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U.S. Education Department to investigate antisemitism complaint filed in Virginia school district
(JTA) – The U.S. Education Department says it will investigate allegations of antisemitism within a Northern Virginia public school district brought by the Zionist Organization of America, in a case the ZOA has pursued for more than a year.
The federal department’s Office of Civil Rights wrote in a Nov. 3 letter to ZOA that it would investigate whether Fairfax County Public Schools, in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, failed to act on alleged incidents of harassment including students making “Heil Hitler” salutes and Holocaust jokes. The department said the opening of the investigation does not mean that ZOA’s claim has merit, only that they determined that it fell within their purview.
The department also declined to investigate a key allegation made by ZOA: that a school board member’s tweets about Israel in 2021 fell under the rubric of antisemitic discrimination. The department said this was because too much time had passed since the tweets, but the decision was a notable loss for pro-Israel legal groups, who have successfully used Department of Education civil rights complaints as a way to challenge what they describe as anti-Israel speech in schools and universities.
ZOA leaders still celebrated the opening of the investigation. The group’s President Morton Klein said in a statement: “We are pleased that OCR is investigating FCPS for failing to respond effectively to longstanding problems of antisemitism in the district.”
The conservative group’s past activities in Fairfax hinted that it had planned to make the board member’s Israel tweets a central component of its legal strategy. ZOA had been beating the drum about a Muslim Fairfax board member’s tweet about Israel for more than a year, sending letters to the district’s superintendent and school board accusing board member Abrar Omeish of antisemitism. Omeish had tweeted in May 2021 in support of Palestinians during Israel’s deadly conflict with Hamas, wishing her followers a happy Eid while adding: “Hurts my heart to celebrate while Israel kills Palestinians & desecrates the Holy Land right now. Apartheid & colonization were wrong yesterday and will be today, here and there.”
After criticism, Omeish later followed it up with a message pledging “robust and empathetic engagement with Jewish leaders,” as some speakers at a Fairfax school board meeting called for her resignation. At that same meeting, the board read out a statement acknowledging both antisemitism and Islamophobia, and standing “against any acts of violence and hatred committed against any person or group within our community.”
A month later, Fairfax County board members were targeted with antisemitic flyers that appeared to originate from a white supremacist group, calling the board “Jew-inspired, communist, queer-loving sex fiends.” The flyers, which would not have fallen under the Department of Education’s purview, were not mentioned in the civil rights complaint, and did not appear to have any connection to the Israel controversy.
The details of the other parts of the complaint were nearly identical to a Washington Post op-ed by Anna Stolley Persky, a Jewish parent of three Fairfax students. Persky, a former staffer at the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, wrote that “it is ridiculously hard to raise a Jewish child in Fairfax County Public Schools,” detailing alleged incidents of student Nazi salutes and the district’s scheduling of tests and other events on the High Holidays.
Persky’s Washington Post piece was published in March 2021, pre-dating Israel’s outbreak of violence and Omeish’s tweets.
The Department of Education also rejected a third allegation in the complaint, saying it would not investigate the district’s alleged scheduling of events on Jewish holidays because such an incident fell outside the department’s civil rights purview. The local Jewish community had allied with Omeish in an effort to add Jewish, Muslim and Hindu holidays to the school year, and Jewish officials said at the time of her tweet that her words were especially painful because of the alliance. The local Jewish Community Relations Council rescinded an honor it planned to confer on Omeish.
The Fairfax case echoes a previous one in which an Arizona school district was found to have failed to respond to multiple instances of alleged antisemitic harassment of a student. The district reached an agreement with the office of civil rights to update its harassment reporting policies, require discrimination and investigation training for its staff, post a district-wide anti-harassment statement, and conduct further audits of its harassment handling procedures.
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Iran’s Guards Will View Military Vessels Approaching Strait as Ceasefire Breach
FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that any military vessels attempting to approach the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the two-week US ceasefire and be dealt with harshly and decisively.
The strait is under the control and “smart management” of Iran’s Navy, the Guards said in a statement reported by Iranian state media, adding it is “open for the safe passage of non-military vessels in accordance with specific regulations.”
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Iran Rejected US Demand to Stop Funding Proxies, and Halt Uranium Enrichment During Talks
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iran has rejected core US demands in recent negotiations, including an end to uranium enrichment, the dismantling of major nuclear facilities, and a halt to support for regional terrorist groups, according to a senior US official speaking to Reuters.
The official also said that Tehran refused to end backing for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as well as calls to fully open the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, underscoring deep divisions that continue to stall diplomacy.
The failed talks come as assessments from officials and experts suggest that Iran’s nuclear program has remained largely resilient despite five weeks of intense US and Israeli strikes.
According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, that while the campaign did cause significant damage to research facilities and parts of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure, the strikes appear to have stopped short of eliminating Iran’s most sensitive capabilities.
Iran likely retains operational centrifuges and access to a heavily fortified underground enrichment site, preserving the technical foundation of its program.
A critical concern for Western officials is Iran’s continued possession of an estimated 1,000 pounds of near-weapons-grade uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that roughly half of this stockpile is stored in reinforced containers within tunnels beneath the Isfahan nuclear complex.
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Trump Vows to Blockade Strait of Hormuz After Iran Peace Talks Fail to Yield Agreement
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meets with Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as delegations from the United States and Iran are expected to hold peace talks, in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 11, 2026. Office of the Iranian Parliament Speaker/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Sunday the US Navy would start blockading the Strait of Hormuz, raising the stakes after marathon talks with Iran failed to reach a deal to end the war, jeopardizing a fragile two-week ceasefire.
Trump also said in a post on Truth Social that the US would take action against every vessel in international waters that had paid a toll to Iran, and begin destroying mines that he said the Iranians had dropped in the strait, a choke point for about 20% of global energy supplies that Iran has blocked.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded with a statement warning that military vessels approaching the strait will be considered a ceasefire breach and dealt with harshly and decisively, underlining the risk of a dangerous escalation.
“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said in his Truth Social post.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” Trump added.
“Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!” he added.
Six weeks of fighting has killed thousands, roiled the global economy and sent oil prices soaring as Iran prevented traffic through the strait.
MORE NEGOTIATIONS?
In an interview with Fox News after his post about the strait, Trump said that he believed Iran would continue to negotiate and called the weekend discussions “very friendly.”
“I do believe they’re going to come to the table on this, because nobody can be so stupid as to say, ‘We want nuclear weapons,’ and they have no cards,” Trump told Fox News from his golf course near Miami, Florida.
Trump also said that NATO allies, whom he has criticized for failing to back the war he launched along with Israel on February 28, wanted to help with the operation in the strait.
There was no immediate comment from Washington’s allies.
The weekend talks in Islamabad, which followed the announcement of a ceasefire last Tuesday, were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” said Vice President JD Vance, who headed the US delegation.
A US official said Iran had rejected Washington’s call for an end to all uranium enrichment, the dismantling of all major enrichment facilities and the transfer of highly enriched uranium. The two sides also failed to reach agreement on the US demand that Iran cease funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis as well as fully open the strait, the official added.
Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who led his country’s delegation along with Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, blamed the US for not winning Tehran’s trust, despite his team offering “forward-looking initiatives.”
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, who discussed the talks in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Tehran wanted “a balanced and fair agreement.”
“If the United States returns to the framework of international law, reaching an agreement is not far off,” he told Putin, Iranian state media reported.
ISRAEL CONTINUES BOMBING LEBANON
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching a deal. Other Iranian media said there was agreement on a number of issues, but the strait and Iran’s nuclear program were the main sticking points.
Despite the stalemate, three supertankers fully laden with oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, shipping data showed, in what appeared to be the first vessels to exit the Gulf since the ceasefire deal.
Israel has continued bombing Tehran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, insisting – along with Washington – that that conflict was not part of the Iran-US ceasefire. Iran says the fighting in Lebanon must stop.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah rocket launchers overnight into Sunday and black smoke could be seen rising in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
And in Israeli villages near the border, air raid sirens sounded, warning of incoming rocket fire from Lebanon.