New York - Two siblings from the famed Flying Wallendas safely crossed Times Square on a high wire strung between two skyscrapers 25 stories above the pavement. Nik Wallenda is a seventh-generation acrobat, but this time, he said he was nervous. His sister, Lijana Wallenda, joined him Sunday night for the first time since her near-fatal accident in 2017, when she broke nearly every bone in her face. The siblings walked from opposite ends of the 1,300-foot wire (396-meter) suspended between the towers, crossing each other in the middle, where Lijana Wallenda sat on the wire and let her brother step over her. Both then continued to the opposite side. Their latest daredevil stunt was streamed live on ABC and watched by thousands of spectators from below. The two were wearing tethered safet...
Tehran - Iran said on Monday U.S. cyber attacks on its military had been a failure, while also hinting that it could be willing to discuss new concessions with Washington if the United States were to lift sanctions and offer new incentives. The longtime foes have come the closest in years to a direct military confrontation. After Iran shot down a U.S. drone last week, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had called off a retaliatory strike while bombers were in the air, deciding that too many people would die. U.S. media have reported that the United States launched cyber attacks even as Trump called off the air strike. The Washington Post said on Saturday that the cyber strikes, which had been planned previously, had disabled Iranian rocket launch systems. U.S. officials have declined to...
Tehran - Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency is reporting that a local fisherman has found parts of the U.S. spy drone that Iran shot down in the Gulf of Oman last week. The report says the parts will be delivered to Iranian security forces in Qeshm Island, which is located in the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which all oil trade passes in the Persian Gulf. Officials have yet to confirm the report. Iranian authorities had already shown parts of the downed drone, valued at more than $100 million, to journalists on Friday. Iran says it shot down the spy drone for violating Iranian airspace, which the U.S. insists was flying above international waters. President Donald Trump called off strikes in retaliation as tensions flare between Washington and Tehran.
Cairo - Egypt will take part in a Bahrain conference this week on Palestinian economic development in order to evaluate the proposed $50 billion “Peace to Prosperity” plan, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Monday. The June 25-26 conference in the Bahraini capital Manama will discuss a U.S.-led economic vision to be presented by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, part of a wider plan to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But the lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, has prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but in Arab countries with which Israel would seek normal relations. “It is important for Egypt to participate to listen to this proposition and evaluate it…but not in terms ...
Alan Dershowitz I am a pragmatic rationalist. I calculate the costs and benefits of most of my actions, especially when I am representing a client. For the 50 years I was a professor at Harvard Law School, my goal was never to teach the students what to think, but to teach them how to think. I employed the Socratic method in my classes, demanding rational responses from my students. I have never thought of myself as a spiritual person, because for me spiritual was the antithesis of rational. But recently a Torah – a parchment scroll containing the five books of Moses – was dedicated to me for my pro bono work in defending indigent and other prisoners. The ceremony was held at Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn, with hundreds of people dancing in the streets to honor a new Tora...
U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton landed in Jerusalem on Saturday ahead of a tripartite summit of top security officials from Israel, the United States and Russia on Sunday. While the meeting between Bolton, Israeli National Security Council head Meir Ben-Shabbat and Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev was initially set to discuss security issues pertaining to Iran’s entrenchment in Syria, the focus is now expected to shift to recent escalation in tension between the United States and Iran. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the summit “historic and unprecedented” and said it “greatly attests to the current international standing of Israel among the nations.” Israel’s Kan pub...
E. coli was detected in the water supply in the City of Long Beach, Long Island, officials announced Friday. A boil-water order has been issued. Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said that the state has been swift in its response to the detected E.coli and has sent more than 30,000 bottles of water to the impacted area. Curran said the Nassau County Health Department received a sample result that tested positive for E. coli Friday morning. The bacteria was detected in the course of normal testing. The boil-water order will remain in place until all water samples indicate the water is free of bacteria and safe for consumption, Curran said. Read more.
Arab finance ministers met at the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt on Sunday and pledged $100 million dollars a month to the Palestinians. The move comes just ahead of the U.S.-sponsored meeting scheduled to take place in Bahrain this week. The ministers condemned Israel’s seizure of Palestinian funds and called on the international community to pressure the Israeli government to “stop its piracy and return the Palestinian money in full,” according to a report by WAFA, the Palestinian News and Info Agency. Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the monthly funding for the Palestinians had become an urgent necessity. Israel regularly withholds a portion of Palestinian tax revenues, offsetting the amount the Palestinian Authority pays to imprisoned terror...
President Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday that he is “not too prepared” to lose in 2020. When asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he was prepared to lose, Trump said, “No. Probably not. Probably not. It would be much better, it would be much better if I said, ‘Yeah.’ It would be much easier for me to say, ‘Oh yes.’ No I’m probably not too prepared to lose. I don’t like losing. I haven’t lost very much in my life.” President Trump last week officially kicked off his 2020 reelection bid with a rally in Orlando, Florida, last week. Read more at The Hill.
Tiffani Adams woke up in a cold, dark Air Canada jet a few hours after landing at Toronto International Airport to discover she was left sleeping on the plane. Adams described the harrowing experience in which she was unable to recharge her phone while stuck inside the parked aircraft, which sent her into a panic attack. She eventually found a flashlight in the cockpit, and opened one of the plane’s doors, flashing the light at the ground crew who came to her rescue. Air Canada officials gave her a ride home and have been in contact with her since, but Adams is still recovering from the ordeal. Read more at THE NY POST.
Twenty-two of Joe Biden’s rivals on Saturday tried to make the case that he’s not the best choice for 2020, mostly without mentioning his name. Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, one of just two Democratic candidates who skipped the South Carolina Democratic convention, lambasted Biden as “unchanging, unapologetic, unaware” for Biden’s recent comments praising his own work with segregationist Senate Democrats in the 1970s. Gravel tweeted that the former vice president “is a disaster waiting to happen. If you are serious about beating Trump, you need to be serious about beating Joe and giving us a serious progressive for the White House.” Read more at THE NY POST.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Sunday that he was disappointed in former Vice President Joe Biden’s response to criticism of his remarks on working with segregationists, days after Biden claimed Booker owed him an apology on the issue. “Look, we make mistakes,” Booker, who is running against Biden for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We sometimes tread upon issues that maybe we aren’t knowledgeable of. I don’t think the vice president should need this lesson, but this was a time for him to be healing and to be helpful, especially at a time that he is looking to bring this party together and lead us in what is the most important election of our lifetime. And I was disappointed. I’ve said my pi...
More than 100 religious women students from Jerusalem College of Technology/Machon Tal worked around the clock last week as part of the second annual Hack@Tal, a 44-hour hackathon for the school’s Torah-observant women students. The winning team, consisting of five software engineering and computer science students, won a 3,000 shekel prize (more than $800) for their critical solution to a challenge presented by Intel and Alyn Hospital designed to more comfortably monitor oxygen levels in infants’ bloodstream. Instead of the uncomfortable common device clipped to a finger and attached with wires, the newly developed product allows for wireless monitoring attached to the infants’ toe and part of a comfortable sock. Other challenges at the event were provided by Intel, I...
Keurig Dr Pepper, the company that manufactures Peñafiel water bottles, is voluntarily pulling its bottles after tests found arsenic levels in the product that violate state and federal guidelines. All bottles of unflavored Peñafiel mineral spring water are included in what Keurig Dr Pepper called a “voluntary withdrawal” in a statement Friday. Peñafiel is currently sold at Target, Walmart and other vendors. Consuming arsenic at much higher levels than what was found in Peñafiel’s products has been associated with many chronic diseases, a statement from Keurig Dr Pepper says. However, independent lab tests did detect arsenic in Peñafiel “at levels that exceeded the FDA’s bottled water standards for mineral water.” Re...
Joe Sestak, a former congressman from Pennsylvania and Navy admiral, became the latest Democrat to join the crowd of 2020 presidential hopefuls. The 67-year-old in a statement posted on his website Saturday said he is running to be the commander-in-chief “who serves the American people the way they deserve to be served.” “What Americans most want today is someone who is accountable to them, above self, above party, above any special interest … a President who has the depth of global experience to restore America’s leadership in the world to protect our American Dream at home … and one who is trusted to restructure policies where too many see only the growth of inequity not of the economy,” he said. Read more at NY POST.
President Trump in an interview broadcast Sunday said that appointing Jeff Sessions as his first attorney general was his “biggest mistake” in the Oval Office. “I would say if I had one do over, it would be, I would not have appointed Jeff Sessions to be attorney general,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That was the biggest mistake.” Sessions was a top 2016 campaign surrogate for Trump and the first senator to endorse him, but their relationship soured after Sessions recused himself from the investigation into Russian interference in 2016, leading then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller. Read more at The Hill.
Iran has executed a former Ministry of Defense employee after intelligence officials reportedly caught him spying for the CIA. Aerospace contractor Jalal Hajizavar was killed at the infamous Rajai Shahr prison after officials found documents and spying equipment at his home. It comes just days after the Islamic Republic shot down an American spy drone. Read more.
The Israeli tech sector reached several all-time highs this week as measured by the BlueStar Israel Global Technology IndexTM (BIGITech), a benchmark for Israeli high-tech companies trading globally. The companies tracked by the BIGITech index are part of the investment portfolio of The Jerusalem Portfolio (TJP), a new mechanism allowing individuals, foundations and institutions to own a stake in Israeli-focused public companies. “The record-breaking growth of the Israeli market tech sector continues to underscore the value of investing in Israeli-focused public companies,” said Jonathan Gerber, co-founder of TJP and president of RVW Wealth. At a recent launch event, Stanley P. Gold, one of the largest and earliest major foreign private investors in Israel, sat down with Jef...
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will propose on Monday eliminating all $1.6 trillion of student debt held in the United States, a significant escalation of the policy fight in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary two days before the candidates’ first debate in Miami. Sanders is proposing that the federal government pay to wipe clean the student debt held by 45 million Americans – including all private and graduate school debt – as part of a package that also would make public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free. Sanders is proposing to pay for these plans with a tax on Wall Street his campaign says will raise more than $2 trillion over 10 years, though some tax experts give lower revenue estimates. Sanders will be joined Monday by Rep. Ilhan...
In Bamidbar, Perek Yud Gimmel, posuk chof the posuk tells us that Moshe told the Meraglim to strengthen themselves and take from the fruits of Eretz Yisroel. The Sefer Pri Haaretz explains the reason why the Man that came down in the Midbar stopped coming down as soon as they entered Eretz Yisroel. He says that as soon as the Yidden ate from the fruits of Eretz Yisroel, they did not need the Man anymore since the fruits had the same benefits that Man had. Both the Man and fruits of Eretz Yisroel came directly from Hashem and they both had the characteristic of tasting like whatever foods they wanted to taste.  This could be the reason Moshe requested that the Meraglim bring the fruit of Eretz Yisroel; so that the Yidden can see the kedusha in the fruits of Eretz Yisroel f...
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