Israel’s top-level security cabinet reportedly held a confidential vote last week, approving the creation of 22 new communities in the West Bank, as first revealed by various Hebrew-language outlets.
According to the reports, the proposal was jointly introduced by Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom have been vocal supporters of expanding Israeli infrastructure and presence in the region.
Yisroel Hayom reported that the primary objective behind the move is to reinforce Israeli control along Route 443—a critical thoroughfare linking Yerushalayim with Tel Aviv via Modiin. Parts of the highway cut through territory within the West Bank.

An Arab security guard attacked an elderly man and other people with pepper spray at the Kosel entrance. The security guard was arrested by the police.

WATCH: A storm chaser captured a tornado swirling across a field and road near Floyd, New Mexico, over the Memorial Day weekend.

In response to the tragic helicopter crash on April 10 that claimed the lives of a Spanish family of five and their pilot, U.S. Reps. Nadler (D-NY), Menendez (D-NJ), and Malliotakis (R-NY) have introduced the bipartisan “Improving Helicopter Safety Act.” The proposed legislation aims to prohibit all non-essential helicopter flights—including those for tourism, recreation, and luxury commuting—within a 20-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty. Essential flights, such as those for emergency services, law enforcement, news coverage, and research, would still be permitted.

Kingsley Wilson, a Defense Department official who has come under scrutiny for sharing antisemitic content on social media, has been appointed as the Pentagon’s new press secretary, according to a formal announcement.
“Kingsley’s leadership has been integral to the DoD’s success & we look forward to her continued service to President Trump!” wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson and a senior aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a post on X Friday.
Wilson shared the news on her own X account, stating that she was “Honored to serve President Trump and our warfighters.”
{Matzav.com}

Welfare Minister Ya’akov Margi slammed the politicization of the recruitment of Chareidim in a fiery speech at the Sderot Conference for Society and Education in Be’er Sheva on Tuesday. “I served in the army, my two children served in the army, and my eldest son has been in continuous reserve duty since October 7th,” Margi said, adding that lawmakers are cynically using the issue of Chareidi enlistment for political purposes. “It’s possible to resolve this crisis if you remove the political slant from the equation. Don’t buy tall tales, don’t buy headlines and slogans.” “Those who oppose the law don’t really want to enlist Chareidim.

Congressman Josh Gottheimer is urging both the U.S. Department of Justice and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office to investigate what he describes as a “coordinated series of governmental actions” targeting the Chasidic Jewish community in Linden, NJ. The letter comes on the heels of Agudath Israel representatives meeting with Justice Department officials earlier this month to discuss the repeated discrimination Chasidic Jews have been subjected to in Linden, as well as the advocacy group’s public slamming of Linden’s discrimination. Gottheimer’s letter cites a range of zoning changes, enforcement policies, and public meeting practices that disproportionately and adversely impact Orthodox Jewish families living in the area.

A new, highly transmissible COVID-19 variant, NB.1.8.1, linked to a significant spike in hospitalizations in China, has been detected in the United States, raising concerns among health officials. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the variant has been identified in multiple states, including New York, California, Washington, Virginia, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Hawaii, primarily among international travelers arriving from countries such as China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. The strain, first noted in the U.S. in March 2025, is now showing signs of local spread, with cases reported in communities across the country.

President Trump made waves Tuesday with a bold claim that Canada might soon join the United States as its 51st state in return for inclusion in the American “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative.
The announcement came not long after King Charles III made subtle remarks during a speech to Canada’s parliament that appeared to push back against Trump’s ambitions to absorb the country into the U.S.
“I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State,” Trump, 78, wrote on Truth Social.
“They are considering the offer!”

A second cryptocurrency investor surrendered to police Tuesday in the alleged kidnapping of a man who said he was tortured for weeks inside an upscale Manhattan townhouse by captors seeking the password to access his Bitcoin account. William Duplessie, 32, faces charges of kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon, according to police. His arrest comes four days after the alleged victim — a 28-year-old Italian national — escaped, bloodied and barefoot, from a lavish townhouse where he said he had been severely beaten, drugged, shocked and threatened with death for nearly three weeks. On Friday evening, hours after the man’s escape, the crypto investor John Woeltz was taken into custody and charged in the alleged kidnapping scheme.

The Trump administration has decided to temporarily freeze the issuance of student visas to foreign nationals and is weighing new guidelines that would include evaluating applicants’ social media history.
An internal cable obtained by Politico revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed all American embassies and consulates around the world to halt scheduling any further interviews for student or exchange visitor visas, pending new directives.
“Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor … visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued [separate telegram], which we anticipate in the coming days,” the cable read.

It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of Rav Yitzchok Meir Brim z”l, one of the elder and most respected members of the Boyan-Ruzhin chassidus in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Yerushalayim. He was 84 years old.
Born in Eretz Yisroel, Rav Yitzchok Meir was the son of Rav Yehoshua Heschel Brim, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Tiferes Yisroel—Ruzhin-Boyan, and Rebbetzin Rivkah.
Rav Yitzchok Meir was a staunch chossid of Boyan, deeply connected with the Rebbe as well as his brothers-in-law, the Rebbes of Bohush and Vasloi, with whom he shared a close kesher.
After marrying a daughter of Rav Chaim Uri Rosenberg, he built a home firmly rooted in Torah and chassidus.

A huge explosion rocked a chemical plant in China’s eastern Shandong province around noon Tuesday, killing at least five people and injuring 19, according to state broadcaster CCTV. An additional six people remain missing. The blast was powerful enough to knock out the windows at a storage warehouse more than two miles (three kilometers) away from the factory, according to a video shared by a local resident, who declined to give his name out of concern for retaliation. His home shook from the blast, he said. As he went to the window to see what was wrong, he saw a tall column of smoke from the site, more than seven kilometers (4.3 miles) away. The explosion happened at the Gaomi Youdao Chemical Co., which is located in an industrial park in the city of Weifang.

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu took the stage at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Conference, hosted at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to deliver a sobering address about the persistence and intensification of antisemitism. His remarks emphasized that this age-old hatred endangers not only Jews but all of humanity.

Fifteen members of Israel’s Knesset have formally appealed to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, urging her to pursue capital punishment for the man accused of carrying out last week’s antisemitic double homicide at the Jewish Museum located near Washington, D.C., where two Israeli Embassy staffers were killed, according to a report from the Jewish News Syndicate.
The appeal was made in a letter sent to Bondi on May 22, just one day after the attack took place. In the message, the lawmakers wrote, “In light of the gravity of the crime—its premeditated nature, the likely ideological motivation, and the victims’ diplomatic status—we believe it would be appropriate for you to seek the death penalty for its perpetrator.”

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