Feed aggregator

Joe Biden is set to release a new memoir this fall reflecting on his four years in the White House, with the book scheduled to hit shelves just two weeks after the midterm elections, when Democrats will be trying to win back control of Congress.

Publisher Little, Brown and Company confirmed to The Associated Press that the memoir will be published on November 17. Reports have indicated that Biden received a $10 million advance for the book.

Titled Promise Me, America, the memoir will center on Biden’s single term as president and the major events and decisions that defined his administration.

The release comes as Democrats remain divided over Biden’s political legacy, particularly following his unsuccessful effort to seek another term in the White House. His presidency has also remained under scrutiny amid ongoing questions about his mental acuity while in office and allegations regarding the use of an autopen for official documents.

According to the Associated Press, Democratic leaders are hoping this fall’s campaign remains focused on President Donald Trump’s record rather than Biden’s tenure. The report noted that Biden has largely faded from public view after his bid to return to the White House ended and support within his own party evaporated.

In a video released Wednesday alongside the announcement, Biden described the themes of the book.

“‘Promise Me, America’ is about the challenges we faced as a nation. It’s about the decisions I made and why I made them,” Biden said. “Most of all, it’s about my faith in the promise of America.”

The title recalls Biden’s 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad, which chronicled the illness and passing of his son, Beau Biden.

A spokesperson for Little, Brown said the 83-year-old Biden plans to promote the memoir with a nationwide book tour and will also participate in media interviews surrounding its release.

{Matzav.com}

More than a year after a sweeping workforce reduction tied to the Department of Government Efficiency, the Social Security Administration is still grappling with the loss of nearly 8,000 employees, even as agency leadership points to gains in technology and customer service.

The agency, which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to approximately 75 million Americans each month, has seen its workforce shrink by about 14% since the DOGE-directed cost-cutting initiative began, according to a report published Wednesday by The Washington Post.

Current and former employees say the staffing losses continue to place significant pressure on daily operations, despite ongoing recruitment efforts and a broad modernization campaign.

Since taking over the agency, Commissioner Frank Bisignano has prioritized updating Social Security’s systems by increasing automation and encouraging greater use of online services.

Bisignano has said the technological improvements are expected to save the equivalent of 2,500 full-time work hours, while the agency has begun hiring for roughly 1,000 new positions.

Even so, employees and union representatives say the departure of approximately 7,800 workers has left offices across the country struggling to keep up with demand.

“The look on everybody’s face is they’re beat down, they are demoralized, they’re tired,” Chris Delaney, a claims specialist and local union president representing Social Security workers in Hudson, New York, said.

According to the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, which represents employees in field offices, the vast majority of the agency’s roughly 1,200 local offices lost at least one-tenth of their staff during the workforce reductions.

To compensate for staffing shortages, the agency has reassigned thousands of employees to help answer calls on its national 800-number. Internal figures show that as of July 6, about 1,500 field office employees had been assigned to phone duty, while approximately 2,500 workers had been reassigned across the agency.

Officials say those staffing changes, along with upgrades to the telephone system, have significantly improved response times. Agency data show that the average wait to reach a representative dropped from 11 minutes a year ago to five minutes in May. However, callers who opt for a callback are recorded as having no wait time, and the agency no longer publicly reports the average length of time required for callbacks.

“I’d like to make this more complicated, but it’s not. It’s putting people where the work is,” Bisignano told lawmakers during a congressional hearing last month. “It’s building technology in a modern-day fashion.”

Employees, however, say the improvements in phone service have come at the expense of other critical functions.

Agency data indicate that as of July 6, only 64.6% of appointments for initial benefit claims were scheduled within 30 days, down from 78.1% during the same period last year. In some parts of the country, that figure recently fell below 45%.

Union officials argue that shifting field office staff to phone duty reduces the time available to meet with beneficiaries in person and slows the processing of claims.

“It’s extremely disruptive to the workloads,” Jeremy Maske, a union president representing frontline employees in Iowa and Nebraska, said. “If you’re assigned to the 800 number once a week, that’s taking a fifth of your time to answer those phones.”

Bisignano has highlighted other areas where he says the agency has made progress, including shorter wait times for customers with appointments, smaller claims backlogs, and faster processing of disability benefit applications.

The Social Security Administration is also testing a nationwide appointment scheduling system that would replace the current local office scheduling process. At the same time, officials have expanded online services, including the ability to request replacement Social Security cards electronically, while pledging to keep field offices open and continue offering assistance in person, by phone, and online.

Advocates for senior citizens, people with disabilities, and low-income Americans warn that reducing staff while relying more heavily on automation could create additional obstacles for beneficiaries with complicated cases.

“You can’t lose that many people in that haphazard of a manner without an impact on services,” Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said. “The question is where or when the harm will be felt.”

{Matzav.com}

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir pushed back forcefully against criticism from Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas over the government’s demolition of illegally built homes in the Negev, declaring that the law will be enforced equally against anyone who violates building regulations.

In a video message released Wednesday, Ben Gvir rejected accusations that the demolitions are motivated by discrimination.

“Racism is a lie. Listen carefully, and tell all your friends: anyone who builds illegally-their house will be demolished.”

Ben Gvir’s remarks came in response to a speech Abbas delivered in Arabic from the Knesset podium on Tuesday, in which the Ra’am leader argued that the coalition’s only real accomplishment has been maintaining unity among its members long enough to complete its term in office.

Abbas sharply criticized the current right-wing government, saying its record has been marked by “failure, crimes, murder, demolitions, and wars.” He contrasted that with the previous “government of change,” in which Ra’am served as a coalition partner and, according to Abbas, played a significant role in addressing the needs of Israel’s Arab community.

The Ra’am chairman also claimed that violent crime in Arab society declined by 15 percent during the previous government’s first year. He argued that if that coalition had remained in power for a full four-year term, the number of homicide victims could have fallen to “only forty deaths, or even fewer.”

Turning to the issue of housing enforcement, Abbas asserted that only four occupied homes in the Negev were demolished during the previous government. By contrast, he claimed that Ben Gvir has proudly cited approximately 5,700 demolition operations carried out over the past year.

Abbas also took aim at Hadash and Ta’al, the factions that make up the Joint List, accusing them of failing to shoulder responsibility when opportunities arose.

“Our colleagues from the Joint List did not understand the responsibility that rested on them,” Abbas said, arguing that Ra’am had been willing to accept the political consequences of joining the coalition. He questioned what the public ultimately gained from the collapse of the previous government and what it has lost under the continued tenure of the current coalition.

{Matzav.com}

Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a temporary injunction suspending implementation of the newly enacted law that halted the arrest of bnei Torah who have not reported for military service, setting the stage for another high-profile legal battle over the status of lomdei Torah.

Supreme Court Justice Ofer Grosskopf ordered that the law be put on hold pending further proceedings. In his decision, he wrote: “In light of this Court’s longstanding rulings on the enlistment of yeshiva students, the implications of freezing arrest, investigation, and enforcement proceedings with respect to only certain segments of the population, and the substantial arguments raised by the petitioners in the various petitions challenging the law’s validity, a conditional order is hereby issued instructing the respondents to explain why the law should not be struck down.”

Grosskopf added that the petitions challenging the legislation will be heard as soon as possible before an expanded panel of justices to be appointed by the President of the Supreme Court.

Multiple petitions have already been filed seeking to invalidate the law, including those submitted by the Yisrael Beytenu and Yesh Atid parties.

MK Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism sharply criticized the court’s ruling, arguing that the injunction has no legal basis. He asserted that any soldier or police officer who takes part in arresting bnei Torah under the current circumstances would be acting in violation of the law passed by the Knesset.

The legislation, approved by the Knesset on Tuesday in its second and third readings by a vote of 58 to 54, temporarily halted the arrest of bnei Torah who are subject to military draft proceedings.

Four coalition lawmakers voted against the measure: Yuli Edelstein, Sharren Haskel, Dan Illouz, and Moshe Solomon. Minister Ofir Sofer and MK Michal Woldiger were absent during the vote.

The bill was presented to the Knesset by Minister Shlomo Karhi, who engaged in heated exchanges with opposition lawmakers during the debate from the Knesset podium.

During the debate, the Knesset Ethics Committee required Chareidi members of Knesset to disclose that members of their own families could potentially be affected by the outcome of the legislation.