Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has objected to swift passage of a bill to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, five congressional sources told Politico on Thursday.
The House-passed bill was brought up as a “hotline” for both parties, a process that requires the consent of all 100 senators in order for the bill to hit the Senate floor immediately for a vote.
While Democrats cleared the hotline unanimously, the sources told Politico, the GOP hotline didn’t go through due to Paul’s concerns that the new funding for the Iron Dome was not offset with spending cuts elsewhere.
An effort — supported by Republicans — to hotline an amendment to the funding bill that would add the Iron Dome money also fell apart this week.
A spokeswoman for the Kentucky senator said in response, “He proposed that we pay for the House bill with money that is going to go to the Taliban.”
The bill was introduced after far-left Democratic Congressmen got a provision providing $1 billion for resupply of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system removed from an emergency government funding bill.
Paul has blocked US military aid to Israel in the past. In 2018, he put a hold on the US-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018, which codifies into law the $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over 10 years that was negotiated in the final days of the Obama administration.
In 2011, Paul was one of only two GOP senators who withheld their signatures from a letter by 11 GOP senators who have vowed continued financial support for Israel.
YouTube is taking down several video channels associated with high-profile anti-vaccine activists including Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who experts say are partially responsible for helping seed the skepticism that’s contributed to slowing vaccination rates across the country.
As part of a new set of policies aimed at cutting down on anti-vaccine content on the Google-owned site, YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or dangerous. The company previously blocked videos that made those claims about coronavirus vaccines, but not ones for other vaccines like those for measles or chickenpox.
Misinformation researchers have for years said the popularity of anti-vaccine content on YouTube was contributing to growing skepticism of lifesaving vaccines in the United States and around the world. Vaccination rates have slowed and about 56 percent of the U.S. population has had two shots, compared with 71 percent in Canada and 67 percent in the United Kingdom. In July, President Biden said social media companies were partially responsible for spreading misinformation about the vaccines, and need to do more to address the issue.
Reuven Ben Eli, the father who was severely wounded in a traffic accident in northern Israel, regained consciousness on Thursday morning, Israel Hayom reported.
He has now been informed of the deaths of his wife Moran, 35, and children Dekel (15), Liam (12) and Anael (5), who were driving with him in the family vehicle at the time of the crash.
Reuven, 36, is now in moderate to serious condition, and he is hospitalized in the ICU at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
Later on Thursday, he will be transferred to the surgical ward.
The funeral of Moran, Dekel, Liam, and Anael will be held later on Thursday.
Reuven's brother Ami told 103 FM Radio: "It's important to us to bring my sister-in-law, niece, and nephews to rest as quickly as possible. Any kind of delay desecrates the honor of the dead. It's a dream that is reality, I simply don't even know to say how I feel, I can't describe it."
He added: "We were preparing for the bar mitzvah of my nephew, who was killed yesterday. About 4-5 months before the bar mitzvah there are preparations for the whole family. He had already started to learn for it, and it already won't happen."
At the time of the crash, the Ben Eli family had been on their way to a family celebration in Hatzor.
"It started as something good that we wanted to do as a family, and in the end this disaster exploded in our faces," Ami told 103 FM. "I have a brother who lives there, and he wanted to do a kind of thanksgiving meal, we were all supposed to gather in the synagogue in Hatzor. We finished the afternoon prayer and then we received the worst news of all."
Also hospitalized at Rambam is an 11-year-old girl who was injured in the crash. She is unconscious and on a respirator in the pediatric ICU, in serious condition and suffering from a head injury.
Dr. Hany Bahouth, Director of Rambam's Trauma and Emergency Center, said, "Both of them are in stable condition. The adult patient progressed excellently overnight, the girl is still hospitalized in the pediatric ICU unconscious and on a respirator."
Hospitalized at Ziv Medical Center in Tzfat are one boy who is in the ICU, and 16 other children who are in light to moderate condition, as well as four adults in light condition.
Earlier on Thursday, Maariv reported that the bus driver, 76-year-old Asher Bason, had 51 prior convictions for traffic violations. Police investigations show that Bason, who died in the crash, veered out of his lane in a no-pass zone, hitting the guardrail and three private vehicles.
A career criminal was arrested Tuesday for trying to sexually assault two Hasidic teens in a Brooklyn apartment building.
Gessley Olivier, 20, stalked the duo into a Crown Heights apartment building on Eastern Parkway before trying to attack them at about 1:25 p.m. on Monday, according to law enforcement sources.
In a desperate bid to escape the creep, the frightened girls ran into the bathroom of a friend’s first floor apartment and locked the door.
Olivier followed them and screamed “You are going to fu–!” before busting through the locked door with his pants down, the sources said.
The brave girls then kicked the pervert and fled from the building to a nearby synagogue for help, sources said.
Investigators working the case retrieved surveillance footage that captured Olivier. A sharp-eyed officer from the 71st Precinct recognized the suspect from prior crimes in the neighborhood.
The creep has more than two dozen previous arrests on charges including burglary and grand larceny.
Police sent out a department-wide alert Monday that Olivier was wanted in the 71st Precinct. Later that day, Oliver allegedly stole a 2019 Jeep Cherokee from a Midtown parking garage.
The car’s owner reported it stolen on Tuesday and cops tracked the vehicle to Lower Manhattan, where they arrested Olivier and learned he was wanted for the previous day’s attack in Brooklyn.
For Monday’s attack, Olivier was charged with burglary, sex motive burglary, criminal trespass, criminal mischief, lewdness, and harassment.
It’s not just Britney Spears who is trapped in a guardianship, isolated from friends and family, with all personal, financial, and legal decisions controlled by others.
In New York, legendary pop artist Peter Max also is being held against his will in a legal guardianship, in which every aspect of his life is controlled by court-appointed strangers, says his daughter Libra Max, 54.
She complains that she is not allowed to visit her 83-year-old father at the Upper West Side apartment that was her childhood home. She is permitted to see him only on a public bench in Riverside Park, and only for an hour at a time after requesting the appointment 48 hours in advance.
The visits are limited to three per week and can be canceled without explanation, as happened this week after she spoke to The Post.
“He is being treated like a prisoner,” she says. “Every single time I see him, which has to be approved and scheduled, he says, ‘Sweetie, please come up to the apartment.’ How many times can someone ask for companionship? He must feel tremendously abandoned.
“I see his disbelief when I tell him that I cannot accept his invitation to come up. . . . Instead, he is left with a cast of strange nurses [who] change constantly and he does not know their names.
“My father [is a] Holocaust survivor. His deepest fear was having friends and family taken away from him.”
Max, a counterculture icon of the 1960s and 1970s, whose works hang in the Museum of Modern Art, has an estimated fortune of at least $65 million. An intimate of the Rolling Stones, the German immigrant became rich plastering his psychedelic designs on postage stamps, cereal boxes, album covers, even a Continental Airlines Boeing 777. Nancy Reagan asked him to paint portraits of the Statute of Liberty at the White House, after which he helped raise money to restore the monument.
At least five people were killed and several others were injured in a serious traffic accident in northern Israel Wednesday afternoon.
The incident occurred when a bus with members of the Bnei Akiva youth group collided with a private vehicle on Route 89, causing the bus to overturn. The injured are in moderate and serious condition. Large numbers of police, United Hatzalah, and Magen David Adom personnel have been dispatched to the scene.
Ziv Medical Center in Safed received 20 injured patients from the accident, two in serious condition, one in moderate condition and 17 in light condition. One seriously injured man arrived at Rambam Hospital in Haifa. 27 children and adolescents were evacuated to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, 26 of them in light condition and one in moderate condition.
The bus that overturned in the accident belongs to the Bnei Akiva movement and was transporting campers back home from a Sukkot trip. The injured campers were evacuated to Ziv Hospital in Safed and the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. The movement's leaders are on the ground and on their way to the hospitals.
Among the passengers on the bus were 17 children from the locality of Mevo Dotan in northern Samaria. The children were on their way back from a Bnei Akiva Sukkot trip with other children from Harish.
Due to the nature of the incident, United Hatzalah's Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit has been dispatched to respond to the incident and provide emotional and psychological support in addition to emergency medical services (EMS) that are active at the scene.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT and chapter Head of the Ma'alot region Oshri Eliyahu reported from the scene: "The incident involves a bus that is flipped over on its side as well as a large van and a private car. Thus far our volunteers have treated upwards of 20 people injured who are conscious. There are other injured who are unconscious as well as those who are still trapped that we haven't been able to reach yet. Firefighters are currently working to extricate them from the wreckage."
Eliyahu added: "Sadly, four people from the private vehicle involved in the crash were pronounced dead at the scene. These include a 35-year-old woman, a boy aged 15, another aged 12, and a 5-year-old girl. Our volunteers who are part of the Emergency Room Relief Project have gathered and are assisting with the reception and triage of patients in Ziv Hospital, The Galilee Medical center in Nahariya, and Rambam Hospital in Haifa."
MDA paramedic Kold Issa stated: "this was a very serious accident. We arrived with many MDA teams including mobile intensive care units, ambulances, Medi-cycles and an MDA helicopter.
A bus was turned on its side across the road and the commercial van which had been severely damaged at the back was on the shoulder of the road with approximately 5 unresponsive victims trapped inside. While extrication efforts were under way, we were forced to declare 4 of the patients deceased and the driver was severely injured and evacuated in a helicopter while undergoing medical treatment. The bus driver was extricated while unresponsive and with severe multisystem injuries and after medical examination, we pronounced him deceased as well. 2 of the passengers from the bus, who were severely wounded were lying on the road with severe injuries to their limbs and tens of additional victims were walking around the scene. We provided them with medical treatment at the scene, the 2 severely injured victims were evacuated by helicopter to the hospital and the lightly injured victims were evacuated in MDA ambulances and mobile intensive care units to hospitals in Safed and Nahariya."
Among the 30,000 Israelis who traveled to Uman in Ukraine to worship at the grave of Rabbi Nahman of Breslev over the High Holidays, some 3,440 have already tested positive upon their return to Israel, health authorities reported Sunday evening.
Of the positive cases among the Uman pilgrims, 25% were hospitalized and 19 were listed in serious conditions. Four of the Uman visitors have already died, with two of the deaths confirmed to be from COVID and the two other fatalities under investigation. A whopping 81% of the Uman visitors who contracted COVID were unvaccinated, and 91% are under age 50.
"This is a 10% positive rate, which is very high. The confirmed carriers cooperated only partly with the contact tracing, but I hope that they protected themselves and their family members," a senior healthcare official said.
In purporting to “report” — not editorialize— about why AOC changed her vote from “no” to “present” on the iron dome funding, The New York Times congressional correspondent Catie Edmondson “reported” the following:
“[Progressives] have been caught between their principles and the still powerful pro-Israel voices in their party, such as influential lobbyists and rabbis.”
That’s no longer just an accusation. It’s now a fact, with Tuesday’s Senate testimony shredding President Biden’s nonsensical fictions about Afghanistan and confirming that he alone made the fateful decisions that created the chaotic and deadly withdrawal.
We now know for certain what was suspected all along — that the president rejected the advice of his top military aides about how to reduce the troop numbers while keeping the Taliban in check. He also falsely claimed to the public that al Qaeda was no longer in Afghanistan and declared the withdrawal a ringing success.
Reluctantly, but clearly, his commanders begged to differ. One by one, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and head of U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said they advised the president either to keep 2,500 troops in Kabul or supported the proposal.
All three also said al Qaeda remains in Afghanistan and, as Milley put, is still at war with us. And none dared call the conclusion a success.
“The war is lost,” Milley said. “The enemy is in control in Kabul.”
Rabbi Moshe Tendler passed away during the Shmini Atzeret festival Tuesday at the age of 95. He was proceeded in death by his wife, Shifra, who passed away in 2007.
A noted bioethicist, Rabbi Tendler was a prominent halachic decisor on issues of medicine and medical ethics as they pertained to Jewish law.
His views on medical matters were influential in shaping the rulings of his father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, on matters including the determination of death based on the termination of brain functions.
Ordained at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) in 1949, Rabbi Tendler also studied microbiology, earning a PhD from Columbia University in 1957.
He later served as a dean of the RIETS seminary, and taught bioethics at Yeshiva College.
Rabbi Tendler was a member of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, and served as president from 1971-1972.
He was a big proponent of going up to the Har Habayit.
