US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff slammed Hamas for its response to the latest ceasefire proposal, calling it “totally unacceptable” and a move that “only takes us backward.” According to an Israeli official familiar with the details, Hamas’s response to the proposal included demands for a seven-year ceasefire, a complete IDF withdrawal from all areas of Gaza captured since March, the cancellation of the new US-supported aid distribution system in Gaza, and a return to the previous system supported by the United Nations. “This isn’t a response — it’s a slammed door,” the official stated. Earlier on Shabbos, Hamas announced that it submitted a response to the proposal to Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

China launched a spacecraft that promises to return samples from an asteroid near Mars and yield “groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity’s knowledge of the cosmos,” the country’s space agency said. The Tianwen-2 probe launched early Thursday from southern China aboard the workhorse Long March 3-B rocket. The probe will collect samples from the asteroid 2016HO3 and explore the main-belt comet 311P, which lies even farther from Earth than Mars, according to the China National Space Administration.

A new supercomputer named after a winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry will help power artificial intelligence technology and scientific discoveries from a perch in the hills above the University of California, Berkeley, federal officials said Thursday. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced the project Thursday alongside executives from computer maker Dell Technologies and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The new computing system at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will be called Doudna after Berkeley professor and biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who won a Nobel in 2020 for her work on the gene-editing technology CRISPR. It’s due to switch on next year.

President Donald Trump stated on Friday that discussions surrounding a potential truce and hostage exchange deal in Gaza are advancing, and he anticipates a formal update might be released either later in the day or by Shabbos.
Trump further noted that negotiations with Iran concerning its nuclear program also appear to be progressing.
“They’re very close to an agreement on Gaza, and we’ll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow, and I think we have a chance of making a deal with Iran. They don’t want to be blown up, they would rather make a deal, and I think that could happen in the not too distant future,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump bid farewell to Elon Musk in the Oval Office

President Donald Trump has claimed virtually unlimited power to bypass Congress and impose sweeping taxes on foreign products. Now a federal court has thrown a roadblock in his path. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that Trump overstepped his authority when he invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to declare a national emergency and plaster taxes – tariffs – on imports from almost every country in the world. The ruling was a big setback for Trump, whose erratic trade policies have rocked financial markets, paralyzed businesses with uncertainty and raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth. On his Truth Social platform Thursday, he wrote: “The ruling by the U.S.

In a quiet neighborhood in Eretz Yisrael, a hardworking father, R’ Dovid Elgarabli, is desperately trying to do what every father dreams of—walk his son to the chuppah. But with crushing debts, medical crises, and a household of ten children, it feels impossible. R’ Dovid works over 12 hours a day as a bus driver, while his devoted wife is fully occupied caring for their sick child, shuttling between doctors and hospitals. The bills have piled up, and the family is constantly at risk of having their electricity and water shut off due to unpaid balances. Now, with just six weeks left to the chasunah, they don’t even have the bare minimum to begin preparing. The chosson and kallah have promised to daven and mention the names of donors under the chuppah.

Elon Musk surprised reporters at the White House on Friday when he appeared at an Oval Office event with a noticeable black eye, marking the conclusion of his 130-day stint in the Trump administration.
“I’ve got a little shiner here,” said the 53-year-old after President Trump fielded a question from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy about “the first lady of France slapping her husband, Emmanuel Macron.”
“I wasn’t anywhere near France,” Musk joked. “I was just horsing around with Little X, and I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face,’ and he did.”

“Turns out even a five-year-old punching you in the face … ” he started to say, before cutting himself off.