The Hirschman family is facing a moment of both great joy and overwhelming challenge. Their daughter’s wedding is fast approaching, yet the weight of years of severe medical hardship has left them emotionally and financially drained.
Pakistani officials on Tuesday welcomed a move by the U.S. State Department to designate a Pakistani separatist group as a foreign terrorist organization. The designation of the Balochistan Liberation Army and its fighting wing, the Majeed Brigade, blamed for deadly attacks in Balochistan province, coincides with a visit to the U.S. by Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir. The announcement comes less than two weeks after Washington and Islamabad reached a trade agreement expected to allow U.S. firms to help develop Pakistan’s largely untapped oil reserves in resource-rich Balochistan and lower trade tariffs for Islamabad. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the designation Tuesday, noting that the BLA was banned at home in 2024. “Pakistan remains a steadfast bulwark against terrorism. Our sacrifices have secured critical counterterrorism successes, not only for the country, but for regional stability and global security,” it said in a statement. The BLA was first designated as a terrorist group in 2019 by the U.S. Treasury Department after several attacks. The State Department said its new designation was added because the group has since claimed responsibility for additional attacks. The new designation means the BLA is now considered a foreign terrorist organization and its supporters will face tougher scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe, analysts said. The BLA claimed responsibility for suicide bombings near the airport in Karachi and in the port city of Gwadar in Balochistan in 2024, the U.S. statement said. It added that the group said it carried out the March hijacking of the Jaffar Express train traveling from Quetta to Peshawar, killing 31 civilians and security personnel and holding more than 300 passengers hostage. “Today’s action taken by the Department of State demonstrates the Trump administration’s commitment to countering terrorism,” the statement said. Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the designation of the BLA and its Majeed Brigade fighting wing follows Munir’s visits to the U.S. The designation “indicates a major policy shift by the Trump administration toward South Asia, highlighting the growing role of military diplomacy, deepening bilateral cooperation on counterterrorism, and showing that Washington shares Pakistan’s security concerns about Baloch insurgents,” Ali said. The change also shows the U.S. values stability in Pakistan and its oil- and gas-rich Balochistan province, he said. There was no immediate comment from Balochistan nationalists and separatist groups. Balochistan has long been the scene of insurgency, mostly blamed on groups including the key outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, which the U.S. designated a terrorist organization in 2019. The province is also home to militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban. Separatists in Balochistan have opposed the extraction of resources by Pakistani and foreign firms and have targeted Pakistani security forces and Chinese nationals working on multibillion-dollar projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. While Pakistan’s government says it has quelled insurgency, violence persists in Balochistan, where troops last week killed 47 insurgents in two separate operations in the Zhob district. The military said Tuesday it killed three additional insurgents in Zhob, raising the number of militants killed to 50 since Thursday. An explosion on Tuesday ripped through an arms depot in Nowshera, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, residents said. There was no immediate statement from police or the military, but authorities were expected to release a statement. (AP)
TRAGEDY: A tragic accident occurred near the Ganot Interchange on Tuesday afternoon in which Rachamim Eliyahu Elnatan, z’l, 20, was killed. The niftar, who got married only several months ago, was the son of Rabbi Natan Elnatan of Shas, formerly the Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv and currently the Chairman of the National Planning Headquarters in the Ministry of Interior. He is survived by his wife, his parents, and seven siblings. This is a difficult tragedy for the Elnatan family, as this is the second son who was killed in an accident.
In a scene that could have been ripped from a slapstick crime reel—if it weren’t so destructive—a Chareidi youth stormed into the “Sabaphone” cell phone store on Shmuel HaNavi Street Tuesday carrying a bucket of revolting, foul-smelling liquid. Security footage shows the young man brazenly dumping the noxious contents onto the shop floor and merchandise before his plan backfired—literally—when he slipped on the slime and crashed to the ground. Store employees quickly moved in, kicking him out of store as the stench filled the air and the damage piled up. The liquid seeped into electronics and accessories, causing thousands of shekels’ worth of destruction. Business owners say this wasn’t a random act of vandalism. According to multiple sources, the youth was carrying out orders from extremists waging a guerrilla campaign to shut down cell phone stores in Chareidi neighborhoods. Merchants say the attacks are becoming more frequent, more brazen, and more costly—while police enforcement remains virtually invisible. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
A tragic accident occurred near the Ganot Interchange on Tuesday afternoon in which Rachamim Eliyahu Elnatan, z’l, 20, was killed. The niftar, who got married only several months ago, was the son of Rabbi Natan Elnatan of Shas, formerly the Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv and currently the Chairman of the National Planning Headquarters in the Ministry of Interior. He is survived by his wife, his parents, and seven siblings. This is a difficult tragedy for the Elnatan family, as this is the second son who was killed in an accident. The severe accident occurred at 3:50 PM when a report was received at Magen David Adom’s (MDA) 101 hotline about a motorcyclist who was hit at the Ganot Interchange on the exit from Highway 1 towards Highway 4 north. MDA paramedics and medics who arrived at the scene found him lying unconscious with very severe injuries and were forced to pronounce his death at the scene. ZAKA Tel Aviv volunteers Shlomi Paz from the motorcycle unit and Shai Mizrachi, the ambulance driver, said: “We were dispatched to Highway 1 near Ganot following a report of a motorcyclist, about 20 years old, who hit a fence and flew dozens of meters from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene. This is a very difficult scene with weather conditions [severe heat] that make it difficult for us to uphold kavod hameis. With the help of additional volunteers, we are maintaining kavod hameis and collecting the many findings left at the scene. The body will be transferred for further treatment and clarification at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine.” (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
YouTube on Wednesday will begin testing a new age-verification system in the U.S. that relies on artificial intelligence to differentiate between adults and minors, based on the kinds of videos that they have been watching. The tests initially will only affect a sliver of YouTube’s audience in the U.S., but it will likely become more pervasive if the system works as well at guessing viewers’ ages as it does in other parts of the world. The system will only work when viewers are logged into their accounts, and it will make its age assessments regardless of the birth date a user might have entered upon signing up. If the system flags a logged-in viewer as being under 18, YouTube will impose the normal controls and restrictions that the site already uses as a way to prevent minors from watching videos and engaging in other behavior deemed inappropriate for that age. The safeguards include reminders to take a break from the screen, privacy warnings and restrictions on video recommendations. YouTube, which has been owned by Google for nearly 20 years, also doesn’t show ads tailored to individual tastes if a viewer is under 18. If the system has inaccurately called out a viewer as a minor, the mistake can be corrected by showing YouTube a government-issued identification card, a credit card or a selfie. “YouTube was one of the first platforms to offer experiences designed specifically for young people, and we’re proud to again be at the forefront of introducing technology that allows us to deliver safety protections while preserving teen privacy,” James Beser, the video service’s director of product management, wrote in a blog post about the age-verification system. People still will be able to watch YouTube videos without logging into an account, but viewing that way triggers an automatic block on some content without proof of age. The political pressure has been building on websites to do a better job of verifying ages to shield children from inappropriate content since late June when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law aimed at preventing minors from watching pornography online. While some services, such as YouTube, have been stepping up their efforts to verify users’ ages, others have contended that the responsibility should primarily fall upon the two main smartphone app stores run by Apple and Google — a position that those two technology powerhouses have resisted. Some digital rights groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology, have raised concerns that age verification could infringe on personal privacy and violate First Amendment protections on free speech. (AP)
Delivery drones are so fast they can zip a pint of ice cream to a customer’s driveway before it melts. Yet the long-promised technology has been slow to take off in the United States. More than six years after the Federal Aviation Administration approved commercial home deliveries with drones, the service mostly has been confined to a few suburbs and rural areas. That could soon change. The FAA proposed a new rule last week that would make it easier for companies to fly drones outside of an operator’s line of sight and therefore over longer distances. A handful of companies do that now, but they had to obtain waivers and certification as an air carrier to deliver packages. While the rule is intended to streamline the process, authorized retailers and drone companies that have tested fulfilling orders from the sky say they plan to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households. Walmart’s multistate expansion Walmart and Wing, a drone company owned by Google parent Alphabet, currently provide deliveries from 18 Walmart stores in the Dallas area. By next summer, they expect to expand to 100 Walmart stores in Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston; and Orlando and Tampa, Florida. After launching its Prime Air delivery service in College Station, Texas, in late 2022, Amazon received FAA permission last year to operate autonomous drones that fly beyond a pilot’s line of sight. The e-commerce company has since expand its drone delivery program to suburban Phoenix and has plans to offer the service in Dallas, San Antonio, Texas, and Kansas City. The concept of drone delivery has been around for well over a decade. Drone maker Zipline, which works with Walmart in Arkansas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, began making deliveries to hospitals in Rwanda in 2016. Israel-based Flytrex, one of the drone companies DoorDash works with to carry out orders, launched drone delivery to households in Iceland in 2017. But Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said drone delivery has been in “treading water mode” in the U.S. for years, with service providers afraid to scale up because the regulatory framework wasn’t in place. “You want to be at the right moment where there’s an overlap between the customer demand, the partner demand, the technical readiness and the regulatory readiness,” Woodworth said. “I think that we’re reaching that planetary alignment right now.” Flying ice cream and eggs DoorDash, which works with both Wing and Flytrex, tested drone drop-offs in rural Virginia and greater Dallas before announcing an expansion into Charlotte. Getting takeout food this way may sound futuristic, but it’s starting to feel normal in suburban Brisbane, Australia, where DoorDash has employed delivery drones for several years, said Harrison Shih, who leads the company’s drone program. “It comes so fast and it’s something flying into your neighborhood, but it really does seem like part of everyday life,” Shih said. Even though delivery drones are still considered novel, the cargo they carry can be pretty mundane. Walmart said the top items from the more than 150,000 drone deliveries the nation’s largest retailer has completed since 2021 include ice cream, eggs and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Unlike traditional delivery, where one driver may have a truck full of packages, drones generally deliver one small order at a time. Wing’s drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.5 pounds. They can travel up to 12 miles round trip. One pilot can oversee up to 32 drones. Zipline has a drone that can […]
The Foreign Ministry reports that three people vandalized the Israeli Embassy in The Hague this morning. Photos show the entrance splattered with red paint and the front door smashed. Local security forces responded quickly, and Dutch police arrested all three suspects.
Just 5 months after exiting bankruptcy, Spirit Airlines says it may not survive the next year without a cash boost. With leisure travel bookings down and fierce competition cutting into revenue, the budget carrier warns it could default on loans and be forced to sell planes, gates, and other assets if it can’t raise funds fast.
In an attempt to take on Google’s search dominance, AI startup Perplexity has offered $34.5 billion to buy the Chrome browser — nearly double its own $18 billion valuation. The company says major VC backers are ready to fund the deal in full.
Hundreds of National Guard members began arriving in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, a day after President Donald Trump announced he would take control of the city’s police department and deploy federal forces to combat what he called a “lawless” capital.
Eastman Kodak Co., the 130-year-old photography pioneer, is warning there’s “substantial doubt” it can stay in business as it struggles to meet upcoming debt payments. Once famed for its Brownie and Instamatic cameras, Kodak has faced decades of decline, filing for bankruptcy in 2012 and reinventing itself in commercial printing and, more recently, pharmaceuticals.
A Brooklyn resident has admitted he tried to smuggle protected turtles worth more than $1 million from the United States to Hong Kong by shipping them in boxes labeled “plastic animal toys.”
Argentine President Javier Milei is using his $1M Genesis Prize to launch the “Isaac Accords” — a new initiative to deepen Israel’s ties with Uruguay, Panama, and Costa Rica, with plans to expand to Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and possibly El Salvador in 2026. Milei, one of Israel’s staunchest allies among world leaders, received the prize in Jerusalem in June for his unwavering support of the Jewish state — even expressing interest in converting to Judaism.
Last month, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara announced that the military police would launch an arrest operation at the end of July against talmidei yeshivos who are defined by law as “deserters.” However, the operation was never launched, and according to a senior Chareidi political official, the operation has been frozen, Kikar H’Shabbat reported on Tuesday. The official said that the operation was frozen due to the pressure exerted by the spiritual and political Chareidi leadership, which persuaded senior IDF officials not to shatter the relationship between Chareidim and the IDF. The Chareidi official said, “The IDF planned to launch the arrest operation at the start of Bein Hazmanim, but our message got through. The IDF is not looking for a conflict with Chareidim, and the arrest operation has been postponed and may even be canceled. We worked with the IDF and the Defense Minister. It seems that Bein Hazmanim will pass without any unusual incidents.” He added, “Even the arrests in Tel Aviv were random. Senior IDF officials were careful to clarify this in conversations with us and in briefings to the media.” Three yeshivah bochurim were arrested in Tel Aviv last week in what the IDF said was an arrest operation against deserters from all sectors. It should be noted that the IDF spokesman and the office of Defense Minister Katz denied the claims. The IDF spokesperson said, “The military police force carries out enforcement operations against evaders and deserters in accordance with the law. There is no change in policy.” (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
A New York resident has admitted he tried to smuggle protected turtles worth more than $1 million from the United States to Hong Kong by shipping them in boxes labeled “plastic animal toys.” Wei Qiang Lin, a Chinese national who lives in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in New York to attempting to export more than 220 parcels containing around 850 eastern box turtles and three-toed box turtles, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The turtles, with an estimated market value of $1.4 million, were intercepted by law enforcement at a border inspection, prosecutors said. Officers saw them bound and taped inside knotted socks within the shipping boxes. Eastern box turtles and three-toed box turtles feature colorful markings and are a “prized feature” in the domestic and foreign pet market, particularly in China and Hong Kong, prosecutors said. The reptiles are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Lin also shipped 11 other parcels filled with reptiles, including venomous snakes, prosecutors said. He faces up to five years in prison when he’s sentenced Dec. 23. (AP)
Argentine President Javier Milei is helping to launch a $1 million initiative to improve diplomatic relations between Israel and several Latin American countries at a time when Israel is facing intense international criticism over its operations in Gaza. The Isaac Accords, funded by money from the Genesis Prize that Milei received two months ago in Jerusalem, will increase ties between Israel, Uruguay, Panama and Costa Rica, according to the Genesis Prize announcement on Tuesday. Argentina, under Milei, already has solid ties with Israel. His posture stands in contrast to most of Latin America — where Bolivia and Colombia have severed ties with Israel and other countries have recalled their ambassadors. The new initiative’s name is a nod to the Abraham Accords, which recognized bilateral relations between Israel and several Arab states starting in 2020, during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first administration. In 2026, the Isaac Accords plans to expand to Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and possibly El Salvador, according to the organizers, the American Friends of the Isaac Accords. Milei was awarded the Genesis Prize in Jerusalem on June 12 in recognition of his support for Israel, especially when many countries and international organizations, including the United Nations, have condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza. Milei is among the greatest supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government when it comes to world leaders, as Israel faces growing isolation over its bombardment and invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Although born and raised Roman Catholic, Milei has increasingly shown public interest in Judaism and even expressed intentions to convert. (AP)
