Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) are pushing for additional sanctions on the Houthis in response to the group’s violations of human rights and hostage-taking in a new bill set to be introduced Friday.

The pair are the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Middle East subcommittee.

Last week, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore stood before a crowded room of Jewish attendees just outside the nation’s capital, and proclaimed: “Today, I want to be loud and clear, that Maryland stands with the Israeli people and we support their right to exist in the region with the same sense of safety and security that we all want,” Moore told attendees at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington’s annual “Lox and Legislators” event.

The nuance in Moore’s statement was telling — an expression of support not for Israel specifically, but for the Israeli people. It’s a clear distinction — and a potential shift in messaging for mainstream Democrats seeking to put daylight between themselves and the Israeli government, while not, as they see it, throwing Israelis under the bus.

A senior State Department official told lawmakers on Thursday that the U.S. believes there are “no good actors” in the brutal civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the East African nation, and said the U.S.’ focus is on cutting off external support to both parties and achieving a temporary ceasefire.

“From our perspective, there are no good actors in this conflict,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Vincent Spera said during a House Foreign Affairs Africa subcommittee hearing. “The administration unequivocally condemns the atrocities committed by both parties. Members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanitry and ethnic cleansing, and members of the SAF have also committed war crimes, including in May when the United States announced the government of Sudan used chemical weapons in 2024.”

Iran is still plotting assassination attempts against officials from the first Trump administration involved in the killing of Quds Force head Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a senior FBI official cautioned on Thursday.

The warning came from FBI operations director Michael Glasheen, who testified before the House Homeland Security Committee during a hearing on “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland.” Glasheen was appearing before the panel on behalf of FBI Director Kash Patel, who was unable to attend Thursday’s hearing. 

Earlier this year, in the heavily saturated world of commentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a new name started to appear everywhere, though it seemed to come out of nowhere: Adam Louis-Klein, an anthropology Ph.D. student at McGill University. Until this past spring, he had hardly said anything about Israel publicly. He was too busy studying a remote Amazonian tribe. 

But then Louis-Klein, 32, built a platform and started writing — first on Facebook and X; then in Times of Israel blog posts; on podcasts, including one from the American Jewish Committee, and a show hosted by the Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur; and in articles published in The Free Press and Tablet. 

Prominent Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch left a meeting on Thursday afternoon with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and a dozen diverse rabbis and community leaders feeling “encouraged,” saying that there is “reason to be optimistic” that Mamdani will protect the Jewish community.  

Still, given Mamdani’s affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America and antagonistic views on Israel — including his refusal to condemn the term “globalize the intifada” —  Hirsch told Jewish Insider there remains “reason for the New York Jewish community to be anxious about Israel and safety.”

Several leading Jewish organizations in Virginia and Washington issued a joint statement on Thursday slamming state Del. Sam Rasoul and calling for his resignation as chair of the Virginia House of Delegates’ Education Committee, days after the Roanoke Democrat announced that he is considering running for Congress in 2026. 

The statement — from the Jewish Community Relations Councils in the greater Washington area, Richmond, the Tidewater (including Virginia Beach) and the Virginia Peninsula (Newport News) — accused Rasoul, who is Palestinian American, of using rhetoric that fuels antisemitism. 

Rabbi Shalom Landau, a Satmar Hasidic leader who posts online videos offering practical, Torah-based advice, has found unlikely supporters in a prominent Jordanian-American tech founder who is outspokenly critical of Israel and within white nationalist online subcultures.  

“Rabbi putting out the best self-help content on the internet rn,” tweeted Amjad Masad, the Dubai-based founder and CEO of Replit, an AI-powered platform for building, coding and deploying web applications. Masad shared one of Landau’s latest videos on Tuesday, which offers advice for dealing with abuse by quoting the Book of Jeremiah: “Cursed is a man who puts his trust in people.”