The search in Vermont for a missing Yeshiva Boy has ended without incident.
15-year-old Shmuel Rabinowitz was spotted in the Killington Vermont forest by a local hiker who had seen a Chaveirim flyer with his photo and information. He is B”H healthy and in good condition. As of 6:00PM, he was approximately 19 miles away from the command center, and rescue personnel were making their way to him. At around 7:00PM he was being escorted by Chaverim members.
Rabinowitz is from Montreal, and was a camper in the Pioneers Camp in Vermont. The last contact with him was at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 24, 2019.
A massive deployment from Chaverim of Rockland just took place, with more than 20 volunteers left Monsey on Thursday morning. They were heavily equipped with all types of search and rescue equipment including state of the art command center, with high-end radio communications.
Flatbush Hatzolah dispatched a vehicle with 4 volunteers, loaded with equipmen. Chaveirm of Montreal Tosh went, Lakewood Chaverim dispatched 20 volunteers with equipment and ATV’s, Bikur Cholim of Lakewood sent volunteers as well as Montreal Hatzolah.
Moscow-Kiev relations have been tense ever since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
BY REUTERS JULY 25, 2019 16:41
Ukraine said on Thursday it had detained a Russian tanker for its alleged involvement in the seizure of three Ukrainian vessels by Russia in November, and Moscow threatened consequences if Russian citizens were “taken hostage.”
Ukraine’s security service maintained that the tanker in the Ukrainian port of Izmail was involved in an incident in November in the Kerch Strait that led to Russia seizing three Ukrainian vessels.Read More Related Articles
“The Ukraine security service and military prosecutors’ office detained (a) Russian tanker, the Neyma, which had blocked Ukrainian warships in the Kerch Strait,” the security service said in a statement on Thursday.
Russia captured the vessels and their crews in waters that separate the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and Russia. Moscow-Kiev relations have been tense ever since.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned Ukraine on Thursday that “there will soon be consequences” if any Russian members of the crew of the tanker detained by Kiev were “taken hostage,” RIA news agency reported.
Ukraine’s security service was not available for comment.
It said earlier that the Russian vessel had entered Ukraine under its new name, the Nika Spirit, “to cover its involvement in illegal actions,” but that it had identified the ship by its unique International Maritime Organization number (IMO).
“The above named vessel is considered to be a piece of material evidence, (and) a petition to a court for its arrest is being prepared,” the security service said in its statement.
In Moscow, senior Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov described Ukraine’s detention of the tanker as “absolutely illegal” and said it was detrimental to relations between the two countries, RIA news agency reported.
In Kiev, Ukraine’s ombudswoman said negotiations on the release of the Ukrainian sailors from the three vessels seized by the Russian navy off Crimea’s coast had intensified after Russian and Ukrainian leaders spoke by phone earlier this month.
Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, exposed Iran’s plans for regional domination, its “octopus tentacles” reaching every country in the Middle East.
The tweet, posted Thursday and directed to at all residents of the Middle East, included a diagram depicting Iran’s plot in Arabic and Farsi.
Katz warned against “Iran’s octopus tentacles reaching Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Mediterranean region of the Middle East.”
He also encouraged further sanctions on Iran, saying “we must continue to the pressure on Iran and its proxies, and roll back the harmful Iranian influence in the region.”
Katz has recently been appointed foreign minister, taking over from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and continuing his efforts to oppose Iran’s influence.
For the third straight year, Canadian Jews in 2018 remained the most targeted minority group for police-reported hate-crimes throughout the country.
The data was released on Monday by Statistics Canada.
But the good news is that incidents dropped by four percent from 360 in 2017 to 345 in 2018, while other minorities saw more significant declines.
Hate crimes against Muslims, for example, fell 50 per cent to 173, while Black Canadians saw a 15 percent drop to 283 reported hate crimes.
In 2018, Canadian police responded to 1,798 hate crimes, compared to 2,073 in 2017.
“We are encouraged to see an overall decline in hate crimes, [but] this data confirms the persistence of Jew hatred, which is seeing an alarming global rise,” Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs CEO Shimon Koffler Fogel said.
The numbers prove that hate crimes against Jews remain an “urgent concern,” B’nai Brith Canada President Michael Mostyn said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that online giant Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) “destroyed the retail industry across the United States.”
Mnuchin said he looked forward to hearing the results of a Justice Department probe, announced on Tuesday, into whether big U.S. technology firms engage in anticompetitive practices, the strongest sign yet that the Trump administration is stepping up its scrutiny of Big Tech.
“If you look at Amazon, although they’re certain benefits to it, they’ve destroyed the retail industry across the United States,” Mnuchin told CNBC. “I don’t have an opinion other than I think it’s absolutely right the attorney general is looking into these issues and I look forward to listening to his recommendations to the president.”
Amazon defended itself, saying that 90% of all sales occur in brick-and-mortar stores.
“Today, independent sellers make up more than 58% of physical gross merchandise sales on Amazon, and their sales have grown twice as fast as our own, totaling $160 billion in 2018,” a spokesman for Amazon said.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to say on Tuesday which companies it would scrutinize under the antitrust probe, but said the review would consider concerns raised about “search, social media, and some retail services online” – an apparent reference to Google, Amazon, Facebook Inc (FB.O), and potentially Apple Inc (AAPL.O).
Mnuchin also said the small amount of work that Google does with the Chinese government did not raise any concerns, despite President Donald Trump’s calls last week for his administration to investigate the issue.
“The president did look into that as well as I,” Mnuchin said. “Google is an American company who wants to help the U.S.”
Boris Johnson became Britain’s new prime minister Wednesday, vowing to lead the U.K. out of the European Union “after three years of unfounded self-doubt.”
Standing outside the shiny black door of 10 Downing St., Johnson derided “the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters” who believe he cannot succeed in breaking the Brexit impasse that defeated his predecessor, Theresa May.
“The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts,” he said.
Johnson has just 99 days to make good on his promise to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31, come what may.
The former mayor of London and foreign secretary is getting Britain’s top job in politics after winning a contest to lead the governing Conservative Party.
Famed for his bravado, quips in Latin and blond mop of hair, Johnson easily defeated Conservative rival Jeremy Hunt, winning two-thirds of the votes of about 160,000 party members across the U.K.
He replaces May, who announced her resignation last month after Parliament repeatedly rejected the withdrawal agreement she struck with the 28-nation bloc. That has left Britain stranded in Brexit limbo as the U.K.’s departure from the EU was delayed past its long-scheduled March exit date.
Johnson took office in a day of carefully choreographed political drama that began with May attending the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions period in the House of Commons for the last time.
The usually boisterous session was subdued, with Conservative colleagues praising May’s sense of duty and opposition leaders offering best wishes, while aiming their fire at her replacement. May just shook her head when Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn asked if she would help him stop “the reckless plans of her successor,” who has vowed to leave the EU if necessary without a Brexit divorce deal.
May offered Johnson slightly muted praise, saying she was pleased to hand over to a Conservative committed to “delivering on the vote of the British people in 2016 and to delivering a bright future for this country.”
And she fired back at Corbyn: “As a party leader who has accepted when her time was up, perhaps the time is now for him to do the same?”
As she left the Commons chamber, May was given a standing ovation by Conservative lawmakers, many of whom helped bring her down by rejecting her Brexit deal.
After saying goodbye to Downing Street staff, May stood outside the prime minister’s residence and spoke publicly for the last time as Britain’s leader.
With husband, Philip, by her side, May said it had been “the greatest honor” to serve as prime minister.
Reminding her successor of the risks posed by a disruptive Brexit, May said the new government’s priority must be “to complete our exit from the European Union in a way that works for the whole United Kingdom.”
May and her husband then traveled by ministerial Jaguar the mile (1.6 kilometers) to Buckingham Palace to advise Queen Elizabeth II to ask Johnson to form a new government. The palace confirmed in a statement that the 93-year-old monarch had accepted May’s resignation.
May left the palace after a half-hour. Moments later, Johnson’s car swept through the gates of the royal residence. He will be the 14th prime minister of the queen’s 67-year reign.
There was a brief hiccup in the smooth handover when environmental protesters blocked Johnson’s car by forming a human chain across the road outside the palace. They were quickly bundled aside by his police escort.
Greenpeace said its activists had tried to hand Johnson a letter calling for strong action against climate change.
Half an hour later, Johnson spoke in Downing Street, giving Britons a glimpse at his priorities and policy plans.
It was classic Johnson: upbeat but vague, a scattershot spray of promises from more police on the streets to better broadband to high animal welfare standards — and “a new deal, a better deal” on Brexit.
Now the real battle starts.
Johnson has vowed that Britain will leave the EU on Oct. 31, with or without a deal on departure terms. Economists warn that a no-deal Brexit would disrupt trade and plunge the U.K. into recession, and the EU is adamant that the deal it made with May will not be renegotiated.
Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said “we are ready to listen and to work with” Johnson, but did not budge on the bloc’s refusal to alter the deal.
“A no-deal Brexit will never be, never, the choice of the EU. But we are prepared,” he said in Brussels.
Johnson, whose personal brand is built on optimism — and, critics say, an ambiguous relationship with facts — promised Tuesday to deliver Brexit “in a new spirit of can do.”
“I say to all the doubters: ‘Dude, we are going to energize the country, we are going to get Brexit done,’” he said.
To succeed, Johnson must win over the many Britons opposed to Brexit and resistant to his blustering charms.
In a sign he hopes to move beyond the largely white, male and affluent Conservative members who chose him as their leader, Johnson’s office said his government would be a “Cabinet for modern Britain” with more women and a record number of ministers from ethnic minorities.
His administration is also set to include some pro-EU politicians, but many members will be strong Brexit supporters like Johnson. One of his senior advisers is set to be Dominic Cummings, lead strategist for the “Vote Leave” campaign in the 2016 EU membership referendum.
A contentious figure, Cummings was found to be in contempt of Parliament earlier this year for refusing to give evidence to a committee of lawmakers investigating “fake news.”
Several senior members of May’s government who oppose a no-deal Brexit resigned Wednesday before they could be fired by Johnson. Treasury chief Philip Hammond, International Development Secretary Rory Stewart and Justice Secretary David Gauke all quit, along with David Lidington, who was May’s deputy prime minister.
“Given Boris’s stated policy of leaving the EU by October 31 at all costs, I am not willing to serve in his government,” Gauke said in his resignation letter.
Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports that Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax will be honored with a statue at Dodger Stadium, expected to be unveiled in 2020. Dodger Stadium will be undergoing major renovations, expected to cost around $100 million, after the season. Koufax’s statue will go in a new entertainment plaza beyond center field. The current statue of Jackie Robinson will be moved into the same area.
Koufax, 83, had a relatively brief career, pitching parts of 12 seasons in the majors, but they were incredible. He was a seven-time All-Star who won the National League Cy Young Award three times (1963, ’65-66) and the NL Most Valuable Player Award once (’63). He contributed greatly to the ’63 and ’65 championship teams and authored four no-hitters, including a perfect game in ’65.
Koufax was also influential in other ways. As Shaikin notes, Koufax refused to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series to observe Yom Kippur. It was an act that would attract national attention and turn Koufax into an American Jewish icon.
Ahead of the 1966 season, Koufax and Don Drysdale banded together to negotiate against the Dodgers, who were trying to pit the pitchers against each other. They sat out spring training, deciding to use their newfound free time to sign on to the movie Warning Shot. Several weeks later, the Dodgers relented, agreeing to pay Koufax $125,000 and Drysdale $110,000, which was then a lot of money for a baseball player. It would be just a few years later that Curt Flood would challenge the reserve clause. Koufax, Drysdale, and Flood helped the MLB Players Association, founded in 1966, gain traction under the leadership of Marvin Miller.
BERLIN (AP) – Europeans cooled off in public fountains Wednesday as a new heat wave spread across parts of the continent and was already breaking records.
Belgium and Germany registered their highest-ever temperatures, while the Netherlands saw its hottest day in 75 years.
And the mercury is expected to rise even further.
Paris and other parts of France could see temperatures exceeding 40 C (104 F) on Thursday along with Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
The heat is putting pressure on authorities to help protect the elderly and the sick. Air conditioning is not common at homes, offices, schools or hospitals in European cities.
The weather is also aggravating droughts since it hasn’t rained much in many parts of Europe this summer. The combination of heat, wind and possible lightning from thunderstorms also increases the risk of wildfires.
WHY IS IT SO HOT?
The second likely-to-be-record-breaking heat wave in two months in Europe includes some of the same ingredients of the first — hot dry air coming from northern Africa. That hot air is trapped between cold stormy systems in the Atlantic and eastern Europe and forms “a little heat dome,” said Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist in the U.S.
This heat wave is a relatively short event where the heat comes with a southerly wind — and dust — from Africa’s Sahara Desert, in contrast to the big European heat waves of 2003 and 2010 which lasted much longer and were sustained by a stationary high pressure system with little wind, experts say.
At the end of June, several countries reported record temperatures, and France hit its all-time heat record: 46 C (114.8 F) in the small southern town of Verargues.
IS CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSING THIS?
Heat waves are happening more frequently in large parts of Europe, Asia and Australia, experts say. As the world warms, scientists say there will be more and hotter heat waves, but attributing single events to climate change involves precise computer modeling and calculations.
A team of European climate scientists did a quick, non-peer reviewed analysis of Europe’s June heat wave and found man-made warming made it at least five times more likely.
“Either of the two European heat waves this summer would have been remarkable in isolation. But now we are seeing multiple episodes of record heat in a given summer. By mid-century, we will simply call these episodes ‘summer’ — if we continue on this trajectory,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn’t part of the European group.
The heat waves aren’t just because the world is 1 degree Celsius warmer than before the industrial era, but also because climate change and the melting of Arctic sea ice has slowed down the jet stream, which is the river of air that moves weather along, Mann said. The slow jet stream is “a big part of the story when it comes to these very persistent heat extremes we have seen in recent summers,” Mann said in an email.
HOW HOT COULD IT GET THIS WEEK AND WHERE?
Temperatures in France especially are likely to be 15 C (27 F) higher than normal, with Paris likely to break its all-time hottest record mark of 40.4 degrees (104.7 Fahrenheit). Surrounding areas around Paris may hit 41 or 42 C (106 to 108 Fahrenheit), weather experts said.
A water canon of the German police waters trees in Wuppertal, western Germany, July 24, 2019. (Claudia Otte/dpa via AP)
The Dutch meteorological institute tweeted that Wednesday’s heat wave broke a record that stood for nearly 75 years of the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Netherlands. The Dutch weather service Weerplaza said that the southern city of Eindhoven reported a temperature of 39.3 (102.7 F) Wednesday afternoon.
Belgium measured its highest temperature since records were first kept in 1833. In sun-baked Kleine Brogel in northeastern Belgium, temperatures rose to 39.9 C (102.3 F), and the weather forecaster of the Royal Meteorological Institute said that it was “the highest ever Belgian temperature.”
Also, temperatures won’t cool down much at night, and maybe stay around 24 C (75 F) or higher.
The German Weather Service said a probable record high of 40.5 C (104.9 F) for the country was recorded in Geilenkirchen and put the entire country on heat alert. The previous record of 40.3 C (104.5 F) was set in 2015.
WHAT ARE PEOPLE AND AUTHORITIES DOING TO STAY COOL?
France in particular is haunted by the 2003 heat wave that killed an estimated 15,000 people there, most of them isolated elderly people whose families in many cases were on vacation. The country has since taken measures to try to ensure such a catastrophe isn’t repeated.
Those measures include a color-coded heat alert system to warn people when temperatures are expected to rise to dangerous levels in their area. The alert system went to its maximum level of red for the first time during last month’s heat wave, when France saw its highest-ever recorded temperature.
There are also public service announcements on media and in public transportation systems about risks of high temperatures, telling people to drink water and watch out for isolated elderly people.
Millions of euros in extra funding for emergency services, including more staff members in hospitals and nursing homes overwhelmed in 2003. A government report at the time blamed the death toll on lack of coordination among government agencies, nursing homes that lacked air conditioning and overnight staff, lack of a public alert system, and other problems.
Still, few homes in France or Germany have air conditioning, and many public buildings also lack air conditioning, including hospitals and schools.
In the Netherlands, local authorities have taken an unusual precaution — with trucks scattering salt on the roads like they usually do in the winter.
The salt spreaders are usually used to prevent ice forming on Dutch roads in the cold, but Arnhem municipality started using them to cool off asphalt that is baking in the heat wave.
The city says in a statement that the salt “attracts moisture from the air and cools the asphalt.” It also prevents the asphalt from becoming sticky.
Across London, authorities started handing out water and sunscreen to homeless people and opened day centers for them to rest and shower. In the Lewisham district of the British capital, garbage collectors will start working as early as 5 a.m. in the morning to beat the heat.
London police warned people not to swim in the city’s River Thames after a young man died there Tuesday night.
“Whilst at times, the Thames may look appealing, especially in this hot weather, it remains very dangerous all year round,” police said in a statement. “On initial entry the water can seem warm on the surface, but further in it can be freezing cold and there are often very strong undercurrents.”
WHEN IS IT OVER?
The heat wave will end in a few days. On the weekend, temperatures are expected to fall. However, quite often end of a heat wave brings storms, including lightning and heavy flooding.
(The Washington Post) – Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the United States will escort American-flagged ships facing threats from Iran “to the degree that the risk demands it,” but noted that such protection may not involve U.S. military vessels trailing each ship.
Esper made the comments to reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday, a day after the Senate confirmed him in a 90-8 vote to become President Donald Trump’s next defense secretary. Esper, a former Army officer, Capitol Hill staff member and defense lobbyist, said he will soon travel to U.S. Central Command, which oversees the U.S. military in the Middle East, to discuss the measures to protect American-flagged ships from Iranian action in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Brits are escorting their ships,” he said. “We will escort our ships to the degree that the risk demands it. I assume that other countries will escort their ships.”
He said such escorts would be designed to prevent American-flagged ships from being attacked or seized by Iran and could take myriad forms.
“In some cases, that may be strictly an overhead capability. It may mean that there is a U.S. naval warship within proximity to deter it,” Esper said. “I don’t necessarily mean every U.S.-flagged ship going through the strait has a destroyer right behind it.”
The United States and its allies are working on initiatives to respond to recent provocations by Iran near the Persian Gulf. U.S. officials have accused Iran of conducting limpet mine attacks on foreign-flagged tankers, downing an American reconnaissance drone and most recently seizing a British-flagged tanker and its crew.
Last Friday, U.S. Central Command announced that it is developing a multinational maritime effort, known as Operation Sentinel, to increase surveillance and security in waterways in the region. Central Command said the framework would enable nations to escort their flagged vessels while taking advantage of cooperation and capabilities provided by participating nations.
But British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Monday said that Britain instead would be launching a European-led force and would later discuss the best way to complement U.S. proposals.
By charting their own initiative, European officials are looking to avoid getting dragged into a growing confrontation between the United States and Iran. A U.S.-led maritime effort could be seen by Iran as an escalation in support of the United States’s intent to pressure Iran; a European-led force, meanwhile, could be seen as a less political initiative to ensure freedom of navigation.
The National Security Agency announced Tuesday it is creating a new Cybersecurity Directorate, which will “unify NSA’s foreign intelligence and cyberdefense missions and is charged with preventing and eradicating threats to National Security Systems and the Defense Industrial Base.”
The new directorate — which will become operational on October 1 — is to be headed up by Anne Neuberger, who has been leading the NSA’s Russia Small Group.
In her new position, Mrs. Neuberger, who worked in the private sector before joining the Defense Department and is from Brooklyn, N.Y., will be one of the highest-ranking women at the NSA since Ann Caracristi was named deputy director in 1980.
She has been with NSA for close to 10 years. Neuberger has helped establish U.S. Cyber Command, served as chief risk officer, and is currently an assistant deputy director at NSA. Prior to her time at NSA, Neuberger was the deputy chief management office at the U.S. Navy.
Mrs. Neuberger said in an interview that she will report to Gen. Nakasone and that the directorate will more actively use signals intelligence gleaned from expanded operations against adversaries. The directorate will work to protect the U.S. from foreign threats by sharing more insights about specific cyber threats with other federal agencies and the private sector.
“Anne is an exceptional leader and truly talented,’’ said retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who served as NSA director from 2005 to 2014 and is co-chief executive of the cybersecurity firm IronNet.
“The Cybersecurity Directorate will reinvigorate our white hat mission opening the door to partners and customers on a wide variety of cybersecurity efforts. It will also build on our past successes such as Russia Small Group to operationalize our threat intelligence, vulnerability assessments, and cyber defense expertise to defeat our adversaries in cyberspace,” the agency said in a statement.
Neuberger led the NSA’s election security efforts for the 2018 midterms, having served as the NSA’s first chief risk officer. She told the Wall Street Journal that the Cybersecurity Directorate “will more actively use signals intelligence gleaned from expanded operations against adversaries.”
Anne (Chani) Neuberger grew up in Boro Park, and went to Bais Yaakov of Boro Park. She lives in Baltimore.
