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NEWS

A conservative tilt on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has given Republicans victories on voting restrictions, gerrymandered legislative districts and other high-stakes cases in recent years.

Voters now have a chance to tip that balance toward the left, with implications for abortion rights and perhaps the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in one of the nation’s most closely divided political battlegrounds.

Tuesday’s primary will feature two conservatives and two liberals running for the seat of a retiring conservative justice. The top two finishers advancing to the April 4 general election.

The eventual winner will determine whether conservatives maintain the majority on the officially nonpartisan court or it flips to 4-3 liberal control for at least the next two years. The court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s win in the state in 2020, and both major parties are preparing for another close margin in the 2024 contest.

The Supreme Court election campaign could break national spending records if a conservative and a liberal make it through the primary, with issues such as abortion, the fate of legislative maps, union rights and challenges to election results at stake.

Four of the past six presidential races in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point, including Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and Biden’s win in 2020

In addition to the court ruling on any challenges to the 2024 election results, Republicans said laws they enacted when they had full control of state government are in jeopardy. That includes a 2011 law signed by then-Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public employees, as well as GOP-drawn legislative districts, a voter ID law, a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes and a host of other measures.

The court is likely to determine whether the state’s law that bans nearly all abortions — enacted in 1849, a year after statehood — remains in effect and whether Democrats get a chance to undo political maps drawn by Republicans, who have increased the number of state legislative seats they hold to a near supermajority. A voting rights attorney already has pledged to file a lawsuit the day after the new justice takes office if a liberal wins.

The conservatives running in Wisconsin for the seat of retiring Justice Patience Roggensack are former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly and Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow. The liberals are Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz and Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell.

Spending on the race is expected to soar after Tuesday’s primary and eventually could exceed the most ever spent on a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin — $10 million in 2020, according to the Brennan Center for Justice The most ever spent on a state Supreme Court election is $15.2 million in Illinois in 2004, according to the center.

—Wisconsin AP

The Journal Sentinel spoke to more than a dozen current and former physicians, nurses and patients at Columbia St. Mary’s, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from Ascension, and concern about their status in the larger health care community. The Journal Sentinel also reviewed state and federal inspection records, and emails to Ascension Wisconsin employees.

The interviews and documents reveal Columbia St. Mary’s is reeling from staffing challenges that have caught the attention of regulators, and have resulted in disruptions to patient care, long wait times in the emergency department, delayed surgeries and staff concerns about patient safety.

All the while, physicians have been leaving the hospital “in droves,” some lured away by Ascension’s competitors in the Milwaukee area, according to one physician at Columbia St. Mary’s. The Journal Sentinel confirmed a list of more than 20 physicians who have left in the last year or so, though the list is not complete and the reasons for leaving not given.

The exodus of physicians, which includes primary care doctors, cardiologists, obstetrician-gynecologists and others, would be an added blow to the hospital if patients follow them.

Further, medical residents may be less likely to work for Ascension Wisconsin if they perceive instability and problems. “They can’t wait to get out,” the same physician told the Journal Sentinel.

Ascension Wisconsin declined an interview request with its leadership, but responded to questions sent by email to a spokesperson.

“Hospitals across the U.S. are dealing with historic staffing challenges due to ongoing workforce shortages,” the email from director of communications Caryn Kaufman reads. “We are working diligently to mitigate these many challenges through strategies that include staffing bonuses, increased direct hiring, and new retention efforts.”

In its statement, Ascension Wisconsin said it is working to strengthen its workforce by “offering competitive compensation packages,” as well as “flexible staffing options, wellness initiatives and career growth and development opportunities.”

—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Dozens of well-wishers made the pilgrimage Sunday to The Carter Center in Atlanta, as prayers and memories of former President Jimmy Carter’s legacy were offered up at his small Baptist church in Plains, Georgia, a day after he entered hospice care.

Among those paying homage was his niece, who noted the 39th president’s years of service in an emotional address at Maranatha Baptist Church, where Carter taught Sunday school for decades.

“I just want to read one of Uncle Jimmy’s quotes,” Kim Fuller said during the Sunday school morning service, adding: “Oh, this is going to be really hard.”

She referenced this quote from Carter: “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something. I’m free to choose that something. … My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can.”

Carter, at age 98 the longest-lived American president, had a recent series of short hospital stays. The Carter Center said in a statement Saturday that he has now “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.”

—Associated Press

President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a striking gesture of solidarity that comes days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the country.

Biden spent more than five hours in the Ukrainian capital, meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace, honoring the country’s fallen soldiers and meeting with U.S. embassy staff in the war-torn country. In his remarks with Zelenskyy, Biden recalled the fears nearly a year ago that Russia’s invasion forces might quickly take city. “One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said, jamming his finger for emphasis on his podium decorated with the U.S. and Ukrainian flags. “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

—Associated Press

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Sunday pushed the Biden administration to provide more aid to Ukraine after Vice President Kamala Harris said Russia was committing “crimes against humanity” in its invasion.

“I believe a decision will be imminent here when we get back to Washington that the administration will start training Ukrainian pilots on the F-16” fighter jet, Graham, a prominent defense hawk, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview from the Munich Security Conference.

That would represent a major escalation of U.S. support and one which President Joe Biden has signaled reluctance to commit to. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, appearing separately on “This Week,” didn’t say whether F-16s had been approved but noted that proper training for the Ukrainians was also important.

“Let me just stress this: How can you call this war by Russia a crime against humanity … and not give the victim of their crime against humanity the defensive weapons they need to stop the crime? So, we need to do two things quickly: make Russia a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law, which would make it harder for China to give weapons to Russia, and we need to start training Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 now,” Graham said.

—ABC News

The Pentagon is stonewalling inquiries as to whether one of the unidentified objects it shot down off the coast of Alaska earlier this month was a $12 dollar hobby balloon.

Speculation that the unidentified aerial object the administration shot down earlier this month was actually a cheap hobbyist pico balloon began to build this week after a group dedicated to the hobby reported one of its balloons “missing in action” over Alaska.

A blog post from the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) recounted that it had lost contact with its hobby balloon on Feb. 11, and that it was last recorded at an altitude of about 39,000 feet off the coast of Alaska.

Pico balloons are small mylar balloons equipped with trackers that are used by hobbyists to measure weather patterns and can cost as little as $12.

The U.S. military shot down an unidentified object in the same general vicinity at an altitude of 40,000 feet on the same day using a $400,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.

When asked whether that included a pico balloon or if the department had in any way followed up with the NIBBB, the Pentagon deflected.

“We have nothing to provide on this,” a Department of Defense (DOD) spokesperson said in an email.

—The Epoch Times

Locals who live near the train derailment and release of toxic chemicals near East Palestine, Ohio, have complained about various health problems since the incident unfolded earlier this month, including rashes, headaches, and other issues. And they’ve expressed concerns that these new symptoms may be tied to the chemicals that were burned or released.

The Feb. 3 derailment triggered officials to initiate a controlled release and burn of various chemicals as they cited concerns that those materials would explode and send out deadly shrapnel. Chemicals carried on the Norfolk Southern-operated train include toxic vinyl chloride gas, which was vented and burned, releasing a large cloud of black smoke that hung over the area for days.

A plume of chemicals from the train derailment was also detected heading down the Ohio River, although some Ohio environmental officials assert that they may largely be fire retardant substances used to put out the fire.

Residents of East Palestine were told they could return to their homes on Feb. 8. Since then, there have been reports from locals of adverse health events they’ve suffered amid separate reports of animals, including fish and chickens, dying off.

“When we went back on the 10th, that’s when we decided that we couldn’t raise our kids here,” local Amanda Greathouse told CNN, adding that in the area, there was a smell that “reminded me of hair perming solution.”

About 30 minutes after returning home earlier this month, she developed nausea and a rash, Greathouse told the network. Her house is located about a block from the train derailment site.

“When we left, I had a rash on my skin on my arm, and my eyes were burning for a few days after that,” added Greathouse, who said she has two preschool-age children.

“The chemical smell was so strong that it made me nauseous,” Greathouse said. “I just wanted to quickly pick up what I needed and leave. I only took a few pieces of clothes because even the clothes smelled like chemicals, and I’m afraid to put them on my kids.”

Another local, Katlyn Schwarzwaelder, said she and her boyfriend, Chris, returned home to East Palestine earlier this month. A rash broke out almost instantly after she came back, she told NewsNation.

“I undressed to get into the shower, and I had a rash all over the side of my face on both sides and all over my chest,” Schwarzwaelder said, adding: “My boyfriend Chris also had a rash on his left side, and I mean to this moment, right now, I have just a really low-grade constant headache.”

Dave Anderson, a farmer in nearby New Galilee, Pennsylvania, told the Washington Post last week that both he and his family have experienced a burning sensation in the mouth, tongue, and lips about a day after the crash. Other symptoms reported include tongue swelling, runny nose, and watery eyes.

Anderson added that “our tongues still feel like they have been scalded—like if you drank something that was too hot.”

And over the weekend, the CEO of Norfolk Southern, Alan Shaw, visited East Palestine and again vowed to clean up the crash site. His firm is already facing several class-action lawsuits connected to the derailment.

—The Epoch Times

The woman flying out of Philadelphia’s airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. But what was more important was what she forgot to unpack: a loaded .380-caliber handgun in a black holster.

The weapon was one of the 6,542 guns the Transportation Security Administration intercepted last year at airport checkpoints across the country. The number — roughly 18 per day — was an all-time high for guns intercepted at U.S. airports.

Guns have been intercepted literally from Burbank, California, to Bangor, Maine. But it tends to happen more at bigger airports in areas with laws more friendly to carrying a gun. The top 10 list for gun interceptions in 2022 includes Dallas, Austin and Houston in Texas; three airports in Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta; Phoenix; and Denver.

—Associated Press

In the ‘90s, it was a first-in the nation ban on smoking in most indoor locations.

Last year, 63% of Californians voted to uphold a state law banning the sale of flavored tobacco products.

Now, a proposal for a generational ban on tobacco sales.

Assembly Bill 935, by Assemblyman Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, would prohibit the sale of tobacco products in California to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2007. That means today’s 15-and-16-year-olds, and anyone younger.

“The impetus for the bill is really that we’ve known for 50 years that tobacco and nicotine products cause cancer, are incredibly addictive and decrease quality of life,” Connolly said in an interview with The Bee.

New Zealand has enacted a similar ban, barring the sale of tobacco products to anyone born in 2009 or later.

Connolly, a former Marin County supervisor who in 2018 led an effort there to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, said that his aim is preventing the next generation of Californians from becoming addicted.

According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, nearly half a million Californians under the age of 18 will die prematurely from smoking.

Unsurprisingly, the bill has drawn the ire of the tobacco industry, which unsuccessfully fought California’s flavored tobacco ban all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“These proposals are not based on scientific evidence, but rather on a political agenda that seeks to demonize adult cigar smokers and restrict their freedom to enjoy a legal product,” said Joshua Habursky, deputy executive director of The Premium Cigar Association, a trade group representing tobacco retailers, in a statement.

“Clearly it is no longer a hidden agenda of the anti-tobacco groups to support full prohibition,” Habursky said.

The bill will be heard in committee this spring.

—Sacramento Bee

Giannis Antetokounmpo had his right wrist constantly monitored over the NBA all-star weekend, but there was little doubt the Milwaukee Bucks superstar was going to – in some capacity – participate in the all-star game at Vivint Arena. He took a lot of pride in being voted in by the fans as a captain across from LeBron James, so it wasn’t a surprise that he appeared on stage for the player draft with his wrist and hand wrapped up, ready to play.

“Obviously it’s important to me,” he told the Journal Sentinel. “Whatever I have, I give. I wanted to be a part of it. I know I could play left-handed for like 10-, 20-seconds, I talked with (Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla) and said, I don’t feel great but for me, for 10 seconds, I get the ball, we score a bit.

“I just want to feel like when I see a jersey on the wall (in my house); you don’t earn the jersey, you don’t earn being an all-star at the all-star (game), you earn it for what you do in the regular season, but I will always remember that. It’s a good memory.”

Ja Morant won the opening tip and Antetokounmpo set the halfcourt offense up with his left hand. He went baseline and softly dunked with two hands and then committed a foul.

Mazzulla subbed Antetokounmpo out for Bam Adebayo and that was the end of the Bucks star’s evening as a player after 20 seconds.

The Milwaukee Bucks are going to submit a bid to host either the 2025 or 2026 NBA All-Star Game.

The NBA wants two potential years in a bid for an all-star game.

ESPN first reported the bid.

A new hotel next to Fiserv Forum is planned to open later in 2023 and the Wisconsin Center District renovation is expected to be completed in 2024.

The last time Milwaukee hosted an all-star game was in 1977.

—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Monday, February 20, marks Presidents Day. The federal holiday falls on the third Monday of February, commemorating America’s 45 commanders in chief (Grover Cleveland served two nonconsecutive terms, so is considered the 22nd and 24th US President.)

Officially, the holiday is known as Washington’s Birthday, as it usually falls around George Washington’s February 22 date of birth.

Though most retail stores will be open, many corporate offices and government agencies will not be operating Monday.

Here’s what’s open and closed on Presidents Day 2023.

Banks

Presidents Day is a bank holiday in the Federal Reserve system, so most banks will be closed. Notably, TD Bank will be open on Monday, and online banking and ATM machines at other banks will be of service.

The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ will be closed.

Mailing

USPS will be closed Monday and will not deliver residential or business mail. However, UPS (UPS), FedEx (FDX) Ground and FedEx (FDX) Home Delivery will be operating as usual.

Government agencies

Nonessential government offices at the federal, state, county and city levels will be closed Monday – think the DMV, libraries,courthouses and city hall. Federal and state courts will also be closed.

Retail

Most stores and restaurants will be open Monday, but double check with local businesses. Big Box stores such as Walmart, Target, Costco will be open, as will most supermarkets.

—CNN

A state dinner at the White House is never simply a meal for the president and his hungry VIP guests. Rather, it’s a “forum for politics and entertainment at the highest level,” writes author Alex Prud’homme in “Dinner with the President: Food, Politics and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House,” (Knopf

The first big White House dinner was served in 1874 when President Ulysses Grant — then the youngest commander in chief at 46 — served guest of honor King Kalakaua of Hawaii a whopping 29 courses. The dishes included trout, squab, and beef tenderloin, along with the chef’s vegetable elixir that had no equal — “a little smoother than peacock’s brains,” but not quite equal to a dish of nightingale tongues.”

A state dinner requires months of planning and is viewed as an event that can help formulate future international policies of an administration. By featuring the native foods of visiting diplomats, the meal can foster goodwill and potentially promote the president’s political agenda, observes the author, who notes that ghastly food could totally undermine a president’s legacy.

Former President Abraham Lincoln adored possum dip.AP

While some presidents savored tossing a big state dinner, others were overwhelmed.

Former President Donald Trump, who privately favored a Big Mac meal, hosted only two state dinners during his one-term presidency. According to the author, the business mogul believed that costs for the splashy dinners could be sliced by serving hamburgers served on a conference table rather than a kitchen staff of a hundred preparing a gastronomic feast.

There’s a good food story behind virtually every president: Lincoln adored possum dip, Eisenhower was a squirrel meat man and Franklin Delano Roosevelt savored buffalo tongue as an appetizer.

From gluttons to gastronomes, here’s what some of our presidents chowed down on.

Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy was an international big-game hunter who boasted that he once “toasted slices of elephant’s heart on a pronged stick and found it delicious.” He had no gourmet pretensions, and at the end of his term, after condemning “game butchery” as “wanton cruelty,” he killed more than 500 wild animals on an African safari.

Woodrow Wilson

Described as “a timid, picky eater,” a big meal for the 28th president was clear soup, chicken salad, and strawberry ice cream. He simply ate to live. He once described with rare ardor-loving foods of his native Virginia – country hams, peach cobblers, butter and buttermilk, fresh eggs and hot biscuits, homemade ice cream, and plain white cake – but this was simple fare compared to what other presidents consumed.

John F. Kennedy

Along with the first lady, the Kennedys were considered great epicures. They hired a French chef who prepared exquisite banquets — sole mousse, filet of beef Montfermeil, or a pheasant breast galantine stuffed with herbs, bacon, a mirepoix of carrots, celery, and shallots. “Maison Blanche gained a reputation for serving some of the finest meals in town, or anywhere,” writes Prud’Homme.

Richard Nixon

The first couple — “Tricky Dick” and Pat -— both ate copious amounts of cottage cheese. Waist watchers were the opposite of the barbecue, chili, and beer-inhaling Johnsons — Lyndon Baines and Lady Bird, who preceded the Nixons in the White House. On the cheap, Nixon served a $6 bottle of wine to guests, saved a $30 dollar bottle for himself, and complained about the “ineffable boredom of state dinners.” He preferred pupu platters — a tray of American Chinese or Hawaiian meats and appetizers — accompanied by Mai Tais, a strong rum-based cocktail — while Pat drank Jack Daniel’s whiskey at Trader Vic’s in DC.

George H.W. Bush

Bush 41 made headlines when he stated, “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!” Outraged broccoli farmers sent truckloads to the White House in protest. While Bush passed off Broccoli-Gate as a joke, First Lady Barbara Bush shot back, “We’re going to have broccoli soup, broccoli main dish, broccoli salad, and broccoli ice cream.”

William Taft

Tipping the scales at 354 pounds, Taft was our heaviest president. He loved a breakfast worthy of a medieval king, a 12-ounce steak, two oranges, toast, coffee — or waffles, and a haunch of venison — or both. His favorite food, however, was roasted possum. It is said that he once got stuck in his huge, custom-built bathtub that could fit four men.

—NY Post

Tributes are pouring in for Richard Belzer, an actor best known for starring in “Law & Order” as Sgt. John Munch, after he died Sunday at the age of 78.

“He passed at home early (Sunday) morning in the south of France – in his home in the south of France – with his family around him,” longtime friend Bill Scheft told Fox News Digital.

“Goodbye my dear, dear friend. I will miss you, your unique light and your singular take on this strange world,” fellow “Law & Order” star Mariska Hargitay posted on Instagram after Belzer’s death.

Belzer started his television career on “Saturday Night Live” and he went on to appear in “Sesame Street,” “Arrested Development,” “South Park” and “The X-Files.”

Comedian Billy Crystal tweeted: “Richard Belzer was simply hilarious. A genius at handling a crowd. So sad he’s passed away.”

Original SNL cast member Laraine Newman tweeted: “I loved this guy so much. He was one of my first friends when I got to New York to do SNL.”

—Just the News

OPINION

According to the White House, President Joe Biden is in tip, top shape. Despite his constant embarrassing gaffes, walking around in circles, and forgetting that the person he’s looking for in the crowd is dead.

However, a former White House doctor is calling the bluff on Biden’s recent health report.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who served as the physician to Presidents George W. Bush, Obama, and Donald Trump, said that Americans cannot be fooled and see that the President’s “mental health is in total decline.”

“There is no transparency from the White House on what’s going on, if anything, to address this issue and his inability to do his job,” Jackson told Fox News Digital. “Yesterday’s written physical exam report released by Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, further confirms that this administration is still adamant about concealing the truth.”

According to the medical memo, Biden is a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old” who is fit for duty to serve as President.

However, the report only mentions his physical health, leaving out his mental awareness, which is declining.

“Nowhere in the report was there mention of Biden’s deteriorating mental health,” Jackson said, adding, “this is alarming, considering I have already sent three letters to the White House demanding that Biden receive a cognitive test and that the results be made public, all of which have been ignored. Everyone can see something is wrong — the cover-up needs to end.”

—Sarah Arnold, Townhall

Former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential announcement (last) week, which makes her the first Republican to declare other than former President Donald Trump himself, formally commences what should prove to be a tumultuous GOP presidential primary. But despite the impending made-for-TV tumult in the GOP primary, the fact remains that the party has a number of possible or likely candidates who are either well-qualified or broadly popular with a substantial slice of the national electorate.

The same is simply not true for the Democratic Party. And as the octogenarian President Joe Biden shows all signs of imminently launching his reelection campaign, even the mainstream press is starting to fret.

The New York Times, the closest thing to Democratic Party Pravda, has over the past year run a series of urgent articles sounding the alarm on Biden’s unprecedented presidential age and declining cognitive abilities.

What’s more, on Thursday, Politico and CNN published nearly identical articles strongly suggesting White House palace intrigue and a party apparatus torn about what to do with its senile commander in chief.

Disposing of an incumbent president — as the recent revelation of Biden’s illicitly retained classified documents and the concomitant appointment of a special counsel to investigate his scandalous negligence indicate some in the Deep State may also desire — necessitates finding a replacement candidate. And therein lies the rub. Of the three leading alternative candidates for the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nomination, there are no appealing options. All three, in fact, are terrible options.

I speak here of Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The fact that Kamala Harris is unlikable, unliked, generally useless and unambiguously terrible at her job is the worst-kept secret in U.S. politics today.

Put simply, it is extraordinarily difficult these days to find a Democrat who is thrilled about the prospect of a future President Kamala Harris. By contrast, most Democrats soberly recognize how awful she is. And the fact that so few are willing to say the quiet part out loud bespeaks the death grip that identity politics pablum now has on the Democratic Party.

Neither Buttigieg nor Newsom is a more enticing candidate. Buttigieg — who, it must be stipulated, was chosen for Biden’s Cabinet primarily not due to merit but rather on the basis of his personal sexual orientation — has proved to be, bar none, the single worst transportation secretary in the history of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Gavin Newsom is hardly any better. Newsom was forced to withstand a gubernatorial recall election in 2021, and conditions are so bad in his leftist fiefdom that California recently lost a House seat in the U.S. Census for the first time in state history.

In all likelihood, then, Democrats will roll the 2024 dice with their stammering, scandal-ridden, palpably weak, cognitively deficient presidential incumbent. And for all their own woes, Republicans surely could not be happier about that.

—Columnist Josh Hammer

An alarming number of younger Americans don’t know the facts of the Holocaust, much less understand its full cultural and historical significance.

Nearly two-thirds of Millennials and Gen Z Americans didn’t know that 6 million Jewish people were killed, and over half of that subgroup put the death toll at less than 2 million. This isn’t just concerning from an educational perspective. It’s an important moral and political reality.

Sound education is an irreplaceable part of our experiment in self-government. Failures in education will undermine American politics in short order. If we forget or neglect to teach about history’s great evils, we risk succumbing unknowingly to the same temptations and follies that drove those atrocities. We must remain vigilant if we are to remain free.

There is also the separate issue of doing justice, as Christians, to the history and safety of Jewish men and women. The story of Christianity begins with the tribes of Israel, and our alliance with them persists in a modern form to this day. Careful attention to all aspects of our Judeo-Christian heritage — including the grave and historically unprecedented suffering of past Jewish men and women — is critical.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY – In 1962 John H. Glenn, Jr., the oldest of seven astronauts selected by NASA for Project Mercury spaceflight training (and later a U.S. senator), became the first American to orbit Earth, doing so three times.