Yeshiva World News

New CCTV video shows the crash of Air India Flight 171, killing at least 246 people

IDF forces carried out a special targeted operation in the village of Beit Jinn in southern Syria overnight Wednesday, apprehending several Hamas terrorists who tried to advance multiple terrorist acts against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers from within Syria.

ABSOLUTE HORROR: Air India flight AI 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London’s Gatwick Airport, crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m. local time. There were 242 passengers and crew members onboard the flight. 169 are from India, 53 are from Britain, 7 are from Portugal, and 1 is from Canada.

U.S. wholesale prices rose modestly last month from a year earlier, another sign that inflationary pressures remain mild. The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it its consumers — rose 2.6% in May 2024. Producer prices rose 0.1% from April to May after dropping 0.2% the month before. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, wholesale costs were up 0.1% from April and 3% from May 2024. The readings were slightly lower than economists had forecast. Wholesale energy prices were unchanged, although gasoline prices rose 1.6% from April after falling the month before. Food prices at the wholesale level ticked up 0.1% after dropping 0.9% in April. Egg prices, volatile because of the bird flu, rose 1.4% following 39.3% drop in April; they are up 125% from May 2024. The report came out a day after the Labor Department said that consumer prices rose a modest 0.1% last month from April and 2.4% from a year earlier. Since returning to the office, Trump has rolled out 10% tariffs on nearly every country in the world as well as specific levies on steel, aluminum and autos. Importers in the United States pay the taxes and pass them along to consumers via higher prices when they can. For that reason, economists expect inflation to pick up later this year. So far, his tariffs don’t seem to have had much of an impact on prices overall. Still, Stephen Brown of Capital Economics noted that Wholesale prices can offer an early look at where consumer inflation might be headed. Economists also watch it because some of its components, notably health care and financial services, flow into the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, index. Inflation began to flare up for the first time in decades in 2021, as the economy roared back with unexpected strength from COVID-19 lockdowns. That prompted the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. The higher borrowing costs helped bring inflation down from the peaks it reached in 2022, and last year the Fed felt comfortable enough with the progress to cut rates three times. But it has turned cautious this year while it waits to see the inflationary impact of Trump’s trade policies. The central bank is expected to leave rates unchanged at its meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday. “There is no incentive for the (Fed) to debate hiking rates in today’s figures,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote. “In fact, if the Fed did not know that tariff increases were in the pipeline, it might even contemplate cutting rates.” (AP)

Everything ever said on the internet was just the start of teaching artificial intelligence about humanity. Tech companies are now tapping into an older repository of knowledge: the library stacks. Nearly one million books published as early as the 15th century — and in 254 languages — are part of a Harvard University collection being released to AI researchers Thursday. Also coming soon are troves of old newspapers and government documents held by Boston’s public library. Cracking open the vaults to centuries-old tomes could be a data bonanza for tech companies battling lawsuits from living novelists, visual artistsand others whose creative works have been scooped up without their consent to train AI chatbots. “It is a prudent decision to start with public domain data because that’s less controversial right now than content that’s still under copyright,” said Burton Davis, a deputy general counsel at Microsoft. Davis said libraries also hold “significant amounts of interesting cultural, historical and language data” that’s missing from the past few decades of online commentary that AI chatbots have mostly learned from. Supported by “unrestricted gifts” from Microsoft and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, the Harvard-based Institutional Data Initiative is working with libraries around the world on how to make their historic collections AI-ready in a way that also benefits libraries and the communities they serve. “We’re trying to move some of the power from this current AI moment back to these institutions,” said Aristana Scourtas, who manages research at Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab. “Librarians have always been the stewards of data and the stewards of information.” Harvard’s newly released dataset, Institutional Books 1.0, contains more than 394 million scanned pages of paper. One of the earlier works is from the 1400s — a Korean painter’s handwritten thoughts about cultivating flowers and trees. The largest concentration of works is from the 19th century, on subjects such as literature, philosophy, law and agriculture, all of it meticulously preserved and organized by generations of librarians. It promises to be a boon for AI developers trying to improve the accuracy and reliability of their systems. “A lot of the data that’s been used in AI training has not come from original sources,” said the data initiative’s executive director, Greg Leppert, who is also chief technologist at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. This book collection goes “all the way back to the physical copy that was scanned by the institutions that actually collected those items,” he said. Before ChatGPT sparked a commercial AI frenzy, most AI researchers didn’t think much about the provenance of the passages of text they pulled from Wikipedia, from social media forums like Reddit and sometimes from deep repositories of pirated books. They just needed lots of what computer scientists call tokens — units of data, each of which can represent a piece of a word. Harvard’s new AI training collection has an estimated 242 billion tokens, an amount that’s hard for humans to fathom but it’s still just a drop of what’s being fed into the most advanced AI systems. Facebook parent company Meta, for instance, has said the latest version of its AI large language model was trained on more than 30 trillion tokens pulled from text, images and videos. Meta is also battling a lawsuit from comedian Sarah Silverman and […]

An Air India passenger plane bound for London with more than 240 people on board crashed Thursday in India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad, the airline said. Visuals on local television channels showed smoke billowing from the crash site in what appeared to be a populated area near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city with a population of more than 5 million. The airline said the Gatwick Airport-bound flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew. Of those, Air India said there were 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the directorate of civil aviation, told The Associated Press that Air India flight AI 171, a Boeing 787-8, crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m. local time. He said 244 people were on board and it was not immediately possible to reconcile the discrepancy with Air India’s numbers. Gatwick posted on X that it could confirm the flight, which had been due to arrive at 6:25 p.m. in London, had crashed on departure. India’s Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu posted on X that rescue teams have been mobilized, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support at the site. “We are on highest alert. I am personally monitoring the situation,” he said. The 787 Dreamliner is a widebody, twin-engine plane. This is the first crash ever of a Boeing 787 aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The aircraft was introduced in 2009 and more than 1,000 have been delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the flightradar24 website. Air India’s chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said at the moment “our primary focus is on supporting all the affected people and their families.” He said on X that the airline had set up an emergency center and support team for families seeking information about those who were on the flight. “Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event,” he said. (AP)

The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s board of governors on Thursday formally found that Iran isn’t complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years, a move that could lead to further tensions and set in motion an effort to restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran later this year. Iran reacted immediately, saying it will establish a new enrichment facility “in a secure location” and that “other measures are also being planned.” “The Islamic Republic of Iran has no choice but to respond to this political resolution,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said in a joint statement. Nineteen countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board, which represents the agency’s member nations, voted for the resolution, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-doors vote. Russia, China and Burkina Faso opposed it, 11 abstained and two did not vote. In the draft resolution seen by The Associated Press, the board of governors renews a call on Iran to provide answers “without delay” in a long-running investigation into uranium traces found at several locations that Tehran has failed to declare as nuclear sites. Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide further evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003. The resolution was put forward by France, the U.K., Germany and the United States. Iran under pressure as Trump warns of possible airstrikes Speaking to Iranian state television after the vote, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that his agency immediately informed the IAEA of “specific and effective” actions Tehran would take. “One is the launch of a third secure site” for enrichment, spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. He did not elaborate on the location. Iran has two underground sites at Fordo and Natanz and has been building tunnels in the mountains near Natanz since suspected Israeli sabotage attacks targeted that facility. The other step would be replacing old centrifuges for advanced ones at Fordo. “The implication of this is that our production of enriched materials will significantly increase,” Kamalvandi said. According to the draft resolution, “Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran … constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement.” Under those obligations, which are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is legally bound to declare all nuclear material and activities and allow IAEA inspectors to verify that none of it is being diverted from peaceful uses. The draft resolution also finds that the IAEA’s “inability … to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful gives rise to questions that are within the competence of the United Nations Security Council, as the organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” The draft resolution made a direct reference to the U.S.-Iran talks, stressing its “support for a diplomatic solution to the problems posed by the Iranian nuclear program, including the talks between the United States and Iran, leading to an agreement that addresses all international concerns related to Iran’s nuclear activities, encouraging all parties to constructively engage in diplomacy.” Still a chance for Iran to cooperate […]

The death toll in floods in one of South Africa’s poorest provinces rose to 57 on Thursday as a top official said rescue attempts had been “paralyzed” by a lack of resources. Rescue teams are still working through debris and floodwater to find missing people after heavy rain caused a river to burst its banks in the predawn hours of Tuesday. Floods hit the nearby town of Mthatha and surrounding areas, sweeping away victims along with parts of their houses and cars. Oscar Mabuyane, the premier of Eastern Cape province, said the floods struck while many people were asleep. The water was 3-4 meters (10-13 feet) high when it flowed out of a river and into nearby communities, he added. “It’s a terrible situation,” Mabuyane told state TV broadcaster SABC. “It happened at the wrong time.” Mabuyane said local authorities struggled to launch an effective rescue effort as the disaster happened in what he described as a region lacking resources. He said the largely rural Eastern Cape province in southeastern South Africa, which is home to around 7.2 million people, only has one rescue helicopter. It came to Mthatha from the city of Gqeberha, more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away. He also said the region does not have any specialist rescue divers or K-9 dog units, meaning they had to be called in from elsewhere to help with the search. “When things like this happen, we are always found wanting,” said Mabuyane. “We are paralyzed.” People were stranded on rooftops and in trees Rescue teams on Wednesday brought bodies out of the water in blue body bags. Witnesses said many people had taken refuge on the tops of buildings or in trees and some were heard calling for help for hours. Provincial government officials previously said they believed people were still missing but did not give an exact number. There was no immediate update on Thursday whether authorities believed all those who were not accounted for had been found. The death toll rose to 57, according to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, who led a national government delegation to the province to visit the scene. “This is a real disaster and a catastrophe when we have so many people dying,” Hlabisa said. He added that part of the problem was that many people in the area were living on a flood plain close to the river. The missing had included four high school students who were swept away when their bus was caught up in the floods on its way to school early Tuesday morning. Authorities did not immediately say if those four children were among the latest bodies retrieved. Six students who were on the bus had already been confirmed dead, along with the driver and another adult. Three other students were rescued after clinging onto trees and calling out for help, according to the provincial government. The floods hit the province after an extreme cold front brought heavy rain, strong winds and snow to parts of eastern and southern South Africa. The floods centered on Mthatha and its surrounding district, which is around 430 kilometers (267 miles) south of the east coast city of Durban. Forecasters had warned about the damaging weather last week. Officials said at least 58 schools and 20 hospitals in the Eastern Cape were damaged, while […]

IDF forces carried out a special targeted operation in the village of Beit Jinn in southern Syria overnight Wednesday, apprehending several Hamas terrorists who tried to advance multiple terrorist acts against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers from within Syria. During the mission, troops also discovered and seized weapons found in the vicinity. The captured terrorists were transferred to Israel, where they were interrogated by intelligence officers from Unit 504. The operation was carried out based on intelligence collected in recent weeks. (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

The new draft conscription law, formulated between MK Yuli Edelstein and representatives of the Chareidi parties, includes a series of strict measures against bnei yeshivos who exercise their freedom of religion and do not enlist in the IDF. For the first time, three categories of restrictions were agreed upon, which will apply to bnei yeshivos, with some of them to be imposed even if recruitment targets are met. Rights and obligations: The Chareidim agreed to permanent restrictions that will apply to potential recruits studying Torah, regardless of meeting recruitment targets. The restrictions include limitations on academic studies, subsidies for work, tax credit points for workers, and vocational training, within the framework of what was called the “rights and obligations model.” Movement restrictions: Another dramatic clause stipulates restrictions on the issuance of driver’s licenses, as well as bans on leaving the country for bnei yeshivos who declare that “תורתם אומנותם.” Sanctions on subsidies: The law will also include economic sanctions, which will apply to the subsidization of day care centers for working Chareidi women if the targets are not met. The achievement of the targets will be examined at the end of each year, and in parallel, an interim examination will be conducted after six months. However, the parties agreed that the law will regulate the status of those who received conscription orders during the period when a valid conscription law was not in effect, conscription orders that were defined as stemming from a legal vacuum and not from a coherent policy. Principles of the Conscription Plan: Mandatory conscription for bnei yeshivos ages 18-26. The law’s defined targets: The recruitment of 4,800 bnei yeshivos in the first year, 5,700 in the second year, and within five years, the recruitment of 50% of Chareidim in the 18-26 cohort. However, if 95% of the recruitment target is achieved, it will be considered that the targets have been met and no sanctions will be applied. Immediate personal sanctions  • Suspension of drivers’ licenses and inability to obtain a new license • Bans on leaving the country (with an exceptions committee) • Cancellation of affirmative action in the public service; cancellation of subsidies for academic studies; whoever works (meaning neither studies nor enlists) – loses tax credit points until age 26. Sanctions on not reaching targets: After six months: If the targets are not met, discounts will not be provided for the second half of the year for daycares and public transportation. After one year: Failure to meet targets will lead to non-receipt of benefits such as Bituach Leumi, the “Mechir L’Mishtakein” program [house lottery], and subsidies for second-hand apartments. After two years: Failure to meet targets will result in the revocation of additional benefits, such as after-school programs and purchase tax in the third year. Institutional sanctions on yeshivos: If 75% or more of the target is met, any percentage gap will be doubled and deducted from the yeshiva budget. For example, if 90% of the target is met, the remaining 10% will be taken, doubled, and 20% of the yeshiva budget will be reduced. If less than 75% of the target is met, 100% of the yeshiva budget will be canceled. According to the proposal, the law will be defined as a temporary order for a period of six years. If, after four […]

Israel is mulling taking military action against Iran in the coming days, most likely without US support, NBC News reported on Thursday morning, citing five people with knowledge of the situation. According to the report, Israel has “become more serious” about a unilateral strike on Iran due to the negotiations between the US and Iran that would allow for the Islamic Republic to continue with uranium enrichment. US President Donald Trump reportedly told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu earlier this week that he will not provide Israel with a green light to attack Iran at this time. On the other hand, Trump has also expressed frustration with Tehran, which has taken a hard line in negotiations in recent days. Meanwhile, the Trump administration, fearing Iran would retaliate for an Israeli strike against US forces in the region, has evacuated US employees from Iraq and authorized the departure of non-essential staff from embassies in Bahrain and Kuwait. According to a New York Times report, Iran has already prepared a plan to respond to an Israeli attack on its nuclear sites. An Iranian official told the NYT that Iran would respond with an immediate counterattack similar in scope to its October 2024 attack on Israel. (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

U.S. troops have begun directly detaining immigrants accused of trespassing on a recently designated national defense zone along the southern U.S. border, in an escalation of the military’s enforcement role, authorities said Wednesday U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Chad Campbell described in detail the first detentions by troops last week of three immigrants accused of trespassing in a national defense area near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Those migrants were quickly turned over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and are now among more than 1,400 migrants to have been charged with illegally entering militarized areas along that border, under a new border enforcement strategy from President Donald Trump’s administration. Troops are prohibited from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil under the Posse Comitatus Act. But an exception known as the military purpose doctrine allows it in some instances. Authorities “noticed three individuals crossing the protective barrier into the United States,” Campbell said. “A Department of Defense response went to interdict those three individuals, told them to sit down. … In a matter of three minutes, border patrol agents came in to apprehend. So that three minutes is that temporary detention” by the military. Trump has designated two national military defense areas along the southern U.S. border for New Mexico and a 60-mile (97-kilometer) stretch of western Texas, from El Paso to Fort Hancock, while transferring much of the land from the Interior Department to oversight by the Department of Defense for three years. The Trump administration plans eventually to add more militarized zones along the border, a military spokesman said Wednesday at a news conference in El Paso. “We have been very clear that there will be additional National Defense Areas across the southern border,” said Geoffrey Carmichael, a spokesperson for an enforcement task force at the southern border. “I won’t speculate to where those are going to be.” Proponents of the militarized zones, including federal prosecutors, say the approach augments traditional efforts by Customs and Border Protection and other law enforcement agencies to secure the border. “These partnerships and consequences exist so that we can promote the most humane border environment we’ve ever had,” El Paso sector Border Patrol Chief Agent Walter Slosar said. “We are dissuading people from entering the smuggling cycle … to make sure that smugglers cannot take advantage of individuals who are trying to come into the United States.” Defense attorneys — and judges in some instances — are pushing back against the novel application of national security charges against immigrants who enter through those militarized zones — and carry a potential sentence of 18 months in prison on top of a possible six-month sentence for illegal entry. A judge in New Mexico has dismissed more than 100 national security charges against immigrants, finding little evidence that immigrants knew about the national defense areas. Those migrants still confronted charges of illegal entry to the U.S. In Texas, a Peruvian woman who crossed the U.S. border illegally was acquitted of unauthorized access to a newly designated militarized zone in the first trial under the Trump administration’s efforts. U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons, who oversees western Texas, vowed to press forward with more military trespassing charges. “We’re gonna keep going forward on these NDA charges,” Simmons said. “We are gonna still bring them, we may win on them, […]

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has distributed millions of meals to Gazans, says a bus carrying its members was attacked by Hamas. At least 5 were killed, and others possibly taken hostage.

BREAKING: Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, announced that after extended deliberations, coalition members have reached an agreement on core principles for the new enlistment law. Edelstein described the development as “historic news,” signaling the end of the coalition crisis and the start of a legislative push to expand the IDF’s conscription base. “Only a real, effective bill like this will come out of my committee,” he said, without sharing further details. “We’re on our way to real change in Israeli society and strengthening the State of Israel’s security.”

President Trump on Iran: “They (US personnel in the Middle East) are being moved out. It could be a dangerous place, we’ll see what happens. Iran can not have a nuclear weapon, we won’t allow it”

President Trump was asked earlier while leaving the White House on the way to the Kennedy Center, why military dependents and diplomats were being evacuated from the Middle East, to which he shrugged and responded, “You’ll have to see, thank you.”

The Democratic National Committee just overwhelmingly voted to remove David Hogg from his position as Vice Chair, 294 to 99.

The majority of justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court have agreed to make social media companies liable for illegal postings by their users, in a landmark case for Latin America with implications for U.S. relations. Brazil’s top court decided to rule on two different cases to reach an understanding on how to deal with social media companies as reports of fraud, child abuse and violence among teenagers become rampant online. Critics warn such measures could threaten free speech as platforms preemptively remove content that could be problematic. Gilmar Mendes on Wednesday became the sixth of the court’s 11 justices to vote to open a path for companies like Meta, X and Microsoft to be sued and pay fines for content published by their users. Voting is ongoing but a simple majority is all that is needed for the measure to pass. The ruling will come after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned of possible visa restrictions against foreign officials allegedly involved in censoring American citizens. One such official reportedly is Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has taken measures against social media outlets he deemed to have not complied with Brazilian law. The only dissenting Brazilian justice so far is André Mendonça and his vote was made public last week. The court is yet to decide how such regulations will be enacted. Mendonça said free speech on social media is key for the publication of information that “holds powerful public institutions to account, including governments, political elites and digital platforms.” Justice Flávio Dino, the first to vote on Wednesday, reminded his colleagues that recent cases of school shootings in Brazil were stimulated on social media. He read out postings by one user who said he was happy by watching families of dead children “weeping, bleeding, dying.” “I think social media has not made humanity closer to what it has produced in best fashion,” he said. The social media proposal would become law once voting is finished and the result is published. But Brazil’s Congress could still pass another law to reverse the measure. The current legislation states social media companies can only be held responsible if they do not remove hazardous content after a court order. Public debate on regulating social networks increased in Brazil in the aftermath of the Jan. 8 riot in 2023, when supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro ransacked Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court in the capital, Brasilia. Platforms need to be pro-active in regulating content, said Alvaro Palma de Jorge, a law professor at the Rio-based Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university. “They need to adopt certain precautions that are not compatible with simply waiting for a judge to eventually issue a decision ordering the removal of that content,” Palma de Jorge said. Wednesday’s ruling brings Brazil’s approach to big tech closer to the European Union’s approach, which has sought to rein in the power of social media companies and other digital platforms. Rendering platforms automatically accountable for content on their platforms may infringe freedom of speech as they could resort to preemptively removing content, according to the Sao-Paulo based Brazilian Chamber of Digital Economy, an organization that represents sectors of the digital economy. “This type of liability favors large companies with robust legal structures, to the detriment of smaller, […]

Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, chair of the powerful Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, announced Wednesday that coalition leaders have reached an agreement in principle on a long-awaited proposal for a new IDF enlistment law—potentially ending a months-long crisis threatening government stability. “After long deliberations, we have reached agreements on principles on which to base a proposal for the enlistment law,” Edelstein said in a statement, calling the moment “historic news” and a major step toward “real change in Israeli society and strengthening the State of Israel’s security.” While Edelstein did not disclose the details of the compromise, he said that the legislation would expand the IDF’s conscription base. “As I said the entire way, only a real, effective bill like this will come out of my committee,” he said. The enlistment law, which addresses military service requirements for yeshiva bochurim, has long been a flashpoint in Israeli politics, with tensions running high between secular and charedi coalition members. The lack of a unified position had placed significant strain on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition. Edelstein confirmed that the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee would begin formal deliberations on the bill soon, with the goal of advancing it through its second and third Knesset readings. “We’re on the path to history,” he declared. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)