Two serious traffic accidents occurred on Wednesday evening in Chareidi neighborhoods, one in the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem, where a child was killed, and the second in the Ramat Beit Shemesh Daled neighborhood of Beit Shemesh, where a girl was critically injured. The accident in Jerusalem occurred at the intersection of Petah Tikva and Zichron Yaakov streets in the Romema neighborhood of the city. The boy was critically injured and was pronounced dead minutes later. MDA emergency medics Mordechai Musai, Baruch Eliyahu Hoffman, and Eli Raymond reported, “When we arrived at the scene of the accident, there was a lot of commotion. We saw the cyclist, a child about 5 years old, lying unconscious after being hit by a car.

An analysis finds that a critical group of U.S. employers would face a direct cost of $82.3 billion from President Donald Trump’s current tariff plans, a sum that could be potentially managed through price hikes, layoffs, hiring freezes or lower profit margins. The analysis by the JPMorganChase Institute is among the first to measure the direct costs created by the import taxes on businesses with $10 million to $1 billion in annual revenue, a category that includes roughly a third of private-sector U.S. workers. These companies are more dependent than other businesses on imports from China, India and Thailand — and the retail and wholesale sectors would be especially vulnerable to the import taxes being levied by the Republican president.

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee in New York City’s mayoral election, offered an apology for past comments widely criticized as antisemitic, describing his ability to acknowledge mistakes as a personal strength as he seeks support among Jewish voters ahead of the general election. Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels and a longtime talk radio personality, has faced renewed scrutiny over remarks in which he portrayed Jews as power-hungry and dependent on public benefits, and claimed antisemitic attitudes were “in his DNA” as a non-Jew. Speaking to The Forward on Tuesday, Sliwa called those statements wrong and said he had apologized before but wanted to restate his regret.

Iran’s president on Wednesday ordered the country to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after American and Israeli airstrikes hit its most-important nuclear facilities, likely further limiting inspectors’ ability to track Tehran’s program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels. The order by President Masoud Pezeshkian included no timetables or details about what that suspension would entail. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled in a CBS News interview that Tehran still would be willing to continue negotiations with the United States. “I don’t think negotiations will restart as quickly as that,” Araghchi said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments that talks could start as early as this week.

The U.S. government is preparing to breed billions of flies and dump them out of airplanes over Mexico and southern Texas to fight a flesh-eating maggot. That sounds like the plot of a horror movie, but it is part of the government’s plans for protecting the U.S. from a bug that could devastate its beef industry, decimate wildlife and even kill household pets. This weird science has worked well before. “It’s an exceptionally good technology,” said Edwin Burgess, an assistant professor at the University of Florida who studies parasites in animals, particularly livestock. “It’s an all-time great in terms of translating science to solve some kind of large problem.” The targeted pest is the flesh-eating larva of the New World Screwworm fly. The U.S.

An explosion at a fireworks warehouse in rural Northern California caused a massive fire, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the air and forcing evacuations, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. People were urged to avoid the area for several days following the Tuesday night blast, which set off a barrage of fireworks and caused a huge blaze that led to other spot fires and collapsed the building near Esparto. The farming community is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Sacramento. “The fire will take time to cool, and once it does, explosive experts must safely enter the site to assess and secure the area,” the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The cause of the explosion was under investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday identified the soldier killed in combat in northern Gaza as Sgt. Yaniv Michalovitch hy”d, a 19-year-old tank crew member from Rechovot. Michalovitch served in the 82nd Battalion of the 7th Armored Brigade, known as “Saar Migolan.” According to the IDF, two other members of the same battalion — a tank commander and another soldier — were seriously wounded in the same incident. In a separate battle elsewhere in northern Gaza, a soldier from the elite Egoz unit of the Commando Brigade was also seriously injured, military officials said. All wounded soldiers were evacuated to hospitals for medical treatment, and their families have been informed. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The U.S. is halting some shipments of weapons to Ukraine amid concerns that its own stockpiles have declined too much, officials said Tuesday, a setback for the country as it tries to fend off escalating attacks from Russia. Certain munitions were previously promised to Ukraine under the Biden administration to aid its defenses during the more than three-year-old war. The pause reflects a new set of priorities under President Donald Trump and came after Defense Department officials scrutinized current U.S. stockpiles and raised concerns. “This decision was made to put America’s interests first following a review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.

Republican leaders in the House are sprinting toward a Wednesday vote on President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cuts package, determined to seize momentum from a hard-fought vote in the Senate while essentially daring members to defy their party’s leader and vote against it. “The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay,” the top four House GOP leaders said Tuesday after the bill passed the Senate 51-50, thanks to Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote. It’s a risky gambit, one designed to meet Trump’s demand for a July 4 finish — and there’s a steep climb ahead.

Hurricane Flossie has strengthened into a powerful Category 3 hurricane off Mexico’s southwestern Pacific coast with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane center said Flossie would begin weakening later Wednesday. The center said Flossie was about 315 miles (505 kilometers) south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas and was moving west-northwest off the Mexican coast at 10 kph (17 mph). It was expected to skirt the coast for a few days while dropping rain on several Mexican states.