The American-Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) issued a message to the public to urge senators to oppose efforts to restrict aid to Israel. In an online petition initiated by AIPAC, the lobby says: "Presidents Barack Obama & George W. Bush agreed to successive 10-year memorandums of understanding with Israel. Neither imposed political restrictions because doing so would undermine U.S. national security interests." Read more at Arutz-7
Bezeq Israel Telecom said on Sunday it would soon double internet speeds to 200 megabits per second after receiving long-awaited approval from regulators. Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecoms group, has long sought permission from the Communications Ministry to allow it to offer speeds of more than 100 Mbps but the regulator had rejected the request saying its view that Bezeq would not want to deploy a fibre optics network. But the coronavirus outbreak showed that Israel’s infrastructure was not sufficient, with many parents complaining of network issues when multiple children were learning from home on Zoom and other video services. “This reality sharpens the need for a high-quality and stable Internet infrastructure capable of delivering high browsing speeds,” said...
Gov. Andrew Cuomo released new information regarding the potential reopening of schools in New York amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Cuomo said the reopening of schools will echo the state’s economic reopening, and will follow a data-based process to make sure students are not put at risk. Under the plan, schools will be able to open in the fall for regions that are under phase four. The daily infection rate in these regions must remain lower than 5% over a 14-day average. Read more at NBC NY.
Whether it was a senior commander in Hamas’s elite naval commando force who defected to Israel, as initially reported on Sunday, or merely a junior officer in the unit as was subsequently reported, the incident still represents a major Israeli intelligence coup. Unconfirmed reports claimed the Hamas commander escaped aboard an Israeli military boat, carrying his laptop, surveillance equipment and “classified documents” the circulation of which would be harmful to Hamas. He had reportedly been cooperating with Israel since 2009. Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya on Sunday identified the alleged defector, who reportedly escaped Gaza on Saturday accompanied by his brother, as Mohammed Omar Abu Ajwa. Citing Hamas’s Interior Ministry and Palestinian med...
Iran warned on Monday that any country found to be responsible for the explosion at its Natanz nuclear enrichment facility on July 2 should expect retaliation. “After summarizing, a full report will be presented in this regard and then, we will take the necessary actions in accordance with the findings that will be made after the investigation,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi. “If a regime or a government is involved in the Natanz incident, Iran will react decisively,” stressed Mousavi. According to The New York Times, the string of explosions in Iran in recent weeks is part of an “evolving” Israeli-American strategy of “short-of-war clandestine strikes, aimed at taking out the most prominen...
New Yorkers should wear a mask or face covering indoors at all times, even at work and in large spaces regardless if social distancing can be met, de Blasio said Monday morning. Although the city’s key coronavirus indicators have looked favorable in recent weeks, Mayor de Blasio said infection rates in young adults is cause for concern. Infections are up in adults ages 20 to 29 even as other ages groups are experiencing mostly flat or declining rates of coronavirus infections. Ten new coronavirus testing sites will open in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, the mayor announced. Eight sites are already open and the last two will be open shortly, he said. Despite a growing access to free testing in the city, nationwide outbreaks have led to an overwhelming volume in testing and subseque...
Donald Trump Jr has announced plans to self-publish a book about Joe Biden. The president’s oldest son announced Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats’ Defense of the Indefensible by tweet, writing: “Blown away by what Biden has gotten away with, more details next week! Libs already triggered!” He expanded, a little, in an interview with the news site Axios, promising to provide a picture of his father’s challenger for the presidency “that the press ignores”, in time for the party conventions in August. He was self-publishing, he said, in order to fire “a shot across the bow” of the traditional publishing industry, confident he can reach more than 5m followers on Twitter and more than 3m on Instagram without outside help. R...
The Los Angeles Unified School District on Monday announced that it will not be opening its facilities to students in the fall but will resume classes online. In a letter sent out to parents, Superintendent Austin Beutner said the nation’s second-largest school district decided to resume online classes amid a resurgence of the novel coronavirus. “We made the decision to close school facilities before there was any occurrence of the virus at our schools, and this proved to be the right call,” Beutner said. “Science was our guide then, and it will continue to be. Unfortunately, Covid-19 continues to spread in the Los Angeles area and the virus is going to impact how we start the new school year.” The new school year will begin on Augu...
U.S. equity markets rallied Monday as two COVID-19 vaccines were given “fast-track” status and earnings season kicked off with some better-than-expected results. Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE received fast-track designation for two of their experimental COVID-19 vaccines, helping offset news that the number of new daily COVID-19 infections in the U.S. remained above 60,000 all weekend. Despite the daily case count surging to a record high, the number of new deaths totaled 482 on Sunday, or just 18 percent of the 2,701 peak in May. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained as many as 413 points, or 1.59 percent, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were higher by 1.37 percent and 1.84 percent, respectively. The early advance had&nb...
One Saturday in mid-April, a group of Orthodox Jewish leaders held a conference call with a Minnesota doctor as they grappled with spiking coronavirus cases in their New York area communities.                                                                                   Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic is leading a nationwide study on the use of blood plasma to treat patient...
Baltimore, MD - July 13, 2020 - Please note that many types of produce given out at the various community distributions in Baltimore require checking for insects prior to consumption. They are arranged by the city and county and are not under kosher certification. This includes the bagged salads and greens, they are not certified and have not been checked unless they bear a reliable hechsher on the bag. Please click here to see the guide for reference or see below.Click on the graphic below for a larger, printable copy
WASHINGTON (Newsmax) – The Trump administration is cracking down on leakers by planting information to see if it gets out to reporters, reports Axios. President Donald Trump’s chief of staff “[Mark] Meadows told me he was doing that,” one former White House official told the news outlet. “I don’t know if it ever worked.” Politico last week reported that the Trump administration opened an internal investigation to try to uncover who leaked intelligence about Russians paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers following a New York Times report titled, “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says.” Trump, according to Politico, seems to be more worked up about the Russia leak considering th...
Jerusalem District Chief Superintendent Shimi Marciano and Rabbi Rami Brachyahu, the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Police, met Monday with Batya Getter, the 13-year-old girl who was confronted by police over not wearing a mask, and her family. Superintendent Marciano said at the beginning of the meeting: "We are glad you came, our goal today is for you to [see the police in a better light]. The police have many tasks, mainly to maintain public safety, and recently, we have been tasked with maintaining public health and ensuring that the public wears masks in order to prevent the spread of the disease. I want you to know that the cops are good people who look after the public and care for them. I hope you leave here today smiling and feeling good. Rabbi Brachyahu said: "The police w...
Baltimore, MD - Jul 13, 2020 - Early estimates show that Chodosh oats may be on the market by July 23, wheat by July 30, Durum wheat by Aug 13th and Barley by Aug 8th. Please note that these dates are estimates based on current crop progress and condition. These dates can change and probably will. We will not have exact dates until the actual harvest sometime at the end of July. Use these dates for planning purposes as the final dates will be somewhere in these ranges.
The Israel Nurses Association (INA) threatened a general strike on Sunday over what it claims are worsening work conditions caused by the coronavirus crisis. “We are collapsing,” INA head Ilana Cohen wrote in a letter to Finance Minister Israel Katz. “If we do not immediately receive extra manpower, we will strike,” Ynet reported. Cohen also complained that hospitals purchased ventilators “but did not train nurses to operate them.” The reopening of hospitals’ coronavirus wards as a result of a second-wave outbreak, emergency rooms filled with COVID-19-infected patients and the quarantine of many nurses all have exacerbated the manpower shortage that nurses say they already faced before the start of the pandemic. According to the Health Ministry...
JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The Chareidi factions of Shas and UTJ met independently with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and demanded a cessation of what they deemed biased and discriminatory enforcement of coronavirus public health regulations. The MKs met with Netanyahu as well as Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and Public Security Minister Amir Ohana after numerous demonstrations by Chareidim as well as threats from MKs to leave the government if it does not deal with the unfair targeting of the community. “The Chareidi community is suffering from unfair discrimination,” Shas head and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said at the meeting, according to a statement his office released Monday afternoon. “I call on the prime minister and the public security minister to work f...
WORMS, GERMANY (VINnews) — Vandals desecrated dozens of graves in what is believed to be the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe in the city of Worms, Germany. The tomb of Maharam Rothenburg which is situated in the cemetery was also vandalized, according to a report by the European Jewish Association (EJA). Worms was a famous medieval Jewish center, where Rashi established his Beis Midrash in the 11th century. The oldest legible tombstone dates back to 1058/59 and Jews lived in the city for over a thousand years until the Holocaust. Legend has it that they were descended from the tribe of Benjamin which migrated from the land of Israel to Germany. “The Jewish community in Germany is in shock after unknown individuals vandalized and desecrated dozens of gravestones in the ancien...
JERUSALEM (JNS) – The Israeli Air Force on Sunday unveiled a new squadron of joint special forces, united under a single umbrella. The units that will be part of the “Wing 7” squadron are the Airborne Combat Unit, Search and Rescue Unit 669 (“Shaldag”) and the Frontal Landing Unit. The new wing will include an Intelligence unit and a school for Special Forces. “We are in times of regional change, with a global pandemic and a battlefield becoming more complex every day,” said IAF commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin during the opening ceremony at the Palmachim Air Force Base, where Wing 7 will be housed. “Our commanders understand that these changes force us to adapt to the challenges that the future holds. There is an enhanced capability that ...
OHIO (Newsmax) – Ohio’s Cuyahoga County has set up a hotline to report people who are violating Gov. Mike DeWine’s order that face masks must be worn, The Hill reported on Sunday. The county, which includes Cleveland, announced the hotline over the weekend after DeWine issued the order earlier in the week mandating masks in the state’s 12 counties with the most coronavirus cases. County Executive Armond Budish explained that county employees will get in touch with the subject of each complaint to let them know that one has been filed against them and will also inform the relevant city or village, Cleveland.com reported. “This is not intended to be going out and finding people not wearing masks,” Budish told Cleveland.com. “We want people to wear...
To the Baltimore Community,TA Dinner Distribution this week will be Monday and Thursday from 4-6pm. DO NOT arrive before 3:45pm.It has come to our attention that individuals have been coming to TA early and taking advantage of an earlier dinner distribution that is NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, but is open only to our TA Camp parents, as they are picking up their campers during carpool dismissal. Please note that having non-camp parents come onto campus before 3:45pm poses a serious safety risk to our campers and staff. Please be courteous and respectful of our camp needs as we run our carpool dismissal in a safe and efficient manner. B"H there are plenty of meals for all between the hours of 4-6pm. Anyone arriving to TA before 3:45pm for dinner pickup, who is not a TA Camp parent, will be asked...
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