Yeshiva World News

Zohran Mamdani has won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, a new vote count confirmed Tuesday, cementing his stunning upset of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and sending him to the general election. The Associated Press called the race after the results of the city’s ranked choice voting tabulation were released and showed Mamdani trouncing Cuomo by 12 percentage points. Mamdani said he was humbled by the support he received in the primary and has started turning his attention to November. “Last Tuesday, Democrats spoke in a clear voice, delivering a mandate for an affordable city, a politics of the future, and a leader unafraid to fight back against rising authoritarianism,” he said in a statement. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and member of the state Assembly since 2021, was virtually unknown when he launched his candidacy centered on a bold slate of populist ideas. But he built an energetic campaign that ran circles around Cuomo as the older, more moderate Democrat tried to come back from the sexual harassment scandal that led to his resignation four years ago. Mamdani’s win had been widely expected since he took a commanding lead and declared victory after the polls closed a week ago, but fell just short of the 50% of the vote needed to avoid another count under the ranked choice voting model. The system allows voters’ other preferences to be counted if their top candidate falls out of the running. He will now face a general election field that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams as well as independent candidate Jim Walden and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Cuomo conceded defeat on the night of the primary but is contemplating whether to run in the general election on an independent ballot line. After the release of Tuesday’s vote count, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said: “We’ll be continuing conversations with people from all across the city while determining next steps.” “Extremism, division and empty promises are not the answer to this city’s problems, and while this was a look at what motivates a slice of our primary electorate, it does not represent the majority,” Azzopardi said. The results of the primary have already sent a shockwave through the political world. Mamdani’s campaign — focused on lowering the cost of living, promising free city buses, free child care, a rent freeze for people living in rent-stabilized apartments, government-run grocery stores and more, all paid for with taxes on the wealthy — claims it has found a new blueprint for Democrats who have at times appeared rudderless during President Donald Trump’s climb back to power. The Democratic establishment has approached Mamdani with caution. Many of its big players applauded his campaign but don’t seem ready to throw their full support behind the young progressive, whose past criticisms of law enforcement, use of the word “genocide” to describe the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and “democratic socialist” label amount to landmines for some in the party. Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani came to the U.S. at age 7 and became a citizen in 2018. If elected, he would be the city’s first Muslim mayor and its first of Indian American decent. He would also be one of its youngest. Cuomo’s campaign centered on his extensive experience, casting himself as the only candidate capable of saving a […]

President Donald Trump has unveiled a new line of self-branded fragrances, promoted Monday as a luxury collector’s item with a bottle topped by a gold statue of Trump himself. “Trump Fragrances are here,” Trump announced on Truth Social, introducing the line under the name Victory 45-47 and describing it as celebrating “Winning, Strength, and Success.” He encouraged supporters to buy the product for themselves and their loved ones, adding, “Enjoy, have fun, and keep winning!” The limited-edition fragrance collection is priced at $249 per 100ml bottle and includes separate versions for men and women. The men’s cologne is advertised as offering “rich, masculine notes with a refined, lasting finish,” aimed at men “who lead with strength, confidence, and purpose.” The women’s scent is described as a “sophisticated, subtly feminine fragrance” designed to capture “confidence, beauty, and unstoppable determination.” The new product follows previous Trump-branded merchandise including Trump Sneakers and Trump Bibles, all sold by 45Footwear LLC, the same licensing company behind the fragrance. The company also markets a separate “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT” fragrance with Trump’s signature etched on the bottle, as well as other novelty colognes inspired by the former president. Trump first teased the new fragrance line in December 2024, adding to earlier perfume and cologne products under his name. A disclaimer on the sales website clarifies that “Trump Fragrances are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals.” It notes that 45Footwear LLC uses Trump’s name, image, and likeness under a license agreement, and states that the online store is “not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign.” (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The IDF has identified missile launched from Yemen toward Israel. Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat.

Casting mailed ballots remained popular among voters in last year’s presidential election, even as President Donald Trump has tried to undercut the process through a wide-ranging executive order. A report released Monday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission also found a surge in early in-person voting and robust use of ballot drop boxes, which have been a target of conspiracy theorists since the 2020 election. The findings, based on data collected at the local level and submitted by states, illustrate the sustained popularity of alternate voting methods even as they have come under attack in recent years from Republicans. “Notwithstanding the rhetoric from some, our election process continues to reflect the expectations voters have about where, when and how to vote,” said David Levine, a former county election official in Idaho who is now a senior fellow at the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. “Once voters try voting before Election Day, they often continue to do so for future elections.” Overall, more than 158 million ballots were counted for the November 2024 presidential election, according to the report. Turnout was 3 percentage points lower than in 2020 but nearly 4 percentage points higher than during the 2016 presidential election. Mail voting is popular despite rhetoric Roughly 30% of voters last fall used a mail ballot, a decline from the 43% who did so during the pandemic election in 2020 but higher than pre-pandemic elections, when mail ballots typically accounted for about 25% of votes cast. The report noted that four states – Democratic-leaning Washington and Republican-leaning Indiana, South Dakota and Utah — saw higher percentages of mail voting in 2024 than four years earlier. Trump has long complained, without providing evidence, that mail voting opens a pathway to fraud. The election executive order he signed in March, which is facing several lawsuits, targets mail voting by saying all ballots must be received by Election Day. Currently, 18 states and Puerto Rico accept mailed ballots received after Election Day as long they are postmarked on or before that date. Oregon and Washington, where elections are conducted almost entirely by mail, filed their own lawsuit against the order fearing that tens of thousands of their voters could be disenfranchised if it is allowed to stand. During a news conference announcing the lawsuit, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said more than 300,000 ballots in his state arrived after Election Day in 2024. Popularity of early in-person voting surges The report found the 2024 presidential election saw a drop in Election Day voting and a corresponding increase in early, in-person voting. Election Day voting declined from 49% in 2022 to roughly 37% in 2024, when 35% took advantage of voting early. Republican-dominated South Carolina and Democratic-leaning Delaware had the largest increases in early, in-person voting compared to four years ago. Republicans last year mounted a campaign to reverse years of conservative criticism of early voting methods and persuade their voters to cast ballots before Election Day, a strategy that helped Trump win a second term. Ballot drop boxes used heavily where they are allowed Since Trump’s loss in 2020, conservative activists and conspiracy theorists have zeroed in on ballot drop boxes as a potential source of fraud despite no evidence of that occurring in that year’s elections. Some Republican-led states have since blocked their use or reduced their availability. But they remain popular in other parts of the country. The report found drop boxes were in […]

Esther Drillick is Recognized by the AICPA and NASBA with Prestigious Elijah Watt Sells Award The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) announced this year’s winners of the Elijah Watt Sells Award and Touro alum Esther Drillick (Lander College of Arts & Sciences 2024) was among the 11 outstanding performers who received this honor. The Elijah Watts Sells Award is granted to CPA candidates who obtain a cumulative average score above 95.50 across four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination. The 11 extraordinary individuals who met the criteria for the award were selected from 74,000 test takers who sat for the CPA Exam in 2024. “The Elijah Watt Sells Award represents one of the highest honors in the CPA profession, and this year’s recipients are not only technically exceptional, they are also poised to shape the future of the profession. As the accounting landscape evolves, their leadership, integrity, and drive for excellence will play a vital role in upholding public trust and guiding businesses through complexity and change,” said Susan Coffey, CPA, CGMA, CEO of public accounting at the AICPA. A Love of Logic Propels An Accounting Career Esther Drillick earned her Bachelor of Science in accounting at Touro University’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences and is currently employed as a fiscal officer with YVY ECC in Brooklyn. Drillick, a graduate of Bais Yaakov D’Rav Meir and Mesores Rochel Seminary in Israel, chose accounting because she loves logic and math. She chose Touro because she wanted a school with “a great academic reputation and a Jewish environment.” Drillick’s father is a hedge fund manager, one grandfather is a CPA and the other held a PhD in mathematics and so coming from a numbers-driven family, it was no surprise that she took to the field right away. She appreciated the rigorous accounting program at Touro that ultimately prepared her for the CPA exam. She was amazed as she began studying for the CPA– a process that took her a full year—that there was very little new material on the test. “It was mostly a review of what I had learned at Touro,” says Drillick. She took three months to study for each part of the exam and when she saw how well she did on the first part, she thought about trying for the award but at first, didn’t think she wanted the pressure. After taking the second part of the exam and scoring quite well, she thought “maybe I should go for it! I decided then to challenge myself to achieve this goal. At that point, I just had this feeling I could do it,” shares Drillick. “I had a lot of support as my whole family was rooting for me.” One of the professors who used simulated CPA exams in his homework and classwork and truly prepared students for the high-stakes test was an Elijah Watts Sells Award winner himself. Professor Shulem Rosenbaum, now a partner at Roth & Co, was one of Touro’s previous winners of this prestigious national award over a decade ago. According to Drillick, “Professor Rosenbaum and all of my accounting professors really cared about the success of their students. Not just in terms of learning the material, but also in terms of networking and finding […]

Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday on the narrowest of margins, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session. The outcome capped an unusually tense weekend of work at the Capitol, the president’s signature legislative priority teetering on the edge of approval or collapse. In the end that tally was 50-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. Three Republican senators — Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky — joined all Democrats in voting against it. “The big not so beautiful bill has passed,” Paul said after the vote. The difficulty it took for Republicans, who have the majority hold in Congress, to wrestle the bill to this point is not expected to let up. The package now goes back to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson had warned senators not to deviate too far from what his chamber had already approved. But the Senate did make changes, particularly to Medicaid, risking more problems as they race to finish by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline. The outcome is a pivotal moment for president and his party, which have been consumed by the 940-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as it’s formally titled, and invested their political capital in delivering on the GOP’s sweep of power in Washington. Trump acknowledged it’s “very complicated stuff,” as he departed the White House for Florida. “I don’t want to go too crazy with cuts,” he said. “I don’t like cuts.” What started as a routine but laborious day of amendment voting, in a process called vote-a-rama, spiraled into a round-the-clock slog as Republican leaders were buying time to shore up support. The droning roll calls in the chamber belied the frenzied action to steady the bill. Grim-faced scenes played out on and off the Senate floor, amid exhaustion. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota was desperately reaching for last-minute agreements between those in his party worried the bill’s reductions to Medicaid will leave millions without care, and his most conservative flank, which wants even steeper cuts to hold down deficits ballooning with the tax cuts. The GOP leaders have no room to spare, with narrow majorities. Thune could lose no more than three Republican senators, and two — Tillis, who warned that millions of people will lose access to Medicaid health care, and Paul, who opposes raising the debt limit by $5 trillion — had already indicated opposition. Attention quickly turned to two other key senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Collins, who also raised concerns about health care cuts, as well as a loose coalition of four conservative GOP senators pushing for even steeper reductions. Murkowski in particular became the subject of the GOP leadership’s attention, as they sat beside her for talks. She was huddled intensely for more than an hour in the back of the chamber with others, scribbling notes on papers. Then all eyes were on Paul after he returned from a visit to Thune’s office with a stunning offer that could win his vote. He had suggested substantially lowering the bill’s increase in the debt ceiling, according to two people familiar with the private meeting and granted anonymity to discuss […]

An Israeli hostage died after suffering a heart attack under torture while being interrogated by Hamas, his brother told lawmakers Monday, describing details shared with the family by intelligence officials a day earlier. Dani Elgarat, speaking during a heated meeting of the Knesset House Committee, said his brother, 68-year-old Itzik Elgarat, was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’s October 7 attack. Elgarat said Hamas suspected Itzik was a pilot because he had an eagle tattoo on his arm. “They took him for interrogation and he never came back,” Dani Elgarat told the committee. According to the family, Itzik Elgarat was shot through the door of his safe room and wounded before being captured. He was initially held with Edan Alexander, a U.S.-Israeli IDF soldier who was later freed in a goodwill gesture to President Donald Trump. Alexander reportedly asked where Itzik was after he was taken away, and guards replied, “He has gone.” “Itzik died, was murdered, he suffered a heart attack during interrogation under torture,” Dani Elgarat told the committee, without elaborating further. Hamas returned Itzik’s body to Israel in February as part of a ceasefire deal that included the release of both living and deceased hostages. He was buried near his home in Nir Oz. At the funeral, Dani Elgarat accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of having “dug his grave” due to government policies toward Hamas. During Monday’s Knesset hearing, security guards removed Dani Elgarat after he loudly accused Netanyahu of having funded Hamas, referencing the transfer of Qatari cash to Gaza before the October 7 attack as part of an arrangement to maintain a fragile ceasefire. Tensions were already running high at the committee meeting. Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif was twice ejected after clashing with bereaved father Itzik Bonzel, who lost his son in Gaza, during a debate over a move to impeach Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ayman Odeh for remarks equating Israeli hostages with Palestinian security prisoners. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Agudath Israel of America celebrates the Senate’s inclusion of a permanent and unlimited scholarship tax credit. Earlier today, the United States Senate voted to include a permanent scholarship tax credit in the budget reconciliation bill. The groundbreaking federal school choice proposal survived two attempts to eliminate it and had to be revised in order to comply with the ruling of the Senate parliamentarian. “On Friday, news reports proclaimed that the school choice provision in the reconciliation bill was dead,” said Rabbi A.D. Motzen, Agudath Israel of America’s National Director of Government Affairs. “Thanks to Senator Ted Cruz and Senate champions, the report of its demise was greatly exaggerated. The Senate saved school choice for American families.” The bill provides a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to donors who contribute to a nonprofit scholarship granting organization (SGO). The SGOs then take the pooled funds and distribute scholarships to eligible students for qualified educational expenses. The beneficiaries can include most families as the income threshold is above $300,000 in many areas (see chart). The revised version allows every taxpayer to receive a credit of up to $1700 and removed the annual cap on donations among other changes. Agudah expects that this will help generate hundreds of millions of dollars in K-12 scholarships for those wishing to attend Jewish schools. The revised bill must now pass the House before being sent to the President for his signature

BREAKING: President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill passes in the Senate 51-50 after VP JD Vance breaks the tie.

TRUMP: “I’ve gotten to know the Border Patrol and ICE very well — unlike Kamala. She was the border czar but she never saw the border … She would’ve been some president. Probably would’ve been slightly better than Biden, though.”

BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani wins the NYC Democratic primary with 56% of the vote.

The Justice Department announced criminal charges Monday in a scheme by North Korea to fund its weapons program through the salaries of remote information technology workers employed unwittingly by U.S. companies. The charges arose from what law enforcement officials described as a nationwide operation that also resulted in the seizure of financial accounts, websites and laptops that were used to carry out the fraud. Separate cases in Georgia and Massachusetts represent the latest Justice Department effort to confront a persistent threat that officials say generates enormous revenue for the North Korean government and in some cases affords workers access to sensitive and proprietary data from the American corporations that hire them. The scheme involved thousands of workers who, armed with stolen or fake identities, were dispatched by the North Korean government to find work as remote IT employees at American companies, including Fortune 500 corporations. The companies were duped into believing that the workers they hired were based in the U.S. when many were actually stationed in North Korea or China, and the wages the victimized companies paid were transferred into accounts controlled by co-conspirators affiliated with North Korea, prosecutors say. “These schemes target and steal from U.S. companies and are designed to evade sanctions and fund the North Korean regime’s illicit programs, including its weapons programs,” Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a statement. In one case exposed on Monday in federal court in Massachusetts, the Justice Department said it had arrested one U.S. national and charged more than a half dozen Chinese and Taiwanese citizens for their alleged roles in an elaborate fraud that prosecutors say produced several millions of dollars in revenue and affected scores of companies. The conspiracy, court papers say, involved the registration of financial accounts to receive the proceeds and the creation of shell companies and fake websites to make it look like the remote workers were associated with legitimate businesses. Enablers inside the United States facilitated the workers’ remote computer access, tricking companies into believing the workers were logging in from U.S. locations. The Justice Department did not identify the companies that were duped, but said that some of the fraudulent workers were able to gain access to and steal information related to sensitive military technology. The case filed in Georgia charges four North Korean IT workers with stealing virtual currency worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from their employers. The defendants remain at large. The Justice Department has filed similar prosecutions in recent years, as well as created an initiative aimed at disrupting the threat. (AP)

REPORTER: “How firm are you going to be with Netanyahu about ending the war in Gaza?” POTUS: “Very firm… He wants to end it too… I think we’ll have a deal next week.”

President Trump arrives at Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in the Florida Everglades.

The Houthis have released a new video depicting their fighters riding motorcycles, with one standing on the back, firing at targets adorned with Israeli and U.S. flags.

REPORTER: Are you concerned that Republicans are gonna be swayed by Musk and his money? TRUMP: I think what’s gonna happen is DOGE is gonna look at Musk, and if DOGE looks at Musk, we’re gonna save a fortune. I don’t think he should be playing that game with me.

NOW – Trump will have a “very quick celebration” with Netanyahu next Monday.

President Trump shuts down fake news claims that the One Big, Beautiful Bill cuts Medicaid and Medicare.

President Trump on the One Big Beautiful Bill: “It’s going to be the greatest bill ever passed … It’s going to keep the border secure. We have it secure now, but we need to build more wall.”