A massive swarm of jellyfish hundreds of miles long is closing in on Israeli waters along the Mediterranean coast.
Stray jellyfish have already been seen on the shores of Israel’s south and a few on the central coast as far north as Herzliya, and there have also been reports of swimmers being burned by jellyfish venom.
It is believed that the swarm may include tens of millions of individual organisms, and is expected to stay in Israeli waters for at least a month.
Dr. Dor Edelist, a marine ecologist at the University of Haifa, told the Hebrew news site Walla that he was “excited” about the arrival of the swarm, commenting, “There is no need or reason to panic.”

British Royal Marines seized a giant Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar on Thursday for trying to take oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions, a dramatic step that drew Tehran’s fury and could escalate its confrontation with the West.
The Grace 1 tanker was impounded in the British territory on the southern tip of Spain after sailing around Africa, the long route from the Middle East to the mouth of the Mediterranean.
Iran‘s Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador to voice “its very strong objection to the illegal and unacceptable seizure” of its ship. The diplomatic gesture lifted any doubt over Iran‘s ownership of the vessel, which flies a Panama flag and is listed as managed by a company in Singapore.

The U.S. added 224,00 jobs in June, the Labor Department reported Friday, exceeding expectations amid heightened concerns about the health of the economy.
The unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 3.7 percent, largely due to an increase in the size of the workforce, while the labor force participation rate stayed even at 62.9 percent.
A sharp increase in manufacturing jobs — 17,000 in June versus a monthly average of 8,000 — was also welcome news for economists after months of stagnation.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

Philadelphia police arrested thirty-three people who interrupted the city’s Fourth of July parade to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
The demonstration was part of the “Never Again Week of Action,” in which Jewish communities are participating in similar events across the U.S., according to according to Philadelphia radio station WHYY.
“Jews are shutting down ICE, because when we say never again, we mean it,” said a Facebook event for the nationwide demonstrations, evoking language often used to refer to preventing atrocities like the Holocaust.
President Trump has vowed that a series of ICE raids to deport immigrants in the country illegally will begin after the July 4 holiday.

A strain of the common cold virus can infect and kill bladder cancer cells, a small study suggests.
In this study, 15 patients with the disease were given the cancer-killing coxsackievirus (CVA21) through a catheter one week before surgery to remove their tumours. When tissues samples were analysed after surgery, there were signs the virus had targeted and killed cancer cells in the bladder.
All signs of the disease disappeared in one patient, and in 14 others there was evidence that cancer cells had died.
University of Surrey researchers said the virus could “help revolutionise treatment” for the cancer and reduce the risk of it recurring.
Read more at BBC.
{Matzav.com}

A new study released Thursday indicates that among young Jewish Europeans, an overwhelming majority believe antisemitism is a problem in their countries and is getting worse, causing four in ten to consider emigration.
The study, entitled Young Jewish Europeans: Perceptions and Experiences of Antisemitism, is based on a European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights survey, and was released under the aegis of the agency along with the European Commission and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
It surveyed attitudes among European Jews between the ages of 16 and 34, particularly their perceptions of and reactions to antisemitism.

A Jewish-owned café was defaced with violently antisemitic and Holocaust denial graffiti in the Australian city of Melbourne.
According to the Australian Jewish News, the owner of the Aliza’s Place Café found the graffiti when she came to work Thursday morning.
The graffiti read “The Holocaust is a lie” and included a swastika.
The owner, Aliza Shuvaly, was shocked by the vandalism and said she “started to shake” when she found it.
“All my family were Holocaust survivors — my mother’s parents, my husband’s parents — and for me it’s hurting twice,” she said.
Shuvaly removed the graffiti herself, saying, “I won’t let them have the satisfaction of having it on my wall.”

For years, the developers of the American Dream mega-mall under construction in the New Jersey Meadowlands have been reluctant to set a specific opening date, instead issuing vague estimates only to see another year pass without opening.
The announcement that the mall will open on Friday, October 25 comes 16 years after New Jersey officials greenlighted a plan to build a shopping and entertainment complex alongside the New Jersey Turnpike and next to Giants Stadium.
The owners of the project, Triple Five Group, the folks behind the largest malls in North America – the Mall of America in Minnesota and the West Edmonton Mall in Canada – announced in a press release today that the Meadowlands site will open to the public then.

Sportswear giant Adidas was tricked this week by online trolls into posting antisemitic messages on social media.
The Twitter account of the company’s UK branch attempted to implement a social media marketing push by allowing users to put personalized hashtags on soccer jerseys, the Washington Examiner reported.
Users would send their own hashtags to the account, which would then tweet images of jerseys bearing the logo.
Unfortunately, online trolls descended on the account and succeeded in placing antisemitic slogans such as, “GasAllJewss,” as well as some that contained slurs against African Americans.
The trolls were apparently savvy enough to circumvent any safeguards against such activity, for example by using capital “i”s in place of lowercase “l”s.