Syria’s newly installed ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa is pushing for a one-on-one meeting with President Donald Trump during his upcoming Middle East visit—dangling a dizzying package of incentives that includes oil deals, normalization with Israel, and even a Trump Tower in Damascus. According to multiple sources familiar with the effort, Sharaa is attempting to bypass traditional diplomatic channels by appealing directly to Trump’s knee-jerk instinct for big deals. The initiative is being spearheaded by Jonathan Bass, a pro-Trump American activist who met with Sharaa for four hours in Damascus on April 30.

The Kurdish militant group PKK announced Monday that it is disbanding and renouncing armed conflict as part of a new peace initiative with Turkey, ending four decades of hostilities. The decision by the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, promises to end one of the longest insurgencies in the Middle East and could have significant impact in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It was announced by the Firat News Agency, a media outlet close to the group, days after the PKK convened a party congress in northern Iraq. In February, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group to convene a congress and formally decide to disband and disarm.

Am I allowed to make egg and onion on Shabbos? How to choose a shirt from a pile of clothing and not transgress borer on Shabbos? Can you put food in the oven on Shabbos? Numerous Shabbos questions are impossible to answer without thorough knowledge of its laws. Shabbos comes once a week, so if a person is not well-versed in its intricacies, then it is inevitable that transgressions will take place. The many books of basic laws are wonderful, but to really understand the halachos and to apply them, it is essential to learn and remember hilchos Shabbos with the background discussion.  What is the challenge we face? It takes several years for a full-time advanced Torah learner to cover the laws of Shabbos in depth.  Kinyan Hilchos Shabbos for men offered a solution.

TEHILLIM: The name of the Lakewood resident seriously injured in Monticello this evening is Yehuda ben Rivka. Please include him in your tefillos.

Israel sent a request to the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to withdraw the arrest warrants against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after examining the investigations and detailed testimony regarding allegations of rape against ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Khan issued the warrants to deflect attention from the allegations against him. Israeli officials believe that this information is “explosive material that can affect the case.” According to the report, Israel also asked the court to order the suspension of its investigations into alleged Israeli atrocities in Palestinian areas.

BREAKING IN MONTICELLO: A Lakewood man in his twenties was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident at the intersection of East Broadway and Rose Valley Road earlier this evening. He was transported by ambulance to Garnet Health Medical Center (formerly Orange Regional) and is listed in serious condition. Catskills Scoop will share a name for Tehillim as soon as it becomes available.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday urged California cities to clear homeless encampments, escalating efforts anew to address an intractable issue of his time in office: the makeshift tents that line underpasses, parks and streets up and down the state. Newsom’s administration unveiled a blueprint for a camping ban that counties, cities and towns can directly adopt or modify to achieve his goals. The Democratic governor is also releasing $3.3 billion in voter-approved funds to expand housing and treatment options for homeless residents. “The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses,” Newsom said. Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, made homelessness a priority upon taking office in 2019, tackling a problem that’s largely been the purview of mayors and local government.

Israel is moving ahead with a landmark proposal to build its first-ever nuclear power plant, with a site near Shivta in the Negev Desert selected by the Energy and Infrastructure Ministry as the preferred location. The plan, which marks a major shift in the country’s long-term energy strategy, is set for initial review next week by the Southern Regional Planning and Building Committee. If approved, the facility would position Israel among a small group of nations operating civilian nuclear energy programs. However, the project faces steep logistical, diplomatic, and environmental hurdles—starting with the fact that Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), complicating efforts to procure nuclear technology and fuel.

MK Tally Gotliv claimed on Monday that the “foreign actor” named in the classified document that the suspect in the PMO’s leak case, reservist Ari Rosenfeld, transferred to the second suspect, Eli Feldstein, was the head of Egyptian intelligence. “There was a glaring military coup here,” Gotliv said. “It’s all in the indictment against Rosenfeld and Feldstein, which says that Rosenfeld wanted to pass on additional information related to the involvement of ‘factor X.'” “They tried to claim that it’s this individual, but it turned out to be the head of Egyptian intelligence. It must be assumed there is no way that 5,000 terrorists can infiltrate into Israel,” she added.

House Republicans revealed the sweeping tax provisions for President Donald Trump’s big bill Monday, tallying at least $4.9 trillion in costs so far, partly paid for with reductions to Medicaid and other programs used by millions of Americans. The House Ways and Means Committee named its package ‘ ‘THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’’ in all capital letters, a nod to Trump himself. It seeks to extend the tax breaks approved during Trump’s first term — and boost the standard deduction, child tax credit and estate tax exemption — while adding new tax breaks on tipped wages, overtime pay, Social Security benefits and auto loans that Trump promised during his campaign for the White House.