https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/13/brooklyn-eric-gonzalez-nechemya-weberman
Gonzalez’s position isn’t a totally new take.
On Andrew Cuomo’s last day in office as governor in 2021, Gonzalez asked him to commute Weberman’s sentence, arguing in part that the severe punishment “might deter other victims from coming forward and witnesses from participating in a process that could result in such an excessively harsh outcome.”
A hateful mob of anti-Israel protesters descended on a prominent New York City synagogue Wednesday night, chanting “Globalize the intifada” and sinisterly urging the “resistance” to “take another settler out.”
Some 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and heckled Jews attending an event by Nefesh B’nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel, according to the Times of Israel.
“It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events,” one protest leader told the crowd.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2p2dz9zk2o
President Donald Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of "seditious behaviour, punishable by death", after they released a video urging US service members to refuse unlawful commands.
The six lawmakers, all of whom have served in the military or intelligence community, called Trump's remarks dangerous and said they amounted to threats against elected officials.
Sen Kelly, who served in the Navy and is a former astronaut, says: "Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders."
"No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution," the lawmakers say in the video.
"This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens," it says. "Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats coming to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad but from right here at home."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/20/kennedy-rfk-jr-cdc-website-vaccines-autism
The Post reports that the change, which echoes the views of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump, was made without consulting career scientists at the agency responsible for vaccine safety. It also blatantly violates a pledge that Kennedy made to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who delivered the key vote for his confirmation, that the “CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.”
Kennedy and his allies might have the power to edit government websites, but they cannot erase the dozens of high-quality studies that have thoroughly shown that children who are vaccinated are no more likely to be diagnosed with autism than their unvaccinated peers. Nor can they deny the consequences of their anti-vaccine movement: This year, the United States recorded its highest number of measles cases in more than three decades thanks to epidemics in areas with low vaccination rates. This led to the deaths of two children and one adult, all unvaccinated
https://apnews.com/article/cdc-autism-vaccines-7b1890f626dd5921fafd00fdd1e6425a
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has been changed to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism, spurring outrage among a number of public health and autism experts.
The CDC “vaccine safety” webpage was updated Wednesday, saying “the statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”
The change is the latest move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to revisit — and foster uncertainty about — long-held scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.
“We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted, and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism,” the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1ljop3xzl
Mordechai Yomtov, a former teacher wanted for extradition to the US on child sex abuse charges, nabbed in capital's Tel Arza neigborhood; convicted in 2001 for assaulting boys aged 8 to 10, he fled to Israel with a fake passport in 2002 after violating parole
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/20/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-maga-georgia
In Greene’s Georgia congressional district, much of the MAGA base has her back against Trump, who has called her a “traitor.”
“We got Donald Trump trying to take care of the world,” said the chair, Jim Tully, pacing in front of the lectern. “Got Marjorie Taylor Greene trying to take care of the country.”
Greene’s recent tensions with Trump went far beyond the Epstein files. The congresswoman also suggested the Trump administration is too focused on foreign affairs, criticized aid to Argentina and assailed her party’s approach to health care in a slew of media appearances. Days after Trump drew MAGA backlash for saying that the U.S. needs foreign workers because it does not have enough “talented people” for specialized jobs, Greene said she would introduce a bill to end the H-1B visa program at the center of the controversy, saying, “I serve Americans only.”
But even some of Greene’s Republican critics say that her populist message has resonated in the district and that it will be difficult to oust her. Trump is also trying to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), another House Republican who has clashed with him.
President Trump’s defense of conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes is sparking backlash among Jewish conservatives who backed the president’s pro-Israel policies, creating another rift with a key group of supporters.
Fuentes was quick to tout Trump’s comments, thanking the president in a post on the social platform X.
“I’m going to say it. The GOP has a Nazi problem. And the more we pretend like we don’t, the worse it’s going to get. We do. Don’t tell me we don’t,” far-right activist Laura Loomer, who is Jewish and has the president’s ear, said Wednesday in a post on X.
Nearly one year since his return to the White House, Trump’s insistence that legal immigration is not only tolerable but an economic necessity continues to roil hardliners on the right, who are at odds with the business and tech interests that Trump has long aligned himself with.
Trump’s break with his base reflects his desire to increase investments in the tech and manufacturing sectors, which the president does not believe would be possible — in the short term — without foreign workers.
The president also has close ties to the tech industry, a top user of the H-1B program. During the last fiscal year, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google relied most on H-1B visas. Those companies have contributed handsomely to Trump efforts including his inaugural fund and the $300 million ballroom that will replace the White House East Wing.
“You saw the list … they’re all on there, and they all want their H-1B workers,” said a person close to the administration, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “So he’s hearing about this from all of those folks.”
There were no known meetings between the US and Hamas before Trump’s second term, when he dispatched an envoy to secretly meet with Hamas officials earlier this year to help secure the release of American-Israeli hostage soldier Edan Alexander.
Sources familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel at the time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s envoy Ron Dermer had fumed upon learning of the secret US-Hamas talks after the fact and leaked them to the press, contributing to their collapse in March. Witkoff and Kushner’s October 9 sit-down with the Hayya-led team was the next in-person meeting between the sides.
While Netanyahu publicly embraced the plan when it was unveiled in September at the White House, neither Israel nor Hamas has actually signed it. Instead, they agreed on October 9 to a different document that focused on the ceasefire, Israel’s initial pullback from Gaza, the hostage-prisoner swap and humanitarian aid provisions.
In a joint interview alongside Kushner last month, Witkoff said he had managed to connect with Hayya over their shared experience of losing sons.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-873987
Four children were injured following a roof collapse at a kindergarten in Beit Shemesh, Israel's Fire and Rescue Authority stated on Sunday.
Medical officials said several people received treatment at the site and were then evacuated to the hospital with minor injuries.
No life-threatening injuries were reported.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-874434
The Degel HaTorah faction of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) United Torah Judaism Party (UTJ) gave a “green light” on Wednesday from its spiritual leaders to advance the controversial haredi conscription bill.
Advancements on the bill had previously been halted in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC), chaired by MK Boaz Bismuth (Likud), since the opening of the winter session in October.
The green light was given after the Lithuanian-haredi Degel HaTorah’s two spiritual leaders, Rabbi Dov Lando and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, passed on the approval instructions to its MKs.
As the case reemerged, court filings obtained by The Times of Israel showed that last December, an array of Jewish leaders signed a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul seeking a commutation for Weberman’s immediate release. The previously unreported letter was submitted to the court as a reference for resentencing in June, along with other letters of support from Weberman’s family and supporters.
The letter called Weberman’s sentence “absorbently excessive,” saying he had not incurred any infractions during his 12 years in prison and that his sentence was “much greater by comparison to others held guilty of a similar crime.”
The letter was signed by 13 prominent rabbis representing an array of Hasidic groups in New York City and a representative of Yeshiva University. The university did not reply to a request for comment.
