In a deeply emotional levaya that extended past midnight, Sara Natasha Saada, a”h, and her two young daughters, Dina Bracha, a”h, and Devorah Mazal, a”h, were laid to rest side by side on Har HaMenuchos in Yerushalayim. The grief-stricken father, Rabbi Sidney Tzedaka Yeshuah Saada, shlit”a, arrived in Israel carrying the unimaginable burden of his loss, while simultaneously concerned about his 4-year-old son, Raphael Pinchas ben Sara, who remains in the hospital, rehabilitating from serious wounds incurred during the crash.

I saw in the YWN Live Blog that a man whose daughter was getting married tonight was spotted wearing a sweatshirt that, instead of saying “Father of the Bride,” read “American Express of the Bride – Expires 3/31/25.” Cute? Sure. Funny? Absolutely. But behind the humor lies a serious problem that’s spiraling out of control. Parents, hear me out—because what starts as a joke is turning into a financial disaster for an entire generation. Let’s talk about the disaster unfolding in too many homes today: parents handing their newly married kids a credit card like it’s some kind of chesed trophy, only to watch them spend like drunken sailors on shore leave. No restraint, no sense, no chinuch—just a free-for-all with Mommy and Daddy’s plastic.

Israel is set to begin the long-promised construction of a new border fence along its frontier with Jordan this June, a project expected to take three years to complete. The Times of Israel reported that the initiative aims to enhance national security and curb the flow of weapons and drugs into the country. The new fence will span from Hamat Gader, at the southern edge of the Golan Heights, to Ramon International Airport, located north of Eilat. A 30-kilometer (18-mile) segment of the border between Eilat and Ramon Airport was previously upgraded in the 2010s, adopting a design similar to Israel’s existing security barriers along the Egyptian border and the Gaza Strip.

Ali Larijani, a senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a stark warning on Monday, stating that any military aggression by the United States or Israel could push Iran to pursue nuclear weapons.
Although Larijani noted that Iran currently abides by a fatwa—a religious ruling issued by Khamenei—forbidding the use of nuclear arms, he cautioned that external attacks could change the situation dramatically. “If the US or Israel make a mistake and bomb Iran, it would force Iran to develop them due to public pressure,” he said.
Larijani also advised Washington to reconsider its stance, urging the U.S. government to “choose a different course rather than hostility.”

Just after sunrise on Saturday, a satellite set its long-range camera on the city of Mandalay in Myanmar, not far from the epicenter of Friday’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake that devastated the Southeast Asian country’s second-largest city. The mission was to capture images that, combined with artificial intelligence technology, could help relief organizations quickly assess how many buildings had collapsed or were heavily damaged and where helpers most needed to go. At first, the high-tech computer vision approach wasn’t working. “The biggest challenge in this particular case was the clouds,” said Microsoft’s chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced this evening that he would temporarily resign from his position in the government in order to remove MK Yitzchok Kroizer of Otzma Yehudit from the Knesset. The move comes in response to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s alleged violation of the coalition agreement.
A source in the Religious Zionism party told Arutz Sheva, “Otzma Yehudit’s behavior is incomprehensible. It’s a shame they are not fulfilling their commitment to return Sukkot to the Knesset, even though, at Otzma Yehudit’s request, the coalition allowed MK Kroizer to remain in the Knesset at the time of their party’s withdrawal from the government.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is turning his attention to the mystery of Congressional wealth, vowing to investigate how lawmakers have accumulated millions of dollars despite their relatively modest public salaries. Speaking at a town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday night, Musk said that his team at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will follow the money to uncover how certain members of Congress have achieved generational fortunes while serving in public office. Responding to a question about whether USAID funds had been wired to Rep. Maxine Waters, Sen. Adam Schiff, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Musk outlined his theory.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsth issued a memo on Monday calling for equal physical requirements for men and women in combat roles; “We’re allowed standards to slip,” Hegseth said in a video announcing the memo on X.
“Different standards for men and women in combat arms, MOS and jobs, that’s not acceptable,” Hegseth said, using the abbreviation for “military occupational specialty,” or job type.
“We have to have the same standard — male or female — in our combat roles to ensure our men and women who are under our leaders, or in those formations, have the best possible leaders and the highest possible standards that are not based at all on your sex.”
Watch the video below:

NASA’s celebrity astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said Monday that they hold themselves partly responsible for what went wrong on their space sprint-turned-marathon and would fly on Boeing’s Starliner again. SpaceX recently ferried the duo home after more than nine months at the International Space Station, filling in for Boeing that returned to Earth without them last year. In their first news conference since coming home, the pair said they were taken aback by all the interest and insisted they were only doing their job and putting the mission ahead of themselves and even their families. Wilmore didn’t shy from accepting some of the blame for Boeing’s bungled test flight. “I’ll start and point the finger and I’ll blame me.

Mandatory composting went into effect in October 2024 in New York City, but starting Tuesday, those who do not comply with the law-mandated waste reduction program will be subject to fines.
Beginning on April 1, residents will have to separate food waste from trash or risk receiving a fine from the Department of Sanitation, as the warning phase of the City Council law lapses. Sanitation supervisors may search trash bags to check whether compostable waste is mixed with trash—an enforcement mechanism that officials say is used around the world.
According to rules set by the DSNY, food, yard, and food-soiled paper waste must be set aside in a labeled bin with a secure lid or in a DSNY-issued brown bin to avoid fines.
What should I compost?

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, accompanied by his gabbai Rabbi Mordechai Tzion, made a special visit on Monday to Israeli reservists stationed at Tel Kudna in Syria to give them chizzuk. “The goal of the visit was to strengthen the morale of our holy soldiers,” Rabbi Tzion told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News. During the visit, Rabbi Aviner addressed the soldiers, offering both inspiration and historical perspective on the land where they were stationed. He noted that from a Torah perspective, it is not entirely clear whether Tel Kudna is considered part of Syria or the land of Eretz Yisroel, but suggested that it is likely the latter.

It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the petirah of Rav Yitzchok Isaac Prag zt”l, who Rosh Yeshiva of Mercaz HaTorah in Yerushalayim for more than three decades and as the rov of the Izby Shul in the Mattersdorf neighborhood. He was 92 years old and had just returned from his granddaughter’s wedding in Yerushalayim when he was niftar.
A true Yerushalmi and a scion of a distinguished rabbinic dynasty, Rav Prag descended from generations of towering Torah personalities, including Rav Moshe Nachum Wallenstein, Av Beis Din of Yerushalayim, the Nesivos, Rav Yaakov M’Lisa Loberbaum, the Chacham Tzvi, and the Shaar Efraim.

CHICAGO – A Jewish man in Chicago who found his Tesla vandalized with a Swastika sticker says

The United States Treasury sanctioned six people and seven companies Monday for alleged money laundering for factions of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, underscoring the group’s new designation as a foreign terrorist organization under the Trump administration. The designation aimed at “targeting the financial operations” of the cartel, which has raked in money by trafficking fentanyl to the United States, came as part of an investigation by U.S. and Mexican government agencies. The Treasury said those listed used a “network of front companies and shell corporations” to launder money, often using things like currency exchange businesses along the U.S.-Mexico border and larger bulk cash pickups.

The Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday that it had issued a wide-scale evacuation directive for Palestinians living in Rafah, located in southern Gaza. The military stated it was “returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terror organizations in these areas.”
On social media platform X, IDF Arabic-language spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee posted a map showing the evacuation zones and urged civilians to relocate to al-Mawasi, a coastal area in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
This marked the largest evacuation call made by Israel since combat operations resumed against Hamas earlier this month, ending a lull in the fighting that lasted two months.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Harvard University has become the latest t

Maj. Gen. David Zini, who led the establishment of the Chareidi Chashmonim Brigade, spoke at a recent conference, responding to criticism from Chareidim about the army’s failure to meet its commitments. Zini confirmed that the IDF did not meet the commitments it made to Chareidim. “We earned the criticism fairly,” he said. He emphasized: “Every track in the IDF that I checked, and I don’t want to say that I checked them all but I checked the vast majority of them, we did not fully meet what we committed to the Charedim.

President Donald Trump has issued a stern message, declaring that American military actions against the Houthi rebels in Yemen will not cease until the group, backed by Iran, halts its threats to global maritime security.
“The Iran-backed Houthi Terrorists have been decimated by the relentless strikes over the past two weeks. Many of their Fighters and Leaders are no longer with us. We hit them every day and night — Harder and harder. Their capabilities that threaten Shipping and the Region are rapidly being destroyed,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

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