American Airlines announced Sunday that it will extend flight cancellations through Sept. 3 for Boeing’s embattled 737 Max, a new passenger jet that has been out of commission for almost three months after its flight control software played a role in two deadly crashes. The cancellations will affect about 115 flights a day, the airline said.

The UN nuclear watchdog believes Iran has followed through with threats to increase enriched uranium production, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told a press conference on Monday.
The revelation comes as the International Atomic Energy Association said earlier on Monday it was worried about increasing tensions over Iran’s nuclear drive following Tehran’s announcement it would be disengaging in part from the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers.
Amano declined to elaborate on the rate of Iran’s current uranium enrichment, a key aspect of Iran’s nuclear program.
Read more at i24NEWS.
{Matzav.com}

In just a few weeks, tens of thousands of kids will be on the move, leaving home for Jewish overnight camps. This year though they’ll be doing so under the specter of heightened security concerns as anti-Semitism is at a near-record high nationwide and it has been just half a year since two deadly synagogue shootings.
According to the Anti-Defamation League’s Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents for 2018, 1,879 attacks were committed against Jews and Jewish institutions across the country last year, including the attack at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 Jewish worshippers were murdered when a gunman entered the building during Shabbat services.

In an interview at his Jerusalem residence last week, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said Israel has the right to annex at least “some” of the West Bank.
“Under certain circumstances,” Friedman told The New York Times on Saturday, “I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged just prior to Israel’s April 9 election to extend Israeli law to all West Bank Jewish communities.
Friedman did not specify what the American response might look like should Israel annex West Bank land unilaterally.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lawyer said Monday his client will attend his indictment hearing in October on a series of graft charges, after the attorney general last week rejected his request to postpone it.
Netanyahu had petitioned the court to delay the hearing due to the beginning of another campaign season for new elections in September that were called after he won the April elections but proved unable to form a coalition.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit found no justification for postponing the indictment further already granting the premier an extension of three months from the formerly agreed upon date of July 10.

The State Prosecutor’s Office agreed Monday to a one-day postponement of a plea bargain that would see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, pay a fine and avoid jail time in the so-called catering case.
Although a deal had been reached, Sara Netanyahu’s attorney, Yossi Cohen, was granted an extra 24-hours to propose last-minute amendments.
Cohen had petitioned the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court in Jerusalem, saying Netanyahu’s legal team “needs a brief extension of one day to clarify and sharpen her positions regarding the emerging plea bargain.”
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother Kim Jong Nam, who was killed in a Malaysian airport in 2017, was a CIA informant who met with agency personnel on several occasions before his death, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing a person knowledgeable about the matter.
At the time of his death, Kim had not lived in North Korea for several years, and he was likely in contact with the intelligence services of other countries as well, including China, the Journal reported Monday.
Kim Jong Nam was killed in Kuala Lumpur when two women smeared the nerve agent VX on his face. U.S. and South Korean officials believe Pyongyang is responsible.

Israel’s Mossad spy agency was responsible for providing British authorities with information that helped foil Hezbollah’s efforts to stockpile explosives in London in 2015, a senior Israeli official told the Kan public broadcaster Monday.
The report said that, acting on a tip from an unnamed foreign intelligence agency, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police raided four properties in North West London, discovering thousands of disposable ice packs containing three tons of ammonium nitrate, a common ingredient in homemade bombs.

There is something unique and overwhelming about the Sephardic Bet Hakenesset.

It’s not just the stately décor and handsome furniture.

It’s the respect for tefillah that reverberates from the walls, the tangible commitment to prayer, its chants, tunes, and laws, the total communal participation, its customs, and its atmosphere. It’s the hallmark of Sephardic communities. Through sincere tefillot, respect for the synagogue, heightened sensitivity to prayer, and tefillah’s centrality to their lives, the Sephardic communities have historically erected protective barriers for themselves and their families.