did not elaborate on what qualifies as high risk.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who has faced criticism from the administration and congressional Republicans over alleged fraud in federally funded programs, responded positively to the announcement.

Walz told reporters Tuesday that Minnesota had not yet received the formal request but noted that the state has already begun revalidating providers and has implemented major improvements. Minnesota previously filed a lawsuit against CMS in February after funds were withheld, and that case remains unresolved. The withheld funding has not yet been released, though CMS informed state officials last month that it had accepted Minnesota’s corrective action plan.

During the Politico discussion, Oz was asked whether the administration’s anti-fraud push could unintentionally disrupt or weaken essential healthcare services. He dismissed those concerns, expressing confidence that the effort would strengthen the programs.

“I believe this audit and others like it will save the programs we care most about,” he said.

{Matzav.com}

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President Donald Trump said tonight that Iran’s public stance on the Strait of Hormuz is driven by optics rather than strategy, arguing that Tehran is only calling for its closure to mask the impact of a sweeping U.S. blockade.

In a Truth Social post, Trump framed the situation as one in which Iran is suffering steep financial losses and attempting to manage perceptions. “Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day (which is, therefore, what they are losing if it is closed!).”

He then directly addressed what he sees as the disconnect between Iran’s statements and its true interests. “They only say they want it closed because I have it totally BLOCKADED (CLOSED!), so they merely want to ‘save face.’”

Trump also said he has received recent indications that Iran is eager to reopen the critical shipping lane. “People approached me four days ago, saying, ‘Sir, Iran wants to open up the Strait, immediately.’”

At the same time, he warned that removing the blockade would eliminate leverage in any negotiations with Tehran. “But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!”

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump unleashed a blistering attack on The Wall Street Journal in a lengthy Truth Social post Tuesday evening, denouncing the paper’s editorial board and forcefully rejecting claims made in a recent opinion piece about his handling of Iran.

Opening with a broadside against the publication itself, Trump declared, “THE WALL STREET JOURNAL HAS LOST ITS WAY!”—setting the tone for a post that mixed personal insults, sweeping geopolitical claims, and a detailed defense of his record.

Trump specifically targeted an editorial board member, writing, “An IDIOT on The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, named Elliot Kaufman, just wrote an Op Ed entitled, ‘The Iranians Take Trump for a Sucker.’ Really?” He then pivoted to a broader argument about his longstanding stance toward Iran, asserting, “For 47 years, they have killed our people, and many others, and taken advantage of every President, except me — And what did I give to them, a Country in tatters!”

The president went on to describe what he portrayed as the current weakened state of Iran’s military and infrastructure, claiming, “Their entire Navy is at the bottom of the Sea, their Air Force is gone, their Anti Aircraft and Radar is wiped out, their Nuclear Labs and Storage Areas were OBLITERATED late one dark June evening by our Great B-2 Bombers, their leaders are DEAD, including General Soleimani, their evil genius who destroyed the lives of so many with his favored roadside bombs.”

He also pointed to ongoing economic and strategic pressure, adding, “the Strait of Hormuz is BLOCKADED and totally controlled by the U.S., with no Ships allowed to go to Iranian Ports — It is said that they are losing 500 Million Dollars a day because of this — Their Country is an Economic Catastrophe, that is hanging by a thread.”

Trump contrasted his approach with that of previous administrations, singling out President Barack Obama. “Barack Hussein Obama gave them 1.7 Billion Dollars in ‘Green’ Cash, flown in by a Boeing 757 to their leaders, and Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in order to help them on their way to a Nuclear Bomb,” he wrote, adding, “Other Presidents did nothing to stop them, a BLIGHT on the Office of the Presidency!”

Returning to the Journal’s criticism, Trump doubled down on his rejection of the characterization presented in the op-ed. “But despite all of this, I have a MORON on the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal writing about me being taken for a ‘sucker.’ Iran certainly doesn’t think so! Neither does anyone else.”

He concluded by turning his ire toward media ownership, suggesting editorial direction from the top. “I guess Rupert Murdoch told him to write it this way, because The Wall Street Journal has lost its way, no longer required reading, just another failing political RAG!”

{Matzav.com}

The United States is preparing to deny entry to certain individuals seeking to attend the upcoming FIFA World Cup if they are accused of promoting antisemitism abroad, according to Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the U.S. special envoy tasked with addressing antisemitism.

Speaking this week, Kaploun said the policy reflects a broader stance by the administration against importing hate into the country. “The president and the secretary of state have made it perfectly clear that people who want to sow discord in this country are not welcome here,” Kaploun told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “People who want to bring their brand of hate to the United States with antisemitism are not welcome. Coming to this country is a privilege. It’s not a right.”

The possibility of such restrictions was first highlighted in a report by Euractiv, which cited Kaploun’s remarks at a European Jewish Association gathering in Brussels. According to that report, he said the United States was “holding countries accountable for ministers who are saying things, and they are not being allowed into the country.”

Kaploun, however, pushed back on the suggestion that the policy would target European political figures specifically, emphasizing instead that decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis. He underscored that individuals would be assessed individually rather than by nationality or position.

“If there is a minister that is promoting, you know, there are people who are promoting right-wing antisemitism or left-wing antisemitism,” Kaploun said. “Either way, coming to the United States is a privilege, not a right, and everybody is judged on making sure that they’re going to be coming to this country, that they’re going to not ferment hate.”

The next FIFA World Cup is scheduled to take place from June 11 through July 19 across venues in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and is expected to be the largest tournament in the competition’s history, with 48 teams participating.

Among the nations that have qualified are several that have had direct tensions or conflict with Israel, including Iran, Turkey, and South Africa. Israel will not be part of the tournament after failing to advance through the qualifying rounds last year, following mounting pressure in some quarters to exclude it from European football competition.

Other participating countries include places where antisemitism has reportedly increased or where American officials have recently clashed with local authorities over issues affecting Jewish communities. One example cited is Belgium, where the U.S. ambassador publicly criticized the country’s health minister over the arrest of mohels who performed Jewish circumcisions.

Since taking on his role in December, Kaploun has spoken out repeatedly about antisemitism in Europe, including a dispute earlier this year with the head of the Conference of European Rabbis regarding the underlying causes of the problem.

His remarks come as FIFA President Gianni Infantino confirmed during CNBC’s Invest in America Forum on Wednesday that Iran would indeed compete in the World Cup, despite the ongoing hostilities and a tenuous ceasefire involving the United States and Israel.

“The Iranian team is coming for sure, yes,” Infantino said. “We hope that by then, of course, the situation will be a peaceful situation. As I said, that would definitely help. But Iran has to come. Of course, they represent their people. They have qualified. The players want to play.”

On Thursday, Andrew Giuliani, who heads the White House task force overseeing World Cup preparations, told Politico that the administration anticipates Iran’s participation.

“I’m not going to speak for the Iranian team, but I will say that the president, when I’ve talked to him, has invited the Iranian team here,” Giuliani said. “The president of FIFA made a statement, I think, yesterday, that they’re going to be coming. So we expect them here.”

Addressing who might fall under potential entry restrictions, Kaploun pointed to individuals connected to incidents involving Israeli soccer fans, including a decision by England’s Aston Villa Football Club to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending a match, as well as those linked to violent episodes in Amsterdam last year that left several fans injured.

“Those people who are responsible for what occurred in Amsterdam at the soccer matches, or that are responsible for the lies that ended up resulting in tourists, people, not being allowed to come to a soccer match — those people who do those things will be held accountable and aren’t welcome to come to the United States of America,” Kaploun said.

RICHMOND – Virginia voters approved a referendum to draw new congressional districts that could add as many as four Democratic seats to the House of Representatives, the Associated Press projects, awarding Democrats an advantage in the national redistricting war begun by Republicans.

Democrats and their allies poured at least $64 million into the Virginia campaign in a high-stakes bid to counter President Donald Trump’s push to add Republican seats in other states. Voters rewarded the effort, continuing momentum Democrats built with big wins in Virginia’s statewide elections last fall.

The measure was narrowly passing with the vast majority of ballots counted, according to unofficial returns.

Though voters had said in polls that they generally opposed partisan gerrymandering, many said they were willing to approve it for a limited time to send an extraordinary message to the White House.

“Tonight, Virginians sent a message heard across this country: we will not let Donald Trump or MAGA Republicans rig our democracy,” Virginia House Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth), one of the leaders of the redistricting campaign, said in a statement.

Republican had countered that the effort was unconstitutional and a naked power grab. They filed a number of lawsuits to block the referendum and its amendment to the state constitution; several of those challenges are set to be heard by the Supreme Court of Virginia later this week.

“While these weren’t the results we were hoping for, they were not unexpected,” Virginia House GOP Leader Terry Kilgore (R-Scott) said in a statement. “From the start, this process was tilted: misleading ballot language and a massive spending advantage made this an uphill climb for voters trying to make sense of a deeply complicated issue.”

If Democrats were able to pick up four extra seats in Virginia, it would give the party a slight edge over Republicans in the national battle for control of the House – though redistricting efforts in Florida and other Southern states could yet change the math.

The high-profile contest drew a strong turnout for an out-of-season ballot measure election. The Associated Press estimated that 3 million Virginians cast ballots, or 48 percent of registered voters, compared with 55 percent of voters in last year’s gubernatorial election.

“I voted yes because we have to be thinking outside the box” to fight Trump’s policies, said Fairfax County voter Sophie Witucki, 34 with a baby boy swaddled around her chest and pushing a stroller with the boy’s brother and sister. “These are unprecedented times so we can’t abide by the same precedents we always have.”

Early voting began March 6 and nearly 1.37 million early ballots had been cast as of Saturday, according to state figures, compared with about 1.5 million early votes in the 2025 election.

At least $93 million – most of it in untraceable “dark money” – financed the contest, with supporters of the measure outspending opponents. National Democrats view the state as the biggest prize still available in the national redistricting arms race ahead of this fall’s midterm congressional elections.

Trump sparked the costly effort last year by pushing Republican-led states to create more GOP-leaning districts to help his party maintain its thin majority in the House. Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri responded, and then Democrats counterpunched by passing a referendum to create five new blue-leaning districts in California.

“Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they approved a temporary measure to push back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) said in a statement. “Virginians watched other states go along with those demands without voter input – and we refused to let that stand. We responded the right way: at the ballot box.”

Virginia’s 11 House seats are held by six Democrats and five Republicans, but if voters approved the referendum, Democrats promised to implement a map that gives them an advantage in 10 districts. Five of them would be anchored in deep-blue Northern Virginia and stretch into rural parts of the state. At least two of the new blue districts – one in Hampton Roads and one in the Shenandoah region – would still be close, based on recent election results.

Jeff Ryer, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, said in a statement that the new ballot measure leaves “our Commonwealth the most severely gerrymandered state in the nation.”

Many voters who showed up at the polls early Tuesday said they found the onslaught of ads on the measure confusing and overwhelming.

Erin Frank, a 38-year-old physician assistant who described herself as a moderate Democrat, read an online sample of Virginia’s redistricting measure repeatedly on Monday night to figure out what it would actually change in her state.

She voted for it on Tuesday in Alexandria because it would give the Democratic Party a leg up. “If other states aren’t going to play by the rules, we have to have the option to redistrict so that we can have more seats on our side,” she said. “It just gives us an upper hand, and we need that right now.”

But Julian Burke, a 79-year-old Republican, voted against the measure from the same Alexandria precinct, saying that redistricting would further skew the state’s maps – which already have deep-blue areas such as in Northern Virginia – outside of the normal process, which relies on the census and an independent commission.

“It would’ve made Virginia lopsided all the way through 2030, and the Democrats have crazy policies,” he said. “Absolutely nuts.”

The vote-yes campaign in Virginia has raised far more money than its more fragmented opposition. Virginians for Fair Elections, which supports redistricting, reported raising $64 million as of a campaign finance deadline last week. About $40 million of that was contributed by House Majority Forward, a political nonprofit supporting House Democrats and led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York). The group is not required to report individual donors.

“We’re urging everyone to vote yes to stop the MAGA power grab,” Jeffries said Monday during a news conference. He and Virginia’s top Democrats, who control the state legislature, have held rallies around the state in recent weeks, and former president Barack Obama has appeared in several vote-yes advertisements. Spanberger has also endorsed the campaign, but has not been as gung-ho in support as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was in that state. She initially argued that Democrats could pick up seats without redrawing the maps.

The vote-no campaign has been led by several smaller groups in different parts of the state. Virginians for Fair Maps, the best-funded, is led by former state attorney general Jason S. Miyares and had raised about $19 million as of the most recent deadline. It has not yet been required to disclose any of its donors.

Former governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has joined Miyares for a handful of public vote-no events, while Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) held a telephone rally for Monday night.

The referendum asks voters whether to amend the Virginia Constitution to temporarily allow partisan redistricting; the state would revert to its existing bipartisan redistricting commission in 2030. The General Assembly preapproved the new map so it would take effect in time to hold primaries Aug. 4 if the measure is approved.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Gregory S. Schneider, Praveena Somasundaram 

Iran pushed back Tuesday night against President Donald Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire extension, with state-linked media and senior officials signaling deep skepticism about Washington’s intentions and warning of potential military escalation.

The Iranian news outlet Tasnim reported that Tehran never requested any prolongation of the ceasefire with the United States, contradicting Trump’s earlier statement.

According to that report, Iranian officials are considering the possibility that the entire situation—including talk of extending the ceasefire—could be a strategic ruse by Trump. The outlet suggested that Washington might declare an extension publicly while leaving open the option for the United States or Israel to carry out attacks on Iranian territory afterward.

Tasnim further reported that Iranian leadership is actively tracking such scenarios and taking them seriously, indicating that Tehran is not dismissing the risk of a surprise strike.

At the same time, an adviser to Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told Reuters that Trump’s move to extend the ceasefire is a “ploy to buy time” ahead of a potential unexpected military action.

The adviser added that the ongoing US naval blockade targeting Iranian ports amounts to an act of war, saying it is “no different from bombardment and must be met with a military response.”

Earlier Tuesday, Trump stated that the ceasefire would continue for an unspecified period to give Iran’s leadership additional time to present a unified proposal for a potential agreement.

In a Truth Social post, Trump emphasized that the US naval blockade would remain in effect until Tehran submits such a proposal.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote.

“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” he added.

Trump’s statement came after a report in The New York Times indicated that Vice President JD Vance’s anticipated visit to Pakistan for another round of talks with Iranian officials has been delayed.

The delay followed Tehran’s lack of response to the latest US proposals, according to a US official familiar with the matter who spoke to the Times.

Later Tuesday, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Pakistan has not yet succeeded in convincing the United States to remove its naval blockade near the Strait of Hormuz.

That official reiterated Iran’s position that it will not engage in negotiations conducted under coercion or intended to force Tehran into capitulation.

However, the official left the door open to possible talks in Pakistan, stating that Iran could still participate if the United States steps back from what were described as policies of “pressure and threats.”

{Matzav.com}

A sharp diplomatic clash is unfolding between Russia and Israel, after Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova publicly criticized remarks made by Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

The criticism followed a speech Netanyahu delivered at a ceremony at Mount Herzl, where he warned of the threat of “another Holocaust” emerging from Iran. In his address, he stated that “the regime in Iran planned another Holocaust,” cautioning that without decisive intervention, Iran’s nuclear facilities could become symbols akin to extermination camps.

Zakharova responded with an unusually blunt and sarcastic statement, saying, “Did Iran also carry out the first Holocaust?” She said the comparison between Iran and Nazi Germany was, in her view, fundamentally flawed and misleading.

She argued that during World War II, Iran had aligned itself with the Allied powers and formally declared war on Nazi Germany in 1943. She emphasized that responsibility for the Holocaust lies with Nazi Germany and its collaborators across Europe, not Iran.

Zakharova further criticized the use of references to extermination camps such as Auschwitz concentration camp, Majdanek concentration camp, and Sobibor extermination camp in connection with Iran, calling such comparisons “inappropriate” and offensive to the memory of Holocaust victims. She described the remarks as a distortion of historical facts and a misuse of terminology.

Expanding her remarks beyond the immediate dispute, Zakharova also accused Israel of overlooking what she described as the glorification of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine since 2014. She also reiterated controversial claims regarding alleged Western involvement in financing Nazi Germany.

Concluding her statement, Zakharova urged a return to international diplomatic frameworks, specifically calling for renewed adherence to the nuclear agreement with Iran. She cited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who has stressed the importance of coordinated global efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

{Matzav.com}