The record amount of cocaine seized by US Customs in Philadelphia last week totaled nearly 20 tons, the agency said Wednesday.
The enormous haul of coke — with a street value of more than $1 billion — was seized from a large ship at the Packer Marine Terminal in Philadelphia on June 18, the US Attorney’s office said.
Customs and Border Protection determined Wednesday that the final weight of the powder was 17,928.21 kilograms, with a street value of about $1.3 billion. The CBP called the haul the largest in their 230-year history.
Read more at THE NY POST.
{Matzav.com}

A monument and garden were designated on Tuesday evening at the East Brunswick Community Arts Center in New Jersey in memory of the 11 Jewish worshippers killed at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018.
The mass shooting was the largest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. Jewish history.
Additionally, the monument and garden were also dedicated to all victims of hate crimes.
The memorial was also supported by the East Brunswick Jewish Center, Temple B’nai Shalom, Torah Links, Young Israel of East Brunswick, and the Mayor and Township of East Brunswick.
(JNS) 
{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said Wednesday he has never had any reason to criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the Israeli government for their policies on the Palestinians.
AT the Bahrain conference on Wednesday, Greenblatt also rejected any comparison of his comments on Israeli and Palestinian officials, noting the Palestinian Authority’s policy of making payments to terrorists and their families. He said that Israel has not taken any action that is unhelpful to the future plan.
“I haven’t found anything to criticize that goes over the line,” Greenblatt told CNN in Bahrain.

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[COMMUNICATED]
The month of Sivan is more than half over, and one of the biggest fundraising campaigns in Israel has fallen severely short of its goal.

Ten members of a family were rescued from their house, which caught on fire Thursday morning in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood in Yerushalayim.
Firefighters were called to a house on Rechov Yaakov Yehoshua, after reports of heavy smoke and flames raging in the building. The firefighters discovered the family – parents and their eight children – trapped on the porch of the house, frightened and suffering from smoke inhalation.
The parents and their children were lightly injured by smoke inhalation and, after receiving paramedic treatment, six members of the family were evacuated for further treatment at Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

The Dutch national rail company says it will pay tens of millions of euros in compensation for Jews transported to Nazi death camps during World War II.
The payment by NS for what it calls a “black page in the history of the company” and is for survivors who were taken to camps, plus relatives of those who died.
“It is estimated that several thousand people are eligible for the allowance, including an estimated 500 survivors. NS will set aside several tens of millions of euros for this in the coming years,” NS says in a statement.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

Search interest for Julián Castro, the Obama-era Housing and Urban Development secretary and former San Antonio mayor, has seen a significant spike on Google since the start of the first Democratic presidential debate on Wednesday night.
Citing data from Google Trends, NBC News reports that search interest for the 2020 White House hopeful saw a surge of more than 2,400 percent on Google after he made a number of fiery comments on immigration during the debate.
One sharp remark from Castro came when he was pressed during the debate about a recent photo that showed the bodies of the two migrants — Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month old daughter, Valeria — lying face down in the Rio Grande.

President Trump’s campaign blasted 2020 Democrats who appeared on the debate state Wednesday night, saying the first face-off in the primary race was “the best argument” for Trump’s reelection.
In a press release following the first of two primary debate nights, the Trump campaign painted the Democratic contenders as a “radical” group whose expansive policies would reverse recent economic gains.