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October 19, 2021 at 10:40 am
A friend of mine, a mother of several children, wrote me as follows:"When it comes to making sandwiches, washing dishes, and helping our kids with their homework, we really have no choice. Our choice is how we do these things. With joy or with frustration, with bitterness or with enthusiasm. Yet if it is already settled that we have humdrum tasks to complete today - why not resolve to do them wholeheartedly? We need only add positive thoughts to these tasks, remembering we are doing them for those we love.From Avraham Avinu we learned to do routine daily tasks with alacrity and with joy and with excitement. The parasha begins with the famous story of Avraham's hospitality. The commentators ask us to focus on the details: 'And Avraham hastened to the tent to Sarah, and he said, "H...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:54 pm
Baltimore, MD – Oct. 18, 2021 - BJL wishes a hearty Mazel Tov to Yoni Sonnenschein and Estee Billig on their engagement.
Mazel Tov to Rabbi Gershon & Fran Sonnenschein and Aharon & Debbie Billig
יה"ר שיזכו לבנות בית נאמן בישראל. אמן!
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October 18, 2021 at 10:49 pm
Almost one in three charedi Israelis has been infected with the coronavirus, more than double the national average, according to a new study.
The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, a nonpartisan think tank, crunched Health Ministry statistics, and found that from the start of the pandemic until September 2021, 13.7 percent of the Israeli population has been confirmed COVID positive.
The figure for the charedi community, based on figures for the main population centers where charedim are a majority, is 31%.
The figure comes despite strong take-up of vaccines among charedim in recent months, and points to a “failure to control behavior” to fight the virus in charedi areas, according to Alex Weinreb, research director at the Taub Center.
This is shocking,” ...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:46 pm
The US economy is careening into another recession, two noted economists warn, as worries about the labor market and the coronavirus have worsened dramatically over the past two months.
The alarm bells are ringing as bad news piles up at the economy’s door: Prices on everyday goods are rising sharply as inflation is stuck at 30-year highs. Supply chains snarled during the pandemic mean some store shelves are bare. A labor shortage in some industries has left jobs undone. And the ultra-contagious Delta variant has put a damper on the rush back to the office.
“We are entering a recession — we are on the precipice of a recession,” one of the study’s authors, David Blanchflower, told The Post. “It’s always good to have an early warning.&rdq...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:43 pm
A diver found a 900-year-old sword dating back to the Crusader period off the Carmel beach in the north of the country, along with various other artifacts, the Israel Antiques Authority said Monday.
Atlit resident Shlomi Katzin turned over the weapon to the Israel Antiques Authority and was awarded a certificate of good citizenship.
Katzin found the sword during a Saturday dive in an area off the coast where waves and undercurrents had apparently shifted sand, revealing the item, the IAI said in a statement. Spying stone and metal anchors, Katzin also noticed the sword, which was encrusted with marine life.
It has a one-meter blade and a 30-centimeter hilt.
“The sword, which has been preserved in perfect condition, is a beautiful and rare find and evidently belonged to a Crusader...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:41 pm
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock from his personal account on October 1, 2020, according to disclosure forms reviewed by the Prospect. Powell’s sale of shares from a Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund has not been previously reported. This sale occurred right before the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered a significant drop.
A Fed media relations spokesperson was not available for comment. We will report on any Fed statement on Powell’s trades.
Three other senior Fed officials have faced serious criticism for making stock trades during the pandemic. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren were compelled to take early retirements as a result of the disclosur...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:38 pm
Democrats are grappling with the increasingly dire political reality facing them in next year’s midterm elections as warning signs pile up for the party ahead of 2022.
Once hopeful that they could defy the typical midterm shellacking dealt to the party in power, a series of foreboding developments has rocked that sense of optimism. President Biden’s approval ratings are in free fall, his top legislative priorities have stalled and, just this week, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) announced that he would retire, making him the first senior House Democrat to bow out ahead of the midterms.
In conversations with The Hill in recent days, several Democratic strategists and operatives expressed a growing sense of pessimism about 2022. Each one said that the party’s rec...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:35 pm
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has reportedly laid down new red lines for the Democrats’ multitrillion-dollar reconciliation bill, this time making demands regarding the expanded child tax credit provision.
Axios reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter, that Manchin informed the White House that the child tax credit must have an “established work” requirement and a family income limit in the $60,000 range if Democrats want his vote for the package.
Those demands, Axios noted, would significantly weaken the child tax credit, which is one of President Biden’s key programs to assist working families. It would also bring down the price tag of the spending bill, which Manchin and fel...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:33 pm
The EPA on Monday released its strategy for addressing a type of cancer-linked chemicals called PFAS, including its plans to finish a rule to regulate certain types of PFAS in drinking water in 2023.
PFAS stands for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and these substances are a group of man-made chemicals that have been linked to health problems such as kidney and testicular cancer.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, exposure rates can be difficult to assess, but one 2015 study found PFAS to be in the blood of 97 percent of Americans.
The EPA’s overall strategy is focused on researching PFAS, restricting its release into the air, land and water and broadening cleanup efforts.
The agency’s drinking water limit pertains to certain types of...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:31 pm
In a recent letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, five members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee allege that the company’s top executives including founder Jeff Bezos misled or possibly lied to Congress about Amazon’s business practices.
In a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, five members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee including the committee’s chairman, Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and four members of the antitrust subcommittee, David Cicilline (D-RI), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Ken Buck (R-CO), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), claim that Amazon’s top executives including company founder Jeff Bezos either mislead Congress or lied about Amazon’s business practices.
The letter states that the committee is considering “whether a referral of this matter to the ...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:28 pm
Former President Donald Trump is suing the Democratic-led House select committee that’s investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and the National Archives, to try and stop documents related to the riot from being turned over to the panel.
“The Committee’s request amounts to nothing less than a vexatious, illegal fishing expedition openly endorsed by [President] Biden and designed to unconstitutionally investigate President Trump and his administration. Our laws do not permit such an impulsive, egregious action against a former President and his close advisors,” the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in district court in Washington, D.C., says.
Trump had urged former officials in his administration not to comply with subpoenas from the House panel, citing ...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:25 pm
Planeloads of underage migrants are being flown secretly into suburban New York in an effort by President Biden’s administration to quietly resettle them across the region, The Post has learned.
The charter flights originate in Texas, where the ongoing border crisis has overwhelmed local immigration officials, and have been underway since at least August, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Last week, The Post saw two planes land at the Westchester County Airport, where most of the passengers who got off appeared to be children and teens, with a small portion appearing to be men in their 20s.
Westchester County cops stood by as the passengers — whose flights arrived at 10:49 p.m. Wednesday and 9:52 p.m. Friday — got off and piled into buses.
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October 18, 2021 at 10:22 pm
First Lady Jill Biden will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming annual Yeshiva Beth Yehudah dinner at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center this Sunday.
The dinner will begin at 4:30 p.m.
The honoree will be Mary Teresa Barra, an American businesswoman who has been the chair and chief executive officer of General Motors since January 15, 2014. She is the first female CEO of a ‘Big Three’ automaker.
The evening’s guest speaker, Jill Biden, is the First Lady of the United States, a community college educator, and bestselling author. Dr. Biden also served as Second Lady of the United States from 2009–2017.
Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden was born on June 3, 1951, in Hammonton, New Jersey, to Bonny Jean Godfrey Jacobs and Donald Carl Jacobs. The oldest of five daughters...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:20 pm
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that Americans who think he is a “polarizing figure” were people who denied “reality.”
Anchor Chris Wallace asked, “When this pandemic started, it is fair to say you were generally regarded as the authority on infectious disease. As time has gone on, you have become a polarizing figure, and critics accuse you of sending mixed messages. There’s allegations that you helped fund dangerous research at the Wuhan lab. Two questions, why do you think you’ve become so controversial? And honestly, do you think there’s anything you have done that has contributed to that?”
Fauci said, “I can&rsqu...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:14 pm
President Joe Biden had pitched himself as the uniter in chief, but his failing to bring even his own party together to pass a budget has Democrats wanting him to be more aggressive than passive.
“The reality right now is that a lot of people are saying, ‘Where’s Joe Biden? This is his agenda, why isn’t he more involved in the negotiations?'” a House Democrat told CNN.
A failure to move big-ticket spending items is one thing, but even failing to agree on what the size and scope of the budget should be is leading some to question whether Biden can live up to his campaign promise to prove government can work.
“You don’t want to get to a point where we look so indecisive that it can’t be repaired with the package that’s g...
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October 18, 2021 at 10:14 pm
If ever a man missed his moment in history, it was Colin Powell.
Bill Clinton told me that he thought that Powell was the only person that could have defeated his bid for a second term in 1996. And, when Powell announced that he would not run, I turned to President Clinton and said “Congratulations, you’ve just been reelected.”
He waited a moment for it to sink in and then silently nodded.
Had Powell run and won, he would have personified what we all had hoped President Barack Obama would be: A non-racial healer who would have finally mended the scar of slavery and brought America together.
He would have focused on encouraging Black and minority upward mobility the same way he himself had made it: On the merits and by the book.
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October 18, 2021 at 10:12 pm
Baltimore City Councilman Isaac "Yitzy" Schleifer joined C4 and Bryan Nehman on Monday morning to talk about crime in Baltimore after Gov. Larry Hogan's "refund the police" comments on Oct. 15, while revealing his $150 million initiative to address crime. "When you say 'refund the police,' you're indicating they were defunded," Schleifer said speaking specifically on Baltimore. In Baltimore city, the numbers don't lie. There have been increases in the police department.
Schleifer said there are multiple problems in Baltimore that need to be addressed, in response to Hogan calling Baltimore a poster child for its failure to stop crime. He said he believes clearing cases is what matters most when it comes to crime in the city.
Shleifer also said he is "...
