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Pope Francis, the first pontiff from South America, has passed away at the age of 88.

The Vatican’s camerlengo, Cardinal Kevin Farrell — who assumes temporary authority during the transition between popes — announced the pontiff’s death on Monday after an extended illness brought on by double pneumonia.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936, Francis was the oldest of five siblings. His father, Mario Bergoglio, was an accountant from Italy who emigrated to Argentina to escape Mussolini’s fascist rule, according to Vatican records. His mother, Regina Maria Sivori, descended from a Catholic family also originally from Italy.

As a young man, Bergoglio worked various odd jobs, including as a custodian, nightclub bouncer, and lab technician, before pursuing religious life and becoming a priest in 1969. In 1998, he was named archbishop of Buenos Aires, and in 2001, he was elevated to cardinal by Pope John Paul II. Within the Curia, he held important responsibilities and developed a strong reputation. At the 2001 Synod, he took over a leading role from Cardinal Edward Michael Egan, who remained in New York following the 9/11 attacks. His performance during the synod left a strong impression on his fellow cardinals.

During the 2005 conclave that led to the election of Pope Benedict XVI, Bergoglio reportedly finished second in every round of voting, coming close to ascending the papacy at 68.

When Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013 — the first resignation of its kind since 1415 — Bergoglio emerged as a favored choice to usher in reform and transparency within the scandal-hit Church.

On February 28, 2013, the conclave selected him to lead the Catholic world. He chose the name Francis to pay tribute to St. Francis of Assisi.

Elected at 76, Francis dealt with multiple health challenges throughout his leadership, leading to speculation at times that he might voluntarily step down — something he never did, although he acknowledged the possibility.

{Matzav.com}

WH Press Sec. Karoline Leavitt shuts down the Fake News about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth: “The President stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon.”

LEE ZELDIN: “We have to both protect the environment and grow the economy. It’s what the American people are demanding… they want us to make sure that we are applying common sense.”

DHL Express will halt deliveries of packages valued at $800 or more to the U.S. due to increased customs and import complexities stemming from new global tariffs introduced by U.S. President Donald J. Trump.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir flew to the US overnight Sunday for an official visit to the US. Ben-Gvir was boycotted by the Biden administration [along with Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich], and this is his first official visit to the US since taking office.

The Vizhnitzer Rebbe, currently in Los Angeles for serious medical care, led a Ne’ilas HaChag Tish on Motzei Pesach Tish. The Rebbe was joined by his sons, who spent Pesach with the Rebbe. Following the Tish, the Rebbe Davened Maariv and recited Sefiras HaOmer. The Rebbe then gave Brachos to the many attendees who came to spend time with the Rebbe.

New York’s $9 congestion toll on most drivers entering the busiest part of Manhattan remained in effect Sunday, despite a deadline from the Trump administration to halt the first-in-the-nation fee. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency overseeing the tolls, confirmed Sunday that its system of traffic cameras continues to collect the fee assessed on most cars entering the borough below Central Park. “The cameras are staying on,” said Avi Small, Hochul’s spokesperson, in an email. President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, rescinded federal approval for the program in February, calling it “a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” and initially gave New York until March 21 to comply. The MTA challenged Duffy’s decision in federal court and Duffy subsequently pushed the deadline back by a month, to April 20. The transportation department insisted it would not back off the deadline even as the court case plays out, saying it would “not hesitate to use every tool at our disposal” if the state failed to stop the toll. “In case there were any doubts, MTA, State and City reaffirmed in a court filing that congestion pricing is here to stay and that the arguments Secretary Duffy made trying to stop it have zero merit,” John J. McCarthy, the MTA’s chief of policy and external relations, said Sunday. Spokespersons for the U.S. Department of Transportation didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment Sunday. The fee began Jan. 5 and is meant to not just reduce traffic jams but also raise billions of dollars in revenue for New York’s subways, commuter trains and public buses. But Trump, whose namesake Trump Tower and other properties are within the congestion zone, had vowed to kill the plan as soon as he took office. The transit authority, meanwhile, has continued to tout the benefits of the tolling program, saying fewer vehicles are now coming into the heart of Manhattan. Around 560,000 vehicles per day entered the congestion zone in March, a 13% drop from the roughly 640,000 the MTA projects would have driven through the area without the tolling scheme, according to data the agency released earlier this month. The agency has previously said it’s on track to meet the $500 million in revenue initially projected this year from congestion pricing. The toll varies depending on type of vehicle and time of day and comes on top of tolls drivers already pay to cross bridges and tunnels into Manhattan. Other big cities around the world, including London and Stockholm, have similar congestion pricing schemes. On Thursday, a Manhattan federal judge dismissed a series of lawsuits brought by the local trucking industry and other local groups challenging the toll. Most of those lawsuits had argued the fee was approved by federal transportation officials without proper scrutiny and that the court should order the completion of a more comprehensive environmental impact study. (AP)

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu held a phone call with Labor Minister Yoav Ben Tzur, who is currently sitting shiva for his mother.

During the conversation, Ben Tzur offered words of support and encouragement to the Prime Minister. “You continue to succeed, we are all behind you, I know how difficult this is, but you have real divine assistance; otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to cope with anything,” he told Netanyahu.

In response, Netanyahu replied, “God is the most important party in the coalition.”

Mazal Ben Tzur, of blessed memory, passed away last week at the age of 91. She and her husband, Rabbi Shalom Ben Tzur—who died 17 years ago—made aliyah from Yemen in the late 1940s.

They first settled in Kfar Saba and later moved to Netanya, where they raised their family.

Mazal Ben Tzur was deeply proud of her son’s public service. When the current government was sworn in, she made a special trip to the Knesset to give Netanyahu her personal blessing.

{Matzav.com Israel}

Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has recruited an estimated 30,000 young men from Gaza into its ranks in recent weeks, according to a report aired Sunday by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news channel. Citing Palestinian sources, the network reported that most of the recruits had undergone training in clandestine military camps run by Hamas, though it was unclear whether such camps are still operational amid Israel’s ongoing offensive. The report suggested the new fighters were primarily trained in guerrilla tactics, rocket fire, and the planting of explosives, but possess limited formal military training. No precise timeline was given for the recruitment effort, though the report is believed to refer to recent developments since the collapse of the ceasefire and hostage-release deal in January. Facing mounting losses and severe supply shortages, Hamas is reportedly recycling unexploded Israeli ordnance to manufacture improvised explosive devices and other weapons. According to the Al Arabiya report, the group is struggling to replenish its arsenal of drones and long-range rockets, many of which were depleted during earlier phases of the war. Since March 18, the IDF says it has targeted over 1,400 Hamas-linked sites throughout Gaza. According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry — figures which remain unreliable and unverified — more than 1,500 people have been killed during that period, bringing the ministry’s total reported death toll to over 51,000 since the war began last October. Israel has declared its intent to expand its ground operations and carve out what officials describe as “security zones” within Gaza. The enclave has been under near-total blockade for the past six weeks, with Israel halting the entry of food, medicine, and other humanitarian aid. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Israel is considering the option of detaining terrorists who were previously freed as part of earlier prisoner exchange agreements and returned to areas including Judea, Samaria, and Yerushalayim, according to a report by Channel 12 News.

Although this idea has been raised more than once in Cabinet discussions, it has consistently been shot down by senior defense officials, who argue that such a move would be unwise.

Still, with another Cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday, the issue is gaining renewed attention. A number of ministers are urging the government to impose a firm deadline for Hamas to accept the Witkoff proposal, which would involve freeing 10 hostages and initiating talks toward ending the war.

Under the terms of the Witkoff initiative, Israel would receive half of the hostages—whether alive or deceased—on the first day the agreement is enacted. If a long-term ceasefire is finalized during the temporary pause in fighting, the remainder of the hostages, both living and dead, would be returned as well. Israel gave the green light to this proposal last month, but Hamas turned it down.

Channel 12 reports that if a deadline is indeed set and the deal remains unaccepted by that point, Israel is expected to escalate military operations and shift its focus. Instead of prioritizing negotiations for the hostages’ release, the objective will revert to a full-scale campaign aimed at dismantling Hamas—returning to the strategy in place before the temporary truce.

{Matzav.com Israel}

As Big Tech kicks off its quarterly earnings season this week, the industry’s bellwether companies have been thrust into a cauldron of uncertainty and turmoil that they didn’t anticipate when Donald Trump re-entered the White House nearly 100 days ago. Since President Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Big Tech stocks have been on a see-sawing ride that has eviscerated trillions of dollars in shareholder wealth amid an onslaught of tariffs and other potentially detrimental actions. It’s the polar opposite of what Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hoped for when they assembled behind Trump as he was sworn in. That display of unity reflected a belief that Trump’s second stint in the White House would be a refreshing change from the heavy-handed regulation of President Joe Biden’s administration while unleashing even more lucrative opportunities in artificial intelligence and deal-making. But the Trump administration’s policies so far have vexed Big Tech’s “Magnificent Seven” companies — a group consisting of Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta Platforms. Since Trump’s inauguration, the Magnificent Seven’s combined market value has plunged by $3.8 trillion, or 22%, as of April 20. The financial damage was even more severe a few days after Trump’s April 2 unveiling of sweeping reciprocal tariffs that would have exacted a heavy toll on Big Tech’s supply chains in China and other key markets around the globe. A temporary freeze on the majority of the most punitive tariffs and an exemption from most of the fees on electronics coming in from China has provided some relief, but Trump has made it clear the reprieve may be short-lived. That has left the specter of Trump’s ongoing trade war hanging over Big Tech, whose influence extends around the world. “The mass confusion created by this constant news flow out of the White House is dizzying for the industry and investors and creating massive uncertainty and chaos for companies trying to plan their supply chain, inventory, and demand,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said. Besides the upheaval triggered by Trump’s tariffs, his administration is also in the midst of trying to prove regulators’ allegations that Meta has been running an illegal monopoly in social networking, and working to persuade a federal judge to break up Google after its search engine last year was found to be illegally abusing its power. Trump also has given no indication of abandoning antitrust lawsuits filed by the Biden administration that could hobble Apple and Amazon. And Nvidia absorbed a significant setback last week when the Trump administration banned it from selling one of its popular AI chips to China, prompting the company to record a $5.5 billion charge to account for the stockpile of processors that it intended to export to that country. Tech CEOs will get a chance to discuss the fallout from the trade war and other challenges still ahead during analyst conference calls that will be held as part of their companies’ financial reports for the January-March quarter. The ritual will kick off Tuesday when Tesla is scheduled to release its full financial report after already revealing that its first-quarter car sales dropped by 13% from the same time last year. The decline occurred against a […]

The White House rolled out a redesigned COVID-19 webpage on Friday, shifting focus entirely toward what it calls the “true origins” of the virus. The previous version of the site, COVID.gov, had featured resources related to vaccines, testing, and treatment, but now forwards users to a new page headlined “Lab Leak: True Origins of COVID-19.”

This updated site comes down hard on how both the Biden administration and ex-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo handled the pandemic. It also strongly embraces the belief that the coronavirus escaped from a research facility in Wuhan, China—a theory endorsed by key figures in the Trump administration.

The homepage outlines five primary points supporting the lab-leak hypothesis:

• “The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.”

• “Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.”

• “Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering and organism supercharging) at inadequate biosafety levels.”

• “Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.”

• “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.”

All five assertions draw from a lengthy, 557-page report published by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in December 2024.

According to that report, the most probable explanation is that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where EcoHealth Alliance—an American group—was conducting government-funded coronavirus experiments.

The same conclusion has been echoed by the FBI, experts from the Energy Department’s national labs, and former intelligence officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

“A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely the origin of COVID-19,” reads a section on the revamped White House website. “Current government mechanisms for overseeing this dangerous gain-of-function research are incomplete, severely convoluted, and lack global applicability.”

The site also levels harsh accusations against the Department of Health and Human Services under Biden, EcoHealth Alliance, Fauci’s top aide David Morens, and New York’s executive leadership under Gov. Kathy Hochul. It claims these parties “obstructed” the House’s investigation into the pandemic’s origins and the federal government’s overall response, which the virus left more than 1.2 million Americans dead.

In another section, the site calls out President Joe Biden’s “full and unconditional” pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci before leaving office. The pardon shields Fauci from any legal consequences for actions dating back to 2014, during his time overseeing the U.S. response to infectious disease threats.

The webpage further criticizes decisions made by Andrew Cuomo, particularly his March 25, 2020, directive requiring nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19.

“Evidence shows that Mr. Cuomo and his Administration worked to cover up the tragic aftermath of their policy decisions in an apparent effort to shield themselves from accountability,” the site says, claiming the former governor made “knowingly and willfully” false statements to the House committee examining the pandemic.

A spokesperson for Cuomo pushed back strongly against the allegations, referencing a report from the Biden-era Department of Justice’s inspector general and a 2022 decision by the Manhattan District Attorney not to file charges.

“More than 1 million Americans died as a result of the COVID pandemic, and our hearts break for the families of every person who lost a loved one – but unfortunately, as the DOJ IG confirmed, that pain has been weaponized and politicized for purely electoral purposes for years,” Rich Azzopardi said in a statement.

“According to the the DOJ IG, the State Attorney General and New York State’s COVID-19 After Action Report, the state’s nursing home admission guidance was consistent with federal guidance, was similar to guidance issued in a dozen Republican and Democratic-led states, and there has been no credible empirical evidence that concludes it caused additional deaths,” he added. “This matter was investigated by the Department of Justice three times and the Manhattan DA who closed their investigations as a result of no finding of wrongdoing, while two civil cases brought in connection with this issue have also been dismissed.”

{Matzav.com}