Stormy weather conditions began in Israel again on Wednesday morning after a short break, leading to flooding in Israel’s north and powerful winds. In Bnei Brak, a concrete pillar collapsed onto the wall of a shul’s kitchen, causing the wall to collapse right next to the room where dozens of avreichim were learning, Kikar Hashabat reported. The shul’s gabbai was standing next to the wall at the time and managed to run away a second before it collapsed. Dovid Zar, a well-known Chareidi photographer who learns in the kollel in the shul, told Kikar Hashabat: “Apparently it was a weak pillar that fell due to the wind. It was an extremely powerful wind that hasn’t been felt in Bnei Brak for many years.

The Siyum Hashas events are arousing great interest and enthusiasm on the part of the community, but we have never seen such an excited response from a community who is not used to events like this. Within a few days, 5,000 tickets were sold in France to the Siyum Hashas which will take place this coming Sunday, 15th Teves, in Paris, organized by Dirshu at the Dôme de Paris arena. “We are talking about a historic event in the country, with unprecedented unity among all the Jewish communities, from the Consistoire to the most important Torah institutions of French Torah Jewry will gather under one roof for an incredible event in honor of the Torah. There will be performances by singer Meydad Tasa, the Malchus Choir, the Hamenagnim orchestra, and more.

Researchers on Wednesday reported the largest-ever one-year decline in the U.S. cancer death rate, a drop they credited to advances in lung-tumor treatments. The overall cancer death rate has been falling about 1.5% a year since 1991. It fell 2.2% from 2016 to 2017, according to the new American Cancer Society report. That’s the largest drop ever seen in national cancer statistics going back to 1930, said Rebecca Siegel, the lead author. “It’s absolutely driven by lung cancer,” which accounts for about a quarter of all cancer deaths, she said. Take lung cancer out of the mix, and the 2017 rate drop is 1.4%, she added. Government researchers previously reported a slightly lower drop in the cancer death rate for the same period.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed his government will get answers after a Ukrainian passenger jet crashed, killing at least 63 Canadians, just minutes after taking off from Iran’s capital. Trudeau said Wednesday 138 passengers on the flight were connecting to Canada. The flight included many international students who were studying at universities across Canada. Newlyweds and a Canadian family of four were also on the flight. Trudeau said his government is reaching out to his international counterparts. Getting answers from Iran might prove difficult as Canada closed its embassy in Iran in 2012 and suspended diplomatic relations. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States is calling for cooperation with any investigation into the cause of the crash.

Increasingly alarmed that Bernie Sanders could become their party’s presidential nominee, establishment-minded Democrats are warning primary voters that the self-described democratic socialist would struggle to defeat President Donald Trump and hurt the party’s chances in premier House, Senate and governors’ races. The urgent warnings come as Sanders shows new signs of strength on the ground in the first two states on the presidential primary calendar, Iowa and New Hampshire, backed by a dominant fundraising operation. The Vermont senator has largely escaped close scrutiny over the last year as his rivals doubted the quirky 78-year-old’s ability to win the nomination. But less than a month before Iowa’s kickoff caucuses, the doubters are being forced to take Sanders seriously.

Last Friday morning, a resident of Beitar Illit noticed some damage on the roof of his car over the driver’s seat, B’Chadrei Chareidim reported. When he examined the roof more closely he found a hole that was roughly the size of a bullet. He snapped a picture of it and sent it to a friend, who told him that it looked like the hole was actually caused by a bullet. The car owner couldn’t stop thinking about it throughout Shabbos, wondering who could have tried to shoot a bullet in his car. On Motzei Shabbos, he drove to the Beitar police station and told the officer on duty about the damage to his car and his concern that it may have been caused by gunfire.

U.S. companies added 202,000 jobs in December, led by robust hiring in construction, trade, transportation and utilities, according to a private survey. Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that the bulk of the hiring was among smaller and mid-sized businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Hiring in November was also revised upward to 124,000, a sign that the job market was stronger than past surveys initially suggested. Construction firms added 37,000 jobs in December. The trade, transportation and utilities sector added a combined 78,000. Health care and social assistance accounted for 46,000 new jobs. Still, not every industry is hiring. Manufacturers shed 7,000 workers. Leisure and hospitality lost 21,000 jobs last month.

Channel 13 News reported on Tuesday about a strange phenomenon that’s been occurring recently in one of the wings of the Chermon prison, located in the Galil. In the last few weeks, four separate incidents occurred when prisoners with no history of psychiatric issues suddenly “going crazy” and screaming that a “dybbuk” had entered them. The latest incident was on Tuesday when one of the prisoners had an outbreak, screaming for a half-hour that “there’s a soul inside me” and “they want to kill me.” Six prison guards tried to calm him down without success. “These are normal people who have absolutely no background of psychiatric issues and suddenly they’re caught by a dybbuk and begin to go crazy,” a prisoner of the wing told Mako, an Israeli news website.

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is unveiling a rough sketch of his plans to create millions of new jobs focused largely in communities “left behind” by President Donald Trump. The billionaire former New York City mayor planned to discuss his prescriptions for the nation’s economy during a Wednesday tour across three Midwestern states, featuring stops on the South Side of Chicago, rural Minnesota and Akron, Ohio. While Bloomberg’s team declined to release many details, the plan calls for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, sending hundreds of thousands of American workers into apprenticeship programs and ensuring collective bargaining rights for all workers.

Earlier this week, a media storm arose when Blue and White MK Ram Ben-Barak (Yesh Atid) claimed that Gerrer chassidim received preferential treatment in hospitals due to the fact that Health Minister Yaakov Litzman (Agudat Yisrael) is a Gerrer chassid. Ben-Barak said on a radio interview on Monday: “You can test it out. The hospitals in Israel are collapsing…people are in the corridors. If you find one Gerrer chassid in the corridor, call me.” His remarks were met with angry reactions and many Gerrer chassidim told their stories of long waits in the hospital without any signs of preferential treatment. Others mentioned the many Chareidim, including Gerrer chassidim, who perform innumerable acts of chesed in Israeli hospitals.