🇮🇹 **Roman Jews and Israeli rabbis are ‘at war’... over artichoke ** 🇮🇱
<http://archive.fo/LP10s>

A centuries-old Italian way of cooking artichokes is apparently not to the taste of Israel's top religious authority, as it has rejected the dish as non-kosher. However, Rome’s Jewish community stand up for their beloved delicacy.

The row over an ordinary vegetable made the headlines after the Chief Rabbinate of Israel denounced the artichoke as not kosher last week. The deep-friend dish, known as Carciofi alla giudia, is popular among Rome’s Jewish community. It became controversial in Israel over its alleged impurity due to the presence of worms.

These cannot be cleaned out of the vegetable in order to make it kosher, and it therefore contradicts Jewish law, the Rabbinate’s Import Division head, Rabbi Yitzhak Arazi told Haaretz.

However, Rome's Jewish community responded with reluctance to yield to this view. They argued that their type of artichokes were tighter and more compact than the Israeli one, thus making it impossible for worms to penetrate them. Rome’s Jews insisted the vegetable is perfectly orthodox and explained that their recipe requires thorough cleaning in water with lemon, as well as preparation at high temperatures, which gives the worms zero chance of survival.

The simmering conflict has been dubbed by Israeli media as the “artichoke war,” and has caused a split among Italian Jews. Those in Rome are sticking to their 600-year-old tradition of preparing artichokes, while those in Milan have reportedly banned the signature dish from their menus, puzzling their customers.

“I’m a little worried about the souls of all the people that have been eating them over the centuries, I hope nothing bad happens to them,” said Umberto Pavoncello, manager of one of the kosher restaurants in Rome, Nonna Betta, which refused to change their menus.
-----------------

<:thinkingsmug:329982137279447040> **Pentagon strips Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria troop numbers from web**
<https://archive.fo/GeJda>

After months of review, the Pentagon has released a quarterly report of the number of troops serving overseas — minus any data it previously reported about the number of service members deployed in combat.

The Defense Manpower Data Center for years has reported quarterly the number of active duty, National Guard and Reserve forces assigned to each state and stationed at each country overseas.

The December report, however, just had blank spaces where Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan figures used to be.

An asterisk at the bottom said, “with ongoing operations, any questions concerning DoD personnel strength numbers are deferred to OSD Public Affairs/Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

They also stripped Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan numbers from the previously released September report, with the same disclaimer.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Bank of America will no longer lend to companies that make ‘military-style’ weapons**
<https://archive.fo/Mkr0B>

Bank of America officially took sides in America’s gun debate Tuesday, announcing it would no longer make loans to companies that make “military-style” weapons.

The second-biggest U.S. bank announced Tuesday that it would drop current loan-customers Vista Outdoors, Remington and Sturm Ruger, and blackball any other manufacturer of assault weapons.

Bank of America Vice Chairman Anne Finucanetold Bloomberg TV on Tuesday her bank has told those companies “it’s not our intent to underwrite or finance military-style firearms.”
-----------------

🔥 **Environmentalist Burns Himself To Death To Protest Fossil Fuels**
<http://archive.fo/gRpmP>

An environmental activist committed suicide on Saturday in a park in Brooklyn, New York, by setting himself on fire. The man was protesting the use of "fossil fuel" — which he said was leading to an environmental disaster in the world — when he poured gasoline on himself and burned himself to death in Prospect Park.

"David Buckel, 60, left behind a charred corpse and a typed suicide note that said he was burning himself to death using 'fossil fuel' to reflect how mankind was likewise killing itself, police sources said," reported the New York Post.

The New York Daily News said Buckel was a "nationally known advocate for gay rights and the environment" and said he opened his note to police by saying: “I am David Buckel and I just killed myself by fire as a protest suicide." He also said, “I apologize to you for the mess.”

The Post said Buckel also "famously served as lead attorney in a lawsuit involving transgender murder victim Brandon Teena, who was raped and then killed in 1993. His story was later told in the movie 'Boys Don’t Cry,' starring Hilary Swank as Teena.
-----------------

<:rip:332546718031806484> **F for GySgt R. Lee Ermey**
https://twitter.com/RLeeErmey/status/985651917870202883

**Full statement**

-----------------

🇺🇸 **No Joke: Judge Who Forced (((Cohen))) To ID Hannity Performed (((Soros))) Wedding**
<http://archive.fo/WjPdB>

The U.S. District judge who ordered Trump’s lawyer (((Michael Cohen))) to identify Sean Hannity had officiated billionaire (((George Soros)))’ wedding in 2013.

Judge Kimba Wood officiated the “non-denominational” wedding between (((Soros))) and his third wife Tamiko Bolton in 2013 in Bedford, New York. Suddenly, Wood’s decision to force (((Cohen))) to disclose his clients becomes clear.

Before Hannity was revealed as a client, (((Cohen)))’s attorney Stephen Ryan argued to Wood that one of (((Cohen)))’s clients was a “prominent” person who wanted to remain anonymous – as is his right – because it would be embarrassing to be revealed as (((Cohen)))’s client.

“I understand he doesn’t want his name out there, but that isn’t the law,” Judge Wood said. The Fox host took to Twitter on Monday to clarify his relationship with (((Cohen))).

“(((Michael Cohen))) has never represented me in any manner,” he tweeted. “I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.”
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Press F**
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/986389977465544705

🇺🇸 **Starbucks manager who made call resulting in black men's arrests no longer works for company**
<http://archive.fo/fcbqe>

The manager who called police on two black men who had refused to leave a Philadelphia Starbucks no longer works there, a company spokeswoman confirmed to ABC News today.

The news follows Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson’s comments this morning that he will order managers of the coffee giant's stores to undergo training on how to spot "unconscious bias" after witnesses said the men were arrested at a Philadelphia shop for doing nothing but sitting at a table.

Johnson, the chief executive officer, was in Philadelphia this morning, a day after protesters rallied Sunday at a downtown Philadelphia Starbucks, where the two black men, who have yet to be identified, were led out in handcuffs Thursday by police and accused of trespassing.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney slammed Starbucks for the incident, saying it "appears to exemplify what racial discrimination looks like in 2018."
-----------------

🇩🇪 **German theatre sparks anger by offering free seats to anyone wearing a Nazi SWASTIKA armband to watch a play titled Mein Kampf**
<http://archive.fo/wgXvU>

German prosecutors on Wednesday cleared a performance of a satirical play named after Adolf Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf' that promises free entry to spectators who wear a swastika. The theatre in the Bavarian lakeside town of Constance says it aims to show how easily people can be corrupted but the approach sparked numerous legal complaints.

Local prosecutors however on Wednesday said the premiere could go ahead on Friday, which marks Hitler's birthday in 1889, as well as the controversial swastika campaign. The theatre says on its website that those who pay for a ticket will be asked to wear a Star of David 'as a sign of solidarity with the victims of Nazi barbarism'.

Under German law, publicly displaying swastikas and other Nazi symbols is illegal, unless it is done as part of an artistic performance covered by constitutional guarantees of free speech. The region's (((German-Israeli Society))) has called for a boycott of the play named after the book which Hitler wrote in prison years before taking power.
-----------------

🇨🇦 Toronto restaurateur butchers deer hindquarter in front of animal-rights protesters who were targeting his restaurant.
http://archive.fo/qUdeI

Antler Kitchen & Bar is a small restaurant on Dundas Street West. Mr. Hunter, a co-owner, is both a hunter and forager. In addition to a pair of antlers that hang from the kitchen window (the first buck Mr. Hunter killed), the restaurant is decorated with photos of wild leeks and morel mushrooms foraged by Mr. Hunter and his business partner, Jody Shapiro.

One day in December, an employee at Antler picked up the chalk and wrote: “Venison is the new kale.” The sign caught the attention of Marni Ugar, who already had experience organizing animal-rights protests. Ms. Ugar, who runs a dog-walking business, A Bark in the Park, arranged a demonstration for Dec. 7. Over the winter, the protests grew larger and louder, activists chanting with megaphones outside the restaurant.

On Friday, March 23, each time the door opened, a shout of “murderer” reverberated through the restaurant. Mr. Hunter decided he’d had enough. The chef walked to the kitchen and brought back a cutting board, a knife and the hindquarter of a deer. He sanitized the table and then cut up the leg while protesters watched.

Ms. Ugar’s efforts have made a change. Since video of the protest and Mr. Hunter butchering the deer leg was posted online, the restaurant has seen a direct impact. Reservation requests are up.
-----------------

🇺🇬 **Uganda's President Wants to Ban Oral Sex, Says the "Mouth is for Eating" **
<http://archive.fo/uWqXv>

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has issued what he calls a "public warning" against oral sex. The president claims the practice has been pushed on Ugandans by "outsiders," and argues that the mouth is solely for eating.

"Let me take this opportunity to warn our people publicly about the wrong practices indulged in and promoted by some of the outsiders," he told the press during an address. "One of them is what they call oral sex. The mouth is for eating, not for sex. We know the address of sex, we know where sex is," he continued.

According to the Daily Mail, back in 2014 Museveni stated that performing oral sex could cause people to get worms. "You push the mouth there, you can come back with worms and they enter your stomach because that is a wrong address," he is quoted as saying.

That same year he passed the "Anti-Homosexuality Act," which makes being gay illegal in Uganda, and makes it a criminal offense to not report someone for being gay.
-----------------

<:autism:292463076278665236> **Hans Asperger aided and supported Nazi child euthanasia programme, study says **
<http://archive.fo/smm7W>

The Austrian doctor after whom Asperger syndrome is named was an active participant in the Nazi regime, assisting in the Third Reich’s so called euthanasia programme and supporting the concept of racial hygiene by deeming certain children unworthy to live, according to a study by a medical historian.

Herwig Czech, from Vienna’s Medical University, has made the claim in an academic paper published in the open access journal Molecular Autism, following eight years of research into the paediatrician Hans Asperger.

But by unearthing previously untouched documents from state archives, including Asperger’s personnel files and patient case records, Czech has revealed a scientist who allied himself so closely with the Nazi ideology that he frequently referred children to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic, which was set up as a collecting point for children who failed to conform to the regime’s criteria of “worthy to live”.

Nearly 800 children died at the clinic between 1940 and 1945, many of whom were murdered under the notorious child “euthanasia” scheme.
-----------------

🎂

-----------------

🇺🇸 **Immigrant Couple Fatally Tortured, Burned Vietnam Veteran For His Financial Information**
<http://archive.fo/xHRUP>

A terrible and heinous act of violence was perpetrated by an immigrant couple in Hanford, California against a 70-year-old Vietnam War veteran. The couple violently tortured veteran Kenneth Coyle for his financial information before killing him and burning his body in front of their children.

"They restrained him on a bed and beat him to get access to his bank account information, passwords, and other account information," Anderson said. After he was tortured, Coyle died of "blunt force trauma and suffocation." A few days after his death, the Mendozas drove Coyle's body to nearby Madera County and burned him in front of their children. "We know the children were taken to where the body was burned and watched the body burn," Anderson said.

-----------------

🇺🇸 **Florida Politician Arrested For Pimping Out Strippers**
<http://archive.fo/Q2ptn>

A 30-year-old stripper claims she was a "sex slave" for Hernando County Commissioner Nick Nicholson for months. Valerie Surette called herself a 30-year-old stripper with an on-and-off drug problem and she is one of two women named in charging documents when Nicholson was arrested for prostitution charges Thursday.

According to the woman, the 71-year-old Nicholson preyed on her "vulnerability" and did the same to other women like her. Surette says she would have sex with Nicholson in exchange for a place to live, cash for groceries, drugs, and rehab. "I had originally agreed to the arrangement," she explained. "I did work at a strip club, but that’s different. Here, I was a sex slave. … Whatever he wanted, I had to do."

Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Kraft says the women are not being charged at this time. This latest incident with the strippers is not the only time Nicholson has been investigated. In 2012, he was investigated for a relationship with another stripper but no charges were brought by the state. Neighbors say they watched as day after day cars and even limousines would stop in front of the house to drop off women and men.

-----------------

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/04/09/outrage-after-2-men-sentenced-to-probation-for-gang-rape-13-year-old.html

A family in Colorado is outraged after two men, who were accused of gang-raping a 13-year-old girl with their brothers and cousins, were only sentenced to probation.
Tommy Williams, 20, and Clarence Williams, 19, were each sentenced on Tuesday to a minimum of 10 years of sex offender intensive supervised probation, with a maximum of life on probation, KKTV reported.

The men are two of six suspects accused of sexually assaulting the young teen in December 2016 inside of the Stonebrook Terrace apartment complex in Colorado Springs.

The victim's grandfather was shocked at the sentencing, telling the news station: "There was six of them and they gang-raped my granddaughter."
The group of suspects — some of whom are reportedly related as cousins or brothers and identified as Jacolby Williams, Tyron Williams, James Williams, and a juvenile, in addition to Tommy and Clarence — were with the girl on Dec. 19, according to The Gazette.

🇺🇸 **Fresno State’s Randa Jarrar Believes Leftist Activists Should Be Using Violence**
<https://archive.fo/jBNos>

According to a video from 2016, embattled Fresno State Professor Randa Jarrar laments the fact that progressives no longer utilize terrorist acts like hijacking planes. In a video surfacing from 2016, Jarrar lamented the state of progressive activism before speaking fondly of Palestinian plane hijackers.

“I’m tired of being the bigger person. I’m tired of the left being fucking stupid and being like ‘we have to be gentle.’ No, don’t be fucking gentle,” Jarrar said.

“You look at resistance fighters in the 60s and 70s, they didn’t kill anyone, but they scared the shit out of people. They would hijack a plane and be like ‘we aren’t going to hurt anyone on this plane, but we are going to fucking hijack this plane,” Jarrar continued.

“The guy who walked between the twin towers is amazing. The only reason he’s important is because the [twin towers] aren’t there anymore,” Jarrar added.

“I’m tired of being nice. I’m tired of seeing my white friends on the left writing postcards,” she finished. “Fuck your postcards. That’s enough. Fucking get out there and do some shit.”

-----------------

✈ **Crazy Delta Passenger Assaults Air Marshall, Throws Coffee On Fliers**
<http://archive.fo/2dLzE>

A passenger aboard a Delta Airlines flight has been arrested after disrupting a flight from London to Salt Lake City. The unruly flier assaulted a U.S. Air Marshal and threw coffee on other passengers as she raced up and down the aisle. 45-year-old Sarah Maria Beach was arrested Thursday for misdemeanor assault of a federal air marshal.

Federal prosecutors say Beach toppled a drink cart when she raced up and down the aisle and threw coffee all over passengers. Beach was handcuffed after she "jumped on the back of" the air marshal and "placed her hands on his head, neck, and jawline." She was then seated next to the air marshal after she "caused a disruption on the flight" by throwing coffee on other passengers, overturning a drink cart, and belligerently running back and forth down the center aisle of the plane "repeatedly", according to charging documents.

-----------------

🇺🇸 **Newnan, Georgia: Antifa Rioters Arrested for Refusing to Remove Masks**
<http://archive.fo/mCvHp>

The town of Newnan, Georgia is now bracing for premeditated attacks against Trump supporters by a band of radicalized alt-left extremists - who claim they're targeting “Nazis” - but now have the town on high alert fearing a dramatic wave of violence.

The majority of the arrests occurring are of those refusing to remove their masks under State Law.

Police are concerned after the violence that has been seen on nationwide television as per “Antifa” thugs attacking Trump supporters, in the cities of Berkeley, California and the infamous event that led to a fatality in Charlottesville, Virginia.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Texas emergency operator jailed for 911 call hang ups**
<http://archive.fo/NHWwl>

A former 911 operator in Houston, Texas has been found guilty of hanging up on emergency calls.

Crenshanda Williams, 44, was sentenced to 10 days in jail and 18 months of probation for interfering with emergency telephone calls.

The Harris County district attorney's office said Ms Williams systematically hung up on emergency reports.

Calls she terminated included reports of robberies, speeding vehicles, and murders, records showed.

-----------------

🇺🇸 **GQ magazine puts Bible on list of classic books not worth reading**
<http://archive.fo/xA20R>

GQ magazine, a bible of “grooming” tips, gadget suggestions and style advice, has sparked a social media conflagration by calling the Christian Holy Bible “foolish, repetitive and contradictory” and placing it on a list of “21 Books You Don’t Have to Read.”

“The Holy Bible is rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it,” novelist Jesse Ball writes in the magazine. “Those who have read it know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced.”

Instead, Ball recommends reading Agota Kristof's The Notebook calling it “a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough.” Also on the GQ list are such classics as The Catcher in the Rye, Lonesome Dove, The Old Man and the Sea, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Lord of the Rings.
-----------------

🇨🇦 **Van strikes pedestrians in Toronto, killing 9 and injuring 16**
<http://archive.fo/mE1JR>

A van struck and killed nine pedestrians Monday afternoon in north Toronto and the driver fled the scene, Canadian police said. Sixteen others were injured in the incident. Authorities said the van has been found and the driver was in custody. Police said they did not yet know the cause or any possible motive.

CBS News sources identified the suspect as **Alek Minassian**, 25, and obtained a photo of him from social media Monday evening. U.S. law enforcement sources told CBS News that the incident appears to be a deliberate act. Witnesses said the driver was moving fast and appeared to be acting deliberately.

Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale said that it was too soon to say whether the crash was a case of international terrorism and that the government had not raised its terrorism alert.

The incident occurred as Cabinet ministers from the major industrial countries were gathered in Canada to discuss a range of international issues in the run-up to the G7 meeting near Quebec City in June. The driver was heading south on busy Yonge Street around 1:30 p.m. and the streets were crowded with people enjoying an unseasonably warm day when the van jumped onto the sidewalk.
-----------------

👶 **Penn State Forbids Outing Club from Going Outside Because It’s Too Dangerous**
<https://bit.ly/2vEF4Yv>

In the past, members of the Outing Club would participate in activities such as hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and camping, however, the university’s offices of Student Affairs and Risk Management have since decided that these things are just too treacherous for college students, according to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

An official announcement said the decision was due to “an assessment of risk management by the university that determined that the types of activities in which PSOC engages are above the university’s threshold of acceptable risk for recognized student organizations.”

Banning outdoor activities for this club is treating these adult students like children, which may have a lot of harmful effects on their lives in the future. For one thing, this means that future students are going to miss out on what could have been an opportunity to gain an interest in outdoor activities, activities that are good for both the body and the mind.

For another thing, it may mean that these young adults will get used to being viewed as children. It may mean that, when they exit the university, they’ll expect very little to be expected of them. They’ll be used to being expected to be so helpless that they couldn’t possibly survive for a few hours in an area without a cellphone; they won’t feel that they’re expected to be autonomous. It’s obviously important to keep students safe at school, but infantilizing them isn’t going to help them in the long run — it’s just going to keep them from growing up.
-----------------

<:pepesad:281042039104077824> **School House Rock writer and performer dead at 94**
http://archive.is/yKgYZ

Bob Dorough, a musician who wrote songs like "Conjunction Junction" and performed for "Schoolhouse Rock," has died. The artist's songs helped educate children on the long-running ABC cartoon series.
His son, Chris, says the 94-year-old Dorough died of natural causes Monday at his home in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania.

=================================

🇺🇸 **Federal judge: Trump administration must accept new DACA applications**
<https://archive.fo/pSQTQ>

A D.C. federal judge has delivered the toughest blow yet to Trump administration efforts to end deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants, ordering the government to continue the Obama-era program and — for the first time since announcing it would end — reopen it to new applicants.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates on Tuesday called the government’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “virtually unexplained” and therefore “unlawful.” However, he stayed his ruling for 90 days to give the Department of Homeland Security a chance to provide more solid reasoning for ending the program.

Bates is the third judge to rule against Trump administration attempts to rescind DACA, which provides two-year, renewable work permits and deportation protections for about 690,000 “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children.
-----------------

<:pepesmug:281041251749462016> **Ex-Cop Arrested in Golden State Killer Case: ‘We Found the Needle in the Haystack’**
http://archive.is/4EKNb

The authorities confirmed on Wednesday that they had made an arrest in the unsolved case of a serial killer and rapist who terrorized communities in California in the 1970s and 1980s.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested on a warrant from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and booked early Wednesday on two counts of murder, according to Sacramento County jail records. A person familiar with the matter confirmed that Mr. DeAngelo had been arrested in connection with the case.
=======================================

<:whatthefucknigger:411341483564859392> **Pig brains are kept alive OUTSIDE their bodies for the first time in a radical experiment that could allow humans to become immortal**
http://archive.is/QQ7WW

Pig brains have been kept alive outside their bodies for the first time as part of a controversial new experiment.
The brains of hundreds of pigs survived for up to 36 hours after the animals had been decapitated, researchers revealed.
The radical experiments could pave the way for brain transplants and may one day allow humans to become immortal by hooking up our minds to artificial systems after our natural bodies have perished.
========================================

🇮🇷 **Iran's Khamenei urges Muslim nations to unite against U.S**
<https://archive.fo/m6IaP>

Iran's supreme leader called on Muslim nations to unite against the United States, saying Tehran would never yield to "bullying," state television reported on Thursday.

"The Iranian nation has successfully resisted bullying attempts by America and other arrogant powers and we will continue to resist... All Muslim nations should stand united against America and other enemies," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

Iran's top authority criticized Trump for saying on Tuesday some countries in the Middle East "wouldn't last a week" without U.S. protection.

"Such remarks are humiliation for Muslims ... Unfortunately there is war in our region between Muslim countries. The backward governments of some Muslim countries are fighting with other countries," Khamenei said.
-----------------