Israel launched a spy satellite into orbit early Monday morning, the Israeli Defense Ministry and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) said in a joint statement. “The Space Administration in the Directorate of Defense Research and Development … of the Israel Ministry of Defense … and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) have successfully launched the ‘Ofek 16’ reconnaissance satellite into space,” the statement said. The satellite was launched at 4 a.m. from a site in central Israel, according to the statement. According to the Defense Ministry, “Ofek 16” is an “optoelectronic reconnaissance satellite with advanced capabilities.” Engineers will now run a series of tests before the satellite enters full operation, according to the s...
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said no decision has been made about whether schools will be back in session but said the state had hit a pandemic low in new hospitalizations as the state continues opening businesses and easing restrictions. “What does that reopen school look like in the quote unquote new normal right,” the governor said at a Monday coronavirus briefing in Manhattan. “So we’ve asked every school district to come up with a plan on what reopening would look like in your district. New York City is coming up with a plan. Pursuant to that request on what it would look like to reopen the New York City School System in September. But there has been no decision yet, as to whether or not we are reopening schools. We obviously very much would like to,” he...
Israel recorded 691 new coronavirus infections since midnight and 818 new cases over the past 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry’s updated COVID-19 figures. Three more deaths were registered as well, bringing Israel’s tally since the outbreak of the pandemic to 334. There are currently 12,359 active cases throughout the country and 30,749 cases since the first confirmed carrier. Read more at i24NEWS.
BALTIMORE — An unknown substance has spread Monday afternoon in the water near the Canton Waterfront Park in Baltimore. The group Blue Water Baltimore said its scientists have alerted the Coast Guard and the city's Department of Public Works. Blue Water Baltimore said it has received reports that the substance could be linked to a water main break. The group said its waterkeeper team believes it could be heating oil. Read more at WBALTV
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said Monday that violent incidents elsewhere in the city Saturday night prevented officers from stopping protesters from toppling the Little Italy statue of Christopher Columbus, which they then threw in the Jones Falls. “As the Baltimore Police Department was responding to several life and death incidents across the city, a small number of officers were assigned to assist with peaceful protests taking place in the downtown area," Harrison said in a statement. "As the number of protesters grew, it was tactically unsafe for those few officers to position themselves between the protestors and the Christopher Columbus Statue in (an) attempt to prevent vandalism and destruction." Harrison pledged police will conduct a "full inves...
Uber is acquiring food delivery app Postmates, a major coup for the ride-hailing company as it aggressively expands its second largest business offering, Uber Eats, amid a global pandemic that has cut sharply into trip revenue. The $2.65 billion all-stock deal announced Monday streamlines the industry to three major competitors: Uber, DoorDash and Grubhub. In a Monday conference call announcing the deal, Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said there is “plenty of room” for three players in the U.S. delivery market, and that the Postmates deal would allow Uber Eats to become more efficient, lower costs and increase options for customers. “We can use some of the learnings of their system and put it on top of our system in order to build a better service overall,&rdquo...
Baltimore, MD - July 6, 2020 - After significant response from residents applying for assistance from Phase One of Baltimore County’s Eviction Prevention Program, County Executive Johnny Olszewski has allocated an additional $1 million to support residents who are struggling to pay their rent and other housing-related expenses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This new funding will supplement the County’s previous $1 million allocation to assist households at risk of losing their current housing when the state moratorium on evictions is lifted. In addition, the County has allocated an additional $2 million in Community Development Block Grant–Corona Virus (CDBG-CV) funds for Phase Two of its eviction prevention efforts. The County in June issued an RFP to enter...
The Israeli airline will receive loan guarantees and hold a $150 million offering with the State buying shares, if the public does not. El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) is set to be nationalized. The board of directors of the financially troubled Israeli flag carrier has agreed to accept the Ministry of Finance plan by which it will receive a 75% guarantee from the State for a $250 million loan and it will hold a $150 million offering on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). Shares that are not bought by the public will be bought by the State and thus the Moses-Borovitz family, which currently has a controlling stake of 38% will see its holding diluted. If the public does not buy enough shares and the State has a controlling stake, it will appoint a trustee the company for ...
Harvard University announced Monday it will reopen with fewer than half of its undergraduates on campus, the latest sign of the extraordinary constraints that colleges face across the country as they map out plans for the fall term in the shadow of a deadly pandemic. No more than 40 percent of Harvard’s undergrads will live at the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Mass., when the school year begins. Most of them will be first-year students, given priority access to help them acclimate to college life despite the unprecedented disruptions of the novel coronavirus. All undergraduate courses will be taught remotely, the university said, no matter where the students are living. Last March, most students at Harvard and elsewhere were forced to evacuate their dormitories and finish the spr...
The Israeli government on Monday approved a series of measures aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19, following a heated emergency session of the “coronavirus Cabinet,” the Knesset committee tasked with overseeing the country’s response to the pandemic. Israel is currently experiencing a “second wave” of coronavirus infections, with the total number of confirmed cases exceeding 30,000 on Monday, according to Health Ministry data. Among the measures approved were the closure until further notice of all event halls, bars (including those in hotels), clubs, gyms and public pools; the cancellation of summer camps for kids in fifth grade and above; and limiting shuls and other houses of worship to a maximum of 19 congregants. Only 20 passengers at a time wil...
Israel’s Chief Rabbinate has threatened to halt the ordainment of new rabbis if the country’s High Court of Justice forces it to grant rabbinical training to women. The rabbinate’s statement last week followed a petition by women scholars seeking to be ordained as rabbis. In response to the petition, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said that the state was in favor of the move, but that “the current circumstances, in which the Chief Rabbinate handles the [ordainment] process, place legal hurdles” in the way. The state, he said, will work to establish an alternative set of rabbinical exams that will be open to women. The rabbinate, however, rejected the idea outright, saying there is “no place” for female rabbis in Judaism. “Jewish law ...
Palestinian frustration and anger with the Arab world for its general indifference to Israel’s plan to extend sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria are growing, Palestinian Media Watch reported on Friday. According to the report, the Palestinian Authority had expected solid backing from the Islamic world after P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas announced that the P.A. had absolved itself of all agreements with Israel, due to Jerusalem’s plan to apply Israeli civil law to the Jordan Valley and Jewish communities in the West Bank. But sufficient Arab backing is not coming, the report says. The Palestinian leadership expected more, however. In a call to the Islamic nation exposed by PMW, the P.A. is pressing for “jihad”– holy war against the Jewish state. In a fill...
MIAMI (WSVN) - Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced he will be signing an emergency order issuing more closures across the county. The mayor announced he will be signing an order closing restaurant dining rooms, ballrooms, banquet facilities, party venues, gyms and fitness centers, and short-term rentals. Restaurants will still be allowed to operate for takeout and delivery services. The closures will go into effect Wednesday. Read more at WSVN
Controversy erupted over the weekend after a Kansas newspaper posted a cartoon comparing an order to wear masks due to the coronavirus pandemic to the deportation of Jews to the Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust. The weekly Anderson County Review, whose publisher Dane Hicks is a Republican county chairman, posted the cartoon on Friday on its Facebook page. It shows Democratic Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, who issued the order to wear masks last week, wearing a mask emblazoned with a Star of David. Behind her is an image of Jews being loaded on to trains bound for a concentration camp. The caption to the cartoon reads, “Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask…and step onto the cattle car.” Rabbi Moti Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, said the H...
Statewide Positivity Rate Drops to New Low of 4.51%, Daily Positivity Rate Is 3.36% Total Current Hospitalizations Fall to 403, Including 142 ICU Beds In Use Lowest Number of New Deaths Since March 31 Baltimore County Hits 10% Testing Goal, More Than 220 Testing Sites Available Statewide Positivity Rate 58% Higher Among Marylanders Under 35 ANNAPOLIS, MD—Maryland’s key COVID-19 health metrics continue to trend in a positive direction, with the statewide positivity rate dropping to a new low of 4.51%, and total current hospitalizations falling to 403. The state reported three new confirmed deaths, the lowest number since March 31. “As we continue to see encouraging trends in all of our key health metrics, widespread testing across each of Maryland’s ...
Baltimore, MD - July 6, 2020 - Verizon’s attempts to place cell towers in the Baltimore Jewish community has touched off a storm of protest.  Some of these towers have already been installed, while others are on the way.  This is part of Verizon’s 5G rollout that promises to bring better live streaming of TV and movies, enable driverless cars and improve cell phone reception.   AT&T as well as a smaller company named Crown Castle are also installing 5G cell towers in Baltimore City.  Much of the recent concern about Verizon’s cell towers is focused on three of the planned towers for the Jewish community.  The proposed locations are: 3300 Pinkney Road, 5991 Western Run Drive, and 2509 Wetherburn Road.  Comments were due to the city...
The global coronavirus pandemic killed more people than those inflicted with COVID-19, because those sick of other ailments were “so scared” they avoided healthcare and ultimately died without treatment, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz. “For March, April and May we have 122,000 more deaths then typical [in the United States],” Dr. Oz told host John Catsimatidis on Sunday’s “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM, adding, “a lot of these deaths were not people who had COVID-19 necessarily, but they died because of the pandemic. “There are secondary effects, changes in population behavior, when you lock down a country. And when people are so scared that they have an aversion to the healthcare system, then they won’t go to the hospital whe...
More than 200 scientists from more than 30 countries are urging the World Health Organization to take more seriously the possibility of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus as case numbers rise around the world and surge in the United States. In a forthcoming paper titled “It is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of Covid-19,” 239 signatories attempt to raise awareness about what they say is growing evidence that the coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19, can spread indoors through aerosols that linger in the air and can be infectious even in smaller quantities than previously thought. Until recently, most public health guidelines have focused on social distancing measures, regular hand-washing and precautions to avoid droplets. But the signatories to the ...
The US government is sending a “surge” supply of coronavirus drug remdesivir to areas that need it most, FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said Sunday, according to The New York Post. The Department of Health and Human Services will hand out the medication “to the areas that most need it”, Hahn was quoted as having told CNN’s “State of the Union”. “We have been in touch with the states and the localities to surge remdesivir to the areas that most need it,” he added. “And we are receiving that feedback and then shipping remdesivir, so that it’s available for people who need it.” Read more at Arutz Sheva.
The Memorial and Museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which maintains the remains of the death camp where a million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, weighed in on the controversy over tearing down monuments to historical figures in the US and Europe. The tearing down of statues began in the US, mostly targeting Confederate figures, slave-owners, and racists. The calls quickly spread, however, to figures like Christopher Columbus and Thomas Jefferson. In the UK, a statue of Winston Churchill was vandalized. The Auschwitz museum’s statement came in response to a comment from US pollster and political commentator Frank Luntz who tweeted that, like Auschwitz, statues honoring figures like Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln should remain standing. “We can see a lot of ‘Auschwit...
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