A visibly agitated Bernie Sanders confronts RFK Jr. regarding activities at a non-profit RFK Jr. is no longer associated with, focusing his frustration on the issue of baby clothes.
RFK Jr. argues with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) over a measles outbreak in Samoa, denying that his history of vaccine skepticism was responsible for 83 deaths. “You cannot find a single Samoan who will say, ”I didn’t get a vaccine because of Bobby Kennedy.’”
As YWN reported last week, the family of Romi Gonen, who was released from captivity in Gaza almost two weeks ago, formed close connections with Gedolei Yisrael during her captivity. Romi’s mother, Meirav Leshem-Gonen, and her husband (Romi’s stepfather) visited the home of HaGaon HaRav Dov Landau in Bnei Brak several times, among others. Meirav and her husband received a bracha from the Rosh HaYeshivah and met with Rebbetzin Adina Landau several times, who took their plight to heart and provided them with chizzuk and tefillos. This week, Romi’s stepfather, Asaf, accompanied by publicist Yisrael Cohen, who had arranged the visits, came to thank the Rebbetzin for her support. He cried as he spoke to her and she cried along with him. She also emphasized to him the magnitude of the neis that Romi returned alive from Gaza. At the end of the conversation, he called Meirav so she could personally thank the Rebbetzin for her support and tefillos and convey her thanks to the Rosh Yeshivah. The Rebbetzin also wrote a special letter to Meirav and Romi, which was published on Kikar H’Shabbat. The letter states: “To Meirav Leshem-Gonen and her daughter Romi: “Dear Romi: We were filled with immense joy and excitement when we received the news of the great neis that the Creator performed in releasing you from the difficult captivity. All of us, the entire Jewish people, davened for you, the children, the boys, the girls, the women.” “Your amazing strength to withstand hardship, a long era of darkness, attests to your unique inner self and your inner emunah. You are destined for a special role to spread light and emunah around you.” “We were amazed by your dear mother, who did not lose hope – who was filled with emunah to merit a yeshuah.” “You, dear Romi, and your important mother still have a mission awaiting you, to publicize the nissim of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to the world and to be mekadeish Shem Shamayim. May you merit to recover, you and your friends, and meet the rest of the hostages and whisper with excitement, ‘יהי שם השם מבורך.'” “With a bracha for an imminent yeshuah.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz visited the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday and held a situational assessment on the ground with senior IDF officials. Katz spoke with commanders and soldiers who told him details about the enormous amounts of weaponry seized in the camp’s houses “just like in Gaza.” Following the assessment, Katz stated that Operation Iron Wall will expand to additional terror hotspots in Yehuda and Shomron and that IDF forces will remain in Jenin even after the end of the current operation. “We have declared war on Palestinian terrorism in Yehuda and Shomron,” Katz said. “Operation Iron Wall is aimed at destroying the terror infrastructure built in Palestinian refugee camps, funded and armed by Iran. The IDF is operating powerfully in the Jenin refugee camp to thwart terrorists and destroy the terror infrastructure.” “Jenin will not return to what it was. After the operation is completed, IDF forces will remain in the camp to ensure that terrorism does not return. I send a clear message from here to the Palestinian Authority: stop funding terrorism and the murder of Jews and start seriously fighting terrorism. Whoever funds families of murderous terrorists and educates their children to destroy Israel endangers his very existence.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Did the upstart Chinese tech company DeepSeek copy ChatGPT to make the artificial intelligence technology that shook Wall Street this week? That’s what ChatGPT maker OpenAI is suggesting, along with U.S. President Donald Trump’s top AI adviser. Neither has disclosed specific evidence of intellectual property theft, but the comments could fuel a reexamination of some of the assumptions that led to a panic in the U.S. over DeepSeek’s advancements. “There’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models,” David Sacks, Trump’s AI adviser, told Fox News on Tuesday. “And I don’t think OpenAI is very happy about this.” DeepSeek and the hedge fund it grew out of, High-Flyer, didn’t immediately respond to emailed questions Wednesday, the start of China’s extended Lunar New Year holiday. OpenAI said in a statement that China-based companies “are constantly trying to distill the models of leading U.S. AI companies” but didn’t publicly call out DeepSeek specifically. OpenAI’s official terms of use ban the technique known as distillation that enables a new AI model to learn by repeatedly querying a bigger one that’s already been trained. The company has been working with its business partner Microsoft to identify accounts attempting to distill its models and then banning those accounts and revoking their access. Microsoft declined to comment. OpenAI said it will also work “closely with the U.S. government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take U.S. technology.” The San Francisco company has itself been accused of copyright theft in lawsuits from media organizations, book authors and others in cases that are still working through courts in the U.S. and elsewhere. “Distillation will violate most terms of service, yet it’s ironic — or even hypocritical — that Big Tech is calling it out,” said a statement Wednesday from tech investor and Cornell University lecturer Lutz Finger. “Training ChatGPT on Forbes or New York Times content also violated their terms of service.” Finger, who formerly worked for Google and LinkedIn, said that while it is likely that DeepSeek used the technique, it will be hard to find proof because it’s easy to disguise and avoid detection. Even before DeepSeek news rattled markets Monday, many who were trying out the company’s AI model noticed a tendency for it to declare that it was ChatGPT or refer to OpenAI’s terms and policies. “If you ask it what model are you, it would say, ‘I’m ChatGPT,’ and the most likely reason for that is that the training data for DeepSeek was harvested from millions of chat interactions with ChatGPT that were just fed directly into DeepSeek’s training data,” said Gregory Allen, a former U.S. Defense Department official who now directs the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Such declarations are not necessarily an indication of IP theft — chatbots are prone to fabricating information. But DeepSeek, despite describing its technology as “open-source,” doesn’t disclose the data it used to train its model. “I think that there’s a pretty obvious reason for that choice, which is that they harvested ChatGPT for training data,” Allen said. Much about DeepSeek has perplexed analysts poring through the startup’s public research papers about its new model, R1, and its precursors. Among the details that startled […]
As an unconventional pick to lead the nation’s intelligence service, Tulsi Gabbard is expected to face tough questions about her past comments on Syria, Russia, foreign surveillance and President Donald Trump when she goes before lawmakers at her confirmation hearing Thursday. The former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii is Trump’s nominee to be the next director of national intelligence, a job created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that oversees and coordinates the work of more than a dozen intelligence agencies. Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who served two tours in the Middle East, has alarmed some intelligence and national security officials in the U.S. and elsewhere with comments sympathetic to Russia and criticism of a critical surveillance program. Here’s a look at Gabbard in her own words: On Syria and visits with Assad Gabbard traveled to Syria in 2017 to meet with then-President Bashar Assad, a visit that angered lawmakers from both parties who said she helped legitimize an accused war criminal and key ally of Russia and Iran. Gabbard has defended the trip and her belief that meeting with adversaries can result in dialogue and peace. Assad fled Syria in December after being ousted following his country’s brutal civil war. “When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so because I felt that it’s important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace,” Gabbard told CNN at the time. She later said she was “skeptical” that Assad’s regime used banned chemical weapons to strike his own people, despite that being the repeated conclusion of U.S. authorities and independent analysts. “I have not seen that independent investigation occur and that proof presented showing exactly what happened and there are a number of theories of exactly what happened that day,” Gabbard said of Assad’s attack during a CNN appearance in 2017. In a 2019 interview on MSNBC, she said, “Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.” Following Assad’s ouster, Gabbard has echoed Trump, who has said Assad fell because Russia pulled its support during its war in Ukraine, a conflict Trump has said he hopes to resolve. “I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made,” she told reporters in December. “My own views and experiences have been shaped by my multiple deployments and seeing firsthand the cost of war.” Trump, she said, “is fully committed as he has said over and over to bringing about an end to wars, demonstrating peace through strength.” On Russia and Ukraine Gabbard has repeated Russia’s arguments about its invasion of Ukraine, suggesting Moscow had justification to send troops into the neighboring country. She also endorsed Russian claims that the U.S. and Ukraine were involved in dangerous biological research before the war. She has criticized the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “corrupt autocracy” and has expressed sympathy for Russia’s position, given Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, the Western military alliance. “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns,” she posted on Twitter at the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022. Soon after the war […]
HAPPENING NOW: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently meeting with US President Trump’s Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, in his office in Jerusalem.
Chai Lifeline directors from across the United States and around the world convened in Eatontown, NJ, on January 27-28, 2025, for the organization’s Annual Regional Directors Conference. The two-day gathering brought together leaders from New York, New Jersey/Pennsylvania, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, and West Coast, as well as Toronto, Montreal, Israel, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, representing more than 6,000 families supported globally by Chai Lifeline. The conference featured sessions on organizational vision and values, programs and services, marketing and development, volunteer training, community engagement, and case management. Attendees included regional directors Rabbi Shlomo Crandall (Midwest), Racheli Daniel (Mid-Atlantic), Rabbi Sruli Fried (NJ/PA), Randi Grossman (West Coast), Esther Leah Sandhaus (Southeast), Yaacov Blanshay (Montreal), Rabbi Mordy Rothman (Toronto), Daniel Gillis (UK), Nechemja Meisner (Belgium), and Elad Maimon (Israel). “Chai Lifeline’s impact is built on the collective strength of our regional teams,” said Chai Lifeline CEO Rabbi Simcha Scholar. “This annual conference is an opportunity to reflect on our successes, identify areas for growth, and ensure that we remain at the forefront of providing unparalleled care and support to families and communities facing illness, crisis, and loss.” The program opened with reflections on the organization’s successes and areas for growth during the “A Year in Review” session led by Rabbi Scholar. Directors explored ways to remain innovative and relevant during “Staying Current in 2025 and Beyond,” presented by NJ/PA Director of Family Services Rabbi Yehoshua Brodsky and Esther Leah Sandhaus. Marketing strategies to reinforce Chai Lifeline’s mission were discussed in “Building the Brand: Strengthening Chai Lifeline’s Identity,” led by CMO Matt Yaniv and brand strategist David Koenigsberg. Additionally, a session on “Building Lay Leadership in Our Regions,” moderated by Randi Grossman and Rabbi Mordy Rothman, examined progress made in cultivating local leadership and outlined goals for the future. Workshops, panels, and interactive discussions encouraged collaboration, including a lay leaders’ panel, insights from Chai Lifeline’s international leadership team, and an inspiring session presented by Rabbi Shlomo Crandall and Rabbi Sruli Fried titled “Perspective of a Grown Insider.” This session highlighted Chai Lifeline’s impact through the stories of former campers, patients, and counselors. The conference concluded with a review of key outcomes and actionable steps for the year ahead, reinforcing a shared commitment to supporting families facing illness, crisis, and loss. “This conference reminded us that leadership is about more than managing programs—it’s about inspiring people and driving a shared mission,” added Rabbi Mordechai Gobioff, National Director of Client Services. “By collaborating and learning from one another, we can continue to meet the growing needs of the families who rely on us.” For more information about Chai Lifeline and its programs, visit www.chailifeline.org. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
RFK Jr. immediately shuts down anti-vax accusations by stating, “All my kids are vaccinated,” and clarifying that the first line of his book is, “I am not anti-vaccine.”
The U.S. and the Philippines have agreed to temporarily relocate up to 300 Afghan nationals with Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to the Philippines, allowing these vetted individuals, who have served the U.S. faithfully in Afghanistan, to stay for up to 59 days while their resettlement to the U.S. or another country is finalized.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine advocacy is outside the mainstream. But a new poll finds that not all of his controversial health goals are unpopular — in fact, at least one has broad support among Democrats and Republicans. As Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings begin, his bid to become the nation’s top health official could depend on how staunchly he sticks to these personal beliefs during questioning. He has already softened some of his long-held views. He’s facing some skepticism from the public, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only about 3 in 10 US adults approve of President Donald Trump nominating him to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. About 4 in 10 disapprove, while about one-quarter are either neutral or don’t know enough to say. But he has points of strength, too. Trump’s choice of Kennedy is especially popular among Republicans: About 6 in 10 approve, compared to about 1 in 10 Democrats. And while many Americans disagree with some of Kennedy’s controversial health stances — including beliefs around reevaluating childhood vaccine recommendations and changing guidelines around fluoride in drinking water and raw milk consumption — some of his other stances, like reformulating processed foods, are broadly popular. Here’s what AP-NORC polling shows about which of Kennedy’s priorities are likely to be popular among U.S. adults and which might be less well-received. More oppose than support reevaluating widely used vaccines Kennedy has long been a vaccine skeptic, and he and Trump have falsely claimed that childhood vaccines are dangerous and tied to rising autism rates. His opposition to vaccines is broad, and he has said that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” AP-NORC polling suggests that reevaluating vaccine recommendations would be unpopular with many Americans. About 4 in 10 Americans “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose reconsidering the government’s recommendations around widely used vaccines, like the flu vaccine, and about 3 in 10 are in favor. Another 3 in 10 Americans, roughly, are neutral. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to favor reconsidering government recommendations for widely used vaccines, although their support isn’t overwhelming. About 4 in 10 Republicans favor reevaluating vaccine recommendations, compared with about 2 in 10 Democrats. Wide support for restrictions on ingredients in processed foods One of Kennedy’s ideas is popular across the board: getting some chemicals out of processed foods. Kennedy has vowed to ban certain food additives and crack down on ultra-processed foods that are tied to obesity and diabetes rates. About two-thirds of Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” favor restricting or reformulating processed foods to remove ingredients like added sugar or dyes. This is an area where Democrats and Republicans agree: About 7 in 10 in each group favor the restrictions. Support is particularly high among U.S. adults with a higher household income, though research from the National Institutes of Health has indicated that ultra-processed foods are consumed at higher rates in low-income groups. Roughly 8 in 10 adults with a household income of $100,000 or more per year support the restrictions, compared with about half of Americans with a household income of $30,000 or less. More oppose than support removing raw milk restrictions Kennedy indicated before the election that he would be keen to end the Food and Drug Administration’s “aggressive suppression” of raw milk. The FDA and the Centers for Disease […]
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: “I don’t want to take food away from anybody. If you like a McDonald’s cheeseburger, a Diet Coke — which my boss loves — you should be able to get them.”
BREAKING: The three hostages to be released tomorrow are Gadi Mozes (80), Arbel Yehud, and Agam Berger. Additionally, five more kidnapped Thai nationals are to be released as well.
The IDF reports that in the ongoing raid in Jenin and Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, named Operation Iron Wall which began last week, troops have killed around 18 gunmen, detained over 60 wanted Palestinians, neutralized over 100 explosive devices in Jenin, and seized numerous weapons, while in Tulkarem, another 30 bombs were neutralized and additional armaments were captured.
