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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing fierce criticism from police union leaders after encouraging New Yorkers to protest Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu during his expected visit to the city for the United Nations General Assembly, with officers warning that the mayor’s rhetoric could make an already demanding security operation even more dangerous, the NY Post reports.

The backlash comes after the NYPD spent weeks managing security for a series of massive events, including the FIFA World Cup, the New York Knicks’ NBA championship celebration, Independence Day festivities, and America 250 events that drew millions of people to the city. Officers now say they are preparing for another major deployment as demonstrations are expected during Netanyahu’s visit.

“The mayor’s activist posturing puts police officers on the street in a terrible position,” NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said. “Protests during the UN General Assembly are nothing new, but when the mayor of the city is actively calling for demonstrations, violent agitators will assume they have permission to cause as much havoc as possible.

“Those same agitators know that the NYPD’s protest response is already hamstrung by the dangerous lawsuit settlement the city signed over the PBA’s opposition,” Hendry said. “The mayor’s heated rhetoric could be enough to push demonstrations over the edge into chaos.”

Mamdani has repeatedly targeted Netanyahu since launching his mayoral campaign, previously pledging to have the Israeli prime minister arrested if he entered New York in connection with a 2024 arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Earlier this week, however, the mayor acknowledged that he lacks the authority to arrest Netanyahu. Even so, he encouraged residents to exercise their right to demonstrate during the visit.

“This is a city where, if anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect,” he told reporters at City Hall this week. “That New Yorkers can express themselves, whether they are in support or in opposition, no matter on whatever topic.

“And I’ve always said that when we respect our Constitution, we also respect our First Amendment.”

Police officers noted that the department had just completed an extraordinary stretch of public safety operations, with many officers working 12-hour shifts throughout the summer to secure major events that concluded without significant incident.

Now, they say, the mayor’s comments have created yet another challenge.

“Was he serious?” one incredulous Manhattan cop asked.

“Cops just came off a crazy six weeks between the Knicks and the World Cup working long hours every day, and now he’s going to subject them to unnecessary problems,” the cop said.

A Brooklyn police officer dismissed Mamdani as “nothing more than a cheap politician looking for cheap headlines,” adding that the mayor either knew—or should have known—that he “didn’t have the power” to arrest Netanyahu.

Another veteran officer argued that Mamdani has failed to recognize the responsibilities of his office.

“When will he realize that he is not an activist anymore?

“He should be governing the city and trying to keep the peace, instead of inciting a riot with his rhetoric,” he said. “He is basically telling the crazy people to do what they want, and there will be no repercussions. If a cop gets hurt, it will be on him, but that is the least of his worries.”

Despite their criticism of the mayor, police union leaders said the NYPD will be fully prepared to provide security when world leaders arrive for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

“Mayor Mamdani still acts like he’s leading a protest movement instead of running the largest city in America,” said Scott Munro, president of the NYPD Detectives Endowment Association.

“If Mayor Mamdani wants a reminder of how important the First Amendment is, perhaps New York’s law enforcement unions should organize a lawful demonstration outside Gracie Mansion and let him experience firsthand the consequences of encouraging mass protests without guardrails,” he added.

{Matzav.com}

Almost 150,000 vote-by-mail ballots cast in California’s June primary were rejected, marking a noticeable increase from recent elections despite the state’s continued efforts to expand mail voting and make it easier for every eligible ballot to be counted.

California has long faced criticism over its lengthy vote-counting process, which often stretches for weeks after Election Day. Over the years, state lawmakers have adopted a series of election reforms aimed at increasing voter participation, including automatically mailing ballots to every registered voter and allowing ballots to be counted if they arrive up to seven days after the election, provided they were postmarked by Election Day.

Even with that extended grace period, newly released data from the California Secretary of State’s office shows that the overwhelming reason ballots were rejected was because they arrived too late to qualify. Election experts believe many of those ballots received postmarks dated after Election Day, making them ineligible under state law. Some have suggested recent operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service may have affected when postmarks are applied.

State records show that 148,241 mail ballots were rejected in the June primary, representing 1.73% of all mail ballots submitted.

That total exceeds the June 2024 primary, when 108,982 ballots were rejected, or 1.56% of mail ballots cast. In the 2022 primary, 105,818 mail ballots were rejected, producing a rejection rate similar to that of 2024.

Late-arriving ballots accounted for 93,479 of the rejected votes in June, making lateness by far the most common reason ballots were disqualified. By comparison, approximately 70,000 ballots were rejected for lateness in the 2022 primary and roughly 76,000 in the 2024 primary, although voter turnout was lower in both of those elections.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the increase in late ballot rejections raises significant concerns. She suggested the rise may be tied not only to Postal Service procedures but also to a surge of voters who waited until the final days of the campaign to cast ballots in the closely watched and highly competitive race for governor.

“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander wrote in an email.

Mindy Romero, director of the nonpartisan Center for Inclusive Democracy, said rejection rates naturally fluctuate from election to election, but the growing number of ballots rejected because of lateness deserves closer examination.

The issue has also attracted attention in Washington. In January, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service expressing concern that recent mail-processing changes could affect postmark dates during an election year that will determine control of Congress.

Under updated Postal Service policies, a postmark may reflect the date a piece of mail was processed at a regional facility rather than the day it first entered the postal system. Because recent consolidations have moved processing operations farther from some communities, critics fear the changes could delay postmark dates for mailed ballots.

Similar concerns surfaced in Wisconsin this week, where Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers urged the Postal Service to address delivery delays after hundreds of ballots arrived too late to be counted in the state’s April election. Meanwhile, a federal judge in June blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to establish a federal voter registration list and restrict eligibility for mail-in ballots.

Earlier this year, California election officials advised voters to return their mail ballots well before Election Day, warning that Postal Service changes could result in slower mail delivery.

Among California counties, Tulare County recorded the highest mail-ballot rejection rate in the June primary at 3.52%. Alpine County and Merced County followed closely, each reporting a rejection rate of 3.36%.

Lateness was not the only reason ballots were discarded. Nearly 44,000 ballots were rejected because election officials determined the voter’s signature did not match the signature on file. More than 8,300 ballots were rejected because the return envelope lacked a signature altogether.

Another 743 ballots were voided because those voters had already cast a ballot through another method. Additional rejected ballots involved missing ballots inside return envelopes or multiple ballots submitted in a single envelope.

The state’s data did not categorize rejected ballots by party affiliation.

California continues to trail many other large states in the speed of counting votes. States such as Florida and Texas typically report election results much more quickly, while California’s counting process has become one of the slowest in the nation.

Following the June primary, President Donald Trump again criticized California’s prolonged vote-counting process, renewing longstanding complaints about the state’s election system. At the same time, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into election procedures in Los Angeles County.

Despite the large number of rejected ballots, election experts say there is no evidence of widespread fraud involving mail voting. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that instances of mail-ballot fraud remain extremely rare, identifying roughly four cases for every 10 million mail ballots cast.

Israel’s Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, has asked the High Court of Justice to invalidate the recently enacted law that bars the arrest of yeshiva students over military draft violations, arguing that the legislation is unconstitutional, undermines equality before the law, and conflicts with Israel’s security needs.

In the state’s formal response to petitions challenging the law, filed Friday through the Attorney General’s Office, the government urged the High Court to overturn the measure, contending that it causes severe harm to the constitutional principle of equality and fails to meet Israel’s constitutional standards.

According to the state’s filing, although lawmakers presented the legislation as a temporary measure pending the passage of a broader draft law, it effectively grants yeshiva students immunity from criminal enforcement related to military service obligations. The response argues that the law creates what it describes as a “group immunity mechanism,” preventing law enforcement authorities from exercising their legal powers against draft evaders and deserters who are yeshiva students while allowing enforcement against others.

The Attorney General’s Office further argued that the legislation constitutes “a severe violation of the constitutional right to equality.”

The state maintained that the law’s impact extends well beyond equality concerns, asserting that it places an even heavier burden on Israelis serving in the IDF at a time when the military says it urgently needs to expand the pool of recruits.

According to the filing, IDF officials warned lawmakers during the legislative process that the measure would “provide an incentive not to report for military service,” would “harm efforts to increase the number of members of the chareidi community serving in the military,” and “is inconsistent with the needs of the IDF.”

The state also argued that the legislation creates selective enforcement by exempting one category of individuals subject to military service from criminal enforcement while all other draft-eligible Israelis remain subject to the same legal consequences.

In addition, the Attorney General’s Office contended that the law contains no mechanism to increase enlistment among the chareidi population and therefore fails to achieve the objective its supporters claimed it was intended to serve.

Beyond criticizing the substance of the legislation, the state also took issue with the manner in which it was passed, arguing that the legislative process itself suffered from significant procedural flaws that compound the law’s constitutional deficiencies.

The filing describes the legislation as a law “so discriminatory, contrary to the security needs of the State of Israel and the public interest,” that “the unconstitutionality inherent in it speaks for itself.” It further concludes: “This law has no legal right to exist.”

The state ultimately asked the High Court to issue an order invalidating the law in its entirety, arguing that because the measure “is unconstitutional, its fate is nullification,” and therefore it should not remain in force.

{Matzav.com}

A remarkable twist brought a happy ending Friday to the search for 4-year-old Yuval Kogan, who disappeared near the beaches of Ashkelon, after a Breslover chassid searching on horseback accidentally took a wrong turn and stumbled upon the missing child standing beneath a tree.

The child, who had been missing since Thursday afternoon, was found alive and unharmed after an intensive overnight search involving hundreds of emergency personnel and volunteers.

The man who located Yuval was identified as Noam Simchi, a Breslover chassid from Ashdod. Simchi had joined the search effort Friday morning, riding his horse in an attempt to help cover the difficult terrain surrounding the Ashkelon coastline.

Recalling the dramatic moment, Simchi said he had never intended to reach the location where the boy was eventually found.

“I took a wrong turn with the horse on the way to the beach, and I saw the child standing under a tree,” Simchi said emotionally. “He looked at me. Thank G-d. Say Mizmor L’sodah. Thank Hashem.”

The search for Yuval began Thursday at approximately 1:00 p.m. after the boy disappeared in the sand dunes between the cliffs and the shoreline north of Ashkelon.

According to reports, Yuval had been on a family outing with his father and sisters. At one point, he wandered toward a bush in the dunes to explore. After just three or four minutes during which his family lost sight of him, he had vanished.

Over the next 24 hours, hundreds of emergency responders raced against the clock to locate the child. Volunteers from ZAKA, Israel Police, Magen David Adom, rescue divers, and numerous other emergency organizations searched by land, sea, and air.

Authorities deployed drones, off-road vehicles, and specialized technological equipment as crews combed the challenging landscape.

Search teams faced particularly difficult conditions. The area where Yuval disappeared is an undeclared beach with no lifeguards or breakwaters and includes steep cliffs, expansive sand dunes, and open coastline, making the search especially complex.

Aryeh Blumenfeld, commander of the ZAKA 360 Ashkelon unit, praised the volunteers’ determination following the successful rescue.

“After a full day of searching by ZAKA 360 volunteers, the child was found safe and sound. I want to thank all of the volunteers who worked in the field and never gave up until he was found,” Blumenfeld said.

During the search, Israeli President Isaac Herzog personally called Yuval’s mother, Dina Kogan, to express his concern and support. Herzog told her he was in close contact with Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levy and Shin Bet Director David Zini regarding the ongoing search efforts.

Before her son was found, Dina Kogan, a pediatrician, voiced fears that her son’s disappearance might involve something more serious than a child who had simply become lost.

“I am worried they are searching in the same place. I am afraid this may be a kidnapping,” she said. “I want additional forces beyond the police and the Shin Bet. I want everyone mobilized. These are critical hours. Everyone needs to be on their feet—this is a matter of life and death.”

With Yuval now safely reunited with his family, relief has spread throughout Israel after a search that captivated the nation.

{Matzav.com}