A storm of criticism and reactions arose on Israeli media on Tuesday about the remarks of Sephardic Chief Rabbi Harav Yitzchak Yosef on non-Jewish immigrants to Israel, which he stated last week at a rabbinical conference. The Israeli news website Yediot Aharonot published a video on Tuesday morning in which Harav Yosef is seen bemoaning the “hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands” of non-Jewish immigrants that moved to Israel under the amended Law of Return, which allows non-Jewish spouses, children, grandchildren and spouses of children and grandchildren to immigrate to Israel. Rav Yosef said that many of the non-Jews are haters of religion and they vote for parties which incite against Chareidim and religion and that we’re unfortunately seeing the results of their incitement.

Hagaon HaRav Dov Sternbuch, zt’l, of Bnei  Brak was suddenly niftar on Tuesday afternoon at the age of 96. HaRav Dov was born in London where he learned in the yeshivah of Rav Moshe Schneider, ztl and was the chavrusa of the Gaon Harav Avrohom Gurwicz, Rosh Yeshivas Gateshead. He was a Talmid Chacham who knew Shas baal peh. His brother, Hagaon Rav Moshe Sternbuch, said a number of times that “Rav Dov is a bigger Talmid Chacham than me.” Harav Dov once sent a letter to Harav Chaim Kanievsky asking a shaila if he could request from the tzibur not to stand up for him when he enters shul. Harav Kanievsky answered him that getting up is the tzibur’s mitzvah and he shouldn’t take away their mitzvah.

Tragedy struck Boro Park on Tuesday morning, when a woman was R”L struck and killed by a truck. It happened just before 12:00PM, when a 68-year-old woman was struck by a cement truck on New Utrecht Avenue near 49th Street. Boro Park Hatzolah rushed to the scene and found the woman in traumatic arrest. There was nothign they could do to save her life, and she was unfortunately Niftar on the scene. Misaskim is on the scene dealing with the Kavod Haniftar. The NYPD is on the scene and a prolonged investigation is underway. Expect heavy traffic in the area as the street will be closed for hours. Additional information will be published when it becomes available to us. Boruch Dayan HaEmmes… (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was filmed Monday helping a man out of a van that crashed on a major New York City highway. Footage taken by his staff showed the Democratic governor helping a man out of the driver’s seat of a large catering van that had run up the median and turned on its side on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Cuomo and his staff were on their way back from a luncheon at the Association for a Better New York, en route to catch a flight when they came across the crash. The New York Police Department had not yet arrived on the scene when Cuomo’s vehicle pulled over and the governor cut the man out of his seat belt and helped him to safety. He received assistance from the state police troopers he was traveling with.

Rising tensions between Washington and Tehran are testing whether Joe Biden can capitalize on his decades of foreign policy experience as he seeks to challenge a president he derides as “dangerous” and “erratic.” Biden is expected to deliver lengthy remarks Tuesday about President Donald Trump’s decision to approve an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. His remarks, which would follow several days of campaigning in which he seemed uncertain of how much to highlight his foreign policy resume, would be among his most high-profile efforts to articulate his vision for world affairs and would come less than a month before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses begin 2020 voting. But the moment presents challenges for a two-term vice president who was elected to six terms in the Senate.

Democrats, amid mounting political pressure, are opening the door to changes on New York’s bail reform law as the legislative session begins this week. New York’s bail law, which went into effect at the beginning of the year, did away with money bail and pretrial detention for a wide majority of low-level cases and nonviolent felonies. Law enforcement officials, prosecutors and Republicans have spent months raising red flags on the changes, but their criticism caught more attention in the last week as courts across the state have released people who would have remain behind bars under the old rules. Bail changes, passed by a Democratic-controlled legislature last session, played a key role in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s criminal justice agenda.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he will not run for an open Senate seat from Kansas this fall, two people close to McConnell said Monday. Pompeo’s decision complicates Republicans’ chances of holding what should be a guaranteed seat in the deep red state as they battle to retain their slim Senate majority in November’s elections. The news comes days after the U.S. used an airstrike authorized by President Donald Trump to kill Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful general and leader of that country’s elite Quds Force. Iran has vowed revenge on the U.S., spurring an international crisis that makes this an awkward time for Pompeo to leave his post and seek elective office.

President Donald Trump’s confrontation with Iran is posing a gut check for Congress, brazenly testing whether the House and Senate will exert their own authority over U.S. military strategy or cede more war powers to the White House. As tensions rise at home and abroad, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will hold House votes this week to limit Trump’s ability to engage Iran militarily after the surprise U.S. airstrike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani. A Senate vote is expected to soon follow. Yet Congress has shown time and again it is unable to exert its ability to authorize — or halt — the use of military force. With their inaction, lawmakers have begrudgingly allowed the commander in chief to all but disregard Congress.

We were lulled into complacency; Now, the question begs: who knew what and when. Monsey, NY – In the days following the November 20th vicious stabbing of a 29-year-old man on his way to shul in Monsey, NY, the community heard one message from the Ramapo Police Chief, Brad Weidel: there is no evidence that it was a hate crime. While not totally outruling that it was a hate crime, Chief Veidel took great pains to say that there is no evidence that that attacked was antisemitic by nature. It fueled speculations that law enforcement has some information directing them elsewhere, and some in the community took solace in this message, interpreting it that this was an isolated incident targeting an individual.

Investigators looking into a dead-of-night bus crash over the weekend on the Pennsylvania Turnpike have identified the five people killed, but it may take much longer before they will able to say what caused the pileup that also left dozens injured. The National Transportation Safety Board plans to discuss the investigation at a news conference scheduled for later Monday. Their focus will almost certainly include a close look at the driver, Shuang Qing Feng, 58, who was thrown from the bus and died at the scene early Sunday, on Interstate 76 in a mountainous and rural area about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Pittsburgh.