More and more incredible stories of the spiritual gevurah of the recently released hostages are emerging. The story of Matan Angrest, an IDF soldier who was on active duty on October 7 and was abducted from his tank position at Nachal Oz, seriously wounded and unconscious, and suffering from burns and wounds, is especially inspiring. Matan suffered from open wounds after his abduction that went untreated for months. Due to his status, he also suffered especially severe torture during his captivity. Despite his secular background, Matan began davening three times a day during captivity. For most of his captivity, Angrest was held with fellow hostage Gali Berman, who had a Chamisha Chumshei Torah, and they recited the entire sefer together at least 20 times. “I know every parsha by heart,” he said. Angrest, who did not grow up in a religious home, explained to Ba’al Chessed Shai Graucher that after five months, he needed something to sustain him. “Emunah provides a lot of chizzuk,” he said. He asked for a siddur, which a senior Hamas official eventually provided. Matan’s father, Chagai (seen in the video below alongside his son), told Kan about the suffering his son endured. “He suffered more than others because he was a soldier, and that led to especially violent interrogations,” his father said. Matan’s gaunt condition upon his release shocked his family members. “We looked at him and said: ‘You’re a neis. It’s hard to believe you can even walk.” “He still can’t believe he can just drink water whenever he wants,” his father added. “They had almost nothing there. He needs to rebuild himself, physically and emotionally.” Matan’s mother told Kan that her son’s severe injuries caused the terrorists who abducted him on October 7 to debate whether it was “worth keeping him alive or to give up on him.” She said Matan told her, “I did what was expected of me as a soldier,” and that he is proud of his decision to fight the terrorists that morning, fully aware of the possibility that he might be taken captive. She added, “Before Matan came back, I didn’t change the sheets. I hadn’t touched his room since October 7. We kept his bedding, his scent, so that I could lie in his bed from time to time.” The video below shows Matan reciting Mizmor L’Todah, publicly thanking Hashem for his release: More stories of the recently released hostages connecting to ruchniyus in captivity can be read here and here and here, and here. (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
After a period of quiet over Sukkos, the military police have resumed arresting bnei yeshivos. A talmid of Ohr HaChaim yeshivah was arrested overnight Monday at his home in Adam, a moshav in the Binyamin area (also known as Geva Binyamin). According to the bochur’s family members, the military police arrived in large numbers and even blocked several streets around his home to prevent protesters from gathering in the area. It should be noted that reports published on Monday that Chareidi “draft dodgers” will no longer be arrested apply only to the Israel Police and not the military police. Israel Police chief Danny Levy made a decision that bnei yeshivos who encounter Israel Police officers will no longer be arrested and transferred to the military police. His decision does not affect targeted arrests of bnei yeshivos by the military police. Some Chareidi sects have announced plans for protests on Tuesday evening. However, the official Peleg Yerushalmi sect stated that it will not hold demonstrations today. (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
Curtis Sliwa threatens to report to prosecutors anyone who offers him money to drop out of the New York City mayoral race. He has been under major pressure to drop his bid, but has adamantly refused.
House Minority Leader Jeffries: “We’re going to win in Virginia. We’re going to win in New Jersey because the American people are fed up that Republicans would rather spend time on vacation… and can’t find resources to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”
New York City police are searching for this woman after an infant girl — her umbilical cord still attached — was found abandoned Monday morning at the 34th Street–Penn Station subway stop in Manhattan. The baby, wrapped in a blanket, was discovered during rush hour in a passageway connecting to the busy rail hub beneath Madison Square Garden. She was taken to a hospital and is in stable condition.
OpenAI said Tuesday it is introducing its own web browser, Atlas, putting the ChatGPT maker in direct competition with Google as more internet users rely on artificial intelligence to answer their questions. Making itself a gateway to online searches could allow OpenAI, the world’s most valuable startup, to pull in more internet traffic and the revenue made from digital advertising. OpenAI has said ChatGPT already has more than 800 million users but many of them get it for free. The San Francisco-based company is losing more money than it makes and has been looking for ways to turn a profit. OpenAI said Atlas launches Tuesday on Apple laptops and will later come to Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s iOS phone operating system and Google’s Android phone system. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it a “rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about and how to use one.” OpenAI’s browser is coming out just a few months after one of its executives testified that the company would be interested in buying Google’s industry-leading Chrome browser if a federal judge had required it to be sold to prevent the abuses that resulted in Google’s ubiquitous search engine being declared an illegal monopoly. But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta last month issued a decision that rejected the Chrome sale sought by the U.S. Justice Department in the monopoly case, partly because he believed advances in the AI industry already are reshaping the competitive landscape. OpenAI’s browser will face a daunting challenge against Chrome, which has amassed about 3 billion worldwide users and has been adding some AI features from Google’s Gemini technology. Chrome’s immense success could provide a blueprint for OpenAI as it enters the browser market. When Google released Chrome in 2008, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was so dominant that few observers believed a new browser could mount a formidable threat. But Chrome quickly won over legions of admirers by loading webpages more quickly than Internet Explorer while offering other advantages that enabled it to upend the market. Microsoft ended up abandoning Explorer and introducing its Edge browser, which operates similarly to Chrome. Perplexity, another smaller AI startup, rolled out its own Comet browser earlier this year. It also expressed interest in buying Chrome and eventually submitted an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer for the browser that hit a dead end when Mehta decided against a Google breakup. A premium feature of the ChatGPT Atlas browser is an “agent mode” that accesses the laptop and effectively clicks around the internet on the person’s behalf, armed with what it has learned from users’ browser history and what they are seeking to learn and explaining its process as it searches. “It’s using the internet for you,” Altman said. (AP)
NASA is reevaluating SpaceX’s role in returning U.S. astronauts to the moon, citing delays in Elon Musk’s Starship program. Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said Monday the agency will reopen SpaceX’s $2.9 billion lunar lander contract to new bidders, warning, “We’re in a race against China — and we can’t afford to lose.” The move marks a major shift from NASA’s 2021 plan to rely solely on SpaceX for the Artemis III mission, now targeted for 2027. Duffy said other companies, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, will be invited to submit “acceleration plans” to help get Americans back on the moon faster.
A New York man pardoned by President Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has been arrested again—this time for allegedly threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Christopher P. Moynihan, 34, was charged with making a terroristic threat after state police say he texted that Jeffries “must be eliminated” ahead of a speech in New York City.
European and Ukrainian officials are drafting a 12-point peace plan to halt Russia’s invasion along current front lines, with a “peace board” chaired by President Trump to oversee a potential ceasefire. The proposal includes prisoner swaps, the return of deported Ukrainian children, gradual lifting of sanctions tied to compliance, and new security guarantees for Kyiv. EU leaders will discuss the framework in Brussels this week, calling it the most serious push toward a ceasefire in months.
Japan made history Tuesday as lawmakers elected ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi the country’s first female prime minister. Takaichi takes office after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered major election losses and formed a shaky new coalition that could shift Japan further to the right. She pledged to strengthen Japan’s defense posture as she prepares to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump to Tokyo next week — signaling that security and U.S.-Japan relations will be top priorities for her new government.
The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution, alleging that he lied to Congress about the role of the Steele dossier in shaping the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment of Russian interference in the U.S. election. The move, spearheaded by Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), marks a new front in Republicans’ years-long campaign to revisit and punish what they call the “Russia collusion hoax.” In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Jordan accused Brennan of “knowingly making false statements” during a May 2023 transcribed interview before the committee’s weaponization subpanel, claiming the ex-intelligence chief misrepresented his role in including information from the dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). “The integrity of congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony,” Jordan wrote. “Brennan’s false statements strike at the heart of that duty.” The referral revives a political and legal saga that has shadowed U.S. intelligence agencies since Donald Trump first took office. Brennan, who led the CIA from 2013 to 2017 under President Barack Obama, has long been a lightning rod for conservatives who accuse him of politicizing intelligence findings to damage Trump during the transition period. During his 2023 testimony, Brennan insisted the CIA “was very much opposed” to including the Steele dossier — a compilation of opposition research financed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign — in the assessment that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to boost Trump’s election chances. Brennan told lawmakers the dossier appeared only as an FBI-proposed annex, distancing the CIA from its inclusion. But Jordan’s referral cites declassified documents and a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report—released earlier this year by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—that contradict that claim. Those records, Republicans say, show Brennan personally pushed for the dossier’s inclusion in the ICA’s main body despite objections from analysts who viewed it as unreliable. “The HPSCI report and internal CIA memoranda confirm that Brennan insisted on including the dossier,” Jordan wrote, arguing that the testimony “stands in stark contrast” to the record. The committee’s referral also references Brennan’s 2017 testimony, where he similarly downplayed the dossier’s role. That statement is now beyond the five-year statute of limitations but, Jordan argues, shows a “pattern” of dishonesty. This is not the first time Brennan’s credibility has come under scrutiny. In 2014, he falsely denied that CIA staff had accessed Senate Intelligence Committee computers during a torture investigation, a claim later refuted by the agency’s inspector general. Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance in 2018, citing his “erratic behavior and partisanship.” The former CIA chief has dismissed the latest referral as a political vendetta. “This is retribution, pure and simple,” Brennan told The New York Times last month, calling the GOP-led probe “a partisan effort to rewrite history.” The referral builds on earlier moves by Trump-aligned officials to revisit the origins of the Russia investigation. In 2025, CIA Director John Ratcliffe—himself a Trump appointee—sent a similar criminal referral accusing Brennan of misleading lawmakers about the assessment process. That review described the 2017 report as “politically skewed” and “rushed to align with a predetermined narrative.” Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey have since faced overlapping DOJ inquiries into alleged false statements related to the Russia probe, though no charges have emerged to date. For Republicans, Tuesday’s referral is part […]
— Vice President JD Vance and top Trump administration officials projected cautious optimism Tuesday about the fragile Gaza ceasefire, announcing the opening of a new U.S.-Israel coordination center aimed at cementing a lasting peace after two years of brutal conflict between Israel and Hamas. The visit, Vance’s first to Israel as vice president, comes amid lingering questions about the long-term viability of the U.S.-backed peace plan and the governance of a war-torn Gaza. Speaking at a press conference in Kiryat Gat, where the new civilian-military cooperation center is housed, Vance hailed the ceasefire’s early progress as exceeding expectations. “We are one week into President Trump’s historic peace plan in the Middle East, and things are going, frankly, better than I expected,” Vance said, flanked by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key architect of the deal. Witkoff echoed the sentiment, noting, “We are exceeding where we thought we would be at this time.” The ceasefire, a 20-point plan brokered by the Trump administration, has faced challenges, with recent flare-ups of violence instigated by Hamas attacks, raising concerns about its durability. Vance pushed back against what he called a “weird attitude” in Western media, which he accused of prematurely declaring the peace plan’s collapse with every skirmish. “It’s not the end,” he insisted. “This is exactly how this is going to have to happen when you have people who hate each other, who have been fighting against each other for a very long time.” The new coordination center in Kiryat Gat, described by Kushner as a “startup” for deconfliction and reconstruction efforts, symbolizes the U.S. and Israel’s joint commitment to rebuilding Gaza and ensuring security without American troops on the ground. “Here, you have Israelis and Americans working hand-in-hand to try to begin the plan to rebuild Gaza, to implement a long-term peace, and to ensure that you have security forces, not composed of Americans, who can keep the peace over the long term,” Vance said. Kushner, who has played a central role in negotiations, emphasized that no reconstruction funds would flow to areas under Hamas control, a pledge aimed at isolating the militant group. “There are considerations happening now in the area that the IDF controls,” he said, referring to the roughly half of Gaza under Israeli military oversight. He outlined a vision for a “new Gaza” that could offer Palestinians jobs and stability, but warned that progress hinges on Hamas’ disarmament and cooperation.The ceasefire’s long-term success remains uncertain, with critical issues unresolved, including who will govern Gaza and whether Hamas will relinquish its weapons. Vance underscored that disarming Hamas, a key condition of the peace plan, will “take a little bit of time.” He warned that failure to comply could lead to dire consequences, echoing Trump’s stark rhetoric: “If Hamas doesn’t cooperate, then as the president has said, Hamas is going to be obliterated.” Vance also addressed the delicate issue of foreign troop presence, particularly in response to questions about Turkey’s potential role in postwar Gaza. While acknowledging Ankara’s “constructive” contributions, he stressed that any deployment of foreign forces on Israeli soil would require Jerusalem’s explicit consent. “What troops are on the ground in Israel is going to be a question the Israelis have to agree to,” Vance said, nodding to Prime […]
Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo says his opponent in the New York City mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, has antisemitic views. “It’s deeply alarming to see how many have grown complacent with a candidate whose views are blatantly antisemitic. But New Yorkers: We have the power to protect the values that make this city strong,” Cuomo says in a statement.
BREAKING: U.S. officials report that the White House has paused plans for a second summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. – Axios
Hagaon HaRav Elya Brudny addressing the historic meeting of Gedolim underway at the home of HaGaon HaRav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, attended by delegation of Gedolim and Baalei Batim from the United States on behalf of the Lev L’Achim Kiruv organization.
Progressive groups looking to reconnect with Latino voters are emphasizing economic hardship and highlighting President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda in an effort to regain support in places where the Republican leader made inroads. The $1.4 million digital ad and field campaign is led by a Democratic donor fund backed by a progressive network called Way to Win, which launched after Trump’s 2016 White House win. The Valiente Action Fund effort is tailored to connect with voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina and Texas by convincing them that some of Trump’s economic promises are falling short while his immigration tactics go too far. Tory Gavito, a Democratic strategist and president of Way to Win, says the groups are trying to pivot to talk to Latinos “in their full experience” about housing and the cost of living without abandoning the case against Trump’s hard-line approach to immigration in his second term as president, including the use of helicopters and chemical agents in Chicago. “The Chicago stuff should be more than a canary in the coal mine,” Gavito said. “This administration is using extreme enforcement measures to distract from the fact that housing is still just too damn expensive, our rent is still too expensive.” Trump has promised to remove millions of people from the United States in the largest deportation program in American history. Gavito says the Trump campaign succeeded at crafting a message around the “scarcity of resources” and blaming immigrants for taking jobs. Some voters were persuaded, she said, because they want “access to a thriving economy.” There are already signs that Trump’s immigration crackdown could impact the U.S. labor market. A July report by the Brookings Institution and the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute found that the loss of foreign workers will mean monthly U.S. job growth could be near zero or negative in the next few years. The fight to gain Latino support Nationally, Hispanic voters shifted significantly toward Trump in the last election, though a majority still backed Democrat Kamala Harris: 43% of Hispanic voters nationally voted for Trump, up from 35% in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost. Hispanic voters in Texas and Florida shifted by a similarly large margin toward Trump. There were slight shifts toward him in New Jersey, New York and Arizona and no significant shifts in Nevada or Georgia. Democratic operatives and strategists have been advising candidates to focus on voters’ pocketbooks to reverse the trend. The progressive groups’ field operation involves partnering with local groups to knock on doors to do what they call “deep canvassing” — looking to have longer conversations about voters’ concerns and gather support to launch specific ballot initiatives. Effort underway in New Jersey In New Jersey, one of only two states with a governor’s race this year, ads started to roll out earlier this month, not specific to the governor’s race but criticizing Trump, who has endorsed GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli. The digital ads show images of Latinos while a narrator says that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is going after people who “look like him, like her, like us,” echoing racial-profiling concerns by human rights groups. A Supreme Court decision last month cleared the way for more robust immigration operations, lifting a restraining order that had banned arrests based on any mix of four factors: race and ethnicity; language; location; and occupation. In another ad, narrators talk about the […]
JPMorgan Chase unveiled its new 60-story headquarters to the public on Monday, one of the first major office buildings to be constructed after the COVID-19 pandemic and one that will remake the New York City skyline for decades. The bronze and steel tower at 270 Park, which reportedly cost $3 billion, replaced the Union Carbide Building, which sat on a full city block at 48th Street and Park Avenue for nearly 60 years. JPMorgan expects to house roughly 10,000 of its 24,000 New York-based employees in the new building, with employees starting their first workday at the tower at the same time as the company holds its ribbon cutting ceremony. “For 225 years, JPMorgan Chase has always been deeply rooted in New York City. The opening of our new global headquarters is not only a significant investment in New York, but also testament to our commitment to our clients and employees worldwide,” said Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan, in a statement. The building contains 2.5 million square feet and a block’s worth of public space. The bank also commissioned five new artworks for the building, adding to the bank’s already substantial art collection. The bank will house its trading operations in the building across eight floors. At 1,388 feet, the new building is taller than the Empire State Building’s roofline and is now the fourth-largest building in Manhattan. The building was a major engineering and architectural undertaking by Norman Foster, the building’s lead architect and Tishman Speyer. Engineers had to systematically demolish the old Union Carbide building over a period of two years — the site sits above the rails of the Metro North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road that run underneath Park Avenue. For years, JPMorgan has worked out of several buildings around Grand Central Station, a result of the bank’s growth and acquisitions over the years. Corporate execs and investment bankers still use 383 Madison Ave, the former headquarters of Bear Stearns, and 277 Park, which housed Chemical Bank, also a predecessor of the current JPMorgan Chase. Parts of JPMorgan started using 270 Park in the mid-1990s, but the bank always struggled to fit all its operations in the building. With 270 Park finished, the bank says it will now start a renovation of 383 Madison. The completion of 270 Park is a major accomplishment for Dimon, who has been one of loudest voices about the need for employees to report to an office for work. The building was designed before the COVID-19 pandemic and was completed after the pandemic, when remote work became more common. (AP)
House Republicans are preparing to release a report on the findings of their investigation into former President Joe Biden and what they allege is potential misuse of the presidential autopen during his term. The report, which is likely to be released in the coming weeks, centers on contested and thus far unsubstantiated claims that Biden not only visibly aged while in office, but that his mental state declined to a degree that allowed White House officials to enact policies without his knowledge. “The House Oversight Committee has uncovered how the Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement. “As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen to carry out unauthorized executive actions. We have concluded interviews with key Biden aides and will soon report our findings to the American people.” The Republican-led committee declined to offer instances where investigators may have heard testimony or otherwise found instances when the autopen — a mechanical device that is used to replicate a person’s authentic signature — was abused. A spokesperson for the Republican majority on the committee said the cases would be detailed in the report but offered no further details. The committee has interviewed more than a dozen former senior Biden administration officials as part of the investigation, pressing them for information on Biden’s mental fitness while in office. Oversight Democrats have dismissed the investigation as a distraction and say the committee is turning a blind eye to wrongdoing by the Trump administration. Biden has strenuously denied that he was unaware of his administration’s actions. He has also dismissed claims that he had mentally declined to a degree that inhibited his ability to lead as president while in office. “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” Biden said in a statement over the summer. “Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.” What the committee heard in testimony Some Biden officials who were subpoenaed cited their Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer questions, including Biden’s former physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor; Anthony Bernal, former chief of staff to first lady Jill Biden; and Annie Tomasini, a former senior adviser to Biden. Other aides spoke to the committee. Several aides admitted that the pace of Biden’s schedule slowed over the course of his term, according to a person familiar with the private testimony who was granted anonymity to discuss it. Jeff Zients, who was chief of staff, said Biden’s decision-making slowed during the administration. Decisions that once required three meetings eventually required a fourth, he said. Zients also discussed how to confirm the president’s mental fitness to the public. Senior officials, including O’Connor, discussed whether Biden should undergo a cognitive exam, which O’Connor said he would take into consideration. But even as they described signs of Biden’s advancing age — he was 82 when he left office — some Biden officials also strongly pushed back on the central premise of the Republican investigation — namely that staff effectively usurped the powers of the presidency for themselves. “There was no nefarious conspiracy of any kind among the president’s senior staff, and there was certainly no conspiracy to hide the president’s mental condition from the American people,” Steve Ricchetti, […]
BDE: YWN regrets to inform you of the Petira of Mrs. Leba Werdiger A”H, beloved mother of noted philanthropist and Agudath Israel Chairman, Reb Shloime Werdiger. She was 97. Mrs. Werdiger was a longtime resident of Boro Park and leaves behind a large Mishpacha known for their extraordinary acts of Chesed and community leadership. The Levaya will take place at 12:30 PM at Shomrei Hadas. תהא נשמתה צרורה בצרור החיים.
