A volunteer host affiliated with a college radio station resigned after law enforcement agencies confirmed they were alerted to a social media post that explicitly called for violence against Vice President JD Vance, Fox News reports.
The post appeared on Bluesky, a social media platform dominated by left-leaning users, and came from an account using the handle hanslopez.bsky.social. In the message, the user wrote, “It’s simple, we kill JD Vance.” The account holder identified himself as a host on WUML, a radio station funded by the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. The comment was posted in response to another Bluesky user who asserted that, “JD VANCE THINKS BRITAIN & FRANCE ARE AMERICAS [sic] LIKELY ENEMIES.”
According to its website, WUML has served as a broadcast outlet for both the UMass Lowell student population and the surrounding Lowell community for more than 60 years.
The station describes itself as follows: “Founded in 1952, WUML functions as a non-commercial FM station located in Lowell, Massachusetts, funded by the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and fully managed and operated by student members, broadcasting both terrestrially and online.”
After university officials became aware of the post, they contacted law enforcement, the school told Fox News Digital. In a statement, the university detailed the steps taken immediately after discovering the online threat.
“UMass Lowell police promptly coordinated with the FBI, Secret Service and Haverhill police the same day to ensure an appropriate response,” the university said. “Contact was made with the individual in question, and the necessary assessments were conducted in collaboration with federal partners. Authorities confirmed there was no immediate threat.”
The Secret Service separately confirmed to Fox News Digital that it was aware of the online statement. The Haverhill Police Department referred inquiries to the FBI, which declined to issue a comment.
In a follow-up statement, the university emphasized its stance on violent rhetoric. “UMass Lowell takes seriously any threat of violence involving our community. Statements such as the post in question are inconsistent with the values of our democracy and our university,” the school said. “The individual in question has since resigned from his volunteer role at WUML and removed the post from his Bluesky account.”
University officials also disclosed that the individual responsible for the post is a graduate of UMass Lowell.
A review of the Bluesky account shows that multiple posts, including the one targeting Vice President Vance, have since been deleted.
{Matzav.com}President Trump warned on Monday that the United States could face massive financial consequences if the Supreme Court invalidates his reciprocal tariff program, saying the country would be forced to return enormous sums collected under the policy and could be exposed to additional claims tied to business investments.
“[I]f the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this National Security bonanza, WE’RE SCREWED!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
He said a negative ruling would not only require the government to refund tariff revenues already collected, but would also open the door to further financial obligations stemming from investments made by foreign governments and companies seeking to avoid the tariffs.
“The actual numbers that we would have to pay back if, for any reason, the Supreme Court were to rule against the United States of America on Tariffs, would be many Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and that doesn’t include the amount of ‘payback’ that Countries and Companies would require for the Investments they are making on building Plants, Factories, and Equipment, for the purpose of being able to avoid the payment of Tariffs,” he wrote.
Trump argued that once those private-sector investments are factored in, the total exposure could reach staggering levels.
“When these Investments are added, we are talking about Trillions of Dollars! It would be a complete mess, and almost impossible for our Country to pay. Anybody who says that it can be quickly and easily done would be making a false, inaccurate, or totally misunderstood answer to this very large and complex question.”
He continued by saying that even determining the scope and mechanics of any repayment would be extraordinarily difficult.
“It may not be possible but, if it were, it would be Dollars that would be so large that it would take many years to figure out what number we are talking about and even, who, when, and where, to pay. Remember, when America shines brightly, the World shines brightly.”
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision as soon as Wednesday on whether Trump had the authority to invoke emergency powers to implement the tariff framework announced last April. That plan included a 10 percent baseline tariff on most imports, along with steeper rates imposed in August on countries running trade surpluses with the United States.
Trump relied on those authorities to pressure major trading partners into making concessions, including commitments to invest in the United States and to reduce barriers facing American exports, while maintaining elevated tariffs on their goods.
Even if the justices strike down the reciprocal tariffs, several other trade measures would remain in place, including tariffs of up to 25 percent on automobiles and 50 percent duties on copper, steel, and aluminum.
Administration officials have said that if the Supreme Court rules against the emergency powers justification, Trump would look to reimpose the reciprocal tariffs using alternative legal grounds.
{Matzav.com}
Hessy Levinsons Taft, a Jewish woman whose baby photograph was once promoted across Nazi Germany as a supposed model of Aryan perfection, died last week at her home in San Francisco, according to a report by The New York Times. She was 91.
Taft was just six months old in 1934 when her parents, Latvian Jewish opera singers living in Berlin, brought her to a studio for a professional portrait. The photographer, Hans Ballin, later submitted the image to a Nazi-sponsored competition seeking the ideal Aryan infant.
The photograph was ultimately chosen by Joseph Goebbels, the regime’s propaganda minister, and featured prominently on the cover of Sonne ins Haus, a publication aligned with Nazi ideology.
From there, the image was reproduced extensively, appearing in magazines, advertisements, postcards, and private homes throughout Germany as a visual endorsement of Nazi racial doctrine.
According to Taft’s obituary in The Times, when her parents confronted Ballin after discovering what had happened, he told them that he was fully aware the child was Jewish and had entered the photo deliberately, intending it as a subversive act to ridicule Nazi racial theories.
In a 2014 interview with Reuters, Taft said she later expressed gratitude to the photographer for taking that risk, even though he himself was not Jewish. “It was an irony that needed to be exposed.”
For her parents, however, the episode was terrifying. Afraid that the truth could lead to their execution, they kept their daughter largely confined indoors and avoided public outings, determined to prevent anyone from uncovering her identity.
Taft eventually made the story public in 1987 through the book Muted Voices: Jewish Survivors of Latvia Remember by Gertrude Schneider. Over time, she came to view the incident with a sense of defiance, describing it as an act of “good revenge.”
Reflecting on it years later, she told Tablet magazine in 2022: “I can laugh about it now, but if the Nazis had known who I really was, I wouldn’t be alive.”
Although the Levinson family was living in Berlin when the photograph was taken, they were not initially subject to Nazi anti-Jewish laws because they were Latvian citizens rather than German nationals.
As the Nazi grip on Germany tightened, the family chose to leave in 1937. Their journey took them through Latvia, Paris, Nice, and Cuba before they ultimately made their way to New York City in 1949.
Taft later pursued a career in science, earning degrees in chemistry from Barnard College and Columbia University. She spent more than three decades at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey, where she supervised Advanced Placement chemistry exams for high school students.
At 66, she began a new chapter as an adjunct professor at St. John’s University in Queens, where she taught chemistry and conducted research focused on water sustainability.
In 1959, she married Earl Taft, who died in 2021. She is survived by her sister, Noemi Pollack; her two children, Nina and Alex Taft; and four grandchildren.
{Matzav.com}
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the federal government is bleeding hundreds of billions of dollars every year due to waste, fraud, and abuse — money he argues could be redirected to national priorities without increasing taxes or debt.
In an interview with journalist Christopher Rufo that aired Sunday, Bessent said the annual cost of federal mismanagement ranges from $300 billion to $600 billion. He explained that the estimate is grounded in figures from the Government Accountability Office, which has calculated that fraud alone accounts for roughly 10% of the federal budget and between 1% and 2% of gross domestic product.
According to Bessent, even a partial reduction of those losses would unlock significant funding for national defense, aligning with President Donald Trump’s push to rebuild the U.S. military after what the administration views as years of neglect.
“If we can get rid of this waste, fraud, and abuse, we can finance a safer, sounder U.S. … without taking on more debt,” Bessent said during the Rufo interview.
The GAO analysis Bessent cited estimates that fraud costs the federal government between $233 billion and $521 billion each year, based on data collected from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.
Beyond outright fraud, the GAO has also warned about the enormous cost of so-called “improper payments,” a category that includes mistakes, overpayments, and other errors. Over time, those losses have added up to trillions of dollars, underscoring what watchdogs describe as deeply flawed oversight mechanisms in Washington.
Bessent also discussed the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, which aims to rein in federal waste. While he said he shares Elon Musk’s objective of eliminating inefficiency, he made clear that his strategy differs sharply.
Rather than Musk’s well-known Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things,” Bessent said his philosophy is “move deliberately and fix things,” indicating that Treasury-led probes will focus on meticulous investigations designed to withstand legal scrutiny.
That enforcement-oriented approach is spreading across the administration.
At a White House briefing on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance announced the establishment of a new assistant attorney general position dedicated to pursuing fraud involving taxpayer funds, with authority extending nationwide.
Vance’s remarks came amid growing attention on alleged large-scale fraud operations in Minnesota, which has emerged as a focal point in the national conversation about oversight and accountability in blue-state governments.
Bessent said Minnesota will serve as a testing ground for broader enforcement efforts, adding that the administration plans to “take this … map to the other 49 states,” signaling an aggressive expansion of federal investigations.
The interview also highlighted another major fiscal problem: unpaid taxes.
Internal Revenue Service estimates indicate that the net “tax gap” — the difference between taxes legally owed and those actually collected on time — reached approximately $606 billion for the 2022 tax year.
Bessent’s broader argument is that before Washington looks to raise taxes or increase borrowing, it must first demonstrate that it can clamp down on fraud, inefficiency, and weak enforcement — and then channel recovered funds into essential priorities such as national defense and border security.
{Matzav.com}
A surprising discovery in a kosher poultry package has set off widespread discussion across the kashrus world after a consumer found what appeared to be a gallbladder embedded inside the thigh of a chicken. The unusual finding prompted confusion and concern, raising a fundamental question: How could an organ normally located near the liver end up in the leg and does such a chicken remain kosher?
Rav Yochanan Reichman, a well-known kashrus expert who fields halachic questions from around the world, said he never anticipated the reaction the image would generate. “I never imagined what kind of storm this picture would cause in the rabbinic world in general and in the kashrus world in particular,” he said.
The incident began when a woman opened a package of mehadrin-certified chicken legs in preparation for a Shabbos meal and was startled to find a greenish sac attached inside the thigh. She photographed the finding and sent it to Rabbi Reichman for clarification.
“At first glance, it was very puzzling,” Rabbi Reichman explained. “The gallbladder in a chicken is attached to the liver and sits right next to it, toward the front of the body. The thigh is located at the back, near the pelvis. The distance between the liver and the thigh can be several inches. So how did it get there?”
Recognizing the seriousness of the question, Rabbi Reichman consulted leading experts in shechitah and kashrus systems in Israel and abroad. Among those he turned to was Rav Shaul Askel, a senior shochet and bodek at the Oif Oz slaughterhouse in Shegev Shalom, which operates under strict mehadrin supervision.
What followed was an unexpected wave of inquiries. Rabbonim from Europe and North America—including the Netherlands, Antwerp, Chicago, and New York—requested to see the image themselves. Many noted that they had never previously encountered such a case.
After extensive halachic research and a close examination of the industrial poultry-processing process, a clear explanation emerged.
According to Rabbi Askel, the gallbladder does not grow in the leg. Rather, during automated processing, the internal organs are removed by machines. In many chickens, the gallbladder remains attached not only to the liver but also to ducts that connect to the intestines, which run close to the thigh area. When the machinery pulls the organs free, the gallbladder can detach from the liver while remaining connected to intestinal tissue and fat near the leg, causing it to appear embedded in the thigh.
“There is no change in the organ’s natural location,” Rabbi Askel explained in his written halachic response. “It is a result of the mechanical separation process. The gallbladder is pulled along with surrounding fat and connective tissue and can remain lodged near the thigh.”
From a halachic standpoint, the ruling was unequivocal: the chicken is kosher. There is no concern that the gallbladder changed its place of growth, nor is this a case of an additional gallbladder, which could raise halachic problems. Salting, cooking, or roasting the chicken does not create an issue, provided the gallbladder itself is removed, as usual, to avoid bitterness.
Rabbi Reichman emphasized that while the sight may be unsettling to consumers unfamiliar with poultry anatomy, there is no halachic reason for concern. “This is not a defect, not a sign of treif, and not a reason to discard the chicken,” he said. “Once the facts are understood, the ruling is clear and reassuring.”
{Matzav.com}
[COMMUNICATED]
No pictures were taken, no sign was written, and no one sent a thank-you card, but what happened was life-changing for the people who lived it.
A father slept through the night for the first time in weeks, a child walked to cheder with comfortable shoes, a mother filled up her Shabbos table with enough food for her family.
For nearly 200 years, Kollel Shomrei Hachomos has been present in these moments.
Sure, we could list programs, numbers, budgets, and breakdowns; but those don’t capture what your support truly does.
We’re here to put food on the table, clothing in the closet, children in school, and make the ordinary days possible.
It’s the kind of work that keeps parents functioning and families intact.
It’s the kind of impact that doesn’t need explaining, because a thousand words would never do.
This year’s KSH Auction invites you to be part of those moments. To give, to enter, to win, and to rewrite the stories of countless families.
Be part of what doesn’t need to be said.
