Yeshiva World News

A court in the Russian capital on Tuesday rejected an American citizen’s appeal against against his sentence on drug-related charges. In July, Moscow’s Ostankino District Court convicted Robert Woodland, a Russia-born U.S. citizen, of attempted trafficking of illegal drugs and sentenced him to 12 1/2 years in prison. The Moscow City Court on Tuesday upheld the verdict, rejecting Woodland’s appeal. Russian media reported that his name matches a U.S. citizen interviewed in 2020 who said he was born in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains in 1991 and adopted by an American couple at age 2. He said he traveled to Russia to find his mother and eventually met her on a TV show. Russian media reports said that Woodland also holds Russian citizenship. Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between Moscow and Washington sink to Cold War lows amid the fighting in Ukraine. Washington accuses Moscow of targeting its citizens and using them as political bargaining chips, but Russian officials insist they all broke the law. Some have been exchanged for Russians held in the U.S., while for others, the prospects of being released in a swap are less clear. (AP)

* Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. * The battleground states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Nevada are seen as pivotal to their path to victory. The first statewide polls are closing at 7 p.m. ET. * No incumbent or incumbent party has won with these kinds of numbers — 72% of voters say they are dissatisfied or angry about the direction of the country. And Joe Biden’s approval number is just 41%, while 67% call the economy bad or poor.

Georgia Indiana (Polls close in the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 8th districts): Senate, governor Kentucky (Polls close in the 1st and 2nd districts): Ballot measure South Carolina: Ballot measure Vermont: Senate, governor Virginia: Senate, House Florida (Polls close in the 3rd through 28th districts): Senate, ballot measure

Sources involved in the negotiations for a hostage deal with Hamas claim that the chances of a hostage release deal are almost nil,  following Hamas’s statement that it will not agree to compromise on anything less than ending the war, Walla reported on Tuesday. A senior Israeli official said: “The truth must be told – there will be no deal now. Not a small one, not a large one, and not even a crumb. The big question is whether the time has come to save the remaining hostages and end the war in Gaza.” “That’s the entire discussion, and that’s what’s happening behind the scenes. There will be no deal without a decision to end the war in Gaza. We need to acknowledge the facts.” Israeli intelligence officials estimate that only 51 of the 101 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza are still alive. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)  

Brazilian police official Valdecy Urquiza will be the next chief of Interpol, the global police organization announced Tuesday. Urquiza was elected secretary-general by a vote of Interpol’s general assembly at its meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, and will take up the post when the gathering ends on Thursday. Currently Interpol’s vice president for the Americas, Urquiza is the first chief of the Lyon, France-based organization not to come from Europe or the United States. The Interpol secretary-general essentially runs the organization on a daily basis. Jürgen Stock of Germany, who has held the post since 2014, is not allowed under its rules to seek a third term. Urquiza pledged to promote diversity within the organization, saying ”a strong Interpol is one that includes everyone.” “When we respect and elevate diverse perspectives, we get a clearer, more comprehensive approach to global security,” he said. Interpol, which has 196 member countries and celebrated its centennial last year, works to help national police forces communicate with each other and track suspects and criminals in fields such as counterterrorism, financial crime, child pornography, cybercrime and organized crime. The world’s biggest police organization has been grappling with challenges including a growing caseload of cybercrime and child sex abuse, and increasing divisions among its member countries. Interpol had a total budget of about 176 million euros (about $188 million) last year, compared to more than 200 million euros at the European Union’s police agency, Europol, and some $11 billion at the FBI in the United States. (AP)

Rockland County Legislator Aron Wieder, currently a candidate for the 97th Assembly seat, cast his vote at Kakiat Elementary School today.

PHOTO: The Niklisburger Rebbe, HaRav Mordechai Jungreis Shlita, cast his vote in today’s election.

A historic Hachnoses Sefer Torah ceremony took place before Yom Kippur in Ratzfert, Hungary, with a large crowd of hundreds of Yidden from all corners of the world. The Hachnoses Sefer Torah took place on the yahrzeit of Rebbe Naftali Hertzka of Ratzfert, who passed away on Erev Yom Kippur in 1897.  Rebbe Hertzkele Ratzferter was born in 1824 and learned under many great tzaddikim before moving to Ratzfert, where he became known as the Ratzferte Rebbe. Thousands of Yidden from around the world flocked to him, and there are many miraculous stories that are attributed to his powerful brachahs.  The place where he is buried is referred to as the Chatzar Hayeshuas, as countless Yidden have seen open miracles in matters of health, parnassah, and especially with shidduchim, after davening at his kever. Two years ago Reb Chaim Avraham Brach took upon himself to donate a Torah to the Ratzferter Beis Midrash, which is located near the kever. These days Ratzfert has hachnoses orchim accommodations all year round to welcome visiting chassidim. Upon the completion of the Torah, the ceremony was scheduled for the Wednesday before Yom Kippur. The event was celebrated with spirited dancing and singing, and a new song for the words “Keha zchus avos yagen aleinu” was debuted in honor of the event. Reb Chaim Avraham Brach delivered a few words to thank Hashem for giving him the zechus to be able to donate a sefer Torah.  Hundreds of participants were in Ratzfert over Yom Kippur, where they stormed the heavens and davened for yeshuahos for the entire Klal Yisroel. Yom Tov concluded with a big seuda and more singing and dancing, and the chassidim left the following day inspired and confident that their tefillos had been answered.

Election Day voting unfolded largely smoothly across the nation Tuesday but with scattered reports of extreme weather, ballot printing errors and technical problems causing delays. Most of the hiccups occurring by mid-day were “largely expected routine and planned-for events,” said Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in a press briefing. She said the agency was not currently tracking any national, significant incidents impacting election security. In swing-state Pennsylvania, early reports that Republican poll watchers were not allowed into some polling sites were soon resolved. A software malfunction was affecting ballot scanning machines in the state’s Cambria County, but no one was being turned away from the polls and all ballots would be counted, county and state officials said. A technical malfunction in Champaign County, Illinois, and challenges with e-pollbooks in Louisville, Kentucky, also delayed voting, but those issues were soon fixed and voting was back up and running. In Missouri, flooding made one St. Louis area polling site hard to reach and knocked out power to another, requiring poll workers to turn to a generator to continue election operations. Still, in various states affected by rain, voters were enthusiastically huddling under umbrellas as they lined up to cast their ballots. “We’ll be like post office workers: in rain or snow or sleet,” voter Mary Roszkowski said after she cast her ballot in windy Racine, Wisconsin, wiping raindrops off her face. In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said there were some reported bomb threats to polling places, but all were deemed non-credible and authorities were investigating. Helping voting run relatively smoothly on Election Day was the fact that tens of millions of Americans had already cast their ballots. Those included record numbers of voters in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner. As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That’s driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote. Despite long lines in some places and a few typical glitches, early in-person and mail voting also proceeded without any major problems. That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads. By the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday, over 4.4 million voters — or nearly 57% of all registered voters in the state — had cast their ballots. As of Monday, turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59% of registered voters, state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said. Brinson Bell called the voters and election workers in the hurricane-hit counties “an inspiration to us all.” Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the […]

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dismissing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant amid ongoing conflict, calling the decision by the current leadership “sick and crazy.” “The nation of lions has a sick and crazy leadership….I appeal to our soldiers in all sectors: do not lose focus in front of the enemy. You will protect us, and we, the public, will take care of protecting you. Don’t despair: change is on the way!”

Election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball projects a razor-thin margin in the battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives, with Democrats favored to secure 218 seats—just enough for a majority—while Republicans are expected to take 217. The forecast, published on Monday, underscores how close this year’s House races are expected to be. In their final analysis, Sabato’s Crystal Ball editors Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and J. Miles Coleman remarked on the uncertainty and tight margins in this election cycle. “Just like the presidential race, the battle for the House has been a toss-up for essentially the whole cycle,” they wrote. “Our general belief throughout was that the presidential and House winner was likelier than not to be the same. Our final ratings reflect this, but only by the barest possible margin and with little confidence.” The forecast sees 218 seats categorized as Safe, Likely, or Leaning Democratic, compared to 217 that are Safe, Likely, or Leaning Republican. Republicans currently hold a slim majority in the House but face an uphill battle to retain it, with The Hill/Decision Desk HQ estimating their chances of success at 52%. Notable shifts in the predictions include Iowa’s 1st District, where incumbent Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ race has moved from “Leans Republican” to “Leans Democratic.” Meanwhile, the analysts see Democratic Reps. Eric Sorensen of Illinois, Pat Ryan of New York, and Angie Craig of Minnesota as increasingly secure, shifting their races from “Leans Democratic” to “Likely Democratic” after Republicans failed to gain traction against these incumbents. Any surprise losses among these Democrats would be, the editors noted, “a huge upset.” The forecasters also pointed to some lesser-known races that have seen little attention from major outside spending groups. These include Maryland’s 6th District, an open Democratic seat extending northwest from the D.C. suburbs, which has moved from “Likely” to “Leans Democratic.” A similar shift is observed in New York’s 1st District, where Republican Rep. Nick LaLota faces former CNN commentator John Avlon, a Democrat. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Political correspondent Yaki Adamkar said on Channel 14 on Monday evening that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s approval of another 7,000 initial draft orders to beni yeshivos was a politically motivated move. Adamkar elaborated that Gallant, who is well aware that the draft orders will be ignored by the vast majority of those who receive them, is taking revenge on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for seeking to remove him from his position as defense minister, a move that the prime minister actualized on Tuesday evening. “Everything is personal,” Adamkar said. “This announcement from Gallant [about the draft orders] is a death rattle. This is a Defense Minister who understands that the sharp sword is hanging over his neck and that he is going to be fired, and he is looking to poke a finger in the eye of the Chareidi community and Netanyahu. This is revenge.” “The decision is political not only from the opposition side,” Adamkar added. “There is a group within Likud, dating back to the period of judicial reform, whose aim, despite its members being part of the right-wing bloc, is to undermine the stability of the coalition.” Channel 14 also quoted a senior government official on Monday as saying that the approval of the draft orders is Gallant’s attempt to overthrow the government. “Gallant knows that without a new Chareidi draft law, there is no chance that issuing new draft orders will result in more Chareidi recruits,” he said. “This is an attempt to cause cracks in the coalition and overthrow the government.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

REPORTER: “If you win, there are gonna be tens of millions of Harris supporters who are gonna be upset…” TRUMP: “We want to bring everybody in. We want to be very inclusive, and we will be very inclusive. We have a great country, but we have a country that’s in trouble, it’s in big trouble in many ways, and we have to straighten it out.”

The results on Election Day will come down to seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited them the most. Together, these states are likely to deliver the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to get a majority of 270. It will be a game of hopscotch to keep up with key times in each of the states, which stretch across four different time zones. A look at the Election Day timeline across the seven, with all listings in Eastern Standard Time: Arizona Polls open at 8 a.m. in Arizona, which Joe Biden carried in 2020 by 0.3%. He was only the second Democratic presidential candidate to do so in nearly 70 years. Polls will close at 9 p.m. Arizona does not release votes until all precincts have reported or one hour after all polls are closed, whichever is first. In 2020, The Associated Press first reported Arizona results at 10:02 p.m. ET on Nov. 3, Election Day, and declared Biden the winner at 2:51 a.m. ET on Nov. 4. Georgia Polls open at 7 a.m. in Georgia, which played a key role in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat in a White House race to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992, defeating Trump by less than one-quarter of a percentage point, a margin of 11,779 votes. Since then, Trump’s efforts to overturn those results have been at the heart of a criminal case in Fulton County. It is on hold while his legal team pursues a pretrial appeal to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case and the indictment tossed. The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear those arguments after the election. Georgia’s polls close at 7 p.m. In 2020, the AP first reported Georgia results at 7:20 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the state’s winner at 7:58 p.m. ET on Nov. 19, more than two weeks after Election Day. Michigan Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Michigan, one of the “blue wall” states that went narrowly for Trump in 2016 after almost 30 years of voting for Democratic candidates. Biden won it back four years later. His margin was about 154,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million votes. Michigan covers two time zones, but polls in most of the state close at 8 p.m. ET, with the rest at 9 p.m. ET. In 2020, the AP first reported Michigan results at 8:08 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 5:58 p.m. ET on Nov. 4. Nevada Polls open at 10 a.m. ET in Nevada, the smallest electoral vote prize of the battlegrounds. But it has one of the best track records as a presidential bellwether. The candidate who won Nevada has gone on to win the White House in 27 of the past 30 presidential elections. Polls close at 10 p.m. ET. The state doesn’t release results until the last person in line has voted, so there’s usually been a wait between poll close and the first results. In 2020, the AP first reported Nevada results at 11:41 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 12:13 p.m. ET on Nov. 7. North Carolina Polls open at 6:30 a.m. ET in North Carolina, which has been carried by Democrats only two times in presidential elections since 1968. But the […]

Councilman Kalman Yeger, who is running unopposed for the Assembly seat representing Flatbush and Midwood, participated in today’s election by casting his vote. (Photo Credit: Shimon Gifter)

North Korean troops recently deployed to help Russia in its war with Ukraine have come under Ukrainian fire, a Kyiv official said Tuesday. It is the first time a Ukrainian official has said that Pyongyang’s units were struck, following a deployment that has given the war a new complexion as it approaches its 1,000-day milestone. “The first North Korean troops have already been shelled, in the Kursk region,” Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation branch of Ukraine’s Security Council, wrote on Telegram. He provided no further details. Western governments had expected that the North Korean soldiers would be sent to Russia’s Kursk border region, where a 3-month-old incursion by the Ukrainian army is the first occupation of Russian territory since World War II and has embarrassed the Kremlin. U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments say up to 12,000 North Korean combat troops are being sent by Pyongyang to the war under a pact with Moscow. The North Korean troops, whose fighting quality and battle experience is unknown, are adding to Ukraine’s worsening situation on the battlefield. Ukrainian defenses, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, are buckling under the strain of Russia’s costly but relentless monthslong onslaught. Russian advances have recently accelerated, with battlefield gains of up to 9 kilometers (more than 5 miles) in some parts of Donetsk, the U.K. Defense Ministry said Tuesday on the social platform X. It said Russia has superior troop numbers, and despite heavy casualties the Kremlin’s recruitment drive is providing enough new troops to keep up the pressure. Russia has held the battlefield initiative in Ukraine for the past year. Ukrainian officials have long complained that Western military support takes too long to arrive in the country. In early October, Russian forces drove Ukrainian troops out of Vuhledar, a town perched atop a tactically significant hill in eastern Ukraine. It was part of a key belt of Ukrainian defenses in the east. Russia’s next targets likely are the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk and the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar. In the meantime, Russia has kept up its long-range aerial attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine, authorities say. A Tuesday morning attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed six people and injured 16 others, regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov said. The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said the Russian attacks “must be stopped with strong action.” “A stronger position by (Ukraine’s Western) allies is needed,” he wrote on Telegram. (AP)