President-elect Donald Trump’s decision on a treasury secretary is about far more than whose name will be printed on America’s money. The choice of how to fill his highest-profile outstanding Cabinet selection will be the clearest indication yet of how he intends to wield import tariffs in his new administration. The leading candidates for the role have expressed differing perspectives on how Trump should use the protectionist trade policies that he put front and center in his campaign for the White House, while Trump himself has offered seemingly contradictory views. Billionaire investor Scott Bessent, considered a leading candidate, has talked up tariffs as a negotiating ploy.

The IDF announced that a military reservist was killed and three other soldiers were seriously injured in a Hezbollah drone attack in southern Lebanon on Tuesday morning. The fallen soldier was identified as Sgt. First Class (Res.) Omer Moshe Gaeldor hy”d, 30, a member of the Golani Brigade’s logistics unit from Yerushalayim. According to an initial IDF investigation, the incident occurred during a logistics supply operation in southern Lebanon. A drone, armed with explosives and launched by Hezbollah, struck the soldiers, killing Gaeldor and wounding the others. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that Israel’s approach to addressing Iran’s nuclear program will be reevaluated in coordination with the incoming U.S. administration of President-elect Donald Trump. Netanyahu indicated that Israel’s ability to act against Iran would be revisited once Trump assumes office in January. Addressing concerns over recent Iranian ballistic missile attacks, Netanyahu clarified that Israel’s decision to refrain from targeting certain Iranian sites was not due to pressure from the United States. He stressed, according to the Knesset readout, that the decision was independent of any ultimatum from Washington.

The East Ramapo Central School District (ERCSD) announced a surprising $30 million budget surplus during Monday night’s Board of Education meeting, sparking calls for accountability and reforms in financial oversight, Monsey Scoop reported. This discovery, confirmed by an independent audit conducted by EFPR Group, contrasts sharply with earlier warnings of a $30 to $40 million deficit projected for the summer of 2024. The audit, which reviewed the district’s finances for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, found that financial statements complied with generally accepted accounting principles. The unexpected surplus comes on the heels of concerns raised by a state-appointed monitor last year, who predicted a severe fiscal shortfall.

The missile that hit the border of Bnei Brak and Ramat Gan on Monday evening caused panic and destruction, with missile shrapnel fragments, some still on fire, falling from the skies and falling on a commercial area. Although the IDF initially reported that the fragments that fell were from an interceptor missile, the police district chief later contradicted the report, saying that the missile itself hit the area. The Ramat Gan municipality also said that a missile had struck the area. The missile was an Iranian Fateh-110 surface-to-surface ballistic missile that can carry a high-explosive warhead of up to 500 kilograms.

The U.K. government hit Iran with new sanctions Monday for sending ballistic missiles and other weapons to Russia to support the war against Ukraine. The Foreign Office said it will freeze assets for Iran’s national airline and its state-owned shipping company that helped transfer weapons. It will also sanction the Russian cargo ship Port Olya-3 that delivered the missiles from Iran. “Iran’s attempts to undermine global security are dangerous and unacceptable,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement in advance of announcing the sanctions at the U.N. Security Council.

Twenty years since Bill Clinton opened his presidential library and museum before a rain-soaked crowd, the area around the glass and steel facility has been transformed. The museum fueled development around Little Rock’s once-sleepy downtown, with a former industrial area to its east blossoming into an entertainment district. Next to the building, cyclists and runners regularly cross what was once a railroad bridge spanning the Arkansas River. But little has changed inside the museum, which features many of the same exhibits unveiled two decades ago: touchscreen displays where visitors can pull up Clinton’s daily schedules, replicas of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room, electronic tickers scrolling with the 42nd president’s accomplishments.

After one of the most chaotic and least productive sessions in modern history, voters made a surprising choice in elections for the U.S. House — they overwhelmingly stuck with the status quo. House Republicans will hold onto a thin majority, and while the chamber’s exact partisan divide is still to be determined as votes are tallied in a handful of states, the results of 435 House races nationwide have produced hardly any change to the makeup of the chamber. In fact, it’s more like a stalemate: Republicans and Democrats have each flipped seven seats, while just eight incumbents nationwide have lost their races. The results show just how entrenched the political dynamics have become in a legislative chamber that is meant to closely reflect the will of the people.

Israeli soldiers in Lebanon have found large troves of Russian weapons in Hezbollah areas, surprising security officials who were unaware of the large cache of modern Russian arms Hezbollah had acquired in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The report quoted an IDF major who said that 60% to 70% of the weapons that troops found in southern Lebanon in the first days of the ground war were Russian-made. More recently, reservists told the WSJ that they continue to locate large amounts of Russian weapons inside Lebanon. Although the IDF was aware that Hezbollah had some older Russian-made weapons, their withdrawal from the country in 2006 meant that they lacked information from the ground in the almost two decades since then.

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman The Power of Student Voices: A Torah-True Initiative There’s a problem that we are currently facing that was pointed out yesterday by an anonymous letter-writer in Brooklyn. This challenge presents us with an opportunity to engage our students in meaningful change, while learning from the timeless wisdom of Avraham Avinu’s purchase of Me’aras HaMachpelah. As written in the Tanchuma  [Behar 1], we are taught, “Be not alarmed by a man of evil eye” [Mishlei 28:22] – referring to Ephron the Hittite. The Divine Lesson from the Midrash The Midrash elaborates: When Sarah Imeinu died, Avraham approached Ephron to purchase the cave.