Monday Morning Read

Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading – and a summary of Investigative Post’s reporting from the previous week –  in your inbox Sunday mornings.

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Chris Collins – remember him, the convicted felon who relocated to Florida and was later pardoned by Donald Trump? – is making noise about running for Congress in the Sunshine State. Or perhaps he’s simply making noise. Collins recently went on an anti-gay rant in which he lectured about ethics and morality. This, from a disgraced, and disgraceful, felon.

Terry Pegula is looking for more ways to get even richer. (And that’s not counting his success in getting taxpayers to build his football team a new stadium.)

It appears there’s been some funny business going on in the Erie County Clerk’s office involving the handling of money and documents. Sandy Tan of The Buffalo News reports that problems, and a lack of oversight, are nothing new.

Our friend Mark Scheer at the Niagara Gazette reports on the latest economic development scheme in the Cataract City, otherwise known as a natural wonder and manmade disaster.

Ken Kruly’s latest edition of Politics and Other Stuff is chock full of news and insights.

Old news worth repeating, via The Wall Street Journal: Tesla’s plant in South Buffalo has failed to deliver. (There’s little to nothing in the story we haven’t previously reported.)

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Freedom of Information laws enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal were intended to improve public access to government records and data. Too often these days, politicians and bureaucrats (mis)use it to delay the release of information the public and press are entitled to. (New York State and the City of Buffalo are especially bad.) The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, wrote about how Newfoundland and Labrador are doing right by the public by adding teeth to its FOI laws. We in New York should take note.

How low can Donald Trump go? He recently posted on his social media platform what he said was Barack Obama’s home address. A gunman soon showed up in the neighborhood, looking for what he said was a “good angle on a shot.” The suspect was a Jan. 6 rioter. You know, Trump’s kind of guy.

Buy your tickets to our benefit concert featuring Tom Toles

Politico published an insightful interview with the author of American Whitelash,  which documents this nation’s history of violence carried out by white supremacists. Said author Wesley Lowery: “This book is an attempt to put human faces on the relentless cycle of violence that has defined American history, to put flesh and bone on our discussion of white supremacist terror.”

July 3 was the hottest day in the earth’s recorded history. No, wait, July 4 was the hottest. The week as a whole was record shattering.

Here’s a feel-good baseball story. Two of them, actually, involving the restoration of one of the few Negro leagues stadiums still standing in Paterson, New Jersey, and perhaps the future site of a Yankees-Mets “Field of Dreams” game. Another good baseball read: Satchel Paige’s major league debut, 75 years ago. As a 42-year old “rookie,” he went 6 and 1 and helped Cleveland win a World Series.

The post Monday Morning Read appeared first on Investigative Post.

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France arrests young man for suspected attack on rabbi



French police have arrested a young man on suspicion of attacking a rabbi in broad daylight, a prosecutor said Sunday, shocking the Jewish community and prompting a wave of condemnation.

The attack against the Rabbi of Orleans, Arie Engelberg, happened as he walked with his nine-year-old son from synagogue on Saturday afternoon in the city, about 110 kilometres (68 miles) south of Paris.

Engelberg told BFM television that his attacker asked if he was Jewish. "I said yes."

"He started saying 'all Jews are sons of...," he said, adding that he wanted to film him with his phone as he hurled insults.

"I decided to act and I pushed his telephone away," the rabbi said. His attacker then "started punching and I protected myself", he added.

Engelberg said the suspect bit him until several people stepped in to help, he told the channel.

"I'm OK, thank God, my son, I'm getting better and better. We've had an enormous amount of support."

Police were checking the identity of the person in custody since he did not have documents on him when he was detained, Orleans prosecutor Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren said.

Another source with knowledge of the case said the suspect arrested on Saturday night was known under at least three identities, one Moroccan and two Palestinian.

- Shaken -

France is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, as well as the largest Muslim community in the European Union.

Several EU nations have reported a spike in "anti-Muslim hatred" and "anti-Semitism" since the Gaza war started on October 7, 2023, according to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

On that date, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a cross-border attack in Israel, resulting in the death of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's subsequent military offensive on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run occupied Palestinian territory. The United Nations deems the figures reliable.

Andre Druon, a Jewish community leader in Orleans, said there had not been any incident in Orleans since October 7, 2023 "apart from some graffiti" before the "very violent" attack on the rabbi.

He said the rabbi was profoundly shaken when he recounted his ordeal to the community on Sunday.

Yann Dhieux, a locksmith, told AFP he had intervened with his arms wide and helped stop the assault, but that it was shocking to see the rabbi attacked in front of his young son.

Some 300 people gathered at the Bastille square in Paris to denounce the attack following an appeal by a Jewish students' association, and a silent march is planned for Tuesday evening in Orleans.

President Emmanuel Macron voiced solidarity with the rabbi's family and all French people of Jewish faith.

"Anti-Semitism is a poison," he wrote on X.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was "shocked" by the attack and called for "zero tolerance for anti-Semitism".

France witnessed some 1,570 anti-Semitic acts last year, the interior ministry says. They made up 62 percent of all acts of hatred on the basis of religion.

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© Agence France-Presse

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