*WATCH THIS!:* As millions of Israelis ran to bomb shelters after Hamas fired rockets at central Israel on Thursday for the first time in months, HaGaon HaRav Berel Povarsky was in the middle of delivering a shiur to a group of bochurim at his home. Seemingly oblivious of the siren, he continued engaging in the sweet words of Torah.
*POTUS:* Today, we take a very historic action that is 45 years in the making. In a few moments, I will sign an Executive Order to begin eliminating the Department of Education once and for all.
The alert system on a Delta Air Lines jet that flipped upside down and burst into flames as it tried to land in Toronto last month indicated a high rate of descent less than three seconds before touchdown, according to a preliminary report released on Thursday. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which issued the report, continues to investigate the Feb. 17 crash-landing in which 21 people were hospitalized. All 76 passengers and four crew members survived when the Delta plane arriving from Minneapolis burst into flames after flipping over and skidding on the tarmac. The TSB of Canada report says that when the plane’s ground proximity warning system sounded 2.6 seconds before touchdown, the airspeed was 136 knots, or approximately 250 kph (155 mph). It says the plane’s landing gear folded into the retracted position during touchdown and the wing detached from the fuselage, releasing a cloud of jet fuel, which caught fire. The safety board says its ongoing investigation is focusing on several key areas, including metallurgical examination of the wing structure, landing techniques, pilot training and the passenger evacuation process. All of those who were hospitalized were released within days of the crash. At least two lawsuits have been filed in the United States, and a law firm in Canada has said that it’s been retained by several passengers. (AP)
WILLIAMSBURG: NYPD Brooklyn North Chief Scott Henderson, Deputy Chief Richie Taylor, and commanding officers from local NYPD precincts visited the Satmar Matzah Bakery on Broadway Avenue and Gottlieb’s Restaurant ahead of Pesach. They were accompanied by askonim and community leaders during the tour.
A French citizen imprisoned in Iran for over 880 days has been freed and is back home, as was another French citizen held under house arrest in Tehran, French officials said Thursday. Their liberation came as France and the rest of Europe are trying to jumpstart talks with Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program. U.S. President Donald Trump has sent a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seeking negotiations. Trump is also pressuring Tehran over its support of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels as the American military carries out an intense new campaign of airstrikes targeting the group. French President Emmanuel Macron announced online that Frenchman Olivier Grondeau had been freed. The French Foreign Ministry said another French citizen who had been under house arrest in Tehran for more than four months was released Wednesday night. He asked to not be publicly identified, the ministry said. The release came ahead of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, when Iran has released prisoners in the past. In January, Grondeau spoke to a French broadcaster from prison, alluding at the time to the politics at play in his imprisonment. “You become a human who has been stocked away indefinitely because one government is seeking to exert pressure on another,” he said. His lawyer in France, Chirinne Ardakani, said he returned on Monday to Paris. “He’s in good hands. He’s recovering,” the attorney told The Associated Press. An Iranian court had sentenced Grondeau, a backpacker and world traveler, to five years in prison on espionage charges that he, his family and the French government vigorously denied. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France did not provide anything in exchange for Grondeau’s liberation. Barrot told French broadcaster TF1 on Thursday that he had initially discussed the situation with Iran’s foreign minister but when those discussions failed to secure a release, ″it was via different means that we obtained this result.″ He didn’t elaborate. Iran isn’t acknowledging the release Releases of Westerners in Iran typically come in exchange for something. Tehran did not immediately acknowledge Grondeau’s release. Earlier this week, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said France had arrested an Iranian woman who supported Palestinians, but said Tehran was still trying to gather more details about her case. An image that circulated of Grondeau on a private jet flying home was a plastic-wrapped T-shirt with a photo of pop star Britney Spears. He put it on before getting off the plane and embracing his family on returning home, in footage aired by TF1. After the family and Grondeau went public about his detention, his mother had described the former youth Scrabble champion as a fan of Beyoncé and karaoke in interviews with French media. Arrest came during Mahsa Amini protests Grondeau was detained by Iranian authorities in October 2022 in the city of Shiraz. Though the exact details of what sparked Iran’s arrest of Grondeau remain unclear, his detention began in the chaotic aftermath of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died after being detained over not wearing Iran’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of authorities. United Nations investigators later said Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death, which sparked months of protests and a bloody security force crackdown in the country. “Most of the questions were, ‘Did you take part in […]
Former Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman was questioned by police on Thursday for alleged extortion against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In an interview with Channel 12 last week, Argaman said that he will reveal private information about Netanyahu if he decides that the prime minister is acting “illegally.” Argaman was repeating the leftist refrain that Netanyahu is acting “illegally” whenever he does anything not to their liking – such as his plans to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and oust Attorney-General Gali Baharav Miara. “For now, everything that happened in one-on-one meetings between the prime minister and me—I keep in that space,” Argaman said. “It is absolutely clear that I have a great deal of knowledge, and I could use it, but I am not, for the reasons I mentioned. If I reach the conclusion that the prime minister is acting illegally, I will have no choice but to disclose everything I know and have kept to myself until now.” Following the interview, Netanyahu filed a complaint against Argaman for extortion by threatening him with the “criminal use of information he was privy to in his position in the Shin Bet.” Argaman was questioned at the central fraud investigation unit on suspicion of extortion by threats. Netanyahu also publicly slammed Argaman’s threats, saying after the interview: “A dangerous new red line has been crossed in Israeli democracy. Never, in all of Israel’s history or in the history of democracies, has a former head of a secret security agency openly blackmailed a sitting prime minister on live television. This crime is part of an ongoing campaign of extortion through media leaks in recent days, orchestrated by current Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
The IDF says it carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah facilities in Lebanon’s eastern Beqaa Valley, after identifying activity by the terror group there. One site included underground infrastructure, and another was used to store rocket launchers, according to the military.
Hamas has reportedly informed mediators that it is willing to accept any proposal for the release of Israeli hostages, provided it includes a resumption of the ceasefire, according to a report by UK-based Qatari news organization Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on Thursday. The report suggests that Hamas did not outright reject U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff’s ceasefire-hostage framework, as some had speculated, but instead conditioned its acceptance on an agreement to halt Israeli military operations. However, Witkoff reportedly declined the condition, a move that caught Hamas by surprise, according to the report. Meanwhile, Egyptian sources cited by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed said an Israeli delegation visited Cairo on Wednesday evening for a few hours, with a Hamas delegation expected to arrive later on Thursday to continue discussions. Egyptian officials have been pushing both sides toward an agreement and reportedly presented a new ceasefire proposal on Tuesday. The proposal included the release of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, along with the bodies of five hostages, and embraced Witkoff’s framework, which called for the release of half the remaining hostages over the coming weeks. According to KAN News, Egypt has been working intensively to persuade Hamas to agree to the U.S.-backed framework, which aims to secure the release of a number of Israeli hostages while preventing further military escalation. However, sources involved in discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s team say that Hamas has not changed its position on negotiations with Israel, even after the renewed military escalation. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that more F-16 “Fighting Falcons” recently arrived, bringing Ukraine’s total to over 30 of the 85 pledged by European nations. Only one F-16 has been lost, likely due to “friendly fire” from a Ukrainian air-defense battery during a Russian missile attack in September 2024.
As millions of Israelis ran to bomb shelters after Hamas fired rockets at central Israel on Thursday for the first time in months, HaGaon HaRav Berel Povarsky was in the middle of delivering a shiur to a group of bochurim at his home. Seemingly oblivious of the siren, he continued engaging in the sweet words of Torah. The siren was the second one in less than 24 hours. The Houthis launched a missile in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday morning, triggering sirens in central Israel and Jerusalem. B’Chasdei Hashem, the missile was intercepted before it entered Israel. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
An FBI agent who has previously criticized the bureau was arrested this week on charges of illegally disclosing classified information, according to court records filed Tuesday. Johnathan Buma, who has worked for the FBI for 15 years, allegedly printed copies of confidential FBI documents and messages and later shared the material with associates as part of a draft of a book he was writing on his time in the bureau. He was arrested Monday at a departure gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he was waiting to board an international flight, court records said. An attorney representing Buma did not immediately return an emailed request for comment. Buma has raised issues with how the FBI was handling certain investigations through statements to news media, various government agencies and Congress, according to the filing. (AP)
WATCH: The Chasunah of the granddaughter of the Bobov-45 Rebbe. She is the daughter of HaRav Yosef Unger, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Bobov-45 Yeshiva Ktana.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks: “We’re not gonna give up 10 yards on every play so that the bodies can get north. Border Patrol’s focus is to control the international boundary to ensure no one is coming into the country and the ones who do make it are apprehended.”
The IDF has expanded its ground operations in southern Gaza, with troops advancing into the Shaboura camp in Rafah to destroy “terror infrastructure,” while continuing operations along the coast in northern Gaza and the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, where soldiers also demolished a Hamas command center used to plan attacks on troops and civilians; additionally, airstrikes targeted Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad sites across Gaza in recent hours, according to the military.
