Sniper Studios Presents: HaMayer Prepare to be swept away by the soul-stirring debut album of Mayer Engel, HaMayer, a musical journey that blends timeless emotion with a modern energy all its own. This album is a true collaboration of talent, featuring the remarkable child vocalist group E-Minor (Featuring Nesanel Tuvia Gottesman, Yisroel Kravitz, Yosef Rooz, and Yitzchok Zinger) whose voices elevate the music to new heights. The tracks were masterfully arranged by the gifted Shloimi Schinfeld and ZELIG, with the exceptional vocals recorded at Sniper Studios, ensuring every note hits with precision and heart. Mayer Engel himself shines as both a composer and performer, composing seven of the songs, including “Ir Al Tila,” “Torah,” and “HaMayer,” each one a testament to his deep connection to the music and his roots. Also featured are the contributions of Sam Glazer, Shimi Maryles, and ZELIG, who composed songs for this album. As a special touch, Mayer’s son, Shimmy, makes a guest appearance, adding his unique voice to the album. And last but certainly not least, a heartfelt thank you to Nochi Krohn for allowing Mayer and E-Minor to cover and recreate his beautiful song V’nikeisi — a perfect way to honor the rich traditions of Jewish music. HaMayer is not just an album, but an experience—one that will leave you inspired, uplifted, and moved by the incredible talents of Mayer Engel and his collaborators. Project Manager – Nachum Dovid Stamm Media by – Little Brook Studios | Visit https://www.LittleBrookStudios.com Elephant Painting by: Shira Cenzer Connect with Mayer Engel: Email – mayerengelmusic@gmail.com WhatsApp – 917-830-4905 Visit – https://www.MayerEngel.com
The evil Gazan terrorist who boasted of murdering 10 Jews “with his own hands” during the October 7 massacre was eliminated in an IDF airstrike in Gaza on Thursday, Gazan media reported on Shabbos. According to the reports, Mahmoud Afana was killed in an airstrike in Deir al-Balah. Afana’s disturbing conversation in which he boasted about the murders was publicized two and a half weeks after the massacre by then-Foreign Minister Eli Cohen at a UN Security Council discussion. In a call he made from the phone of one of the victims, Afana was heard saying to his father, “I’m talking to you from a Jewish woman’s phone. I killed her and her husband, with my own hands. I killed 10.” Afana told his father he was speaking from Kibbutz Mefalsim. “Open my WhatsApp now and see all those killed. Look how many I killed with my own hands. Your son killed Jews! I’m calling you on WhatsApp; open the phone, go. Put Mother on.” Mother says, “Oh my son, G-d bless you!” “I swear, 10 with my own two hands, Mother. I killed ten with my own hands.” His mother said, “I wish I were with you.” Afana replied, “Mother, your son is a hero.” His brother then joined the conversation, asking, “You killed 10?” Afana confirmed, “Yes, I killed 10, I swear.” His brother urged him to return to Gaza, to which Afana replied, “Return? There’s no return. It’s either death or victory. How can I return? Open WhatsApp, and see how many are dead. How I killed them with my own hands.” During Cohen’s speech at the session, he said, “October 7 will be remembered in history as no less than a cruel massacre; it is a day when the whole world was awakened against extremism. More than 1,500 Hamas and Jihad terrorists infiltrated Israel with cruelty reminiscent of ISIS, murdering more than 1,400 children, babies, women and men, and wounding over 4,000.” Cohen added, “They went from house to house, massacred entire families. People in their beds, in the streets, on the way to the synagogue. Burned them alive. Danced and sang on bodies. You weren’t there; you didn’t see the horror. Think of the innocent people who just woke up on a Saturday morning; so many of them have not yet been brought to burial. This massacre will be remembered in history as a terrible act worse than ISIS; Hamas are the new Nazis.” (YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams insisted again Friday that he won’t end his reelection campaign, stressing that he’ll remain in the race as reports swirl that he’s been approached about possibly taking a job in the Trump administration. In a hastily called news conference at the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion, Adams declared “I am in this race. And I am the only one who can beat Mamdani,” referring to the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani. “How many times have I been told throughout this journey to step aside, to surrender, to give up, to give in,” he said. “That’s the same thing we tell everyday New Yorkers. Everyday New Yorkers are not giving up, are not giving in, are not surrendering, so their mayor is not going to do that.” Adams has spent the week fending off news reports that intermediaries for President Donald Trump had contacted people in the mayor’s orbit to talk about whether he would consider abandoning his campaign to take a federal job. Earlier Friday, Adams, a Democrat, released a statement that said he “will always listen if called to serve our country” but that he had not yet received any “formal offers.” Trump has told reporters he would prefer not to have Mamdani, 33, as the next mayor of the largest U.S. city. He said he’d like to see two of the three other major candidates taking on Mamdani — the other two are former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who like Adams is running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa — leave the race to create a one-on-one contest. Moments after Adams’ announcement, President Donald Trump was asked about it by reporters at the White House. “He’s free to do what he wants,” Trump said of Adams. Trump continued: “Cuomo might have a chance of winning if it was one-on-one,” while adding “if you have more than one candidate running against (Mamdani), it can’t be won.” During a trip to Florida this week, Adams met with Steve Witkoff, a former real estate developer in New York who is now one of Trump’s main diplomatic envoys in Washington, according to a person briefed on the discussions who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the talks. It was unclear what specifically was discussed. In an interview, former Democratic New York Gov. David Paterson said he spoke with the mayor on Wednesday morning. Adams told him he wanted to remain in the race but had received offers, according to Paterson. “He said, ‘Listen, they say I have some offers. I have a lot of offers.’ Then he started laughing. And he was saying that, you know, he really doesn’t want to leave and he’s trying to work that out so he doesn’t have to,” said Paterson, who has endorsed Adams for reelection. “He didn’t get specific about it, but I got that in his heart of hearts, he really wants to stay. But I also got that, even though he didn’t say it, that the odds can’t be very good,” he added. Mamdani won the Democratic nomination after soundly defeating Cuomo in the primary. Cuomo is running as an independent, as is Adams, who skipped the Democratic primary, saying he was sidelined from campaigning by his now-dismissed federal […]
Demolition to build President Donald Trump’s new ballroom off the East Wing of the White House can begin without approval of the commission tasked with vetting construction of federal buildings, the Trump-appointed head of the panel said Thursday. Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary, said during a public meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission that the board does not have jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation work for buildings on federal property. “What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” Scharf said. He called Trump’s promised ballroom “one of the most exciting construction projects in the modern history of” Washington. He made the comments during the only public meeting of the commission scheduled before crews are expected to break ground on a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom likely to greatly alter the look and size of both the White House’s East and West Wings. The planning commission is responsible for approving construction work and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area. But Scharf made a distinction between demolition work and rebuilding, saying the commission was only required to vet the latter. “I think any assertion that this commission should have been consulted earlier than it has been, or it will be, is simply false,” he said. Scharf said the White House hadn’t yet submitted building plans for the White House renovations but when that happens, “I’m excited for us to play a role in the ballroom project when the time is appropriate for us to do so.” Asked after the meeting if the eventual approval process might delay work on the ballroom, Scharf said, “Demolition and site preparation work can certainly occur, but if you’re talking about actually building anything, then, yeah, it should go through our approval process.” “Given the president’s history as a builder, and given the plans that we’ve seen publicly I think this will be a tremendous addition to the White House complex, a sorely needed addition,” Scharf said. L. Preston Bryant Jr., who was appointed to chair the National Capital Planning Commission in 2009 by President Barack Obama and served in that role for nine years, said proposed projects typically worked in four major stages of commission approval that began “with an early consultation, where a project is very much conceptual.” That hasn’t been the case with Trump’s promised ballroom. “The White House and its design team would be very, very wise to involve NCPC and its staff very much on the front end of the project – in the early design stages – as it’ll make for a better project and help ensure it meets all regulatory and legal compliances,” Bryant said. “I cannot stress enough the value to be had at the conceptual and early consultation stages.” Trump has been anxious to hustle toward work beginning on the ballroom, with an eye toward completing it prior to his leaving office in January 2029. A building mogul before he was a reality TV star and politician, has relished personally overseeing improvement projects at the White House and walked last month on the building’s roof with construction officials. The ballroom will be the latest change introduced to what’s known as “The People’s House” since Trump returned to office in January, and the first structural change to the Executive […]
Nearly 50 years ago, a U.S. government ship searching for minerals and hydrocarbons in the area drilled into the seafloor to see what it could find. It found, of all things, drops to drink under the briny deeps — fresh water. This summer, a first-of-its-kind global research expedition followed up on that surprise. Drilling for fresh water under the salt water off Cape Cod, Expedition 501 extracted thousands of samples from what is now thought to be a massive, hidden aquifer stretching from New Jersey as far north as Maine. It’s just one of many depositories of “secret fresh water” known to exist in shallow salt waters around the world that might some day be tapped to slake the planet’s intensifying thirst, said Brandon Dugan, the expedition’s co-chief scientist. “We need to look for every possibility we have to find more water for society,” Dugan, a geophysicist and hydrologist at the Colorado School of Mines, told Associated Press journalists who recently spent 12 hours on the drilling platform. The research teams looked in “one of the last places you would probably look for fresh water on Earth.” They found it, and will be analyzing nearly 50,000 liters (13,209 gallons) of it back in their labs around the world in the coming months. They’re out to solve the mystery of its origins — whether the water is from glaciers, connected groundwater systems on land or some combination. The potential is enormous. So are the hurdles of getting the water out and puzzling over who owns it, who uses it and how to extract it without undue harm to nature. It’s bound to take years to bring that water ashore for public use in a big way, if it’s even feasible. The Ancient Mariner told us so Why try? In just five years, the U.N. says, the global demand for fresh water will exceed supplies by 40%. Rising sea levels from the warming climate are souring coastal freshwater sources while data centers that power AI and cloud computing are consuming water at an insatiable rate. The fabled Ancient Mariner’s lament, “Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink,” looms as a warning to landlubbers as well as to sailors on salty seas. In Virginia alone, a quarter of all power produced in the state goes to data centers, a share expected to nearly double in five years. By some estimates, each midsize data center consumes as much water as 1,000 households. Each of the Great Lakes states has experienced groundwater shortages. Cape Town, South Africa, came perilously close to running out of fresh water for its nearly 5 million people in 2018 during an epic, three-year drought. South Africa is thought to have a coastal undersea freshwater bonanza, too, and there is at least anecdotal evidence that every continent may have the same. Canada’s Prince Edward Island, Hawaii and Jakarta, Indonesia, are among places where stressed freshwater supplies coexist with prospective aquifers under the ocean. Enter Expedition 501, a $25 million scientific collaboration of more than a dozen countries backed by the U.S. government’s National Science Foundation and the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (U.S. money for it was secured before budget cuts sought by the Trump administration). Scientists went into the project believing the undersea aquifer they were sampling might be sufficient to meet the needs […]
Over a recent two-year period, the Pentagon funded hundreds of projects done in collaboration with universities in China and institutes linked to that nation’s defense industry, including many blacklisted by the U.S. government for working with the Chinese military, a congressional investigation has found. The report, released Friday by House Republicans on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, argues the projects have allowed China to exploit U.S. research partnerships for military gains while the two countries are locked in a tech and arms rivalry. “American taxpayer dollars should be used to defend the nation — not strengthen its foremost strategic competitor,” Republicans wrote in the report. “Failing to safeguard American research from hostile foreign exploitation will continue to erode U.S. technological dominance and place our national defense capabilities at risk,” it said. The Pentagon and didn’t immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment. The congressional report said some officials at the Defense Department argued research should remain open as long as it is “neither controlled nor classified.” The report makes several recommendations to scale back U.S. research collaboration with China. It also backs new legislation proposed by the committee’s chairman, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan. The bill would prohibit any Defense Department funding from going to projects done in collaboration with researchers affiliated with Chinese entities that the U.S. government identifies as safety risks. Beijing has in the past said science and technological cooperation between the two countries is mutually beneficial and helps them cope with global challenges. The Chinese Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Republicans say the joint research could have military applications The 80-page report builds on the committee’s findings last year that partnerships between U.S. and Chinese universities over the past decade allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help Beijing develop critical technology. Amid pressure from Republicans, several U.S. universities have ended their joint programs with Chinese schools in recent years. The new report focuses more narrowly on the Defense Department and its billions of dollars in annual research funding. The committee’s investigation identified 1,400 research papers published between June 2023 and June 2025 that acknowledged support from the Pentagon and were done in collaboration with Chinese partners. The publications were funded by some 700 defense grants worth more than $2.5 billion. Of the 1,400 publications, more than half involved organizations affiliated with China’s defense research and industrial base. Dozens of those organizations were flagged for potential security concerns on U.S. government lists, though federal law does not prohibit research collaborations with them. The Defense Department money supported research in fields including hypersonic technology, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, advanced materials and next-generation propulsion. Many of the projects have clear military applications, according to the report. In one case, a nuclear scientist at Carnegie Science, a research institution in Washington, worked extensively on Pentagon-backed research while holding appointments at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences. The scientist, who has done research on high-energy materials, nitrogen and high-pressure physics — all of which are relevant to nuclear weapons development — has been honored in China for his work to advance the country’s national development goals, the report said. It called the case “a deeply troubling example” of how Beijing can leverage U.S. taxpayer-funded research to further its weapons development. In another Pentagon-backed project, […]
A New York Supreme Court granted a decisive victory today to schools that had been deemed “nonequivalent.” This development in the decade-long substantial equivalency saga — predicated on legislation advocated for by Agudath Israel and others — allows parents in these schools to exhale once more, and can have broader positive implications for yeshivas long-term. In May 2025, all parents of six schools received a foreboding letter from New York City stating that their child’s school: “shall no longer be deemed a school which provides compulsory education… effective June 30th, 2025, all services at the school for your child will be discontinued, including special education and related services. Given that your child will no longer be able to attend this school, a decision must be made about what school your child will attend for the 2025-2026 school year and you must notify the New York City Department of Education of where your child will be enrolled by July 1st 2025.” [emphasis added] The letter continues by describing how parents will proceed if their child attends public school in 2025-2026. This legislative session, new language, fundamentally redefining how nonpublic schools can satisfy “substantial equivalency,” became law. SED had argued that all schools can opt in to the new legislation, except for schools that had already been deemed nonequivalent prior to the legislation’s enactment. The court refuted SED’s claim, calling it “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.” The court further rejected SED’s argument that the schools cannot avail themselves of the new legislation because, by being non-equivalent, they are “non-schools,” and thus are ineligible to make a selection. This case may have long-term implications if, in the future, any school is declared non-equivalent. Based on this ruling, a school can still choose to avail itself of a pathway. The “non-school” argument was soundly defeated. The Agudah congratulated Steven Barshov, Esq., of Barshov Law PLLC, who represented the yeshivas and parents in this case.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed grief over Israeli hostages in four different languages following reports that PM Bibi Netanyahu blocked his visit to Israel.
Former President Joe Biden, 82, was spotted in Delaware with bandages on his forehead following recent Mohs surgery to remove skin cancer lesions, a procedure he also had on his chest last year.
HASSETT: All of the job creation in the U.S. has come from native-born workers, whereas in the Biden admin, half was foreign-born… if the supply of new illegal immigrants goes to zero, as it has, then there won’t be non native-born workers taking jobs from native-born workers.
Some 475 people were detained during an immigration raid at a sprawling Georgia site where South Korean auto company Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles, according to a Homeland Security official. Steven Schrank, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations, said at a news briefing Friday that the majority of the people detained were from South Korea. “This operation underscores our commitment to jobs for Georgians and Americans,” Schrank said. “This was in fact the largest single site enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security Investigations.” The investigation has been ongoing for several months, with authorities receiving leads from community members and former workers, he said. South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong described the number of detained South Koreans as “large” though he did not provide an exact figure. He said the detained workers were part of a “network of subcontractors,” and that the employees worked for a variety of different companies on the site. Thursday’s raid targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, touted by Gov. Brian Kemp and other officials as the largest economic development project in the state’s history. Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea’s biggest automaker, began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people, and has partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, slated to open next year. In a statement to The Associated Press, LG said it was “closely monitoring the situation and gathering all relevant details.” It said it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained. “Our top priority is always ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and partners. We will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities,” the company said. Hyundai’s South Korean office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. ICE spokesman Lindsay Williams confirmed that federal authorities conducted an enforcement operation at the 3,000-acre (1,214-hectare) site west of Savannah, Georgia. He said agents were focused on the construction site for the battery plant. In a televised statement, Lee said the ministry is taking active measures to address the case, dispatching diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and planning to form an on-site response team centered on the local mission. “The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” Lee said. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that agents executed a search warrant “as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes.” President Donald Trump’s administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations as part of a mass deportation agenda. Immigration officers have raided farms, construction sites, restaurants and auto repair shops. The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, says the U.S. labor force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents. Hyundai and LG’s battery joint venture, HL-GA Battery Company, said in a statement that it’s “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities” and paused construction of the battery site to assist their work. Operations at Hyundai’s EV manufacturing plant weren’t interrupted, said plant spokesperson Bianca Johnson. The Georgia plant […]
The attorneys general of California and Delaware on Friday warned OpenAI they have “serious concerns” about the safety of its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, especially for children and teens. The two state officials, who have unique powers to regulate nonprofits such as OpenAI, sent the letter to the company after a meeting with its legal team earlier this week in Wilmington, Delaware. California AG Rob Bonta and Delaware AG Kathleen Jennings have spent months reviewing OpenAI’s plans to restructure its business, with an eye on “ensuring rigorous and robust oversight of OpenAI’s safety mission.” But they said they were concerned by “deeply troubling reports of dangerous interactions between” chatbots and their users, including the “heartbreaking death by suicide of one young Californian after he had prolonged interactions with an OpenAI chatbot, as well as a similarly disturbing murder-suicide in Connecticut. Whatever safeguards were in place did not work.” The parents of the 16-year-old boy, who died in April, sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, last month. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. Founded as a nonprofit with a safety-focused mission to build better-than-human artificial intelligence, OpenAI had recently sought to transfer more control to its for-profit arm from its nonprofit before dropping those plans in May after discussions with the offices of Bonta and Jennings and other nonprofit groups. The two elected officials, both Democrats, have oversight of any such changes because OpenAI is incorporated in Delaware and operates out of California, where it has its headquarters in San Francisco. After dropping its initial plans, OpenAI has been seeking the officials’ approval for a “recapitalization,” in which the nonprofit’s existing for-profit arm will convert into a public benefit corporation that has to consider the interests of both shareholders and the mission. Bonta and Jennings wrote Friday of their “shared view” that OpenAI and the industry need better safety measures. “The recent deaths are unacceptable,” they wrote. “They have rightly shaken the American public’s confidence in OpenAI and this industry. OpenAI – and the AI industry – must proactively and transparently ensure AI’s safe deployment. Doing so is mandated by OpenAI’s charitable mission, and will be required and enforced by our respective offices.” The letter to OpenAI from the California and Delaware officials comes after a bipartisan group of 44 attorneys general warned the company and other tech firms — including Meta and Google — last week of “grave concerns” about the safety of children interacting with AI chatbots that can respond with “… suggestive conversations and emotionally manipulative behavior.” The attorney generals specifically called out Meta for chatbots that reportedly engaged in inappropriate conversations with children, saying they were alarmed that that these chatbots “are engaging in conduct that appears to be prohibited by our respective criminal laws.” They said the companies would be held accountable for harming children, noting that in the past, regulators had not moved swiftly to respond to the harms posed by new technologies. “If you knowingly harm kids, you will answer for it,” the Aug. 25 letter ends. (AP)
A passenger bus veered off a road and plunged into a precipice in a mountainous region in Sri Lanka, killing 15 people and injuring 16 others, a police spokesman said Friday. The accident occurred near the town of Wellawaya, about 280 kilometers (174 miles) east of the capital Colombo, on Thursday night and the bus fell into a roughly 1,000-foot precipice, police spokesman Fredrick Wootler said. The accident killed 15 people and wounded 16, including five children. Wootler said an initial police investigation revealed that the driver was driving the bus at high speed and lost control of it, crashing with another vehicle and into guardrails before toppling off the cliff. At the time of the accident, nearly 30 people were traveling on the bus. Local television showed footage of the severely damaged bus lying at the bottom of the precipice and rescues crews, including soldiers, police officers and volunteers, removing the injured throughout the night in harsh terrain. Deadly bus accidents are common in Sri Lanka, especially in the mountainous regions, often due to reckless driving and poorly maintained and narrow roads. (AP)
A New York Times report has revealed a previously unknown failed 2019 mission by U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six, ordered by President Trump, aimed at installing surveillance equipment to eavesdrop on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during nuclear talks. The SEALs infiltrated North Korean waters in mini-subs at night, but after encountering a boat with flashlights, they opened fire, killing the occupants—later identified as fishermen—before retreating and aborting the mission.
The Trump administration is taking its immigration crackdown to the health care safety net, launching Medicaid spending probes in at least six Democratic-led states that provide comprehensive health coverage to poor and disabled immigrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is scouring payments covering health care for immigrants without legal status to ensure there isn’t any waste, fraud or abuse, according to public records obtained by KFF Health News and The Associated Press. While acknowledging that states can bill the federal government for Medicaid emergency and pregnancy care for immigrants without legal status, federal officials have sent letters notifying state health agencies in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington that they are reviewing federal and state payments for medical services, such as prescription drugs and specialty care. The federal agency told the states it is reviewing claims as part of its commitment to maintain Medicaid’s fiscal integrity. California is the biggest target after the state self-reported overcharging the federal government for health care services delivered to immigrants without legal status, determined to be at least $500 million, spurring the threat of a lawsuit. “If CMS determines that California is using federal money to pay for or subsidize healthcare for individuals without a satisfactory immigration status for which federal funding is prohibited by law,” according to a letter dated March 18, “CMS will diligently pursue all available enforcement strategies, including, consistent with applicable law, reductions in federal financial participation and possible referrals to the Attorney General of the United States for possible lawsuit against California.” The investigations come as the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress slashed taxpayer spending on immigrant health care through cuts in President Donald Trump’s spending-and-tax law passed this summer. The administration is also pushing people living in the U.S. illegally off Medicaid rolls. Health policy experts say these moves could hamper care and leave safety net hospitals, clinics and other providers financially vulnerable. Some Democratic-led states — California, Illinois and Minnesota — have already had to end or slim down their Medicaid programs for immigrants due to ballooning costs. Colorado is also considering cuts due to cost overruns. At the same time, 20 states are pushing back on Trump’s immigration crackdown by suing the administration for handing over Medicaid data on millions of enrollees to deportation officials. A federal judge temporarily halted the move. California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, who led that challenge, says the Trump administration is launching a political attack on states that embrace immigrants in Medicaid programs. “The whole idea that there’s waste, fraud and abuse is contrived,” Bonta said. “It’s manufactured. It’s invented. It’s a catchall phrase that they use to justify their predetermined anti-immigrant agenda.” Trump administration targets immigrants Immigrants lacking permanent legal status are not eligible to enroll in comprehensive Medicaid coverage. However, states bill the federal government for emergency and pregnancy care provided to anyone. Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., expanded their Medicaid programs with their own funds to cover low-income children without legal status. Seven of those states, plus Washington, D.C., have also provided full-scope coverage to some adult immigrants living in the country illegally. The Trump administration appears to be targeting only states with full Medicaid coverage for both kids and adults without legal status. Utah, Massachusetts and Connecticut, which provide Medicaid coverage only to immigrant children, have not received letters, for instance. CMS declined to […]
Six of the country’s most influential Jewish organizations are urging shuls and other Jewish institutions to apply for $274 million in federal security grants. However, a growing number of progressive groups and congregations are vowing to boycott the program, citing conditions they say betray Jewish values. The clash centers on the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP), a Department of Homeland Security initiative long championed by Jewish leaders to help houses of worship and nonprofits harden defenses against rising antisemitic violence. But new terms under the Trump administration—requiring grantees to support federal immigration enforcement and avoid diversity-related programs—have prompted liberal Jews to say they don’t want to participate in the program. In a rare joint statement issued Tuesday, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, and three security-focused agencies—Secure Community Network, Community Security Initiative NY, and Community Security Service—urged all eligible institutions to apply. “While we are aware that questions have arisen on the part of certain religious institutions regarding the current year’s program criteria, our organizations strongly urge all eligible institutions to apply for this critical resource,” the groups wrote. “We are in regular contact with government officials who have affirmed their continued commitment to protecting the safety of all faith-based institutions and the values they hold.” The groups say that applying now keeps options open, noting that the conditions only take effect if funds are accepted, and that Trump administration messaging around enforcement rules has been inconsistent. At the same time, dozens of progressive Jewish organizations—joined by pro-Palestinian advocacy groups and several synagogues—have publicly pledged to boycott the program. “We are committed to upholding our communal values and will not comply with these repressive conditions,” reads an open letter signed by Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace, and others. “Jewish safety requires inclusive democracy and inclusive democracy requires Jewish safety. We do not comply so we will not apply,” “Rabbi” Jill Maderer of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia posted on Facebook. Another “rabbi,” speaking anonymously, described the grant conditions as “money being given to us on condition that we violate a specific mitzvah”—welcoming the stranger. “I don’t see how we can possibly accept that money,” he said, citing fear for refugee members of his congregation. Trump officials have made no effort to downplay the political nature of the changes. In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, DHS declared it would “no longer fund grant projects that don’t align with President Trump’s priorities,” explicitly rejecting “DEI agendas” and “illegal aliens in our country.” Created in 2004 and dramatically expanded after the Tree of Life massacre in 2018, the NSGP is the primary federal vehicle for shoring up the security of religious institutions at risk of extremist violence. Funds cover cameras, fencing, barriers, guards, and other protective measures. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
