https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-890696
Video footage showed the boy approaching the mail truck before the postal worker came out and shoved the child forcefully to the ground.
The Ramapo police department announced that the 39-year-old postal worker was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and attempted assault in the third degree.
The postal worker had reportedly been screaming at nearby children before the victim approached him.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/22/middleeast/iran-war-history-tanker-wars-intl-hnk-ml
As President Donald Trump looks at ordering US Navy ships to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, for naval analysts and historians, there’s a distinct feeling of “been there, done that.”
Almost 40 years ago, US Navy warships were facing the same enemy they’d be facing now, the navy and the sea forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The so-called Tanker War of the late 1980s saw some of the same weapons and problems a US escort force would face today, and provides lessons on how, in war, things can go wrong quickly in unexpected ways – with deadly consequences.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-890392
Because as soon as oil prices began to spike, sending energy markets into panic, raising the cost of living, and threatening already shaky economies, the tone began to shift. Subtly at first. Then more openly. Calls for “restraint.” Appeals for “de-escalation.” Thinly veiled criticisms of the very operation that, days earlier, had been quietly endorsed or at least understood.
This is the uncomfortable truth that the past weeks have exposed. For all the lofty rhetoric about human rights, democracy, and standing up to evil, the West’s moral compass appears to be calibrated, above all, by the price per barrel.
Of course, governments must consider economic consequences. No responsible leader can ignore the impact of rising fuel costs on ordinary citizens. But there is a difference, an enormous, consequential difference, between weighing economic factors and allowing them to dictate one’s entire moral posture.
What we are witnessing now is the latter. It is the quiet recalibration of principles in the face of economic discomfort. It is the willingness to tolerate, excuse, or even indirectly empower a regime like Iran because confronting it has become inconvenient.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/2026-03-22/live-updates-890731
At least 84 wounded in Arad, at least 78 wounded across Dimona after Iranian missile barrages • Mojtaba Khamenei "alive, but IRGC currently running Iran" • Trump threatens strikes if Hormuz not open
Over 100 people were injured by Iranian strikes in the southern cities of Dimona and Arad on Saturday, 11 of them seriously, medics said, after Israeli air defenses failed to intercept at least two ballistic missiles.
Iranian state media said the strikes were targeting Israel’s nuclear research facility, located some 10 kilometers (six miles) outside of Dimona and 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) outside of Arad, in retaliation for an alleged US attack on Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility earlier in the day. Iran blamed that attack on the US and Israel, though the IDF denied any involvement.
The military said the Israeli Air Force was investigating the failure to intercept both ballistic missiles. It confirmed air defenses had engaged both projectiles, but the interceptors failed to knock them down.
Robert Mueller, the no-nonsense former FBI chief who documented Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election and its contacts with Donald Trump’s campaign but opted not to bring criminal charges against a sitting president, has died at age 81, multiple news outlets reported on Saturday.
Mueller retired after 12 years as Federal Bureau of Investigation director in 2013 but was summoned back to public service by a senior Justice Department official four years later as a special counsel to take over an inquiry into Russia’s election meddling after Trump fired then-FBI chief James Comey.
Trump on Saturday celebrated Mueller’s passing. “Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social site. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
“Based on Justice Department policy and principles of fairness, we decided we would not make a determination as to whether the president committed a crime,” Mueller told lawmakers.
“The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” Mueller added.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/424338
An Iranian missile bearing a heavy warhead on Saturday night directly hit a building where Gur hasidim live in the southern city of Arad, after the IAF failed to intercept it.
Magen David Adom (MDA) reported that 88 people injured at the scene, suffering varying degrees of injury.
Later, the IDF confirmed that an Iranian missile weighing 450 kilograms hit Arad directly after two attempts to intercept it failed.
According to Haaretz, analysis of one of the videos from the scene shows that the missile impacted approximately nine seconds after the siren sounded.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2026/03/21/robert-mueller-dead/
Robert S. Mueller III, a career prosecutor who became a central figure in two searing national traumas, first as FBI director in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and later as special counsel investigating ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, died Friday. He was 81.
During more than four decades in law enforcement — as line prosecutor, U.S. attorney and FBI chief — Mr. Mueller developed a reputation as a stickler for detail who savored methodical investigation and nearly always got his man. Some colleagues privately spoke of the decorated Marine veteran as “Bobby Three Sticks,” referring to his patrician pedigree and the three-fingered Boy Scout salute.
At the FBI, in an era of increasingly partisan national division, he built a reputation for nonpartisan rectitude and stone-faced reserve, frustrating speechwriters by crossing out every “I” they wrote into his prepared remarks. It wasn’t about him, he told them: “It’s about the organization.”
Vayikra (04:22) When a ruler has sinned, and done
something through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord his God
concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
Berachos (55a) There are three things for which one
should supplicate: a good king, a good year, and a good dream. ‘A good king,
as it is written: A king's heart is in the hands of the Lord as the water-courses.
‘A good year’, as it is written: The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon
it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.A good dream’,
as it is written; Wherefore cause Thou me to dream and make me to live.
Meshech Chochma (Devarim 17:15): … The Ralbag notes
that the heart of the king is in G-d’s hand (Mishlei 21:1). Thus the king has
no free will but what he does is determined by G d. Shmuel was thus afraid of
Shaul at this point [Shmuel 1 1:11] because Shaul was no longer king and thus
had free will to harm him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/03/20/pentagon-press-policy-unconstitutional-nyt/
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., struck down the Defense Department’s controversial press policy as unconstitutional Friday, ruling in favor of the New York Times and one of its reporters, Julian E. Barnes.
The policy, introduced in October, stated that the Pentagon could revoke credentials for any journalist who solicits information the department has not authorized for release — even if that information was unclassified. The policy led to a mass exodus of journalists from dozens of news organizations who refused to sign, including the Times and The Washington Post. Only a handful of the hundreds of formerly credentialed members of the media signed the updated agreement.
Three weeks into the war, the Iranian regime is signaling that it believes it is winning and has the power to impose a settlement on Washington that entrenches Tehran’s dominance of Middle East energy resources for decades to come.
This attitude may prove to be a dangerous misreading of President Trump’s determination, or of Israel’s capacity to inflict strategic blows on the Islamic Republic’s surviving leadership and military capabilities.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have given mixed signals on how long the war would go on, as they try to talk markets down and keep Tehran guessing. Netanyahu said Thursday that the war would end “a lot faster than people think.” Trump said this week the U.S. would wrap up the conflict in the “near future” even as the Pentagon dispatched thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/20/politics/us-strikes-iran-frequency-data
While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly stated that the number and intensity of the strikes the US is carrying out against Iran is only increasing, data provided by the US military shows a pace of operations that has ebbed and flowed over the last three weeks.
As Hegseth has gone to the podium alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine in a series of press conferences, he has repeatedly asserted that the coming day would bring the most US strikes on Iran yet.
Starting on March 4, his second briefing on the war which began on February 28, Hegseth said “more and larger waves” of strikes were coming, and that the Defense Department was “accelerating, not decelerating.”
But data released publicly by US Central Command has not shown that the number of strikes has increased daily the way Hegseth has indicated, which could partly be due to the need to adjust the frequency of flights as aircraft and ships receive maintenance while operations continue, or because the military started with a set target list and is now working to identify and confirm new targets.
A few days ago, police working under Hamas who were patrolling a market in Gaza City came upon a vendor who was selling tomatoes for the wildly inflated price of NIS 25 per kilogram, or about $3.60 a pound.
The officers seized the produce, citing a law against price gouging meant to protect Gazans amid a reduction in goods entering the Strip since the outbreak of the war in Iran on February 28, according to Anas Arafat, a Gaza City resident who witnessed the incident.
With attention in Israel and the region largely on the war in Iran and fighting in Lebanon, Hamas security forces in Gaza have stepped up their visibility in Gaza over the last two weeks, according to locals who spoke with The Times of Israel and corroborated by footage circulating in the enclave.
Alongside Hamas’s increased presence have also been reports of rising violence against Gazans, as the terror group ostensibly holding the enclave seeks to reassert power.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5791945-pentagon-funding-iran-war-supplemental-republicans/
Republicans are grappling with how to handle an expected $200 billion request for supplemental funding for the war in Iran, weighing their desire to support the president with demands from fiscal hawks, questions about the scope of the funding and the challenge of a super-slim majority in the House.
Democrats are not expected to support such a Pentagon funding boost for a war they oppose, leading Republicans to eye fulfilling the request through the special budget reconciliation process, which bypasses the need for Democratic support to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
Adding $200 billion more to the military’s budget would represent a major expenditure of federal dollars, considering the entire military budget for fiscal 2026 was $1 trillion. The White House Office of Management and Budget still must make a formal request to Congress, meaning the figure could be reduced.
