French Bus Driver Beaten to Death After Asking Passengers to Wear Face Masks

https://time.com/5866326/french-bus-driver-beaten-masks/

The wife of a French bus driver who was beaten to death after he asked four passengers to wear face masks aboard his vehicle called Saturday for “exemplary punishment” for his killers.

The assault on Philippe Monguillot has scandalized France. President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday dispatched the interior minister to meet the driver’s widow after his death was announced Friday. He had been hospitalized in critical condition after the July 5 attack.

 

Coronavirus unlikely to be spread by children, research suggests

https://www.pe.com/2020/07/10/coronavirus-why-kids-arent-the-germbags-and-grownups-are/

For months, we’ve kept children carefully isolated, pleading with them to behave, wear masks, wipe their boogers and not hug Gram and Grandpa. We’ve assumed this new virus acts just like the flu and common cold — so classrooms full of kids would create one giant cootie colony.

But a growing body of research suggests young children aren’t responsible for most viral transmission. Adults are.

Based on these findings, school-based transmission could be a manageable problem, particularly for  elementary school aged-childrenwho appear to be at the lowest risk of infection, according to a recent commentary in the journal Pediatrics.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump team's false comfort on schools, virus

https://www.startribune.com/ap-fact-check-trump-team-s-false-comfort-on-schools-virus/571737892/

President Donald Trump's aides are misrepresenting the record on kids and the coronavirus as they push for schools to reopen.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday inaccurately characterized what the chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said on the matter. A day earlier, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also was wrong in stating that the research shows there is no danger "in any way" if kids are in school.

No such conclusion has been reached.

 

McENANY: "Just last week you heard Dr. Redfield say that children are not spreading this." — Monday on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends"

THE FACTS: No, Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, did not say that. He said officials don't have evidence that children are "driving" infections at this point. But they have not ruled out that children spread the virus to adults.

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, said last week the government doesn't have enough data to show whether and to what degree kids can infect others.

The bulk of data has been collected from adults and particularly from those who were sick, leaving questions about children still unanswered, Birx said. She said children under 10 are the least tested age group.

The officials did not reach a conclusion that "children are not spreading this." Nor does the evidence prove that they are.

 The government has counted tens of thousands of children who have been infected with the virus and in some cases hospitalized. Overall, public health officials believe the virus is less dangerous to children than adults.

Florida Breaks Daily Record Sunday With 15,300 New Cases | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Lockdowns go into effect in neighborhoods of 5 cities, as virus hits new high

https://www.timesofisrael.com/lockdowns-go-into-effect-in-neighborhoods-of-5-cities-as-virus-surges/

Lockdowns came into effect at 1 p.m. on Friday in neighborhoods in five towns and cities hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, a day after cabinet ministers approved the measure as the number of new cases in Israel continued to surge.

Parts of Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Lod, Ramle and Kiryat Malachi became “restricted zones” for seven days. The restrictions will be lifted at 8 a.m. on July 17.

In Jerusalem, the neighborhoods of Romema, Kiryat Sanz and Matersdorf — all majority ultra-Orthodox areas — have been closed; in Beit Shemesh, the areas of Nahala and K’ne Habosem; in Lod, Ganei Ya’ar and Sach; in Ramle, Amidar Beilav; and in Kiryat Malachi, the Rotner area and Chabad neighborhood.

Other parts of Lod will be closed for five days.

Florida breaks U.S. record for new coronavirus cases in a single day

Governor Ron DeSantis blasts reporters over fearmongering criticism of his state while VP Pence

An Indefensible Commutation

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/an-indefensible-commutation/

 Trump has commuted the sentence of Roger Stone. The timing, late on Friday, suggests internal embarrassment over the move, and we wish there were more.

The commutation is a move fully within the president’s powers and in keeping with the long-established pattern of presidents’ pardoning or commuting the sentences of associates caught up in special-counsel probes, although usually the associates aren’t as sleazy as Stone. We’re a long way from George H. W. Bush’s pardoning Cap Weinberger, the great Reagan-era defense official, who had been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Lawrence Walsh investigation.

No one would think of letting Roger Stone anywhere near any serious responsibility, and even the Trump campaign in 2016 had the sense to keep him at arm’s length.

 

There is no doubt, though, that Stone was guilty of perjury and a laughably ham-handed attempt at witness tampering. He was justly convicted of these charges and deserved to go to jail; in our system of justice, self-parody is no defense.

Attorney General Bill Barr reportedly opposed the commutation and was right to do so. The act of clemency is made worse by the fact that Stone repeatedly argued that he was owed it for his loyalty to the president.

FULL Morning Joe 7/13/20 [7AM] | MSNBC News Morning Joe July 13, 2020

✡ Who's REALLY Protecting Israel? [Scientific Study]

Terms of Michael Cohen's return to prison under scrutiny

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/michael-cohen-prison-paperwork-dispute/index.html

After spending the past several weeks on New York's tony Upper East Side, Michael Cohen has found himself back in federal prison after a dispute with the government over what his lawyers say were restrictions in paperwork designed to prevent him from finishing a book about the president.

The form in question, a two-page document titled "Federal Location Monitoring Program Participant Agreement," had called for Cohen to abstain from communicating with members of the media — a provision that he had balked at given the pending release of his tell-all book, and one which his legal team has claimed is unusual.

Defense attorneys and legal experts that CNN spoke with Friday said that the form appeared to be tailored to Cohen, the flamboyant former fixer to President Donald Trump, whose affinity for the press is well known. Some called it unfair.

 

A spokesman for the Administrative Office of the US Courts, the judiciary agency that oversees the federal probation system, declined to comment on the specifics of Cohen's case, but added that no standard probation forms include language related to media contacts.

Shlach: Repairing the Sin of the Spies

http://www.ravkooktorah.org/SHLACH_65.htm

Rav Kook wrote that even today we still suffer the consequences of this catastrophic error. The root cause for the exiles and humiliations of the Jewish people, throughout the generations, is due to our failure to correct the sin of the spies.

 

To repair this national failure, a teshuvat hamishkal is needed, a penance commensurate with the sin which will “balance the scales.” The spies defamed the Land of Israel, as it says, “They despised the desirable land” (Psalms 106:24). We must do the opposite and show our unwavering love for the Land.

The Sin of the "Spies"

https://www.etzion.org.il/en/sin-spies

According to the Ramban (13:1 and 13:27) and the Akeidat Yitzchak (77) it appears that the sin of the spies lay in overstepping the bounds of their authority, in their transition from being faithful reporters – which was the mandate given to them - to becoming advisors with their own independent views and evaluations – which lay outside the bounds of their mission. Indeed, such a distinction exists in modern intelligence bodies, where the function of the information gatherers is to report on what they have seen or heard, and that of the intelligence evaluators is to evaluate the situation or even to provide advice, on the basis of that information. In the transition from one function to the other they did indeed overstep their authority, but ultimately this was no more than a formal sin. Is this really what constituted the true sin of the spies?

Is Aliyah a Mitzvah?

https://www.ou.org/blog/is-aliyah-a-mitzvah/

 

Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l (Igros Moshe E.H. 102) discusses whether there is a mitzvah to make aliyah and why many rabbanim have lived in the Diaspora. He writes that even according to the opinion of the Ramban, that there exists a biblical obligation, the nature of this obligation is different than many other mitzvos. He feels that this mitzvah is “kiyumis” not “chiyuvis”.

To fully appreciate this distinction, it is necessary to offer an introduction regarding different types of mitzvos. There exist two types of mitzvos: 1) “kiyumis”- A mitzvah that is not obligatory, rather if one fulfills this mitzvah one receives reward (ex. Eating in the Succah following the first night. For the following meals one does not need to eat in the Succah, if one were to choose, one can refrain from eating bread and the like and would not be in violation of any prohibition. However, if one chooses to eat bread then one must eat it in the succah. Thus this mitzvah is “optional”.) 2) “Chiyuvis”- A mitzvah that one must fulfill and is obligatory in nature. (ex. Wearing Tefillin. One must wear tefillin every day and if one neglects this mitzvah and does not wear tefillin has done something wrong. Thus this mitzvah is “obligatory”.)

Now we can understand the ruling of Rav Moshe. He explains that although there is a mitzvah to live in Israel, however, this mitzvah is “optional”. Meaning that one is not obligated to move to Israel, rather, if one lives in Israel he fulfills a mitzvah. Rav Moshe continues, that because there is no prohibition of living outside of Israel it might be preferable to do so for the reasons given by Rav Chaim Kohen (namely that there are many mitzvos and prohibitions that apply specifically to the Land of Israel and it is difficult to fulfill all of those obligations.)

Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt”l agreed with the premise of Rav Moshe Feinstein. He also felt that the mitzvah to live in Israel is a mitzvah “kiyumis” and not “chiyuvis” (oral ruling cited by Rav Hershel Schachter shlit”a sefer Peninei Harav).