+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If we do not want to try and solve our problems and bet on Republicans making a stab at doing so then vote for Democrats, turn The House back to them and allow gridlock and legislative roll back to become operative.That is the message of the mid term election you need to think about when and if you vote. We both early voted..
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
About a month go I wrote about a tax change that was going to do more to encourage developers to enter what are known as poor zones. The details of tax benefits have now been established and the money should start flowing.
I can think of nothing that will do more to improve the housing situation for America's economic underclass. These subtle tax change will become a boon and this will be Trump's promised pay back to the mostly black community when he asked "what have you got to lose? "
The Democrat's idea of raising minimum wage , as with most all their mis-directed plans, will actually reduce employment as labor is replaced by technology whereas, improving housing circumstances of the black community will increase employment, reduce crime and create better living conditions if it accomplishes it's goals. It should because it will be undertaken by capitalists seeking tax benefits. Progressive's will see it as sop for the rich and that government should do it like all government housing projects which have failed and become drug invested rat holes.(See 1 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Insanity, another name for Democrats.
Yes, Democrat pulling out all stops to win.
Trump remains an enigma because Democrats are focused on their hate, mistaken perceptions and messages from their regurgitating friends in the mass media..(See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Israel's Good News Letter (See 3 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)
New ‘Opportunity Zone’ Tax-Break Rules Offer Flexibility to Developers
U.S. Treasury releases guidelines designed to spur projects in low-income areas
By Richard Rubin
The Trump administration, trying to accelerate tax-advantaged investment in low-income areas, offered generous definitions and rules Friday in a long-awaited package of regulations.
The Treasury Department designed the rules for the Opportunity Zone program to give businesses enough flexibility and certainty to start making major investments, senior department officials said.
The program was a small piece of last year’s tax law and has been attracting intense attention from real-estate developers and fund managers who have been soliciting wealthy investors holding unrealized capital gains.
“This will be a turning point,” said Michael Novogradac, a San Francisco accountant who advises fund managers and investors on tax incentives. “This will free up a lot of capital that’s been waiting. And it provides sufficient clarity for many more investments to go forward.”
Earlier this year, after getting recommendations from governors, the Treasury designated nearly 9,000 census tracts as opportunity zones, spread across urban and rural areas and including almost all of Puerto Rico.
Nearly 35 million Americans live in the zones, which have higher poverty and unemployment rates than the rest of the country, according to the Treasury. Developers have been planning projects that would qualify for the incentive, including a Marriott hotel in Arizona, affordable housing in Los Angeles and a 22-story office building and hotel in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood.
Investors in the zones get two benefits. First, they can roll capital gains from an unrelated investment into a zone and defer those capital-gains taxes until the end of 2026. Those taxes can be reduced by as much as 15% if investors hold on to their zone investments long enough.
In the regulations released Friday, the Treasury created a 70-30 rule that measures whether a given business counts as having “substantially all” of its assets in an opportunity zone. Under that rule, as long as 70% of a business’s tangible property is in a zone, the business doesn’t lose its ability to qualify for the tax break.
For example, a restaurant chain with four locations inside zones and one outside could get the break. A senior Treasury official described that rule as a “pretty favorable standard.” The Treasury had considered and rejected a 90-10 rule.
“They gave us a bright line and they drew the line in a place that’s workable day to day,” said David Levy, a tax partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.
Because 10% of an opportunity fund’s assets can already be invested outside a zone, according to the tax law, applying a 70-30 rule to the remaining 90% means that as little as 63% of a fund could be invested inside a zone, according to the regulations.
The rules also provided relief to real-estate developers, who had been concerned about the law’s requirement that capital gains generally must be reinvested into the zones within six months after the prior investment is sold. That was a potential problem for projects that take time to develop.
The Treasury‘s proposed rules give businesses an additional 30 months to hold that working capital, as long as they have a plan for a qualifying project in a zone, the Treasury officials said. Those plans don’t have to be filed with the government but must be available for an Internal Revenue Service audit, the officials said.
The Treasury also created a rule that defined how much improvement must be made to a building before it can qualify as a new investment. By excluding land value from that calculation, the rules enable more projects in high-cost urban areas, said Steve Glickman, founder of Develop LLC, who advises opportunity zone fund managers.
“The rules seem to provide the most favorable interpretation of the law and seem especially to be targeted to making the program more attractive to real-estate investors,” said Adam Looney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a Treasury Department official in the Obama administration.
The program has bipartisan roots, and Congress deliberately created an open-ended program with few restrictions, with the idea of relying on market forces and the new tax incentive to guide development. It’s easily used for real estate, but operating businesses can also take advantage, and private-equity firms are eyeing the incentive.
That openness is also a potential pitfall. The law doesn’t require detailed tracking of investments, hiring of area residents or sharp limits on what types of projects qualify, raising the prospect that the program could benefit wealthy investors and raise rents without helping the low-income people it’s supposed to assist.
“It has the potential to transform the neighborhoods that have been targeted. I think it’s a little uncertain whether that’s going to be good for the people who live in those neighborhoods,” Mr. Looney said. “We’re about to embark upon a tremendous social experiment.”
Mayors in cities like Louisville, Ky., and Newark, N.J., and foundations across the country have been trying to use incentives and local regulations to shape projects to ensure that residents of the zones benefit, as money flows into their neighborhoods.
Write to Richard Rubin at richard.rubin@wsj.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)Tom Steyer’s Energy Orders
By TheEditorial Board.
The Californian seeks to raise costs for the hoi polloi in other states.
Progressive money man Tom Steyer has many causes—impeaching Donald Trump, electing Senate Democrats, and this year ballot initiatives to impose renewable-energy mandates on voters who don’t realize how their electricity bills will rise.
Mr. Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action first targeted Michigan, where utilities agreed to higher renewable quotas if Mr. Steyer dropped his initiative. Next was Nevada, where referenda need to pass twice to become law. Nevada utilities are rolling over this year to save for a ballot brawl in 2020.
This year’s ground zero is Arizona, where Mr. Steyer’s Proposition 127 would require utilities to produce 50% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. This would more than triple Arizona’s current mandate of 15% by 2025. The Steyer mandate would also bar utilities from counting obvious forms of renewable energy, such as nuclear (now 29% of the state energy mix) and most hydropower (6%).
The latter provision shows that Prop 127 is really one more subsidy for solar and wind power. Sunny Arizona is third in the country for solar power, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, while it’s in the middle ranks for wind power. The strange hostility to nuclear would probably require the closure of the Palo Verde nuclear plant—the nation’s largest clean energy facility. Nuclear would have to be replaced with natural gas plants necessary to backstop intermittent wind and solar.
Hardest hit would be Arizona pocketbooks. Since the state adopted its current mandate in 2006, Arizona utilities have expanded renewable electricity to 7% from 1% of their electricity mix. But according to Energy Information Administration data, this has raised Arizona electricity prices by 30%—compared with 19% for the nation over the same time period. The Heartland Institute says that “at that pace, ramping up the mandate to 50 percent would cost the average household an additional $2,179 per year compared to present electricity costs.”
Arizona State University’s Seidman Research Institute analyzed the broader costs and found the initiative would kill thousands of jobs and knock $72 billion off state GDP through 2060. Proposition 127 would enshrine the Steyer mandates in the state constitution, so regulators would have no ability to mitigate the requirements when they start doing real damage.
Arizona Public Service Co. has spent millions to oppose Prop 127, assembling a diverse coalition that includes the Arizona Federation of Teachers, the Navajo Nation and Arizona chapter of the American Legion. Mr. Steyer has attempted to shame the utility for using corporate dollars to battle this mandate. But a company also has speech rights, and it is providing a counterweight to an out-of-state financier looking to impose his dictates on Arizona.
Team Steyer has tried to suggest the initiative has major local support, but a September state campaign finance report shows that a mere handful of Arizonans had contributed all of $328 to the effort. NextGen had spent more than $18 million. Mr. Steyer’s spending is protected speech, but opponents have every right to note that he wants to make Arizona as expensive as his home of California.
2a) A House Majority by ‘Any Means Necessary’
A Democratic challenger with a smash-mouth style seeks to flip a suburban Illinois district Hillary Clinton carried in 2016.
By Kyle Peterson
Ask Sean Casten about the sharp tone of his congressional campaign, and he responds by going for the jugular. In a bellwether race as Democrats try to take the House, Mr. Casten has been accused by his opponent, six-term GOP Rep. Peter Roskam, of spraying “rhetorical gasoline” and “parroting Donald Trump.” Nonsense, replies the Democratic challenger.
“If you don’t have a thick skin, I’m not sure why you’re in politics,” Mr. Casten says, after we duck into a quiet corner during an office-park meet-and-greet. “What Roskam is offended by is that I’ve had the temerity to speak truth to power. He’s voted 94% of the time with Trump. He has on his website that he is proud to work at Denny Hastert’s desk. I’m opposed to pedophilia. If that bothers him, that’s between him and his God.”
Say what?
To back up a smidge: Mr. Casten is referring to an old press release, from 2011, on Mr. Roskam’s official website. It explained that Dennis Hastert, who served as House speaker from 1999-2007, was passing down a “historic desk” used by Illinois congressmen since the 1940s. Five years after bequeathing the antique, Mr. Hastert admitted he had sexually abused boys as a high-school wrestling coach in the 1960s and ’70s. And this horrifying crime now reflects on Mr. Roskam . . . how, exactly?
Welcome to Illinois’s Sixth Congressional District, where the political debate this year is peppered with casual references to Nazis, morons and, yes, pedophiles. These Chicagoland suburbs, which went for Hillary Clinton by 7 points in 2016, are a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats. The district, shaped like a cocktail shrimp, arcs between O’Hare Airport and the particle accelerator at Fermilab. Half of adult residents went to college, one-fifth have a graduate degree, and the median household earns $99,000.
But a journalist who parachutes into the Sixth District, expecting to write about tax policy or health care, soon ends up pondering stranger questions: Is civility simply outmoded in 2018, the equivalent of bringing a flintlock musket to a gunfight? Even in the Midwest’s tree-lined suburbs, which are full of the educated women who fled the GOP under Donald Trump?
Mr. Roskam, whose harshest censure is occasionally to call his opponent “obtuse,” doesn’t think so. “It’s primarily moms who are the guardians of civil discourse,” he tells me at a tiny Dunkin’ Donuts in Elk Grove Village. “They’re not impressed with the president, who tweets the way he tweets. And they’re not impressed by my opponent, who tweets the way he tweets.” A minute later, he adds: “What I’m communicating to them is, ‘I’m not going to embarrass you like that.’ ”
But in these heady days, who’s embarrassed? On Tuesday the president of the United States, writing on Twitter , insulted a stripper, who claims to have had an affair with him and then unsuccessfully sued him for defamation, by calling her “Horseface.” Democrats, incensed by Mr. Trump, the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and much else, have shouted GOP officials out of restaurants and picketed their front lawns. Rep. Maxine Waters, whose Democratic constituency near Los Angeles gave Mrs. Clinton 78% of its vote, made headlines a few months back by expressly endorsing these kinds of tactics.
What makes Mr. Casten’s fiery message notable is that he is trying to win a swing district. Most politicians, as Election Day approaches, water down their rhetoric to attract independent voters. Mr. Casten keeps pouring 100-proof whiskey. When the Trump administration this summer was separating families of illegal aliens, he said in a Chicago Tribune debate that “we are literally kidnapping babies at the border.” At the suburban Daily Herald last month, he said wealth inequality is, historically speaking, “getting dangerously close to the levels that precede revolutions.” The same day he repeated a conspiracy theory that an attorney—reported to be of Mexican and Jewish descent—was “flashing white-power signs behind the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.”
A political newcomer, Mr. Casten pitches himself as a truth-teller in an age of alternative facts. He spent his career fighting climate change while making a profit by capturing wasted energy at factories or converting coal utilities to natural gas. He says he voted for George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, but he characterizes today’s GOP as complicit in the rise of a demagogue. “This isn’t partisan,” he tells a crowd of about 100 in Elgin, “to call out misogyny, to call out racism, to call out the fact that there was an actual member of the Hungarian Nazi Party in the White House.” (Mr. Casten is referring to Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump adviser, who denies having Nazi connections or anti-Semitic views.)
Even beyond Mr. Trump, the two Sixth District contenders don’t agree on much. Mr. Roskam, a fairly conventional Republican, has voted to repeal and replace ObamaCare. He describes himself as pro-life. He helped write last year’s tax reform and says it’s working, “no question.” He cites a visit to a manufacturer in Downers Grove, during which his hosts pointed out $4 million of new equipment: “They said the only reason they bought it this year was because of the tax reform—full expensing.”
The congressman rates the president’s performance as “middling.” After Mr. Trump’s solicitous Helsinki press conference with Vladimir Putin, Mr. Roskam called it “an affront to American democracy.” He opposed pulling out of the Paris climate accord and says “the smarter move was: stay in, stay at the table, have more influence.” In principle, he thinks Congress should reclaim authority over trade and tariffs it has delegated to the president.
Mr. Casten, in contrast, wants to repeal the tax law altogether. “It has been a massive boon to the owners of capital,” he says. “Dividends are up, stock repurchases are up, but median wage growth is actually down.” He instead credits President Obama for low unemployment and other rosy indicators: “We’re just continuing on the same trend line.” Mr. Casten thinks universal health care, expanding ObamaCare with a “public option,” could save the U.S. perhaps $1 trillion a year.
He sees abortion “as a medical procedure, like a gallbladder surgery,” he explained in a July debate. Thus he has no qualms about spending taxpayer money on it. Most such funding is blocked currently by the Hyde Amendment, named for Mr. Roskam’s Sixth District predecessor, Rep. Henry Hyde. “There is absolutely no—zero, zippo, zilch—evidence that reducing access to abortion reduces the incidence of abortion,” Mr. Casten says. “So all that that does is put women’s lives at risk. It’s stupid policy. And I would love, as the inheritor of Henry Hyde’s seat, to be able to cast the deciding vote to repeal it.”
Finally, he paints Mr. Roskam as a flunky for Mr. Trump. “I think you have an obligation, if you have the bully pulpit, to call out the fact that we have a demagogue in the White House,” Mr. Casten says, “and that there have been horrible demagogues throughout history who have used the exact same playbook Trump is using.” He presents the question of impeaching Mr. Trump in pragmatic terms. “I can say with absolute certainty, every day he’s in office is a danger to the country and to the world,” Mr. Casten says. But ousting a president requires a two-thirds Senate vote: “I think there’s a real danger in having an impeachment if he’s not removed, because you’ve now made the situation worse.”
It’s hard to know, in the end, how much to make of Mr. Casten’s rhetoric. Sometimes his remarks seem like missteps by a first-time candidate. This summer the Washington Free Beacon posted audio of him opining that “Trump and Osama bin Laden have a tremendous amount in common, because they have both figured out how to use the bully pulpit to activate marginalized young men.” He apologized for the comparison.
Other times, the provocations appear intentional. In December, commenting on news that the Republican National Committee had reinstated its support for Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, Mr. Casten tweeted that the GOP “is officially now the Pedophile Party.” Nearly a year later, after Mr. Roskam has brought up that tweet more than once in public debates, it still hasn’t been deleted. Why not?
Back in Elgin, as the interview concludes, I thank Mr. Casten for his time, and we amble toward the dessert table. While we walk, I toss out what seems like a throwaway question. Asked in February to name “one current leader who most inspires you,” Mr. Casten pickedDan Savage, a sex columnist. What motivated that choice? “He has this combination,” Mr. Casten explains, “of completely righteous indignation, and an awesome sense of humor.” He cites a contest Mr. Savage held in 2003 to name a graphic sex term after then-Sen. Rick Santorum. The Savage neologism later made news in the runup to the 2012 presidential election. As Mr. Santorum sought the Republican nomination, the top Google search result for his name was this explicit definition.
Mr. Casten then offers up another story. In the 1980s, he says, an activist was trying to get New York’s Mayor Ed Koch to take a strong stance on the AIDS crisis. Koch, who always deflected rumors he was gay, kept demurring. So the activist, in Mr. Casten’s telling, played hardball: “Finally he went to Koch, and he goes, ‘Here’s the deal. I’m going to tell the Daily News tomorrow that I had sex with you in a bathhouse last night unless you do f—ing something about this AIDS crisis, because my goddamn friends are dying.’ ”
The result? “Koch stepped up,” Mr. Casten recounts, laughing. “And sometimes the world needs that, right? I’m not saying that’s necessarily me.” But at times, he believes, the Savages are on the right side of history: “There’s points where people who are willing to go beyond the norms of discourse have an advantage, if nobody’s willing to go there. And sometimes you need people who will say, ‘You know what, I’ll meet you out there in that world, and I’m going to bring you back in, and I’ll use any means necessary.’ ”
Mr. Peterson is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
2b) America Has Yet to Make
Sense of Trump
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Why one liberal professor says the world needs an investigative reporter like Seymour Hersh.
Many presidencies stop moving forward after two years. They’re stuck playing defense. That’s likely to be doubly true of a Donald Trump presidency if Democrats win the House.
So what have we learned from its fertile period?
Mr. Trump never would have made the running in the first place had he resorted to the bromides that other candidates resort to. Mr. Trump is what an outsider, in that much abused political term, really looks like.
As president, he is constantly “censured for failing to say expected things.” The words are those of political scientist Stanley Renshon, of the City University of New York. He’s got a point. Every presidency deserves criticism, but so much of Mr. Trump’s is just rote Anderson Cooper tut-tutting over his nonconformity.
Bruno Maçães, a Portuguese political scientist, recently pointed out that European thinkers have become obsessed with U.S. domestic politics. “They’re not watching German politics. So again, tell me why this is so bad.”
His point is subtle and best illuminated by new work from liberal scholar Cass Sunstein on how true voter preferences can stay unrevealed in a democracy and then emerge spontaneously. Mr. Trump made new things sayable. The U.S. relies on a military alliance with countries that no longer spend money on having militaries. Our China trade openness has been rewarded by the rise of a neo-Maoist totalitarianism in China. We engage in costly climate policies that have no effect on climate.
We might also remind ourselves of a general principle: It’s not Donald Trump who is a threat to a democracy; it’s politicians generally. Democracy is a system for curbing their quest for power. Of the two candidates in 2016, which was the protégée of the president in office? Which was backed by longstanding and highly organized support networks? Mr. Trump is accused of violating norms, but which party concocted evidence that its opponent was a Russian agent? Which now questions the legitimacy of basic institutions like the Electoral College and the Supreme Court? Which encourages the mobbing of partisan opponents in restaurants?
In 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign was a snow job about bipartisanship. Political misdirection clearly has its uses, but this hasn’t been the Trumpian approach. Mr. Renshon rightly describes him as a president who does “much better in keeping his promises than in speaking accurately about them.”
This month landed a book by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kathleen Hall Jamieson. She gamely dissects polling data and suggests that Russian hacking and trolling may have—may have—increased voter distrust of Hillary Clinton sufficiently to account for her slim loss in the Electoral College.
But Ms. Jamieson also devotes much discussion to a Russian influence whose effect is much less debatable: the questionable Russian intelligence that inspired FBI chief James Comey’s improper actions in the Clinton email case, including reopening the case shortly before Election Day, which he now says he might not have done if he didn’t believe Mrs. Clinton’s victory was certain.
Even Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, is quoted in the New Yorker saying Mr. Comey’s actions may be the “most significant way in which the Russians may have impacted the outcome of the election.”
Yet the episode is utterly missing from a 10,058-word New York Times account last month that purports to tell the whole Russian story “so far.” Why? Because the press’s self-interested FBI and CIA sources insist their actions in the 2016 race aren’t the real story. The real story is Trump-Russia collusion, evidence for which will turn up any day now.
Ignored is even the secret appendix to the Justice Department’s own damning review of Mr. Comey’s actions. Writes Ms. Jamieson: “Protecting the identity of the FBI’s methods is a possible reason for the classified status of the controversial content. Another is a cover-up.”
One progressive who isn’t buying is Jackson Lears of Rutgers University, who recently wrote, “The world needs Seymour Hersh.” He means an investigative reporter who isn’t satisfied to be spoon-fed the views of the intelligence establishment, but is willing to challenge them.
Why does this matter? At the end of the day, Mr. Trump was not elected by 80,000 voters in the Upper Midwest. He was elected by 80,000 plus 63 million who answered his call to overthrow the current political class. Whatever Russia’s motives for meddling in the 2016 race, Mr. Comey was plainly driven by establishment horror at the prospect of a Trump presidency—but, in the end, so clumsily that he helped elect Mr. Trump.
America has yet to take stock of what happened in 2016 and the strange circumstances that made the frequently loutish Mr. Trump an instrument for refreshening our political culture. A place to start is recognizing his singular contribution: making new things sayable.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Israeli heart surgery for Iraqi-Kurdish newborn. (TY Nevet) An Iraqi baby born with a congenital heart defect is being flown to Israel for life-saving surgery after an emergency appeal to Israel’s Interior Ministry. Baby Ahlam, from Iraqi Kurdistan, suffers from the reversal of the main arteries carrying blood from the heart.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
US approval for brain scan software. I reported previously (Nov 2016) on Israel’s Aidoc whose AI image software helps radiologists in fast detection of acute brain bleeds in CT scans. Aidoc’s system has now received US FDA approval and is currently in use at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
US approves Teva’s cancer treatment. (TY Arlene) The US FDA’s oncology committee has approved CT-P10 – Teva’s monoclonal antibody biosimilar to Rituxan (rituximab) for the treatment of various forms of cancer. The development of biosimilars has the potential to increase accessibility to therapies for patients.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
“Moses” blasts bladder stones. Conventional treatment of bladder stones uses a laser that causes the stone to be repelled, extending the time taken to destroy it. Israeli biotech Lumenis’ laser technology (named “Moses”) keeps the stone in place, saving time, anesthesia and money. Nice simple video demonstrates this.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
A replacement for the “forgotten valve”. Israeli startup Trisol Medical is developing a minimally invasive device that can replace a faulty tricuspid heart valve. The tricuspid valve is known as the “forgotten valve” as other bio-techs have focused efforts developing replacements for the aortic and mitral valves.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Contact lenses for the nose. Israel’s Beck Medical has developed NozNoz – a silicon nasal insert that curbs the appetite by blocking the senses of smell and taste. The effect is to prevent stimulating the body’s olfactory bulb that controls hunger and food preferences. NozNoz is comparable to contact lenses for the nose.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-
Hope in sight for vision impaired. (TY WIN) Israeli startup ICI Vision has developed Orama - digital glasses to help the visually impaired to see more clearly. Orama uses artificial intelligence (AI), eye-tracking software, a built-in 3D camera and more, to map and project images onto an individual’s remaining healthy retina cells.
https://www.israel21c.org/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
Israel ranks 6th for healthcare efficiency. (TY Nevet) Israel has moved up from 7th to 6th in the world ranking for its achievement of having an average life-expectancy of 82.5 whilst spending only 7.9% of its GDP on Health. In comparison, the USA has an average life-expectancy of 79 but spends 16.8% of GDP on Health.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Where to find cancer treatment trials. Israeli-US startup TrialJectory helps match (initially) melanoma patients with clinical trials appropriate to their condition. The patient provides details of themselves and their cancer to TrialJectory. An algorithm and AI (Artificial Intelligence) then select trials likely to be effective.
http://nocamels.com/2018/10/
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
See Jerusalem’s diversity on the light railway. The Jerusalem Light Rail is where you can meet people of all backgrounds. It’s a microcosm of the diverse and inclusive society of Jerusalem. The train line runs through Israeli and Arab neighborhoods and serves all of Jerusalem’s residents.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
Israel sends aid to Indonesia. Israel has provided emergency aid to tsunami hit Indonesia, despite having no formal diplomatic ties. It includes teams from IsraAID and water purification systems from Israel’s NU Filtration. https://israelunwired.com/
And to Florida. Israeli NGO IsraAID has dispatched natural disaster assistance teams to help communities in Florida that were hard-hit by Hurricane Michael. IsraAID’s emergency response team will work to return affected people to their homes. http://www.jewishpress.com/
Pro-Israeli Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad, co-winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, was welcomed previously at Israel’s Knesset and the University of Tel Aviv. Nadia enlisted the help for her fellow Syrian Yazidis, of Israeli NGO IsraAID, saying they were "more effective than many governments".
http://www.israelnationalnews.
Pediatric clinic for refugees in Nigeria. Israel’s embassy in Nigeria has opened a pediatric clinic in Durumi near Abuja, the capital Nigeria. Israeli and local medics are treating children in need of primary care who have been displaced by decades of violence within Nigeria.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
Ivory Coast orphanage renovated. Israelis have just finished renovating the girls’ orphanage at Grand Bassam, in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Africa. The project was concluded with a special ceremony attended by Israeli Knesset members and Israel-Côte d’Ivoire embassy staff.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
Jerusalem hosts tourism security summit. The first-ever International Tourism Security Summit has been held in Jerusalem. Experts and academics from around the world met to discuss security at the world’s leading tourist destinations. Israel is seen as a model of how to handle security threats at tourism and travel sites.
http://www.jewishpress.com/
First US Navy ship in Ashdod in decades. USS Ross docked at the Ashdod port – the first US Navy ship to do so in 20 years. Commander Kyle Raines of the U.S. Sixth Fleet said that the port visit “reinforces the strong and enduring partnership between our two nations”. US Navy ships to Israel usually dock at the port of Haifa.
https://www.reuters.com/
200 Israelis join European disaster drill. (TY TIP) A 200-strong Israeli team, including over 90 medics, took part in the Seism 2018 (Earthquake 2018) exercise in Bucharest, Romania, in cooperation with the European Union. They simulated the scenario of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake with thousands of casualties.
https://www.israel21c.org/
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
New process to tackle pollution. Israeli university scientists have developed Phased Transaction Extraction (PTE) to help get rid of organic and metal pollutants. Solvents extract organic compounds while special bonding agents separate toxic metals. All materials and polluting chemicals can be recycled afterwards.
https://www.israel21c.org/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/
Hi-tech IDF. 60,000 lucky Israeli citizens snapped up all available tickets for a special exhibit called “Our IDF” produced by the Israeli army. They saw the IDF’s Virtual Reality (VR) capabilities and had a glimpse of a other cutting-edge technologies that are either currently being used or are in the works.
https://worldisraelnews.com/
New AI research center. Intel Corporation and Israel’s Technion Institute have inaugurated a new research center in Haifa, dedicated to AI (artificial intelligence) technologies. Intel’s top leaders attended the event. The research will include natural language processing, deep learning, and hardware optimization for algorithms.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
3 Israeli startups in TIME’s “Genius” list. TIME Magazine included 3 Israeli companies in its 2018 list of 50 “genius companies”. They are Lishtot (see here), WeWork (see here) and Aidoc (see here). TIME’s editors and correspondents selected companies based on their originality, influence, success, and ambition.
http://nocamels.com/2018/10/
Video to prove whose fault it is. I reported previously (see here) on Israel’s Nexar which has developed a car dashboard camera. Now another Israeli startup Comroads has developed a smartphone app that connects to the dash cam and allows a community of users to exchange video footage in the event of an incident or accident.
https://www.israel21c.org/
The complete picture. Israel’s Vayavision Sensing has developed a system designed to provide precise 3D imaging of a vehicle’s environment. The system comprises a variety of autonomous sensor systems, cameras, radars, and LiDAR. Vayavision has just raised $8 million of funding.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
Eradicating mosquitos in Brazil. Two Israeli companies are partnering to eliminate deadly mosquitos in Brazil. I’ve already featured Senecio (see here)and its system to release sterile male mosquitos from planes. Now Israel’s Forrest Innovations has developed a new process to silence the mosquito’s fertility gene.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Climate innovation prize winner. Israel’s Paulee CleanTec affiliate company Epic CleanTec has won the grand prize in the Climate Innovation Showcase at the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. Epic converts solid waste from high-rise buildings into dry, odorless, sterile, organic fertilizer for landscaping.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Israel’s moonshot – latest news. Israel’s SpaceIL lunar module is now targeted to land on the moon in 2019. Thanks to a $2 million boost from the Israeli government. SpaceIL will also benefit from tools provided by NASA in exchange for magnetic field data. NASA will also try to capture images of the actual landing.
https://www.israel21c.org/
https://www.calcalistech.com/
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Optimistic state of Israel’s economy. In his latest summary, Ambassador Yoram Ettinger highlights good financial ratings, median age of 30, 3.3% 2018 growth estimate, recent billion dollar exits and multinational investments. He also recommends this video publicizing Avi Jorisch’s great book “Thou Shalt Innovate”.
http://theettingerreport.com/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
$1.64 billion exit for Mazor Robotics. Israeli robotic surgery company Mazor Robotics has been acquired by medical equipment giant Medtronic for $1.64 billion. Hadassah surgeons in Jerusalem used Mazor’s Renaissance Guidance System last year to perform the world’s first dual robotic surgery (see here)(and here).
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
$2.1 billion exit for Imperva. Israeli-founded cybersecurity company Imperva is being acquired by US investment firm Thoma Bravo in a deal valued at approximately $2.1 billion. Imperva has 6,200 customers and 500 partners in more than 100 countries plus development centers in Tel Aviv and Rehovot.
https://www.israel21c.org/
$250 million cybersecurity exit. Singapore's governmental holding company Temasek has acquired Israeli cybersecurity startup Sygnia for an estimated $250 million. Originating from Israel’s Team8 foundry (see here) Sygnia offers cyber security consulting and incident response services to businesses and organizations.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Walmart’s $250 million Israeli venture. (TY Arlene) The world’s largest retailer, Walmart, has announced a strategic entertainment deal with Israeli interactive video technology developer Eko (formerly Interlude see here). Reported to be worth $250 million, the joint venture will help Walmart compete with Amazon.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
$100 million finance deals not rare. (TY Arlene) Until a few years ago, Israeli startups looked to be bought up for a few million dollars. These days, Israeli entrepreneurs are looking to grow their businesses rather than exit. Six Israeli companies have held financing rounds of $100 million or more in the past 12 months.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
An Israeli medical incubator in Atlanta. Haifa’s Rambam Hospital is partnering with Georgia Institute of Technology to establish a new MedTech incubator for Israeli-based companies in Atlanta, Georgia. The joint biomedical and digital health innovation center will speed up bringing medical products to the US market.
http://nocamels.com/2018/10/
Funding nanotech research. Yissum, the technology transfer company of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has launched a $9 million fund dedicated to the university’s nanotech research. The fund will focus on innovations in the fields of smart materials, 3D printing, quantum science, and renewable energy.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
The best hotel in the Middle East. Conde Naste Traveler Magazine has named Tel Aviv’s Hotel Norman as the best hotel in the Middle East and Africa. Four Jerusalem hotels were included in the magazine’s 2018 Top Hotels in the Middle East Readers’ Choice Awards. http://www.jewishpress.com/
CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT
Becoming Israeli. A new book brings the Aliya experience home. “Becoming Israeli: The Hysterical, Inspiring and Challenging Sides of Making Aliyah.” edited by Akiva Gersh, describes the experiences of 51 new immigrant bloggers who describe life (warts and all) in modern-day Israel.
https://www.jns.org/real-
Chief conductor of BBC Philharmonic is Israeli. The British Broadcasting Corporation has appointed Israel’s Omer Meir Wellber as the new chief conductor to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, from Sept 2019 for an initial four years. Wellber is also a Good Will Ambassador for Israeli charity Save a Child’s Heart.
https://worldisraelnews.com/
Netflix buys another Israeli TV series. Israeli television drama “When Heroes Fly” has been sold to Netflix, joining several other Hebrew-language series already featured on the popular streaming platform. The show’s 10 episodes will be available to millions of viewers starting in early 2019, along with English subtitles.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.jta.org/2018/10/
Operation Wedding – new dates. The exciting documentary “Operation Wedding” (see here) about Jews trying to escape the Soviet Union, has new Israel screening dates. Oct 28 in Tel Aviv; Nov 10 in Beit Shemesh.
http://www.jewishpress.com/
Jethro Tull’s 50th Anniversary Tour. Legendary folk/rock band Jethro Tull, led by Ian Anderson, is scheduled to perform in Israel on 27 October. The concert begins after Shabbat at the Culture Palace Tel Aviv and is part of the band’s world tour to mark its 50th anniversary.
https://www.secrettelaviv.com/
Israel is top of the league. The Israeli soccer team beat Scotland and Albania in its last two matches to go top of its Nation League soccer group. Israel now has six points – three ahead of both Scotland and Albania.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
THE JEWISH STATE
$32 million raised for IDF. 1,200 leading business people and philanthropists attended the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) National Gala Dinner in New York. Together they raised more than $32 million to support well-being and educational programs for IDF soldiers.
http://www.israelnationalnews.
40 years of peace with Egypt. It’s 40 years since Israel’s PM Menachem Begin and Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords. It ended 30 years of war between Egypt and the Jewish State.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
Ancient Jerusalem inscription discovered. The earliest stone inscription bearing the full Hebrew spelling of Jerusalem has been excavated in an ancient artisan village just 2.5km outside of modern Jerusalem. “Hananiah son of Dodalos of Jerusalem” (Yerushalayim) was inscribed on a column made in 100 BCE.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Biblical Jewish Hebron site opened. Tel Hebron, in the city of the Patriarchs, is now open to the public. Archaeological finds at the birthplace of Jewish history include 1st Temple-era pottery vessels, jewelry and coins, as well as olive presses, kilns and giant vats used to produce oil and wine in accordance with Jewish law.
http://www.israelhayom.com/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment