Emergency workers gave up Wednesday on any hope of finding survivors in a collapsed Florida condo building, telling sobbing families that there was “no chance of life” in the rubble as crews shifted their efforts to recovering more remains. The announcement followed increasingly somber reports from emergency officials, who said they sought to prepare families for the worst. “At this point, we have truly exhausted every option available to us in the search-and-rescue mission,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference. The formal transition from rescue to recovery was to take place at midnight, with a moment of silence scheduled for shortly after 7 p.m., officials said. Also Wednesday, eight more bodies were recovered, bringing the death toll to 54, the mayor said.

Finance Minister Avigdor Leiberman began carrying out his campaign of hatred toward Charedim on Wednesday with the announcement of his decision to revoke the rights of avreichim for daycare subsidies. In order to accomplish his goal, he changed the criteria to receive subsidies for daycare to families in which both spouses work at least 24 hours a week or one spouse works and the other is a student, excluding yeshivah students. The new criteria, which will already go into effect for the upcoming school year, will affect about 18,000 Chareidi families and 21,000 children, It should be noted that Leiberman’s decision does not require the Knesset’s approval.

A Belzer chassid was attacked by an anti-Semitic thug this week. The chassid, in his 60s, was on the way home from the Belzer Beis Medrash when a thug began punching him in his face. Jews nearby overpowered the assailant and called the police. Hatzalah volunteers arrived at the scene and provided emergency treatment to the chassid before evacuating him to the hospital. The assailant was arrested by the police. The incident occurred amid fears of the Jewish kehilla in Antwerp of the pending removal of army protection from Jewish institutions across the country by September 1, despite rising anti-Semitism in Belgium and across Europe. The decision was made by the Belgian government as part of a plan to reduce the number of soldiers in Belgian cities.

A Jewish student at the University of Chicago passed away over the weekend after he was seriously injured by a stray bullet on a Green Line train on Thursday Max Lewis, z’l, 20, was critically injured by the bullet and was evacuated to the University of Chicago Medical Center. It’s the second loss in two weeks for the small Jewish body at the University of Chicago. Ilan Naibryf was in the Champlain Towers two weeks ago when the disaster occurred and is still missing. Baila Brackman, who runs the university’s Chabad center with her husband, Rabbi Yossi Brackman, told JTA that both students were active members of the Jewish community. “They were precious young men whom we cared about deeply and loved deeply,” she said. “Both of them always had a huge smile.

US forces and local Guatemalan police raided the compound of the Lev Tahor cult on Tuesday, taking two senior cult officials into custody. Yoel and Shmuel Weingarten were apprehended by authorities after infiltrating the compound in Guatemala. The operation began last week when an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and two from the National Civil Police (PNC) infiltrated the cult living on a farm in the village of El Amatillo, in Oratorio, Santa Rosa. The agents posed as people carrying humanitarian aid. They arrived with toys and gifts for the children, while gaining the trust of the adults, who opened the doors of the community for them. The undercover agents reportedly lived with the residents for a week. Warrants have been out in the U.S.

An Israeli doctor in her 50s who chose not to get vaccinated contracted COVID and is now hospitalized in serious condition and attached to an ECMO machine, Channel 13 News reported. The doctor, who practices as a family doctor in a private clinic, began developing symptoms at the beginning of last week. However, despite her symptoms, she didn’t get tested for COVID and continued seeing patients. At least eight patients have tested positive for the coronavirus after seeing her. In the wake of the incident, the Health Ministry is demanding to increase enforcement of sanctions against physicians who choose not to vaccinate. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

rooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City after appealing to the political center and promising to strike the right balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in policing. A former police captain, Adams would be the city’s second Black mayor if elected. He triumphed over a large Democratic field in New York’s first major race to use ranked choice voting. Results from the latest tabulations released Tuesday showed him leading former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by 8,426 votes, or a little more than 1 percentage point.

America’s top infectious disease expert says about 99.2% of recent COVID-19 deaths in the United States involved unvaccinated people. And Dr. Anthony Fauci says “it’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable.” He tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” it’s frustrating “where you have a formidable enemy” in the coronavirus and “yet we do have a countermeasure that’s highly, highly effective.

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that “Jews succeeded in having the whole world bow down to them” in a speech marking Belarusian Independence Day over the weekend, Kan News reported. The day marks the liberation of the Belarusian capital Minsk in 1944 from the Nazi occupation. “Jews succeeded in making the whole world bow to them and no one today would dare to raise a voice and deny the Holocaust,” Lukashenko said. “In contrast, the Belarusians, who are a tolerant nation, allowed people to spit in their faces.” Lukashenko continued by saying that the Nazis wrought a “Holocaust of the Belarusian people” during World War II. נשיא בלארוס לוקשנקו נאם ביום העצמאות של מדינתו: "היהודים הצליחו לגרום לכל העולם להתרפס בפניהם ואיש היום לא יעז להרים קול ולהכחיש את קיומה של השואה.

The IDF’s Home Front Command delegation in Miami will continue assisting with rescue efforts at the site of the Champlain Towers disaster for another week, the Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday morning. Defense Minister Benny Gantz and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi made the decision due to requests by Jewish organizations in Surfside. Eight members of the Israeli delegation returned to Israel on Monday “We will continue to reach out to any country in need, and in particular to our American friends and our Jewish brethren in the Diaspora,” Gantz stated. “I share in the grief of the families who lost loved ones and extend my prayers to the families of those injured and missing in the disaster.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)