The discussions have taken place in an ornate Kremlin hall, on the polished marble of St. Peter’s Basilica and in a famously contentious session in the Oval Office of the White House. What’s emerged so far from the Washington-led effort to end the war in Ukraine suggests a deal that seems likely to be favorable to Russia: President Donald Trump has sharply rebuked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, echoed Kremlin talking points, and indicated Kyiv would have to surrender territory and forego NATO membership. What’s more, he has engaged in a rapprochement with Moscow that was unthinkable months ago. More recently, Trump has offered mixed signals — social media posts that perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin is stringing him along — and a deal has yet to materialize.

Home ownership is receding further out of reach for most Americans as elevated mortgage rates and rising prices stretch the limits of what buyers can afford. A homebuyer now needs to earn at least $114,000 a year to afford a $431,250 home — the national median listing price in April, according to data released Thursday by Realtor.com The analysis assumes that a homebuyer will make a 20% down payment, finance the rest of the purchase with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, and that the buyer’s housing costs won’t exceed 30% of their gross monthly income — an often-used barometer of housing affordability. Based off the latest U.S. median home listing price, homebuyers need to earn $47,000 more a year to afford a home than they would have just six years ago. Back then, the median U.S.

The Reform Movement’s Legal Campaign Against Religious Life in Eretz Yisroel By: Dovid Gold Over the past decade or so, a wave of lawsuits targeting the lifestyle of the religious communities in Eretz Yisroel has been brought before the powerful and left-leaning Israeli Supreme Court. While not all of these cases have succeeded, they’ve complicated life for hundreds of thousands of religious people. Moreover, these petitions have deepened the divisions among Israeli society. But who is spending time and money to bring these cases? And why do they care how the frum community chooses to live?  A close look into each of these cases reveals a fascinating pattern. The fingerprints of the Jewish American woke left, organized into the Reform movement, are present each time.

Organizers of the Gaza “freedom flotilla”, who intended to “break the Israeli siege” on the Gaza Strip, claimed that it was attacked by drones off the coast of Malta in international waters, CNN reported on Friday. “There is a hole in the vessel right now and the ship is sinking,” Yasemin Acar, the spokesperson for the terror flotilla, told CNN. Vidoes posted on the X by the “coalition” show a fire burning on a ship, which, according to marine websites, is the Palau-flagged “Conscience” ship that departed from Tunisia. The organizers of the flotilla, who accuse Israel of “genocide” on their social media pages, wrote about the incident on social media: “At 00:23 Maltese time, the Freedom Flotilla vessel was subjected to a drone attack.

The IDF successfully intercepted a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis in Yemen at northern Israel early Friday morning, triggering sirens in the Upper and Lower Galil, Haifa and its suburbs, Binyamina, and the Jezreel Valley. The missile was successfully intercepted before it entered Israel. However, shrapnel from an interceptor missile hit a kindergarten in Mishmar HaEmek, penetrating the roof of the building and falling into the kindergarten. B’Chasdei Hashem, no one was injured as the kindergarten has not yet opened for the day. Shai Regev, the head of education at Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, was quoted by Ynet as saying. “It’s a huge neis. The children could have been injured if this had happened while the kindergarten was open.

Talk about some serious coin. Millions of coins spilled onto a Texas highway this week after a tractor-trailer hauling $800,000 in dimes rolled over in an accident, authorities said. The spillage led to the closure of a portion of the southbound lanes of U.S. 287 in Alvord for about half a day as workers got on their hands and knees to pick up the coins in addition to using brooms and shovels and large industrial vacuums. The tractor-trailer rolled onto its side at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday after veering off the road and overcorrecting, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The highway reopened at about 7 p.m. that day, DPS said. The driver and a passenger were transported to a hospital with injuries that were not life threatening, DPS said.

Iran’s once-grand plan to transform post-war Syria into a loyal regional satellite has collapsed in dramatic fashion, according to a trove of confidential documents obtained by Reuters from the Iranian embassy in Damascus. The blueprint, drawn up in 2022, envisioned Tehran embedding itself deep into Syria’s economy, politics, and security apparatus. But the sudden fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 has left those ambitions in ruins. The newly installed Syrian government, composed largely of rebel factions hostile to Tehran, has moved to dismantle Iran’s presence. Iranian military officers, diplomats, and economic envoys have withdrawn from Damascus. Cultural centers funded by Tehran have shuttered.

The Republican-controlled U.S. House voted Thursday to block California from enforcing first-in-the-nation rules phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The move comes a day after the chamber voted to halt California standards to cut tailpipe emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, as well as curb smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. “The passage of these resolutions is a victory for Americans who will not be forced into purchasing costly EVs because of California’s unworkable mandates,” House Republicans Brett Guthrie of Kentucky and Morgan Griffith of Virginia, said in a statement.

Various Yom Ha’atzmaut ceremonies were held across Israel on Thursday as Israel’s Fire and Rescue Service continued to battle the fires that began in the Jerusalem hills on Wednesday. Photos taken of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the President’s Medal of Excellence ceremony in Jerusalem aroused curiosity due to a sight not seen since COVID days—the prime minister’s bodyguards with masks on their faces. The masks were not worn to protect against a new COVID variant but against the ancient and deadly antisemitism variant. The bodyguards, who are part of the Shin Bet’s personal security unit, were instructed to wear masks at public events to protect themselves from possible arrest warrants issued abroad, Walla reports.

The chavrusah tumult took place at BMG this week, as the summer Zman kicks off. The tumult generally last for two days, with talmidim of the yeshiva seeking out chavrusos and which chaburah they will be in. Enjoy the videos and phots below of this spectacular site!