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A prominent posek in Yerushalayim’s Minchas Yitzchok neighborhood has issued an unusually sharp public warning after what was presented to local families as a children’s Nisuch Hamayim gathering allegedly became a forum promoting aliyah to Har Habayis, prompting him to instruct parents to make clear to their children that ascending the site is completely contrary to the position of the gedolei haposkim.

Rav Chaim Aharon Bleier, author of Chukei Chaim and a longtime moreh hora’ah in the Minchas Yitzchok neighborhood, released the letter under the heading “Hishamru Lachem Alos Bahar — Beware of ascending the mountain.”

The letter, dated Hoshana Rabbah 5787, says that Rav Bleier was deeply disturbed after learning that hundreds of children from Minchas Yitzchok had attended a gathering in the neighborhood auditorium that was ostensibly connected to the avodah of Nisuch Hamayim in the Bais Hamikdash.

According to Rav Bleier, those responsible for the gathering presented it as an innocent educational program connected to the Bais Hamikdash and did not disclose what he says was another purpose of the event.

“Painful news has reached us that unscrupulous people held a gathering of hundreds of children from our holy neighborhood in the auditorium located on Rechov Minchas Yitzchok, and those people hid under the guise of an institution for strengthening the holy work performed in the Bais Hamikdash, and advertised that they would hold a gathering presenting the avodah of Nisuch Hamayim in the Bais Hamikdash, without writing what they had concealed in their net,” Rav Bleier wrote.

The letter does not identify the organizers by name, and Rav Bleier does not state in the letter itself which municipal body financed the gathering. Claims circulating with the letter say that the event was funded by the Yerushalayim municipality; that detail has not yet been independently confirmed.

What Rav Bleier says happened during the program, however, is the reason for his extraordinary warning to parents.

According to the posek, a speaker appeared in the middle of the gathering dressed in traditional chareidi clothing and identified himself as belonging to a chassidic family. Rav Bleier writes that the speaker began discussing aliyah to Har Habayis and presented what Rav Bleier describes as “a foreign spirit” that directly contradicts the position of the leading poskim.

“We were horrified to hear that in the middle of the gathering, one person dressed in chassidic clothing from a well-known chassidic family stood up and began speaking about the matter and instilling a foreign spirit contrary to the opinion of the great poskim,” Rav Bleier wrote.

The letter says the remarks were delivered before hundreds of children and bochurim from Yerushalayim, and that the speaker openly encouraged interest in ascending Har Habayis.

Rav Bleier writes that this was done “in front of hundreds of children and bochurim of Yerushalayim” and says the message ran contrary to “the words of the great poskim of the generation zt”l and yblch”t from all the eidot and chugim.”

The speaker was the chairman of the Har Habayis Administration, who used his appearance to discuss the subject of Jews ascending Har Habayis. The letter itself does not name the speaker or identify his organizational title, so that specific identification remains an allegation accompanying the document rather than something stated by Rav Bleier in the letter.

Rav Bleier writes that the speaker ultimately “spoke to the hearts of the participants regarding the importance of ascending Har Habayis in our time,” thereby, in Rav Bleier’s words, “spreading the impurity of Har Habayis in this time, when we do not have a Bais Hamikdash, while presenting it as though this is the opinion of the gedolei Yisroel.”

The issue of aliyah to Har Habayis has long been the subject of significant halachic discussion. The longstanding position of the Chief Rabbinate and leading poskim has been to prohibit Jews from ascending Har Habayis because of the severe issurei kareis associated with entering areas of the site while tamei.

Rav Bleier issued a direct instruction to parents: “Because of the seriousness of the matter and the things that occurred in our holy neighborhood, I hereby strongly protest against those unscrupulous people, and I hereby issue an urgent call to the dear parents whose children participated in this gathering to speak to their children and correct the distortion, and tell them the true path that the gedolei Yisroel zt”l and yblch”t transmitted to us, that the matter is prohibited with the utmost severity,” Rav Bleier wrote.

He added that parents should explain to their children that what they heard at the gathering was directly contrary to the accepted daas Torah of the community.

Rav Bleier wrote that parents must explain “that what they heard was in complete contradiction to the opinion and instruction of our holy rabbonim, so that the evil words should not influence them.”

The posek said similar incidents have taken place several times in the Minchas Yitzchok neighborhood during the past two years, each time through a different organization or framework.

“We hereby call upon anyone who has the ability to act to ensure that such things do not occur again within our camp,” Rav Bleier wrote, adding that “this has already happened several times in our neighborhood during the last two years, each time under a different guise.”

Rav Bleier warned parents “to check every gathering and place to which they send their precious children, to see who stands behind the organizers, because we are promised that they will not cease attempting to influence innocent and holy children with their false ideas.”

{Matzav.com}

Avinatan Or, who survived 738 days as a hostage of Hamas in Gaza, has revealed that even while enduring captivity himself, he opposed an agreement to secure his freedom if the price would encourage Hamas to carry out future kidnappings, saying he believed Israel had to emerge from the war victorious.

In his first extensive television interview since returning home, Or spoke with Ilana Dayan on Keshet 12’s “Uvda” about his more than two years in Hamas captivity, the calculations he made about his own possible release, his relationship with his parents, and a deeply personal prayer he made after 70 days as a hostage.

Or was abducted from the Nova music festival near Re’im during the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, together with his partner, Noa Argamani. Footage of their abduction became one of the most recognizable images of the attack, showing Argamani being taken away on a motorcycle while reaching toward Or as terrorists marched him away.

Argamani was dramatically rescued by Israeli forces from Nuseirat in June 2024, together with Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv. Or remained in Gaza for another 16 months before finally being released on October 13, 2025, after 738 days in captivity.

During his captivity, Or said, he was able at times to see television coverage from Israel, including demonstrations demanding an agreement to bring the hostages home. Despite knowing that such an agreement could mean his own freedom, he said he was convinced that his parents were not participating in those protests.

“The debate was over matters of life and death, whether you save lives now or protect lives in the future,” he explained. “It was clear to me that if we made a deal then, I would be released, but later, someone else would be sitting in my place.”

Or said his position was not an abstract view developed after his return to Israel. It was what he believed while he himself remained in Hamas hands and had no assurance that he would survive long enough to come home.

“It was clear to me that we shouldn’t make a deal at any cost. Israel needed to emerge victorious from this war,” he said.

Or described conveying essentially the same message directly to one of the terrorists guarding him. Rather than allowing his captors to believe that the passage of time would eventually break him or force Israel to meet their demands, he told the terrorist that he was prepared for the possibility of remaining there for years.

“I told my captor: I’ll stay here for a day, two days, a year, two years, even ten years. Eventually, you’ll understand that I’m not worth holding, and that will be the victory.”

Or’s ordeal lasted more than two years. He was held largely alone, and in portions of his captivity was confined underground in darkness. In another portion of the interview, he revealed that he had attempted to devise a way to escape, drawing on lessons he remembered from his military service about the impossibility of creating a completely impenetrable defensive system.

“In the army they always told us, there’s no such thing as a 100% perfect defense, there will always be some weak point,” he explained.

While confined in an underground cell, Or felt his way around his surroundings and discovered a section constructed with sandbags. He could feel air moving through the area, leading him to conclude that there might be a route toward the outside.

“That doesn’t happen in a tunnel,” Or said.

His captivity also included severe physical deprivation. By the time he returned to Israel, Or appeared gaunt after spending more than two years cut off from his family and Argamani, who had spent much of that period publicly campaigning for his return after her own rescue.

One of the most personal moments Or described involved neither his captors nor the political argument surrounding a hostage agreement, but a conversation he said he had with God on his 70th day in Gaza.

“On the 70th day, I spoke to God and said: ‘Listen, I know I haven’t spoken to You in seven years, and it’s hypocritical of me to ask You for something now, especially when there’s a good chance I’ll forget You once I get out. So I’ll speak to You frankly: the Torah commands us to honor our parents, and I tried to do that even before October 7. Now it’s Your turn to fulfill the part that promises long life in the land.’”

Or’s comments about the hostage negotiations also shed new light on the approach taken publicly by his parents, Yaron and Ditza Or, during the long campaign to bring him home. Unlike some hostage families who became prominent participants in demonstrations demanding an immediate deal, his family generally advocated continued pressure on Hamas and resisted calls for Israel to accept an agreement at any price.

When Or finally returned to Israel in October 2025, one of his first reunions was with his parents. He said their initial words to him reflected the burden they had carried while making decisions about how best to fight for their son without knowing what he himself wanted them to do.

“When they saw me, they said, ‘We hope you’re not angry with us.’ I answered them, ‘I’m not angry with you. I’m proud of you.’ My parents fought for me like crazy.”

Or was also reunited with Argamani after more than two years apart. The couple had been violently separated during their abduction on October 7 and followed radically different paths through captivity: Argamani was held with other hostages before being rescued after approximately eight months, while Or remained in Hamas captivity until the hostage agreement of October 2025.

{Matzav.com}

A Brooklyn public-school teacher who allegedly declared “Long live Yahya Al-Sinwar” in a private group chat returned to his Park Slope school on Monday with his face covered, even as outraged parents demanded that the city remove him from the classroom and education officials launched an investigation into his conduct. Pasted markdown

Damien Neva, 48, began working this school year at PS 77 in Park Slope, where he teaches special education. Before entering education, Neva worked in the fashion industry as a photographer, videographer and social-media director, including positions with major modeling agencies.

The controversy erupted after a recently filed lawsuit involving the Park Slope Food Coop revealed messages Neva allegedly posted in a Signal chat used by members advocating a boycott of Israeli products.

According to the lawsuit, Neva posted his tribute to Yahya al-Sinwar in November 2024, several weeks after the Hamas leader was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

“Long live Yahya Al-Sinwar,” Neva wrote, according to the lawsuit.

Sinwar was the Hamas leader who played a central role in planning the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

Neva was back at PS 77 on Monday as the controversy surrounding the comments intensified. Photographs showed him covering his face while leaving his Brooklyn home and again while walking to the school.

Parents interviewed outside PS 77 expressed anger that Neva remained in the classroom while the allegations were being investigated.

“It’s disgusting,” one fifth-grade father said.

“If he’s still teaching here, it’s disgusting, both on him and on the school that’s holding on to him. No one who praises terrorists deserves to be a teacher,” the furious father raged.

“If you praise a guy like [Sinwar], that means that some part of you believes that murdering innocent people is morally justifiable.”

Another relative of children attending the school, a grandmother, said she distinguishes between support for Palestinian statehood and glorification of the Hamas leader responsible for the October 7 attack.

“I believe the Palestinian people deserve statehood, but Sinwar was a terrorist,” she said.

“He killed for the sake of killing, and to speak of him like he did something good – that’s not okay, and [Neva] is not someone I want near my grandchildren.

“They should fire him. I’m surprised they haven’t fired him already.”

The controversy surrounding Neva reaches beyond the single message praising Sinwar. The lawsuit that brought the comment to public attention stems from the bitter, years-long fight over Israel inside the Park Slope Food Coop, the prominent member-owned grocery cooperative on Union Street in Brooklyn.

The coop, which has more than 16,000 members, voted in May to boycott Israeli products following years of internal battles between pro-Israel members and activists seeking to remove Israeli goods from its shelves.

Neva is described in the lawsuit as one of the organizers of the boycott effort. The complaint was filed on September 28 in Kings County Supreme Court by five Jewish members challenging both the boycott and the process by which it was adopted.

The plaintiffs allege that the campaign was accompanied by hostility and discrimination against Jewish and pro-Israel members and that coop leaders failed to adequately address the conduct. The coop itself is not accused of endorsing Neva’s statement praising Sinwar.

According to the lawsuit, shortly before writing his message about Sinwar, Neva was discussing the political strength of opponents of the Israel boycott.

“That lot does not have the votes to block our campaign,” Neva allegedly wrote, referring to pro-Israel and Jewish members of the coop.

He then posted, “Long live Yahya Al-Sinwar,” with at least one other participant reportedly reacting approvingly to the message.

The lawsuit also alleges other episodes of hostility toward Jewish members during the boycott battle. In one incident cited in the complaint, a coop member wearing a “Peace, Love, Israel” shirt was allegedly confronted and called “disgusting,” “a racist and a genocide supporter,” and told to leave the coop.

The controversy over Neva has intensified because he subsequently became responsible for teaching children in New York City’s public-school system.

Before beginning his teaching career, Neva worked for years in fashion photography and social media. His previous professional experience included work with Next Management, Ford Models and Calvin Klein. He described his move into education in a since-deleted social-media post as an “enforced career change.”

Other material attributed to Neva on social media has also drawn scrutiny. His accounts reportedly included an image depicting an Israel sticker being shredded, another showing a Star of David painted over the Statue of Liberty, and a comparison between Warsaw in 1944 and “Palestine” in 2024.

The New York City public-school system has confirmed that the allegations concerning Neva have been referred for investigation.

“Antisemitism and support for terrorist organizations have absolutely no place in our school system,” a Department of Education spokesperson said in response to the allegations.

“This allegation has been reported and referred for investigation, in accordance with Chancellor’s Regulations.”

The controversy has also drawn condemnation from elected officials.

State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Bronx Democrat and longtime member of the Assembly, described the allegations as “appalling.”

“Hamas is a terrorist organization that has killed countless people, including Americans,” Dinowitz said.

“I don’t think someone like that should be teaching our kids.”

Dov Hikind, the former New York state assemblyman and founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, has also called for Neva to be removed from his teaching position.

The pressure is also coming from within New York’s education community.

Karen Feldman, a New York City teacher and founder of The NYC Public School Alliance, said the episode raises broader questions about the standards the school system applies to educators entrusted with children.

“This is not about one offensive post or one teacher’s political views. It is about who NYCPS [New York City Public Schools] is allowing to stand in front of our children. This teacher publicly praised Yahya al-Sinwar, the Hamas leader and murder mastermind responsible for the October 7 massacre,” Feldman said.

“And he is not an isolated case,” she continued.

“This is not about policing political beliefs. It is about professional judgment, student safety and the basic responsibility of a school system to know who it is putting in front of children. Our classrooms should be safe places for all children.”

The revelations come amid continued controversy over antisemitism and anti-Israel activism within New York City schools since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza. Jewish parents and educators have repeatedly raised concerns about political activism entering classrooms and about whether existing disciplinary procedures adequately address antisemitic conduct by school employees.

Neva has not publicly responded in detail to the allegations. When a reporter attempted to approach him at his Brooklyn home on Sunday, he reportedly contacted police rather than answer questions.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump offered a stark assessment Monday of the suspected pneumonic plague incident unfolding in Siberia, calling the situation a “big problem for Russia” and saying the United States is prepared to help Moscow as nearly 200 people remain under medical observation following the unexplained death of a 28-year-old employee at a Russian anti-plague research institute.

Trump’s comments came as the United States, European officials and international health experts closely monitored developments surrounding the death of Daria Shipilova, a laboratory technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Russian authorities have not confirmed that Shipilova contracted plague and insist that tests have so far found no microorganisms associated with her work.

Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon as he left the White House for a campaign rally in Nebraska, Trump described plague as a dangerous disease that he suggested has become more difficult to combat.

“It’s a rough disease. You know, that’s a disease we used to be able to control, but somehow those microbes have got stronger and smarter, they’re like an army,” Trump told reporters.

“The germs have really become relatively stronger than they were, and things that used to work on pneumonia don’t work as well anymore. So we’ll help.”

Trump said he had not yet spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation but indicated that Washington would be willing to provide assistance if needed.

The president’s remarks followed growing international attention to Shipilova’s death and conflicting accounts emerging from Russia about exactly what happened inside the Siberian research facility.

According to independent Russian media reports, Shipilova accidentally broke a test tube containing the bacterium responsible for pneumonic plague on September 25 while working at the institute. She became seriously ill several days later, was hospitalized on September 29 with severe pneumonia and died during the night of October 1-2.

Russian authorities have not confirmed the account involving the broken test tube. Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s federal public-health agency, said Shipilova suffered from “pneumonia of unknown etiology” and that additional testing prompted by the nature of her work did not detect microorganisms connected to her professional activities.

The agency has also said that no accident involving pathogenic microorganisms was officially recorded at the institute.

Despite those assurances, authorities have undertaken extensive precautionary measures. Nearly 200 people who had direct or indirect contact with Shipilova have reportedly been placed under medical observation or isolation, with more than 100 monitored in hospitals.

More than 60 employees of the anti-plague institute were reportedly confined inside the facility beginning October 2 while awaiting test results. Relatives told independent Russian media that some employees were sleeping on floors and chairs because the facility was not equipped to house them overnight.

Several medical facilities in the Irkutsk region have also imposed quarantine restrictions, while an aluminum plant in nearby Shelekhov introduced mask requirements. Public events have reportedly been restricted in some areas, and authorities have taken additional precautions involving travelers.

Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev has sought to reassure residents, saying that the sanitary and epidemiological situation remains stable and that those identified as close contacts have shown no signs of the suspected disease and tested negative.

There is currently no publicly confirmed evidence that pneumonic plague is spreading among residents of Irkutsk or that Shipilova transmitted the disease to another person.

The Trump administration nevertheless began publicly pressing Moscow for greater transparency as reports of the possible laboratory exposure circulated internationally.

Earlier Monday, the State Department urged Russian authorities to “share accurate information quickly and openly” about what occurred.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is working with federal health officials to follow the situation and cautioned that an infectious disease outbreak cannot be viewed as purely a domestic Russian matter.

“There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously. But like anything else, something like that gets out, it could certainly spread,” Rubio told reporters as he departed Washington for Europe.

“So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an eye on it.”

The White House had already confirmed Sunday that the administration “is aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options.”

European officials are also watching developments. The European Commission said Monday that it was following the suspected incident “very closely” and was prepared to coordinate with member states if circumstances required a broader public-health response.

Pneumonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for other forms of plague. Unlike bubonic plague, which is most commonly transmitted through infected fleas or contact with infected animals, pneumonic plague affects the lungs and can spread directly between people through respiratory droplets during close contact.

The disease can progress rapidly and can be fatal without prompt treatment. Modern antibiotics, however, are generally effective when administered early, which is one reason public-health experts have cautioned against assuming that the suspected Russian incident represents the beginning of a major international outbreak.

Some infectious-disease specialists have said that even if Shipilova’s death is ultimately confirmed as pneumonic plague, the combination of antibiotics, contact tracing, isolation and modern infection-control procedures makes a large outbreak far less likely than during earlier periods of history.

Questions have nevertheless been raised about the precise circumstances of Shipilova’s reported exposure. Russian epidemiologist Mikhail Favorov publicly questioned the broken-test-tube explanation, noting that workers handling plague pathogens would ordinarily be wearing specialized protective equipment.

“It’s laughable,” Favorov said. “Someone working at the Anti-Plague Institute in Irkutsk wears a protective anti-plague suit.

“If you break a test tube, the likelihood of infection is actually very low. In short, it doesn’t matter to the general public – they’ll believe the ‘broken test tube’ story. It’s absolutely hair-raising. We will not be told what really happened.”

The Irkutsk institute operates as a high-containment research facility dealing with dangerous infectious diseases. Public reporting has described it as a Biosafety Level 3 facility, a classification used for laboratories working with pathogens capable of causing serious or potentially lethal disease through respiratory transmission.

The incident has also renewed attention on the Soviet Union’s extensive biological-weapons program during the Cold War. Soviet scientists conducted research involving Yersinia pestis and reportedly developed antibiotic-resistant strains of plague bacteria as part of an offensive biological-weapons effort.

There is no public evidence, however, that Shipilova was working on a biological weapon, that the Irkutsk institute is currently conducting offensive plague-weapons research or that the suspected incident involved an engineered strain of Yersinia pestis.

The U.S. government has separately maintained that Russia continues activities inconsistent with its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention. Moscow denies maintaining an offensive biological-weapons program and says its work involving dangerous pathogens is defensive and public-health related.

The questions surrounding the Siberian incident have inevitably revived memories of the bitter international debate over the origins of COVID-19 and whether the virus emerged naturally or through a laboratory-related incident in China. The origin of COVID-19 remains unresolved, in part because of continuing disputes over access to information and data from China.

Trump’s comments about microbes becoming “stronger and smarter” also come amid the broader global problem of antimicrobial resistance, in which bacteria can evolve resistance to drugs used to treat infections. There is currently no confirmed evidence that the suspected Irkutsk case involved an antibiotic-resistant strain of plague.

Historically, pneumonic plague has produced devastating outbreaks. An epidemic in Manchuria beginning in 1910 killed roughly 60,000 people before being brought under control. Los Angeles experienced an outbreak in 1924 that killed approximately 30 people, the last major urban plague epidemic in the United States.

Bubonic plague was responsible for the Black Death that devastated Europe in the 14th century, killing tens of millions of people and, by some estimates, eliminating a massive share of the continent’s population.

Plague has not disappeared. Human cases continue to occur each year, particularly in parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas, although cases are now rare in developed countries and are generally treatable with antibiotics when recognized promptly.

For now, the central question in Siberia remains unanswered: Russian officials have acknowledged Shipilova’s death from severe pneumonia and implemented significant containment measures, but they have not confirmed that she was infected with plague at all.

Rubio said that uncertainty is precisely why Washington wants Moscow to provide reliable information rather than allow speculation to fill the vacuum.

“So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an eye on it.”

{Matzav.com}

Newly declassified documents are revealing an even broader picture of the surveillance carried out during the federal investigation of President Donald Trump, showing that FBI agents tracked the travel of Melania Trump and Barron Trump while preparing to search Mar-a-Lago and later monitored the phone activity of Susie Wiles, including her contacts with Trump, his attorneys, campaign advisers and journalists.

The records, released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, shed new light on the investigation internally known as “Plasmic Echo,” the classified-documents probe that ultimately came under the direction of special counsel Jack Smith.

The newly disclosed material follows earlier revelations about surveillance techniques used in investigations involving Trump and his associates. But the latest documents provide new details about the extent to which investigators were monitoring people in Trump’s immediate family and political orbit while building the Mar-a-Lago case.

As FBI officials prepared in 2022 to obtain and execute a search warrant at Trump’s Palm Beach estate, internal communications show that investigators were specifically determining the movements of Melania and Barron Trump, apparently as part of their effort to decide when the search could be conducted.

One FBI planning document listed among the bureau’s tasks: “Finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son’s travel (type of aircraft and specific timeline),”

The same list included final preparations for obtaining the search warrant and coordinating the operation among the FBI, Justice Department and Secret Service in West Palm Beach.

Another document made the intended timing explicit: “Any search warrants would be served after the former President departs Mar a Lago,”

The documents indicate that the sensitive investigation was approved at the highest levels of the Justice Department during the Biden administration.

Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized the investigation following recommendations from senior Justice Department and FBI officials. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in a May 2022 memorandum that the investigation could reach senior figures connected to Trump and could have significant political consequences if it became public before an election.

According to the memo, the investigation “could potentially be disruptive to the democratic process if publicly disclosed prior to an election.”

Wray nevertheless recommended that Garland authorize the investigation, adding a handwritten message at the bottom of the document: “Merrick, I recomend you approve. CW.”

The newly released records also show that before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, at least one agent questioned whether investigators possessed sufficient legal authority to search Trump’s personal office and bedroom and suggested that further discussions with Trump’s attorneys might provide a less intrusive path forward.

The bureau nevertheless proceeded with the search on August 8, 2022. Agents searched numerous areas of the Palm Beach estate, including Trump’s office as well as the bedrooms used by Trump and Melania.

The investigation did not end with the Mar-a-Lago search. The newly released documents reveal extensive monitoring in 2023 of Susie Wiles, who was then helping direct Trump’s political operation as he sought to return to the White House.

Investigators used a pen register and trap-and-trace process connected to Wiles’ cellphone. Such surveillance records metadata — including numbers involved in calls, when calls occurred and their duration — rather than the actual contents of the conversations.

That distinction is significant: the newly released material does not establish that investigators were listening to Wiles’ conversations. Instead, it shows that agents were systematically documenting whom she communicated with and when.

The monitoring reportedly captured Wiles’ contacts with at least 21 attorneys associated with Trump, along with campaign officials, political advisers and at least five journalists. The records also identified communications involving Kash Patel, who was outside government at the time and is now FBI director.

The surveillance ran at least from February through May 2023, according to the documents, with FBI memoranda recording individual calls in striking detail.

Investigators also tracked Wiles’ communications with Trump himself. Bureau records referred to one of Trump’s telephone numbers as the “FPOTUS Vanity Number,” apparently because it was a vanity number spelling a memorable word.

One May 19, 2023, entry recorded: “2:05 pm The FPOTUS Vanity Number called WILES for 16 minutes and 11 seconds.”

The records show that Wiles’ phone was extraordinarily active, with calls sometimes arriving or being placed only minutes apart. On March 9, 2023, investigators recorded 39 calls involving Wiles over the course of the day.

Among the entries from that day were contacts identified only by categories because the names remain redacted.

“6:00pm – Campaign 9 called Wiles, and they spoke for 39 seconds.”

“6:10pm – Lawyer 10 called Wiles for 49 seconds.”

“6:22pm – Wiles attempted to call Campaign 4”

“6:22pm – Wiles called Campaign 8 and they spoke for 56 seconds.”

“6:27pm – Campaign 4 called Wiles.”

“6:39pm – Lawyer 12 alled Wiles for 6 minutes and 50 seconds.”

“8:10pm – The FPOTUS Vanity Number called Wiles for 4 minutes and 1 second.”

Other FBI communications reveal agents following specific interactions between Wiles and Trump’s lawyers.

The bureau’s Washington Field Office noted “that [Lawyer 7] called Wiles at 2:04pm this afternoon for 41 seconds,” according to one March 24, 2023, email.

Another agent documented previous contacts involving the same attorney: “[Lawyer 7] first called Wiles at 2:10pm EST on March 21, and Wiles returned his call for 1 minute and 34 seconds later that day at 2:59pm,” the agent wrote. “These are the only contacts we have observed between the two of them since the PR/TT’s inception.”

Journalists communicating with Wiles also appeared in the surveillance records. The newly disclosed documents indicate that reporters associated with outlets including ABC News, The Washington Post, Politico and Just the News were among those whose contacts with Wiles were recorded.

One February communication from an FBI intelligence analyst specifically noted that “an ABC News reporter called her at 8:48 AM for 2 minutes and 36 seconds.”

The documents suggest that investigators were particularly interested in whom Wiles contacted immediately before and after interactions with the FBI itself.

Wiles sat for an FBI interview in Jacksonville, Florida, in April 2023. Investigators subsequently examined her telephone activity surrounding that interview to determine whom she had contacted.

“On 10 April 2023, WFO [redacted] reviewed WILES’s telephonic activity to determine contacts of interest on the date of her FBI interview,” another memo noted.

On that date, records showed Wiles communicating with Trump and several of his attorneys. She also received calls from journalists with The Washington Post and Politico.

The tactic has drawn attention because law-enforcement officials can use communications metadata to map relationships among individuals even without obtaining the contents of their conversations. A pen register can reveal who is communicating, how frequently and at what times, potentially allowing investigators to reconstruct patterns of contact among attorneys, political advisers and others.

The White House has portrayed the documents as evidence that federal law enforcement crossed the line from legitimate investigation into improper surveillance of Trump’s political operation. Critics of the investigation have also raised concerns about the collection of information involving defense lawyers and journalists.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah reacted to the latest disclosures by calling the surveillance “objectively a bigger scandal than Watergate.”

Smith, however, has consistently denied that his investigations of Trump were motivated by politics. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, he defended his conduct and rejected accusations that he had acted as a partisan prosecutor.

“I am not a politician and I have no partisan loyalty,” Smith said. “My career has been dedicated to serving our country by upholding the rule of law and the core principles upon which our country was founded.”

At the time investigators were monitoring Wiles, the classified-documents inquiry was examining whether Trump had unlawfully retained national-security material after leaving the White House and whether there had been obstruction of government efforts to recover documents from Mar-a-Lago.

The case ultimately resulted in federal charges against Trump, but it never went to trial.

In July 2024, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified-documents prosecution after concluding that Smith had been unlawfully appointed as special counsel by Garland because his appointment violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

The newly released Plasmic Echo records have now placed the investigative methods used to build that case under renewed scrutiny, particularly because they involved Trump’s family, his lawyers, his campaign operation and journalists during a period when Trump was preparing his campaign to return to the presidency.

The White House sharply condemned the surveillance following Monday’s document release.

“Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple. Those responsible must be held accountable.”

{Matzav.com}

Urban warfare expert John Spencer delivered a scathing assessment of the controversial documentary NAZA after watching the film in full, accusing it of spreading falsehoods and distortions about Israel’s conduct in Gaza and singling out its assertion that Israel killed more than 73,000 Palestinians as particularly egregious.

Spencer, who serves as Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and has extensively studied Israel’s military operations in Gaza, said the documentary crosses a line even beyond the claims made by Hamas itself.

“Worse than Hamas propaganda,” Spencer wrote in a post on X after watching the documentary in its entirety. “Over three years, I’ve tried not to be surprised by ignorance, disinformation, and distortions relating to war, but this is at the top for many reasons.”

NAZA, directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, has become the focus of an escalating international controversy since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month. The approximately 80-minute film features testimony from 24 anonymous Israeli military and intelligence personnel and purports to expose the systems used by Israel to select and strike targets in Gaza.

The documentary was produced by The Guardian together with producer James Wilson, while Jonathan Glazer, the director of The Zone of Interest, served as an executive producer. Abraham and Szor previously worked on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

The film takes its name from what its creators describe as an Israeli military acronym referring to the anticipated number of civilians who could be killed in a strike. Its subjects were filmed largely at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv, with their identities concealed and their appearances and voices digitally altered.

NAZA won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival after receiving a lengthy standing ovation and has since begun screening internationally, including at the New York Film Festival and the Hamptons International Film Festival. A wider theatrical rollout is underway, with the film expected eventually to be made available online.

The film has simultaneously drawn fierce condemnation in Israel. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has described it as being based on “blood libels, deliberate distortions of reality and grave, false accusations against IDF soldiers and commanders”. The IDF has disputed major allegations presented in the documentary and questioned the reliability and level of knowledge of some of its anonymous sources.

The filmmakers have rejected those criticisms, saying their work was based on interviews with more than 100 sources in addition to the 24 people who appear in the film. They have said their reporting included senior officers and personnel involved at different levels of the targeting process and was corroborated through documents and additional reporting.

Spencer said he intends to issue a much more extensive examination of the documentary and its claims. For now, however, he focused on a declaration displayed prominently during the film: “Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza.”

“Not even Hamas says this,” Spencer wrote.

His objection centers on the difference between a reported total number of deaths in Gaza and the claim that every one of those deaths was caused by Israel. Spencer argued that the documentary effectively takes the overall reported death toll and assigns responsibility for all of it to Israeli military action.

Spencer noted that Hamas itself has killed Palestinians in Gaza, including in efforts to suppress opponents and maintain its grip over the territory. Armed confrontations have also erupted between Hamas terrorists and anti-Hamas clans and other Palestinian groups, producing additional Palestinian casualties unrelated to Israeli strikes.

He also pointed to the thousands of rockets launched toward Israel by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that failed to reach their intended targets and instead landed inside Gaza. Spencer said that as many as 20% of the roughly 12,000 rockets fired toward Israel by the terrorist groups fell short inside the Gaza Strip.

Such failed launches have repeatedly endangered Gaza residents, he argued, making it impossible to simply attribute every Palestinian death during the war to Israeli military action.

Spencer additionally challenged the way casualty figures originating with Hamas-controlled authorities have been presented. He said more recent Hamas reporting has included natural deaths among the overall lists of people who died during the war period, another factor that he said undermines any blanket claim that the entire reported toll consists of Palestinians killed by Israel.

“To say every person that died in Gaza was killed by Israel is a vulgar lie,” he charged.

The casualty figure is particularly significant because the film presents itself as an investigative documentary and has received extensive international media attention and major film-industry recognition. Spencer argued that presenting a disputed aggregate death figure as a count of people specifically killed by Israel fundamentally changes its meaning.

The controversy over NAZA extends well beyond its casualty statistics. The documentary alleges that Israeli intelligence and military personnel relied heavily on artificial-intelligence-assisted targeting systems during the war and that permissible civilian-casualty thresholds were loosened dramatically following the October 7 massacre.

Among the film’s most explosive allegations is testimony claiming that a strike against a Hamas target was approved despite an expectation that as many as 500 civilians could be killed. The IDF has strongly rejected that characterization of its targeting procedures and has maintained that its operations are subject to legal review and rules intended to minimize civilian casualties while confronting terrorists embedded within heavily populated areas.

The IDF has also challenged the documentary’s reliance on anonymous witnesses, saying some of those presented as insiders lacked the comprehensive knowledge necessary to make authoritative claims about the military’s targeting policies and approval procedures.

The filmmakers, meanwhile, have defended the anonymity as necessary to protect their sources and insist that the testimony was subjected to extensive verification. They have said the film builds on several years of investigative reporting about Israeli operations in Gaza.

The political reaction in Israel has been equally intense. Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar accused Abraham and Szor of harming Israel and called for authorities to examine whether their Israeli citizenship could be revoked. Other Israeli political figures have denounced the film as a defamatory portrayal of IDF soldiers and commanders.

The film has also encountered protests at American screenings. Demonstrators carrying Israeli flags gathered outside its New York premiere at Lincoln Center, while a vehicle displaying messages accusing NAZA of being propaganda circulated outside the venue. Additional protests surrounded a screening at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Spencer made clear that his criticism goes substantially beyond the disputed 73,000 figure and said he identified numerous other problems while watching the film.

“There are a lot of other lies, lies by omission, and lies of ignorance in NAZA, but this claim is unique,” he wrote, saying that it represents the use of “lies, damned lies, and statistics” to advance accusations that contradict both “the actual number put out by Hamas” and the reality on the ground.

Spencer said he plans to publish a comprehensive analysis detailing his objections to NAZA and its portrayal of the Gaza war.

{Matzav.com}

Israeli authorities had been given the names and nationalities of the passengers and crew aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 before it departed Dubai, including information identifying the Omani co-pilot who allegedly tried to seize control of the aircraft and crash it, according to officials familiar with the investigation.

The disclosure has intensified questions over the security failures surrounding the attempted terror attack, particularly because the accused co-pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, was an Omani citizen and had reportedly previously been barred from flying by Oman Air amid concerns over extremist views.

Regional officials said authorities in the United Arab Emirates transmitted the passenger and crew information to Israel before the plane took off for Tel Aviv. The information included the names and nationalities of those aboard, and Israeli authorities did not raise a red flag concerning any passenger or crew member.

The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the continuing investigation.

The information supplied before departure included the identities of the pilots, meaning that Israeli authorities had access to information showing that an Omani national was serving as a co-pilot on a flight bound for Ben Gurion Airport. Oman does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

The revelation has prompted an increasingly public dispute within Israel over which government body was responsible for examining the information and determining whether anyone aboard the flight presented a security concern.

The Shin Bet has said responsibility for vetting passenger lists on foreign flights belongs to the Transportation Ministry. Transportation Minister Miri Regev has rejected attempts to place responsibility on her ministry, maintaining that aviation security is the responsibility of Israel’s security agencies and saying her ministry received neither a passenger list nor a security warning concerning the flight.

Further reporting has indicated that the flight information was transmitted into Israel’s National Passenger Profiling Center, a government system that receives identifying information about passengers and crew members aboard international flights. The Transportation Ministry is among the government bodies permitted to make use of information held by the system.

The controversy has deepened with reports that the Transportation Ministry had never activated its ability to query the database, despite being authorized to do so. Political commentator Amit Segal subsequently charged that the ministry had failed to authorize employees to access the system, had never submitted a query and had not paid its share of the database’s costs.

The Israel Tax Authority has also confirmed that identifying information concerning the Flydubai passengers and crew was received before the flight departed. The information provided by airlines can include names, nationalities and travel-document details.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel has longstanding arrangements with foreign airlines under which pilots who are citizens of countries without diplomatic relations with Israel are not supposed to operate flights into the country.

That has raised another fundamental question: how Flydubai assigned al-Hammami, an Omani national, to an Israel-bound flight in the first place — and why his nationality did not trigger intervention either in the UAE or Israel before departure.

The security questions have become still more serious following reports that al-Hammami had previously been removed from flying duties by Oman Air because of concerns about his extremist views. Investigators are examining how that information was handled and whether it was ever communicated outside Oman.

Aviation-security specialists have cautioned that international pilot vetting is complicated by significant differences among countries in the information they collect and the intelligence or personnel records they are legally permitted to share. A pilot can therefore possess the necessary licenses while potentially troubling information remains confined to another country’s internal systems.

The attempted attack occurred aboard Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, when al-Hammami allegedly attacked Captain Smit Machchhar with an emergency crash ax stored in the cockpit and attempted to take control of the Boeing 737.

The aircraft plunged thousands of feet before the wounded captain managed to open the cockpit door, enabling passengers and crew members to enter and overpower the co-pilot. Reserve Flydubai pilots who were aboard the aircraft then helped bring the jet safely down in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

The UAE has characterized what happened aboard the flight as a terrorist attack. Investigators are examining al-Hammami’s background, communications and travel history as they try to establish whether he acted independently or had assistance or direction from another person or organization.

New information emerging from the investigation indicates that al-Hammami may have been contemplating such an attack even before joining Flydubai. Israeli officials say he intended to crash the aircraft into Ben Gurion Airport and had previously considered carrying out an attack on another Israel-bound flight before abandoning that plan.

The investigation has so far not established that Iran, a terrorist organization or another foreign government directed the alleged plot, although investigators continue examining whether al-Hammami had contacts with outside actors.

The episode has exposed problems extending beyond the background of one pilot. Israeli officials are now examining the entire process by which foreign-airline passenger and crew information is received, distributed and checked, including which agency bears ultimate responsibility for acting on information contained in the lists.

Questions are also being raised over timing. Crew information can sometimes arrive shortly before an aircraft closes its doors, or even after departure, potentially leaving Israeli authorities little time to identify a problem and intervene before an Israel-bound flight is already airborne.

Netanyahu has ordered a comprehensive examination of security arrangements for foreign civilian aviation entering Israel. National Security Council head Shmuel Ben-Ezra has been instructed to appoint an examiner to review “all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel.”

The inquiry is expected to examine the responsibilities of the Transportation Ministry and Israel’s security agencies, the operation of the National Passenger Profiling Center, information-sharing with foreign governments and airlines, and how a pilot from a country without diplomatic relations with Israel could have been cleared for an Israel-bound flight despite Israeli authorities already possessing his name and nationality before takeoff.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump declared Monday night that the United States is defeating Iran and predicted that the months-long war will soon come to an end, reiterating that Washington will not permit Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon and promising that energy prices will fall sharply once the conflict is resolved.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, as Republicans intensify their push ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, Trump portrayed Iran as increasingly weakened and said the United States was preventing what he described as a potentially catastrophic nuclear threat.

“We’re saving the world from what could be one of the worst tragedies ever. They won’t have – that’s decided – they will not have a nuclear weapon. They understand that,” Trump said.

Trump says his war with Iran is saving the world. pic.twitter.com/dq4pv0sXwt

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 5, 2026

Trump then predicted that an end to the fighting would quickly relieve the pressure the Iran conflict has placed on global energy markets and American consumers.

“The war will end very quickly, and prices are going to come down very sharply. You might say, ‘Please, please, sir, it’s going down too fast!’ You watch what’s going to happen in a very short period of time,” he added.

The president’s comments came amid a renewed diplomatic effort to end the conflict, even as Washington continues increasing military pressure on Tehran and moving additional forces into the Middle East.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and the USS Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group are being deployed to the region, a move expected to add roughly 9,000 American personnel to the U.S. military presence there. The buildup gives Trump additional options if the latest negotiations fail and large-scale American strikes resume.

The administration has simultaneously tightened economic pressure on Iran. New U.S. measures have sharply reduced international flights serving Tehran, while sanctions and American military operations have continued targeting Iran’s ability to move oil and other goods through the region.

Trump has repeatedly argued in recent days that Iran is approaching the point at which it will have little choice but to accept Washington’s terms.

Last Thursday, during an appearance at a Peterbilt Motors facility in Denton, Texas, Trump said Iran was “ready to fold up” and suggested that the war could be concluded around the time of the midterm elections — or even sooner.

“We have a war going on with a country that will never have a nuclear weapon and is ready to fold up. We’ll win very easily right now. I believe right after the election we’ll win, but maybe before the election.”

Trump has maintained that Iran was extremely close to developing a nuclear weapon when the war began at the end of February, repeatedly saying Tehran was only weeks away from reaching that point.

Iran had been “three to four weeks away, maybe sooner” from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Trump said, adding, “And if they have a nuclear weapon, the whole game is over..”

The president has presented preventing a nuclear-armed Iran as a central justification for continuing the military campaign, arguing that the threat must be permanently eliminated before Washington agrees to end hostilities.

Trump has also warned Iranian leaders that the alternative to reaching an acceptable agreement could be devastating.

The conflict would end “one way or the other…either they’ll do something very proper and smart or they won’t be around very long, which is, you know, frankly, I hate to see that, but they won’t be around very long.”

The latest comments follow a period of intense diplomacy involving Washington, Tehran and regional intermediaries attempting to establish terms for another ceasefire.

Trump recently rejected an Iranian proposal that he said did not go far enough, particularly regarding the Strait of Hormuz, the strategically vital waterway through which a significant share of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally pass.

Iran has sought relief from U.S. military and economic pressure and an end to restrictions affecting the Strait, while the Trump administration has demanded terms ensuring freedom of navigation and preventing Tehran from rebuilding capabilities Washington says have already been severely damaged during the war.

Trump said last week that Iran’s proposal offered to reopen only portions of the Strait of Hormuz, which he considered inadequate. U.S. officials have continued communicating with Tehran through mediators as both sides explore whether an agreement is possible.

The diplomatic effort has been accompanied by increasingly confrontational rhetoric from Tehran.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a longtime senior figure in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, responded to Trump’s claims that Iran was nearing defeat by attacking the president personally.

Rezaei described Trump as “the worst president in American history” and said the president’s rhetoric had “outrun his own fantasies.”

“You can win every day in your own imagination. But reality is shaped by Iran – by its people, its soldiers, and its missiles,” wrote Rezaei.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has also rejected the notion that Tehran is preparing to surrender, saying Iran remains willing to engage in negotiations but will not accept demands that it views as capitulation.

Iranian officials have argued that the country has survived months of American and Israeli military pressure and remains capable of continuing the conflict. Iranian military officials have also claimed advances in their missile capabilities during the war, including the ability to strike moving targets at long range.

The Trump administration, by contrast, says the campaign has inflicted severe damage on Iran’s military infrastructure, including its navy, air force, missile forces and defense-industrial base.

{Matzav.com}

A sweeping redesign of the standard U.S. passport set to debut in 2028 appears to feature an image of President Donald Trump inside the document, raising questions over whether Trump’s likeness will become a standard feature in passports issued to millions of Americans rather than an optional element of the limited-edition commemorative passport currently available.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled the new passport, dubbed “Flight of the Eagle,” during the Sept. 29 launch of America.gov, the Trump administration’s new portal designed to streamline access to federal government services.

During Rubio’s presentation, images of the redesigned passport showed artwork featuring Trump on the inside front cover. Unlike the limited-edition “Patriot Passport” issued this year for America’s 250th anniversary, the 2028 redesign is intended to replace the regular U.S. passport.

That distinction has drawn particular attention because Americans currently must specifically request the Trump-themed commemorative passport. If the image shown in the 2028 preview remains in the final design, applicants apparently would not have the same choice.

David Alwadish, founder and CEO of passport and visa service ItsEasy.com, said the Trump image on the passport previewed by Rubio “appears to be non-negotiable.”

The State Department, however, has stopped short of explicitly confirming that Trump’s portrait will be included in every standard passport beginning in 2028.

Asked about the matter, a State Department spokesperson instead pointed to the separate commemorative passport, saying, “President Trump’s image is featured on the so-called Patriot Passport commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, available while supplies last.”

That answer left unresolved whether the Trump artwork displayed during Rubio’s presentation represents the final version of the standard 2028 passport or could still be changed before production begins.

Alwadish predicted that even if Trump’s image is included when the passport launches, its long-term presence could depend on which party controls the government after Trump leaves office.

“My gut feeling is that the party in power in the next presidential term will determine whether this new Trump photo is short-lived or limited edition, as it will almost certainly be mandated for change by the next controlling party,” Alwadish said.

For Americans who specifically do not want a passport containing Trump’s image, Alwadish said there may be limited time to obtain the current design before the new books enter circulation.

Anyone in that category “probably has a narrow window to apply,” Alwadish said. “We won’t know if [the government will] mandate that every passport issued as of a specific date must have the new design, regardless of leftover inventory.”

The proposed Trump image is only one element of what will be the most significant visual overhaul of the American passport in years.

The “Flight of the Eagle” passport will retain the familiar blue exterior but substantially change its appearance. “United States of America” will be moved to the top of the cover, while the Great Seal of the United States will become larger and, as Rubio put it, “more gold.”

Inside, the pages will tell a visual story of American history, beginning with the American Revolution and continuing through westward expansion, the transcontinental railroad, the Wright brothers’ pioneering work in aviation, the flag raising at Iwo Jima and American space exploration, including the Artemis program.

A bald eagle will appear in slightly different positions on successive pages. When someone rapidly flips through the passport, the images will create a flipbook-style animation in which the eagle appears to fly across the pages.

“I can see Americans sitting at airports all over the world, like, ‘Why do people keep flipping through the page?’” Rubio said while demonstrating the feature. “It’s either this or some Game Boy for your kids to keep them entertained. They can flip the eagle around.”

The passport will also move to a single 38-page format. The State Department currently offers a standard 26-page passport and a larger 50-page version frequently requested by people who travel extensively.

The government announced earlier this year that the two sizes would be replaced by the single 38-page book when the next redesign is introduced. The department says standardizing the passport size should improve manufacturing efficiency and reduce waste, although frequent international travelers may have to renew their passports more often after the 50-page option disappears.

The new passport will also arrive differently. Instead of being mailed in the relatively plain envelopes traditionally used to deliver passports, the redesigned document will be shipped in a thin white presentation-style box featuring a gold government seal.

The 2028 passport should not be confused with the “Patriot Passport” already being issued in connection with the United States’ 250th anniversary.

That commemorative passport unquestionably features Trump. Its inside front cover displays a portrait of President Trump together with text from the Declaration of Independence, an American flag and Trump’s signature. The inside back cover features an illustration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The State Department originally planned a much smaller release of the commemorative passport, but expanded availability following strong demand. Up to 250,000 of the special passports are now being made available through designated in-person appointments and events across the country.

Americans do not receive a Patriot Passport simply by submitting an ordinary application. Applicants seeking one must specifically pursue the commemorative edition through the State Department’s designated process. Those applying online, by mail or through an ordinary passport acceptance facility receive the regular passport design.

“No one gets that passport without specially requesting it, so there is no risk of getting that passport unexpectedly,” Alwadish said.

The State Department says the commemorative passport contains the same advanced security technology as an ordinary U.S. passport and functions as a normal international travel document.

The Trump portrait itself has already generated political controversy. Democratic senators wrote to Rubio earlier this year objecting to placing the image of a sitting president inside a U.S. passport, arguing that passport artwork traditionally celebrates American history, national landmarks and institutions rather than contemporary political leaders.

The lawmakers pointed to earlier commemorative passports, including a bicentennial passport featuring the Liberty Bell and a special green passport issued in 1993 honoring Benjamin Franklin and the 200th anniversary of U.S. consular service.

The passport overhaul is occurring alongside a potentially much more consequential change for Americans seeking their first passport: the State Department plans to move most of the application process online.

Rubio said the administration’s goal is for the vast majority of Americans to be able to apply for a passport or passport card through America.gov by the end of 2027. Online passport renewal is already available, but first-time applicants traditionally have been required to appear in person with their documents.

“That is where the maze starts,” Rubio said. “You have to know which form to print, you have to schedule an appointment, then you have to go wait in line.”

Under the planned system, applicants would sign in electronically, submit the necessary information, upload their own passport photograph, make payment online and follow the application’s progress through real-time status updates.

“You probably can’t use those filters to make you look 50 years younger, but you can take a picture of yourself on the phone in the comfort of your own home, or you can upload one directly from your own device,” Rubio said.

Applicants would even be able to preview how their photograph will look inside the finished passport and retake it before submitting the application.

The State Department says existing passports will remain valid until their normal expiration dates, meaning Americans will not have to replace an unexpired passport simply because the “Flight of the Eagle” design begins rolling out in 2028.

For now, one important question remains unanswered. The State Department has clearly confirmed Trump’s portrait in the optional 250th-anniversary Patriot Passport, while the presentation of the standard 2028 passport also showed his likeness. But officials have not yet explicitly confirmed that the Trump image displayed in Rubio’s preview will appear in every standard passport once the new design goes into production.

{Matzav.com}

More than 122,000 cases of Gatorade distributed across 37 states, including New York and New Jersey, are being recalled because certain bottles contain artificial food dyes that were not disclosed on their labels, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The sweeping recall covers 122,021 cases of 28-ounce bottles of four varieties: Gatorade Lemon Lime, Gatorade Lemon Lime Zero, Gatorade Orange and Gatorade Orange Zero.

According to the FDA, the affected beverages contain Yellow No. 5 and/or Yellow No. 6, but the presence of those color additives was omitted from the product labeling. Both dyes are permitted for use in foods and beverages but are required to be declared on product labels.

PepsiCo, the parent company of Gatorade, voluntarily launched the recall on Sept. 25. The FDA formally classified the action on Oct. 2 as a Class II recall, and the recall remains ongoing.

Under the FDA’s classification system, a Class II recall applies when use of or exposure to a product could result in temporary or medically reversible health consequences, while the probability of serious adverse health effects is considered remote.

The principal concern involves consumers who are sensitive to the undeclared dyes. Yellow No. 5, also known as tartrazine, and Yellow No. 6 can cause allergic-type reactions in a small number of people, with sensitivities more commonly reported among individuals who also react to aspirin.

Possible reactions can include skin rashes and asthma-like symptoms, although such responses are considered uncommon among the general population. The recall stems from the failure to list the dyes on the labels rather than evidence that the beverages are broadly unsafe for consumers.

The affected Gatorade was shipped to Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

Consumers in the New York metropolitan area are therefore among those being urged to check their bottles, with both New York and New Jersey included in the distribution area. Pennsylvania is also among the states affected.

The recalled products can be identified by specific lot and date codes printed on the bottles. The affected dates range from April through June 2027.

Among the recalled codes are 072226 DT with a date of APR 18 27; 072426 TL with APR 20 27; 072726 TL with APR 23 27; 072926 TL and 073026 TL with APR 25 27; 073126 TL with APR 27 27; 080126 DL with APR 28 27; 081026 TL with MAY 07 27; 082026 DL with MAY 17 27; 082526 KM with MAY 22 27; 090426 KM with JUN 01 27; 083126 DT and 091026 DL with JUN 07 27; and 091126 DL with JUN 08 27.

The recall comes as PepsiCo has already been moving to remove certain synthetic colors from several Gatorade products. The company previously committed to eliminating certain artificial colors from its Fruit Punch, Lemon Lime and Orange Gatorade Thirst Quencher and Gatorade Zero products beginning in fall 2026 as part of a broader industry shift toward alternative color ingredients.

The timing means the recall coincides with PepsiCo’s ongoing reformulation efforts, although the FDA enforcement action specifically concerns the failure to declare dyes contained in the affected products, rather than the broader debate over the continued use of artificial coloring in foods and beverages.

The recall is listed by the FDA under recall number H-0009-2027.

As of Monday, the FDA had not announced reports of widespread serious illnesses associated with the recalled beverages. The agency also had not issued a separate public press release for the action, with information instead appearing in its enforcement reporting system.

Consumers who have 28-ounce bottles of the four affected Gatorade varieties are being advised to inspect the lot and date information carefully to determine whether their drinks are included in the recall.

{Matzav.com}

A newly released Justice Department report says more than a dozen DOJ and FBI officials raised serious objections to the Biden administration’s 2021 response to angry parents at school-board meetings, warning internally that the initiative appeared political, threatened First Amendment rights and lacked a clear federal law-enforcement basis.

The report, released Monday by the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group, revisits Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Oct. 4, 2021 memorandum directing the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to coordinate with federal, state and local authorities in responding to threats against school-board members, teachers and other education officials.

The documents released with the report include hundreds of pages of internal communications and show that concerns about the initiative were being voiced inside the government even before Garland’s memo became public.

Attorney General Todd Blanche, announcing the findings Monday, said the newly released material confirms longstanding concerns about the government’s handling of the controversy.

“Five years ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued an infamous memorandum at the urging of the National School Boards Association and White House officials, directing the FBI and United States Attorneys to consider looking for a federal hook to prosecute parents exercising their right to free speech,” Blanche wrote Monday.

“Along with the report, we’ve released hundreds of exhibits and emails that make official and verify what many Americans had guessed: the Garland DOJ worked hand in hand with WH officials and the National School Boards Association to chill free speech and parental rights while they threatened to prosecute parents and label them domestic terrorists,” Blanche added.

The controversy dates to the fall of 2021, when school-board meetings around the country had become increasingly contentious amid disputes over COVID-era restrictions, mask and vaccine policies, school closures, race-related curricula and gender issues.

On Sept. 29, 2021, the National School Boards Association sent President Joe Biden a letter requesting federal assistance and warning that some conduct directed at school officials “could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

Five days later, Garland issued his memorandum citing an “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools.”

The new DOJ report says the memo emerged despite internal concerns about whether the federal government had evidence demonstrating a nationwide problem requiring such an intervention.

One of the most striking exchanges occurred before Garland’s memo was publicly released. A deputy assistant attorney general objected to proposals involving the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section and the possibility of connecting the school-board initiative to the department’s election-threat work.

The official wrote that the approach appeared so politically motivated that Garland “might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.”

The chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section responded by calling the proposal “stupid.”

Other officials questioned whether the conduct under discussion belonged within federal jurisdiction at all. The DOJ report quotes internal descriptions of aspects of the proposal as “ridiculous,” “challenging from a First Amendment perspective,” “potentially dangerous ground,” “horrible,” “confusing,” “very messy and political” and involving “nothing remotely federal.”

One official warned that the initiative could appear to be “a partisan exercise aimed at those who do not support the Administration,” while another expressed concern that it could “tarnish reputation as an apolitical law enforcer.”

An FBI counterterrorism official also raised concern about the possibility that the “domestic terrorist” label could be broadly associated with people who “oppose school board actions,” while an attorney in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division noted that much of the conduct at issue could fall within constitutionally protected speech.

Several Justice Department officials argued that genuine threats or violence against local school officials would ordinarily be matters for state and local law enforcement unless there was a specific federal offense or jurisdictional basis for FBI involvement.

Resistance continued after Garland issued the memo.

On Oct. 5, 2021, one day after its release, an FBI attorney complained that the Justice Department had issued the accompanying announcement without properly coordinating with the bureau.

A deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division wrote that “we were all caught off guard by this announcement,” adding that it had been “unilaterally pushed by DOJ.”

As the Justice Department moved toward creating a task force, officials continued to question the need for the effort.

A deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s National Security Division said he didn’t “see the need for a task force like this” and observed that the department doesn’t “start a narrowly focused task force every time some group believes they are the subject of threat.”

Later that month, the Department of Homeland Security circulated material connecting threats against education officials with increased opposition to masks, vaccines and critical race theory.

An FBI counterterrorism official characterized that material as a “politically charged paper” and expressed opposition to FBI participation in the effort.

The newly released Justice Department report says the FBI ultimately opened 25 Guardian assessments stemming from the Garland memorandum. Guardian assessments are preliminary investigative inquiries used by the FBI to evaluate information about possible terrorism or national-security threats.

One case cited by the DOJ involved a mother who, according to information supplied by an FBI whistleblower, became the subject of an assessment in part because she “is a gun owner” and belonged to a “right-wing mom’s group.”

The report says most of the assessments were eventually closed or discontinued.

The National School Boards Association subsequently apologized for the language in its September 2021 letter to Biden, acknowledging that there was “no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

Garland repeatedly defended his original memorandum while serving as attorney general, arguing that federal authorities had a responsibility to respond to genuine threats of violence against public officials.

“The obligation of the Justice Department is to protect the American people against violence and threats of violence and that particularly includes public officials,” he said of the memo.

Supporters of Garland’s response have also pointed out that some school-board members and education officials did receive genuine online and written threats during the period, arguing that the existence of constitutionally protected protests did not eliminate the government’s obligation to investigate credible threats or acts of violence.

The dispute, therefore, has long centered on whether Garland’s directive was appropriately targeted at actual threats and violence or whether the federal response swept ordinary political protest and protected parental speech into a counterterrorism-oriented law-enforcement effort.

The new report was produced under the Trump administration’s broader review of alleged political weaponization within the federal government. President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, directing the government to identify and correct instances in which federal law enforcement or intelligence powers had been used improperly for political purposes.

The Justice Department says the newly released internal communications demonstrate that concerns about the Garland memo were not confined to Republicans or outside critics, but were being raised at the time by career personnel inside both the DOJ and FBI.

The department is now taking several steps in response to its findings. Parents and others who became subjects or targets of FBI Guardian assessments stemming from the Garland memo will be offered an opportunity to review those records.

The DOJ also plans to place disclaimers on Guardian assessments associated with the initiative, warning that the Garland memorandum raised constitutional concerns and that assessments resulting from it should therefore be viewed with caution.

Officials additionally intend to review the files of people investigated under the policy to determine whether their constitutional rights were violated. Where such violations are established, the department says it will issue formal apologies and establish safeguards intended to prevent similar conduct in the future.

The Justice Department is also partnering with the National Association of School Resource Officers through a $1.5 million grant to provide training concerning parental rights, while additional federal resources are being directed toward educating school employees about parents’ First Amendment rights and their role in directing their children’s education.

In a separate action Monday, the Justice and Education departments sent a joint letter to attorneys general in all 50 states emphasizing parents’ rights under federal education and privacy laws, another component of the Trump administration’s effort to reverse what it describes as the previous administration’s approach to parental involvement in schools.

{Matzav.com}

Honda has developed technology capable of wirelessly supplying electricity to electric vehicles — including 20-ton commercial trucks — while they are traveling down the road, with the Japanese automaker preparing for highway trials that could eventually allow EVs to recharge without pulling into a charging station.

The system places power-transmitting equipment beneath the pavement and installs a receiver on the vehicle. As an equipped vehicle passes over the roadway, electricity is transferred wirelessly through magnetic coupling, potentially allowing the battery to recharge while the vehicle remains in motion.

Honda R&D, the automaker’s research and development subsidiary, developed the technology together with Japanese construction giant Taisei Corporation and road-construction company Taisei Rotec Corporation. The three companies have been working jointly on the project since 2025.

Honda says dynamic wireless power transfer could address one of the major practical drawbacks of electric vehicles: the need to stop and recharge. Instead of relying exclusively on home chargers or conventional charging stations, an EV could receive additional power during portions of an ordinary trip.

Honda sees particularly significant potential for the trucking and transportation industries, where lengthy charging stops can reduce the amount of time a commercial vehicle can remain in service. The company therefore intends to focus initially on putting the technology to practical use in logistics and transportation.

The system combines technologies developed by each of the three companies. Honda R&D developed the high-power-density transmitting and receiving units and the vehicle-side system, Taisei developed the high-response direct-current power supply, and Taisei Rotec developed techniques for embedding the charging equipment beneath the roadway.

The road itself contains multiple ground assembly units connected through a direct-current distribution system. A corresponding vehicle assembly receiver mounted on the EV collects the energy as the vehicle travels over the embedded equipment.

Honda and its partners have already conducted tests on a private roadway at Taisei Group’s T-FIELD/SATTE research facility, examining not only whether the system can transfer electricity effectively, but whether the pavement and embedded equipment can withstand the punishment of everyday heavy-vehicle traffic.

One of the major engineering challenges is ensuring that charging hardware buried beneath a highway can survive repeated use by large trucks. The companies say they have developed pavement structures and embedded units intended to withstand commercial vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of approximately 20 tons.

A new phase of testing is scheduled to begin late this year at Taisei Group’s T-FIELD/TAMURA testing facility. There, engineers plan to subject the system to long-term durability testing equivalent to one million wheel loads using actual vehicles.

The companies will simultaneously test how effectively electricity can be transferred to moving vehicles and examine methods of limiting electromagnetic-field leakage from the charging equipment buried beneath the road.

Later testing will push the technology further, including trials of power delivery at up to 150 kilowatts — an output level intended to make the system potentially practical for large commercial vehicles rather than merely passenger cars.

Engineers also intend to determine whether power can be transferred reliably when vehicles are moving at highway speeds, an essential hurdle before the technology could be deployed on major expressways.

The most significant test is expected to begin during Japan’s 2027 fiscal year, which starts April 1, 2027, when Honda and its partners plan to move from private test tracks onto an operating highway.

The companies will participate in the “Tateyama Project,” an initiative being led by East Nippon Expressway Company, known as NEXCO East, on the E14 Tateyama Expressway in Chiba Prefecture.

The project is expected to be Japan’s first demonstration of dynamic wireless power transfer on the main lanes of an expressway in an actual traffic environment. The test area is planned for the vicinity of the Kimitsu parking area on the Tateyama Expressway.

Honda and Taisei will not be the only major companies participating. A separate team consisting of Toyota, Denso and Obayashi Corporation has also been selected for the project, allowing different approaches to in-motion wireless charging to be evaluated under real highway conditions.

Honda has been researching dynamic wireless power-transfer technology since 2021 as part of its broader effort to expand EV charging options. The company says the technology is intended to complement, rather than necessarily replace, conventional charging infrastructure and improvements in battery technology.

A road capable of supplying electricity while vehicles travel could theoretically have another important benefit: reducing the amount of battery capacity an EV needs to carry. If vehicles can replenish energy during a journey, manufacturers may eventually be able to rely on smaller batteries for certain applications, potentially reducing vehicle weight and battery costs.

The biggest unanswered question, however, may be the price of transforming ordinary highways into charging infrastructure. Installing power supplies, wiring and charging equipment beneath miles of pavement would require substantial construction and maintenance, and Honda has not said how much such a network would cost.

A Honda engineer declined to provide an estimate of how the economics would compare with building a conventional network of high-speed charging stations, saying the financial viability of the technology still needs to be evaluated.

The coming tests will therefore determine far more than whether an EV can technically collect electricity while speeding down a highway. Honda and its partners must establish that the equipment can survive years beneath heavily traveled roads, safely deliver large amounts of electricity at highway speeds and ultimately make economic sense on a scale large enough to justify installing it beneath public highways.

{Matzav.com}

President John F. Kennedy’s longtime personal secretary believed his assassination was not simply the act of Lee Harvey Oswald, but a carefully planned political killing involving people inside the U.S. government who wanted Kennedy removed from office, according to an unpublished memoir that has drawn renewed attention more than six decades after the assassination.

Evelyn Lincoln, who worked alongside Kennedy for 12 years and was among the people with the closest day-to-day access to him, laid out her suspicions in an 11-page addendum to an unpublished memoir titled “I Was There,” written during the 1980s and preserved in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Her assessment was strikingly direct. Lincoln described Kennedy’s death in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, as a “deliberate professional political murder” and wrote that she believed it had been planned by people within the government who wanted the president out of office.

The manuscript received relatively little attention when it became publicly available through the Kennedy Library, but Kennedy assassination researchers have recently brought Lincoln’s writings back into public view. Her conclusions are particularly notable because of her extraordinary proximity to Kennedy throughout his political career, from his Senate years through his presidency.

Lincoln did not claim that she knew who ordered the assassination, nor did she definitively accuse any single person or organization of carrying it out. Instead, she compiled a lengthy list of powerful people and factions that she believed had developed reasons to oppose Kennedy and could potentially have wanted him dead.

“I do not point a finger at any one of the individuals or factions,” Lincoln cautioned, saying instead that the coincidences surrounding Kennedy’s enemies “puzzle me.”

Lincoln believed Kennedy had acquired enemies even before entering the White House because of his religion.

“He was a Catholic. That gave him a built-in opposition right from the start,” Lincoln wrote.

She pointed specifically to the Ku Klux Klan and other anti-Catholic forces, noting that similar opposition had been mobilized against Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith in 1928. Those forces, she wrote, later “tried hard to defeat” Kennedy when he ran for president in 1960.

Once Kennedy became president, however, Lincoln believed the number and power of his enemies increased dramatically.

One major source of hostility, she wrote, was the Kennedy administration’s civil-rights agenda. The administration sent federal protection for Freedom Riders and intervened in battles over school integration in Mississippi and Alabama, putting Kennedy directly at odds with the KKK, segregationists and other organizations bitterly opposed to the civil-rights movement.

Lincoln also focused on longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and his contentious relationships with members of the Kennedy administration.

Hoover intensely opposed civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Lincoln wrote, and “did everything possible to destroy him.”

She also pointed to Hoover’s famously difficult relationship with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who as the president’s brother wielded enormous influence inside the administration and exercised authority over the FBI through the Justice Department.

Lincoln’s list of potential Kennedy enemies extended much further. She examined Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, organized crime, anti-Castro Cuban exiles, elements of the CIA, extreme right-wing organizations, the John Birch Society, communists, opponents of the civil-rights movement and “Texans who hated him.”

Hoffa, she believed, had a particularly strong reason to despise the Kennedy administration. Robert Kennedy had pursued Hoffa and organized crime while serving as chief counsel to the Senate Rackets Committee and continued that campaign after becoming attorney general.

Lincoln wrote that “If any member of organized crime” wanted to hire an assassin, Hoffa “would certainly” have possessed a motive.

Much of Lincoln’s analysis centered on the tangled relationships among the CIA, organized crime, Cuban exiles and militant anti-Communist groups following Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba.

The disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 was particularly important to her thinking. Kennedy refused to commit U.S. military forces to rescue the CIA-backed Cuban exile invasion after it began collapsing, infuriating some Cuban exiles and leaving bitter resentment among people connected to the operation.

Organized crime had its own reason for wanting Castro removed. Mafia figures had enjoyed lucrative gambling and other operations in pre-Castro Cuba, only to lose them after Castro seized power.

Lincoln believed those overlapping interests helped create a dangerous convergence among groups that otherwise might not have been natural allies.

“A linkage grew between the Mob, the CIA and right-wing extremists,” Lincoln concluded, connecting their hostility to Kennedy’s policies toward Castro, civil rights, peace and his administration’s campaign against organized crime.

Lincoln also examined what she considered a “strange alliance” involving Richard Nixon, Cuban exile figures and people associated with the CIA and the Bay of Pigs operation. She noted that some individuals associated with those circles would later emerge again in connection with Watergate and political “dirty tricks.”

Her list even extended overseas. Lincoln pointed to Madame Nhu, the outspoken sister-in-law of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.

Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were killed during a South Vietnamese military coup in November 1963, just weeks before Kennedy’s assassination. Madame Nhu subsequently lashed out at Kennedy and called him a “murderer,” according to Lincoln’s account.

Lincoln additionally wondered whether Kennedy’s policies concerning Vietnam had created enemies inside the national-security establishment. She noted indications that Kennedy was considering reducing American involvement there, while Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had discussed reductions in U.S. forces and, shortly before Kennedy’s trip to Dallas, prospective cuts in defense spending.

Kennedy’s broader pursuit of reduced Cold War tensions following the Cuban Missile Crisis also figured into Lincoln’s thinking about why powerful interests might have turned against him.

Perhaps the most politically explosive portion of Lincoln’s account concerned Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who became president immediately after Kennedy’s assassination.

Lincoln had previously written that Kennedy told her shortly before the Dallas trip that he was considering dropping Johnson from the Democratic presidential ticket when he sought reelection in 1964.

Johnson at the time was politically vulnerable because of the Bobby Baker scandal and other controversies surrounding people in his political orbit.

In her unpublished account, Lincoln noted that Johnson had returned to his Texas ranch several weeks before Kennedy’s visit and that associates were with him there. She also wrote about Johnson’s relationship with Hoover and his access to information contained in the FBI director’s secret files.

Lincoln further claimed that Johnson “initially maintained that there had been a conspiracy” following Kennedy’s assassination before the government “hurriedly set the wheels in motion to build a case against Lee Harvey Oswald as being the lone assassin.”

Lincoln’s suspicions about Johnson and several other powerful figures became even more explicit toward the end of her life. In a 1994 letter, she identified five parties she personally believed had been involved in a conspiracy: Johnson, Hoover, the Mafia, the CIA and anti-Castro Cubans in Florida.

That letter did not provide evidence establishing that those parties participated in Kennedy’s assassination, and Lincoln’s unpublished memoir itself was more guarded. There, she emphasized that she was identifying potential motives and troubling connections rather than claiming to possess proof identifying the killers.

She was particularly struck by the presence of so many people and groups hostile to Kennedy in Texas when the president traveled to Dallas.

“It is ironic,” she wrote, that so many hostile factions “had their people in or around Dallas” when Kennedy arrived.

She cited organized crime figures, members of the John Birch Society and hostile Texans among those whose presence or connections she considered noteworthy.

“Any one of these factions,” Lincoln reasoned, could have hired a killer.

Ultimately, however, Lincoln believed the relationships among the various groups were more significant than any individual suspect viewed in isolation.

“There is definitely an intertwining of people and factions,” Lincoln wrote, in the efforts to “stop” or destroy Kennedy.

Lincoln’s suspicions remain just that — her conclusions and theories, rather than proof overturning the official findings regarding Kennedy’s assassination. The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository and that it found no evidence that either Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of a conspiracy.

A later congressional investigation reached a different conclusion on the broader question. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that Kennedy was probably killed as the result of a conspiracy, although it did not identify the other conspirators and said it found no evidence implicating the Soviet or Cuban governments, organized crime as an organization, the CIA, FBI or Secret Service as institutions.

{Matzav.com}

China has eliminated nearly one-quarter of its banking institutions in just four years, including a record 670 closures in 2025, as Beijing accelerates a sweeping consolidation campaign aimed at containing weaknesses among smaller lenders and preventing problems in the country’s enormous banking sector from spiraling into broader financial instability.

The vast majority of the institutions that disappeared last year were small rural lenders, with regulators favoring mergers, acquisitions and dissolutions that transfer their assets and liabilities into larger, better-capitalized banks rather than allowing troubled institutions simply to fail.

The restructuring reduced the number of banking institutions in China to 3,139 by the end of 2025, a decline of approximately 23% over four years. China’s largely state-controlled banking system holds an estimated $64 trillion in assets, making its stability critical not only to the Chinese economy but to global financial markets.

The extraordinary consolidation comes amid mounting pressure on China’s smaller banks from the prolonged property downturn, weak domestic credit demand, deflationary pressures and persistently low interest rates, all of which have made it increasingly difficult for lenders to generate profits.

Fitch Ratings has warned that small banks, particularly rural and city-level institutions, “remain the weakest part of the system,” pointing to weak asset quality, limited capital cushions and governance problems that are especially pronounced in less-developed areas.

The financial deterioration can be seen in the profitability of rural lenders. Their return on assets fell to 0.45% during the first half of 2026, compared with 0.56% in 2021.

Bad loans are also considerably more prevalent among those institutions. Rural commercial banks recorded a nonperforming-loan ratio of approximately 2.8%, compared with about 1.5% for China’s banking sector overall.

The disparity reflects the types of borrowers served by many of the smaller institutions. Rural and regional banks frequently have greater exposure to small businesses, financially troubled property developers and local-government financing vehicles, leaving them particularly vulnerable to China’s continuing real-estate slump and the heavy debt burdens of local governments.

“We’ve never seen consolidations on this scale before,” Jason Bedford, a senior visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute, told the Financial Times.

Bedford said one objective of Beijing’s campaign is to reduce the possibility that vulnerable small lenders could experience liquidity crises that undermine depositor confidence and spread financial stress to other institutions.

Chinese authorities have therefore generally sought to absorb weaker banks into larger ones rather than permit outright collapses. In many cases, assets and liabilities are transferred to stronger institutions, leaving fewer independent banks but theoretically producing larger lenders with stronger balance sheets and more effective supervision.

Fitch said the strategy could improve transparency and regulatory oversight while making it more difficult for small institutions to exploit differences in regulatory requirements.

The problems have not been confined to rural banks. Smaller city-level lenders have increasingly come under scrutiny as Beijing expands its cleanup of the financial system.

One notable case involved troubled Wuhan-based Z-Bank, which authorities moved to absorb into Hankou Bank. The intervention underscored regulators’ willingness to step in directly when they believe problems at an individual institution could threaten depositors or local financial stability.

The episode recalled the dramatic 2019 government takeover of Baoshang Bank, which became one of the most significant Chinese bank failures in decades. Baoshang’s collapse rattled the country’s financial markets and highlighted the vulnerabilities that had accumulated among smaller regional lenders.

At the same time that Beijing is shrinking the number of small banks, it is pouring tens of billions of dollars into some of China’s largest state-controlled financial institutions.

Chinese authorities recently announced a roughly $54 billion capital injection involving major banks and insurers. The package includes approximately 300 billion yuan supplied by the Finance Ministry through special government bonds and another 60 billion yuan from state-controlled tobacco companies.

Among the institutions receiving support are banking giants Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China. The latest infusion follows approximately 520 billion yuan — nearly $70 billion — injected into four major state-owned banks in an earlier recapitalization effort.

The enormous capital injections reflect another pressure confronting Chinese banks: shrinking lending margins. Low interest rates have made borrowing cheaper as Beijing attempts to support economic activity, but they have simultaneously squeezed the difference between what banks earn on loans and what they pay to obtain funds.

Despite the aggressive cleanup, Fitch does not currently expect difficulties among smaller banks to produce a nationwide banking contagion. Many rural lenders operate primarily within limited geographic areas, and their connections to the broader interbank market are relatively modest, reducing the risk that the collapse of one small institution would automatically destabilize the country’s largest banks.

Nevertheless, the unprecedented banking consolidation is unfolding against a broader economic slowdown that has increased pressure on President Xi Jinping’s government to stimulate growth without creating additional financial vulnerabilities.

China’s economy expanded 4.3% from a year earlier during the second quarter of 2026, down from 5% in the first quarter and the slowest quarterly year-over-year pace since 2022. First-half growth stood at 4.7%.

There have been pockets of strength. Manufacturing activity returned to expansion in September, helped in part by demand associated with the global artificial-intelligence boom, while Chinese exports have remained resilient.

Other indicators remain considerably weaker. Domestic consumption and investment continue to lag, the property sector remains under pressure, and industrial profit growth slowed sharply in August.

Industrial profits increased 4.2% from a year earlier in August, down from an 11.2% increase in July. For the first eight months of 2026, however, industrial profits remained 15.7% above their level during the same period last year.

Beijing has responded with additional economic support measures, including lower financing costs, expanded lending programs for infrastructure, technology, farms and private businesses, and mortgage subsidies intended to encourage home purchases and provide support to the battered property market.

The challenge for Chinese policymakers is that many of the measures designed to stimulate the economy — particularly lower interest rates — can further compress bank profitability, while aggressive lending can create additional bad loans if borrowers are already financially strained.

That tension helps explain the speed of Beijing’s banking overhaul. Rather than wait for hundreds of weak regional institutions to encounter individual crises, authorities are attempting to consolidate them while simultaneously strengthening the capital positions of the country’s largest banks.

For now, Beijing’s strategy amounts to a massive restructuring rather than a wave of uncontrolled bank failures: hundreds of smaller institutions are disappearing, their business is being folded into larger lenders, and the government is injecting billions of dollars into major financial institutions in an effort to reinforce the system before China’s economic slowdown exposes deeper weaknesses.

{Matzav.com}

MK Meir Porush declared that United Torah Judaism will refuse to accept coalition positions and will prevent coalition legislation from advancing after the election unless a law is first passed protecting the status of yeshiva bochurim and lomdei Torah from military conscription.

Speaking in an interview with Kol Chai Radio ahead of Election Day, Porush said the position is not merely a campaign pledge, but part of a binding agreement reached between the components of United Torah Judaism as they prepared for the election.

“We signed an explicit agreement between Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah,” Porush said. “We will not be appointed to or serve in any coalition position – not as ministers, not deputy ministers, and not committee chairmen – and we will not allow any coalition legislation to pass as long as the status of yeshiva students and Torah learners is not regulated by law.”

Porush made clear that the commitment is intended to give the party significant leverage over the next government. Even if UTJ joins a coalition politically, he said, its representatives will not allow the coalition to function normally in the Knesset until the draft issue is resolved to their satisfaction.

“Members of Knesset want to advance legislation, and they will understand very well that without a complete solution to the conscription issue, the Knesset will not be able to move forward.”

The declaration follows months of bitter battles over the draft law, which became one of the most explosive issues facing the outgoing Knesset and repeatedly created divisions both between the chareidi parties and the Likud and within the chareidi political camp itself.

Agudas Yisroel, including Porush, adopted a particularly firm position during the previous government, opposing the 2026 state budget in its first reading after the draft issue remained unresolved. Degel HaTorah and Shas supported the budget at that stage amid negotiations over proposed draft legislation, while Agudas Yisroel maintained that it could not support the measure without an acceptable law regulating the status of bnei yeshivos.

Porush and other Agudas Yisroel representatives repeatedly maintained that any acceptable legislation would have to protect those engaged in limud haTorah without quotas or sanctions. The dispute ultimately contributed to the collapse of the chareidi parties’ participation in the governing coalition.

The draft controversy also unfolded amid arrests of yeshiva bochurim accused of failing to report for military service, funding disputes involving yeshivos and other institutions, and a series of court and government legal decisions that chareidi leaders said threatened the continued functioning of the Torah world.

Porush said Sunday that the experience of the past several years demonstrated why the chareidi parties cannot rely solely on political understandings or promises and instead require legislation that formally establishes the status of yeshiva bochurim.

He also focused heavily on the role of Israel’s courts and government legal advisers, warning that decisions made by those institutions can directly affect funding for Torah institutions and the ability of chareidi communities to maintain their way of life.

“The public must understand what happens when the judicial system and legal advisers make unilateral decisions that harm Torah students and institutions,” Porush warned.

Porush argued that the stakes extend well beyond the draft itself, saying that control of the government could determine how funding and other government resources are distributed to chareidi communities across the country.

“If, G-d forbid, the left, led by figures such as Yair Golan or his partners, runs the system, they will be the ones deciding what can be received in each and every city and whether a city whose residents are not to their liking is eligible for funding. Our goal in this campaign is to show the public just how critical these elections are to our existence.”

UTJ is once again contesting the election as a joint chareidi slate, although its internal structure has undergone significant changes. The election list now incorporates Degel HaTorah, Agudas Yisroel and the newly established Chomas Toras Yisroel framework representing Porush’s Shlomei Emunim faction together with the Belzer representation.

Despite the internal political arrangements, Porush said the factions have agreed on the central demand that will govern their conduct after the election: there will be no assumption of government posts and no cooperation in advancing coalition legislation until the legal status of bnei yeshivos and lomdei Torah has been resolved.

The pledge effectively puts any prospective prime minister seeking UTJ’s support on notice that negotiations over the draft law will come before the usual bargaining over ministries, deputy ministries and Knesset committee chairmanships, with Porush insisting that the party will use its parliamentary votes as leverage until an acceptable law is enacted.

A mathematics lecturer at Bar-Ilan University has been indicted on charges that he spent more than three years developing an elaborate plan for 72 armed Jewish attackers to carry out simultaneous terror attacks against Arabs across Israel, with prosecutors alleging that his ultimate objective was to kill hundreds of people and trigger a mass exodus of Arabs and Palestinians from Israel, eastern Yerushalayim, and Yehuda and Shomron.

The State Prosecutor’s Office filed the indictment Monday in the Central District Court in Lod against the lecturer, a Petah Tikva resident in his 60s. A court-imposed gag order currently prohibits publication of his identity.

The defendant is charged with preparing to commit an act of terrorism under Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law, extortion by threats and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors have also asked the court to order that he remain in custody throughout the proceedings against him.

According to the indictment, the defendant’s ideas developed against the backdrop of the violence during Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021 and intensified following the outbreak of the Iron Swords War. Prosecutors say he devised an ideological-nationalist program that he called “Ayt,” a Hebrew acronym meaning “A Nation Will Carry Out Transfer.”

The prosecution alleges that his preparations began in February 2023 and continued until his arrest in September 2026. During that period, he allegedly transformed the idea into a detailed operational plan, prepared extensive written materials, conducted reconnaissance and spent approximately a year and a half trying unsuccessfully to recruit others to participate.

The scale of the alleged plan was extensive. Prosecutors say the lecturer envisioned assembling 72 Jewish attackers, at least half of whom would possess firearms licenses, and dividing them into 12 separate cells of six people each. The defendant himself intended to participate as one of the attackers.

The cells were allegedly supposed to launch attacks simultaneously in mixed Jewish-Arab cities and Arab communities around the country, using the element of surprise to overwhelm security forces and produce mass casualties. The proposed arsenal included handguns, rifles, axes and hammers.

According to additional details contained in the indictment, the defendant envisioned the attacks killing hundreds of people. Some reports citing the planning documents put the contemplated death toll at between 600 and 700.

The alleged scheme went considerably further. Prosecutors say the defendant hoped to recruit sympathetic individuals from within the IDF who could provide support to the attacking cells, including assistance involving the Air Force, artillery and armored forces against Arab population centers.

His stated objective, according to prosecutors, was to create such widespread bloodshed and fear that Arab Israelis, Bedouins, Arabs living in eastern Yerushalayim and Palestinians in Yehuda and Shomron would flee or be permanently driven to Jordan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The documents allegedly contained operational instructions for what the defendant described as putting the plan into effect “here and now.” Those instructions called for quickly taking control of flashpoint areas, roads, entrances and exits to Arab communities, mixed cities and hospitals while carrying out mass killings.

One of the most disturbing passages cited from the defendant’s writings concerned the treatment of civilians. In one document, according to the indictment, he wrote: “Do not have mercy even on the women and children.”

Prosecutors maintain that the plan did not remain confined to writings and theoretical discussions. The defendant allegedly took concrete steps toward implementation, including conducting reconnaissance around the Arab town of Tuba-Zangariyye in northern Israel to study possible access routes and methods of attack. The community was reportedly intended to serve as one of the principal targets.

Investigators also say he spent approximately 18 months trying to locate people willing to participate in the operation. Those recruitment efforts were unsuccessful, and there is no allegation that the 72-person force he envisioned was ever actually assembled.

A significant portion of the indictment centers on the defendant’s repeated attempts to involve Moshe Feiglin, who is running in the upcoming election as part of the joint Zehut-Religious Zionism Party slate.

According to prosecutors, the lecturer believed Feiglin could help him recruit participants. His plan allegedly called for carefully selected activists to be invited to a Zehut campaign gathering, where they would suddenly be informed that they had been chosen to participate in an attack scheduled for the following day.

The defendant attended two public events at which Feiglin appeared and repeatedly attempted to arrange a personal meeting with him and deliver a summary of the plan. Prosecutors stressed that Feiglin did not respond to the approaches and had no involvement in the alleged scheme.

Feiglin said Monday that he had been receiving correspondence from the defendant for an extended period but had not taken it seriously.

“I have been receiving repeated letters for quite a long time that I did not take seriously,” Feiglin said.

After the attempts to secure Feiglin’s cooperation failed, prosecutors allege that the defendant escalated his efforts as the election approached. He allegedly sent Feiglin a letter threatening to make its contents public in a manner he believed would politically damage Feiglin unless he agreed to cooperate and help advance the plan.

The lecturer allegedly traveled to Feiglin’s home and left the letter with a neighbor to deliver to him. He subsequently attended a Zehut event at Yerushalayim’s Machane Yehuda market and passed additional copies to the party’s director-general through another woman.

Prosecutors say the defendant simultaneously went to considerable lengths to prevent investigators from tracing his activities. He allegedly avoided creating his planning documents on a computer and instead wrote them by hand, operated under a false name and appeared at meetings wearing a mask, hat and sunglasses.

He is also accused of borrowing the phones of unsuspecting passersby when contacting people he hoped to recruit, apparently in an effort to prevent the communications from being traced back to his own device.

The prosecution says the lengthy duration of the planning, the reconnaissance, the detailed operational documents, the recruitment attempts and the measures allegedly taken to conceal his identity demonstrate that the scheme had progressed beyond the expression of extremist ideas into concrete preparations for a terrorist attack.

In asking that the lecturer remain jailed until the conclusion of the case, prosecutors described the alleged plan as the product of an “extreme and murderous ideology” and argued that his repeated efforts to move it toward implementation demonstrate that he presents a serious and immediate danger.

The defendant has not been convicted of the charges, and the allegations contained in the indictment will now have to be proven in court. His name remains barred from publication under the existing gag order.

{Matzav.com}

A potentially critical Israeli database containing information on international passengers and flight crews was never used by the Transportation Ministry, according to reports emerging in the aftermath of the attempted Flydubai terror attack, prompting political commentator Amit Segal to brand the failure a “real scandal.”

The revelation has become a central element of the growing controversy over how Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani co-pilot accused of trying to seize and crash Flydubai Flight FZ1073, was permitted to serve aboard a flight to Israel despite his nationality and reported history of extremist concerns.

“The Transportation Ministry’s failure is glaring in one central area: a National Passenger Profiling Center was established,” Segal wrote.

The National Passenger Profiling Center was established under legislation approved in 2023 to collect and analyze information supplied by airlines about passengers and crew members on international flights. The data can be used for purposes that include combating terrorism and protecting civil aviation.

According to Segal, government bodies entitled to use the system were expected to authorize employees who could access the information and perform searches tailored to their particular responsibilities.

He pointed to the Health Ministry as one example, saying officials could use the system to identify travelers arriving from countries experiencing disease outbreaks. The Transportation Ministry, he argued, could similarly use it to identify pilots or crew members from hostile countries.

The database was not merely theoretical, Segal noted, saying it had previously demonstrated its usefulness by assisting authorities in locating Israeli women who went missing in Vienna.

But Segal charged that the Transportation Ministry failed to take even the basic steps necessary to make use of the system.

“The Transportation Ministry never bothered to authorize employees, never submitted a single query, and did not even bother to pay its share of the database.”

“If it was decided that pilots from hostile countries are not allowed in, how are you going to identify them if you didn’t bother to do your basic part and actually check? It’s a real scandal,” he added.

The criticism comes amid a widening examination of the Israeli government’s handling of security for foreign airlines, with multiple reports indicating that information about the Flydubai crew was already inside an Israeli government system before the flight departed Dubai.

The Israel Tax Authority has confirmed that information concerning the pilots and cabin crew was transferred to the National Passenger Profiling Center before the flight. The information supplied by airlines includes identifying details such as names, nationalities and travel-document information.

That is particularly significant because al-Hammami was an Omani citizen. Oman does not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, and the attack has exposed questions over why his nationality did not prompt additional scrutiny before he was permitted to operate a Tel Aviv-bound flight.

Reports indicate that while the information existed in the Israeli system, it was not pulled from the database by the relevant Transportation Ministry officials for examination. The ministry was legally permitted to request queries or assessments from the center but reportedly had never sought to activate that access since the system was established.

The Shin Bet, Mossad and Israel Police, by contrast, are among the agencies authorized to maintain their own branches of the system. Reports have indicated that the Mossad also did not check the Flydubai crew list before the flight, underscoring the broader questions now being raised about how responsibilities were divided among Israel’s various agencies.

The system itself may also have weaknesses. Crew information can sometimes reach the database only shortly before an aircraft’s doors close, and in some instances after departure, leaving authorities with a narrow window in which to identify a potential security problem. That process is now reportedly being examined as part of the broader investigation.

The Flydubai case also exposed a longstanding practice under which foreign airline crew members holding citizenship from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel were able to enter Ben Gurion Airport. Only after the attempted attack were instructions tightened to prevent airlines from assigning such crew members to Israel-bound flights.

The controversy has grown further because the underlying security gaps were reportedly identified well before the Flydubai attack. An internal National Security Council document found that the Transportation Ministry was not fulfilling responsibilities assigned to it under previous decisions concerning foreign aviation security.

The same issue reportedly surfaced in a classified State Comptroller report and in discussions involving the Transportation Ministry, National Security Council, Shin Bet and Mossad, indicating that concerns over the division of responsibility had been circulating within the government for some time.

Transportation Ministry professionals had themselves warned that their office lacked the capabilities necessary to shoulder the broader security responsibilities being assigned to it. Nevertheless, those responsibilities remained with the ministry, while no replacement system was established to bridge the gap between intelligence held by Israeli agencies and the screening that needed to be performed on incoming foreign crews.

Another issue now receiving scrutiny is the size of the ministry unit responsible for the task. The Transportation Ministry’s Security, Emergency and Cyber Division has responsibilities spanning aviation, maritime transportation and ground transportation, yet reportedly operates with only about 10 permanent full-time employees after departures and unfilled positions reduced its staffing.

Transportation Ministry officials have pushed back strongly against attempts to place responsibility for the Flydubai failure solely on the ministry. They argue that the ministry is not an intelligence service and does not possess the manpower or intelligence capabilities necessary to conduct independent security-background investigations of every passenger and crew member flying to Israel.

Ministry officials have also maintained that the names of the Flydubai pilots were not sent directly to their security division before the flight, even though the crew list was transmitted to the National Passenger Profiling Center. They have further acknowledged that existing procedures did not contemplate a scenario in which a commercial pilot himself would attempt to carry out a terror attack.

The ministry has additionally argued that some of the criticism has blurred the distinction between its responsibilities for regularly scheduled foreign flights and those involving charter operations.

The dispute over responsibility has intensified following reports that Emirati authorities transmitted the flight’s passenger and crew information, including nationalities, to Israel before departure and that Israel raised no objection to anyone aboard the aircraft.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu has now ordered a comprehensive investigation into the security arrangements governing foreign civilian aviation to Israel. On Sunday evening, Netanyahu instructed National Security Council chief Shmuel Ben-Ezra to appoint an examiner to review the entire system and determine where the failures occurred.

The review is expected to examine not only why al-Hammami was not flagged, but the larger question now hanging over Israel’s aviation-security apparatus: how critical information could have been sitting inside an Israeli government database before the flight took off without anyone responsible for protecting the flight making use of it.

{Matzav.com}

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a statewide disaster emergency Monday in response to a rapidly growing measles outbreak, giving health professionals expanded authority to vaccinate and test residents as cases spread through rural communities across the state.

The executive order comes after New York recorded 108 confirmed measles cases so far in 2026 as of Oct. 3, including 101 cases outside New York City and seven within the five boroughs. That is more than double the 48 cases reported statewide during all of 2025.

The sharpest increase has occurred in recent weeks. Since July 15, 92 cases have been reported in under-immunized rural communities spanning 18 counties, prompting local health departments to administer more than 1,000 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine.

“After reviewing the latest data on measles cases in New York State, I am declaring a State Disaster Emergency to strengthen our ongoing efforts to confront this disease,” Hochul said. “No one should get seriously ill or die from a vaccine-preventable disease. That is why I have taken steps to increase the number of health professionals who can vaccinate and test. These emergency measures will protect New Yorkers and support our community partners as they work tirelessly to address the spread of this disease.”

The emergency declaration does not impose lockdowns or restrictions on the general public. Instead, it temporarily expands the number of medical professionals authorized to administer measles vaccines and conduct or order testing, allowing the state to respond more quickly in communities where infections are appearing.

Under Hochul’s order, paramedics, advanced EMS providers, pharmacists and midwives are among those newly authorized to administer measles vaccinations. Nurses are also being given expanded authority to order measles testing, rather than requiring every test to be ordered by a physician.

The largest concentrations of cases outside New York City have been reported in several upstate counties. Otsego County has recorded 20 cases, Seneca County 17 and Steuben County 14. Cases have also been reported across Western, Central and other parts of upstate New York.

The outbreak has been particularly concerning to health officials because many of the affected areas have relatively low childhood vaccination rates. State data show that, as of the beginning of 2026, 80.9% of children statewide had received at least one MMR dose by age 2. Rates vary significantly by county, including 71.2% in Seneca County, 77.5% in Otsego County and 79.1% in Steuben County.

New York’s outbreak is occurring as measles cases have surged nationally. As of Oct. 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 3,887 confirmed cases across the United States in 2026, compared with 2,289 during all of 2025. Ninety-five percent of this year’s cases have been associated with outbreaks.

New York health officials have also been closely watching neighboring Pennsylvania, where a major outbreak has sickened hundreds of people. The spread across state lines has heightened concerns in rural counties in New York’s Southern Tier and western regions.

State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said health officials are working with local departments and regional partners to identify infections, trace contacts and contain further transmission.

“I appreciate Governor Hochul’s swift action to help address ongoing measles cases. Department staff are working closely with local health departments and regional partners to track and contain the current measles outbreak. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is the best protection — protecting nearly all people against disease who receive the recommended doses. I urge New Yorkers to check their vaccination status and make sure that they and their families are protected. I also ask health providers to be prepared to diagnose and treat any measles cases they encounter.”

Measles is an extremely contagious viral illness spread through coughing and sneezing. An infected person can transmit the virus beginning four days before the appearance of the characteristic rash and continuing until four days after the rash develops, meaning people can spread the illness before realizing they have it.

Symptoms generally begin seven to 14 days after infection, although they can take as long as 21 days to appear. Early symptoms commonly include a high fever, cough, runny nose and red or watery eyes. Several days later, a rash typically begins near the hairline and spreads downward across the face, neck, trunk, arms and legs. Fever can rise above 104 degrees when the rash appears.

Health officials say people exposed to measles may be required to quarantine for 21 days after exposure, while those who become infected should remain isolated through four days after their rash appears.

The state says one dose of the MMR vaccine is approximately 93% effective at preventing measles, while two doses are approximately 97% effective. Most people born before 1957 are generally presumed to have immunity because measles circulated widely before widespread vaccination.

People uncertain about their vaccination status are being advised to contact their doctor or local health department. Health officials are also urging anyone who develops symptoms after a possible exposure to call a healthcare facility before arriving so that precautions can be taken to prevent exposing other patients and staff.

The Hochul administration has also directed the state Health Department to continue publishing information about confirmed cases through its measles dashboard as officials monitor whether the outbreak continues to spread.

{Matzav.com}

Lakewood, NJ Township officials have approved significant spending cuts, imposed a hiring freeze and sharply curtailed overtime as they struggle to close a multimillion-dollar budget gap, with officials warning that municipal layoffs could follow next year.

The belt-tightening comes despite another sizable increase in municipal property taxes. Under the township’s newly approved 2026 budget, the owner of a home assessed at $375,000 will pay an estimated $541 more in municipal taxes. That follows average increases of approximately $300 last year and $225 in 2024.

The final spending plan totals roughly $155.5 million, down substantially from the approximately $163.5 million budget initially proposed over the summer. Township officials say they were forced to eliminate planned expenditures after confronting a budget shortfall that had initially approached $8 million.

Mayor Ray Coles said the township is already operating under strict spending controls.

“We had a budget we planned to put through the end of the year that is now not going to be spent,” Coles said. “They went through the budget, they eliminated expenses whenever possible, the majority of that in overtime.”

The township’s financial difficulties stem from several factors, including increased snow-removal expenses and lower-than-anticipated state assistance. Officials had hoped for additional state funding to help Lakewood contend with the extraordinary costs associated with its rapidly expanding population.

Coles said the state budget ultimately included the original $5 million aid package, leaving the township with a substantial hole to fill. Additional state assistance secured with the help of state Sen. Robert Singer reduced the deficit, but not enough to avoid significant spending reductions.

“I admit this is the hardest budget we have faced in many years,” Coles said.

Township CFO John Barrett confirmed that officials are already considering personnel reductions for the next budget year.

“We are looking at a layoff plan for the township,” Barrett said.

No number has been announced for possible layoffs, and officials have not identified which departments would be affected.

The prospect represents a significant reversal for Lakewood, which in recent years has added police officers, public works personnel and other municipal employees to accommodate extraordinary population growth.

Coles said officials are attempting to protect essential services, particularly public safety.

“I don’t want to think about a cutback on police. We are investigating other areas I can’t go into right now.”

The effects of the current spending restrictions are already becoming apparent. Coles said that during a recent nor’easter, police and fire personnel continued answering emergency calls, but some customary preparations — including advance sewer clearing and neighborhood checks — were curtailed.

“We had the bare minimum and just responded to things when they happened,” he said.

With Lakewood continuing to grow rapidly and the township facing another difficult budget cycle next year, Coles acknowledged that the financial outlook remains troubling.

“I’m very worried about next year,” he said

{Matzav.com}

[Video below.] Maran Rav Dov Landau, Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka, sharply criticized Religious Zionism, army service and Zionism itself in a conversation recorded at his Bnei Brak home and newly publicized by Israeli media.

The recording, which was reportedly made approximately a year and a half ago and was aired Monday by Israel’s Channel 12, captures Rav Landau discussing the fundamental ideological differences between the chareidi and Religious Zionist communities, including the question of how chareidi bochurim should view the sacrifices of Religious Zionist soldiers who combine Torah learning with IDF service.

“The confused people with the knitted kippot, we won’t talk about them. They have their own theories, and it’s difficult with them,” Rav Landau said.

Rav Landau maintained that the true protection of the Jewish people comes from limud haTorah, and he linked the deaths of soldiers to what he described as insufficient Torah learning and an incorrect understanding of the Torah’s approach to warfare.

“Those who are killed, they were killed because we don’t learn enough. We could save even more,” he said. “They are killed because their rabbis teach them a distorted Torah. And they do a lot of what they do not to save people, but for the glory of the state. They kill people for glory.”

In the latest recording, Rav Landau argued that the continued survival of the Jewish population in Eretz Yisroel cannot be explained through military strength alone. Instead, he said, the merit and spiritual protection generated by lomdei Torah is what protects the country’s residents.

“There is no explanation why Arabs don’t join together to flood the entire land, and G-d forbid, annihilate us all. There is no explanation,” he said, referring to the protection provided by Torah study.

Rav Landau then turned to a broader discussion of Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel, questioning the assumption that Jewish sovereignty was necessary for Jewish life to flourish in Eretz Yisroel.

“I don’t know what would have happened if, at the beginning, there had been no state and they had established some kind of UN rule here – the situation would have been excellent,” he said. “It is possible to live without a state, to live well with the Arabs… It was quite good when Arabs ruled here; that was the best situation. The Arabs ruled, they were respected, and people did not interfere with them. Money was brought into the country, and Arabs like money.”

Rav Landau also blamed the Zionist movement for worsening Arab hostility toward the Jewish population, arguing that the establishment of the Zionist movement and its political aspirations transformed an already difficult relationship into a far more dangerous conflict.

“They caused the Arabs to hate us. The Arabs were never good, but they had to be respected,” he said. According to him, Zionism, which he said sought “to save the Jewish people,” brought “the physical disasters, not only the spiritual ones, upon the Jewish people.”

Rav Landau acknowledged in the conversation that whatever his view of the creation of the state, the present-day reality is entirely different. Millions of Jews now live within Israel’s political and security framework, and the chareidi community itself depends in numerous ways on state institutions and the security provided by the country’s armed forces.

“What difference does that make now? What are we supposed to do now? If we live among robbers and the robbers are saving us, what can we do? It is a problem, a very big problem,” he said.

Addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rav Landau said that he does not believe Palestinian assurances can presently be trusted, while suggesting that at an earlier stage there might have been room for certain concessions that were permissible according to halacha.

“To say that one day they will stop? It is no longer possible to believe them. But perhaps certain permissible concessions could have been made,” he said.

Rav Landau also spoke harshly about secular Israeli society, contrasting the secular public of today with the nonreligious Jews he remembers from earlier periods.

“The problem is that today’s secular people are not the secular people I remember,” he said. “These are people who have no connection whatsoever to Judaism, nothing. It is terrible and awful. In my opinion, this is a very great desecration of G-d’s name.”

He concluded by returning to what he sees as the fundamental spiritual problem with Jewish sovereignty when the state itself is not governed according to the Torah.

“The fact that the people of Israel, who are G-d’s people, established a state of apostasy and heresy – this is a very serious lesson.”

{Matzav.com}