A heatwave combined with strong winds sparked fires throughout Israel on Wednesday, with hundreds being evacuated from threatened areas and 15 homes being damaged by the flames. Firefighters were able to get most of the fires under control towards the evening.
Evacuations took place in several locations, including the towns of Aderet, Neve Michael and Roglit near Jerusalem; Or Yehuda near Tel Aviv; near the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa; and in Shavei Shomron in Samaria.
In Or Yehuda, five houses caught fire in the Ramat Pinkas neighborhood, and firefighters had to rescue several residents.

Hair-raising video of a plane making a super low landing at Skiathos Airport has revealed just how dangerous taking plane selfies can be.
The new footage showed a British Airways aircraft coming into land at the Greek airport just feet from spectators.
As the aircraft, an Embraer E190 whizzed past hoards of people with cameras and many were forced to duck for cover.
Read more at THE NY POST.
{Matzav.com}

A “major heat wave” is expected to bake two-thirds of the nation through this weekend, with forecasters calling for temperatures to soar across much of the central and eastern United States, the National Weather Service said.
On the East Coast, cities are already taking precautions. In New York City, where cooling stations were set up Wednesday and will remain in place through Sunday, temperatures are forecast to climb to “dangerously high levels by the weekend,” reaching the mid- to upper-90s by Friday.
The heat index, which is the measure of how hot it feels when humidity is factored in with air temperature, is forecast to reach close to reach 107 degrees Saturday, the city’s Office of Emergency Management and the Health Department said Tuesday.

In Berkelely, California, “man-made” will soon be “human made,” “chairman” will become “chairperson,” and “manhole” will change to “maintenance hole” – at least, in the city’s municipal code.
In an effort to make Berkeley more inclusive, the city council voted Tuesday night to make the language more gender neutral, following a city clerk review that found that the municipal code primarily contained masculine pronouns. That means many professions such as firemen and firewomen will simply be “firefighters,” and “brothers” and “sisters” will instead be “siblings.”
“Having a male-centric municipal code is inaccurate and not reflective of our reality,” council member Rigel Robinson, the primary backer of the terminology change, told The Washington Post via email.

Lawmakers on Thursday expressed alarm over the threats toward freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after a crowd at President Trump’s rally the night before chanted “send her back.”
Multiple Democrats are calling for more enhanced security for members of Congress, including Omar and her three closest allies who were also targeted by Trump earlier this week when he suggested they all “go back” to other countries.
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) announced on the House floor that he plans to introduce legislation asking for more security resources for lawmakers. While members of leadership in both parties have dedicated security details, rank-and-file members do not.

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President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he plans to nominate Eugene Scalia, the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as his next secretary of Labor – succeeding Alex Acosta, who announced his resignation last week amid an uproar over an old plea deal he struck with a wealthy financier now facing a new round of sex trafficking charges.

House Democrats voted Thursday to lift the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, delivering on a long-standing liberal priority that has become a rallying cry for 2020 Democratic presidential contenders.
The bill, which passed 231-199, would raise the minimum wage gradually from its current level of $7.25 an hour until reaching $15 an hour in 2025. The legislation was amended earlier this week at the urging of moderate Democrats to provide for a slower six-year phase-in, instead of five years as originally envisioned.

On the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack on a Jewish office building in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s authorities designated Thursday Hezbollah a terrorist organization and ordered to freeze the group’s assets in the country.
On July 18, 1994, a suicide driver blew up a van filled with explosives, destroying the headquarters of the Jewish community known as AMIA, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.
The move by the Argentinian administration comes a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on France and all countries in Europe to designate the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah a terrorist organization.