Family getting up: Friday (5/16/25)Morning Mrs. Pessa OberlanderSister

Before they can name their next presidential nominee, Democrats will have to decide which state will weigh in first. In 2022, President Joe Biden forced a shake-up of the 2024 election calendar, moving South Carolina’s primary ahead of contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Officials in those traditionally four early-voting states are now positioning themselves to get top billing nearly two years before the Democratic National Committee solidifies the order. Others may make a play, too. It’s a fraught choice for a party already wrestling with questions about its direction after losing November’s White House election to Republican Donald Trump. Each state offers advantages to different candidates and elevates — or diminishes — different parts of the Democratic base.

WASHINGTON – Palestin

Statements that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said during a closed-door discussion in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday were leaked to the press. “The law that the committee decides on is the law that will be,” he said. “Within two years, we’ll draft 10,500 Chareidi recruits. This is the number that the army can absorb.” “We will also implement heavy personal sanctions against individuals and institutions. At the same time, we will ensure that whoever enters Chareidi – leaves Charedi.” Netanyahu also denied recent reports of tensions between Israel and the Trump administration, saying:  “I speak with Trump every few days – at least once every two weeks.

The fire that caused significant damage in April to historic buildings in Suriname’s capital city was not the only threat facing the nearby Neveh Shalom Synagogue. As firefighters battled to save the historic city center of Paramaribo — a UNESCO World Heritage site — the synagogue’s volunteers were busy scanning thousands of archival documents in an effort to preserve the history of the thousands of Jews who have called the Surinamese capital home since the 1700s. The blaze was contained before reaching the synagogue, but at the mercy of other threats, including the tropical climate, insects and time, it was a reminder of how fragile the 100,000 historic documents, kept on pages stored in filing cabinets for decades, were and how vital the preservation project was.

Sec. Sean Duffy shuts down reports of cutting FAA staff: “In the safety mission of the FAA like air traffic controllers, no one was cut. We actually have staffed up. We hired more air traffic controllers during this time.”

A passenger bus skidded off a cliff in Sri Lanka’s tea-growing hill country on Sunday, killing 21 people and injuring 35 others, a police spokesman said. The accident occurred in the early hours of Sunday near the town of Kotmale, about 140 kilometers (86 miles) east of Colombo, the capital, in a mountainous area of central Sri Lanka, police said. Police spokesman Buddhika Manathunga said 21 people died and another 35 were being treated in hospitals. Local television showed the bus lying overturned at the bottom of a precipice while workers and others helped remove injured people from the rubble. The driver was injured and among those admitted to the hospital for treatment. At the time of the accident, nearly 50 people were traveling on the bus.