The passengers aboard the Diamond Princess began disembarking on Wednesday after two weeks in quarantine off of Yokohama port due to an outbreak of the coronavirus. The process will be slow and is estimated to last until Friday, with about 500 passengers slated to disembark on Wednesday. Two of the 12 Israeli passengers, Edna and Henry Ben Shabbat, left the ship early Wednesday morning and the other Israelis are scheduled to leave on Thursday by 6 p.m. The couple said that they were subject to many many medical examinations before being allowed off the ship.

“There are difficult days ahead and it is possible that we will be required to take dramatic steps and make painful decisions,” El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin wrote in a recent email to company employees. The coronavirus pandemic, which is wreaking havoc on airlines and tourism worldwide, is taking its effect on Israel’s national airline. As fear of the coronavirus began to grow last month, El Al halted flights from Tel Aviv to China, later halting flights to Hong Kong as well. The loss of Chinese tourism alone was a major financial hit being that China is the world’s largest tourism market for outbound travel. Earlier this week El Al also reduced its flights by 50% to Thailand.

Israel’s government is racist and does not have to be backed by those who support the Israelis and want peace, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Tuesday during a CNN town hall event in Las Vegas. The independent Vermont senator took questions from the audience along with fellow contenders for the Democratic nomination Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “To be for the Israeli people and to be for peace in the Middle East does not mean that we have to support right wing racist governments that currently exist in Israel,” the veteran Vermont senator replied, much to the satisfaction of an applauding audience. Sanders also spoke about the Gaza Strip: “Take a look at what’s going on in Gaza right now.

A Jewish woman was one of two who were tragically killed after the car they were in plunged off a Miami ferry into the waters off an exclusive island with a members-only club. Miami Fire Rescue and the U.S. Coast Guard responded Tuesday after the operator of the Fisher Island ferry reported that a vehicle had fallen off the boat, the agencies reported. Dive crews found the vehicle near Fisher Island within hours, according to the Coast Guard. Two unresponsive women were discovered inside. The vehicle, a 2019 blue Mercedes Benz, and the bodies were recovered overnight, a statement from the Miami-Dade Police Department said Wednesday. One of the victims – identified as a Jewish woman from New York (Westchester) – is Viviane Brahms, 75. The other woman in the vehicle is Emma Afra, 63.

Ido Segev, a 31-year-old Israeli citizen, and three other people were killed on Wednesday in Australia when two small planes collided mid-air north of Melbourne, Australia. One of the planes, which belonged to a nearby flight school and held an instructor and student pilot, had taken off from Mangalore airfield and the other privately owned aircraft has taken off from a different airport. “We’re not sure why both aircraft were on the same trajectory or why they were in that area, but unfortunately they’ve collided mid-air,” Victoria Police Inspector Peter Koger said, adding that there were heavy clouds at the time of the accident and it’s possible the pilots didn’t see each other.

Attorney General William Barr has told people close to him he’s considering quitting his post after President Donald Trump wouldn’t heed his warning to stop tweeting about Justice Department cases, an administration official told The Associated Press. The revelation came days after Barr took a public swipe at the president, saying in a television interview that Trump’s tweets about Justice Department cases and staffers make it “impossible” for him to do his job. The next day, Trump ignored Barr’s request and insisted that he has the “legal right” to intervene in criminal cases and sidestep the Justice Department’s historical independence. The administration official was not authorized to discuss Barr’s private remarks and requested anonymity.

A special committee established in the wake of a media report two months ago that Chareidi enlistment numbers were forged to reach Chareidi recruitment objectives, will recommend foregoing mass recruitment of Chareidim among other suggestions, Haaretz reported on Tuesday morning. The committee, which was formed at the request of IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, is slated to publish its final conclusions at the end of the week. According to the report, the committee’s main recommendation will be to decrease the age that Chareidim can receive an exemption from IDF service and eventually cancel the requirement for Chareidim to wait until a certain age for army exemption altogether, in order to facilitate the integration of Charediim into the workforce.

According to a report by the Aram Alliance on Twitter, the Iranian regime is threatening to turn the tombs of Mordechai Hatzadik and Esther Hamalka into a Palestinian embassy. The Aram Alliance is a group that promotes the rights of minorities in Iran.  According to another report also emanating from Twitter, a faction of the Revolutionary Guards known as the Basij, attempted to raid the historic site in an act of revenge on the Jewish people for Trump announcing his peace plan. It should be noted that Basij, being part of the IRGC, is designated as a “terror organization” by the governments of the United States, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Official channels have not yet commented on the reports, but the reports have caused a stir among supporters on social media.

A person was stabbed at the Finkelstein Library on Tuesday afternoon. Monsey Hatzolah was working on the victim reportedly in traumatic arrest. The victim is reportedly a non-Jewish employee at the library. Sources tell YWN that Jewish employees held down the attacker who was taken into custody by Ramapo Police. Rockland Chaveirim are on scene as well. DEVELOPING STORY – REFRESH FOR UPDATES
The post BREAKING: Person Stabbed Inside Finkelstein Library In Monsey appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

President Donald Trump is expected to commute the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, ABC News reports. Among the causes that lead to Blagojevich’s original conviction was the charge that he sought to exchange an appointment to former President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat in exchange for campaign money. Blagojevich, a Democrat, has been a resident of the Federal Correctional Institution, in Englewood — near Littleton, Colorado — since March 15, 2012, where he is known as Inmate No. 40892-424. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)