Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said that it shot down a U.S. military drone early Thursday, heightening already strained tensions between Washington and Tehran.
The Guard said it shot down the drone over Hormozgan Province in southern Iran, Tehran’s state news agency, IRNA, reported.
“Shooting down of the US spy drone has a clear message and it is the fact that the defenders of this country are ready to give decisive response to any aggression,” Major-General Hossein Salami, who commands the Guard, said, according to the state news agency.
Two U.S. officials, however, told The Associated Press that the incident happened in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz.

https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/VIDEO-2019-06-20-13-56-36.mp4

The White House on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s former aide Hope Hicks from answering dozens of questions from a House committee, an impasse that hands pro-impeachment Democrats another argument to start proceedings, even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pushed back.
During a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee, a White House attorney and Justice Department lawyer argued that Hicks had immunity from questions about her West Wing tenure – although Hicks is a private citizen. The standoff – and the White House assertion of an exemption that Democrats said simply does not exist – immediately raised the prospect of the House asking a court to force her to testify.

Officials involved in the investigation of the assault of the seven-year-old girl from the Modi’in area said Wednesday that the police may retract the indictment against the accused Palestinian Arab if there is no new evidence in the case.
A source close to the investigation explained that the investigation was corrupted due to the lateness of the family’s report to police, and that there is therefore a need for auxiliary evidence in order to justify the indictment against Mahmoud Katusa.
Gadi Siso, head of the Police Investigations Division, and the Military Advocate General, Major General Sharon Afek, decided yesterday to order the Central Unit in the Judea and Samaria District to conduct additional investigations.

Prime Minister Netanyahu warned Israel’s enemies “not to test” the Israeli military amid growing tensions with Iran in the region.
“I hear our neighbors to the north, south and east threatening to destroy us. I say to our enemies: The IDF has an immense destructive power. Do not test us,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s air force is currently in the middle of a four day drill, simulating war on multiple fronts. The drill includes, the first time ever, the advanced F-35 fighter jet, as well as helicopters and drones.
Read more at i24NEWS.
{Matzav.com}

Rav Tzvi Hirsh Broide, Rosh Yeshivas Kelm. His wife was Rebbetzin Nechamah Leba Broide, the daughter of the Alter of Kelm. He became very close to his talmid Yechezkel Levenstein, the future mashgiach of Mir and Ponevezh.

https://storage.googleapis.com/matzav-images-archive/2019/06/VID-20190619-WA0051.mp4

A huge tuna was caught off the coast of Ashdod by Israeli fishermen.
The gigantic fish was reportedly sold to the Yakimono restaurant in Tel Aviv for 48,000 shekels, or about 13 thousand US dollars.
{Maztav.com}

Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire founder of investment firm Blackstone (BX), has given the University of Oxford its largest single donation in hundreds of years to help fund research into the ethics of artificial intelligence.
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities will house a new Institute for Ethics in AI, which will focus on studying the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and other new technology. The institute is expected to open by 2024.
“For nearly 1,000 years, the study of the Humanities at Oxford has been core to western civilization and scholarship,” Schwarzman said in a statement. “We need to ensure that its insights and principles can be adapted to today’s dynamic world.”

The US Navy on Wednesday displayed limpet mine fragments and a magnet it said it had removed from one of two oil tankers attacked in the Gulf of Oman last week, saying the mines bore a striking resemblance to Iranian ones.
The US, waging a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Iran to curb its nuclear and regional activities, has been trying to build an international consensus that Iran was behind last week’s blasts, as well as a May 12 strike on four oil tankers off the United Arab Emirates.
Tehran has denied any involvement in both attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, a major transit route for global oil supplies, but the incidents have raised fears of broader confrontation in the Gulf region.