NATO defense ministers are set Thursday to approve purchasing targets for stocking up on weapons and military equipment to better defend Europe, the Arctic and the North Atlantic, as part of a U.S. push to ramp up security spending. The “capability targets” lay out goals for each of the 32 nations to purchase priority equipment like air defense systems, long-range missiles, artillery, ammunition, drones and “strategic enablers” such as air-to-air refueling, heavy air transport and logistics. Each nation’s plan is classified, so details are scarce. “Today we decide on the capability targets. From there, we will assess the gaps we have, not only to be able to defend ourselves today, but also three, five, seven years from now,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said.

The Aleph Institute’s Project 432 has surpassed a significant milestone: its Compass Workshop has now reached more than 2,500 students at over 60 high schools and yeshivas across North America and Israel. This initiative educates and informs talmidim on the importance of yashrus and ehrlichkeit in business and financial decision-making. Over the past two weeks, the Compass Workshop was delivered to more than 150 students at five yeshiva high schools in the tri-state and Mid-Atlantic regions. Presented by Rabbi Yaakov Goldstein, Senior Lecturer for Project 432, the workshop is part a broader mission of inspiring emerging generations to navigate financial decisions with clarity, achieve the highest Torah and legal standards, and build lives of integrity and peace of mind.

The targets were Russian warplanes, including strategic bombers and command-and-control aircraft, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The weapons were Ukrainian drones, each costing under $1,000 and launched from wooden containers carried on trucks. “Operation Spiderweb,” which Ukraine said destroyed or damaged over 40 aircraft parked at air bases across Russia on Sunday, wasn’t just a blow to the Kremlin’s prestige. It was also a wake-up call for the West to bolster its air defense systems against such hybrid drone warfare, military experts said.

In a highly irresponsible move, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman revealed classified information in a radio interview on Thursday morning, stating that Israel is aiding a Gazan militia in the southern Gaza Strip to protect themselves against Hamas. In the wake of the leak, the military censor approved the publication for the first time: Israel transferred Kalashnikov rifles to militia members in Gaza as part of an effort to strengthen elements hostile to Hamas. According to security sources, Israel is assisting the Yasser Abu Shabab clan in the Rafah area, an area that was captured in recent weeks by IDF forces. Some of the weapons Israel provided to the clan were seized from Hamas during IDF operations in the Strip.

Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg suggested to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara that she cease her involvement in the petition of former Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman, and in return, the petition filed against her by the Lavi organization regarding her handling of the affairs of former Shin Bet chiefs Ronen Bar and Argaman will be dropped. The Supreme Court’s proposal was made in the wake of the Lavi organization’s petition, which stated that Baharav-Miara has a severe conflict of interest due to long-standing personal connections with current Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former Shin Bet chief Argaman and should refrain from dealing with their affairs, including legal proceedings concerning them.

Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Anthropic on Wednesday, alleging that it is illegally “scraping” the comments of millions of Reddit users to train its chatbot Claude. Reddit claims that Anthropic has used automated bots to access Reddit’s content despite being asked not to do so, and “intentionally trained on the personal data of Reddit users without ever requesting their consent.” Anthropic said in a statement that it disagreed with Reddit’s claims “and will defend ourselves vigorously.” Reddit filed the lawsuit Wednesday in California Superior Court in San Francisco, where both companies are based.

The crew of a cargo ship carrying 3,000 vehicles to Mexico, including 800 electric vehicles, abandoned ship after they could not control a fire aboard the vessel in waters off Alaska’s Aleutian island chain. A large plume of smoke was initially seen at the ship’s stern coming from the deck loaded with electric vehicles Tuesday, according to U.S. Coast Guard photos and a Wednesday statement from the ship’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime. There were no reported injuries among the 22 crew members of the Morning Midas. Crew members abandoned ship, were evacuated onto a lifeboat and rescued by the crew of a nearby merchant vessel called the Cosco Hellas in the North Pacific, roughly 300 miles (490 kilometers) southwest of Adak Island.

Under the headline “Israel Nearing Elections,” the main article on the front page of the Yated Ne’eman newspaper in Israel on Thursday morning detailed the instructions of HaGaon HaRav Dov Landau and HaGaon HaRav Moshe Hillel Hirsch to act to dissolve the Knesset due to “the attempt to turn lomdei Torah into criminals.” The article states: “The representatives of Maranan and Rabbanan were surprised to discover the list of sanctions that Yuli Edelstein sought to introduce in the conscription law, which could harm many households of lomdei Torah by thousands of shekels per month and at times, tens of thousands of shekels per year!” “HaRav Landau and HaRav Hirsch instructed the Knesset members: ‘A government that intends to treat the Torah and those who learn it in such a humiliating manne

The bodies of two hostages were recovered in a daring military operation in the Khan Younis area of Gaza overnight Wednesday and returned to Israel. Gadi Haggai, H’yd, 72, and his wife, Judith Weinstein Haggai, H’yd, 70, were brutally murdered, and their bodies were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7 massacre by terrorists from the Mujahideen Brigades, the terror group that abducted and murdered the Bibas family, H’yd. Their deaths were confirmed in December 2023. The location of their bodies was discovered during a Shin Bet interrogation of a captured terrorist. The rescue operation was carried out by IDF forces under the Southern Command with the aid of special forces and Military Intelligence.

Two men arrested in Washington state with an arsenal that included dozens of guns, explosives and body armor, along with Nazi paraphernalia, were former military members who attacked a soldier with a hammer while stealing gear from Joint Base Lewis-McChord last weekend, investigators say. Levi Austin Frakes and Charles Ethan Fields were arrested Monday night at their home in Lacey, near Olympia, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court. Federal court records did not list an attorney for either man. One of the defendants told investigators the pair had been stealing equipment from the base for the past two years to sell or trade, and agents found about $24,000 in cash at the home, wrote Special Agent Christopher J.