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Israel's Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir has authorised residents of Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem to carry firearms, local media reported on Monday.

Under Ben Gvir’s order, residents of 41 Jewish neighbourhoods in the city can now apply for a licence to carry a gun, part of the far-right minister’s wider policy of expanding civilian gun permits. 

Reports suggest that around 300,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem could now be eligible.

Previously, only those living near the separation wall were permitted to carry firearms, as the areas were deemed high-risk due to their proximity to the occupied West Bank. The latest expansion now includes the western neighbourhoods of the city.

"Especially amid the war and during Ramadan, Jerusalem residents have a basic right to defend themselves and their families," Ben Gvir told Israel Hayom on Sunday before issuing the order the day after.

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After spending two consecutive Ramadans behind bars, Leqaa Kordia was freed from US immigration detention on Monday, in what her lawyers have described as a "staggering" $100,000 bond.

Her legal team said the bond was "nonetheless...paid immediately". 

The 33-year-old Palestinian immigrant, whose home is in New Jersey, was released from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, after the Trump administration chose not to challenge what was a third release order by an immigration judge. 

It had previously appealed the first and second orders for her release.

"I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year," Kordia said as she walked out to a group of waiting supporters, with a Palestinian keffiyeh draped around her shoulders.

“There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she added. “There is a lot of people that shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Kordia's cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, told Middle East Eye on Tuesday that Kordia was in relatively good spirits and already at the mosque for Ramadan prayers by Monday evening.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that 201 Ukrainian military experts are currently deployed in the Middle East and Gulf region, helping to defend against Shahed drones, with another 34 specialists ready for deployment.

The Ukrainian President made this statement during an address to members of the UK Parliament, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“Right now, there are 201 Ukrainians in the Middle East and Gulf region, and another 34 are ready to deploy. These are military experts – experts who know how to help, how to defend against Shahed drones. Our teams are already in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and on the way to Kuwait,” Zelensky said.

He noted that Ukraine is also cooperating with several other countries and that relevant agreements have already been concluded.

“We do not want this terror of the Iranian regime against its neighbors to succeed,” he emphasized.

The President added that he had sent the military experts at the request of partners, including the United States. According to him, this is effectively part of a drone-related agreement proposed by Ukraine to the U.S., which is still on the table.

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Daniel Biss, the mayor of Evanston, Ill., has won the Democratic primary for the state's 9th congressional district, according to a race call by The Associated Press, topping a crowded field in the race for a Chicago-area seat that has not been open for nearly three decades.

His victory in the safe blue district ends a highly contested primary of more than a dozen Democrats running to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, 81, who first took office in 1999.

With endorsements from Schakowsky and other national leaders such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Biss was seen as the frontrunner heading into the race. On the campaign trail, he sought to differentiate himself by emphasizing both his background in elected office and his willingness to push for progressive causes and against President Trump's agenda.

"I just don't think we can afford to compromise on either of those two things," he told NPR in an interview ahead of the primary.

Tuesday's results serve as an early indication of what Democratic voters are looking for from the next generation of party leaders, and how much change they feel is needed in this moment when the party is shut out of power in Washington, D.C.

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A meteor over Ohio caused a large boom that jolted people as far away as Pennsylvania on Tuesday morning, Nasa has confirmed.

The meteor entered the atmosphere at about 9am local time on Tuesday, producing a sonic boom felt across a wide swath of northern Ohio and beyond. Reports poured in from Cleveland and other sectors as far east as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and into New York state.

Bill Cook, a Nasa spokesperson, confirmed the meteor was spotted near Medina to News5 Cleveland. “I woke up this morning, and the sky fell, so I feel like Chicken Little right now,” Cooke said.

Cooke said the meteor was moving at 45,000mph, “which is fast for a human but slow for a meteor”.

Nasa’s meteoroid environment office said the asteroid was 2m in diameter and weighed about 6 tons. Despite the weight, Nasa noted it is still considered a small asteroid.

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Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, has been formally subpoenaed to appear before a House panel to answer questions about the justice department’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and its release of the Epstein files.

The move came amid growing criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the justice department’s compliance with a law passed last year requiring the full release of Epstein-related files.

Lawmakers have raised concerns that some disclosures exposed personal information about survivors, and have also accused the Department of Justice of improperly withholding and redacting material in violation of the law, including the names of people who may have committed crimes.

James Comer, chair of the House oversight and government reform committee, wrote in the subpoena letter that there were “questions regarding the Department of Justice’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his associates and its compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act”.

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U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Aguto, who oversaw the command that coordinated, trained and equipped Ukraine’s military, left a tube of classified maps on a train to Poland for more than 24 hours and was concussed from falling after “overindulgence” in alcohol during a dinner in Ukraine, a recently released Pentagon inspector general report found.

The 56-page report, which was published on Friday, found the now-retired two-star general, who led the Wiesbaden, Germany-based Security Assistance Group-Ukraine (SAG-U), brought the classified maps during a trip from Germany to Ukraine in late March 2024 and assigned control of them to his staff.

“We found insufficient evidence to determine who had control of the classified maps once the travelers boarded the train for the return trip,” the watchdog said in the report, adding that travelers left the maps in the train when they arrived back in Poland on April 4, 2024, and the  U.S. Embassy in Ukraine recovered the unattended documents a day later.

When he got back to Wiesbaden, Aguto was told by his executive officer that the tube was gone. Classified information is typically transported via courier; it was not ordered that time, the report said.

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A judge ruled Monday to permanently bar several school districts from following Arkansas’s law to display the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks ruled the law violates the Establishment Clause and the free exercise rights of the plaintiffs.

“Act 573’s purpose is only to display a sacred, religious text in a prominent place in every public-school classroom. And the only reason to display a sacred, religious text in every classroom is to proselytize to children. The State has said the quiet part out loud,” the judge wrote.

The ruling affects several https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5787547-aransas-school-districts-ten-commandments/Arkansas school districts but is not a statewide ban.

“Today’s decision ensures that our clients’ classrooms will remain spaces where all students, regardless of their faith, feel welcomed and can learn without worrying that they do not live up to the state’s preferred religious beliefs,” said Heather Weaver, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

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