Democrats chairman Yair Golan was videoed on Thursday evening in a physical confrontation with a resident of Kiryat Shmona, during a conference in the city. In the footage, residents of the city are seen condemning Golan for the statements he made on Tuesday, implying that “IDF soldiers kill babies as a hobby.” Golan started yelling back at one of the protesters who called on him to remove his military ranks. Golan then approached the elderly man and pushed him. Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich stated: “Yair Golan’s true and violent face continues to be revealed.

A government report released on Thursday covering wide swaths of American health and wellness reflects some of the most contentious views on vaccines, the nation’s food supply, pesticides and prescription drugs held by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The much-anticipated “Make America Healthy Again” report calls for increased scrutiny of the childhood vaccine schedule, a review of the pesticides sprayed on American crops and a description of the nation’s children as overmedicated and undernourished. “Never in American history has the federal government taken a position on public health like this,” Kennedy told a group of MAHA supporters during an event unveiling the report on Thursday.

The number of white nationalist, hate and anti-government groups around the U.S. dropped slightly in 2024, not because of any shrinking influence but rather the opposite. Many feel their beliefs, which includes racist narratives and so-called Christian persecution, have become more normalized in government and mainstream discourse. In its annual Year in Hate and Extremism report, released Thursday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it counted 1,371 hate and extremist groups, a 5% decline. The nonprofit group attributes this to a lesser sense of urgency to organize because their beliefs have infiltrated politics, education and society in general.

The U.S. social safety net would be jolted if the budget bill backed by President Donald Trump and passed Thursday by the House of Representatives becomes law. It would impose work requirements for low-income adults to receive Medicaid health insurance and increase them for food assistance. Supporters of the bill say the moves will save money, root out waste and encourage personal responsibility. A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over a decade. The measure, which also includes tax cuts, passed the House by one vote and could have provisions reworked again as it heads to the Senate. Here’s a look at the potential impact.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is launching a sweeping crackdown on billing practices across all Medicare Advantage (MA) plans—an aggressive move that could ripple through the nursing home industry and reshape how skilled nursing operators navigate federal reimbursement. In a major policy shift announced Wednesday, CMS revealed plans to dramatically scale up audits of all MA plans to recover billions in alleged overpayments. Nursing home operators that contract with these plans—and rely on timely, predictable reimbursements—could soon find themselves in the crosshairs of intensified federal scrutiny. Until now, CMS has been auditing only about 60 MA contracts a year.

Cleveland Heights Mayor Khalil Seren is facing mounting public outrage after explosive allegations of antisemitism surfaced against his wife, Natalie McDaniel. Last week, the law firm Sobel, Wade & Mapley, LLC filed a formal complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission alleging that McDaniel used antisemitic slurs in private text messages referring to city officials, including members of the Jewish community. The complaint, which includes messages reportedly sent to Mayor Seren and a former aide, accuses McDaniel of referring to Jewish Planning Commission Chair Jessica Cohen as a “broodmare” — a term allegedly used to disparage Orthodox Jewish families for having large numbers of children.

IDF forces raided the village of Burqin, near Bruchin, in the northern Shomron on Thursday morning, according to videos posted by Palestinians on social media. The video shows hundreds of soldiers entering the village in the early morning hours. The terrorist who murdered Tze’ela Gaz, H’yd, while she was on the way to the delivery room, lived in Burqin. He was eliminated on Shabbos by IDF forces. During the security forces’ activity in the village, a terrorist ran towards them holding a bag suspected of being booby-trapped. The soldiers shot and eliminated him. The forces searched the bag and found an M-16 rifle and other weapons used to carry out the attack. Investigators from the Yehuda and Shomron District Police collected the findings to locate additional accomplices.

As anti-Semitic incidents spiked across the United States in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the Biden administration’s Education Department reportedly failed to investigate nearly 200 related complaints, according to a former senior official now serving under President Donald Trump. The official, speaking to Fox News, claimed that more than 150 of the unaddressed complaints were filed after the deadly assault by Hamas, which left nearly 1,200 Israelis dead and ignited a war that has reverberated far beyond the Middle East — including on American college campuses, where pro-Palestinian protests and rising tensions have left many Jewish students feeling targeted and unsafe.

It seems like a triumph for a cryptocurrency industry that has long sought mainstream acceptance: Top investors in one of President Donald Trump ’s crypto projects invited to dine with him at his luxury golf club in Northern Virginia on the heels of the Senate advancing key pro-crypto legislation and while bitcoin prices soar. But Thursday night’s dinner for the 220 biggest investors in the $TRUMP meme coin has raised uncomfortable questions about potentially shadowy buyers using the anonymity of the internet to buy access to the president.