The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children was refused access to the facility, a French prosecutor’s office said in a statement Friday. The Israeli children, aged 8 to 16, were on holiday in Spain and had made a reservation for Thursday to use the zip line facility in Porté-Puymorens, near the Spanish border in the Pyrenean mountains, the Perpignan prosecutor’s office said. The prosecutor’s office said the manager initially told some people he was refusing the group access on the grounds of “personal beliefs” before offering other justifications to others. The park told the group they could not visit. They went to another leisure facility in France with no incident, the statement said. “A line was crossed. We are appalled,” said Perla Danan, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. “It started with graffiti, insults and physical attacks and now it’s literally a ban on children aged 8 to 16,” Danan said, adding that it reminded her of the “no Jews or dogs allowed” sign during the Holocaust. “France’s values have been violated,” she said. Jean-Philippe Augé, the mayor of Porté-Puymorens, which has around 100 inhabitants, said “the DNA of our community is based on a sense of sharing and fraternity,” adding that the incident had caused “utter astonishment” in the village. Augé said the zip line course is operated by a private company. The Jewish Observatory of France also expressed “deep outrage” in a statement Friday. It said “such an act of discrimination, targeting minors exclusively on the basis of their nationality and origin, is extremely serious and undermines the fundamental principles of the Republic.” “Discrimination based on religion” is an offense punishable by up to three years in prison in France. Antisemitism has surged in France, with a sharp increase in incidents reported in 2023 after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. These include physical assaults, threats, vandalism, and harassment, prompting alarm among Jewish communities and leaders. (AP) (YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)
An IDF officer was killed in an operational accident in the Khan Younis area of the Gaza Strip on Shabbos, the IDF announced on Motzei Shabbos. He was identified as Lt. Ori Gerlic, H’yd, 20, from the town of Meitar, an officer in the Shimshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade. Army Radio reported that as IDF forces were operating in Khan Younis, destroying terror infrastructure and booby-trapping them with explosives, an IDF explosive accidentally detonated, seriously injuring Gerlic. An IDF medical team administered emergency medical care and began evacuating him to Soroka Hospital but was forced to pronounce him dead during the evacuation. Hashem Yikam Damo. (YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)
The letter is composed of two parts, and after signing the first section of the letter, the Rebbe added an additional part and signed it again in his holy handwriting.
New York City officials have discovered a sixth death linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Central Harlem, where more than 100 people have been diagnosed with the ailment, health authorities said Thursday. The person died earlier this month outside of New York City. Their death was recently discovered during the city health department’s ongoing investigation of the outbreak that began in late July, the agency said. The department reported a fifth death on Monday. Officials said 111 people have been diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease as of Thursday, two more than on Wednesday. Seven people are hospitalized, two fewer than the previous day, the department said. Fourteen people had been hospitalized on Monday. The bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease had been discovered in 12 cooling towers on 10 buildings, including a city-run hospital and sexual health clinic, health officials said. Remediation efforts have since been completed on all of the cooling towers. Legionnaires’ disease is a type of pneumonia that is caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water and spread through building water systems. The city’s outbreak has been linked to cooling towers, which use water and a fan to cool buildings. People usually develop symptoms — a cough, fever, headaches, muscle aches and shortness of breath — between two days to two weeks after exposure to the bacteria, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. City health officials say people who live or work in the area should contact a health care provider if they develop flu-like symptoms. (AP)
At the end of work trips, Nathan Miller goes home to a makeshift bedroom in his parents’ house in Virginia. The 29-year-old flight attendant is part of a PSA Airlines crew based in Philadelphia, but he can’t afford to live there. Miller says he makes about $24,000 a year staffing multiple flights a day as a full-time attendant for the American Airlines subsidiary. To get to work, he commutes by plane between Virginia Beach and Philadelphia International Airport, a distance of about 215 miles. “I’ve considered finding a whole new job. It’s not something that I want to do,” Miller, who joined PSA two years ago, said. “But it’s not sustainable.” His situation isn’t unique. Frustrations among flight attendants at both regional and legacy airlines have been building for years over paychecks that many of them say don’t match the weight of what their jobs demand. Compounding the discontent over hourly wages is a long-standing airline practice of not paying attendants for the work they perform on the ground, like getting passengers on and off planes. Air Canada’s flight attendants put a public spotlight on these simmering issues when about 10,000 of them walked off the job last weekend, leading the airline to cancel more than 3,100 flights. The strike ended Tuesday with a tentative deal that includes wage increases and, for the first time, pay for boarding passengers. In the United States, however, the nearly century-old Railway Labor Act makes it far more difficult for union flight attendants like Miller, a member of the Association of Flight Attendants, to strike than most other American workers. Unlike the Boeing factory workers and Hollywood writers and actors who collectively stopped work in recent years, U.S. airline workers can only strike if federal mediators declare an impasse — and even then, the president or Congress can intervene. For that reason, airline strikes are exceedingly rare. The last major one in the U.S. was over a decade ago by Spirit Airlines pilots, and most attempts since then have failed. American Airlines flight attendants tried in 2023 but were blocked by mediators. Without the ultimate bargaining chip, airline labor unions have seen their power eroded in contract talks that now stretch far beyond historical norms, according to Sara Nelson, the international president of the AFA. Negotiations that once took between a year and 18 months now drag on for three years, sometimes more. “The right to strike is fundamental to collective bargaining, but it has been chipped away,” Nelson said. Her union represents 50,000 attendants, including the ones at United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and PSA Airlines. On Monday, she joined PSA flight attendants in protest outside Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, near where an airliner operated by PSA crashed into the Potomac River in January after colliding with an Army helicopter. All 67 people on the two aircraft were killed, including the plane’s pilot, co-pilot and two flight attendants. The airline’s flight attendants also demonstrated outside airports in Philadelphia, Dallas, Charlotte and Dayton, Ohio. In a statement, PSA called the demonstrations “one of the important ways flight attendants express their desire to get a deal done — and we share the same goal.” Flight attendants say their jobs have become more demanding in recent years. Planes are fuller, and faster turnaround times between flights […]
Heavy rains caused a landslide that struck homes in a rural community in Guinea, killing at least 11 people, authorities said Thursday. Another 10 people were seriously injured and the death toll was expected to rise. The landslide occurred Wednesday night in Maneah, a rural commune in Coyah prefecture 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the capital Conakry, according to a statement by the National Agency for Emergency Management. “Last night, it was around 7 p.m. It was raining, and suddenly I saw the mountain come off. It fell on the houses at the foot of the mountain. The mud buried the houses. No survivors came out alive,” said Kone Pepe, a local resident. Search and rescue operations were continuing late Thursday. “It’s a part of the mountain that gave way under the effect of the rain and spilled onto the buildings,” Mory Condé, minister of urban planning and housing, said during a visit to the site. The collapse followed heavy rains in the area and comes after West Africa experienced record flooding last year that killed over 1,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. (AP)
CHINA – At around 3 a.m. Friday, a construction rope snapped on a bridge being built along the Qinghai section of the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway, killing 12 workers and leaving 4 others missing.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Friday that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. Huang was asked about a possible “B30A” semiconductor for artificial intelligence data centers for China while on a visit to Taiwan, where he was meeting Nvidia’s key manufacturing partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the world’s largest chip maker. “I’m offering a new product to China for … AI data centers, the follow-on to H20,” Huang said. But he added that “That’s not our decision to make. It’s up to, of course, the United States government. And we’re in dialogue with them, but it’s too soon to know.” Such chips are graphics processing units, or GPUs, a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But they are less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today, which cannot be sold to China due to U.S. national security restrictions. The B30A, based on California-based Nvidia’s specialized Blackwell technology, is reported to operate at about half the speed of Nvidia’s main B300 chips. Huang praised the the Trump administration for recently approving sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China after such business was suspended in April, with the proviso that the company must pay a 15% tax to the U.S. government on those sales. Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, was told to pay the same tax on its sales of its MI380 chips to China. As part of broader trade talks, Beijing and Washington recently agreed to pull back some non-tariff restrictions. China approved more permits for rare earth magnets to be exported to the U.S., while Washington lifted curbs on chip design software and jet engines. After lobbying by Huang, it also allowed sales of the H20 chips to go through. Huang did not comment directly on the tax when asked but said Nvidia appreciated being able to sell H20s to China. He said such sales pose no security risk for the United States. Nvidia is also speaking with Beijing to reassure Chinese authorities that those chips do not pose a “backdoor” security risk, Huang said. “We have made very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors. There are no such things. There never has. And so hopefully the response that we’ve given to the Chinese government will be sufficient,” he said. The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet watchdog, recently posted a notice on its website referring to alleged “serious security issues” with Nvidia’s computer chips. It said U.S. experts on AI had said such chips have “mature tracking and location and remote shutdown technologies” and Nvidia had been asked to explain any such risks and provide documentation about the issue. Huang said Nvidia was surprised by the accusation and was discussing the issue with Beijing. “As you know, they requested and urged us to secure licenses for the H20s for some time. And I’ve worked quite hard to help them secure the licenses. And so hopefully this will be resolved,” Huang said. Unconfirmed reports said Chinese authorities were also unhappy over comments by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggesting the U.S. was only selling outdated chips to China. Speaking on CNBC, Lutnick said the U.S. strategy was to keep China reliant on American chip technology. “We […]
At an obstacle course in the humid Georgia heat, an instructor shows recruits how to pull a wounded partner out of danger. In a classroom with desks cluttered with thick legal books about immigration law, recruits learn about how the Fourth Amendment governs their work. And on a firing range littered with shell casings, new recruits for Immigration and Customs Enforcement practice shooting their handguns. “Instructors, give me a thumbs up when students are ready to go,” a voice over the loudspeaker said before a group of about 20 ICE recruits practiced drawing and firing their weapons. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia, is the epicenter of training for almost all federal law enforcement officers, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who are at the center of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts. Now, with lots of money approved by Congress this summer starting to flow into ICE, the agency is in midst of a huge hiring effort as it aims to get thousands of new deportation officers into the field in the coming months. On Thursday, The Associated Press and other news organizations got a rare look at the Basic Immigration Law Enforcement Training Program that new ICE recruits — specifically those in the Enforcement and Removal Operations unit responsible for finding, arresting and removing people from the country — go through and what they learn. Ramping up hiring, training ICE is getting $76.5 billion in new money from Congress to help it meet Trump’s mass deportation goal. That’s nearly 10 times the agency’s current annual budget. Nearly $30 billion of that money is for new staff. They’re hiring across the agency, including investigators and lawyers, but the numbers they’re hiring in those areas pale in comparison to how many deportation officers are coming on board. Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, was at the training demonstration Thursday. He said the agency currently has about 6,500 deportation officers and is aiming to hire 10,000 more by the end of the year. With that hiring surge has come concerns that vetting or training of new recruits will be shortchanged. The Border Patrol went through a similar hiring surge in the early 2000s when hiring and training standards were changed; arrests for employee misconduct rose. Lyons pushed back on concerns that ICE might cut corners when it comes to training. although he said they have made changes designed to streamline the process. “I wasn’t going to water down training,” said Lyons. Caleb Vitello, the assistant director of ICE in charge of training, says new recruits will go through about eight weeks of training at the Georgia facility. But they also have training before and after they come here. One key change, Vitello noted: ICE cut out five weeks of Spanish-language training because he said recruits were only getting to the point of being “moderately” competent in Spanish. He said language translation technology can help fill that void in the field. What does the training look like? During the six-days-a-week training, new recruits live on the grounds of the sprawling facility, which is covered with pine forests and sits near the Atlantic Ocean a little less than an hour’s drive north of the Florida state line. Hundreds have gone through the training here in recent months. During the course, new recruits train […]
A car bomb and a separate attack on a police helicopter in Colombia killed at least 17 people Thursday, according to authorities. President Gustavo Petro attributed both attacks to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as FARC. At least 12 police officers died in the attack on a helicopter that according to authorities was transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, to eradicate coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine. Petro had reported initially eight officers killed, but Antioquia Gov. Andrés Julián said four others died later and three remain injured. The Antioquia governor had said on X that a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops. Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez said preliminary information indicates the attack caused a fire in the aircraft. Meanwhile, authorities in the southwest city of Cali reported that a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30. The Colombian air force did not immediately provide additional details of the explosion. Petro initially blamed the Gulf Clan, the country’s largest active drug cartel, for the attack on the helicopter. He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the group. The president said an alleged member of the dissident group was arrested in the area of the explosion. FARC dissidents, who rejected a peace agreement with the government in 2016, and members of the Gulf Clan both operate in Antioquia. Coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia. The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. (AP)
BREAKING: President Trump announces he will fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook if she doesn’t resign amid the mortgage fraud probe: “If she doesn’t resign, yes. I’ll fire her.”
POTUS: “I wish they’d say, ‘I need help.’ I wish the mayor of D.C. would say, ‘We’re overridden with crime and we need help’ instead of saying the stats are down. I mean, they’re under investigation now for fake numbers,”
POTUS: “I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real sort of lowlife… I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning… I tell Pam and I tell the group I don’t want to know about it. You have to do what you have to do.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez announced that Waymo has received its first permit to test autonomous vehicles in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, requiring a trained safety specialist behind the wheel at all times under the city’s strict AV safety rules.
The IDF says a drone launched from Yemen by the Houthis was intercepted over southern Israel after triggering sirens in several communities near the Gaza and Egyptian borders; multiple interception attempts were made before it was downed, with no damage or injuries reported.
Sec. Doug Burgum says the officers of the U.S. Park Police in Washington, D.C. have “been re-empowered by President Trump… Crime is WAY DOWN, but morale is WAY UP across the over dozen federal agencies that are all deployed working on this.”
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door ever so slightly to lowering a key interest rate in the coming months but gave no hint on the timing of a move and suggested the central bank will proceed cautiously as it continues to evaluate the impact of tariffs and other policies on the economy. In a high-profile speech that will be closely watched at the White House and on Wall Street, Powell said that there are risks of both rising unemployment and stubbornly higher inflation. That puts the Fed in a tough spot, because it would typically cut its short-term rate to boost hiring, while keeping it high — or raising it — to fight inflation. “The stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance,” Powell said in prepared remarks. That suggests the Fed will continue to evaluate jobs and inflation data as it decides whether to cut rates, including at its next meeting Sept. 16-17. “Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” he added, a more direct sign that Powell is considering a rate cut than he has made in previous comments. (AP)
