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| The Lubavitcher Rebbe in his L'kutei Sichos mentions the incident ... |
Applicants for a US passport will now be able to choose whether they identify as male or female and won’t need medical certification if their choice differs from the gender listed on other documents like a birth certificate, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday.
Blinken also said that the Department will soon give applicants the option of describing themselves on their passport as “non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming,” though he added that change would take time to implement due to “extensive systems updates.”
According to Blinken, the moves are another step “toward ensuring the fair treatment of LGBTQI+ U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender or sex.” America’s top diplomat added that he was announcing the move “after considerable consultation with like-minded governments who have undertaken similar changes.”
The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the move to add a third gender identification option.
“Improved access to accurate passports will have such a profound impact on the lives of trans, intersex, and non-binary folks across the country,” ACLU campaign strategist Arli Christian said in a statement. “Now people will be able to fill out a passport application and indicate M, F, or X — whichever is most appropriate for them.
Despite a hateful wave of anti-trans legislation this year, trans, non-binary, and intersex people know who we are and we need recognition of who we are — not permission,” Christian added. “Today’s action demonstrates an important first step in realizing a whole-of-government policy for accurate IDs.”
Wednesday’s announcement was the latest acknowledgment of the LGBTQ community by Blinken. In April, he authorized US diplomatic missions to fly the rainbow-colored Pride flag on the same pole as the American flag at embassies and consulates around the world. Last week, Blinken announced the State Department would fly the “Progress” flag — which incorporates a black, brown, light blue, pink and white chevron into the pride flag design — for the first time ever to mark Pride Month.
“We … value our continued engagement with the LGBTQI+ community, which will inform our approach and positions moving forward,” Blinken said. “With this action, I express our enduring commitment to the LGBTQI+ community today and moving forward.”
Where is the "Shomer Yisrael" Cryi'n Schumer? .....
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, host Jake Tapper confronted Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar about her comments equating the US and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban and asked her if she regretted her comments.
Omar replied: “I don’t. I think it’s really important to think back to the point that I was trying to make. Obviously, I was addressing Secretary of State Blinken.”
Four people have been arrested, including two facing manslaughter charges, and two others face arrest warrants in connection with a fatal fire at a Rockland County home for elderly residents.
The arrests were announced on Tuesday, June 29 by Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Walsh during a press conference following a three-month investigation into the Tuesday, March 23, fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley.
The fire, which caused the building to partially collapse, killed Spring Valley Volunteer Firefighter Jared Lloyd as he was rescuing residents and a 79-year-old resident of the home.
"Today is the culmination of a multi-agency investigation that left no stone unturned," Walsh said. "I informed the Lloyd family today of the arrests made today. While we can't bring Jared back, today is a step in the right direction."
Those arrested for their actions that allegedly caused the fire include Aaron Sommer and his son, Nathaniel Sommer, who were both charged with:
Two counts of manslaughter
Both men were arraigned and are being held at that the Rockland County Jail. Their next court appearance is scheduled for Friday, July 2.
Also arrested were Spring Valley building inspectors Wayne Ballard and Raymond Canario who were both charged with filing false reports to the state in connection with fire inspections. They were officially charged with offering a false instrument of filing and falsifying business records.They were processed and released.
Walsh said arrest warrants were also issued for Denise Kerr of New York City and Manuel Lema of Pomona. Kerr is facing a charge of reckless endangerment, and Lema faces charges of criminal impersonation and obstructing governmental administration.
Walsh, who declined to answer any questions regarding the role each of those arrested played in the fire and deaths as to "not taint a grand jury," said his goal was to hold those arrested responsible for the fire and their actions.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day said: "The fact that these arrests came from many different facets of this situation says a lot about how comprehensive and in-depth this investigation has been along with the different aspects of accountability and criminality we are dealing with." Walsh said the investigation is ongoing.
On a recent morning before communal prayers at a synagogue, Harry Rosenberg told a friend that his new beachfront condo in Florida offered a much-needed change of scenery after an awful year in which he lost his wife to cancer and both parents to COVID-19 in New York.
The home in Surfside was to be a gathering spot for visiting children and grandchildren, and his daughter and son-in-law were doing just that when they traveled to the condo last week from New Jersey to join him for the Sabbath.
Hours later, the building collapsed, and all three family members are missing in the rubble.
Their cascading tragedies — cancer, COVID-19 and now the flattening of the building — are reminders of the excruciating toll the collapse has taken on families after what was already a grief-filled year.
Elsewhere in the building, a woman also sought a fresh start in Florida after falling ill and recovering from COVID-19. Another man was visiting Florida to attend the funeral of an old friend who died after being infected, and a Colombian family was in Miami to get the vaccine.
“He told me, ‘It is the next chapter of my life.’ He went through hell. His parents passed away. His wife passed away,” said Steve Eisenberg, who saw the 52-year-old asset manager last week at the synagogue.
Rosenberg “came to Florida to breathe a little bit,¨ said Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar, founder of the Shul of Bal Harbour, the synagogue he joined.
When the building tumbled to the ground, Rosenberg's daughter, Malky Weisz, 27, and her husband, Benny Weisz, 32, had just arrived for their visit on the second floor of Champlain Towers South. So far, 12 bodies have been recovered. Almost 150 people are still unaccounted for.
Described as a family man and observant Jew, Rosenberg had launched a young adult center for mental healing at a hospital in Israel in memory of his late wife, Anna Rosenberg.
Before his wife died last summer of a brain tumor, he spent three years taking care of her, a close friend said.
“He put his life on hold,” said Maurice Wachsmann, a friend of Rosenberg's for more than 30 years.
Months after her death came more heartache. His father died of COVID-19 in January, and weeks later his mother died of the same.
“It was extremely difficult," Wachsmann said. “He did everything for his parents. Family first, before everything."
Rosenberg decided to move to Florida, first renting smaller apartments and finally buying last month the larger condo in Surfside, north of Miami Beach.
Last week, Rosenberg traveled to New York for the baby-naming ceremony of his second grandchild and rushed back to Miami to prepare for his daughter and son-in-law's visit. She works as an auditor at a branch of the Roth & Co accounting firm in Farmington, New Jersey. Her Austrian-born husband works in finance.
In his short time in Florida, he was already known by people in the community. Fellow members of the synagogue and his family are now anxiously awaiting any news from the scene. In the pile of rubble, family and friends have spotted one remnant of his life at Surfside from afar: a white couch.
Inside was the headstone of Elvis Presley’s mother, Gladys, which had been stored in the Graceland archives along with 1.5 million other items since 1977. And on the upper left side of the long-unseen marker — designed by Elvis himself — is a Star of David.
Yes, the King of Rock and Roll had Jewish roots.
The headstone, which was taken from storage only in 2018, is now on display at the sprawling complex in Memphis where Elvis lived from 1957 until his untimely death 20 years later at the age of 42. It sits in Graceland’s Meditation Garden, just outside the mansion and a few feet from Elvis’ own grave.
On Monday, 24 Miami apartment buildings, including two owned by Miami-Dade county, were put on a list for serious structural violations after being flagged during an emergency audit.
The two dozen buildings had not gone through a mandated 40-year recertification process, reported the Miami Herald, citing county records.
The audit took place two days after the 12-story Champlain Towers South building in Surfside collapsed. The back portion of the tower containing 136 condo unit caved in suddenly early Thursday morning, leaving little but a 30-foot high mountain of rubble. The building had been in the middle of its own 40-year recertification process when the disaster occurred.
Two Miami-Dade county owned buildings made the list. The 88-unit Little River Plaza and Ward Tower 1 were built in the 1970s and had violated repair orders.
Local leaders cited a lack of federal funding for the lack of work on the buildings.
The Washington Examiner quoted Michael Liu, Miami-Dade housing director, who said that the county has a regular $10 million annual shortfall and was forced to make difficult choices “based on severity and threats to health and safety.”
Champlain Towers South was reportedly behind in repairs in several key areas, needing $630,000 in electrical repairs, $254,000 in structural repairs, $3.8 million in garage and pool deck upgrades, and $3.2 million in building facade work, according to documents released by the city of Surfside.
US President Joe Biden will visit the site of the apartment building collapse in southern Florida later this week, the White House announced on Tuesday, according to AFP.
"On Thursday, July 1, the president and the first lady will travel to Surfside, Florida," the Biden administration said in a statement, adding that details for the trip would be provided later.
The 12-story oceanfront condominium in Surfside, a neighborhood near Miami, collapsed in the early hours of Thursday last week, with the official death toll of 11 expected to rise as hope dwindles for 150 people still unaccounted for.
An engineer who three years ago examined the residential building that collapsed found that the complex was suffering from "major structural damage."
The report noted damage to the concrete slabs under the pool and cracks and significant disintegration of the columns, beams and walls of the underground parking garage in the 13-story building.
The damage to the building, which was erected 40 years ago and went through a re-approval process, was apparently caused by prolonged exposure to the salty air of Florida's south coast.
On Friday, reports emerged that a researcher's 2020 paper detailed evidence that the building had shown signs that it had been sinking since the 1990s.
Police in Kuwait have arrested a resident - an Egyptian man - for posting a video online in which he rants about bad weather and dust storms, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
Kuwait's Ministry of Interior said Sunday the person behind the “offensive” video was arrested and referred to authorities, which would “take the necessary legal action against him.”
In a dashboard camera video posted on the social media app TikTok, the man can be heard complaining about the blinding sandstorm that has engulfed Kuwait for the past few days.
“I'm inside a dust storm right now, I literally can't see anything in front of me,” the man is heard saying, showing the dust coating the highway like a thick fog.
“Fine, Kuwait, fine,” he adds, with an expletive in Arabic. The clip went viral on Twitter, racking up tens of thousands of views.
The arrest of the man underscored the country's restrictions on expression and drew criticism on social media Monday over his detention, according to AP.
Kuwait stands out for its outspoken parliament and relatively vibrant civic life but authorities routinely use the cybercrime law to police criticism and prosecute dissidents.
In 2016, a Kuwait University professor was charged with "blasphemy" after stating that the Kuwaiti constitution holds legal dominance over the Koran.
In 2013, individuals in Kuwait were accused of offending the emir, with a former MP being handed a jail term for insulting the Gulf state's ruler.
Many of Twitter’s cryptocurrency zealots are often notorious trolls, but one particular thought leader stands out from the rest. He happens to be a rabbi.
“Twitter people either use it to scream at each other and not be nice, which I don’t like,” says micro-influencer Rabbi Michael Caras, also known as @thebitcoinrabbi. ”I enjoy connecting with my two communities through Twitter, both Jewish Twitter and Bitcoin Twitter.”
Caras, a rabbi associated with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement, is fascinated by the way that Bitcoin, both the network and the asset, relates to halacha (Jewish law). And since he’s quite vocal about it online, Caras says that strangers slide into his Twitter messages each week to ask for advice and spiritual guidance on the topic.
Before serving as a public bridge between the two worlds, he studied at Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim in Israel and now teaches both Judaism and technology classes at Maimonides Hebrew Day School in New York. Caras has been interested in Bitcoin since 2017, and in 2019 he published a children’s book about it that has sold more than 10,000 copies.
The book, a secular introduction to basic economics for kids, tells a tale of children learning about how to use Bitcoin as money by running a lemonade stand in a town called Bitville.
I'm sure Floridians are shaking in their boots....
Florida will never recover https://t.co/uUEbZJqbWT
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 29, 2021
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An Iowa man was arrested over the weekend for allegedly threatening to blow up a McDonald’s because workers forgot to add dipping sauce to his order, a report said.
Robert Golwitzer Jr., 42, is accused of calling in the explosive threat early Saturday night after he ordered chicken McNuggets from the fast-foot restaurant in Ankeny, police told WHO 13.
In addition to the bomb threat, Golwitzer also allegedly said over the phone that he would punch a worker, the report said.
Police called up Golwitzer and he allegedly admitted over the phone — and later at the precinct — to making the threats.
He is charged with false report of explosive or incendiary device.
Golwitzer was jailed Saturday and was out on bond by Sunday.
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Israel's Polaris Solutions, a survival product manufacturer, has unveiled a redesigned camouflage net that claims to make soldiers virtually 'undetectable.'
Developed in partnership with Israel's Ministry of Defense (MoD), the Kit 300 sheet is made of thermal visual concealment (TVC) material that combines microfibers, metals and polymers to make soldiers harder to see with the human eye and thermal cameras.
The sheet weighs just 1.1 pounds, allowing soldiers to easily roll it up and carry it while trekking through dangerous war zones.
Soldiers wrap it around themselves when on the move and join their sheets together to build a barrier that resembles rock when they set up a position.
'Someone staring at them with binoculars from afar will not see soldiers,' Gal Harari, the head of the detectors and imaging technology branch of the MoD's research and development unit, said in a statement.
The Kit 300 aims to reinvent the traditional camouflage gear that has gone nearly unchanged.
Camouflage nets haven't changed too much in the past 50 years,' Yonatan Pinkas, director of marketing at Polaris Solutions, told The Media Line. 'We wanted to bring in a new type of material,' he added. 'So TVC was born.'
The Kit 300 is double sided, each with its own colorization to blend into the battlefield.
One side is to be used when in dense vegetation and the other is designed for more desert-like areas.
However, the company will customize patterns and coloring based on need.
The Kit 300 is also waterproof and can provide military personnel with shelter. that can stand like a small tent.
Although the material is lightweight, it is sturdy enough to mold into three-dimensional shapes and can be used as a stretcher to carry wounded soldiers.
Pinkas told The Media Line Kit 300 is capable of carrying up to 500 pounds, can be used as a splint and a hypothermia blanket.
The inspiration for Kit 200 came during the Second Lebanon War in 2016, while Picciotto was in a special Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit.
He saw a desperate need for better ground cover for soldiers, who were exposed to thermal cameras and night-vision equipment.
'You have to be better than the enemy and we understood that there were big gaps in the survivability part,' Picciotto recalled.
'Our product is being tested by several units, which I can't name, and we have some joint operations there.'
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Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines may provide lifetime protection against COVID-19, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that people who received either of the two-dose shots, which use new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, had strong and 'persistent' immune responses.
What's more, the vaccines produced high levels of neutralizing antibodies against two variants of the virus.
This could mean that Pfizer and Moderna recipients could have long-lasting immunity - for years or potentially the rest of their lives - and may not even need boosters, reported first by The New York Times.
'It's a good sign for how durable our immunity is from this vaccine,' lead author Dr Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St Louis told the newspaper
For the study, published on Monday in the journal Nature, the team recruited 14 people who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Among them, eight people had previously has been infected with COVID-19.
Researchers looked at lymph nodes, which produce a type of immune system cell known as a memory B cell.
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Donald Trump won't be personally charged in the Manhattan district attorney's case against the former president's business organization when the first indictment comes down, his attorney claimed.
Trump, in a lengthy and rambling statement issued on Monday, called the DA's investigation 'a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt of all time' and claimed prosecutors 'failed' to find a crime even as 'millions of dollars of taxpayer funds wasted.'
His words came as an indictment against the business that made his fame and fortune, The Trump Organization, grows closer.
Ronald Fischetti, a New York attorney who represents Trump, told Politico that, at a meeting with Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance on Monday, he was told the DA's office will not bring charges against Trump himself when the first indictment arrives, which could be as soon as this week.
'They just said, 'When this indictment comes down, he won't be charged. Our investigation is ongoing,' he said.
Trump railed against the prosecution in his response.
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Democrat Rep. Cori Bush will introduce a bill to replace police officers with "community-led first responders" as crime surges across the nation. https://t.co/1EHSSuA1P7
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 28, 2021
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British white guy has surgery to become Korean. He “identifies” as Korean so he figured he needed to get his eyes fixed. Transgenderism seems now to have inspired transethnicity. https://t.co/WnaSZACC6r
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) June 28, 2021
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What better way than going to illegal hafganas and wrestle with the mishtara! Protest organizers are now looking for different causes to protest to keep the bored Yeshiva Boys busy..
What's interesting about this hafgana is, that they are protesting construction in Gush Etzion.. none of them live there and never ever visit, but a hafgana is a hafgana....
There is construction in every part of Israel, and being that Israel is an ancient country, wherever you stick a shovel you will find bone fragments ...
Legitimate rabbanim concluded years ago that the majority of the bones are gentile..and since we must continue to build, they organized a committee that inspect construction sites, and when they suspect that the bones are Jewish, they collect the bones to inter them in a different location..
in fact the Satmar Bais Medrish in Meah Shearim is sitting on a site that was considered a Jewish burial site for many years, and when I visited Israel in 1968, that site was being protested by R' Amram Blau founder of the Neturi Karta ....when I returned in 1975, Lo and Behold, the Satmar Bais Medrish was built on that very site..
What happened.. what changed?
Nothing changed, Satmar managed to pay off the Asra Kadisha to look the other way ...
Just three years ago there were massive protests in Beit Shemesh when a Chassidishe developer began to build the "Guloivntziz Houses" . The Asra Kedisha protested and said that the site was a Jewish Bais Hachayim... the developer laughed them in the face and refused to pay a "grush" to the Asra Mafiosi ..Well now hundreds of Chareidim live in the "Guloivntziz projects" on top of the "Jewish Bais Hachyim"
To make their protest legitimate, they are shlepping the very old Gaaved and the even older R' Yaakov Meir Shechter to the protest which will take place at Kikar HaShabbos in Yerushalyim!
My guess is that both the Gaaved and R Shechter have no clue to why they are going but a day out is a day out..
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