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28 Tehran’s nuclear program and demanded the release of all prisoners detained during ongoing protests in Iran. The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 1, 2022 The hacking group subsequently published the materials on social media, including a short clip of an alleged Iranian nuclear site. Iran’s domestic atomic energy agency last week acknowledged that one of its affiliated bodies had indeed been targeted by “a specific foreign country,” according toAFP. On Thursday, Israeli authorities confirmed that Iranian hackers had penetrated a major Israeli security organization to steal and subsequently publish surveillance footage that captured one of Wednesday’s twin bombings in Jerusalem. (JNS)
Hawaiian Volcano Erupts
The world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa on Hawaii, is erupting for the first time in nearly 40 years.
Though lava is flowing down one side of the volcano, the eruption in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is not threatening communities, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Monday.
“All indications are that the eruption will remain in the Northeast Rift Zone,” the agency said in an advisory, referring to an area where a volcano is splitting, allowing for lava flow. “Volcanic gas and possibly fine ash and Pele’s Hair (strands of lava glass) may be carried downwind.”
Ashfall can damage vehicles and buildings, contaminate water supplies, disrupt sewage and electrical systems, and damage or kill vegetation, the weather service says, while abrasive volcanic ash can irritate eyes and lungs.
“People with respiratory illnesses should remain indoors to avoid inhaling the ash particles and anyone outside should cover their mouth and nose with a mask or cloth,” the Honolulu office warned.
At about 4,000 square miles, Hawaii, or the Big Island, is the largest in size of the Hawaiian chain but has a population of just over 200,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, or fewer than 50 people per square mile. Most of the population is in cities and communities around the coast.
Red hues from the eruption illuminated Monday’s predawn sky, according to footage captured at the Kailua Bay & Pier by Matthew Liano, a resident of Kailua-Kona, along the Big Island’s west coast.
“The glow is like nothing I’ve seen here living in Kona for most of my life,” Liano told CNN.
The eruption began in Moku’āweoweo, the summit caldera of Mauna Loa, on Sunday around 11:30 p.m. HST (4:30 a.m. EST Monday), according to the observatory.
Mauna Loa, which covers half the island of Hawaii, has erupted 33 times since 1843, the volcano’s first “well-documented historical eruption,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It last erupted in 1984, making this prolonged quiet period the volcano’s longest in recorded history.
Mauna Loa’s summit crater sits about 21 miles west of Kilauea, a smaller volcano that has been erupting since 2021. Their simultaneous eruptions have created a rare dual-eruption event, according to the park.
Kilauea’s eruption is currently confined to its crater. When Kilauea erupted for months in 2018, it spewed lava into the Leilani Estates neighborhood, destroying more than 700 homes and displacing residents.
Elon Musk Takes on Apple
“What’s going on here @tim_cook?” Elon Musk tweeted on Monday to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, igniting a spat between the world’s richest man and the world’s most valuable public company.
In a series of tweets over 15 minutes, Musk, the new owner of Twitter, accused Apple of threatening to withhold Twitter from its App Store, a move that would limit some new users from
30 downloading the app. The action would amount to censorship, Musk said, with no explanation from Apple for why TwitThe Jewish Home | DECEMBER 1, 2022 ter would be blocked. He added that Apple had also reduced its advertising spending on Twitter. “Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?” Musk wrote on Monday. With his tweets, Musk set the stage for a power struggle with Cook, who holds immense influence over other tech companies through Apple’s dominance. Musk has a vested interest now in Apple’s clout because of his ownership of Twitter, which he bought last month for $44 billion. Twitter is distributed through Apple’s App Store and is used by iPhone and iPad owners around the world. In one tweet, Musk implied he was ready for “war” with Apple. Musk has been poised to confront Apple since taking over Twitter. His business plan is predicated on shifting its revenue from a dependence on advertising to a greater reliance on subscription sales. But any new subscription revenue will be subject to Apple’s practice of taking as much as a 30% cut.
Musk’s complaints also come at a pivotal time for Apple. There’s a push in Congress during the final months of the year to advance a series of antitrust laws. Among the bills under consideration is the Open App Markets Act, which seeks to give developers more control over their apps and allow them to skirt the fees that Apple and Google charge.
“Elon is the latest chapter in a push to make App Store fees lower, and this will resurrect a topic that’s been fairly quiet over the past six months,” said Gene Munster, managing partner of Loup Ventures, a technology research firm. He said he anticipated a future in which App Store fees were reduced to around 20%. (© The New York Times)
Word of the Year
If you’ve used the word “gaslighting” this year, you’re not alone. Dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster announced this week that “gaslighting” is its word of the year, saying it reflects the current “age of misinformation.”
According to Merriam-Webster, in 2022, there was a 1,740% increase in searches for the word, which comes from the title of a 1938 play about a man attempting to make his wife believe that she is going insane.
Merriam-Webster defines gaslighting as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.”
“In recent years, with the vast increase in channels and technologies used to mislead, gaslighting has become the favored word for the perception of deception. This is why (trust us!) it has earned its place as our Word of the Year,” Merriam-Webster editors said.
Other words shortlisted for the title included “omicron,” which is the Greek alphabet letter used to name a particularly contagious variant of the coronavirus, and “sentient.” Searches for “sentient” spiked after a Google engineer claimed the company’s AI chatbot had developed a human-like consciousness.
Other contenders this year included oligarch, codify, loamy, raid and Queen Consort. When announcing the shortlist to Twitter, Merriam-Webster joked, “Bonus points (which have no cash value) will be awarded to anyone who can use all of these words (and gaslighting) in a single sentence.”
The word gaslighting originally comes from a play called “Gaslight” by Patrick Hamilton about a man who tries to make his wife believe that she’s going insane by messing with the gaslights in the house.
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Too Many Cavities
More than 1 in 4 U.S. adults – 26 percent – have untreated dental cavities, according to oral health data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, nearly half (46 percent) of adults 30 and older have signs of gum disease, and 13 percent of youths ages 5 to 19 have untreated tooth decay.
Untreated cavities are the most common oral health issue worldwide, affecting more than 2 billion people, and severe gum disease affects about 1 billion people, according to a new report on oral health from the World Health Organization. Calling the global situation “alarming,” WHO officials say nearly half of the world’s population has untreated oral diseases, and that these illnesses affect more people worldwide than mental disorders, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancers combined.
According to the WHO, oral health care should be part of universal health coverage, “either free of charge or at a price that people can afford,” noting that too many people do not have access to needed dental care.
Cavities generally stem from plaque that builds up on teeth that are not well cleaned, and it can become hardened (known as tartar) and irritate the gums, leading to gum disease (gingivitis). To prevent dental problems, dentists’ recommendations include brushing for two minutes twice a day with a soft-bristled toothbrush, using fluoride toothpaste, replacing toothbrushes at least every three or four months and using floss to clean between the teeth at least once a day.
FBI: White Supremacists are the Worst
According to the FBI, in its annual risk assessment, white supremacists continue to pose the greatest threat of committing “lethal violence against civilians” in the United States. The agency warned that such extremists hope to
32 precipitate a “race war” with acts of domestic terrorism. According to the bureau, radicals The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 1, 2022 “driven by a belief in the superiority of the white race continue to pose the primary threat among [domestic violent extremists] of committing lethal violence against civilians, based on their ideology and attack history.” Since 2010, white supremacists have carried out at least 17 lethal attacks, killing at least 77 people — accounting for more than half of all fatalities from domestic terrorism, the FBI noted. One of the deadliest recent attacks by a white supremacist came in May, when a man targeted Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people and wounding three others. The gunman pleaded guilty to murder and domestic terrorism, among other charges, on Monday. The FBI report warns that such racially-motivated extremists are acting as part of a “transnational movement,” facilitated by online networks and claiming the mantle of a “leaderless resistance” to multiculturalism. Adherents, the report states, “believe that white people of European descent are superior to and threatened by minority populations, as well as by other whites whom they perceive as supporting these populations.”
The FBI assessment comes just days after former President Donald Trump met with Nick Fuentes, one of the leading white supremacists in the U.S., sparking criticism from Democrats and Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence.
Other racial supremacists also pose a threat, according to the FBI report, which notes several incidents in recent years where followers of Black Hebrew Israelite ideology, recently promoted by NBA star Kyrie Irving, have carried out deadly attacks against Jews and members of law enforcement.
According to the FBI, left-wing violence poses a smaller threat than that stemming from white supremacists and is likely to consist of “nonlethal” criminal activity, according to the report, which states that far-left extremists, unlike their far-right opponents, are “not organized at the countrywide level.”
Anarchist violent extremists, as the FBI terms them — popularly referred to as “Antifa” — will likely “plot and potentially conduct sporadic attacks” on critical infrastructure and government buildings, as well as engage in “violent physical assaults against their perceived opponents,” according to the report.
Crustacean Outcry
$11.3B Sales on Cyber Monday
After Whole Foods announced that it will be pausing purchases of Maine lobsters, state officials and those from the lobster industry were outraged.
Whole Foods’ decision, which was announced this month, was prompted by changes in sustainability ratings for Maine lobster fisheries by separate third-party seafood monitoring groups: the California-based Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch and the London-based Marine Stewardship Council.
Both point to a recent U.S. court decision indicating equipment used to harvest lobster off Maine may put North American right whales at risk. The whales have been listed as an endangered species since 1970, and fewer than 350 are believed to remain.
In a joint statement last Tuesday, Maine’s congressional delegation and Gov. Janet Mills said they were disappointed by the decisions, saying they harmed “the livelihoods of hardworking men and women up and down Maine’s coast.”
“There has never been a right whale death attributed to Maine lobster gear,” they said. “Maine lobstermen have a 150-year history of sustainability; and
Maine’s lobstering $ community has consistently demonstrated their commitment to protecting right whales.”
Maine lobsters are a $1 billion industry providing at least 5,900 direct jobs and indirectly supporting many more, according to the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, which coordinates media for the state’s lobster industry.
The Maine restaurant industry, too, is expressing dismay.
“Maine lobster has always been sustainable and that hasn’t changed with the recent announcement from MSC,” Steve Kingston, the owner of The Clam Shack in Kennebunk, Maine, said in a state-
ment. “I will continue to proudly stand by Maine Lobster, and would encourage retailers, buyers, and patrons to educate themselves on the nuances of these decisions.” Whole Foods said the pause in sales would last until at least one of the environmental groups changes its rating. The company said its stores would continue to sell Marine Stewardship Council-certified lobster caught in other places. Consumers were generous with their spending this week on Cyber Monday, shelling out $11.3 billion in sales online. That is 5.8% more than consumers spent on the same day last year (when $10.7 billion was recorded in sales, a drop on 2020’s $10.8 billion), Great Rate Van & Truck Rentals and sets a record both for the day and the year so far. Cargo Vans • Trucks 10’ to 26’ The day is typically the biggest of the long weekend — in part because sales
Refrigerator/Freezer Trucks 16’ or 26’ Flatbeds Trucks continue but people have returned to work — and it rounds out five days that Local & One way Rental overall exceeded estimates. Thanksgiving saw $5.29 billion in sales and Black Friday had $9.12 billion in sales — both up on earlier forecasts. The weekend between had $9.55 billion in sales. Altogether, “Cyber Week” — the period including those holidays and the days : $350per week week : back at work as people continue to shop online — will reach $35.27 billion in sales online, up 4% over last year and accounting for 16.7% of all sales in the months of November and December. Notably, although inflation is definitely being felt in the U.S., people spent money over the holiday week-
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