U.S. Vice President JD Vance held talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday as New Delhi looks to avoid American tariffs, negotiate a bilateral trade deal with Washington and strengthen ties with the Trump administration. Vance, who is on a largely personal four-day visit to India, met with Modi at his residence in New Delhi and the two leaders “reviewed and positively assessed the progress in various areas of bilateral cooperation,” Modi’s office said in a statement. They also “welcomed the significant progress” in the negotiations of an expected trade deal between the two countries, the statement said.

Qatar and Egypt have reportedly put forward a fresh initiative aimed at halting the conflict in Gaza and securing the release of the remaining hostages, according to a report published Tuesday by the BBC, which cited a high-level Palestinian Arab source involved in the negotiations.
The proposed arrangement, as outlined in the report, includes a ceasefire lasting five to seven years, the return of all Israeli hostages currently held by Hamas, the release of Palestinian Arab prisoners incarcerated in Israeli facilities, a formal declaration ending the war, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Two lawsuits filed in Los Angeles allege major home insurance companies have colluded to limit coverage in California communities at high risk for wildfires and force homeowners onto the state’s last-resort insurance plan that offers basic coverage and high premiums. Insurers, including State Farm and 24 other companies that hold 75% of California’s home insurance market, were part of an “illegal scheme” in violation of California’s antitrust and unfair competition laws, according to one of the lawsuits, filed last week.

The Conservative movement in Israel led a fake campaign on Israeli streets in the name of Gedolei Yisrael to convince Chareidim not to vote in the elections for the World Zionist Organization, spending tens of thousands of shekels to print and distribute pashkevilim against participating in the elections, a Kikar Shabbat investigation revealed. As many YWN readers know, a machlokes broke out last month in the Chareidi sector about whether to participate in the WZO elections. Members of the Eretz HaKodesh party presented the support of HaGaon HaRav Chaim Kanievsky zt’l, along with other Rabbanim in Israel and the United States who supported voting in the previous election.

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By Rabbi Berach Steinfeld

If a person is worried that he won’t remember to count all the days of Sefirah, should he count with a Bracha or not?

The Torah tell us to count forty-nine days from the bringing of the Omer until the bringing of the korban of Shtei Halechem.

The Rishonim argue whether the Mitzva of counting sefirah is Min HaTorah only during the times of the Bais HaMikdosh or not. The Chinuch in mitzvah 306 says that sefirah is only Min HaTorah during the time of the Bais HaMikdosh. The Rambam in Tmidim Umusafim 7:24 disagrees and says it is Min HaTorah even today.

Channel 14 aired footage from a recent interview with Iyad Jaradat, the terrorist responsible for orchestrating the 2003 attack in Gadish that resulted in the murder of the moshav’s security chief. Jaradat, who was serving a life sentence, was freed as part of the most recent hostage exchange.
In the segment, Jaradat reflected on what prison life was like before Itamar Ben-Gvir took over as Israel’s National Security Minister.
When asked by the interviewer to describe the conditions in prison prior to the October 7th massacre, Jaradat replied: “Honestly, there was respect, there were understandings. Ben-Gvir called it a summer camp. People may say Ben-Gvir was exaggerating. If someone wants, they can get mad, but these prisons really were like summer camps.”

Many Americans were forced to postpone cancer screenings — colonoscopies, mammograms and lung scans — for several months in 2020 as COVID-19 overwhelmed doctors and hospitals. But that delay in screening isn’t making a huge impact on cancer statistics, at least none that can be seen yet by experts who track the data. Cancer death rates continue to decline, and there weren’t huge shifts in late diagnoses, according to a new report published Monday in the journal Cancer. It’s the broadest-yet analysis of the pandemic’s effect on U.S. cancer data. In 2020, as the pandemic began, a greater share of U.S. cancers were caught at later stages, when they’re harder to treat. But in 2021, these worrisome diagnoses returned to prepandemic levels for most types of cancer.