New details have emerged of Israel’s latest proposed hostage deal, which outlines a phased process that includes hostage releases, a temporary ceasefire, and further negotiations on subsequent stages. On the first day of the agreement, Israel would secure the release of 10 live hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, with the ratio and specific individuals to be determined through negotiations. Additionally, Idan Alexander, an Israeli hostage, is expected to be released separately as a symbolic gesture toward U.S. President Donald Trump. A 40-day cessation of hostilities would take effect as part of the agreement, providing a temporary pause in the ongoing conflict. On the fifth day of the ceasefire, Hamas would be required to provide comprehensive information regarding the condition of all remaining hostages, both those alive and those deceased. By the tenth day, Hamas would release the bodies of 16 hostages who have been confirmed dead. Throughout the ceasefire period, discussions would take place regarding the next stage of the deal, which could include additional hostage releases and potential de-escalation measures. The proposal, which has been characterized as a security-driven initiative, represents the latest attempt at brokering an agreement amid ongoing tensions. Previous ceasefire and hostage release negotiations have faced significant challenges, with both sides maintaining firm positions on the conditions of any potential deal. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
WH Press Secretary: The President “is not only trying to fix the mess created by the previous administration’s incompetence and reckless spending, he is trying to fix decades of unfair trade practices that have ripped our country off, that have sent jobs overseas.”
WH Press Secretary has a message for the White House Correspondent Association: “I would remind them that the briefing room is part of the People’s House — it belongs to the American people. It does not belong to elitist journalists here in Washington, D.C.”
Israeli security forces thwarted a major terror plot orchestrated and funded by Hamas’s headquarters in Turkey, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) announced on Monday. In a joint operation, the IDF, Shin Bet, and the Yehuda and Shomron District Police arrested seven Palestinian terrorists from Nablus who had planned to carry out attacks against Israeli security forces and other targets in the region. The arrests, which took place between January and February, prevented what officials described as a “serious and imminent threat.” During the operation, security forces seized an M16 rifle, tens of thousands of dollars in terror funds, and a bomb planted near the Jit Junction, located six miles west of Nablus. The explosive device was neutralized in a controlled detonation by bomb disposal experts. On January 29, Israeli forces arrested three suspects, confiscating both the assault rifle and approximately $40,000 in cash. Later that same day, an additional suspect was caught with another $20,000 in Hamas funding. The remaining members of the terror cell were arrested throughout February. According to the Shin Bet, the investigation uncovered evidence of direct coordination between the cell and Hamas operatives abroad, exposing the methods used to transfer funds for terror activities in Judea and Samaria. Last week, military prosecutors filed statements against the detained suspects and have requested that they remain in custody until the conclusion of legal proceedings. The revelation of Hamas’s Turkey-based funding and coordination comes amid escalating anti-Israel rhetoric from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who on Sunday led Eid al-Fitr prayers at Istanbul’s Çamlıca Mosque, where he publicly called for Israel’s destruction. “May Allah, for the sake of his name ‘Al-Qahhar,’ destroy and devastate Zionist Israel,” Erdoğan said, as reported by Türkiye Today. He added that Muslims must remain “united, strong, and resilient as brothers” in their opposition to Israel. Erdoğan’s alliance with Hamas has deepened since the October 7, 2023, massacre. Turkey has long hosted Hamas officials, allowing them to operate freely on Turkish soil. In July, Erdoğan threatened military action against Israel, saying: “Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we cannot do.” (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Scientists have developed a device that can translate thoughts about speech into spoken words in real time. Although it’s still experimental, they hope the brain-computer interface could someday help give voice to those unable to speak. A new study described testing the device on a 47-year-old woman with quadriplegia who couldn’t speak for 18 years after a stroke. Doctors implanted it in her brain during surgery as part of a clinical trial. It “converts her intent to speak into fluent sentences,” said Gopala Anumanchipalli, a co-author of the study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Other brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, for speech typically have a slight delay between thoughts of sentences and computerized verbalization. Such delays can disrupt the natural flow of conversation, potentially leading to miscommunication and frustration, researchers said. This is “a pretty big advance in our field,” said Jonathan Brumberg of the Speech and Applied Neuroscience Lab at the University of Kansas, who was not part of the study. A team in California recorded the woman’s brain activity using electrodes while she spoke sentences silently in her brain. The scientists used a synthesizer they built using her voice before her injury to create a speech sound that she would have spoken. They trained an AI model that translates neural activity into units of sound. It works similar to existing systems used to transcribe meetings or phone calls in real time, said Anumanchipalli, of the University of California, Berkeley. The implant itself sits on the speech center of the brain so that it’s listening in, and those signals are translated to pieces of speech that make up sentences. It’s a “streaming approach,” Anumanchipalli said, with each 80-millisecond chunk of speech – about half a syllable – sent into a recorder. “It’s not waiting for a sentence to finish,” Anumanchipalli said. “It’s processing it on the fly.” Decoding speech that quickly has the potential to keep up with the fast pace of natural speech, said Brumberg. The use of voice samples, he added, “would be a significant advance in the naturalness of speech.” Though the work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health, Anumanchipalli said it wasn’t affected by recent NIH research cuts. More research is needed before the technology is ready for wide use, but with “sustained investments,” it could be available to patients within a decade, he said. (AP)
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) delivered a sharp rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s planned global tariffs, warning that the sweeping trade measures set to take effect Wednesday could cripple key industries and drive up consumer costs. In an interview with WABC Radio in New York on Sunday, Paul cited concerns from Kentucky’s auto manufacturers and bourbon producers—two industries he says will suffer under the tariffs. The senator did not mince words, calling the economic strategy a direct threat to American businesses and consumers alike. “I think tariffs are bad for any country, and I think they’d be bad for America,” Paul stated. “Economically, I think it’ll hurt us. The stock market… there’s millions of people voting every day with their pocketbook, and the stock market’s very skittish, afraid of tariffs.” The Kentucky Republican directly challenged the Trump administration’s justification that tariffs are necessary for national security, calling the claim baseless. “This is just something I disagree with President Trump on,” Paul said. “I’m not for the tariffs and will continue to speak out on it because really, international trade since World War II has made us phenomenally rich. President Trump thinks in another way—he says we’ve been taken advantage of. But I really, really strongly disagree. Trade has made us so rich and really has made the world a better place. The more we trade, I think the less we fight.” Paul’s warning comes amid mounting public dissatisfaction over economic policy. A CBS News poll released Sunday found that 64% of Americans believe the Trump administration is not prioritizing efforts to lower consumer prices. With inflationary pressures still lingering, Paul fears new tariffs will only make matters worse. “If he puts the tariffs on now, there’s some people estimating that a car can cost five to ten thousand dollars more because of tariffs,” Paul cautioned. “We still have some inflation left over from the Biden years. There are people who are struggling to get a car. There are some people struggling to buy a house because of interest rates. And I just don’t think it’s a good idea to put tariffs on now because I think it’ll add to the price of everything.” (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Eli Sharvit as the Shin Bet chief had been condemned by coalition members due to his participation in the pre-October 7 protests against the judicial reform. According to a Channel 12 report, government members are pressuring Netanyahu to revoke the appointment, and it is now believed that it will ultimately not materialize. On March 5, 2023, Sharvit participated in a protest on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv against the government. He also signed a letter the day after the new Netanyahu government was sworn in 2022, warning that “Israeli democracy was at risk.” More recently, three says after President Trump’s inauguration in January, Sharvit published an op-ed in Calcalist entitled: “Not just a political error: Trump is pushing the Earth into the abyss.” The article slammed Trump for choosing to “revert to polluting energy sources and retreat from green energy investments.” Ynet quoted a source familiar with the details as saying that Netanyahu was aware of the fact that Sharvit attended a judicial reform protest and decided to go ahead with the appointment anyway since he wasn’t a regular participant in the protests and did not go on stage or speak. However, the source added that “the article he wrote against Trump can’t be overlooked. It’s not an article from a few years ago but a recent one.” Netanyahu and his associates were not aware of the article, and according to them, it is the reason the appointment will likely be revoked. Following the announcement on Sharvit’s appointment on Monday morning, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu responded by saying that Sharvit will perpetuate the problem in the Shin Bet. “The main difficulty with Ronen Bar’s conduct is not the persona, but the Kaplanist worldview, which sees democracy as a tool to be interpreted and defended by ‘gatekeepers’ who understand better than the people what is worthy and right for them. “Replacing a person with a Kaplanist worldview with another person with a similar worldview does not solve the problem, but only continues it in a different framework. If we want to strengthen the democratic system, we must ensure that those at the head of strategic organizations such as the Shin Bet are committed to a concept that respects the will of the people as expressed in democratic election processes.” Likud MK Taly Gotliv responded by stating: “Mr. Prime Minister, who is whispering in your ear?? What’s going on here? Are there no excellent, brave, and experienced right-wing people to head the Shin Bet? With all due respect. Eli Sharvit took part in the Kaplan demonstrations. The excuse ‘concern for the country’ does not impress me, but teaches me that Sharvit was dragged along. We have all had enough of people being dragged along who are unable to think differently and think outside the box. There is no doubt that Sharvit has many merits, but the head of the Shin Bet these days needs a different and very special DNA. You have no privilege to err here.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
The Democratic base is angry. Not just at President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the “Make America Great Again” movement. Rank-and-file Democrats are mad at their own leaders and increasingly agitating to replace them. Arizona Democrats pushed out their party chair, and Georgia Democrats are on their way to doing the same. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York postponed a book tour in the face of protests amid calls from progressives that he face a primary challenge. The losing party after a presidential election often spends time in the wilderness, but the visceral anger among Democrats toward their party leaders is reaching a level reminiscent of the tea party movement that swept out Republican incumbents 15 years ago. “They should absolutely be worried about holding onto power, because there’s a real energy right now against them,” Paco Fabián, deputy director of Our Revolution, a grassroots group allied with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, said of Democratic incumbents. “And as soon as somebody figures out how to harness it, they’re going to be in deep trouble.” A deeper hole than previous losses Elections on Tuesday could give national Democrats a boost. In Wisconsin, the officially nonpartisan race for a state Supreme Court seat has become a test of Musk’s influence as his political organization boosts conservative Brad Schimel and progressives back liberal Susan Crawford, who has made anti-Musk messaging a centerpiece of her campaign. And two U.S. House special elections in Florida feature Democrats who are outraising their Republican counterparts in sharply pro-Trump districts. But the current depth of frustration among Democrats is clear and shows no signs of going away. According to a February Quinnipiac poll, about half disapprove of how Democrats in Congress are handling their job, compared with about 4 in 10 who approve. That’s a stark contrast from the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency in 2021, when more than 8 in 10 Democrats approved of how their party was doing its job in Congress, and the start of Trump’s first term in 2017, when about 6 in 10 Democrats approved. In 2017, as they do now, Democrats lacked control of either congressional chamber. A February CNN/SSRS poll found about three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents thought Democrats in Congress weren’t doing enough to oppose Trump. Facing a coordinated and long-planned Republican effort to remake government and fire tens of thousands of federal workers, Democrats have struggled with a unified response. Frustration on the left with elected Democrats began early, when some Democratic senators backed Trump Cabinet nominees and supported legislation targeting illegal immigration. It escalated following Trump’s joint address to Congress, when Democratic lawmakers protested by wearing coordinated clothes and holding up signs expressing their discontent. A handful of Democrats then voted with Republicans to censure U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who interrupted Trump’s speech to Congress and was escorted out of the chamber. Schumer faced the most serious backlash after he refused to block a Republican-led government spending bill and shut down the government. Schumer said blocking the bill would have backfired and played into Trump’s hands, but many on the left saw it as capitulation. “I want the opposition to be a lot more animated,” said Stefan Therrien, a 22-year-old engineering student in Tempe, Arizona, who called Democratic leaders in Congress “very passive” in a misguided effort to appeal to centrists. “Democrats should attack harder.” Ken Human, a retired attorney who went to a town […]
A Hachnoses Sefer Torah and Chnukas Habayis took place at the newly established Viznitzer Yeshiva Ketana Building, located at 1143 60th Street. The New Building and the Sefer Torah were generously donated by Viznitzer philanthropist Reb Bentzy Lebowitz, a longtime Boro Park Hatzolah coordinator, and Central Hatzolah Board Member.
A team of Israeli researchers has unearthed artifacts in the ancient city of Megiddo—known as Har Megiddo, or Armageddon—that may provide physical evidence of the epic war between King Yoshiyahu of Yehudah and the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho, as recorded in Sefer Melachim II and Divrei HaYamim II. For the first time, remnants of 7th-century BCE Egyptian pottery have been discovered in the area, indicating that Egyptian forces were indeed present at this crucial point in history—just as the Nevi’im recount. “Megiddo is unique—mentioned both in Tanach and in the great historical records of the ancient Near East,” explained Professor Yisrael Finkelstein, head of the University of Haifa’s Megiddo Expedition. “It has long been suspected that the site was an Egyptian fortress in the late 7th century BCE, largely based on the pesukim that describe Yoshiyahu HaMelech falling in battle against Pharaoh Necho.” The battle at Megiddo is described in Sefer Melachim II (23:29) and Divrei HaYamim II (35:20-22). King Yoshiyahu, a tzaddik who was moser nefesh to eradicate avodah zarah from Am Yisroel and restore proper avodas Hashem, confronted Pharaoh Necho as the Egyptian ruler marched to aid the Ashurim in their fight against Bavel. Despite Necho’s warnings that he was not coming to war against Yehudah, Yoshiyahu insisted on engaging him—and tragically fell at Megiddo. Now, new archaeological findings appear to confirm the presence of Egyptian troops at Megiddo precisely during this historical period. Among the discoveries were not only Egyptian ceramics but also imported Greek pottery, suggesting the presence of Greek mercenaries in the Egyptian army—something hinted at in ancient sources. “We know that Egypt employed mercenaries in this period,” noted Dr. Assaf Kleiman, a senior researcher of the Megiddo team. “And some scholars suggest that the Ludim, referenced in Tanach, may have been such warriors from Lydia.” Finkelstein also raised the possibility that the mercenaries found at Megiddo could be tied to the nevuos of Yechezkel regarding the end of days battle of Gog U’Magog. “There are hints in the Nevi’im that the Lydians may have been involved in Yoshiyahu’s death,” he said. “One of them is the identity of Gog, who some scholars identify as Gyges, king of Lydia.” Gog is mentioned in multiple places in Tanach. In Yechezkel 38-39, he appears as the ultimate enemy of Klal Yisroel, leading the forces of Magog in the war that will precede Mashiach. The Midrashim and later meforshim have long debated the exact identity of Gog, and whether the historical Lydians played a role in Jewish history. Megiddo has been the focus of excavations since the early 20th century, but much of the site was disturbed by previous diggers who lacked today’s sophisticated methods. The recent efforts have led to the discovery of a previously untouched area, known as “Area X,” where significant finds from the 7th century BCE have emerged. Among them was a structure featuring multiple rooms and a large courtyard, filled with pottery that offers a glimpse into the daily life of the time period. “The pottery tells us a lot about trade, cooking, and military presence,” Kleiman explained. “We even found a fragment of a Yehudi cooking pot, made from clay sourced near Yerushalayim—further evidence that there was a Jewish presence in Megiddo at the time.” But perhaps the most startling discovery was the […]
CNN Guest: Trump will cause “complete and utter chaos” if he tries for a third term. She also warns against “some sort of dictatorship where we don’t actually have elections.”
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in Portland have both dismissed medical professionals in recent weeks after they were found to have made pro-Hamas and anti-Israel remarks on social media, raising concerns about bias and discrimination against Jewish patients in healthcare settings. At Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan’s East Harlem neighborhood, Dr. Lila Abassi, an assistant professor of medicine, was terminated after hospital officials were made aware of her social media posts allegedly praising Hamas terrorists. According to the New York Post, Abassi referred to Hamas as “noble resistance and freedom fighters” and wrote “Long Live Hamas & Hezbollah.” She also called the IDF a “plague” and accused Israel of “slaughtering babies.” Physicians Against Antisemitism, a watchdog group that exposed Abassi’s comments, warned that her rhetoric created a serious ethical concern for Jewish patients. “No longer will any Jewish patient feel confident that they will receive safe care from that individual, and by extension, at the facility that employs them,” the group stated. In a separate case, OHSU Hospital in Portland fired nurse Camesha Hart after she made social media posts celebrating the deaths of Israeli soldiers and declaring she would refuse to treat Jewish patients. Hart posted an image of Israeli soldiers on Instagram with the caption, “May they all meet their ancestors soon!” In an exchange with pro-Israel users, she called them “vermin” and explicitly said she would not provide medical care to them. “I would refuse to treat you. I don’t take care of animals. Dogs. Rats. Vermin of any kind,” she wrote. The terminations are the latest in a series of disturbing incidents in the medical field since October 7, 2023, where healthcare professionals have been found to express or act upon anti-Israel and antisemitic biases. In Australia, two nurses in Sydney are currently standing trial after telling an Israeli in February that they would refuse to treat him and would kill him if he were their patient. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
A senior U.S. defense official in Europe reports that three of the four missing crewmembers from a U.S. Army M88A2 “Hercules” ARV, which disappeared last Tuesday and was recovered from a swamp at Lithuania’s Pabradė Training Ground today, were found dead. The fourth remains missing as search teams and divers comb the swamp and surrounding mud and water.
*FOX NEWS:* “The Trump tariffs will bring in $600 billion in the first year to the Treasury General Fund — The President’s extra 25% tariffs on autos alone expected to generate $100 billion on top of the reciprocal tariffs.”
