In a heartbreaking conclusion to more than a year of anguish, the bodies of Yousef Al-Zayadni and his son Hamza were discovered in the Gaza Strip, their family was informed on Wednesday. According to the IDF, the bodies were recovered from a terror tunnel in the Rafah area. “We were informed that the bodies of Yousef and his son Hamza were found. Our hearts ache. We wanted them to return to the bosom of the family alive – but unfortunately, they returned dead,” said Ali Ziyadne, a grieving relative. “Aisha and her brother Bilal were waiting to hug them. This is a difficult and shocking disaster.” The father and son were among those abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023, during the brutal invasion of southern Israel that claimed the lives of approximately 1,200 people. Taken from Holit, their fate remained uncertain for over a year as their family clung to hope. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in nearly a year last week, pointing to a still healthy labor market with historically low layoffs. The Labor Department on Wednesday said that applications for jobless benefits fell to 201,000 for the week ending January 4, down from the previous week’s 211,000. This week’s figure is the lowest since February of last year. The four-week average of claims, which evens out the week-to-week ups and downs, fell by 10,250 to 213,000. The overall numbers receiving unemployment benefits for the week of December 28 rose to 1.87 million, an increase of 33,000 from the previous week. The U.S. job market has cooled from the red-hot stretch of 2021-2023 when the economy was rebounding from COVID-19 lockdowns. Through November, employers added an average of 180,000 jobs a month in 2024, down from 251,000 in 2023, 377,000 in 2022 and a record 604,000 in 2021. Still, even the diminished job creation is solid and a sign of resilience in the face of high interest rates. When the Labor Department releases hiring numbers for December on Friday, they’re expected to show that employers added 160,000 jobs last month. On Tuesday, the government reported that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in November, showing companies are still looking for workers even as the labor market has loosened. Openings rose to 8.1 million in November, the most since February and up from 7.8 million in October, The weekly jobless claims numbers are a proxy for layoffs, and those have remained below pre-pandemic levels. The unemployment rate is at a modest 4.2%, though that is up from a half century low 3.4% reached in 2023. To fight inflation that hit four-decade highs two and a half years ago, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Inflation came down — from 9.1% in mid-2022 to 2.7% in November, allowing the Fed to start cutting rates. But progress on inflation has stalled in recent months, and year-over-year consumer price increases are stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. In December, the Fed cut its benchmark interest rate for the third time in 2024, but the central bank’s policymakers signaled that they’re likely to be more cautious about future rate cuts. They projected just two in 2025, down from the four they had envisioned in September. (AP)
Virtual Judaica is proud to present another diverse auction of rare Jewish seforim, posters, photos, and manuscripts. In our 25 years of business, we have successfully auctioned over 50,000 items to thousands of satisfied clients. Begin your collection today with as little as $10 and own a piece of Jewish history. Auction Ends January 14th – BID NOW View our rare Judaica items in our online auctions by CLICKING HERE Letter by R. Meir Leifer-Rosenbaum, Admor of Nadworna-Kretchnif, Kretchnif 1904 Talit Katan with Tzitzit of R. Hayyim Kanievsky, Bnai Berak 20 th cent.
Lenders will no longer be able to consider unpaid medical bills as a credit history factor when they evaluate potential borrowers in the U.S. for mortgages, car loans or business loans, according to a rule the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized Tuesday. Removing medical debts from consumer credit reports is expected to increase the credit scores of millions of families by an average of 20 points, the bureau said. The CFPB says its research showed that outstanding health care claims are a poor predictor of someone’s ability to repay a loan yet often are used to deny mortgage applications. The three national credit reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — said last year that they were removing medical collections under $500 from U.S. consumer credit reports. The government agency’s new rule goes further by banning all outstanding medical bills from appearing on credit reports and prohibiting lenders from using the information. The rule is set to take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, although President-elect Donald Trump has proposed sweeping changes and limits to the CFPB’s regulatory reach. Here’s what to know: How many people will this affect? The CFPB estimates the rule will remove $49 million in medical debt from the credit reports of 15 million Americans. According to the agency, one in five Americans have at least one medical debt collection account on their credit reports, and over half of collection entries on credit reports are for medical debts. The problem disproportionately affects people of color, the CFPB has found: 28% of Black people and 22% of Latino people in the U.S. carry medical debt versus 17% of white people. While the national credit reporting agencies voluntarily agreed to disregard medical debt below $500, many consumers have amounts much higher than this threshold on their reports. What will the impact be for consumers? The CFPB says its action will give millions of consumers increased access to loans and lead to the approval of approximately 22,000 additional mortgages a year. Americans with outstanding medical bills may see their credit scores rise by an average of 20 points, according to the bureau. The rule was also drafted to increase privacy protections and to help keep debt collectors from using the credit reporting system to coerce people into paying bills they don’t owe. The CFPB has found that consumers frequently receive inaccurate bills or are asked to pay bills that should have been covered by insurance or financial assistance programs. What’s more, lenders will be barred from using information about medical devices, such as prosthetic limbs, to make them serve as collateral for a loan and subject to repossession, according to the CFPB’s announcement. How are advocates responding? Nonprofits in the healthcare space are pleased. “This decision is great news for everyday Americans,” said Carrie Joy Grimes, founder of personal finance organization WorkMoney. “Medical debt is not a reflection of being bad with money — any one of us can experience illness or injury. With this new rule, Americans will now be able to focus less on the strain of medical debt and more on getting back on their feet.” Patricia Kelmar, health care campaigns director for the U.S. Public Interest Resource Group, said the rule would help “many financially responsible families who have accumulated medical debt […]
Malibu’s iconic sand castles are crumbling… one at a time. This has been a numbing and terrifying 14 hours in California history. Hundreds – and possibly thousands – of homes have been destroyed.
FOX 11: “If you’re wondering, ‘Where is LA Mayor Karen Bass?’ She has been in Ghana, so she’s apparently on her way back. That’s why we have not seen her.”
President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing in his hush money case in New York. Trump’s lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has denied wrongdoing. The justices asked for a response from prosecutors by Thursday. Trump’s team sought an immediate stay of the scheduled sentencing “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.” The emergency motion is from lawyers John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general, who represents the government before the high court, and Todd Blanche, in line to be the second-ranking official at the Justice Department. The Republican president-elect’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, called for the case to be dismissed in a statement. The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it will respond in court papers. Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation. Trump’s convictions arose from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to an accuser just before the 2016 presidential election regarded an alleged encounter 10 years earlier. He denies it. Trump’s attorneys have pointed to the Supreme Court’s ruling giving him broad immunity from criminal prosecution as they tried to have his New York conviction tossed out. While that opinion came in a separate election interference case against him, Trump’s lawyers say it means some of the evidence used against him in his hush money trial should have been shielded by presidential immunity. That includes testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made while he was in office. Merchan has disagreed, finding they would qualify as personal business. The Supreme Court’s immunity decision was largely about official acts of presidents while in office. (AP)
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A bombshell was reported on Wednesday by Ynet stating that the real issue involving the “leaked documents’ case, leading to the arrests of Eli Feldstein and Ari Rosenblum, was vital intelligence information about a “foreign actor” involved in the October 7 massacre. Senior military intelligence officials were aware of the role of the “foreign actor” and became concerned when it became apparent that senior IDF officials were still stuck in the “conceptzia” and were hiding the information from the political leadership. Following the October 7 massacre, military intelligence officers contacted Knesset member Amit Halevi (Likud) and informed him that there is a significant intelligence study regarding the involvement of a “foreign actor” in the Hamas attack but military intelligence is preventing its transfer to the political level. At that time, MK Halevi asked the National Security Council if such a document was known, and he received a negative response. Only afterward did the officers turn to reserve soldier Ari Rosenfeld, who is accused in the classified documents case, and emphasized to him that it was urgent to pass it on to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The existence of that document was first reported by Ynet. Six intelligence personnel, including three officers, collaborated after the massacre to compile a major study on the involvement of a foreign actor in the events of October 7. The most senior among them, an officer with the rank of Major, was arrested in the documents case but no charges have been filed against him. The officers believed that Israel’s political and military leadership were caught in a misconception regarding that foreign actor and they felt it was urgent to update senior IDF officials and the political echelon about their research. The intelligence personnel, from different units in military intelligence and also from another intelligence body that is banned from being named, sought to transfer the research to the political echelon, but they claim they were blocked within the military. Ynet is unaware whether the document was blocked as claimed or if it was transferred to the political level. The officers approached MK Halevi, shared the details of the research with him, and asked him to confirm whether the political level was aware of the matter. After Halevi contacted the National Security Council and was told that it is unaware of such research, intelligence officials approached Rosenfeld, requesting that he act to transfer the document to the Prime Minister. Rosenfeld complied with the officers’ request and met with Eli Feldstein, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson for security matters, at the shul in the Kirya base in Tel Aviv, where he handed him a document to inform Netanyahu of its existence. The identity of that “foreign entity” cannot currently be revealed, but regarding the research, Judge Ala Masarwa wrote in December in a decision that was cleared for publication that it is related to the importance of the IDF’s presence in the Philadelphi Corridor [which borders Egypt]. The judge wrote that “regarding the additional document, Respondent 1 (Feldstein) knew it was based on classified intelligence, and he kept it in his home and waited for the right moment until the document would be relevant in the context of the discussion on the Philadelphi Corridor.” As far as is known, Feldstein did not pass the document to the Prime […]
When he was still a boy making long, tedious trips between his school and his woodsy home in the mountains during the 1980s, JoeBen Bevirt began fantasizing about flying cars that could whisk him to his destination in a matter of minutes. As CEO of Joby Aviation, Bevirt is getting closer to turning his boyhood flights of fancy into a dream come true as he and latter-day versions of the Wright Brothers launch a new class of electric-powered aircraft vying to become taxis in the sky. The aircraft — known as “electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, or eVTOL — lift off the ground like a helicopter before flying at speeds up to 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour) with a range of about 100 miles (161 kilometers). And these craft do it without filling the air with excessive noise caused by fuel-powered helicopters and small airplanes. “We are just a few steps from the finish line. We want to turn what are now one- and two-hour trips into five-minute trips,” Bevirt, 51, told The Associated Press before a Joby air taxi took off on a test flight in Marina, California — located about 40 miles south from where he grew up in the mountains. Archer Aviation, a Silicon Valley a Silicon Valley company backed by automaker Stellantis and United Airlines, has been testing its own eTVOLs over farmland in Salinas, California, where a prototype called “Midnight” could be seen gliding above a tractor plowing fields last November. The tests are part of the journey that Joby Aviation and other ambitious companies that collectively have raised billions of dollars are taking to turn flying cars into more than just pie-in-the-sky concepts popularized in 1960s-era cartoon series, “The Jetsons,” and the 1982 science fiction film, “Blade Runner.” Archer Aviation and nearby Wisk Aero, with ties to aerospace giant Boeing Co. and Google co-founder Larry Page, are also at the forefront in the race to bring air taxis to market in the United States. Joby has already former a partnership to connect its air taxis with Delta Air Lines flights while Archer Aviation has a similar alliance with United Airlines. Flying taxis have made enough regulatory inroads with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to result in the recent creation of a new aircraft category called “powered lift,” a step that the agency hadn’t taken since helicopters were introduced for civilian use in the 1940s. But there are more regulatory hurdles to be cleared before air taxis will be allowed to carry passengers in the U.S., making Dubai the most likely place where eVTOLs will take commercial flight — perhaps by the end of this year. “It’s a tricky business to develop a whole new class of vehicles,” said Adam Lim, director of Alton Aviation Consultancy, a firm tracking the industry’s evolution. “It is going to be like a crawl, walk, run situation. Right now, I think we are still crawling. We are not going to have the Jetsons-type reality where everyone will be flying around everywhere in the next two to three years.” China is also vying to make flying cars a reality, a quest that has piqued President-elect Donald Trump’s interest in making the vehicles a priority for his incoming administration during the next four years. If the ambitions […]
The Biden administration is set to announce a massive, final weapons aid package for Ukraine as part of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to Germany on Thursday to meet with representatives of about 50 partner nations who have come to Ukraine’s defense since Russia invaded nearly three years ago, two senior defense officials said. The officials did not provide an exact dollar amount but said the package was expected to be “substantial,” although it would not include all of the roughly $4 billion left in the congressionally authorized funding for Ukraine. There likely would be “more than a couple of billion dollars” remaining for the incoming Trump defense team to provide to Ukraine if it chose to do so, the officials said Tuesday in briefing reporters traveling with Austin. Ukraine is in the midst of launching a second offensive in Russia’s Kursk region and is facing a barrage of long-range missiles and ongoing advances from Russia as both sides seek to put themselves in the strongest negotiating point possible before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Biden defense officials working on Ukraine have been in contact with Trump’s transition team to discuss “all the issues that we believe are important,” one of the officials said. Austin’s trip to Ramstein Air Base will be his final meeting with the group he organized to come to Ukraine’s defense after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Together those nations have provided more than $126 billion in weapons and military training and assistance. Those packages have included millions of rounds of ammunition, advanced fighter jets, air defense systems, counter-UAV systems and even tanks. The U.S. has provided $66 billion of that total. The package to be announced on Thursday will be drawn from existing stockpiles with a goal of getting most of the weapons pledged to Ukraine by the time Trump is sworn in., one of the defense officials said. On Dec. 30, the administration announced a separate $1.25 billion aid package, part of a series of aid announcements as it hurried to get as much military assistance to Ukraine as it can before President Joe Biden leaves office. The officials said roughly 80% to 90% of all stockpile equipment promised has already been provided to Ukraine. (AP)
In response to New York City’s new congestion pricing tolls, Williamsburg, Boro Park and Flatbush Chaveirim have announced initiatives to reimburse volunteers for tolls incurred while responding to calls within Manhattan’s congestion pricing zone. The program allows volunteers to submit screenshots of their call details and toll charges via email, with reimbursements being processed monthly. This initiative comes amid widespread frustration over the city’s refusal to exempt emergency responders and critical volunteers from congestion fees. New York’s congestion pricing plan, set to charge drivers up to $27 daily to enter Manhattan below 60th Street, has drawn sharp criticism for its potential to financially strain volunteers and essential workers. Chaveirim coordinators highlighted the need to protect those who dedicate their time to community service, calling the refunds a small but significant step toward addressing the toll’s impact. Emergency volunteer organizations, including Hatzolah and Chaveirim, have long argued that such fees unfairly penalize individuals providing lifesaving and essential services. Despite lobbying efforts, city officials have yet to grant exemptions for these groups. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
In a harrowing revelation, intelligence and security sources from both the U.S. and Israel revealed that authorities now believe only around 20 of the hostages still in Gaza who were abducted alive on Oct. 7 are still among the living. The grim figure—described as a “working number” by one U.S. official—comes as negotiations for the hostages’ release continue in Qatar. The 20 survivors are believed to be civilians and female Israeli soldiers. Should the count include Israeli male soldiers, the number might rise slightly, though not by much, a senior Israeli source revealed. Despite public hope that as many as 40 hostages could still be alive, Israeli and U.S. officials have refrained from confirming any numbers. “We have no information to share on this matter at the moment,” said Einav Hadari, spokeswoman for the Embassy of Israel. The IDF has also remained silent on the exact number. The weight of these revelations presses down on a nation already bearing immense grief. Of the 251 individuals—Israelis, foreigners, and soldiers—dragged into Gaza by Hamas during the massacre, over 100 were returned in a ceasefire agreement that ended in December 2023. Officially, Israel maintains that 100 hostages remain unaccounted for, with 36 presumed dead. Yet, behind closed doors, the reality appears far bleaker. “I’ve heard figures ranging from 30 to well over 60,” said Irina Tsukerman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “Hamas’s deliberate vagueness and the possibility that hostages are held by other factions further complicate the matter.” One source lamented that the “20” believed to be alive reflects what Hamas itself is claiming. Others speculate that tribal groups and unaffiliated factions in Gaza may separately hold additional hostages. Hamas has openly admitted to possessing the bodies of many who did not survive. The families of those still missing are trapped in a state of anguish, their lives punctuated by silence and fleeting hopes. Political tension is intertwined with this unfolding human tragedy. Some Israeli officials lay blame at the feet of the Biden administration, accusing it of delaying critical military action in Rafah, which they believe allowed hostages to be hidden or killed. “The Biden administration blackmailed us into waiting, and our people paid the price,” one senior Israeli official said bitterly. Israel eventually launched an offensive into Rafah last May, dismantling Hamas strongholds but leaving many questions—and families—without resolution. As negotiations persist in Doha, Israeli officials, alongside intelligence and security leaders, cling to the possibility of returning the remaining captives. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under mounting pressure, dispatched a delegation to Qatar last week, signaling a last-ditch effort to bring the hostages home. “There is hope,” Moussa Abu Marzook of Hamas remarked to Qatari media, yet for the families waiting in the shadows of this nightmare, hope feels as fragile as it is fleeting. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Fresh from pouring his money and energies into helping Donald Trump win re-election, Elon Musk has trained his sights on Europe, setting off alarm bells among politicians across the continent. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive has endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany, demanded the release of jailed U.K. anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an evil tyrant who should be in prison. Many European politicians have been left concerned by the attention. Musk’s feed on his social network X is dotted with abusive language — labeling politicians “stupid cretin” and “sniveling cowards” — as well as retweets of far-right and anti-immigrant accounts. Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University, said Musk is using X “a bit like an old-style newspaper mogul,” to promulgate his political views. “We’ve seen Musk start to align himself much more obviously with an international movement of the far right,” Chadwick said. ”If you look at the kinds of people who Musk himself is boosting on his platform … he’s increasingly started to assemble a group of different right-wing influencers, many of them with large followings, and presenting their evidence as a basis for his interventions into European politics.” Musk has inserted himself into politics in Germany, which is headed for a Feb. 23 election after center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious three-party coalition government collapsed. On Dec. 20, Musk wrote on X: “Only the AfD can save Germany,” a reference to the Alternative for Germany party, which is under observation by the domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism. He doubled down on support for the AfD in an article for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, claiming Germany is “teetering on the edge of economic and cultural collapse.” Later this week Musk is due to hold a live chat on X with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel. Scholz’s response embodies the dilemma faced by European politicians — should they ignore and let Musk’s comments go unchallenged, or engage and risk amplifying them? Scholz has said it’s important to “stay cool” over personal attacks, but called Musk’s involvement in German politics worrying. In a new year message, Scholz pointedly noted that Germany’s way forward “will not be decided by the owners of social media channels” but by German voters. French President Emmanuel Macron warned Monday about the risks posed by unchecked power in the hands of tech billionaires and the destabilizing impact they could have on democratic institutions. “Who could have imagined, 10 years ago, that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” Macron said. Greek Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis said Musk’s behavior was “troubling and far from amusing.” “Someone cannot simply use their platform, wealth and connections to try to dictate how governments are formed in each nation,” he told Parapolitika Radio. “This is becoming increasingly dangerous.” Musk has increasingly focused on British politics since the center-left Labour Party was elected in July, calling Starmer an “evil” leader presiding over a “tyrannical police state.” Musk’s recent focus is on child sexual abuse, particularly a series of cases that rocked northern England towns several years ago, in which groups of men, largely from Pakistani backgrounds, were tried for grooming and abusing dozens of mostly white girls. The cases have been […]
In the wake of the hearing held on Tuesday for Ari Rosenfeld [previously known as Sgt. A.], the reserve IDF officer who was accused of leaking documents to the Prime Minister’s Office and has been imprisoned for over two months, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir slammed Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Prosecutor Amit Aisman for selective enforcement. “Just a reminder: Gilad Kariv [who allegedly leaked information from a classified Knesset meeting to the media] has not been investigated,” Ben-Gvir said. “Nor has Yair Golan, who called for refusal and publicly threatened the police commissioner. The prosecution led by Baharav-Miara and Aisman is political from head to toe.” The incident that Ben-Gvir is referring to happened over a year ago. In December 2023, reports were published in Maariv and Walla that included quotes from a protocol of a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in June 2023. The reports claimed that the quotes proved that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was aware of the danger of a Hamas attack on Israel. Following the reports, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana asked the Knesset Officer to investigate the leak. The week-long investigation, which involved accessing security cameras and other evidence, revealed that the only person who reviewed the leaked protocol in the six months from the meeting until the reports were published was Labor MK Gilad Kariv. Kariv reviewed the protocol twice, shortly before the quotes appeared in the media. Ohana immediately sent the findings to Baharav-Miara, asking her to launch a criminal investigation into the leak but no action was taken. In recent months, the Lavi Civil Rights organization filed a complaint to the Supreme Court against Baharav-Miara and Aisman, stating that the accusations against Kariv of espionage and unauthorized disclosure of classified information during wartime are extremely serious, warranting an immediate criminal investigation. The complaint emphasized that that the offenses that Kariv allegedly committed are far more serious than those allegedly committed by Eli Feldstein and Ari Rosenfeld but the prosecution has yet to even order an investigation. Finally, after the Supreme Court held a hearing on the Lavi organization’s claim, the State Prosecution responded to the Supreme Court this past Thursday that a preliminary investigation has been opened against Kariv “but a final decision has not yet been reached regarding launching a criminal investigation.” In other words, Baharav-Miara and Aisman have completely ignored the request to investigate Kariv, perhaps because they were too busy fighting against lomdei Torah, ensuring that Nukhba terrorists are treated humanely in Israeli jails, and examining the launch of criminal investigations against anyone who criticized “innocent” Gazan civilians. Following the response to the Supreme Court, Ohana excoriated Barhav-Miara, stating: “The Attorney General is trying to bury the case of MK Gilad Kariv’s leak. There is no other way to describe the shameful response she sent to the Supreme Court today, a year after I approached her about the matter. Is it possible that ‘preliminary investigations’ are only being conducted now? Is it possible that what took the Knesset Officer a week to investigate and identify the source of the leak is something that the Israel Police has been unable to do for an entire year?” “It’s unfathomable that this woman who takes the law into her own hands threatened the Knesset Officer who acted […]
The Chabad of Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles sustained severe damage in the out-of-control wildfires currently raging in Los Angeles. The Chabad house stated: “We hope you and your loved ones are safe and well during this difficult time. As the Palisades Fire continues to affect our community, we wanted to share an update…the night is still a very long one, and the winds are still raging. We need all of your prayers to overcome this dangerous fire. We are in touch with many community members, some of who have not yet evacuated, and we are doing our best to help them connect with first responders to ensure their safety.” “Baruch Hashem, we are grateful for our safety and are holding onto hope as we navigate the challenges ahead. Unfortunately, our property has been impacted—our storage area has suffered severe damage, as well as multiple cars in the parking lot. While these losses are difficult, we are most thankful that everyone is safe, and we continue to pray for the protection of all in the affected areas.” Sifrei Torah were also rescued from a conservative synagogue called the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center before it was completely consumed by fire. California firefighters are battling wind-whipped wildfires that tore across the Los Angeles area, destroying homes, clogging roadways as tens of thousands fled and straining resources as officials prepared for the situation to worsen early Wednesday. The city of L.A. has declared a state of emergency. CNN reported in the early hours of Wednesday morning that winds of almost 100 mph continue to blow across Southern California and the fires are expected to intensify. Three life-threatening fires are consuming homes. The largest fire – in the Pacific Palisades – has forced tens of thousands of people to flee, causing roads to be blocked and forcing people to abandon their cars. In one area, workers are frantically evacuating elderly residents while a blaze rages just a block away. Two other fires are raging north of San Fernando and in Altadena. Over 200,000 homes and buildings are without power. “We are having new fires pop up as we speak,” David Acuna, a battalion chief and Public Information Officer at Cal Fire told CNN. “Once the winds have died down and we’re able to secure some lines, and we have made sure that all the people are out of the way, then we can devote all of our resources towards containing –– and then eventually, completely extinguishing the fire.” The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. The residents waited there in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety. Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences. In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases. The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and […]
The new rebel government in Syria announced amendments to the country’s school curriculum that have raised ire among its citizens and serious concerns about its Islamist slant, CNN recently reported. The amendments to the curriculum include changing the phrases “those who are damned and gone astray” to “Jews and Christians” and the “path of goodness” to “the Islamic path.” According to the report, the changes were posted on the Education Ministry’s Facebook page, and caused an outcry among Syrian citizens. “The current government is a caretaker government that does not have the right to make these amendments to the curricula,” one Syrian wrote in response to the ministry’s Facebook post. “The curricula must be amended in accordance with the new constitution.” Another Syrian wrote, “How long does it take to write a constitution? The new leaders are telling us three to four years. But it takes three hours to change the national curriculum? What a farce.” Following the backlash, Education Minister Nazir Mohammad al-Qadri said that the ministry “only instructed the removal of content glorifying the deposed Assad regime and replaced images of the regime’s flag with those of the Syrian revolution’s flag in all textbooks.” The statement “clarified” that the changes to the curriculum only apply to the correction of certain “inaccuracies” in the Islamic education curriculum under Assad “such as the misinterpretation of some Quranic verses.” Last month, al-Qadri told Reuters that both Islam and Christianity will continue to be taught in schools. The new rebel Islamic leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, whose rebel group has roots in Al-Qadea, has made great efforts to convey an image of tolerance to Western entities, saying that all religions and sectors in Syria will be respected. However, he also said that the new regime will govern in accordance with Sharia law. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
YWN regrets to inform you of the Petira of the Viznitzer Rebbetzin of Monsey, Rebbetzin Miriam Hager A”H, at the age of 72. She was Niftar on Wednesday morning at Mount Sinai Hospital. Rebbetzin Hager A”H, a pillar of the Monsey community, was the daughter of Harav Eluzer Meisels of Uhel ZT”L. She was part of a distinguished family, with three brothers serving as Admorim and Rabbonim, and two sisters as respected Rebbetzins. Despite battling multiple sclerosis for more than 25 years, Rebbetzin Hager exemplified unwavering devotion and strength. She attended shul and family simchas with remarkable Mesiras Nefesh, inspiring countless individuals with her resilience and faith. The Rebbetzin leaves behind a legacy of dedication to her family and community. She is survived by her husband, the Vishnitzer Rebbe of Monsey, as well as five sons, two daughters, and a large family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The Levaya will take place on Wednesday at approximately 12:00PM at the Viznitzer Beis HaMedrash, located at 25 Phyllis Terrace in Monsey. The Kevura will follow at the Viznitzer Beis Hachaim on Route 306. Boruch Dayan Ha’Emes… (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
