https://www.5tjt.com/halachic-musings-lev-tahor-and-pidyon-shvuyim/
It is this author’s conclusion that there is no mitzvah or even inyan to help the leaders of Lev Tahor evade jail charges. This is also the opinion of one of the leading poskim in the New York area. May Hashem bring yeshuos and nechamos to Klal Yisrael.
https://mishpacha.com/aching-hearts/
During the four-and-a half-years since Mishpacha’s probing report on the mysterious Lev Tahor, the setting has changed and shocking accounts of mind control and abuse are emerging. Can an unlikely coalition of Guatemalan geirim and chassidish activists tip the balance and bring change to Lev Tahor?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/21/trump-musk-shutdown-demands-defeat/
After that, the accounts diverge. Multiple House Republican lawmakers said the president-elect mentioned eliminating the debt ceiling casually and in passing, and that he understood Johnson’s explanation that the proposal didn’t have the votes to pass. Hill Republicans broadly agreed that no one got the impression Trump was repeatedly and clearly demanding that they raise the debt ceiling before Christmas. His sudden red line Wednesday reverberated across the Capitol, shocking House and Senate Republicans
https://medicalhalacha.org/2021/01/21/preventive-medicine-and-disease-screening/
Predictive or presymptomatic diagnosis, whether for the purposes of assessing the risk of diseases or for early intervention, can play a critically important role in a patient’s chances of recovery or of avoiding disease entirely. Screening tests, such as mammograms or colonoscopies, tests that assess or predict the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, or genetic testing that can identify a predisposition to an ever-growing wide range of diseases, are all essential diagnostic tools. Does the Mitzva of “v’Nishmartem” obligate a person to undergo such testing or to follow the precepts of preventive medication in general?
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/21/politics/trump-mandate-washington-challenges/index.html
Trump has asserted his decisive November victory should clear any roadblocks standing in the way of his agenda. He has demanded fealty from fellow Republicans while often overstating the breadth of his win. Though he is the first Republican in a generation to win the popular vote, Trump ended up with less than 50% of the country behind him and his Electoral College margin was sizable but hardly historic.
Mike Johnson is still Speaker of the House, but this week Republicans have behaved as if the Speaker is another Johnson—as in Woody of the New York Jets. He’s the impulsive owner who, reports The Athletic, overrules his football people on a whim, consults his teenage sons for football insights, and looks for guidance from the internet. Result: perennial losing seasons.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-strikes-houthi-targets-in-yemen-takes-down-drones-over-red-sea/
The United States on Saturday said it struck targets in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, hours after a missile fired by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels struck and wounded people in the central Israel city of Tel Aviv.
The missile, which wounded 16 people, was the second such attack in two days.
Among the targets of US forces was a Houthi missile storage center and a “command-and-control facility,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
It said that it had conducted the strikes “to disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against US Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden.
Authorities in Guatemala rescued at least 160 children from a Jewish sect following allegations of abuse and human trafficking.
Police raided the premises of the sect called Lev Tahor in Oratorio city, 78km southeast of the capital Guatemala City, on Friday after receiving complaints of widespread abuse of children, including rape, human trafficking and forced marriage, prosecutors said.
They took at least 160 minors and 40 women into protective custody.
The operation in the Santa Rosa region involved around 480 police personnel, soldiers, prosecutors, and psychologists who also seized electronic devices and searched for evidence of child pornography.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/21/shutdown-deal-trump-musk-debt-limit/
Mr. Trump should not have spurred a last-minute frenzy to keep the government running during the holidays when a reasonable bipartisan compromise had already been reached. The negotiators’ job was made harder by the fact that Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, the president-elect’s confidant tasked with making the government more “efficient,” seemed to be at cross-purposes in their demands. Mr. Musk said the stopgap’s spending levels were “criminal” and called for shutting down the government until Mr. Trump’s inauguration, when Republicans would have more leverage to deny line items Democrats wanted. Chiming in later, Mr. Trump criticized some of the spending but also issued a very different demand: that Congress lift the debt limit or eliminate it entirely, which would have required Democratic buy-in, given the narrow majorities in Congress and some Republicans’ aversion to raising the fiscal ceiling.
The Democrats without any delay seized the opportunity to mock Donald Trump while suggesting that Elon Musk had effectively become the ‘Shadow President’, asserted Daily Beast. Eventually, two competing narratives emerged to explain the events, where, one suggested the confrontation was a deliberate strategic move which showcased the direct approach of the new administration while the another indicated Donald Trump was essentially ‘cornered’ by Elon Musk's vocal opposition.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-cries-conspiracy-over-claims-hes-usurped-trumps-power/
Trump hasn’t directly addressed growing claims that Musk is usurping his power, but his incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement Thursday to remind the country who is really in charge.
“As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view,” she said. “President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.”
Musk’s outsize role in sending the federal government careening toward a potential shutdown before Christmas has alarmed Democrats, academics and watchdog groups, while some Republicans said his intervention was uninformed.
https://www.newsweek.com/mike-johnson-cr-spending-plan-fails-republicans-revolt-2003876
President-elect Donald Trump threw his support behind a revised government funding plan from House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday. But it wasn't enough to push the stopgap bill over the finish line.
The proposal failed to pass on Thursday evening when it didn't secure enough support from House Republicans.
