“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.

Billionaires are the consistent villains in Bernie Sanders’ campaign narrative. He rails against what he perceives as the undue influence their wealth wields and how that contributes to the yawning inequalities of American life. His criticisms are unsparing, and his most recent target is Mike Bloomberg, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination and one of the world’s richest people. But another billionaire in the race, Tom Steyer, has largely escaped Sanders’ wrath. And perhaps with good reason: It could well be Steyer who helps propel Sanders to success in the crucial state of South Carolina.

In a billionaire-to-billionaire media matchup, Tom Steyer is taking on Mike Bloomberg in a multimillion-dollar Super Tuesday ad buy, accusing the former New York City mayor of “racist” policies including “redlining” and the controversial “stop-and-frisk” tactic. The 60-second spot is a seven-figure buy that launches Monday in the states that vote on March 3. It pulls from 2008 video of the then-mayor describing a discriminatory housing practice known as redlining, the elimination of which he has said instigated the financial meltdown. “Congress and other elected officials intervened, saying, ‘Oh, that’s not fair. People should be able to get credit,’” Bloomberg says in the ad video.

It is a timeless ma’amar chazal that is familiar to all, but participants at the Agudah’s Yerushalayim Yarchei Kallah saw the words avira d’Eretz Yisroel machkim coming to life on Tuesday as they began day two of their learning. Inhaling Torah with their every breath of Yerushalmi air, participants have already found their davening transformed by Monday’s shiurim, and by 6:30 AM, the main ballroom at the Ramada Jerusalem Hotel was already buzzing as the day began with the Daf Yomi shiur given by the Agudah’s Daf Yomi Commission chairman, Rabbi Gedalia Weinberger, daf yomi maggid shiur at Agudath Israel Zichron Chaim Tzvi of Madison.

Former Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich gushed about Donald Trump Wednesday, a day after the Republican president commuted his sentence for political corruption. Blagojevich spoke to reporters outside his family home in Chicago during his first scheduled press event since his release. A large sign hanging on the home read, “Thanks Mr. President”. One man wore a rubber Blagojevich mask and hoisted the former governor’s 2006 campaign sign. “We want to express our most profound and everlasting gratitude to President Trump,” Blagojevich said. “He didn’t have to do this ….

In times of darkness, human nature is to look for hope. In today’s world, where there are so many displays of selfishness and greed, it uplifts us to look at the heroes of klal yisroel. The individuals who despite life’s challenges choose to do the right thing, against all odds. One of those heroes is Bnei Brak school teacher Yehudis Ehrenfeld.  When Ehrenfeld first began to host now 12-year-old Chani and her 7-year-old brother Itzhik, she was oblivious as to how much they had suffered in their short lives. They had made aliyah to Israel from New Zealand in 2016, and shortly after lost their father to a sudden heart attack. Their mother struggled and eventually became unable to take care of them.

President Donald Trump has ousted the Pentagon’s top policy official who had certified last year that Ukraine had made enough anti-corruption progress to justify the Trump administration’s release of congressionally authorized aid to Kyiv in its conflict against Russian-backed separatists. John Rood resigned Wednesday, saying he was leaving at Trump’s request. The Trump administration’s delay in releasing the aid to Ukraine was central to the president’s impeachment by the House on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate voted to acquit the president. But in the wake of the Senate trial, an emboldened Trump has gone after officials he has perceived as being disloyal. Rood is the latest official to be purged.

There’s a new kid in town for the ninth Democratic debate, Mike Bloomberg, the self-funding billionaire presidential candidate. Five questions ahead of the faceoff Wednesday night in Las Vegas: HOW DOES BLOOMBERG STACK UP? No candidate has the potential to upend the race for the Democratic presidential nomination more than Bloomberg, the former New York mayor and billionaire owner of a financial data and news empire. He has spent more than $400 million on advertising and has risen in national polling as a result. That has allowed him a place on the debate stage in Las Vegas, after the Democratic National Committee dropped an additional requirement of reaching a certain number of donors. Since Bloomberg accepts no donations, polls were the only way he could qualify.

Mike Bloomberg will confront the greatest test of his presidential campaign when he faces five Democratic rivals in a debate in Las Vegas that could fundamentally change the direction of the party’s 2020 nomination fight. The debate debut for the billionaire former mayor of New York is poised to offer fresh insight into whether his unconventional campaign strategy — bypassing early voting states such as Nevada and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to spread his message on the airwaves — is sustainable. Wednesday night’s debate comes at a pivotal point in the campaign as moderate voters are struggling to unify, with some increasingly looking to Bloomberg to become the clear alternative to progressive Bernie Sanders.

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.