Monday, February 2, 2026
Trump wants to build a 250-foot-tall arch, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/31/trump-arch-memorial-circle/
The president is eyeing a plot of land near Memorial Bridge. The art critic who proposed the idea called for a smaller arch or for Trump to pick a new site.
“I’d like it to be the biggest one of all,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “We’re the biggest, most powerful nation.”
The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France — which Trump has cited as a model and vowed to exceed by “a lot” — is 164 feet high. A memorial arch in Mexico City, the largest in the world, measures 220 feet.
Deportation flight judge cleared of DOJ misconduct claims
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/01/doj-judge-boasberg-complaint-dismissed
A federal appeals judge tossed the Justice Department's misconduct complaint against Judge James Boasberg, who said last spring the administration defied his order to halt deportation flights to El Salvador.
The big picture: The administration has attacked judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike. But this ruling shows the limits of the Justice Department's self-proclaimed "war" on judges who rule against the administration.
Epstein Files Release Exposes Names of at Least 43 Victims, WSJ Review Finds
Justice Department failed to redact dozens of Epstein victims’ names, including more than two dozen who were minors
The Justice Department exposed the names of dozens of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, including many who haven’t shared their identities publicly or were minors when they were abused by the notorious sex offender.
'Hero' Gaza hospital director and op-ed writer for NYT revealed to have been Hamas colonel
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-885264
Despite his Hamas rank being well known in Arabic media, Safiya was still invited to write opinion pieces for the NYT.
A Gaza doctor and hospital director who criticized Israel in two separate New York Times op-eds has been revealed to be a Hamas colonel.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is a Palestinian pediatrician and the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya. The IDF arrested him on December 27, 2024, and he has since been held in an Israeli prison.
2,000-year-old Pilgrimage Road to Temple Mount opens to public after years of digging
The Pilgrimage Road, under excavation for some 20 years by archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority, is believed to have been built in the first years of the common era by either King Herod or Governor Pontius Pilate as the leading artery through which visitors ascended to the Temple from the south.
“This is one of the most magnificent archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem in the last decades,” Amit Re’em, IAA chief archaeologist for the Jerusalem District, told The Times of Israel via telephone ahead of the tour. “For the first time, you can see this direct link between the Siloam Pool and the Temple Mount, and the street was sealed under the modern city for thousands of years.”
The excavation itself was opposed by many Palestinian residents living in the houses above the underground site, as they charged that it would damage the buildings, an accusation firmly rejected by the archaeologists, the City of David and ELAD.
Jewish and historical sources describe how, toward the end of the Second Temple Period, millions of pilgrims would flock to Jerusalem for the annual festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, as the city and the Temple reached the apex of their splendor after Herod renovated and expanded them.
Scientists finally may know why kidney patients die of heart disease
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/02/01/chronic-kidney-disease-heart-failure/
More than half of people with advanced kidney disease develop cardiovascular problems. A new study finds that diseased kidneys release tiny particles that are toxic to the heart.
The relationship between chronic kidney disease and heart conditions is well documented. Studies show that the severity of cardiovascular complications is correlated with the stage of kidney failure. Some estimates suggest that more than half of people with advanced kidney disease develop cardiovascular problems.
“When we think about kidney health, we have to understand that preserving kidney health is so important to preserving heart health,” Rangaswami said. “We have so many amazing therapies that can really stabilize kidney function.”
Sunday, February 1, 2026
AI-generated 'rabbi' draws thousands of followers online, raising transparency concerns
https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-884045
An AI-generated Hasidic ‘rabbi’ gained thousands of followers online before being exposed, sparking debate in Israel over trust, ethics, and transparency in religious digital content.
An online figure presented as a hassidic rabbi built a following of tens of thousands on Instagram and TikTok in recent weeks before being exposed as an artificial intelligence-generated persona.
The accounts, operating under the name “Rabbi Menachem Goldberg,” featured a bearded, hassidic-looking character delivering short daily messages about faith, abundance, and personal success. The videos followed a consistent format and often ended with calls to purchase paid digital content, including e-books and guides marketed as spiritual and life-improvement tools, the report said.
A Maariv journalist reported that viewers began raising doubts as the content grew more familiar, describing the language as broad and inspirational, with few identifiable Jewish sources or traditional references. Additional suspicions were fueled by visual inconsistencies in the videos’ synagogue-style backdrops, including Hebrew text that appeared nonsensical and design details that did not match recognizable Jewish settings.
In response to the case, the Tzohar Center for Jewish Ethics called the episode a warning sign and urged clear standards for transparency. The center said presenting AI as a human voice of moral or rabbinic authority can mislead audiences, because viewers tend to associate a “rabbinic” persona with personal responsibility and accountability.
The US is headed for mass unemployment, and no one is prepared
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5713876-ai-displacement-and-ubi/
The most sobering warning comes from Geoffrey Hinton, one of the architects of modern AI. Hinton hasn’t joined the hype merchants. Instead, he has joined the alarmists. His claim is troubling: AI capability is effectively doubling every seven months. Not every decade. Not every few years. Every seven months.
At that pace, change doesn’t arrive gradually but in overwhelming waves. First, it replaces what we dismiss as “menial” cognitive work — call centers, customer service, scheduling, transcription. That phase is already underway. Then it moves into clerical roles, basic accounting, paralegal research, routine journalism, marketing copy, and compliance work. Those jobs are next. After that, no profession is spared, not even software engineering itself.
Lay out the timeline honestly, and it becomes terrifying. In 2026, AI replaces support roles. In 2027, it consumes administrative and clerical work. By 2028, it’s performing serious professional tasks at scale. By the early 2030s, much of white-collar America may no longer be necessary to the current economic structure.
Just say ‘Jew’: JD Vance’s Holocaust post shows why naming Jews and Nazis still matters -editorial
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-885138
Vice President JD Vance marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 with a message honoring “millions of lives lost,” yet he did not mention Jews or Nazis.
At a time when global antisemitism is at an all-time high, omitting these two simple words is more than just a small oversight. It weakens the very purpose of the day, and given the current split and rise of antisemitism within the Right in America, it is worrying that the omission came from the vice president.
What happened is simple. The vice president posted a solemn remembrance, invoked “never again,” and paired it with commemorative imagery. But he avoided naming the Jews as the targeted victims and the Nazis as the perpetrators. Other senior officials, in contrast, referenced Jews and antisemitism directly. The omission sparked backlash online from X/Twitter users, senior Jewish figures, and even op-eds in this very paper
32 Gazans said killed in wave of strikes as IDF responds to truce violation
At least 32 Palestinians, including women, children and Hamas police officers, were reported killed in a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Saturday morning — one of the highest death tolls since the October ceasefire — as the Israeli military confirmed it targeted terror commanders and infrastructure in response to what it called a “violation of the ceasefire agreement.”
The Israel Defense Forces said its strikes targeted four commanders in the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups, as well as a weapons depot, an arms manufacturing site and two rocket launching positions.
According to the military, the strikes were launched after eight gunmen emerged from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Friday. The IDF said at the time that three of the gunmen were killed in strikes and a fourth, described as a key Hamas commander, was capture
Judge orders release of 5-year-old Minnesota boy, father detained by ICE
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5716881-texas-judge-orders-release-father-son/
A federal judge in Texas on Saturday ordered the release of the 5-year-old boy and father who were transported to a detention center in the state amid the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Minnesota.
The father and son were detained by federal officers last week when Conejo Ramos returned home from pre-school. A picture of the young boy wearing a bright blue hat and a Spider-Man backpack went viral on social media, prompting outrage in an already-tense climate over the immigration crackdown in the state.
In a Saturday opinion, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery admonished the administration’s removal of Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, saying the pair “seek nothing but the modicum of due process and the rule of law.”
“Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency,” Biery wrote. “And the rule of law be damned.”
Biery accused the government of ignoring constitutional rights, and suggested the administration needed a “civics lesson.”
“Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster,” Biery wrote. “That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.”