Video of a microchip reader finding a chip in a vaccinated woman’s arm was posted as a joke

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/01/instagram-posts/video-microchip-reader-finding-chip-vaccinated-wom/

Video of a microchip reader finding a chip in a vaccinated woman’s arm was posted as a joke.

Jewish leaders in Israel and abroad slam Ben & Jerry's Judea and Samaria boycott

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310177

 Israel's Minister of the Interior, Yamina's MK Ayelet Shaked slammed the ice cream chain via a Twitter post, writing: "Your ice cream doesn't sit well with us anyway," and adding, "We'll be just fine without you."

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid responded to the move saying: "Ben & Jerry's decision is a shameful surrender to anti-Semitism, BDS, to all that is evil in the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse. We will not allow them to silence us."

 Spokeswoman of Samaria Regional Councilman, Yossi Dagan, Esther Silam Alush, quoted Dagan as saying: "Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria will continue to exist long after Ben & Jerry's has melted."

 Israel activist and former Democratic New York State Assemblyman from Brooklyn's Assembly district 48, Dov Hikind, accused the ice cream firm of hypocrisy, posting: "But Ben & Jerry's will still sell their product in unoccupied Palestinian Territory despite the fact that if you’re LGBTQ there’s no way you can survive a day in Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin or Gaza! Because 'consistency'"…

Ben & Jerry's to boycott West Bank settlements, east Jerusalem

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/ben-and-jerrys-to-end-sales-in-west-bank-674336

 Well-known ice cream company Ben & Jerry's announced on Monday its plan to boycott West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, by refusing to allow its products to be sold in those areas. 

"We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)," the company stated in a notice it posted on its website.

Israel's bus, train users lament lack of masks and enforcement

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1p0yxq0u

 Despite the surge in the number of COVID-19 cases around Israel and the subsequent reintroduction of the indoor mask mandate, the country's often overcrowded buses and trains are filled with people who are not wearing the protective face covering.

Outrage As A Business Model: How Ben Shapiro Is Using Facebook To Build An Empire

 https://www.npr.org/2021/07/19/1013793067/outrage-as-a-business-model-how-ben-shapiro-is-using-facebook-to-build-an-empire

 But The Daily Wire has turned anger into an art form and recycled content into a business model.

 Other conservative outlets such as The Blaze, Breitbart News and The Western Journal that publish aggregated and opinion content aimed at invoking outrage have also generally been more successful at generating engagement than legacy news outlets over the past year, according to NPR's analysis, which used data compiled by the media intelligence company NewsWhip.

1,679 Jews pray on Temple Mount during Tisha B'Av

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310095 

More than 1,600 Jewish visitors ascended the Temple Mount Sunday for prayers marking the Tisha B’Av fast day, drawing the ire of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and its political representatives in the Knesset.

According to the Bayadenu organization, which organized mass visits to the holy site, a total of 1,679 Jews visited the Temple Mount as of Sunday afternoon, a 42% increase over last year's Tisha B'Av fast.

The United Arab List, a coalition partner which represents the Southern Islamic Movement in Israel, condemned the Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount, warning Jewish worshippers on the holy site could cause Arab riots and ultimately spark a “religious war”.

Choni the circle maker

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honi_HaMe%27agel#Death

According to Josephus, in Antiquities of the Jews, Honi met his end in the context of conflict between the Hasmonean brothers Hyrcanus II, backed by the Pharisees and advised by Antipater the Idumaean, and Aristobulus II, backed by the Sadducees. Around 63 BC, Honi was captured by the followers of Hyrcanus besieging Jerusalem and was asked to pray for the demise of their opponents. Honi, however, prayed: "Lord of the universe, as the besieged and the besiegers both belong to Your people, I beseech You not to answer the evil prayers of either." After this, the followers of Hyrcanus stoned him to death.^[8]

The Babylonian Talmud records a different story of his death, as part of the aforementioned carob tree story. The Maharsha explains the discrepancy between the Talmud and Josephus by stating that Honi was "presumed" killed by Hyrcanus II's men, but in reality was put into a deep sleep or coma for 70 years, and only then died.^[5]

Taanis (23a) Ḥoni went home and said to the members of the household: Is the son of Ḥoni HaMe’aggel alive? They said to him: His son is no longer with us, but his son’s son is alive. He said to them: I am Ḥoni HaMe’aggel. They did not believe him. He went to the study hall, where he heard the Sages say about one scholar: His halakhot are as enlightening and as clear as in the years of Ḥoni HaMe’aggel, for when Ḥoni HaMe’aggel would enter the study hall he would resolve for the Sages any difficulty they had. Ḥoni said to them: I am he, but they did not believe him and did not pay him proper respect. Ḥoni became very upset, prayed for mercy, and died. Rava said: This explains the folk saying that people say: Either friendship or death, as one who has no friends is better off dead. 

Chidushei Agadot (Taanis 23a)

ולא עבדו ליה יקרא כדבעי כו'. גם שראו בו שהוא בעל תורה ונהירין ליה שמעתתיה כבשני דחוני המעגל מ"מ לא ראו בו שהיה בעל מעשים כחוני ולכך לא עבדי ליה יקרא כדבעי ואמר דבעי רחמו ומת כו' שלא הגיע עדיין זמנו למות דאותן ע' שנין שהיה ישן לא נחשב לו לכלום ובירושלמי מייתי עובדא דחוני המעגל שהיה בחורבן בית ראשון והיה ישן מחורבן בית ראשון ע' שנין עד שנבנה בית שני אבל זה המעשה דמתני' היה אח"כ זמן רב בזמן שמעון בן שטח וכתב בעל יפה מראה דשני חוני המעגל הוו וזה דמתני' הוא בר בריה הוה ע"ש ובספר יוחסין כתוב בשם יוסף בן גוריון שנהרג חוני המעגל מחוץ לירושלים במלחמות בני חשמונאי וזה מסכים עם תלמודנו לפי שנאבד מן העולם ע' שנה בשינה אמרו עליו שנהרג במלחמת האחים ולכך כשבא אפי' בר בריה לא האמין לו:

Knesset speaker flubs vote, killing coalition bill for rabbinical court reform

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-speaker-flubs-vote-killing-coalition-bill-for-rabbinical-court-reform/

The bill would have expanded the panel that chooses rabbinical judges to include more representatives from the government and more female representatives.

Who is most likely to develop severe COVID-19 even after a second jab?

 https://www.jpost.com/health-science/who-is-most-likely-to-develop-serious-covid-19-even-after-a-second-jab-673788

“Overall, we can say that the main thing is that these are not healthy people,” Brosh told The Jerusalem Post in an interview. “Almost all of them (96%) had comorbidities: heart disease, lung disease, renal disease, dementia, cancer, or other common ailments. So, people who get breakthrough infections and are admitted are sicker than a usual person.”

As Covid cases rise in Florida, Governor DeSantis digs at Fauci with merchandise

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/14/florida-ron-desantis-digs-fauci-merchandise-covid

Since Trump’s defeat by Biden, the Fauci-bashing baton has been passed to the Fox News star Tucker Carlson. The prime time host has taken a more menacing approach, accusing Fauci of lying about the origins of the coronavirus in a series of unsubstantiated rants.
 Now it’s DeSantis’s turn to jump on the bandwagon – and generate some cash to fund his 2022 re-election campaign. Since the start of the pandemic the Republican governor has positioned himself as the champion of freedom, standing up against no-fun health experts who insist on masks and social distancing.
Even as Covid was sweeping the US in early 2020, DeSantis refused to close Florida’s beaches. He shunned mask ordinances and removed all restrictions on businesses in May.
The timing of his new Fauci-bashing merchandise launch is unfortunate, given the state of his state. Though vaccination levels have risen in Florida, and infection rates fallen, Florida is grappling with a marked increase in new cases and hospitalisations as the highly contagious Delta variant kicks in.

The Myth of the White Suburb and “Suburban Invasion”

 https://nlihc.org/resource/myth-white-suburb-and-suburban-invasion

To appeal to suburban voters in late summer 2020, President Trump tweeted that “people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream” would “no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood.” The tweet referred to the president’s gutting of the Affirmatively Furthering, which required local governments to affirmatively address racial segregation as required by the 1968 Fair Housing Act. He continued, “Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!”

President Trump’s HUD Secretary Ben Carson concurred with President Trump’s desire to roll back fair housing enforcement at HUD. In an op-ed shortly after President Trump’s tweet, then Secretary Carson affirmed the president’s abhorrent rhetoric by stating that fair housing practices could lead suburbs to become dens of “crime and chaos,” suggesting that low-income people are inherently criminal. This type of comment has obvious racist elements, as a disproportionate number of low-income people in this country are Black or Hispanic. 

While President Trump’s and Secretary Carson’s words played to deplorable racist perceptions of people living in affordable housing, the vision of the suburbs they paint is also incorrect. The exclusive, white, middle-class vision of the suburbs is rapidly changing. Whites fled cities to move to outlying majority white middle-class enclaves in the mid-1900s, a phenomenon known as “white flight.” The federal government encouraged whites to move to suburbs by constructing federal highways and providing white families low-interest mortgages for homes in car-centric, less dense neighborhoods. Racist residential segregation policies, like redlining, housing discrimination, and racially restrictive covenants, limited opportunities for people of color to follow the same path.

MK Ibtisam Mara'ana: 'It's my security and it's my foreign affairs'

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309914

MK Ibtisam Mara'ana (Labor) has joined the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as an alternate member, sparking controversy.

"I don't understand the uproar," Mara'ana told News 12. "If a man had joined the Committee for Women's Issues no one would raise an eyebrow, or if a Jew had joined the Special Committee on Arab Society Affairs, no one would raise an eyebrow. But when an Arab joins the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, people raise eyebrows."

"I joined the Committee because it's my security, too, and it's my foreign affairs, too. My job on the Committee is first of all to be on guard and to say that violence and war no longer works. We are paying a price in blood, bereavement, and destruction. I am a person who believes that all avenues of negotiations must be pursued.

 

 When asked if she would want the IDF to win if it needed to engage in another Gaza war, Mara'ana refused to clearly condemn Hamas' attacks on Israeli civilians.

"I want there to be peace here," she claimed. "I say enough with the violence, the crime, and the wars. It's time to examine a different path. My stance is very clear: The paths of attack and violence, and wars, and people on both sides who lose their homes - this doesn't work."

Race in America 2019

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/ 

Black and white adults have widely different perceptions of how blacks are treated in America, but majorities of both groups say blacks are treated less fairly than whites by the criminal justice system (87% of blacks vs. 61% of whites) and in dealing with police (84% vs. 63%, respectively).

 When asked about specific situations they may have experienced because of their race or ethnicity, blacks are considerably more likely than whites, Hispanics or Asians to say that people have acted as if they were suspicious of them; people have acted as if they thought they weren’t smart; they have been treated unfairly by an employer in hiring, pay or promotion; or they have been unfairly stopped by police. Hispanics and Asians are more likely than whites to say each of these have happened to them.

 

4 Iranian nationals charged with alleged kidnapping plot of US journalist, court documents say

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/14/us/iranian-nationals-charged-kidnapping-journalist/index.html

The four were charged with conspiracies related to kidnapping, sanctions violations, bank and wire fraud, and money laundering, according to the indictment. They are based in Iran and remain at large, authorities said.

"As alleged, four of the defendants monitored and planned to kidnap a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin who has been critical of the regime's autocracy, and to forcibly take their intended victim to Iran, where the victim's fate would have been uncertain at best," US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss said in a news release Tuesday.