The House Appropriations Committee voted on Tuesday to boost its proposal for 2026 Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding by $30 million, up to $335 million, an increase that Jewish groups say is a positive, but insufficient step, amid rising threats to the community.

The change was approved by a voice vote as part of a bipartisan package of amendments.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would allow China to continue to purchase oil from Iran, though a senior White House official denied there had been any change in policy or that sanctions would be lifted.

Trump’s comments appeared to many observers to be a reversal of his own administration’s actions just months ago and in contravention of congressionally approved sanctions designed to cut off the Iran-China oil trade, one of Iran’s most critical sources of funding.  

When Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter agreed last week to a major interview with Iran International, the biggest independent Iranian news outlet in the world, the geopolitical status of the region looked very different than it did when Leiter sat down with anchor Fardad Farahzad on Tuesday morning at the National Press Club in Washington. 

What was billed as a candid conversation with Leiter, where he would answer questions directly from Iranians curious about Israel’s approach to military strikes in Iran, turned into a newsy postmortem on the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, which had shakily come to a close just hours earlier with a ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump and the Qataris. 

A prominent member of Qatar’s royal family is boosting Zohran Mamdani, a far-left Queens state assemblyman, in his campaign for mayor of New York City.

In recent posts to Instagram, Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the sister of Qatar’s emir, has promoted Mamdani’s bid as he competes in a tight race against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his top rival in today’s Democratic primary election.

Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command who is nominated to be the next CENTCOM head, said at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that the United States is prepared for the possibility that Iran will attempt to place mines in the Strait of Hormuz to close off the strategic waterway.

The Iranian parliament approved a move earlier this week to close the strait, but that decision would be dependent on the approval of the Iranian leadership, and it’s not clear whether the ceasefire between Israel and Iran might hold off such a move. Around a third of the world’s oil supply passes through the strait, which connects the Persian Gulf and several Gulf states to the Arabian Sea.

For decades, former Israeli politician and Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky has championed the cause of freedom from oppressive regimes. Dissidents across the world have found inspiration in his books and sought his advice and support.

Iranians seeking to topple the totalitarian mullahs’ regime are no different.

President Donald Trump blasted Israel on Tuesday morning after it said it would respond to Iranian violations of the ceasefire, telling reporters, “I’m not happy with Iran, but I’m really not happy with Israel.”

“We have two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing,” he continued, speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews before taking off to attend the NATO summit at The Hague, Netherlands. 

The 21 members of the House Jewish Caucus — all Democrats — pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in a letter sent on Tuesday expressing concerns about Kingsley Wilson, the recently promoted Pentagon press secretary with a history of antisemitic and otherwise controversial comments.

“Recent public reporting has highlighted a series of deeply troubling and offensive statements made by Kingsley Wilson, now serving as Pentagon Press Secretary,” the letter reads. “These statements include promoting the antisemitic and racist ‘Great Replacement’ theory, praising far-right political movements using slogans tied to neo-Nazi groups, and repeating patently false statements commonly circulated in neo-Nazi circles about Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched by an antisemitic mob in Georgia in 1915.”