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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Students, lawmakers and leaders joined forces Sunday at a Philadelphia temple to forcefully denounce anti-Semitism on school campuses and in their communities.
The rally at Congregation Rodeph Shalom came a day after University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned over a complaint about her testimony at a Congressional hearing. Magill may not claim, despite her repeated questions, that calls for the genocide of Jews on campus would violate the school’s conduct policy.
“I have seen Pennsylvanians take actions big and small, and both matter, to combat antisemitism,” Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said at the event. “I’ve seen it here in Philadelphia where students raised their voices, where students made sure they were heard in the halls of power at their university, and leadership was held accountable.”
Elon Musk has restored conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ X account, pointing to a vote on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that came out in favor of the Infowars host who called the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax.
This poses new uncertainty for advertisers, who have refrained from X due to considerations about hate speech appearing alongside their ads, and he is the most recent arguable public figure to claim his account banned.
Musk posted a poll on Saturday asking if Jones should be reinstated, with the results showing 70% of those who responded in favor. Early Sunday, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken and so it shall be.”
Hours later, Jones’ posts resurfaced, the last of which in 2018, when the company permanently banned him and his Infowars exhibit for abusive behavior.
Musk, who has described himself as a lax speech absolutist, said the move was aimed at protecting his rights. Reacting to a user who said that “permanent account bans are contrary to loose speech,” Musk wrote, “I find it hard to disagree with this point. “
The billionaire Tesla CEO also tweeted that Community Notes will most likely –
This is a fundamental change for Musk, who in the past had said he would not allow Jones to return to the platform despite repeated calls for him to do so. Last year, Musk highlighted the death of his firstborn, tweeting, “I have no mercy for anyone who needs to use the deaths of young people for profit, politics, or celebrities. “
Jones has repeatedly stated on his show that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 20 children and six teachers, never happened and he decided to tighten gun laws.
Family members of many of the victims sued Jones in Connecticut and Texas, winning nearly $1. 5 billion in judgments against him. In October, a ruling ruled that Jones could not use bankruptcy coverage to avoid paying more than $1. 1 billion of that debt. .
Family members of the victims of the school shooting testified at trials that they were harassed and threatened by Jones supporters, who sent threats and even personally confronted grieving families, accusing them of being “crisis actors” whose young people never existed.
Jones appealed the rulings, claiming he did not get a fair trial and that his speech fell foul of the First Amendment.
The recovery of Jones’ account comes as Musk has noticed that a number of major brands, including Disney and IBM, are preventing advertising on X after a report by liberal advocacy organization Media Matters said classified ads appeared alongside pro-Nazi content and white nationalist messages.
They were also spooked after Musk himself exposed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in reaction to a post about X. The Tesla CEO later apologized and traveled to Israel, where he visited a kibbutz attacked by Hamas militants and spoke with senior Israeli leaders.
But he also said that advertisers were engaging in “blackmail” and, with profanity, necessarily told them to leave.
“Don’t advertise,” Musk said in an interview on stage that won last month at the New York Times DealBook Summit.
After purchasing Twitter last year, Musk said he was granting an “amnesty” to suspended accounts and has since reinstated former President Donald Trump, Kanye West following bans for anti-Semitic posts, and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was expelled. the platform for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.
Trump, who was banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, has his own social media site, Truth Social, and has tweeted just once since being allowed back to X.
TARGET VESSELS: The Chinese coast guard attacked Philippine ships with water cannons on Sunday and rammed one of them, injuring and endangering Philippine team members off a disputed sandbar in the South China Sea, the Philippines said.
OSPREY CRASH: Navy divers on Sunday recovered the wreckage of the seventh of eight crew members from a U. S. Army Osprey plane that crashed Nov. 29 off the coast of southern Japan on an educational mission.
PRIEST ATTACKED: A Catholic priest in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, died Sunday after being attacked in a church rectory, authorities said. The Rev. Stephen Gutgsell was assaulted “during an invasion at the rectory” of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, the Archdiocese of Omaha said in a Sunday statement. A suspect was in custody.
YEMEN: France announced on Sunday that one of its warships in the Red Sea had been attacked by two drones coming from Yemen. Both were intercepted and shot dead. A letter from the Ministry of the Armed Forces did not specify who fired at the drones on Saturday night.
ATLANTA SHOOTING: A shooting in Atlanta killed three more people and wounded one victim Saturday night, police said. The Atlanta Police Department said three victims in their 20s were pronounced dead at the scene and the fourth was taken to a hospital. The man who survived was “on alert,” police said.
SUDAN: Sudan’s warring generals agreed to hold a face-to-face meeting as part of efforts to establish a cease-fire and initiate political talks to end the country’s devastating war, an African regional bloc said Sunday.
WAR IN UKRAINE
kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the swearing-in of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, on Sunday.
It was the Ukrainian leader’s first official vacation to Latin America, as Kyiv continues to seek nearby countries for its 21-month fight against invading Russian forces.
Milei received Zelensky at the presidential palace after his inauguration. The two men hugged, exchanged words, and then Milei, who has declared her goal of converting to Judaism, a menorah for her Ukrainian counterpart.
Milei, a political outsider who has denounced what he calls entrenched official corruption in Argentina and has promised to uproot the political establishment, has run on a pro-Western foreign policy platform, expressing distrust of Moscow and Beijing.
Zelensky called Milei shortly after Argentina’s election victory last month, thanking him for his “clear help to Ukraine. “In reading the call, Milei’s office said it had come forward to host a summit between Ukraine and Latin American states, a possible boon to Kiev’s months-long efforts to establish relations with the Global South.
Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian officials have continually portrayed Ukraine’s war against Russia as a resistance to colonial aggression, hoping to get help from states in Asia, Africa and Latin America that have struggled to free themselves from foreign domination in the afterlife, turning to Moscow. of aid that opposes that war. Western powers.
Zelensky took advantage of his trip to Argentina to meet with the leaders of several nearby countries. He met with the Prime Minister of Cape Verde, West Africa, Ulisses Correia e Silva, while on his way to Buenos Aires. Once in Argentina, Zelensky met separately with the presidents of Paraguay, Ecuador and Uruguay, his workplace said.
“The strong and united voice of the status of Latin American countries with other Ukrainians in the war for our freedom and democracy is very vital for us,” Zelenskyy said in a statement.
He also had a verbal exchange by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron, discussing “the main points of the French Republic’s next defense package, which will address in particular Ukraine’s firepower and our country’s current desires in terms of weapons,” Zelensky’s office said.
Separately, Russian shelling over the past 24 hours killed two elderly people and wounded two other civilians in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said Sunday morning. In a Telegram update, Syniehubov said the two were killed in the same attack in the eastern component. some of which are close to the front line and have been the scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks.
TENNESSEE | CLIMATE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Central Tennians and rescue personnel cleaned up fierce storms and tornadoes Sunday that killed six more people and sent dozens more to the hospital, damaged buildings, overturned cars and put dozens out of service. thousands of other people.
Authorities reported that three more people, including a young child, died after a tornado hit the county 50 miles northwest of Nashville, near the Kentucky state line, on Saturday afternoon. About 60 other people were treated for injuries at area medical centers, nine of whom were taken in critical condition to a hospital in Nashville, said Jimmie Edwards, the county’s emergency services director.
In a neighborhood just north of downtown Nashville, three people were killed Saturday as a result of tornadoes, while 21 total injuries were reported, city officials said. In Nashville, the roof of a church building north of downtown collapsed during the storm, resulting in 13 people being treated at hospitals, Nashville emergency officials said in a news release. They were later listed in stable condition.
Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts said it could be just a few weeks before force is restored for all. Residents of this city of about 166,000 people spent Sunday helping others get out of the devastating storms, he said.
“We know that other people are suffering because of the loss of life or property,” Pitts said. “One thing I love about this city is that when there’s a need, we come together around that need. “
At least six tornado tracks were reported in central Tennessee on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. Cory Mueller, a meteorologist at the firm in Nashville, said he sent tornado tracking teams Sunday to check for potential tornadoes and estimate their severity. .
Mueller said it’s not unusual for tornadoes to spawn this time of year.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the victims killed north of downtown as Joseph Dalton, 37; Floridama Gabriel Perez, 31; and his son, Anthony Elmer Mendez, 2. Dalton was inside his cell house when the typhoon hurled him over Perez’s residence. Two other children, one from each household, were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the branch said in a statement. Montgomery County officials did not provide the names of the other three people who died in the Clarksville area.
At a press convention with leaders from the Nashville metropolitan domain, Mayor Freddie O’Connell said more than 20 structures collapsed as a result of Saturday’s typhoon and “countless others sustained significant damage. “
Teresa Broyles-Aplin, director of Nashville Electric Service, said electrical substations in North Nashville and nearby Hendersonville suffered major damage and that outages may last only several days in some areas.
He said it’s conceivable that a widely circulated video showing a fireball in the sky Saturday night could have been caused by a Nashville Electric device.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump said Sunday he doesn’t have to testify for a second time in his civil fraud trial in New York, posting on social media a day before his scheduled court appearance that he testified “very effectively and conclusively” last month. and that he did not see the desire to do so. So again.
The former president, a leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination, was scheduled to return to the witness stand Monday as a coda to his anti-trial defense of New York Attorney General Letitia James.
James, a Democrat, alleges Trump inflated his wealth on financial statements used in securing loans and making deals. The case threatens Trump’s real estate empire and cuts to the heart of his image as a successful businessman.
“I will not be testifying on Monday,” Trump wrote in an all-capital-letters, multipart statement on his Truth Social platform.
“I’ve already testified about everything and I have nothing more to say,” Trump added, leaving the final word among defense witnesses to an accountant hired through his legal team who said last week that he had uncovered “no evidence of any accounting. “”fraud” on Trump’s money returns.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to questions about his decision.
The move marks a marked shift from Trump’s stance in recent days, when his lawyers said he insisted on retestifying despite considerations over a gag order that charged him a $15,000 fine for disparaging the judge’s paralegal.
ANOTHER VIEW | CHICAGO GRANDSTAND
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, asked the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, all representatives of America’s liberal intellectual elite, on Tuesday.
The Republican congresswoman’s repeated question, herself a Harvard graduate, to Claudine Gay of Harvard, Liz Magill of Penn and Sally Kornbluth of MIT?
“Does the call for genocide of the Jews violate (insert campus name) regulations on intimidation and harassment?
One after another, the presidents refused to answer Stefanik’s yes or no question. Warnings abounded: it depends on the intensity, the degree to which the action is directed at individuals, the circumstances provided, yada, yada. At the time, Magill even replied that he would count on whether the call turned into “conduct,” prompting Stefanik to ask, incredulously, “A real genocide?
The spectacle was a disaster for all three campuses, especially Harvard and Penn, and suggested that the leaders of Harvard and Penn are woefully unfit for the job. At the time of writing, those presidents retain their positions, but if that were to change, we’d hardly be surprised. Or chagrined.
Stefanik has laid a very effective trap, aggressively lashing out at leaders who enjoy wonderful deference and subservience on their own campuses and who have supposedly spent too much time in that bubble. The academics gave the impression of having been stressed by his lawyers. Not to say anything that could force them to take measures contrary to those that seek the elimination of Israel. These leaders, therefore, seemed, at least tacitly, to take this position.
There’s a legal argument for weaving them in and circumventing them: The First Amendment provides no exceptions for calls for genocide, and even anti-Semites are entitled to relaxed speech.
But Stefanik was asking questions about campus conduct regulations, and those same presidents in the past have penalized those who didn’t use pronouns a student liked or provided “trigger warnings” or posted anything the university deemed racist on social networks.
Harvard, for example, has rescinded admissions grants in several of those circumstances. And yet, those universities could no longer protect their Jewish scholars because their sweeping and costly agreements to ensure some diversity, equity, and inclusion had, in effect, been considered to be part of the so-called white oppressor class and outside their jurisdiction.
When Stefanik asked, “Does calling for genocide of Jews violate Penn’s regulations on intimidation and harassment?”She knew that all reasonable, decent, compassionate Americans would shout “say yes” into their phones or computers, even if one of America’s top insiders saw nothing of the risks that awaited her.
And, that simple word, which the presidents failed to say, also happened to be the correct answer.
JERRY DAVICH
The middle-aged boy brandished his alcoholic drink and looked me in the eye. I grabbed my glass of ice water and waited for the same “Cheers!”
That happened.
“I don’t accept it as truth with a kid who doesn’t drink,” he told me seriously.
He didn’t crack a smile as he took another swig of condescending judgment. This exchange took place at a mutual friend’s house for a recent dinner gathering. I politely smiled and mentioned something about having other vices, enjoyments and addictions.
He interrupted me and said, “Have a drink. “
I’ve heard this from other people since I was a teenager.
“What are you drinking?”
“Why don’t you drink?”
“Come on, have a drink. “
Ugh. OK, fine. Back then, I would have a drink and nurse it all night, just to shut them up.
I did everything I could to be compatible with the crowd. Peer tension is intoxicating in our youth. At parties, he would often fill an empty beer can with soda to give the impression that he was drinking alcohol. He also lied to other people by telling them that he drank rum with Coca-Cola, when it was just Coca-Cola.
I’ve never liked alcohol, especially beer. Not since I took my first sip as a young teenager, after sneaking into a drive-in movie theater with an organization of friends.
As I got older, I tried other alcoholic beverages such as mixed drinks. They tasted better than beer but they always contained too much booze. Never once did I actually “enjoy” drinking them. This pretty much explains my history as a drinker except for a few rare occasions when I tried something new in yet another attempt to enjoy everyone’s favorite social lubricant.
Trust me, I understand the importance of drinking alcohol at social gatherings, whether it’s craft beer, moderate alcohol, hard liquor, mixed drinks, or reliable drinks. It brings people together one sip at a time, especially at parties.
I attended a company Christmas party where alcohol greased most every conversation. Someone brought a gag gift of Jeppson’s Malort Liqueur, with the “aroma and full-bodied flavor of an unusual botanical … and bitter taste savored by two-fisted drinkers,” its label proudly states.
“See for yourself,” they told me.
So I did, one sip. It tasted like repentance.
A part of me would like to enjoy drinking to get those benefits. But that component of me is disappearing more and more every year. In fact, every time I take a sip of those encounters, it tastes like the best school to me.
I’ve never considered myself a teetotaler, but being the sober one at any gathering usually makes it easy to identity different kinds of drinkers — either to be social, to conform, to enhance or to cope. For some people, all on the same night.
Being a non-drinker also comes with a constant series of judgments, even if they come from the world of drinking. People make assumptions, as a former boss did years ago when I applied for a newspaper columnist position.
We met at a restaurant so he could evaluate me and ask me a few questions in an informal setting before hiring me. He ordered a beer and asked if I wanted one too. Or any other type of alcoholic beverage from the bar menu.
“Ask for what you want, I’ll pay the bill,” he said.
I said no, thank you, I don’t drink anymore, not anymore.
‘No more?'” he asked, looking at me twice.
Without saying it directly, he avoided the question of whether I had a drinking problem or if I had a drinking problem from which I was recovering. In other words, he wondered if he was an alcoholic.
“What? No, no, no,” I replied with a smile after his line of questioning.
I’ve never been asked this question directly since that night. But other people have hinted at it when I tell them I don’t drink. This raises eyebrows and raises assumptions.
This is my “drinking problem,” and I often wonder if other nondrinkers have similar experiences. If so, “Cheers!”
Davich writes for the Times of Northwest Indiana: Jerry. Davich@nwi. com.
Someone brought a gag gift of Jeppson’s Malort Liqueur, with the ‘aroma and full bodied flavor of an unusual botanical … and bitter taste savored by two-fisted drinkers,’ its label proudly states. It tasted like regret.
OF A HARP
Munger
Nebraska only exists one. Reminders of its uniqueness give the impression of the obituaries of Charlie Munger, who for decades was a vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
The foreign press has long been fascinated by this $780 billion holding company created and remaining in Omaha. Its founder, Warren Buffett, and Munger grew up there and are two of the most successful investors of all time.
Omaha is precisely the cow that the city portrayed in stereotypes, but it is still physically and culturally removed from the time zones of coastal currency capitals. Buffett and Munger have built a monetary powerhouse by eschewing self-promotion strategies, demonstrating wealth, and spilling celebrity-espoused obscenities elsewhere.
Munger promoted the old virtues of discipline and common sense and did not regard morality as a weakness in business. But it was also an unconventional kind of thinking and a high-level mind. “Capitalism without failure is like faith without hell,” Munger said. . Also, “It’s better to buy a smart company at a fair price than a fair business at a smart price. “
His jokes may simply be homemade: “Invest in a business that any idiot can run, because someday an idiot will. “
Munger’s obituaries insist on his satisfaction at the moment of playing with Buffett, also known as The Sage of Omaha, even though he considered him even the smartest investor. As Buffett said,
“That’s Charlie talking. I’m just moving my lips. “Still, the idea that Munger could simply stage a coup against his wife is unimaginable.
Buffett is a moderate Democrat. Munger is a moderate Republican. Although Munger agreed with some of former President Donald Trump’s policies, he said he would never vote for him.
“Biden is a typical Democratic politician,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I’m used to those kinds of failures. “
Trump has made headway smashing social norms in Nebraska as he has elsewhere. But he faces some headwinds in a state that has traditionally put up resistance to the political extremes.
Nebraska politics have a tendency toward the color purple. Nebraska and Maine are the only states that split their electoral votes in presidential elections based on how the vote is conducted. Thus, while the rest of Nebraska votes for Republican presidential candidates, the Democratic-majority district that encompasses Omaha was able to send its electoral votes to Barack Obama and then Joe Biden in 2020.
Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral legislature: a Senate but no House. And it’s officially nonpartisan: No party affiliation appears next to the names on the ballot. And this is aimed at moderating partisan conflict.
Nebraska has produced several courageous Republicans. Former senator Ben Sasse did not give an inch to his party’s election deniers. After being “censured” by the Republican State Committee for asserting Trump’s apparent defeat in the 2020 election, Sasse is in wonderful shape.
“I pay attention to Nebraskans every day,” Sasse said, “and very few of them are as angry about life as some members of this committee. “He spoke beyond the cheers when he pledged to put the letter before politics, a position he has since abandoned in the MAGA world.
“Nebraskans aren’t rage addicts,” Sasse said, “and that’s good news.”
While in office, Sasse was quite conservative and refused to share that designation with the church of Trump. “Personality cults aren’t conservative,” he said. “Conspiracy theories aren’t conservative. … Acting like politics is a religion isn’t conservative.”
Would independent thinkers with a strong ethical core, such as Munger and Sasse, have succeeded in other parts of the country?But few other parts of the country may have produced such people.
Nebraska is another in many ways.
Harrop, who lives in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island, writes for Creators Syndicate: fharrop@ gmail.com.
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