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BREAKING: Don Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, confirms Lemon was taken into federal custody in Los Angeles on Thursday night.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned member states that the global body is facing a deepening financial crisis that could lead to an “imminent financial collapse,” citing unpaid dues, reduced contributions and restrictive budget rules that limit the organization’s flexibility. In a letter dated Jan. 28 and obtained by Reuters, Guterres told ambassadors that the […]

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has been in contact with Iran and hopes the standoff with the Islamic Republic can be resolved without the use of force, even as the United States continues to bolster its military posture in the region.

The President made the remarks while speaking with reporters as he arrived alongside First Lady Melania Trump for the premiere of a documentary focused on the First Lady. Asked whether he has recently communicated with Iranian officials and whether further discussions are planned, Trump responded, “I have had, and I am planning on it,” before adding, “We have a lot of very big, powerful ships sailing to Iran right now. It would be great if we didn’t have to use them.”

Pressed on what he conveyed to Iranian leaders, Trump said he delivered two clear demands. “I told them two things: number one, no nuclear, and number two, stop killing protesters. They are killing them by the thousands. I stopped 837 hangings two weeks ago. They are going to have to do something.”

.@POTUS on Iran: "We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to Iran right now — and it would be great if we didn't have to use them." pic.twitter.com/hh9r4kpcrT

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 30, 2026

Trump’s comments came after a Wall Street Journal report that he has been briefed on a range of potential military responses to Iran. According to the report, the options were developed jointly by officials at the White House and the Pentagon.

Among the proposals reviewed was an expansive operation described as “the big plan,” which would involve widespread airstrikes against sites linked to Iran’s ruling clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Other alternatives outlined to the President reportedly include limited attacks on high-profile regime symbols, with the option to intensify the campaign if Tehran continues advancing its nuclear program. The briefings also covered non-kinetic measures such as cyber operations against Iranian financial institutions and the tightening of economic sanctions.

Earlier Thursday, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the armed forces are prepared to act if Trump authorizes military action against Iran.

“We’re having to rebuild how our enemies perceive us. And when President Trump said, we’re not getting a nuclear Iran, you won’t have a nuclear bomb, you meant it,” Hegseth said.

Trump has repeatedly paired his warnings with expressions of hope for a diplomatic resolution. On Tuesday night, he again said he wants Iran to reach an agreement with Washington, while pointing out that American forces have been reinforced across the Middle East.

Addressing supporters at a rally in Iowa, Trump said, “There is another beautiful armada floating beautifully towards Iran right now. So we will see.”

“I hope they make a deal. I hope they make a deal,” he continued.

The President reinforced that message a day later on Truth Social, posting, “A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. It is a larger fleet, headed by the great Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela.”

He followed with a sharper warning, writing, “Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary. Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!”

Trump concluded by invoking a previous confrontation, stating, “As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

{Matzav.com}

A short time ago, the American missile destroyer USS Delbert D. Black docked at Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat. The Israeli military says the ship’s arrival was pre-planned and part of ongoing cooperation between the IDF and the U.S. military.

Luigi Mangione returns to court today as a judge considers major motions, including whether to dismiss the most serious charges—moves that could take the death penalty off the table.

TRUMP: I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Kevin Warsh to be the CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM.

President Donald Trump said Friday that he will nominate former Federal Reserve official Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the Fed, a decision likely to result in sharp changes to the powerful agency that could bring it closer to the White House. Warsh would replace current chair Jerome Powell when his term expires […]

As tensions continue to rise with Iran and the region remains on edge following a massive U.S. military buildup near Iranian territory, the IDF moved to reassure the Israeli public ahead of Shabbos. IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said there is currently no change to Home Front Command guidelines. “This Shabbos as well, like […]

President Donald Trump, along with two of his sons and the Trump Organization, filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department, alleging the agencies failed to prevent the unlawful release of his tax information during his first term in office. The case stems from a breach for which a former IRS contractor admitted guilt in 2023.

The complaint, brought by Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization, asserts that the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Treasury Department failed in their “duty to safeguard and protect Plaintiffs’ confidential tax returns and related tax return information from such unauthorized inspection and public disclosure.”

According to the lawsuit, those failures led to “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”

The plaintiffs are seeking $10 billion in damages. The case was filed in federal court in Florida.

The suit follows criminal proceedings involving Charles Littlejohn, an IRS contractor who pleaded guilty in 2023 to unlawfully obtaining and leaking confidential tax records tied to Trump and thousands of other high-net-worth individuals to two media outlets in 2019 and 2020.

Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison. During his sentencing hearing in 2024, a federal judge described the disclosures as “an attack on our constitutional democracy.”

{Matzav.com}

A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer docked Friday at the Red Sea port of Eilat, the Israel Defense Forces said. The military said the docking was “routine and pre-planned,” part of regular cooperation between the Israeli and U.S. forces. The ship, identified as the USS Delbert D. Black, belongs to the U.S. Central Command’s Fifth Fleet, […]

In accordance with the ceasefire agreement, Israel will reopen the Rafah Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt for pedestrian traffic in both directions on Sunday, according to the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). “Exit from and entry into the Gaza Strip via the Rafah Crossing will be permitted in […]

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in the Chinese financial center of Shanghai on Friday in his bid to boost business opportunities for British firms in the world’s second-largest economy, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump signaled a possible opposition to any deal between Beijing and London. Starmer, the center-left Labour leader, has brought […]

American Airlines announced Thursday that it intends to restore daily service to Venezuela, pending approval from the U.S. government and the completion of security reviews, only weeks after the U.S. military carried out an operation that resulted in the seizure of the country’s leader.

Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump said he had urged the Department of Transportation to remove existing restrictions that prevent U.S. airlines from flying to Venezuela, following a conversation with the country’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez.

“American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there,” Trump said.

The airline halted its Venezuela routes in 2019 after U.S. authorities imposed a ban on flights. Earlier this month, the United States launched a military action in Venezuela and detained the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.

American Airlines, which first began flying to Venezuela in 1987, said the planned service would support business travel, tourism, and humanitarian efforts. Prior to the suspension, the carrier was the largest U.S. airline operating in the country.

Before flights can resume, the Federal Aviation Administration must complete a series of safety evaluations, a process that is expected to take several months.

On Jan. 16, the FAA advised airlines to take extra precautions when operating over Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America, citing concerns over possible military activity and GPS signal disruptions.

The agency said it had issued Notices to Airmen for airspace over Mexico and Central America, as well as Ecuador, Colombia, and sections of the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Relations between the United States and leaders in the region have grown increasingly tense following a significant U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean ordered by the Trump administration.

Earlier this month, Trump said drug cartels had effectively taken control of Mexico and suggested that U.S. forces could strike targets on land as part of efforts to combat them, one of several statements signaling a willingness to use military force against the cartels.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has repeatedly cautioned that any unilateral U.S. military action on Mexican soil would amount to a serious breach of national sovereignty. At the same time, she has agreed to enhanced bilateral security cooperation with Washington in an effort to keep Mexico out of Trump’s direct focus.

Concerns over regional air safety intensified last month when a JetBlue flight headed to New York was forced to take evasive action to avoid a near-collision with a U.S. Air Force tanker aircraft near Venezuela that was not transmitting a transponder signal.

{Matzav.com}

New York City officials under Mayor Zohran Mamdani directed police officers and sanitation crews to stop dismantling homeless encampments just weeks before a brutal Arctic cold snap, after which 10 people were found dead outdoors, according to a report by The New York Post.

The directive was issued shortly after the democratic socialist mayor took office and effectively shifted responsibility for the encampments to the Department of Homeless Services, an agency that sources say was unprepared for the role and received little instruction from City Hall.

The policy change followed Mamdani’s December pledge to end homeless sweeps and took effect ahead of a severe winter storm and plunging temperatures that battered New York City over the past week.

During the previous administration, Mayor Eric Adams expanded the use of encampment clearings as the problem intensified during the COVID-era shutdowns, though the practice had been used by multiple mayors before him, including Mamdani ally Bill de Blasio.

According to insiders, NYPD officers have been instructed to limit their role to responding to calls and logging the locations of encampments, without disturbing anything that could be considered personal property.

Under the new rules, police may only intervene directly if someone inside a tent experiences a medical emergency.

Even in situations involving potential safety hazards, officers have been told they must elevate concerns to supervisors rather than act on their own, sources said.

Sanitation Department workers were also ordered not to interfere with encampments.

Instead, city employees were told to alert Department of Homeless Services staff.

However, City Hall has not yet provided DHS with clear guidance on how to address the makeshift shelters.

“The lack of guidance from City Hall is costing people their lives,” said Council member Joann Ariola (R-Ozone Park), whose office said it was unable to get an abandoned encampment removed.

“We have below-zero temperatures at night, but the administration is taking a smiley, milquetoast approach to Code Blue enforcement,” Ariola said. “It may sound nice to his idealist progressive supporters when he says he won’t enforce homeless sweeps, but the reality is that these sweeps get people indoors and out of the elements. Some people need that kind of tough love for their own good.”

Steven Fulop, the CEO of the Partnership for NYC, which represents more than 800,000 city workers in the business sector, also criticized the mayor’s approach.

“We are hearing broad and growing disagreement with the mayor’s position,” he said. “There is nothing humane about allowing people to live indefinitely in street encampments.

“It fails the homeless individuals who need real services and stability, and it fails the surrounding communities who are left without safe, workable public spaces. We are hopeful the mayor revisits his position here.”

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond directly to questions about the absence of guidance for DHS, instead offering a general statement on the situation.

“Our focus has been and continues to be bringing homeless individuals inside and off the streets during these extreme and dangerous temperatures,” said press secretary Dora Pekec.

Mamdani faced criticism even before taking office after announcing plans in December to end encampment clearings, with experts and former officials labeling the proposal “naive.”

During his single term, the Adams administration carried out roughly 8,000 encampment “clean out” operations, with monthly totals peaking at around 500 in late 2023.

Adams had made the issue central to his administration as he sought to restore order to city streets following the disruptions caused by the coronavirus shutdown.

De Blasio, a progressive Democrat who advised Mamdani during the transition, oversaw more than 10,000 sweeps across his two terms, a record that drew backlash from allies on the left.

{Matzav.com}

The terms of a Russian commitment to U.S. President Donald Trump to temporarily halt its bombardment of Ukraine during one of the country’s bleakest winters in years remained unclear Friday, as Ukrainians braced for even worse conditions to come next week. Trump said late Thursday that President Vladimir Putin had agreed to a request not to target Kyiv and other places […]

WATCH:

South Africa declared Israel’s deputy ambassador persona non grata on Friday and ordered him to leave the country within 72 hours. The South African Foreign Ministry said that it was expelling Ariel Seidman, the charge d’affaires at the embassy, because of repeated official Israeli social media posts that insulted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The […]