A fungus that has wreaked havoc on banana plantations in the Eastern Hemisphere has, despite years of preventative efforts, arrived in the Americas.
ICA, the Colombian agriculture and livestock authority, confirmed on Thursday that laboratory tests have positively identified the presence of so-called Panama disease Tropical Race 4 on banana farms in the Caribbean coastal region. The announcement was accompanied by a declaration of a national state of emergency.
The discovery of the fungus represents a potential impending disaster for bananas as both a food source and an export commodity. Although bananas produced in infected soil are not unsafe for humans, infected plants eventually stop bearing fruit.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Monday at an award ceremony for Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet, and said the homes of the killers of 18-year-old Dvir (Yehuda) Sorek will be demolished “soon.”
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the West Bank overnight Monday, surveying the suspects’ houses in preparation for their demolition.
“I thank you for your contribution to the arrests of the killers of Dvir Sorek,” Netanyahu said during a speech at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem. “Immediately as details of the incident came in I said with great confidence that it won’t take long until we rest our hands on the murderer.”

A poster bearing the image of Anne Frank — the Dutch Jewish girl whose Holocaust diary was published after her death in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp — was defaced with a swastika on Friday night in the Australian city of Melbourne.
The poster was an advertisement for a dramatization of Anne Frank’s diary performed by the Peridot Theatre Company. It was defaced with a swastika painted in red, as well as the word “@LEROY.”
The theater posted a message on its Facebook page saying, “Upset, angry, disgusted. Some lowlife has sprayed a swastika on the board advertising our production of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank.’ This action is sickening.”

The United Kingdom anti-racism group, Hope Not Hate, says that British Holocaust denier Alison Chabloz has been banned from France for 40 years.
Chabloz, a blogger and musician who is openly racist, was convicted in Britain 2018 for posting anti-Semitic songs online, including one calling Auschwitz a “theme park.”
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

A longtime friend of Dayton shooter Connor Betts allegedly bought the body armor, 100-round magazine and a firearm accessory used in the deadly attack that killed nine people, officials said Monday.
Ethan Kollie, 24, of the Dayton suburb of Kettering, was charged with two offenses, not connected to the Aug. 4 massacre — falsely denying that he was a drug user when buying a handgun for himself in May, and then possession of a firearm while unlawfully using drugs.
Court documents said Kollie bought the equipment and kept them in his apartment “to assist Betts in hiding them from Betts’ parents.”

Four in 10 privately insured patients faced surprise medical bills after visiting emergency rooms or getting admitted to hospitals in 2016, according to a new study published Monday in the American Medical Association’s internal medicine journal.
The average price tag for a surprise bill related to care at an emergency department was $628 in 2016, up from $220 in 2010, according to the study. The average surprise bill for inpatient admissions increased from $804 in 2010 to $2,040 in 2016.
Patients can face surprise bills when they visit an emergency room covered by their insurance, but are treated by doctors who are not. Out-of-network doctors can bill patients for what insurance doesn’t cover, resulting in a surprise bill.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reportedly not fire his Minister of Transportation and member of the Right Union list Bezalel Smotrich, after he harshly criticized  the premier on Sunday over the latest political tumult in Israel — a court ruling forbidding the separation of men and women at a religious event that was supposed to take place in the city of Afula.
After consulting with his advisers, Netanyahu invited Smotrich on Monday afternoon for a meeting at his office. One of the options the premier considered was firing Smotrich from the Security Cabinet only, reported Israel’s YNET News.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday after Khamenei exhorted Muslim pilgrims to “take an active part” in defeating American “deceit,” referring to the U.S. Middle East peace plan.
“It’s sick that on the eve of #TishaBAv—a solemn day for the Jewish people—[Khamenei] calls for violence against the Jewish state,” Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

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Dozens of flights were severely delayed at Ben-Gurion Airport on Monday as a baggage handling system malfunction prevented the sorting and loading of suitcases onto departing airplanes.
The malfunction affected Ben-Gurion’s Terminal 3, the largest of the airport’s two passenger terminals, at the peak of the summer travel season.
An expected 2.8 million passengers are expected to pass through the airport during August, with 90,000 due to depart and arrive on Monday alone.

The recently named United Right party will be rebranding again when it launches its campaign tonight, as Yemina, or “Rightward,” according to several reports.
Led by former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, the United Right encompasses the New Right and Union of Right-Wing Parties.
The paert is currently running third in polls, behind Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid’s Blue and White.
{Matzav.com Israel News}