National

The researchers concluded that the reason for intrauterine death was damage caused by COVID-19 to the placenta, which impeded the transfer of oxygen and other vital matter to the fetus.

Commenting on the results, Prof. Barzilay said, “Research has already suggested that a woman who is sick with coronavirus is twice as likely to deliver a stillborn baby than a woman who is not sick with COVID-19.”

“In our study, we attempted to find the reason for this phenomenon. What we discovered is that the coronavirus can infect the fetus and the placenta, causing substantial damage to the fabric of the placenta. It appears that this is the cause of the higher intrauterine mortality rate.”

No Public Transportation for New Visitors

Israel’s Transportation Ministry on Sunday evening announced that those landing at Ben Gurion International Airport will no longer be allowed to travel by public transportation, due to concerns over the new Omicron COVID-19 variant.

The Ministry added that transportation from the airport will be by private vehicle only. At the same time, long-term parking at the airport will cost 50% less, the Ministry said.

So far, Israel has identified four cases of the variant, and 34 others are suspected of carrying it.

The new rules began on midnight on Sunday, and include a three-day quarantine for the vaccinated, with a second PCR test on day three after arrival. The quarantine rules for the unvaccinated have not changed.

In addition, those arriving in Israel from “red” countries – a list which includes all African countries other than Morocco and Egypt – must quarantine in a government-run hotel until a second PCR test performed days after their arrival comes out negative.

World’s Best Falafel

Turns out that if you want the world’s best falafel you have to travel to the Holy Land.

According to a study conducted by 10Bis, Haifa’s falafels have been rated the best in the world, with a 9.07 rating. While only four percent of the city’s eateries serve falafel, those restaurants seem to offer the best falafel dishes.

Following close behind, Tel Aviv nabbed the second-tastiest spot with a score of 8.7. The city boasts 13 falafel joints for every 100,000 people – more than Haifa.

Outside of the Holy Land, Beirut was gifted third place, with a score of 7.92. 9.36% of Beirut’s restaurants serve the Middle Eastern fare.

Amsterdam, Brussels, Athens, Berlin, Lisbon and Copenhagen rounded out the rest of the top findings.

Pass the chummus, please.

Thousands of Ethiopians OK-ed to Immigrate

The Israeli government on Sunday voted to allow thousands of Ethiopians, who claim to be Jewish, to immigrate to Israel. The decision comes as Ethiopia faces rising concerns of a civil war.

Despite the green light, Detractors say that some of the Ethiopians brought over have no connection to Israel and no Jewish ancestry, and others have committed war crimes.

All of those included in the current plan have first-degree relatives already in Israel and were declared eligible to immigrant in 2015. They will be brought to Israel in “the near future.”

In a statement, Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata (Blue and White) praised the decision, saying, “Today, we are correcting an ongoing injustice done to those waiting for their immigration to be approved from as early as 2015, but not implemented in previous governments.”

The Jewish Agency for Israel Acting Chairman of the Executive Yaakov Haogel said, “This government decision will put an end to the suffering of many families who will finally be reunited after years of waiting to make aliyah.”

Jewish Federations of North America Chairman of the Board of Trustees Mark Wilf added, “Today’s announcement is an exciting and important step to reunite families and strengthen the Jewish people.”

Is U.S. Democracy “Backsliding”?

A new report by Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA) has shown that the U.S. may be in a “reverse” trend to democratization.

According to the report, the regression began in 2016 and is part of a “global retreat” in democracies’ health. Though there is a global cycle of “progress and regression,” the U.S. slide is the country’s first, the report added.

Annika Silva-Leander, who authored the annual IIDEA report on the Global State of Democracy, noted, “There is a mimicking effect that also comes into play, which we saw from the mid-1970s onwards in the world, a third wave of democratiza-

tion. What we are clearly seeing now is a reverse wave. Less countries becoming democratic, [those] that are democratic declining in quality.”

She added, “The democratic world is quite fragmented right now,” noting that democracies undergoing a “gradual but significant weakening of checks on government and civil liberties” now constitute over 30% of the global population.

The report is based on expert surveys, as well as 116 indicators of democracy from 165 countries. The 2021 report is the first time the U.S. has appeared on the list, but the “backsliding episode began at least in 2019” and may have preceded that.

According to Silva-Leander, “We know from other indicators not included in our measurements that levels of polarization have increased in the U.S. in the past decade. What we find when we look at data globally is that lower levels of public support for democracy often coincide with increasing levels of polarization and voters turning to parties that have a lesser commitment to democratic values.”

Reversing the backslide is “going to also involve democracies collaborating,” she added.

3 Found Guilty in Ahmaud Arbery Case

A Georgia jury last week reached a verdict in the trial of three men charged with murder for killing a black man, Ahmaud Arbery, as he ran in their neighborhood.

The jury, in its second day of deliberations, asked to view cellphone video of Arbery, 25, being fatally shot three times. The jury later reached a verdict.

Travis McMichael, 35, his father Gregory McMichael, 65, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, pleaded not guilty to charges including murder, aggravated assault, and false imprisonment for the killing on February 23, 2020.

The video recorded by Bryan on his cellphone of Travis McMichael firing his pump-action shotgun at close range into Arbery became the most important evidence for the prosecution in the trial. The younger McMichael, the only defendant to take the witness stand, said he fired his shotgun at Arbery in self-defense.

The jury also asked to hear again the 911 call made by Greg McMichael moments before the shooting in which he told the emergency operator that “there’s a black male running down the street” and can be heard yelling at Arbery repeatedly to stop.

The jury, composed of 11 white men and women and one black man, deliberated for more than six hours on Tuesday without reaching a verdict as the panel weighed evidence from the more than two dozen witnesses called during the trial of more than two weeks.

In their defense, Bryan’s and the McMichaels’ lawyers cited a Georgia law that allowed anyone to make a citizen’s arrest of individuals they have reasonable suspicion are fleeing a serious crime they committed. The law was repealed in the wake of Arbery’s killing.

The trio said that they chased Arbery to detain him because they believed he might have been responsible for property crimes that had left the neighborhood on edge. Arbery was found dead with nothing in his pockets – not even a cellphone or wallet.

Jack Dorsey Steps Down at Twitter CEO

Jack Dorsey stepped down on Monday as chief executive of Twitter, the social media site he co-founded in 2006. He was replaced by Parag Agrawal, who, as the company’s chief technology officer, had recently been working on technologies associated with cryptocurrencies.

Dorsey’s exit marks a significant shift at the company, which has navigated years of pressure from investors who thought it did not make enough money and criticism from Washington, particularly from Republican lawmakers who have com-

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plained Twitter has stifled conservative voices in social media.

Dorsey, 45, who is also the chief executive of the payments company Square, was fired from the top job at Twitter in 2008 but returned in 2015.

Dorsey’s departure represents the second recent significant shake up at a major social media company. Last month, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta. The change was accompanied by a new corporate logo and an emphasis on a virtual world called the metaverse, but Mark Zuckerberg, its high-profile chief executive, will still run the company.

Dorsey’s name has almost become synonymous with Twitter.

“If you stand back and you think about who’s had a big influence on social media over the past decade, the name Jack Dorsey is always going to come up,” said Tim Hubbard, an assistant professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

This week, Dorsey said in an email to Twitter employees that he wanted Twitter to stop being a founder-led company, which could be a weakness over time.

“I’ve worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders,” Dorsey wrote, adding: “I believe it’s critical a company can stand on its own, free of its founder’s influence or direction.”

He added, “There aren’t many companies that get to this level. And there aren’t many founders that choose their company over their own ego.”

Forbes estimates Dorsey’s net worth at over $11 billion.

“Flash Mob” Looters Continue to Target Stores

Police in Los Angeles and other major cities around the U.S. spent Thanksgiving weekend searching for suspects involved in “flash mob” robberies on Friday.

“Flash mob” robberies involve a group of thieves who storm a store, ransack the shelves, and flee in what authorities have termed a “smashand-grab” incident.

At least two such incidents were reported Saturday by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. According to KCAL-TV, there were a total of six such incidents on Friday around the city’s west side.

A Home Depot robbery on Friday may have involved up to 20 suspects who pulled up in 10 cars and donned masks before raiding the tool aisle. Four suspects in the Home Depot robbery were arrested on Saturday in Beverly Hills.

LAPD said that a similar group of 10 or more stormed a Fairfax store and began grabbing merchandise, pushing employees out of the way, and fleeing the scene without paying. An LAPD spokesperson added that investigations are underway as to whether the Fairfax incident is connected with incidents occurring earlier in the week.

Meanwhile, mass robberies were also reported on Friday at two Best Buy electronic stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and a series of retail burglaries occurred in Chicago.

States to Replace “Dehumanizing” Terms for Migrants

Democratic lawmaker Luz Rivas has authored a bill to replace the word “alien” in state statutes with the word “noncitizen” or “immigrant.”

Now an assemblywoman in California’s legislature, Rivas explained, “I want other children of immigrants, like me, to not feel the same

way I did, that my family did, when we saw the word ‘alien.’

“I want all Californians that are contributing to our society, that are small business owners, that work hard, to feel that they are part of California communities,” she explained.

The bill has already been signed into law.

Immigrants and groups supporting them claim the term is “dehumanizing,” especially when it is combined with the word “illegal.”

Only California and Colorado actually made a change in terminology, but the step to eliminate the use of “alien” and “illegal” was considered in at least seven different states, the National Conference of State Legislatures said.

According to State Sen. Julie Gonzales, who co-sponsored the new Colorado law, words such as “illegal” are “dehumanizing and derogatory” when used to describe immigrants.

“That language has been offensive for many people. And some of the rationale behind that is really rooted in this idea that a person can certainly commit an illegal act, but no human being themselves is illegal,” she said.

U.S. Imposes Travel Restrictions

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday said his administration will impose restrictions on travel from eight countries in Africa.

The move follows the discovery of the new “Omicron” COVID-19 variant, which is believed to have originated in southern Africa.

Officials in the Biden administration told The New York Times that the ban will apply to those travelers from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

With the new travel bans, the U.S. joins a host of approximately 15 other countries that had announced similar restrictions.

In a statement, Biden said, “As a precautionary measure until we have more information, I am ordering additional air travel restrictions from South Africa and seven other countries. As we move forward, we will continue to be guided by what the science and my medical team advises.”

He also urged Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine – either the first doses, for those who have not yet received them, or the booster dose – for those eligible and who have not yet had it. The new variant, he said, “should make clearer than ever why this pandemic will not end until we have global vaccinations.”

Administration officials said that U.S. citizens and legal residents will not be included in the ban but will be required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test if they travel into the U.S. from the affected countries.

U.S. to Build Up Bases in Guam and Australia

In an effort to better counter China’s increasing military strength, the Pentagon announced this week that it will be focusing on building up bases in Guam and Australia.

Back in February, President Biden tasked Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to partake in a global posture review. Although the review in classified, this move is prompted by the findings that came out of that review.

Biden “recently approved” Austin’s findings and recommendations from the global posture review, Dr. Mara Karlin, performing the duties of deputy under-secretary for policy, said at a briefing on Monday.

The Biden administration has made countering China its main foreign policy priority as tensions have increased with Beijing, particularly over the issue of Taiwan, and senior Pentagon officials have publicly expressed alarm about China’s efforts to upgrade and modernize its military. Last month, Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said China had successfully tested a hypersonic missile in what was “very close” to a Sputnik moment.

To counter China, the review directs the Department to enhance “infrastructure in Guam and Australia” and to prioritize “military construction across the Pacific Islands,” a defense official said, as well as “seeking