Seeing Tzadikim and Gedolim

 Rav Eibschitz (Yaaras HaDevash 01:12) Meeting Sages – There are two benefits. The first is receiving beracha. Shefa and Tov  merely by seeing him. While seeing an evil person causes spiritual damage, seeing a saintly man is beneficial since the light of the Shechina is on him. This is indicated by the gemora (Eiruvin 13b) which notes that those scholars who benefitted from seeing Rabbi Meir’s back would have benefitted even more if they saw his front . 

Rav Eibschitz (Yaaras HaDevash 01:12) And there is another benefit to meeting the tzaddik and Sage , as they say, the sight of a tzaddik is a blessing, because while from some people who have an Evil Eye like Bilaam rays of light that come out of their eyes are harmful, so the rays of light that come out of a tzaddik is a blessing and their seeing us is good. Therefore there are two benefits from the tzadik -  one comes from seeing him and the other comes that he sees us. 

Eiruvin (13b) Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi  declared: The only reason why I am keener than my colleagues is that I saw the back of R. Meir, but had I had a front view of him I would have been keener still, for it is written in Scripture: But thine eyes shall see thy teacher

The Wall Street Journal’s story about Biden’s mental acuity suffers from glaring problems

 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/06/media/wall-street-journal-biden-mental-acuity/index.html

The New York Times’ Katie Rogers and Annie Karni even reported last year that McCarthy had praised Biden’s mental faculties when speaking amongst confidantes — a starkly different tune than the one he is now singing in public. “Privately, Mr. McCarthy has told allies that he has found Mr. Biden to be mentally sharp in meetings,” Rogers and Karni reported in March 2023. Rogers re-upped that reporting on Wednesday in the wake of The Journal’s story.

Piers Morgan -Objective observer of Trump?!

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Morgan

Morgan was the winner of the U.S. celebrity version of The Apprentice in 2008. He was eventually the overall winner, being named Celebrity Apprentice by host Donald Trump on 27 March, ahead of fellow finalist, American country music star Trace Adkins,[119][120] and having raised substantially more cash than all the other contestants combined.[121] Morgan was called "ruthless, arrogant, evil and obnoxious" by Trump in the final.[122] Morgan stated he personally would not vote for Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election (though as a permanent resident of the United States, not a citizen, he is not qualified to vote).[123] He predicted Trump's election as President of the United States and described himself as a close friend.[124] 

People worldwide are disconnecting from the news

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/391668

And how much do people believe the news itself? 40 percent of the survey participants said that "they believe the news," a figure that remained stable in comparison to the previous study. The survey included 94,943 people from 47 countries around the world and was held in January and February 2024.

What research actually says about social media and kids’ health

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/17/social-media-mental-health-research-surgeon-general/

There is no clear scientific evidence that social media is causing mental health issues among young people. Public health officials are pushing for regulation anyway.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy on Monday called for social media platforms to add warnings reminding parents and kids that the apps might not be safe, citing rising rates of mental health problems among children and teens. It follows an advisory Murthy issued last year about the health threat of loneliness for Americans, in which he named social media as a potential driver of social isolation.

White House slams 'bad faith' viral clips of Biden

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clee77n5n78o

The newspaper last week reported that the president had "started to wander off during a skydiving demonstration" in Italy on Thursday, with other G7 leaders "needing to pull him back to focus".

But British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Telegraph the US president was simply "being very polite and went over to talk to all of [the parachute jumpers] individually", before Italian PM Giorgia Meloni told him they would all line up for handshakes.

Magician Uri Geller: 'I helped stop the Iranian UAV attack'

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/391681

Geller has in the past taken credit for other major events in the Middle East, including freeing a cargo ship that blocked the Suez Canal in 2021.

Donald Trump: Family Medical History

 https://doctorzebra.com/prez/z_x45_trump_family_medical_history_g.htm

Trump's father died with Alzheimer disease at age 93. His mental status was in decline for at least seven years before then. Mary Trump describes him as "a high-functioning sociopath" 1a.

Shadowing Trump’s attacks on mental fitness — his own father’s dementia

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/20/donald-trump-dementia-father-fred-alzheimers-biden/

Ziad Nasreddine, the neurologist who created the test, said in an interview that if an individual in their 70s had not taken the Montreal test since 2018, the results would not be valid to cite today.

Trump’s long fixation on mental fitness followed years of watching his father’s worsening dementia — a formative period that some associates said has been a defining and little-mentioned factor in his life, and which left him with an abiding concern that he might someday inherit the condition. While much remains unknown about Alzheimer’s, experts say there is an increased risk of inheriting a gene associated with the disease from a parent.

Biden knows ‘exactly what he is doing’ and will likely win election, says German chancellor

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/15/biden-scholz-g7-00163585

 In an interview with Axel Springer media outlets on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy on Saturday, Scholz made assurances that Biden “knows exactly what he is doing,” and can provide critical leadership as the group of global leaders faces a complex web of issues, including multiple conflagrations and hotly-contested elections that threaten to upend the international status quo. POLITICO is owned by Axel Springer.

Biden allies say president is ‘sharp,’ special counsel criticism is ‘B.S.’

 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/mayorkas-defends-biden-sharp-intensely-probing-detail-oriented-rcna138192

“I’ve been knowing him for 30 years. I have met with him personally. I’ve met with him with two people, five people, 10 people. I have been on trips with him, crisscrossing the country, rebuilding America based on this incredible infrastructure bill that was passed. And I’m telling you, this guy is tough. He’s smart. He’s on his game,” Landrieu said.

Michael Douglas defends Biden mental acuity: ‘Sharp as a tack’

 https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/4611047-michael-douglas-biden-trump-2024-november/

Douglas said “everybody” in Biden’s orbit who he’s consulted with says the president is “fine.”

“His entire Cabinet, including his vice president, everybody that’s in his Cabinet would be more than happy to work with him again on a next term,” Douglas said, before knocking Trump, without mentioning the former president by name.

Haredi leader on army draft: ‘You don’t want us and you don’t need us’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/haredi-leader-on-army-draft-you-dont-want-us-and-you-dont-need-us

/Citing a tweet by former politician Haim Ramon, Goldknopf claimed that “four thousand Haredim asked to enlist since the beginning of the year — though that’s not good to hear — but you ruled out 3,300 of them. You don’t want us and you don’t need us. Why do you abuse us?” (Ramon in his tweet cited data from the Knesset, though he later acknowledged that some individuals had challenged the data as problematic.)

Are animals conscious? How new research is changing minds

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo

"The field is replete with weasel words and unfortunately one of those is consciousness," says Prof Stevan Harnad of Quebec University.

"It is a word that is confidently used by a lot of people, but they all mean something different, and so it is not clear at all what it means."

He says that a better, less weasley, word is "sentience", which is more tightly defined as the capacity to feel. "To feel everything, a pinch, to see the colour red, to feel tired and hungry, those are all things you feel," says Prof Harnad.