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Lancaster.

Four in 10 privately insured patients faced surprise medical bills after visiting emergency rooms or getting admitted to hospitals in 2016, according to a new study published Monday in the American Medical Association’s internal medicine journal.
The average price tag for a surprise bill related to care at an emergency department was $628 in 2016, up from $220 in 2010, according to the study. The average surprise bill for inpatient admissions increased from $804 in 2010 to $2,040 in 2016.
Patients can face surprise bills when they visit an emergency room covered by their insurance, but are treated by doctors who are not. Out-of-network doctors can bill patients for what insurance doesn’t cover, resulting in a surprise bill.

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Ambassador Friedman rose this morning from the seven-day mourning for the death of his mother, Adelaide Friedman, who was nifteres last week and was laid to rest in New York.
After leaving the Sorek family home, the ambassador tweeted on his official Twitter account: “Rough week: mourned the passing of my beloved mother, mourned the calamities that befell the Jewish people on the ninth day of Av, and mourned with the Sorek family the murder of their beloved son. May all those in mourning be comforted from Heaven.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reportedly not fire his Minister of Transportation and member of the Right Union list Bezalel Smotrich, after he harshly criticized  the premier on Sunday over the latest political tumult in Israel — a court ruling forbidding the separation of men and women at a religious event that was supposed to take place in the city of Afula.
After consulting with his advisers, Netanyahu invited Smotrich on Monday afternoon for a meeting at his office. One of the options the premier considered was firing Smotrich from the Security Cabinet only, reported Israel’s YNET News.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday after Khamenei exhorted Muslim pilgrims to “take an active part” in defeating American “deceit,” referring to the U.S. Middle East peace plan.
“It’s sick that on the eve of #TishaBAv—a solemn day for the Jewish people—[Khamenei] calls for violence against the Jewish state,” Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

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Dozens of flights were severely delayed at Ben-Gurion Airport on Monday as a baggage handling system malfunction prevented the sorting and loading of suitcases onto departing airplanes.
The malfunction affected Ben-Gurion’s Terminal 3, the largest of the airport’s two passenger terminals, at the peak of the summer travel season.
An expected 2.8 million passengers are expected to pass through the airport during August, with 90,000 due to depart and arrive on Monday alone.

The recently named United Right party will be rebranding again when it launches its campaign tonight, as Yemina, or “Rightward,” according to several reports.
Led by former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, the United Right encompasses the New Right and Union of Right-Wing Parties.
The paert is currently running third in polls, behind Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid’s Blue and White.
{Matzav.com Israel News}

A Likud spokesman says in a statement distributed to Israeli media that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to fire Bezalel Smotrich from the cabinet if he did not apologize, after the politician slammed the premier as “weak,” with no ability to govern.
Smotrich says his comments were “said out of deep sorrow,” amid anger over Jews being banned from the Har Habayis on Sunday.
“Things were said in a way that was not fitting, especially not given the relationship between a prime minister and a minister in his government, and for that I am sorry,” he says.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

Shortly after the weekend arrest of the terrorists responsible for last week’s killing of yeshiva student Dvir Sorek in the West Bank, the commander of the squad that detained the killers described what happened in interviews with Israeli media.
Second Lieutenant S. of Israel’s Counter Terrorism Unit (ICTU), an elite unit of the Border Police, said he knew as soon as the news of Sorek’s murder came in that he and his unit would be sent into action.
“The picture of Dvir never leaves my mind,” S. told Hebrew news website Mako. “From the minute the body was found, I read about him, I studied him, and I wanted to know him.”

It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of Rabbi Aharon Chaim (Ronnie) Harari-Raful z”l. He was 55 years old.
Reb Aharon Chaim was a son of Chacham Yosef and Rabbanit Carol Ruchama Harari-Raful. Chacham Yosef is rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Ateret Torah in Brooklyn and member of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah of Agudas Yisroel of America.