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Team Israel loses 11-5 to Miami Marlins in pre-World Baseball Classic exhibition game
JUPITER, Florida (JTA) — In the squad’s first-ever exhibition game against an MLB team, Team Israel lost 11-5 against the Miami Marlins on Wednesday night in a tuneup before the World Baseball Classic.
Israel had taken a 5-2 lead into the bottom of the fifth inning, but the Marlins scored three runs in both the fifth and sixth innings to tie and subsequently take control of the game. Miami added on three more runs in the bottom of the eighth.
It was Israel manager Ian Kinsler’s first baseball game as a coach. He previously played for the team after a 14-year MLB career, which included four All-Star seasons.
“It was great,” Kinsler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the game. “I thought we played really well. Kind of started a little shaky but through the first five we played a really good game offensively, swung the bats well and then the game kind of got away from us. But overall, I was pretty happy with it.”
Veteran minor leaguer Ty Kelly rebounded from a two-error first inning to crack two hits, including a two-run double, and scored a run. Garrett Stubbs, a backup catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies who played his first-ever game at third base, and Alex Dickerson, a veteran big-league outfielder, each drove in a run as well.
Longtime Team Israel player Ryan Lavarnway, who has played as a catcher in the minor league organizations of several MLB teams, also recorded a hit. He said finding a rhythm as a team — and not getting hurt — are his top priorities.
“Playing for this team is super meaningful to me,” he said after the game. “It’s been really life changing. And I hope that this next generation of players that are new to this team takes the baton, and it means as much to them as it’s meant to us.”
RELATED: Team Israel is playing in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. Here’s what to watch for.
Ten pitchers took the mound for Israel, each for one inning or less. Shlomo Lipetz, the 44-year-old native Israeli, gave up three runs in the bottom of the sixth after entering the game with the bases loaded.
For many of the team’s players, it was their first taste of a Major League Baseball game.
“I can remember my first time,” Kinsler said. “It’s always extremely fun and a little bit eye-opening, but they need to get used to it quick because when we get to Miami it’s going to be packed and it’s going to be loud.”
Israel will take on the Washington Nationals in another exhibition game tonight in West Palm Beach. Longtime Nationals owner Ted Lerner, who died last month, will be honored prior to the game.
Israel’s first official WBC game is Sunday at 12 p.m. ET against Nicaragua.
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The post Team Israel loses 11-5 to Miami Marlins in pre-World Baseball Classic exhibition game appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.