For many U.S. Jews, following current events these days can be emotionally tumultuous. Simultaneously, there is widely shared anger at the upsurge of attacks targeting their communities, and deep divisions within those communities over whether to support or oppose various policies and actions by Israel in the conflict-wracked Middle East. Just last week, there was unified condemnation of the attempted attack by a man who drove his pickup truck into a Detroit-area synagogue where more than 100 children were attending preschool. The driver, who died during a gunfight with police, had lost family members during a recent Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
Iran is intensifying its attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors’ energy infrastructure as it hits back following an Israeli attack on its main natural gas field. Thursday strikes set Qatari liquefied natural gas facilities and two Kuwaiti oil refineries ablaze and the United Arab Emirates shut down one of its gas operations. It marked a major escalation in the Mideast war that has sent global fuel prices soaring. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, is now up more than 50% since Israel and the U.S. started the war on Feb. 28.
Dolores Huerta and the late César Chavez are both credited with leading a movement that got growers to negotiate for better wages and working conditions for farm workers. Their legacies as United Farm Workers of American co-founders and leaders are now getting new attention after allegations emerged that Chavez sexually abused girls and women, including Huerta. Cornell University labor history professor Paul Ortiz says the movement's rise is one of the most important events in U.S. history and is the most important event in U.S. Latino history. He says agricultural workers had tried to organize for centuries but almost every effort failed until the success of United Farm Workers.
Iran has broadened its strikes on major energy facilities in the Middle East, eliciting strong warnings from Gulf Arab states that called it a dangerous escalation that threatened to draw them into direct combat with Tehran. The strikes come after Israel killed Iran’s intelligence minister and reportedly attacked the world’s largest natural gas field in Iran. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all denounced the Iranian attacks targeting their natural gas fields. Global prices surged after the attacks.
Democratic lawmakers have stormed out of a closed-door briefing on the Jeffrey Epstein files by Justice Department leaders, and say they will push to force Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions under oath about the case. Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to try to quell bipartisan frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of millions of files related to Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation. Republicans on the committee dismissed the move by Democrats as political grandstanding, said Bondi and Blanche had been answering “substantiative questions,” and that Bondi said she would follow the law regarding her subpoena.
Israel killed two senior Iranian security officials in a major blow to the country’s leadership. Iran, which confirmed both killings, renewed its attacks Wednesday on its Gulf Arab neighbors and Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the deaths of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force. Larijani was considered one of the most powerful figures in the country since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the war.
Gregory Bovino says he plans to retire from the U.S. Border Patrol in the coming weeks. He became a face of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in large cities. Bovino joined the Border Patrol in 1996 and steadily rose through the ranks but wasn’t well-known outside the agency until last June, when he took command of a crackdown in Los Angeles. Bovino was a near-daily presence as Minnesota’s Twin Cities turned into a battleground between demonstrators and immigration authorities in January that led to the deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administration’s 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists has been released. Leqaa Kordia is a 33-year-old from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016. She had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Kordia was among roughly 100 people arrested outside Columbia University during protests at the school in 2024. She had twice been ordered released on bond by an immigration judge but the government has challenged those rulings. She was freed Monday after a judge earlier ordered her released on bond.
The last pro-Palestinian protester in immigration detention after Trump’s campus crackdown has been released.
The Justice Department has moved to dismiss charges against an Army veteran who set fire to an American flag near the White House last year to protest President Donald Trump’s executive order on flag burning. Jay Carey of Arden, North Carolina, was arrested in August after he set fire to a flag in Lafayette Park. Earlier that day, Trump signed an executive order requiring the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute people for burning the American flag. Carey was charged with two misdemeanors that aren’t focused on the act of burning a flag and pleaded not guilty. Carey says he hopes the victory "can help the next person who takes a stand.”