IDF may end reserve duty training due to coronavirus

The army is worried that now is not the best time to bring hundreds of different men from all over the country to practice.

The IDF may halt reserve duty training due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kan reported on Friday.

The IDF, which depends on reserve duty soldiers in times of national emergency, usually ensures that those who have much needed skill sets such as tank-teams and pilots get plenty of practice hours to ensure they are able to serve should the call come.

However, due to the outbreak of coronavirus in the country which on Friday passed the 10,000 confirmed patients' figure, the army is considering canceling reserve duty training sessions, according to Kan.

“It will be hard to bring 500 soldiers from across the country,” a source in the military told Kan, “and all social groups and let them spend time together.”

IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi is expected to make a decision at the beginning of the week regarding cancelling or keeping the training time tables.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/idf-may-end-reserve-duty-training-due-to-coronavirus-633814

President Trump's top 5 Houdini acts

With much of the political and media elite anticipating the president's imminent political demise, it now looks instead as if the president may just be in the process of extricating himself from another seemingly hopeless political bind, his latest Houdini act in a career famous for them.

With Thursday's far-better-than-expected June jobs numbers, President Trump finally had something to cheer about after weeks of rising coronavirus infections, spreading civil unrest, and plunging poll numbers.

With much of the political and media elite once again anticipating the president's imminent political demise, it now looks instead as if the president may just be in the process of extricating himself from another seemingly hopeless political bind, his latest Houdini act in a career famous for them.

Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American illusionist and stunt performer, famed for his sensational escape acts. Premature political obituaries and political escape artistry are nothing new, from the "Dewey-defeats-Truman" false headline claiming that Harry Truman had lost the 1948 presidential election, to Bill Clinton's famous status as "The Comeback Kid," to Joe Biden's own surprise political resurrection earlier this year after a string of humiliating defeats in early Democratic primary and caucus states.

The national media seem particularly eager to write Trump's political epitaph, yet each time, Trump recovers, returning to political health stronger than ever. Here, in chronological order, are President Trump's top five Houdini acts:

1. The 2016 presidential election: Trump's unprecedented victory — he was a political newcomer who had never held elected office — shocked the Beltway elite, including establishment Republicans and even many Trump supporters themselves. A prominent member of the Screen Actors Guild, the longtime host of "The Apprentice" (who disclosed in 2015 that he still held $110,228 in a SAG pension fund) ended the underdog script for his 2016 election with a dramatic twist worthy of a former reality TV star.

1. Kavanaugh nomination: Congressional Democrats and grassroots progressive activists pulled out every stop in their push to block Brett Kavanaugh's 2018 Senate confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice. But even in the heat of the #MeToo movement holding men accountable for sexual misconduct, liberals were unable to convince key moderate Republican swing votes in the Senate that there was solid evidence to substantiate an allegation that a teen-aged Kavanaugh had committed a sexual assault at a high school party. Even as Kavanaugh's nomination looked all but dead, Trump never wavered in his support, and Kavanaugh ultimately became the president's second confirmed Supreme Court pick.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/list-trump-top-5-houdini-acts-when-he-reached-new-heights-defying

With Murders up 80 Percent Last Month, Chicago Braces for Violent Weekend

In Chicago, there won’t be any fireworks at Navy Pier this year. The Lake Michigan beaches are closed, there are no ballgames, and “social distancing ambassadors” will be out to enforce the mayor’s edicts at any gathering anywhere.

What won’t be affected by the pandemic rules will be street violence. Chicago residents are bracing for the most violent weekend yet and city officials — including the police — are clueless about what to do to improve the situation.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot says there will be 1,200 more cops on the streets this weekend. That’s fine, except there were 1,400 extra police on the streets last year.

Chicago Tribune:

Boosting the number of officers on the street is a tactic that was also a staple of warm-weather holiday crime-fighting efforts under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Asked about the lower number of cops on the street this year, Lightfoot said, “I think we’ve got the right number of people coupled with all the resources of our community partners, our other city agencies that are going to be out there and visible.”

Also on the street as a “community partner” will be 150 unarmed workers for the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago. Their job description may be a little hazy but it’s hoped that they won’t get in the way of the numerous drive-by shootings that will pepper the neighborhoods with gunfire.

They may or may not help, but what can they do? Solve the gang problem by talking to gang members and leaders? Almost all the violence this weekend will be gang-related and I don’t think talking will do any good.

Superintendent David Brown said earlier in the week that the police will clear “drug corners” of loiterers. Sounds like a good idea — except activists don’t think so.

Activists and civil libertarians have criticized the city over Brown’s plan to clear people off of “drug corners” by making arrests in an effort to tamp down gun violence over the Fourth of July weekend.

Though critics have raised questions about the legality of Brown’s proposal and cautioned that sweeping arrests will further harm the relationship between police and Black residents, the mayor earlier in the week said such condemnation is misplaced as officers try to save young lives.

The last thing Lightfoot needs is a riot after cops rough up some kids standing on a corner not doing anything.

Brown appeared to back off the plan to “sweep” the corners.

For his part, Brown attempted to make clear that the goal is to bring down high-level drug dealers.

“We are aggressively going after drug and gang criminal networks,” he said, and added that they’re focused on midlevel and upper-level “masterminds behind the drug trade in Chicago because that’s what’s fueling city violence.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/07/03/with-murders-up-80-percent-last-month-chicago-braces-for-violent-weekend-n603180

Lavrov affirms necessity of vanquishing terrorism in Syria and resolving crisis politically

Moscow, SANA – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed the need to completely vanquish terrorism in Syria and resolve the crisis in it politically through intra-Syrian dialogue without external interference according to UN Resolution no. 2254.

Lavrov pointed out during a meeting with the Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives Aqila Saleh that Russia supports the full implementation of Security Council Resolution No. 2254 to resolve the crisis in Syria, and stressed the necessity of reaching a political solution through intra-Syrian dialogue.

Lavrov stressed the need to defeat terrorism, whether in Syria or Libya or in any part of the Middle East, and that this should be removed from double standards and attempts of some countries to use terrorists to implement their geopolitical agendas in the region.

https://sana.sy/en/?p=196327