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[Video below.] Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly by prerecorded video on Thursday after the United States denied him a visa for the second consecutive year, using his speech to level a series of accusations against Israel and call for the Gaza Strip, Yehuda and Shomron, and eastern Yerushalayim to ultimately be placed under Palestinian Authority control.

Abbas delivered the address remotely from Ramallah after the Trump administration extended visa restrictions on senior Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization officials ahead of the UN gathering in New York. The General Assembly voted last week to allow Abbas to participate by video, approving the measure by a vote of 152-3, with four abstentions.

The State Department has accused the PA and PLO of failing to comply with commitments made under previous agreements, supporting terrorism and attempting to “internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” through actions against Israel in international bodies. Palestinian officials have rejected the U.S. accusations and criticized the visa restrictions.

Opening his remarks Thursday, Abbas criticized Washington’s refusal to permit him to attend the gathering in person, calling the move a violation of UN procedures. He called on the United States to remove the sanctions imposed on Palestinian officials and resume dialogue aimed at advancing a two-state solution.

Abbas then turned much of his address toward Israel, accusing it of waging what he called a genocidal campaign in Gaza.

“In Gaza, the Palestinian people are being subjected to killing, destruction, starvation and a genocidal war that has created a major humanitarian catastrophe,” Abbas charged.

Israel has rejected accusations that its military campaign constitutes genocide, maintaining that its operations have been directed against Hamas and other terrorist organizations and that it takes measures to reduce civilian casualties.

Abbas also accused Israel of attempting to force Palestinians from their homes and of expanding Jewish communities in Yehuda and Shomron while seeking to “Judaize” Yerushalayim.

“This is a colonial plot intended to force us to leave. We warn you not to allow another Nakba and massacre like in 1948,” Abbas said.

He further called on the international community to halt arms shipments to Israel and accused the IDF of providing protection to what he described as “violent gangs that burn communities.” His speech also included accusations of “settler terrorism” in Yehuda and Shomron.

At the same time, Abbas laid out his demand for Palestinian Authority rule over Gaza as part of a unified Palestinian political structure encompassing Gaza, Yehuda and Shomron, and eastern Yerushalayim. He called for the territories to operate under “one law and one weapon,” a formula Abbas has repeatedly invoked in discussing the future governance of Gaza.

Abbas also called for accelerated implementation of the next stage of the UN-backed framework involving the establishment of a “Board of Peace” for Gaza.

Notably, reports on Thursday’s address said Abbas did not mention Hamas in his speech, despite having condemned the terrorist organization’s October 7, 2023, attack in previous public remarks.

The U.S. decision to keep Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials out of the country stands in contrast to Washington’s decision to issue visas to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and members of the Iranian delegation for this year’s General Assembly. Pezeshkian addressed the gathering Wednesday amid the continuing U.S.-Iran confrontation.

The diplomatic spotlight at the UN will turn next to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday evening. Netanyahu is expected to use his speech to respond to international criticism of Israel and address the continuing regional conflicts involving Iran and the Palestinians.

{Matzav.com}

New York Attorney General Letitia James suffered a legal setback Wednesday when a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit she and 18 other states brought against the Trump administration over access by Department of Government Efficiency personnel to sensitive U.S. Treasury payment systems. U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas concluded that the states’ central claims had become moot because the Treasury’s DOGE team had been disbanded and DOGE-affiliated employees no longer had the access the lawsuit sought to block.

The dispute dated back to the opening weeks of President Donald Trump’s current term. Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 establishing DOGE and directing federal agencies to create their own DOGE teams as part of an effort to identify waste, fraud and abuse throughout the federal government. The order set July 4, 2026, as the termination date for the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization.

James subsequently led New York and 18 other states in a lawsuit after DOGE-linked personnel were granted access to systems operated by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The bureau functions as a central clearinghouse for federal payments, including funds sent to states, and maintains sensitive financial information.

The states argued that allowing DOGE personnel into those systems created risks to sensitive information and potentially threatened the processing of federal payments. They also contended that the administration had exceeded its legal authority in providing the access.

Vargas, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden, initially sided with the states on an interim basis. In February 2025, she issued a preliminary injunction restricting the Treasury DOGE team’s access to the covered systems. The order was subsequently modified to permit access by personnel who met specified requirements involving vetting, training, hiring, reporting and security measures.

But the circumstances underlying the lawsuit had changed significantly by the time Vargas issued her latest ruling. With the Treasury DOGE team disbanded and no DOGE-affiliated personnel remaining at Treasury, the judge concluded that there was no longer an ongoing access policy for the court to prohibit.

Vargas ruled that the “plaintiffs’ claims related to access by DOGE-affiliated employees to sensitive Treasury information are dismissed as moot.”

The states had also challenged an automated Treasury system that they said was capable of pausing federal payments. Vargas rejected that portion of the lawsuit as well, finding that the states had failed to identify a specific federal payment owed to them that had actually been frozen or canceled through the system.

In her 17-page ruling, Vargas dismissed the remaining claims under the federal rules governing failure to state a claim and directed that the case be closed.

“For the reasons stated herein, the Court dismisses the Access Claims as moot. The Court GRANTS the Government’s motion to dismiss the remaining claims pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” Vargas wrote.

The decision brings an end at the district-court level to one of the prominent legal battles that erupted during the early months of Trump’s second term over DOGE’s access to federal government systems.

James has repeatedly clashed with Trump in court over the years. In 2022, her office brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization and other defendants over the valuation of assets in financial statements. The case ultimately produced a judgment carrying hundreds of millions of dollars in financial penalties, although a New York appeals court later eliminated the monetary penalty while leaving the finding of liability in place.

The latest ruling, however, concerned a separate fight over the Trump administration’s DOGE initiative and Treasury Department systems. In that case, the administration ultimately prevailed in having the remaining lawsuit dismissed after arguing that the challenged DOGE access no longer existed and that the states had failed to establish viable remaining claims.

President Donald Trump should use his high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday to pressure Beijing to stop supporting Iran, a move that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast says could help stabilize the Strait of Hormuz and ultimately bring down gasoline prices for Americans. The meeting comes as the national average for regular gasoline has climbed to roughly $4.48 per gallon, according to AAA, which cited volatility in the Strait and elevated crude oil prices as major factors behind the increase.

Mast, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that China’s relationship with Tehran is contributing to instability in one of the world’s most important oil-shipping corridors. He said Trump has an opportunity during his talks with Xi to directly address Chinese support for Iran.

“If President Trump can secure that China will stop arming Iran, who is trying to destabilize this key oil route through the globe, then the president will have done something very important for affordability, especially in terms of global crude prices, which equal prices at the pump here in the United States of America,” Mast said.

The cost of living has become an increasingly prominent issue ahead of November’s midterm elections, with Republicans and Democrats battling over responsibility for higher household expenses. Gasoline has become a particularly visible part of that debate as the U.S.-Iran war and uncertainty surrounding shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have roiled global energy markets.

AAA reported Thursday that the nationwide average for regular gasoline stood at $4.4825 per gallon, compared with $4.0991 a month earlier and $3.1634 at the same point last year. AAA said the current price is the highest national average ever recorded for this time of year, with crude oil prices and continuing volatility around the Strait of Hormuz keeping pressure on motorists.

Mast said China “probably is the number one actor that is working to raise those prices,” pointing to Beijing’s relationships with both Iran and Russia.

China has maintained significant economic ties with Iran even as the Trump administration has sought to tighten Tehran’s financial isolation. The administration warned countries in August that continued business with Iran could expose them to secondary U.S. sanctions, although it initially stopped short of immediately imposing those penalties.

Mast argued that China’s role goes beyond economic support, accusing Beijing of providing assistance that enables Tehran to threaten vessels moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

“China is arming Iran so that Iran can indiscriminately attack civilians moving through the strait. That is the fundamental difference about what China is doing … the United States, looking to protect all of those resources going through there, the civilians going on the ships through there and the civilians across all of the countries throughout the Gulf,” Mast said.

The congressman credited Trump with keeping commercial shipping and oil moving through the strategically vital waterway despite the ongoing hostilities.

Over the last two months, Mast said, Trump “moved over a billion barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.”

“He’s moved over 2,000 ships through the Strait of Hormuz, civilian merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has moved nothing. But that doesn’t mean that the global oil markets don’t see instability,” Mast said.

The Strait of Hormuz remains a central point of contention in the U.S.-Iran conflict. Iranian officials said earlier this week that Tehran was prepared to reopen the strategic waterway within a week if Washington reduced military pressure and lifted its blockade of Iranian ports.

Trump’s Thursday talks with Xi come during the Chinese leader’s September 23-25 state visit to the United States. It is the third meeting between Trump and Xi during Trump’s current term and Xi’s first trip to the United States since Trump returned to the White House. China’s Foreign Ministry has said the leaders are expected to discuss U.S.-China relations as well as major international issues.

Iran is expected to be among the important geopolitical issues surrounding the summit. The conflict has complicated Washington’s relationship with Beijing, while Gulf countries have also looked to China to use its considerable economic influence over Tehran to help ease tensions and restore shipping through the Strait.

Asked what leverage Trump could employ to persuade Xi to reduce Chinese support for Tehran, Mast pointed to the recently enacted Russia-Iran sanctions legislation, named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The measure gives the administration additional tools to target countries and businesses maintaining significant economic relationships with Moscow and Tehran.

“China is the number one target for that sanctions bill. It would affect, has the potential to affect, a great deal of trade if President Trump chooses not to waive some of his sanction authorities that he’s given in that bill,” Mast said.

Anthropic says its Claude artificial-intelligence system has made what the company describes as a genuine scientific discovery, identifying a previously unknown enzyme system hidden inside the genomes of bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — that could potentially open a new avenue of biological research and, eventually, gene-editing technology. For now, however, researchers emphasize that they do not yet know exactly what the newly discovered system does.

The discovery was announced Wednesday as Anthropic unveiled a new life-sciences research group and laboratory devoted to using Claude to conduct fundamental biological research. The project represents an effort to move AI beyond assisting scientists with writing, data analysis and literature reviews and toward having AI agents independently search enormous biological datasets, generate hypotheses and help direct experiments.

“Claude has discovered a previously unknown enzyme system hidden in the DNA of bacteriophages,” Anthropic said in announcing the finding.

“We don’t yet understand what this system does, but only a handful of known systems share its features, and all of them are able to cut, copy, and paste DNA. Historically, the discovery of such programmable systems has helped revolutionize medicine.”

The newly identified system has been dubbed ART, short for “array-associated reverse transcriptases.” Claude found it while analyzing large collections of bacteriophage genetic sequences, searching for unusual proteins and patterns that might point scientists toward biological mechanisms that had previously escaped attention.

According to Anthropic, Claude agents searched through more than 200,000 reverse transcriptase enzymes and narrowed them into groups worthy of further investigation. Reverse transcriptases are enzymes capable of producing DNA from an RNA template and play important roles in a range of biological processes.

One of the candidates caught Claude’s attention because the gene encoding the enzyme was located beside an unusually long array of repeating DNA sequences. The arrangement bore similarities to the repeating genetic structures associated with CRISPR, the natural bacterial defense system whose discovery ultimately led scientists to develop powerful tools capable of precisely editing DNA.

The comparison to CRISPR is particularly significant because CRISPR-based technology has transformed biological research and medicine. Scientists can use versions of the system to target specific portions of genetic material, enabling research into genetic diseases and the development of new therapies. Anthropic is not claiming that ART can presently perform the same functions, and its biological purpose remains unknown.

What makes the finding especially notable is the role played by the AI itself. Anthropic says its scientists provided Claude with broad research goals rather than directing it toward the specific enzyme system it ultimately identified. Claude examined the biological data, noticed unusual patterns, proposed candidates and helped formulate hypotheses that could then be tested experimentally.

At one stage, Claude reportedly noticed the repeated DNA sequences through direct examination of the genomic information surrounding one of the candidate enzymes. That observation helped lead researchers toward the previously uncharacterized system.

The discovery does not mean that an AI system independently operated a laboratory or conducted the entire scientific process without humans. Anthropic scientists remained involved, and physical laboratory experiments were performed by human researchers. The company’s approach is instead designed around AI agents carrying out substantial portions of the computational research and hypothesis-generation process while scientists supervise the work and perform experimental validation.

Researchers have already begun investigating whether ART actually performs the kinds of genetic manipulation suggested by its structure. Anthropic said the system contains characteristics resembling a small number of known biological mechanisms capable of manipulating genetic material, but further laboratory testing is required to establish its function.

That distinction is important. The finding remains an early-stage discovery rather than a new medical treatment or a proven replacement for CRISPR. The work has been released as a preprint and has not yet completed the traditional peer-review process, and scientists still need to determine what ART does inside bacteriophages and whether it can be harnessed or programmed for useful applications.

Still, the history of molecular biology gives researchers reason to investigate unusual systems found in bacteria and bacteriophages. CRISPR itself originated as a natural microbial defense mechanism before scientists learned how to adapt it into a programmable gene-editing technology. Other molecular tools used throughout biotechnology similarly originated in biological mechanisms that initially had no obvious medical application.

Anthropic says the experiment illustrates a larger goal: deploying increasingly capable AI agents as scientific collaborators that can search through quantities of biological information far beyond what individual researchers could reasonably examine manually.

The company’s new life-sciences laboratory is focused on precisely that approach — giving Claude access to biological datasets, allowing it to identify unexplored protein families and other potentially significant patterns, generating large numbers of hypotheses, and then testing the most promising ideas experimentally.

The implications could be substantial if systems such as ART eventually prove useful. Programmable molecular machinery can potentially become the foundation for new research tools, diagnostics, gene therapies and other medical technologies. But whether Anthropic’s newly discovered system will ultimately have any such application remains an unanswered question.

For now, the more immediate breakthrough may be the method by which it was found: an AI agent was given a broad scientific problem, searched an enormous body of genetic information and surfaced a biological system that researchers had not previously characterized — providing an early glimpse of how artificial intelligence could increasingly participate in the process of scientific discovery itself.

The U.S. military is using high-energy laser weapons in the Strait of Hormuz to destroy Iranian drones and other airborne threats, marking a significant battlefield deployment of technology that the Pentagon has spent decades trying to transform from experimental systems into practical weapons of war, according to a new report.

The laser systems are being used against Iranian military hardware, including attack drones, amid the continuing confrontation in and around the strategic waterway. Unlike the bright beams associated with science fiction, the military’s high-energy infrared lasers are invisible to the human eye. They work by concentrating energy on a precise point of a target until critical components are damaged or destroyed.

The technology offers the U.S. military a particularly important advantage against relatively inexpensive Iranian drones: cost. Traditional air-defense missiles can cost millions of dollars per interceptor, creating a major imbalance when they are fired at drones costing a small fraction of that amount. Laser systems, by contrast, rely primarily on electrical power and can engage targets at a dramatically lower cost per shot. The Defense Department says directed-energy systems can be used against drones and incoming cruise missiles “at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles.”

“We can very specifically track and target drones and put the spot exactly where we want it, [in order] to disable its sensors or kill [i.e. explode] the drone itself,” Mark Neice, president of Directed Energy Consultants, which works with the military, told the New York Post.

Laser weapons generally draw electricity from generators, batteries or a platform’s power system and convert that energy into a highly concentrated beam. Unlike conventional guns or missile launchers, they do not depend on a limited supply of physical ammunition, although their effectiveness can be affected by available power, cooling requirements, atmospheric conditions and the ability to maintain a precise line of sight to a target.

The technology has advanced significantly in recent years. The Pentagon has moved beyond treating directed-energy weapons primarily as research projects and is now preparing to field them on a much larger scale. Earlier this month, the Army awarded AeroVironment a $464.8 million contract for its Enduring-High Energy Laser program, the first U.S. Army production contract for a high-energy laser weapon system. The company is expected to supply dozens of LOCUST X3 systems over the coming years.

The LOCUST system has already emerged as one of the most operationally experienced lasers in the American arsenal. The technology has been deployed overseas since 2022 and has also been integrated onto Army vehicles.

One unusual feature of some of the military’s directed-energy systems is the way operators control them: modified video-game-style controllers are used to make the weapons relatively intuitive for troops.

“If you’ve shot a Spartan laser in ‘Halo’, you can probably fire [one of the cutting-edge weapons] in real life,” Jared Keller, a military technology journalist and author of the Laser Wars newsletter, told the New York Post.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth received a firsthand look at the technology during a June visit to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where the Pentagon demonstrated several high-energy laser and high-power microwave weapons. The demonstration included systems ranging from a 20-kilowatt LOCUST weapon to a 300-kilowatt Lockheed Martin system known as Valkyrie.

“Secretary Hegseth was able to take over a controller and shoot down a drone with, I think, a couple minutes of training,” Keller reportedly told the outlet.

Hegseth later said he watched “incoming drones and cruise missiles” get stopped “dead in their tracks.”

The Pentagon is now preparing for a major expansion of the technology. Hegseth told Congress earlier this year that the military intends to acquire “tens to hundreds” of directed-energy weapons, while the Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal includes more than $2 billion for directed-energy research, development and testing.

The Navy, meanwhile, is pushing toward the eventual deployment of laser weapons across its fleet. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said this week that directed energy could allow American warships to reserve their limited and expensive missile inventories for more dangerous threats while using electrical power to defeat drones and other lower-cost weapons.

“I don’t view directed energy as a replacement for kinetic weapons. I view it as an essential part of a layered defense that can fundamentally change our magazine-depth problem,” Caudle said.

“That changes both the economics and endurance of naval combat and allows us to preserve our most capable kinetic weapons for the threats that demand them.”

The reported use of laser weapons in the Strait of Hormuz comes as the strategically critical shipping route remains at the center of the confrontation with Iran. Tehran has restricted passage through the strait, while U.S. forces have sought to keep oil tankers and other shipping moving through the waterway. Iran has also continued employing drones and other weapons against vessels and American forces operating in the region.

For the Pentagon, the fighting is providing a real-world test of a technology pursued by the U.S. military for roughly half a century. After decades in which laser weapons repeatedly appeared to be on the verge of battlefield deployment, military leaders now say the underlying science has largely been solved and that the primary challenge is producing reliable systems in large numbers and integrating them into ships, vehicles and existing air-defense networks.

It is the end of an era for a candy that became almost as familiar at American Jewish celebrations as the events themselves: Sunkist Fruit Gems have been discontinued.

The brightly colored, individually wrapped fruit candies — a fixture for decades at aufrufs, shalom zochors, candy tables, fundraisers and countless other Jewish celebrations — were discontinued by their manufacturer effective May 1, according to a Ferrara Candy Company customer service representative quoted by eJewishPhilanthropy. Remaining supplies are now dwindling, and one longtime candy wholesaler says the once-common confection is rapidly becoming a collectible.

For generations of Jewish families, Fruit Gems occupied an unusual place in the candy world. They were inexpensive, colorful, individually wrapped and kosher, making them particularly useful for celebrations at which candy is tossed, like auf rufs.

They were also a familiar sight in mishloach manos on Purim, at fundraisers and candy sales, and on tables at Jewish organizational dinners and events.

But after more than half a century, the familiar Sunkist-branded candy is disappearing.

“They’re an iconic American candy brand,” Jon Prince, owner of CandyFavorites.com and McKeesport Candy Co., told eJewishPhilanthropy.

Prince said his company still has a small remaining supply, but the situation has changed dramatically.

“We have a very limited amount left,” he said. “They’ve gone from being a classic candy to being a collectible.”

Fruit Gems trace their history to 1955, when they were introduced by the Los Angeles-based Ben Myerson Candy Company. In 1966, the company entered into a licensing agreement with Sunkist, giving the candies the name that would become familiar to generations of consumers.

The company remained family-owned for decades before being acquired by Jelly Belly Candy Company in 2006.

Another major change came in 2023, when Ferrara Candy Company acquired Jelly Belly. Ferrara officially completed that acquisition in November 2023, bringing Jelly Belly and its other confectionery products into a sprawling candy operation whose portfolio includes Nerds, SweeTarts, Laffy Taffy, Lemonhead and other major brands.

Ferrara has continued to expand aggressively. The company reported $2.2 billion in sales for fiscal 2025 and said the integration of Jelly Belly helped support its growth strategy.

Against that backdrop, Fruit Gems did not survive.

A Ferrara customer service representative identified as Fred told eJewishPhilanthropy that the decision came down to national sales.

“Believe it or not, it’s due to lack of consumer demands across the country,” he said. “If something doesn’t perform, [the company] move[s] onto something else.”

That explanation may come as a surprise to members of the Jewish community, where the candies seemed anything but unpopular.

Prince, whose family has operated McKeesport Candy Co. since 1927, said Sunkist Fruit Gems were among his company’s best-selling products. His business sold well over 1,000 pounds of them last year alone, including large quantities to shuls for Purim and Sukkos fundraisers.

Prince said he discovered the product had been discontinued only when he attempted to place another order in August and was informed that Ferrara would no longer supply it.

“My dad always joked [that] the day comes when this job will not be as fun when you have nothing to sell,” Prince said.

Prince believes the demise of Fruit Gems reflects a larger change taking place in the American candy business as longstanding brands are consolidated under increasingly large corporate owners.

For kosher consumers, the impact can extend beyond particular candies simply disappearing. Products that remain on store shelves can also lose their kosher certification as manufacturing arrangements and production facilities change.

“Kosher food is a niche,” Prince said. “It’s a niche for a specific audience, and to that audience it’s extremely important, but to a company that is interested in quantity versus quality, it’s not so important.”

Prince pointed to other longtime candies whose kosher status has changed over the years. He said wholesalers are not necessarily notified in advance when a product loses its hechsher, sometimes discovering the change only after receiving a shipment.

“Ordering kosher candy in today’s day and age is caveat emptor, buyer beware,” he said.

That has created additional work for wholesalers such as McKeesport Candy, which was an early supplier of the candy buffets that became popular at events in the 2000s. Employees now sometimes have to inspect individual products to make certain that the candy still bears an acceptable hechsher.

The Ferrara representative told eJewishPhilanthropy that kosher status can be affected when factories introduce non-kosher products onto production lines. He advised kosher consumers to inspect the actual packaging every time they purchase candy rather than relying on photographs displayed by online retailers, which may show older packaging and outdated kosher symbols.

The disappearance of Sunkist Fruit Gems has already created an opening for competitors.

Nassau Candy announced this week that it has introduced Clever Candy Fruit Jelly Jewels specifically as an alternative as Sunkist Fruit Gems disappear from the market. The individually wrapped candies have a jelly center and sugar coating and include orange, lemon, grapefruit and lime along with cherry and blueberry. Nassau says the replacement candies are kosher, gluten-free and peanut-free.

“Jelly fruit candies have been around for a long time, but they’re getting harder and harder to come by with Sunkist Fruit Gems sundowning production,” Nassau Candy marketing executive Dana Rodio said in announcing the new product.

Prince also pointed to Sunsations fruit jelly candies as another potential replacement.

Still, for consumers who grew up with the familiar Sunkist package and its brightly colored assortment, a substitute is a substitute.

“But the Sunkist Fruit Gems as you and I know it — gone,” Prince said.

Could enough consumer outrage bring them back?

Technically, perhaps.

The Ferrara customer service representative said discontinued products can sometimes return if there is overwhelming demand nationwide. But he did not sound optimistic about Fruit Gems.

“You never know,” Fred said, “but that’s not likely.”

{Matzav.com}

Starbucks announced Thursday that it will close approximately 250 stores across the United States and Canada by the end of this week, targeting locations that the coffee giant says are either financially underperforming or unable to provide the customer experience it wants. The closures amount to roughly 1% of Starbucks’ more than 18,000 North American locations.

Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams announced the move in a letter to Starbucks employees, whom the company refers to as “partners,” saying the decision followed a detailed examination of the chain’s North American portfolio.

“We have carefully reviewed our North America coffeehouse portfolio and identified locations where we do not believe we can consistently deliver the experience we want for customers and partners or where we don’t see a path to acceptable financial performance,” Grams said.

“As a result, we will close approximately 250 coffeehouses later this week. This represents approximately 1% of our more than 18,000 North America coffeehouses,” he added.

Starbucks has not released a complete list of the locations that will be shuttered, and it was not immediately clear how many of the affected stores are in the United States versus Canada.

The announcement represents the second major round of North American store closings under CEO Brian Niccol, who has been carrying out an extensive turnaround effort known as “Back to Starbucks.” Last year, the company closed hundreds of underperforming stores as part of a restructuring that also included the elimination of approximately 900 non-retail positions.

Grams stressed that the latest closures come even as Starbucks says its overall North American business is improving. The company has been renovating stores, adjusting operations and attempting to restore the coffeehouse atmosphere that executives believe was diluted as the chain increasingly emphasized mobile orders and takeout business.

The company has already remodeled more than 1,000 stores in the United States and Canada since late 2025, adding softer seating, artwork, greenery and other features designed to encourage customers to spend more time inside its cafés. Starbucks says it is now accelerating toward completing 1,500 such store “uplifts.”

The company’s most recent quarterly results showed signs that the strategy has gained traction. Starbucks reported that U.S. comparable-store sales rose 7.9% during its fiscal third quarter, with transactions increasing 4.2%. The company had 16,933 U.S. stores at the end of the quarter, down 2% from a year earlier.

Despite those improvements, Grams said some individual stores have continued to struggle even as the broader business recovered, leading management to conclude that they should be closed.

“Closing any coffeehouse is a difficult decision, and we know today’s news will be hard for the partners, customers and communities affected,” Grams said.

Starbucks said employees at the affected stores are being contacted directly. The company plans to offer transfers to other nearby Starbucks locations whenever possible, while employees who cannot be placed elsewhere will receive severance assistance. Customers at stores being closed will also be directed to nearby locations.

The company emphasized that the closures do not represent a retreat from North America. Starbucks says it continues to develop new stores and sees significant long-term opportunities for expansion, with the chain simultaneously opening new locations while removing stores that management believes no longer make financial or operational sense.

“We’re making this decision for a simple reason: we want every Starbucks coffeehouse to be a place customers love and partners are proud to work,” Grams said.

The announcement also comes shortly after Starbucks reached a $1 million settlement with Florida over a lawsuit challenging the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion-related employment practices. Under the agreement described by Florida officials, Starbucks agreed to comply with state civil-rights requirements regarding race- and sex-based employment practices. The settlement is separate from the company’s decision to close the 250 stores.

Starbucks’ latest round of closures underscores the two-track strategy Niccol has pursued since taking over the company: spending heavily to improve stores that executives believe have strong potential while moving more aggressively to close locations that fail to meet the chain’s financial or customer-experience standards. The company says that despite this week’s closures, its broader plan remains focused on expanding its North American business.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday that the United States is imposing new visa restrictions on foreign nationals who participate in or help facilitate “birth tourism,” expanding the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent people from traveling to the United States primarily to give birth and obtain American citizenship for their children. Current State Department rules already state that birth tourism is not a permissible basis for obtaining a visitor visa.

The new policy targets not only individuals who travel to the United States for that purpose, but also people who knowingly assist or profit from such arrangements, including operators of birth-tourism networks and so-called visa fixers who help applicants evade or misrepresent their intentions under U.S. immigration rules.

“By restricting visa issuance of those who both engage in and profit from this fraud, we are sending a clear message: The United States will not allow foreigners to exploit our immigration system and violate the sanctity of U.S. citizenship,” Rubio said in a statement.

The move represents the latest step by President Donald Trump’s administration to restrict birth tourism following a major Supreme Court ruling in June concerning the scope of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. The administration subsequently issued additional executive orders in August addressing birth tourism and categories of people it says fall outside the constitutional guarantee of citizenship.

Trump had moved on his first day back in office to limit automatic birthright citizenship for certain children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present in the country. The legal battle eventually reached the Supreme Court, which issued its decision in Trump v. Barbara on June 30.

Following that ruling, the administration pursued additional measures aimed specifically at people entering the country for the purpose of giving birth. On August 6, Trump signed two executive orders dealing with birthright citizenship and birth tourism, including one directing the secretary of state and secretary of homeland security to use federal authority to combat the practice.

Rubio’s new policy uses the government’s authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict visas for foreign nationals “who knowingly engage in, have engaged in, or facilitate birth tourism to the United States.” The crackdown can encompass individuals who coach prospective travelers on how to conceal their actual purpose for entering the country.

Federal policy already prohibits the issuance of visitor visas when consular officers determine that the applicant’s primary purpose in traveling to the United States is to give birth in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for the child. Traveling to the United States for legitimate medical treatment remains permissible under the applicable visitor-visa rules.

Rubio announced the additional restrictions just hours before Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the United States for his state visit and meetings with Trump. Republican lawmakers have previously called attention to birth-tourism operations with ties to China, arguing that organized networks have helped Chinese nationals travel to the United States to give birth.

“The Trump Administration is using every tool at our disposal to defend the integrity of U.S. citizenship, protect American public benefits and U.S. taxpayers from exploitation, and safeguard our national security,” Rubio added.

The administration’s August executive order on birth tourism describes commercial operations that advertise and arrange trips for foreign nationals seeking to give birth on American soil. The order directs federal officials to take steps against individuals and organizations involved in facilitating such travel, including through immigration and visa authorities.

A separate executive order issued the same day addressed the administration’s interpretation of which U.S.-born children qualify for citizenship following the Supreme Court ruling, including cases involving foreign government personnel, designated terrorist organizations and certain commercial arrangements intended to obtain birthright citizenship.

Rubio’s announcement Wednesday puts the State Department’s visa authority behind that broader effort, allowing the administration to target not only travelers themselves but individuals accused of operating or assisting the networks that arrange birth-tourism trips to the United States.

{Matzav.com}

A federal judge on Wednesday declined to immediately overturn President Donald Trump’s ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, leaving the restrictions in place for the time being while he considers the news organizations’ request for emergency relief.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly concluded a hearing in Washington without issuing a ruling from the bench. The three organizations are seeking a temporary restraining order that would immediately restore their journalists’ White House credentials while their broader lawsuit against the Trump administration proceeds.

“I’ll consider what you’ve told me today and try to get you an answer as soon as I can,” Kelly told attorneys at the conclusion of the hearing.

Although Kelly did not grant the outlets the immediate relief they sought, his questioning during the hearing indicated significant concerns about the procedure the White House followed in revoking their access. He pointed specifically to previous federal appeals court decisions requiring procedural protections when White House press credentials are taken away.

“Before we get to any core First Amendment issues, there is a due process claim and a due process issue that seems to me the first stop in figuring out how to resolve the motion,” Kelly said during the hearing. He added that the process required under earlier court decisions “wasn’t played out here.”

CNN, MS NOW and Politico filed suit Monday after their reporters were barred from White House grounds and their credentials were deactivated. They contend that the administration targeted them because of their reporting and that the decision violates both the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of the press and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.

The dispute began after Trump announced Friday that the three organizations would no longer be permitted inside the White House, accusing them of publishing “FICTION and LIES.” Reporters from the organizations were subsequently denied entry, and CNN was also removed from its scheduled role in the television press pool.

The Trump administration has defended the action, telling the court that “Access to the White House is a privilege – not a right.” Justice Department attorneys maintain that the president has broad authority to determine which journalists receive access to the White House complex.

The administration has also cited national security concerns, arguing that reporting by the three organizations included sensitive or classified information. Among the examples cited were CNN reporting concerning construction related to an underground facility at the White House, MS NOW reporting concerning an alleged leak investigation, and Politico reporting containing details about security expenditures connected to the White House ballroom project.

The news organizations dispute the administration’s rationale and say they were punished because the president objected to their journalism.

Their attorney, Theodore Boutrous, told Kelly that the organizations received no meaningful advance notice or opportunity to challenge the decision before their credentials were revoked.

“By ejecting and banning the plaintiffs from the White House without a semblance of due process here, defendants have imposed what really amounts to an unprecedented, unreasonable and severe punishment,” Boutrous said.

Kelly appeared particularly interested in the timing of letters the administration sent the organizations explaining alleged violations of White House standards. Those letters came after their access had already been revoked.

“I don’t know how a letter that they got after the pass was revoked could provide them with the notice of the kind of standards that they would have to conform their conduct to, since it’s a piece of paper they got saying, ‘You’ve already violated this,’” Kelly said.

The judge is himself a Trump appointee, having been nominated to the federal bench in 2017. He also presided over a closely watched White House press-access dispute in 2018, when he ordered the temporary restoration of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials.

The current controversy has prompted a broader response from the White House press corps. Major television networks suspended their rotating television pool coverage after CNN was prevented from fulfilling an assigned pool duty, while dozens of news organizations have backed the three outlets in court.

For now, however, CNN, MS NOW and Politico remain barred from the White House. Kelly did not indicate precisely when he will issue his ruling, saying only that he would consider the arguments presented Wednesday and deliver a decision as soon as possible.

[Video below.] President Donald Trump personally welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States on Wednesday evening, meeting him on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews as the Chinese leader began a three-day state visit expected to include major discussions on trade, artificial intelligence, fentanyl, Taiwan and other points of tension between Washington and Beijing.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were waiting at the Maryland military base when Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, arrived shortly before 6 p.m. A red carpet was rolled out beside the Chinese leader’s aircraft, with a military band and ceremonial display accompanying the welcome.

The decision by Trump to meet Xi at the airport was a departure from the usual protocol, under which visiting foreign leaders are generally greeted by the president at the White House. Reuters reported that, according to C-SPAN’s presidential-event records, it was the first time since President Barack Obama welcomed Pope Francis in 2015 that a U.S. president personally greeted a foreign visitor at Joint Base Andrews.

Trump stood near the bottom of the aircraft steps as Xi emerged, and the two leaders shook hands before speaking briefly. Trump then escorted his Chinese counterpart along the red carpet as the welcoming ceremony continued.

The airport reception opened a state visit that will shift to the White House on Thursday, where Trump and Xi are scheduled to hold private talks. A formal arrival ceremony and military review are also planned, followed by a state dinner Thursday evening.

Xi’s trip marks his first visit to Washington in a decade and the third face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Trump returned to the White House. They previously met in South Korea in October 2025 and in Beijing this past May.

The talks are expected to cover a broad range of disputes between the world’s two largest economies, including tariffs, the supply of rare-earth minerals, restrictions involving advanced technology, artificial intelligence, Taiwan and the flow of chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl. Iran is also expected to figure in the discussions.

Trade will be among the most closely watched issues. Washington and Beijing pulled back from the escalating tariff battle that erupted last year, but significant economic disputes remain. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that he and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng had agreed to extend a trade truce that had been scheduled to expire November 10 by another two months, through January 10.

The Trump administration has also continued pressing Beijing to do more to curb the supply of precursor chemicals used by Mexican cartels to manufacture fentanyl. China announced this week that it would require export permits for two additional drug precursor chemicals shipped to the United States, Mexico and Canada, bringing the number of substances covered by those controls to 18.

Despite those steps, a senior U.S. official said ahead of Xi’s arrival that Washington remains dissatisfied with China’s response.

“It does not appear that China has elevated this issue,” the official said. “China is the overwhelming, predominant supplier of precursor chemicals to the cartels in Mexico and remains so. And they have done a number of anecdotal things, including a few arrests recently, but we’d like to see much more systemic change.”

Technology is another major source of friction. The United States has maintained restrictions on exports of advanced technology that could assist China’s development of artificial intelligence and other sensitive capabilities, while Beijing has used its dominant position in rare-earth minerals as leverage in its economic dealings with Washington.

Taiwan is also expected to arise during the meetings. Beijing claims the self-governing island as Chinese territory, while U.S. policy toward Taiwan and American arms sales to the island remain a longstanding source of tension between the two governments.

Trump and Xi have maintained a complicated personal and political relationship over the years, alternating between cordial public encounters and periods of intense confrontation between their governments. Their relationship deteriorated significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 before entering another turbulent period during the more recent U.S.-China trade confrontation.

Trump has frequently cited his personal relationship with Xi as an important component of his approach to China. He has also repeatedly recalled Xi’s 2017 visit to Mar-a-Lago, when Trump informed the Chinese leader over dessert that the United States had just carried out missile strikes against Syria.

“We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump remembered afterward. “He was eating his cake. And he was silent.”

Xi’s current visit will continue through Friday. China’s Foreign Ministry has described the reciprocal visits by Trump and Xi over the past six months as being of “historic, milestone significance,” while saying Beijing hopes the meetings will strengthen dialogue and allow the two countries to manage their differences.

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{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the G20 summit in Miami this December, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Wednesday, potentially setting the stage for another face-to-face encounter between the two leaders as the war in Ukraine continues.

Rubio disclosed the invitation after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He said the administration sees the gathering as an opportunity for Putin to communicate directly with Trump as well as other international leaders.

“We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president, but with other world leaders,” Rubio told reporters. “We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept.”

The invitation represents another effort by the Trump administration to maintain direct diplomatic contact with Moscow while seeking a resolution to the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has not yet announced whether Putin will make the trip. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Moscow appreciated the invitation and would consider it through diplomatic channels.

If Putin accepts, it would mark his first in-person appearance at a G20 summit since 2019 and his second trip to the United States since President Trump returned to the White House.

The outreach comes as the fighting in Ukraine continues, with little indication that Russia is preparing to end its military operations.

Russian forces launched drone attacks on Kyiv early Wednesday, leaving at least two people dead and striking major infrastructure, according to reports.

Rubio defended the administration’s decision to continue engaging with Russian officials despite the ongoing hostilities, arguing that diplomacy requires conversations between governments that have serious disagreements.

“If you only meet with people that you agree with, then these are very nice meetings, but nothing happens,” Rubio said. “In order to solve problems, you have to meet with people that you disagree with or the people that you might have some issues with.”

Trump’s invitation to Putin follows a series of efforts by the administration aimed at altering both the military and economic dynamics surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war.

In recent weeks, Trump has urged Ukraine to stop targeting Russian oil refineries, arguing that the attacks have contributed to higher gasoline prices around the world.

Earlier this month, Trump announced an agreement under which Russia and Ukraine would refrain from attacking energy targets. That understanding has not halted such strikes, however, with both sides continuing attacks on energy infrastructure.

Putin’s most recent visit to the United States came in August 2025, when he traveled to Alaska for talks with Trump. The two leaders were greeted at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson before holding discussions focused largely on efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

The Alaska summit did not produce an agreement ending the conflict, and fighting continued afterward. The December G20 summit in Miami could now provide another opportunity for direct discussions if Putin accepts Trump’s invitation.

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu visited Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Yerushalayim on Wednesday evening to meet with the family of Neria Leiter, the son of Israel’s ambassador to the United States, who remains in critical condition after being seriously wounded in a terrorist car-ramming attack on Route 443.

Netanyahu made the hospital visit shortly before departing Israel for New York, where he is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly.

During the visit, Netanyahu asked the public to daven for Neria, whose name for tefillah is Neria Dov ben Chana. The prime minister subsequently wrote that he and his wife, Sara, were joining Jews throughout Israel in praying for a miracle.

Neria, an IDF reservist, was critically wounded when a Palestinian terrorist rammed a vehicle into security personnel at the Maccabim checkpoint on Route 443. According to Israeli authorities, Neria was serving alongside a police officer as part of a joint operation when he was struck. Security forces at the scene shot and killed the attacker.

He suffered a severe head injury and was evacuated unconscious to Shaare Zedek, where he was sedated and placed on a ventilator.

Shaare Zedek announced later Wednesday that Neria underwent several hours of complex emergency brain surgery as well as additional lifesaving procedures. Although doctors succeeded in stabilizing his condition, he remains critically injured and his life is still in danger.

“Multidisciplinary medical teams – including surgical and intensive care specialists – continue to deliver life-saving care, while our social work department remains actively engaged in supporting his family,” hospital officials said.

Neria is the son of Chana and Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to Washington. Ambassador Leiter was returning to Israel to be with his son and canceled plans to accompany Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly.

The Leiter family has already suffered a devastating loss during the war. Neria’s older brother, Maj. Moshe Yedidya Leiter, a father of six, was killed while fighting in Gaza in November 2023. Despite his brother’s death, Neria continued serving in the IDF reserves, completing hundreds of days of reserve duty on multiple fronts since October 7.

Ambassador Leiter appealed to the public to continue saying Tehillim and davening for his son.

“I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe that when the people of Israel unite, miracles happen. Neria needs a miracle,” Leiter said.

The public is asked to continue davening for Neria Dov ben Chana.

{Matzav.com}

[Video below.] Argentine President Javier Milei delivered a blistering broadside against the United Nations from the General Assembly podium on Wednesday, accusing the organization of abandoning its founding principles and becoming a bloated bureaucracy that fails to confront dictatorships and terrorism while attempting to dictate how democratic societies should operate. His approximately 19-minute address also focused heavily on Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas, and touched on Israel, the COVID-19 pandemic and artificial intelligence.

Milei began by acknowledging the ideals upon which the UN was established, describing its commitment to peaceful conflict resolution and universal freedom and human dignity as “noble words.” He quickly pivoted, however, declaring that “today, regrettably, it is time to acknowledge that, in practice, that sacred covenant has been broken.”

He then delivered one of the sharpest attacks on the institution heard during this year’s General Assembly.

“That’s to say, it has become a useless organization whose only purpose is to sustain a caste of fatally arrogant parasites masquerading as well-intentioned bureaucrats,” Milei charged.

Milei pointed to the UN system’s role during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of what he views as international institutions exceeding their legitimate authority. He also criticized what he described as the organization’s promotion of the “gender agenda, environmental extremism and unchecked immigration.”

“During the pandemic, bodies under the auspices of this house put themselves before scientific evidence and the sovereignty of nations and promoted forced lockdown policies throughout the world.

“Where some allege a public health policy error, we see a global experiment in social control disguised as science. And when a state wearing public health blinkers deprives its population of the right to work, to receive an education and to bid farewell to their dead, this results in millions of avoidable deaths; there is a word for it, genocide.”

That characterization represents Milei’s own assessment of pandemic-era policies, rather than an established finding that COVID lockdown policies constituted genocide.

Milei argued that the organization has repeatedly responded to its failures by expanding the same policies and structures rather than reconsidering them, charging that “every time [the U.N.] failed, rather than reviewing the model or apologizing, they doubled down.”

He then turned to the UN’s record on international security and human rights, accusing it of failing to confront violent regimes and terrorist organizations.

“Those who were supposed to guarantee collective security and human rights failed in their task. They allowed chaos, violence and international terrorism to flourish,” he said.

Milei also singled out the UN’s treatment of Israel, accusing the international body of applying a double standard while failing to adequately confront Islamic terrorism and persecution of Christians.

“The alleged defenders of human rights have sheltered bloodthirsty dictatorships and regimes that stone women in the streets; they have systematically voted against Israel while remaining silent in the face of Islamic terrorism and the genocide of Christians in Africa.”

Argentina’s government has positioned itself as a close diplomatic ally of both Israel and the United States under Milei, and the president reiterated that alignment during Wednesday’s address.

A major portion of Milei’s speech dealt with Argentina’s longstanding sovereignty dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands, known to Argentines as the Malvinas. Argentina claims sovereignty over the British-administered islands, whose residents voted overwhelmingly in a 2013 referendum to remain a British overseas territory. Milei accused the UN of failing to produce meaningful progress toward resolving the dispute.

“And if that were not enough, an organization established to defend the territorial sovereignty of its members decided to look the other way with regard to the situation of the Malvinas [Falkland] Islands, South Georgia Islands, South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime areas.”

Milei argued that the decades-old dispute illustrates a broader gap between resolutions adopted by international organizations and their practical effect.

He said the islands “are a test of the gulf that exists between the words of international institutions and the reality upon which they purport to act.”

“There’s no shortage of words or resolutions; what is lacking is consequences,” he asserted. “Because an institution that cannot ensure that its words carry weight in the real world loses the most important thing of all, its authority.”

Milei renewed Argentina’s call for negotiations with Britain over sovereignty and said Buenos Aires would no longer simply wait for international institutions to resolve the matter. He also warned companies involved in extracting natural resources around the disputed islands that Argentina intends to take action against activities it regards as unauthorized.

Beyond the Falklands dispute, Milei argued that the UN has expanded far beyond the limited role envisioned when it was created, saying it has “built a bureaucratic leviathan devoted to deciding how the peoples of the world and their citizens should live.”

He characterized the result as an international system that, in his view, is simultaneously ineffective against regimes and organizations that violate basic norms while becoming increasingly intrusive toward countries that follow them.

“This amounts to a curious mixture of anarchy and tyranny, impotence in the face of those who break the most basic rules, such as bloodthirsty dictatorships and terrorist organizations coupled with Orwellian control and impositions on liberal democracies that abide by the rules.”

Milei also invoked Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, one of the intellectual figures whose free-market philosophy has heavily influenced his political and economic outlook.

Referencing Mises, Milei said, “I would remind them of what Mises said, ‘Good people do not think about controlling the lives of their fellow human beings.’”

The Argentine president’s speech marked his third appearance before the UN General Assembly since taking office. While much of Wednesday’s address was devoted to attacking what he sees as the UN’s institutional failures, Milei also used the occasion to reiterate his government’s free-market philosophy, its alignment with the United States and Israel, and its opposition to increased government regulation of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

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{Matzav.com}

[Video below.] Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian used a wartime address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday to portray Iran as a victim of American and Israeli aggression, while insisting that Tehran remains willing to pursue diplomacy with the United States without yielding to what he described as coercion.

During his address, Pezeshkian displayed large photographs of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and more than 150 Iranian schoolchildren who were killed during the opening days of the war.

“We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists,” Pezeshkian said at the General Assembly. “Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country. And we defended ourselves with utmost strength. America and Israel attacked us.”

Turning specifically to the United States, Pezeshkian declared: “Yes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee.”

Pezeshkian later addressed President Donald Trump directly, saying Tehran remains prepared for negotiations but will not accept demands delivered through threats.

“It must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force,” he said.

Pezeshkian also asserted: “We did not hit civilian populations.” That claim conflicts with documented civilian deaths resulting from Iranian attacks during the war, including mariners and migrant workers killed in the region.

The Iranian president arrived in New York amid extensive security and scrutiny, one day after President Trump addressed the same gathering and warned that Iran could face devastating consequences if an agreement is not reached to end the nearly seven-month conflict.

Hours after Trump’s UN address, U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner communicated with Iranian representatives through mediators on the sidelines of the General Assembly. The discussions lasted roughly three hours, according to reports.

Trump subsequently offered an upbeat but limited assessment of the contact.

“It was a very good meeting,” Trump said.

He later noted that the Iranian representatives involved were “not the highest level, but it’s something.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said Tuesday that President Trump was open to meeting Pezeshkian while the Iranian leader was in New York, although no such meeting had been scheduled at that point.

Iranian officials, however, sought to play down the significance of the exchange, which marked the first indirect contact between American and Iranian officials since the collapse of a ceasefire in July.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei maintained Tehran’s negotiating demands, including calls for Washington to end restrictions affecting Iranian ports and release frozen Iranian assets.

Baghaei characterized the discussions, which were conducted indirectly with Qatari mediation, as “not anything new.”

Pezeshkian’s UN appearance provided a broader indication of Tehran’s position after more than a year of intermittent negotiations between the United States and Iran failed to produce a lasting agreement. His speech also came as attacks continued intermittently around the Strait of Hormuz and commercial shipping remained disrupted by the conflict.

The Iranian leader’s appearance at last year’s General Assembly came only months after the 12-day Israel-Iran war, during which numerous senior Iranian military and political figures were killed and negotiations between Tehran and Washington again broke down.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you all bore witness that this past June, my country was subjected to a savage aggression and flagrant contravention of the most elementary principles of international law,” Pezeshkian said at the time.

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{Matzav.com}

Israeli Defense Minister Yisroel Katz issued a sharp response Wednesday to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa after the Syrian leader used his address at the United Nations General Assembly to assert Syria’s claim to the Golan Heights.

During his UN speech, al-Sharaa declared that “the Golan will remain Syrian territory.” Katz responded by rejecting the Syrian president’s assertion and reiterating Israel’s position regarding the Golan.

“My clear answer to the Syrian President who made loud declarations in the UN: the Golan Heights is under Israeli sovereignty; it is an integral part of the State of Israel forever,” Katz declared.

The defense minister also addressed Israel’s military presence on Mount Hermon and inside the security zone in Syria, saying Israel would not return to the arrangements that existed before the fall of the Assad regime.

“We will not withdraw from Mount Hermon and the security zones that were conquered in 1973 and given over in the Disengagement Agreement in 1974 under conditions which were violated when Syria became an Iranian base and threat on our borders.”

Katz said the IDF’s move into the Syrian side of Mount Hermon and the security zone following the collapse of the Assad government was intended to prevent threats from developing along Israel’s border. He said Israeli forces would remain there as long as Israel believes such threats persist.

“With the fall of Assad, the IDF entered the summit of Mount Hermon and the security zone in Syria to prevent your and your supporters’ Jihadist threats against the State of Israel. The IDF will remain there as long as there is a Jihadist threat on the border and the Israeli communities, be it from your security forces or other Jihadist groups and organizations in Syria.”

Katz concluded with a warning to Damascus that Israel would respond if Israeli forces or Israeli territory came under attack from Syria, and said territory captured during such a response would not subsequently be relinquished.

“If they attack our forces or the territory of the State of Israel within Syria, we will have to act and respond, and any territory we take this time will remain ours forever, in accordance with the laws of war. We will not allow Syria to become a threat to the State of Israel, and we will act to prevent this when necessary.”

[COMMUNICATED]

by Rabbi Eliezer Sandler

The concept of the Yissachar-Zevulun Torah Learning Pact goes back well over 3,500 years, to the time of Yaakov Avinu and his sons. It is named for the Torah pact between two of his sons – Yissachar the scholar and Zevulun the merchant. Not only was it an equal pact but, Chazal explained, the deed of Zevulun/the Sponsor is considered even greater than that of Yissachar, because without the support of Zevulun, Yissachar would not have had the wherewithal to study Torah undisturbed.”

It is well-known that when it comes to learning Torah, people who sponsor the learning, often do so, not just as a donation. By financially supporting specific Torah scholars, they enter into a binding, written, signed and sealed learning partnership pact whereby the Sponsor (the Zevulun) is deemed by Halacha as if he personally studied the Torah completed by the Scholar (the Yissachar). (See below.) 

Thus, those who support the Talmidei Chachomim at Shas Yiden via a Yissachar-Zevulun Pact merit a portion in every daf of the entire Talmud Bavli and associated texts that they study, and complete the entire cycle in the space of ONE year. Some of the Sponsors opt to continue sponsoring repeat cycles of Shas which accrue to them.

Sar Hatorah, Maran Hagaon Harav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l, Nasi Shas Yiden, emphasized: The most mehudar Yissachar-Zevulun pact to support in our times is that offered by Shas Yiden – it comprises the entire Shas, Rashi and Tosfos – all in just one year!

Rav Chaim explained why this pact with Shas Yiden is the most mehudar. Chazal say that the highest level of learning is when one understands what he is learning b’iyun u’ve’amkus. However, even higher than that is when one remembers b’al peh all what he has learned. I have farhered the Shas Yiden avreichim geonim many times and can attest ZEI KENNEN SHAS (they know Shas)!

YES! YOU CAN MAKE
your OWN SIYUM on the ENTIRE
Shas, Rashi & Tosfos
IN JUST ONE YEAR!

The Yissachar-Zevulun Pact in Halacha

The Shulchan Aruch in Yoreh De’ah Chapter 246 regarding the efficacy of the Yissachar-Zevulun Sponsorship Pact for the Zevulun (the Sponsor) states clearly:  It is deemed as if he (the one sponsoring the learning) himself learned all the Torah studied under the pact. 

All the learning under the Shas Yiden Yissachar-Zevulun Pact is yours בעוה”ז ובעוה”ב (in both This World and the World to Come)! Concerning this, the Netziv of Volozhin comments that in Olam Habah, the Zevulun sponsor will sit together with the Gedolei Torah of the past and merit to participate in their discussions and pilpulim on all the Torah learned.

Achieve Almost 7 million Mitzvos in One Year

The Vilna Gaon in Shnos Eliyahu Pe’ah 41 states that one should hold precious every word of Torah that he learns because each word is considered a mitzvah of its own. 

Thus, since in Talmud Bavli, Rashi and Tosfos there are 6,608,891 words, that translates into almost 7 million mitzvos accruing through Yissachar-Zevulun at Shas Yiden. 

Official Shtar from Shas Yiden

Each Yissachar-Zevulun pact is confirmed by an official contract (shtar) from Shas Yiden specifying the learning of the entire Shas, and is witnessed by talmidei chachomim.

All who wish to enter into a Yissachar-Zevulun Pact for the entire Shas during ONE year should contact Shas Yiden to make arrangements: 718-702-1528.

The opportunity to complete the entire Shas has been a cherished way to honor family members and others as a prized achievement. It has also proven to be a source of comfort for mourners to obtain such a zechus for their dear ones during the year of mourning – a siyum of the entire Shas can be completed on the yahrzeit!

Yissachar-Zevulun Pact – Beyond the Grave

The legendary visionary and “Father of Yeshivos”, Reb Chaim of Volozhin, was the founder of the famous yeshiva in the town of Volozhin and the beloved talmid of the Vilna Gaon. 

Reb Chaim had an ongoing Yissachar-Zevulun pact with a local shoemaker – a man who was not learned but who dearly valued Torah learning. They had a ‘deal’ whereby the shoemaker would pay the monthly financial support needed for Reb Chaim and his family. For this financial support, the shoemaker would have an equal share in all Reb Chaim’s daily Torah study – both in the mitzvah of Torah study בעוה”ז and that the knowledge of the Torah learned would continue to be his בעוה”ב (in the World to Come).

One day the shoemaker passed away suddenly. During the shiva period, Reb Chaim was facing a perplexing halachic question and researched high and low for a solution. That night the shoemaker appeared to him in a dream and gave him the full solution that he sought. Reb Chaim was amazed and commented, “Azoi gich, Azoi Gich – So quickly, so quickly has he acquired the zchus and knowledge of the Torah that I have studied!”

In the words of Gedolei Torah:

Maran Hagaon Harav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l, Nasi Shas Yiden:

“In just ONE year, through Yissachar-Zevulun at Shas Yiden, you can be zoche to the entire Shas forever – בעוה”ז ובעוה”ב (in olam hazeh and olam habah).

“Moreover, whoever supports Shas Yiden is zocheh to fulfill both Yissachar-Zevulun and support of aniyei (the poor of) Eretz Yisroel in the fullest sense of the word.

“Those who support Shas Yiden will be saved from chevlei (the travails of) Moshiach – spiritually and materially, and will be zoche to have ehrlicher bonim u’vanos yir’eishomayim ”

Maran Hagaon Harav Dov Lando, shlit”a, Rosh Yeshiva, Slabodka:

“Who compares to the Shas Yiden? Incredible talmidei chachomim geonim who raised the bar in limud Hashas b’iyun u’v’amkus. Blessed are those who enter a Yissachar-Zevulun pact with them.”

Hamashpia Hagadol Reb Meilech Biederman, shlit”a:

 “Yissachar-Zevulun at Shas Yiden – best possible deal, and in just 1 year! 100% partnership! 100% Shas x 5 times! 100% Shisha Sidrei Mishna – בעוה”ז ובעוה”ב”

Sanzer Rebbe, shlit”a:

“A first in 2000 years of Jewish history! Until Shas Yiden, never a Torah institution where ALL the avreichim metzuyonim v’geonim know the entire Shas by heart”

Maran Hagaon Harav Yaakov Hillel, shlit”a:

“Therefore, the great mitzvah to support the efforts [of the Talmidei Chachomim] with generous donations in order that they should continue diligently with their studies to enhance the greatness of the Torah and its glory. 

ShasYiden.com

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is expected to spend only seven hours on American soil during his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, following recommendations from senior security officials that he keep the visit as brief as possible due to specific security warnings.

According to a Channel 13 report, senior security officials met with Netanyahu ahead of the trip and strongly advised him to sharply curtail the amount of time he spends in the United States because of concrete warnings connected to the visit.

Under the current itinerary, Netanyahu’s plane is expected to land in New Jersey. He will then travel directly to United Nations headquarters in Manhattan to deliver his address before returning to the airport and departing for Israel shortly afterward.

The unusually brief trip comes amid heightened security surrounding this year’s UN General Assembly, with thousands of NYPD officers deployed across New York City as world leaders gather for the annual session.

Netanyahu’s arrival also comes amid a public dispute with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister. Mamdani had previously spoken about having Netanyahu arrested if he came to New York, but acknowledged in July that New York City does not have the independent legal authority to enforce the warrant.

During an interview with CNN this week, Mamdani was asked whether he regretted his earlier comments about arresting Netanyahu. He responded: “When it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, I have described him as I believe him to be a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people.” Mamdani also reiterated that New York City lacks the legal authority to carry out the ICC warrant.

Netanyahu responded publicly to Mamdani’s criticism.

“Shame on you for supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people. Shame on you for inciting riots against New York Jews.”

Netanyahu also said he intended to use his appearance before the UN General Assembly to respond to criticism of Israel and its military.

“I’m coming to the UN. I’m going to tell the truth about our heroic soldiers, and I’m going to tell the truth about you.”

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter was on his way to a media interview in New York on Wednesday when he received the devastating news that his son, Neria, had been critically wounded in a terrorist attack, according to Israeli Embassy spokesperson Tal Naim, who was with him at the time.

Naim, the spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, described the episode as one of the most difficult moments she has experienced during her three years serving in the position.

The two were in New York for a series of media appearances connected to the United Nations General Assembly when word reached Leiter about his son.

“Being the spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington over the past three years has been one of the most challenging and demanding experiences of my life,” Naim wrote. “It has meant navigating crisis after crisis, and facing moments I never could have imagined.”

“One of the hardest came this morning.”

According to Naim, she and the ambassador were traveling to another interview about the UN General Assembly when Leiter learned what had happened.

“I was with Ambassador Yechiel Leiter in New York, on our way to an interview about the UNGA, when he received the devastating news that his son, Neria, had been injured in a terror attack,” she wrote.

“Just moments earlier, we had been preparing for a full day of interviews.”

Naim pointed to the painful timing of remarks Leiter had made during his final interview before learning of his son’s condition. During that appearance, he had discussed the losses endured by Israeli families during the war.

Speaking with Newsmax, Leiter explained that Israel had chosen to deploy soldiers on the ground rather than depend solely on widespread aerial bombardment, a decision that he said had resulted in Israeli families losing their children.

“We sent in our troops on the ground to prevent mass bombings, we lost our children because of this, and still get accused of committing a genocide,” Leiter said.

Naim said those words were spoken at approximately the same time that the terrorist attack in which Neria was wounded was occurring.

The attack marked another devastating ordeal for a family that has already suffered the loss of a son during the war. Leiter’s eldest son, Maj. (res.) Moshe Yedidya Leiter, was killed in combat in the northern Gaza Strip nearly three years ago.

“The Ambassador has already endured the unimaginable loss of his eldest son, Moshe, who was killed in Gaza almost three years ago,” she wrote.

Neria, an IDF reservist who returned to military service even after his brother was killed, was critically wounded in Wednesday’s ramming attack in Binyamin. He was rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Yerushalayim, where medical teams are working to save his life.

After receiving the news, Ambassador Leiter canceled the remainder of his planned appearances in New York and began traveling back to Israel to be with his son and family.

Naim ended her account by asking the public to join in prayer for Neria and the Leiter family.

“Please keep Neria, and the entire Leiter family, in your thoughts and prayers.”

The Board of Peace on Wednesday presented an ambitious six-month recovery initiative for Gaza that calls for 66 separate projects totaling an estimated $2.45 billion, covering everything from housing, hospitals and utilities to security, employment and digital infrastructure.

The proposal was unveiled on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly and is designed to move forward once sufficient funding is secured and access conditions permit. The projects are divided among six areas: infrastructure development, human development, economic acceleration, digital transformation, legal recovery, and peace and security.

Nickolay E. Mladenov said the new proposal represents a significant transition from developing a framework for Gaza to putting concrete projects into operation.

“A year ago we had no framework, no roadmap, and no Palestinian-led National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) ready to assume responsibility in Gaza. Today we have all three,” he said.

According to Mladenov, the projects are no longer merely conceptual and have already been priced and prepared for implementation.

“66 costed programmes, around US$2.45bn, ready to begin the moment funding and access allow,” he said, pointing to plans involving housing, water supplies, medical facilities, schools, electricity, roads and employment, with Gazan engineers and contractors expected to carry out much of the work.

“Not a wish list, a plan,” he added.

Infrastructure Development represents the largest portion of the proposal, with 24 programs carrying an estimated combined price tag of $1.205 billion. Approximately $400 million would go toward humanitarian shelters, including assistance provided in kind, while roughly $275 million is designated for debris removal and the handling of unexploded ordnance.

Another approximately $100 million would support public transportation, while an estimated $78 million is earmarked for repairing partially damaged homes. The rehabilitation of five additional hospitals is expected to cost approximately $67 million.

Other projects in the infrastructure category include additional hospital repairs, diesel generators and fuel supplies, reconstruction of road networks, establishment of a warehouse and logistics area, restoration of water and sanitation services, solar energy installations, desalination facilities, garbage removal, municipal services, border-crossing infrastructure, repairs to electricity transmission systems, and rehabilitation of Gaza’s fishing and port fleets.

The Human Development portion of the plan consists of 17 programs valued at approximately $303 million. Among the largest expenditures are approximately $80 million for winterization efforts, including in-kind assistance, and about $50 million for an immediate healthcare response.

The plan also allocates approximately $45 million toward the release of higher-education certificates, while a household purchasing-assistance pilot program and a back-to-school initiative are each budgeted at approximately $40 million.

Other initiatives in this category would provide for medical evacuations and treatment outside Gaza, assistance for schools serving children with special needs, mobile and prefabricated healthcare facilities, educational opportunities abroad, compensation for lost years of education, restoration of basic religious services, recovery of Waqf property, work involving the Omari Mosque and Porphyrius Church, scholarships, packages of essential goods and prepared meals.

Seven projects comprise the Economic Acceleration section, with an estimated overall cost of approximately $35 million. They include efforts to restore supply chains, a food-security pilot program, grants for small and medium-sized businesses, a lease-to-own initiative for heavy construction machinery, creation of a Gaza technology park and regional production park, and establishment of a Gaza Peace and Investment Fund.

Another six projects, costing an estimated $17 million, fall under Digital Transformation. Those plans include introduction of digital identification, 4G cellular connectivity, pilot programs for online education and healthcare, data-center and cloud-storage infrastructure, and a digital-payment system.

The Legal cluster is considerably smaller financially and centers on an integrated program for restoring Gaza’s justice system, at a projected cost of less than $10 million.

Peace and Security accounts for another major portion of the proposed spending, with 11 programs expected to cost at least approximately $885 million. An Interior Commission facility and a mission-support site in Rafah are each projected to cost approximately $275 million.

The proposal additionally allocates roughly $140 million for mobilizing an International Stabilization Force and approximately $120 million for police mobilization. Other components include logistical assistance, a weapons decommissioning program, transferring management of crossings, police facilities, local trust and reconciliation committees, a community radio outlet, and transitional payments for civil servants. Some of those initiatives have not yet received final cost estimates.

The document cautions that the financial figures are preliminary. The amounts are described as rough estimates for a phased six-month activation period and are intended for discussion rather than representing a finalized budget.

Addressing what would be required for implementation, Mladenov said the next steps “must be careful and verifiable,” while calling for commitments reached at Sharm el-Sheikh to be honored and for improved humanitarian access, particularly as winter approaches.

Mladenov also said an International Stabilization Force and vetted police officers would have to deploy, weapons would need to be decommissioned, and reconstruction efforts would have to proceed on a large scale.

He characterized the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza as “a bridge, not a permanent administration,” while urging international partners to support the committee’s plans and use their influence with the various parties involved.

“None of this is easy,” Mladenov said. “Nobody has ever attempted what we are doing in Gaza. Not in this conflict and not anywhere else. There will be setbacks and weeks when progress is slow. But a year ago this was an idea on paper. Today it is a plan, with people ready to carry it out.”

Shareholders of The New York Times Company have gone to court seeking access to internal corporate documents concerning the newspaper’s reporting on Israel and the war against Hamas, as well as records showing how the Times applied and enforced its own editorial standards.

The case was filed in New York State Supreme Court in New York County by the State Board of Administration of Florida, which oversees assets that include Florida’s public pension funds, together with the National Center for Public Policy Research. Both plaintiffs own shares in The New York Times Company.

The Free Press reported that the shareholders are asking a judge to require the Times’ board of directors to produce a collection of internal documents, a significant portion of which concern the newspaper’s coverage of Israel and the ongoing war with Hamas.

According to the plaintiffs, the requested material is intended to help them determine whether the Times followed its established journalistic policies, particularly its rules governing factual accuracy and the correction of mistakes.

The lawsuit states that the shareholders have been trying to obtain the documents for roughly four months, but The New York Times Company has thus far declined to turn them over.

Among the matters referenced in the court filing are allegations made by a former Jewish Times employee who spent nearly a decade working on the newspaper’s video desk.

According to the lawsuit, the former employee complained on at least 15 occasions between 2019 and her departure from the Times in March 2026 about what she believed was antisemitism and anti-Israel bias within the organization.

The filing says those concerns were brought to several levels within the company, including managers, officials responsible for editorial standards and the Times’ human resources department.

The allegations contained in the shareholders’ lawsuit have not been adjudicated by the court.

At this point, the plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages based on the Times’ reporting about Israel or its coverage of the war against Hamas. Their lawsuit instead seeks access to company records that they contend are necessary to investigate the newspaper’s conduct, its editorial oversight and whether it complied with its stated standards.

The shareholders are asking the court to order The New York Times Company to provide the requested internal records.