A pair of newly dedicated Lakewood wedding halls — Ateres Blima and Ateres Esther — held their kvias mezuzah on Sunday, marking the beginning of a new era in local simcha planning. Located at 400 Oak Street, in a building named in memory of Mrs. Matel Leah Schron a”h, the halls were built to address a pressing need in the community: lowering the overwhelming cost of weddings. Backed by numerous donors and overseen by a board of askanim including R’ Mordy Schron, R’ Menashe Frankel, R’ Ari Stern, and R’ Avraham Meir Retkinski, the project was designed with a clear purpose — to reset community expectations and bring weddings back to a simpler, more manageable standard.

In the aftermath of twelve harrowing days of war, many voices encourage us to be gentle with ourselves, to ease slowly back into routine. But perhaps that isn’t the point at all. As a people — Am Yisrael — we witnessed nissim. The entire world saw them. The numbers, the outcomes, they defy logic. An enemy with an arsenal nearly matching our entire country, one that could have crushed us in an instant, did not. Our lives were shaken: schools shuttered, travel paralyzed, families huddled in safe rooms. Plans were upended without warning. But is the message of those days simply to pick up where we left off? It is like a woman who endures a long, high-risk pregnancy. There are sleepless nights, frightening medical opinions, whispered tefillos. Then, she delivers a healthy child.

The British government acknowledged Saturday that the incoming chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, had a paternal grandfather who was a Nazi spy known for his brutal wartime collaboration — but stressed that Metreweli had no personal connection to him. Metreweli, who is set to become the first woman to lead the Secret Intelligence Service on October 1, was revealed earlier this week to be the granddaughter of Constantine Dobrowolski, a Ukrainian who defected from the Red Army during World War II and became a key Nazi informant in occupied Ukraine. According to archival documents uncovered in Freiburg, Germany, and reported by the Daily Mail, Dobrowolski was known to Nazi commanders as “The Butcher” or “Agent No.

Dear Editor, I read the recent heartfelt letter about the shidduch crisis with deep emotion and full agreement. The pain, frustration, and desperation felt by so many parents of Bnos Yisroel is real — and it is unacceptable that our community has allowed this “shidduch crisis” to persist for so long, largely unchallenged. While the new initiative encouraging girls to wait until Shavuos to begin dating, and boys to return earlier from Eretz Yisroel, is a step in the right direction, it must be the beginning — not the end — of our communal introspection and action. We can no longer ignore a glaring truth: the system is broken. And it is man-made.

Chabad Lubavitch of Southwest Florida, led by Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz and Mrs. Shani Silver, has announced the arrival of a new young couple, Rabbi Shalom and Devorie Katz, together with their 1.5-year-old daughter, Sheina, who will join as shluchim to serve the region’s expanding Israeli and broader Jewish community. The announcement was made in connection with Gimmel Tamuz, the 31st yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, zt”l, a date marked worldwide to remember the Rebbe’s enduring legacy of Jewish outreach, chinuch, and community building. “In light of the ongoing war in Eretz Yisroel, this is not merely a time of celebration, but one of mission,” said Rabbi Minkowicz.

CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings delivered a forceful defense of the Supreme Court’s ruling that effectively ended the use of universal injunctions, calling it a major win for President Donald Trump and a blow to judicial overreach – and used a quote from liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to prove the left’s hackery. Speaking on CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five, Jennings applauded the 6–3 decision, which fell along ideological lines, as a long-overdue correction to the practice of allowing a single district court judge to block a president’s entire national agenda.

Iran’s nuclear program could be back online “in a matter of months,” despite punishing U.S. and Israeli attacks on key facilities, UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi warned in an interview — contradicting claims from President Donald Trump and Israeli officials that Iran’s nuclear ambitions had been set back for years. Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told CBS News that although damage to Iranian nuclear sites was “serious,” critical capabilities remained intact. “Some is still standing,” he said, adding that Iran could have “a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium” in months, or possibly less. His comments mirror a preliminary Pentagon intelligence report leaked last week that concluded U.S.

Republican mayoral hopeful Curtis Sliwa is drawing fierce criticism for stubbornly staying in a race that many warn could hand New York City to a radical socialist bent on dismantling the economic foundations of America’s largest metropolis. Sliwa, speaking Sunday on WABC’s “Cats Roundtable,” noted that Zohran Mamdani — a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist — has surged thanks to a powerful digital campaign targeting younger voters, but said his win his ultimately Mayor Adams’ fault. Mamdani, once a blip at just 1% in February, has since clinched the Democratic nomination and is poised to lead a city synonymous with free enterprise and capitalism. “There is no Zohran Mamdani if Eric Adams had done a decent job,” Sliwa argued, seeking to shift blame onto the embattled mayor.

The IDF on Sunday ordered mass evacuations across northern Gaza ahead of an intensified assault against Hamas, even as U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up public pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lock down a ceasefire deal. The evacuation directive, issued in Arabic posts and in text messages sent directly to Palestinian phones, covers the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts — neighborhoods that had already been designated as no-go zones weeks ago. Residents were told to head toward the Mawasi area in southern Gaza, a narrow coastal zone where tens of thousands have already sought refuge.

Socialist NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is standing firm on his controversial plan to raise property taxes on what he calls “richer and whiter neighborhoods” — and went even further Sunday, saying billionaires shouldn’t exist at all. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mamdani claimed his tax plan was “not driven by race” — despite his campaign platform explicitly targeting white homeowners. “That is just a description of what we see right now. It’s not driven by race. It’s more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being under-taxed versus over-taxed,” Mamdani said. “We’ve seen time and again that this is a property tax system that is inequitable. It’s one that actually Eric Adams ran on, saying that he would change in the first 100 days,” he added.