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The IDF’s 188th Brigade combat team, in collaboration with Yahalom forces, demolished another underground Hamas tunnel.

HASSETT: “The bottom is line is that we’re not taking away anybody’s Medicaid. We’re definitely not taking away anybody’s Medicare. What we’re doing is we’re going after waste, fraud, and abuse… We’re, in the end, going to balance this budget.”

INSANE: Chareidi extremists torch construction equipment at a site being developed in Yehud that they claim has Kevarim under it.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a 2nd Amendment Tax Holiday from September 8 to December 31, making firearms, ammunition, and related outdoor equipment tax-exempt.

NYC is about to have a mayor who eats like a slob on camera with his bare hands. (This is a real video)

The Trump administration has formally charged Harvard University with breaching civil rights laws by failing to adequately address antisemitism on its campus — a move that could see the elite institution stripped of federal funding.

In a sharply worded letter, the federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism accused Harvard of either turning a blind eye to or actively participating in the harassment of Jewish members of its community following Hamas’ brutal assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.

“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” officials warned Harvard President Alan Garber in the communication sent Monday.

The allegation stems from an inquiry led by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, according to the administration, has funneled nearly $800 million to Harvard in federal funding since the 2023 fiscal year.

In addition to the letter, the HHS Office for Civil Rights delivered a comprehensive 57-page report to Garber, compiled after holding 50 “listening sessions” that included over 500 Jewish students.

That report found that nearly 60% of the Jewish students who participated said they had been subjected to “discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias on campus due to [their] views on current events.”

Other data highlighted in the findings included that 26% of Jewish students said they feared for their physical safety, while 44% reported feeling unsafe mentally.

The survey also showed that 67% of Jewish students did not feel comfortable voicing their opinions at all, and that number increased to 73% when it came to sharing political views.

The HHS report cited a range of incidents it says amount to a “pattern of unlawful and unchecked discrimination” on the part of the university.

Alleged behaviors included direct harassment between students, organized targeting by student groups, exclusion from campus programs, and what was described as institutional tolerance of antisemitism.

Specific examples in the report included Jewish and Israeli students being spat on for wearing yarmulkes, followed around campus, and subjected to chants of “heil Hitler” while waiting for university shuttles.

According to the investigators, Harvard failed to properly address or respond to these troubling incidents.

This latest notice of violation comes on the heels of a prior letter from the same task force, which listed a set of requirements Harvard must fulfill to avoid forfeiting $256 million in federal contracts and risking an additional $8.7 billion in long-term grants.

Harvard and the Trump administration have been in conflict for months. Earlier in June, Trump signed a sweeping order blocking international students from coming to the U.S. to study at the university.

“When a university refuses to uphold its legal obligations, including its recordkeeping and reporting obligations, the consequences ripple far beyond the campus,” read the proclamation. It added that allowing foreign nationals into Harvard was no longer considered in the “national interest.”

A federal judge has since issued a temporary injunction preventing the administration from terminating Harvard’s participation in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.

After the court ruling, Trump suggested that negotiations were underway and signaled that a resolution might be near.

“We have been working closely with Harvard, and it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so. They have acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on June 20.

Harvard responded to the government’s accusations by highlighting the actions it has taken to combat antisemitism on campus.

“Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism in its community,” the university said in a statement.

“In responding to the government’s investigation, Harvard not only shared its comprehensive and retrospective Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias Report but also outlined the ways that it has strengthened policies, disciplined those who violate them, encouraged civil discourse, and promoted open, respectful dialogue,” the statement added.

“Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government’s findings.”

{Matzav.com}

Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency on Monday denied widespread speculation that Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, had been recruited as an Israeli asset. In a terse six-word statement posted in Farsi on X, Mossad’s official account wrote, “قاآنی جاسوس ما نیست” — translated as “Qaani is not our spy.” The post appeared under the handle @MossadSpokesman, which has amassed more than 140,000 followers since Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on June 24. The statement follows months of rumors in fringe and tabloid outlets suggesting Qaani may have been turned by Israeli operatives. The speculation gained traction after Qaani, 62, disappeared from public view during a series of covert Israeli airstrikes in late 2024 that targeted Iranian assets and Hezbollah leaders in Beirut. Some reports claimed Qaani had been detained or tortured by Iranian security services over suspicions he leaked sensitive targeting data to Israel. Other rumors suggested he had died of a heart attack “during questioning” or was under house arrest. Speculation intensified again this month after Israeli precision strikes hit Iranian missile depots, prompting renewed chatter about a possible inside source within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iranian authorities repeatedly denied those allegations, dismissing them as “psychological warfare.” Qaani made a surprise public appearance on June 25 at a rally in central Tehran celebrating the ceasefire, smiling and mingling with civilians in what appeared to be a deliberate move to counter claims he was missing or dead. Iranian state media emphasized that the general looked “in good health.” Qaani has led the IRGC’s powerful Quds Force since 2020, after his predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. He is responsible for managing Iran’s network of proxy militias across the region and remains under U.S. and European Union terrorism sanctions. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

NYC mayoral candidate and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa on frontrunner Zohran Mamdani’s policies, his outlook on crime and the current state of the city following Democrat-led leadership.

WATCH:

A trade war. A real war with bombs dropped in the Middle East. A barrage of insults hurled by the president of the United States at the head of the Federal Reserve. The stock market has powered through all of that in the past few months to set a new record Friday and reward investors who stayed their ground through a volatile stretch. The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high of 6,173. While Wall Street can take a bow — and breath a sigh of relief — there’s no let-up ahead. The pause President Donald Trump put in effect for many tariffs expires in early July. Second-quarter profit reports and upcoming economic indicators could reveal more about the impact of the tariffs that did go into effect. The Fed could face a tricky decision on interest rates. Here’s a look at what’s happened in markets and what could lie ahead. Tariff shock Trump appeared in the Rose Garden on April 2 and announced steeper-than-expected tariffs on almost all U.S. trade partners. He especially targeted China, eventually raising the duties on imports from China to 145%. Beijing retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%. Within just four days, the S&P 500 fell about 12%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 4,600 points, or about 11%. Trump shrugged off the stock market drop but he couldn’t ignore the signs of trouble in the bond and foreign exchange markets. Tumbling prices for U.S. government bonds raised worries that the U.S. Treasury market was losing its status as the world’s safest place to keep cash. The value of the U.S. dollar also sank in another signal of diminishing faith in the United States as a safe haven for investors. Time to pause On April 9, Trump announced on social media a “90-day PAUSE” for most of the tariffs he’d announced, except those against China. The S&P 500 soared 9.5% for one of its best days ever. In May, the administration struck a trade deal with the United Kingdom. Then came the biggest news: The U.S. and China said that they were temporarily rolling back most of the tariffs they’d imposed on one another. The countries have indicated they’ve reached a deal, but details are scarce. Markets briefly got spooked when Trump threatened tariffs against the European Union, but he decided to hold off — until July 9 — as the countries negotiate. War and oil The trade war was pushed out of the headline by a real war this month as Israel and Iran attacked each other. The price of oil spiked, threatening to boost inflation and slow the global economy. A U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities was followed by a cease-fire and oil prices dropped sharply. Relieved, Wall Street resumed its climb toward a new record. Trump and the Fed Trump wants the Fed to lower interest rates. The Fed says it needs to see the impact of Trump’s tariffs before it can act. The president has taken to regularly bashing Jerome Powell, whose term as Fed chair expires next year. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump could name his nominee to replace Powell unusually early, in an attempt to undermine him. The drama could influence trading in the bond and foreign exchange markets, and by extension on Wall Street. The bottom line Strong profit reports for the first quarter helped offset the pressure from […]

Harvard University failed to protect Jewish students from harassment, the Trump administration concluded after an investigation, threatening to cut all federal funding from the Ivy League school if it fails to take action. A federal task force sent a letter to Harvard on Monday finding the university violated civil rights laws requiring colleges to protect students from discrimination based on race or national origin. It says investigators found Harvard was at times a “willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff” and that campus leaders allowed antisemitism to fester on the campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” officials said in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press and first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Harvard did not immediately comment. It’s the latest intensification in the White House’s battle with Harvard, which lost more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants after rejecting a list of federal demands calling for sweeping changes to campus governance, hiring and admissions. The Trump administration for months has accused Harvard of tolerating antisemitism on its campus, but a formal finding paves the way for a negotiated agreement or — if one isn’t reached — an attempt to cut the school off from federal dollars. Much of the investigation’s evidence focuses on campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. It says the campus was “overrun by an impermissible, multiweek encampment” that left Jewish and Israeli students fearful and disrupted their studies. It accuses Harvard of imposing lax and inconsistent discipline against students who participated in the encampment, noting that none was suspended. Harvard President Alan Garber has acknowledged problems with antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias on campus, but he says Harvard has made strides to fight prejudice. He announced new initiatives in April after Harvard released internal reports finding evidence of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus. “Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry,” Garber wrote in releasing the reports. The Monday letter finds that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Such findings have almost always been resolved through voluntary resolutions between schools and the federal government. The Trump administration has taken a much sharper edge than its predecessors, however. It has been decades since an administration even attempted to fully strip a school or college of its federal funding over civil rights violations. (AP)

Dear Matzav Inbox,

Every year, as sure as the traffic clogs Route 17, we get treated to the same tired charade: families pack up for the “summer in the country,” only for husbands to vanish back to the city by Monday morning, leaving behind wives to play single parent all week long. Then, come Thursday night, these husbands trickle back up for a quick 48-hour reunion, if that.

This bizarre ritual, so widely accepted in our frum community, is not cute. It’s not “reality.”

It’s dysfunction parading as normalcy, and it’s time someone said it out loud.

Let’s stop pretending this makes sense. We are talking about spouses living apart for two entire months. That’s eight weeks of being disconnected, out of sync, and physically absent. And for what? So that the wives can “sit in the circle” yapping away all day and take walks around the colony loop while their husbands sit in traffic, eat takeout alone, and fall asleep in their Brooklyn or Lakewood home with nobody to talk to but the fan?

We’ve normalized something that is, at its core, completely unnatural and, frankly, a bit insane.

What exactly are we teaching our children? That marriage is a part-time job? That it’s okay for Totty to be a ghost all week and magically reappear just in time to make Kiddush? That a real normal relationship in marriage is optional during the summer?

We wonder why kids are confused. Look no further than this ridiculous arrangement.

And don’t tell me, “It’s just for the summer.” That’s two months of distance, of miscommunication, of drift. Two months of wives hanging out in the bungalow colony in “make believe world.”

And don’t kid yourself—it affects marriages. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder when the only thing growing is resentment.

There is something disturbingly casual about how we’ve embraced this setup. We speak about shalom bayis from the pulpit, about building strong homes and prioritizing family, and then we collectively nod along as thousands of couples live apart for 80% of the summer.

We treat this as a luxury, as if splitting the family in half for ten weeks is a badge of middle-class honor.

It’s not. It’s unhealthy.

And let’s talk about the absurdity of the “Thursday night culture.” These men aren’t coming up for a quiet Shabbos. They’re arriving for a whirlwind of chaos: three-hour traffic, maybe a barbecue and some bug spray, then davening, and by Sunday afternoon, they’re already mentally back in Flatbush.

That’s not quality time. That’s pretending.

This is not to say that every family situation is the same, or that every working man can telecommute from a hammock in Monticello. But this isn’t about exceptions. It’s about the normalization of a lifestyle that has spiraled way out of control. We’ve created a community standard where the nuclear family lives fractured for an entire season in the name of comfort and convenience, or because “everyone is doing it.” How pathetic.

And there’s more to write about what goes on in the city when the husbands are left hanging out each night, but I’d rather not get into that.

Let’s stop whitewashing this. Let’s call it what it is: a breakdown in priorities.

Marriage is not a weekend arrangement. Parenting is not a part-time gig. Family is not something you commute to. And pretending that this summer setup is “ideal” or “the best of both worlds” is just a cover for a situation that is increasingly strained, lonely, and wrong.

It’s time to rethink what we’ve accepted as “normal.”

Because this?

This isn’t normal.

Sincerely,
Saying the Brutal Truth

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The IDF has restructured access to humanitarian aid centers in Gaza, operated by the U.S.-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. To stop Hamas from capturing aid, the IDF is implementing fencing, signage, new pathways, checkpoints, and enhanced surveillance.

CNN host Michael Smerconish admitted on his program that President Donald Trump has experienced a notably successful stretch over the past week.

“I’m talking about offering an objective analysis in view of what’s transpired in the last two weeks that I’ve laid out substantively and with data. He’s been on a roll,” Smerconish said. “It might not be the roll that you desire, but I like the word that David [Urban] used and that Salena Zito used in her column this morning. Consequential. Who among us could deny how consequential Trump 2.0 is turning out to be? But in order for you to recognize that, you need to have an open mind about what’s transpiring.”

During the broadcast, Smerconish asked viewers to weigh in on whether they were capable of viewing Trump with an open mind. When he shared the results later in the show, a majority of 72% responded that they were not open to reconsidering their views on the president.

“I applaud those of you who are part of the 72% who say you do not have an open mind on Donald Trump, and the reason that I’m applauding you is not that I appreciate your closed-mindedness,” Smerconish said. “I appreciate your candor. Like, you don’t want to hear it.”

He added, “I made the case at the outset of the program today that he’s had a good two weeks. No B.S. He’s winning, maybe not in a way you want. There are many things that he’s doing that I disagree with. And I tell you what they are. Every day on radio and once a week here. But you got to stand back and say it’s consequential. It is consequential. So, interesting.”

Among the recent accomplishments being highlighted by the Trump administration were a successful U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear assets, a possible de-escalation deal between Israel and Iran, and a new NATO pledge to increase defense spending in response to Trump’s pressure.

The president also notched a legal victory when the Supreme Court limited the power of federal judges to issue sweeping national injunctions—an obstacle that had previously blocked multiple executive actions.

While Smerconish has not shied away from expressing his differences with Trump’s policies, he’s also cautioned that relentless criticism from the press may be contributing to Trump’s political resilience.

“It’s like a parenting lesson. The more that you tell people what they can’t do, what’s intolerable, you must not do this, you should not do this, the more they’re going to rebel,” he said during an interview in November.

WATCH:

{Matzav.com}

The FBI is warning U.S. critical infrastructure sectors to stay alert for possible Iranian cyberattacks.

The Iranian rial is plummeting, with 1 US dollar now valued at 900,900 rials on the open market.

Palestinians in Gaza are expressing gratitude to President Trump, with some chanting “I love you Trump” and “I love you Donald,” as US and Israeli-backed aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Fund is distributed to the region.

Sen. Jim Banks: “There are 5 million Americans who get Medicaid, who are able-bodied. They sit at home, they don’t work, they’re not taking care of a sick kid or a sick mom — and they’re still on Medicaid… Let’s reform Medicaid and save it for those people who need it.”

The Israeli settlers torched a multi million shekel security station used to “thwart terror attacks and maintain security” in the Ramallah area of the West Bank overnight. The IDF says damage to the site “poses a danger to the security of the residents.”

Last night, dozens of Israeli settlers rioted outside the Binyamin military base in the West Bank, protesting live fire used against rioters who attacked an army patrol on Friday. They demanded the prosecution of a commander assaulted by settlers, falsely claiming he used live fire. The rioters vandalized vehicles, and used pepper spray on forces.

The Knesset House Committee on Monday voted 14-2 to impeach MK Ayman Odeh, the chairman of the Arab Hadash Ta’al party, over comments he made supporting terrorism. All representatives of the coalition parties voted in support of his ouster, along with representatives from Yisrael Beytenu, Yesh Atid, and the National Unity Party.