The IDF released its new five-year plan of operations on Thursday, with its chief of staff warning, “The situation is fragile in the north and south — and may deteriorate into a confrontation.”
The news site Mako reported that the publication of the plan was delayed as a result of the continuing political uncertainty in Israel, with coalition talks still underway and a caretaker government in charge. The army concluded, however, that it had “no choice but to move forward” in light of recent developments.
The IDF said the plan was intended to address “the multiplicity of events and the multiplicity of activities” on the security front.

Police and doctors didn’t believe a 46-year-old man who swore that he hadn’t had alcohol before he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.
His blood alcohol level was 0.2, more than twice the legal limit for operating a car. He refused a breathalyzer test, was hospitalized and later released. But the facts remained in contention.
Then researchers discovered the unusual truth: Fungi in the man’s digestive system was turning carbohydrates into alcohol – a rarely diagnosed condition known as “auto-brewery syndrome.”

Bar Ilan University has removed from its student discipline rules the requirement that male students wear yarmulkes in classes on Judaism, as well as the requirement to “avoid wearing revealing apparel” on campus.
Haaretz reported that the demands have anyway not been enforced in recent years, and it has now been decided to remove them from the “Student Declaration” of the institution, which students are asked to sign.
The university also noted that the change comes as a result of the decline of religious students in the institution compared to the secular ones.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

“Earlier this year we thought the Israel Air Force would have to reduce its operations across the Middle East — but reality dictated otherwise,” a senior IAF officer told Israel Hayom recently.
Col. G., the commander of the Ramon Airbase southwest of Beersheba, from which a considerable number of the IAF’s offensive missions are launched, said that operationally speaking, “This has been one of the most intense years we’ve had since the onset of the ‘campaign between the wars.’ We’ve mounted hundreds of strikes.”

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A federal judge on Thursday held Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former Corinthian Colleges students.
Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco slapped the Education Department with a $100,000 fine for violating a preliminary injunction. Money from the fine will be used to compensate the 16,000 people harmed by the federal agency’s actions. Some former students of the defunct for-profit college had their paychecks garnished. Others had their tax refunds seized by the federal government.

The White House is reportedly weighing options to keep 500 U.S. troops in northeastern Syria and sending more battle tanks to protect them.
Military officials presented the choices Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The plans would also adjust U.S. goals to focus on guarding oil fields in the country in addition to squashing any potential ISIS resurgence. They would change President Trump’s plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria
The president indicated Thursday his desire to protect the oil fields. “We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!” he tweeted.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) will give the prestigious 2019 Herzl Award to Nikki Haley, former US envoy to the UN, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
WJC President Ronald S. Lauder said Haley exemplified Washington’s friendship with Israel, “relentlessly calling out the biases and double standards that pervade in the United Nations and its bodies.”
The ex-ambassador to the UN will receive the annual award, meant to honor those who promote a world more tolerant to Jews, on November 6.
Read more at i24NEWS.
{Matzav.com}

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