The budget bill championed by President Donald Trump could complicate next year’s tax filing season after the IRS lost one-quarter of its employees through staffing cuts, an independent watchdog reported Wednesday. The IRS workforce has fallen from 102,113 workers to 75,702 over the past year, according to the latest National Taxpayer Advocate report to Congress. The report Wednesday offered the first official numbers on the IRS job losses associated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Most of the employees took the “fork in the road” resignation offer from DOGE rather than waiting to get laid off.

MK Moshe Gafni, who leads the Degel HaTorah faction within United Torah Judaism, stirred outrage from right-wing politicians on Wednesday morning after questioning the rationale behind Israel’s continued military campaign in Gaza.

NEW YORK – One day after Zohran Mamdani trounced former Governor Andre

U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges accusing her of assaulting and interfering with immigration officers outside a New Jersey detention center during a congressional oversight visit at the facility. “They will not intimidate me. They will not stop me from doing my job,” she said outside the courthouse in Newark after the brief hearing. McIver, a Democrat, was charged by interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, following the May 9 visit to Newark’s Delaney Hall. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses the privately owned, 1,000-bed facility as a detention center. This month she was indicted on three counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with federal officials.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Wednesday publicly defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for an immediate end to the corruption trial against him.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent a letter to President Donald Trump praising his successful efforts in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Iran and expressing renewed commitment to pursuing a full peace agreement with Israel.
In his message, Abbas emphasized that the truce between Iran and Israel marks a key moment in efforts to ease broader tensions in the region.
The Palestinian leader also extended his appreciation to Trump for what he described as the president’s “courageous” recent appeals to bring an end to the fighting in Gaza.
“This constitutes an additional step in [your] important efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive peace between us, the Israelis, and the entire world,” Abbas writes.

Legislation introduced Wednesday in Congress would block Chinese artificial intelligence systems from federal agencies as a bipartisan group of lawmakers pledged to ensure that the United States would prevail against China in the global competition over AI. “We are in a new Cold War, and AI is the strategic technology at the center,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, as he opened a hearing on the matter. “The future balance of power may very well be determined by who leads in AI.” About five months ago, a Chinese technology startup called DeepSeek introduced an AI model that rivaled platforms from OpenAI and Google in performance, but cost only a fraction to build. This raised concerns that China was catching up to U.S.

NEW: Sen Chuck Schumer was taken to the hospital Wednesday, his office says. “Leader Schumer was at the Senate gym this morning and got lightheaded. Out of an abundance of caution, he went to the hospital to be treated for dehydration & is now back at work in the Capitol.” His name for Tehillim was not available.