#the reel was from the Orthodox Union by the way

[angryjewishcockroach]

It's funny the way antisemites will go on and on and on about us nasty, sneaky Jews and the "loopholes" of our religion that we "exploit" in order to trick G-d or whatever, and meanwhile my dad this morning absolutely delighted in telling me about a Facebook reel he saw asking and answering the question of whether or not you say the bracha after accidentally eating a non-kosher-certified food, the answer being that you should eat another, kosher food directly after so you can still say the bracha without making a mockery.

[newstfionline]

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Enrollment drops worry public schools as pandemic persists (AP) Rather than wait to see how her children’s Florida public school would teach students this fall, Erica Chao enrolled her two daughters in a private school that seemed better positioned to provide instruction online during the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. The virtual lessons that Emily, 8, and Annabelle, 6, received in the spring while enrolled at a Miami-Dade County elementary school became a “free for all,” Chao said. The private school classes, by contrast, hold the girls’ attention, and their mother no longer worries they will fall behind if she doesn’t attend school with them at home. “For the first time since March, I was able to walk away,” Chao said. Parents across the country have faced similar choices about whether to keep their children in public schools as the pandemic extends into a new academic year. Some opted for private or charter schools. Others are dedicating themselves to homeschooling, hiring tutors to oversee multi-family “learning pods” or struggling to balance their children’s educations with work when school times and technology keep changing. Such personal decisions could exacerbate the financial problems of public school systems that receive a set amount of state funding for every student they enroll, which are the vast majority. With preliminary figures showing unexpected enrollment declines in many places, school officials used letters, phone calls and volunteers going door-to-door to persuade parents to register their youngsters before this month’s fall student census.

With Americans anxious to go out, walking tours pick up pace (AP) With an eerily quiet and empty stadium plaza behind him, the tour guide tried to help people picture what they would have seen there more than 160 years earlier. His audience of eight, all on foot, peered over masks at maps as he described hundreds of groceries, saloons, blacksmiths and 100,000 people living across two square miles—one of the pre-Civil War United States’ most congested areas. For so many Americans, this is a time of being cooped up, of being unable to interact with fellow humans and, in many cases, with the landscape itself. COVID-19 and its impact have kept many away from air travel, cruise ships and crowded beaches. Enter a decidedly unplugged alternative, a very concrete antidote to a suddenly more virtual life: the walking tour. Maybe not the most exciting outlet, but far better than being surrounded by the same four walls. “Our mental health matters also, and it’s very important for us ... when we’re really feeling extremely alienated from each other and feeling trapped in our homes, to walk our streets, in the safest way possible,” said Rebecca Manski of Social Justice Tours in New York City. Such tours have picked up in popularity for people seeking outdoor social activity while maintaining health safety precautions and staying in small groups.

With whipping winds, Delta drenches Louisiana, Mississippi (AP) Ripping tarps from already damaged roofs and scattering debris piled by roadsides, Delta inflicted a new round of destruction on Louisiana as it struck communities still reeling after Hurricane Laura took a similar path just six weeks earlier. Delta hit as a Category 2 hurricane, with top winds of 100 mph (155 kph) but rapidly grew weaker. By Saturday morning, it dwindled to a tropical storm with 45 mph (75 kph) winds. Still, forecasters warned of danger from storm surge and flash floods across much of southwestern Louisiana and parts of neighboring Texas. Mississippi also got its fair share of rain overnight.

Fishy idea (Foreign Policy) As the United Kingdom tries to beat a path out of the European Union, demanding a significant increase in fishing rights as it leaves the bloc’s common fisheries policy, Belgium’s Ambassador to the European Union Willem van de Voorde made an unlikely invocation on Wednesday: a charter signed in 1666 by King Charles II granting 50 fishermen from Bruges “eternal rights” to fish in England’s waters. It’s not unprecedented for centuries-old documents to play a role in British diplomacy today; the Anglo-Portuguese alliance of 1373 still stands and was invoked during the Falklands War. Although unlikely to sway the negotiations, the ambassador’s intervention underscores how fraught discussions over fishing rights have become.

Europe’s Economic Recovery Is a Summer Memory (NYT) What faint hopes remained that Europe was recovering from the economic catastrophe delivered by the pandemic have disappeared as the lethal virus has resumed spreading rapidly across much of the continent. After sharply expanding in the early part of the summer, Britain’s economy grew far less than anticipated in August—just 2.1 percent compared with July, the government reported on Friday, adding to worries that further weakness lies ahead. Earlier in the week, France, Europe’s second-largest economy, downgraded its forecast for the pace of expansion for the last three months of the year from an already minimal 1 percent to zero. Over all, the national statistics agency predicted the economy would contract by 9 percent this year. The diminished expectations are a direct outgrowth of alarm over the revival of the virus. France reported nearly 19,000 new cases on Wednesday—a one-day record, and almost double the number the day before. The surge prompted President Emmanuel Macron to announce new restrictions, including a two-month shutdown of cafes and bars in Paris and surrounding areas. In Spain, the central bank governor warned this week that the accelerating spread of the virus could force the government to impose restrictions that would produce an economic contraction of as much as 12.6 percent this year. The European Central Bank’s chief economist cautioned on Tuesday that the 19 countries that share the euro currency might not recover from the disaster until 2022. Summer increasingly feels like a long time ago.

North Korea parades huge, new ICBM, but Kim Jong Un stresses deterrent nature (Washington Post) North Korea showed off what appeared to be a huge, new inter-continental ballistic missile at a military parade Saturday, although leader Kim Jong Un stressed the deterrent nature of the weaponry on display—and even held out an olive branch to neighbor South Korea. The military parade, marking the 75th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party, featured a vast array of modernized military systems, from small arms through antitank and air- defense systems. The most closely watched, however, was what looked to be four huge, new liquid-fueled ICBMs, rolling through the main square in Pyongyang on 11-axle vehicles. Military experts—monitoring the parade through North Korean state television—said the new missile would be one of the largest road-mobile ICBMs in the world if it becomes operational, and could represent the threatened new “strategic weapon” Kim had talked of at the start of this year. For the international community, Kim’s message was: North Korea was a military force to be reckoned with, but not a threat.

Azerbaijan and Armenia Agree to Cease-Fire in Nagorno-Karabakh (NYT) Azerbaijan and Armenia negotiated a limited cease-fire early Saturday after almost two weeks of fierce fighting over a disputed province, with the goal of pausing combat long enough to collect bodies from the battlefield and to exchange prisoners. The Russian-brokered agreement, which takes effect at noon on Saturday, was short on specifics. The issue of the how the cease-fire would play out on the front lines was left to the sides to agree to in “additional” talks. People fleeing the fighting on Friday described the violence as more intense than what took place during the yearslong war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s that killed some 20,000 people and displaced about a million, mostly Azerbaijanis.

Clashes erupt between ultra-Orthodox and police, youth set fire to city (Jerusalem Post) Clashes broke out between police and dozens of ultra-Orthodox people late Thursday night in Modi’in Illit as a gathering was held in a synagogue in violation of coronavirus and lockdown regulations, Walla reported. Several ultra-Orthodox were arrested, and youth set aflame trees and vegetation throughout the city in outcry. A video of the scene shows dozens of ultra-Orthodox people in clashes with the police as violence erupts among the crowd, and the congregants yell “shame on you,” at the police.

Nigerian protesters demand end of an anti-robbery police unit that robs people (Washington Post) The police officers accused him of speeding, but Dare Olaitan felt that wasn’t true. The 29-year-old filmmaker in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, recalls requesting proof. “Then they slapped me, yanked away my phone and keys and said, ‘We are going to an ATM,” Olaitan said. The men, who’d pulled him over in an unmarked van, identified themselves as part of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, a Nigerian police unit that has been tasked over the last three decades with fighting violent crime, including banditry and kidnapping. Similar tales blazed across social media in recent days as thousands of protesters filled the streets in several Nigerian cities, urging the leaders of Africa’s most populous nation to disband the squad, which they say routinely commits the kind of crimes it is supposed to thwart. Human rights activists have campaigned against SARS for years, but violent videos that surfaced online this week shoved a fresh spotlight on what demonstrators condemned as police brutality. A number of Nigerian celebrities took up the cause, helping #EndSARS go massively viral. As pressure mounted, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari vowed Friday to investigate the squad.

[businessweekme]

Traders Find Refuge in Egypt

Egypt has transformed into a haven for debt investors from a crisis zone in less than two years.

The Egyptian pound, which the government allowed to float in 2016 to stave off an economic collapse, has been relatively immune to a rout that sent Turkish and Argentine currencies reeling to record lows. The pound also held its own even as Egyptian Treasury bills suffered outflows of at least $4 billion since March.

Tough measures to stabilize the economy are paying off for the debt market, prompting S&P Global Ratings to raise the nation’s credit rating in May. And while a recent sell-off in the country’s debt may have irked some investors, others, including TCW Group Inc. and Union Investment Privatfonds GmbH., find the currency’s stability and its relatively high yields attractive.

Despite the outflows, “we are encouraged that there were no reports of dollar shortages,” said Brett Rowley, the Los Angeles-based managing director for emerging markets at TCW.

Pound’s Stability Sets It Apart From High-Yielding Peers Egyptian Treasury bills offer an average yield of almost 19 percent, pretax, compared with about 5 percent for local-currency emerging-market debt While Argentina and Turkey offer higher yields for their five-year debt, the currency gyrations make them less appealing than Egypt’s, Rowley said The pound’s 30-day  historical volatility has fallen to below 2 percent, after climbing to a recent high of 3.4 percent in June In comparison, the lira’s one-month historical volatility was more than 70 percent, while Argentina’s peso was near 20 percent Foreign investors pared their holdings of Egypt’s Treasury bills to $17.5 billion in July, from $21.6 billion in March, according to latest available data

Egypt struggled to attract investments after the 2011 uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak triggered years of turmoil. It cut the flow of dollars to the economy and fueled a black market for the currency. The nation allowed the pound to trade freely in November 2016 as part of an International Monetary Fund deal for a $12 billion loan to support its recovery and end the hard-currency crunch.

While the pound lost half its value after the float, a central-bank mechanism that guarantees investors’ ability to take money out of the country has limited the currency’s fluctuations, the IMF said in an email response to questions. That’s because when investors bring in hard currency, the central bank keeps the money in a special account, and then sells the cash back to foreigners on their way out.

Strong growth in inflows from tourism and remittances have also helped offset fund outflows in recent months, according to the Washington-based lender. The central bank is expected to hold it’s main interest rate at 16.75 percent on Thursday.

“The government will, in my opinion, stick with orthodox policies,” said Shahzad Hasan, an emerging-market debt manager at Allianz in London. “That means overall capital inflows should hold up well.”

The Mechanism

The central bank raised the cost of using the mechanism last year, pushing more investors to exit using the open market and boosting demand for dollars. But a solid supply of hard currency in the inter-bank market helped keep the pound stable over the past few months as investors sought to exit, according to three people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because they aren’t allowed to speak publicly.

“The repatriation mechanism still shields the pound from sharp fluctuations, even though raising its cost is the reason why the pound has started witnessing more volatility,” said Mohamed Abu Basha, director of macro analysis at investment bank EFG-Hermes in Cairo.

The currency’s 10-day volatility in May spiked to the highest since July 2017 as the pound depreciated 1.3 percent, the most on a monthly basis in more than a year. It has since eased, with monthly moves of 0.3 percent or less.

Price Shock Eases

The devaluation of the pound initially delivered a price shock to a country that relies heavily on imports. After staying above 30 percent for much of last year, annual core inflation — the gauge that strips out volatile items — was 8.54 percent in July, the lowest level since March 2016.

Fitch Ratings, which has a positive outlook on the African nation’s debt rating, is forecasting a smaller current-account deficit through 2020. Foreign-currency reserves have rebounded to more than $44 billion, from as low as $13.4 billion in March 2013. Significant gas field discoveries have also been made, such as the giant Zohr field that started production in December 2017.

“Egypt is a little bit over-crowded,” said Sergey Dergachev, who helps oversee about $14 billion in assets at Union Investment Privatfonds in Frankfurt. “But due to the relatively high yield and relatively stable currency, it will remain an interesting investment opportunity for emerging-market investors.”

The post Traders Find Refuge in Egypt appeared first on Bloomberg Businessweek Middle East.

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[ruminativerabbi]

COVID-Diary, Week Eleven

I had the most remarkable experience this last Tuesday, one I resolved on the spot to write about this week. And I also want to bring you all up to date on my COVID-era project of re-reading Mark Twain and learning what I can about the human condition from one of its greatest and most keenly trenchant observers. So, a two-part letter this week!

First, the Tuesday experience. As some readers know, I served the Canadian Jewish Congress (Pacific Region) as its chairperson for Interfaith Relations for more than a decade when we were still living in British Columbia. (This was long before the organization closed down operations in 2011.) I enjoyed that experience a lot. For one thing, I met all sorts of interesting people into contact with whom I would almost definitely not otherwise have come—particularly Sikhs and Muslims, but also Hindus, Christians of all flavors, and a sprinkling of other types. For another, serving in that capacity meant I was invited to all sorts of events and celebrations that I’d otherwise never have even heard of, let alone be invited to attend. So that was the good part. But there was also something almost irritatingly anodyne about the whole operation, almost as though it went without saying that the only sure way to maintain friendly relations between the various faith groups involved was almost obsessively to avoid controversy at all costs, a goal attained by refusing to discuss any topic that could possibly lead to friction, debate, or disagreement. The last thing any of these people wanted was to disagree, at least in public, about anything at all! And that part I didn’t like much at all.

The notion that the members of different faith groups can get along solely by ignoring the issues that divide them rather than by listening carefully and respectfully to each other and agreeing to disagree—that notion felt (and feels) to reflect a basic insecurity about the ability of people courteously and civilly to speak honestly to each other. Some other time I’ll write about some of my actual experiences serving as Interfaith Chair for the CJC during our Vancouver years, but I only bring it up today to provide a sense of the background I brought with me on Tuesday when, in the middle of the afternoon here, I signed onto a world-wide zoom platform to participate in a truly remarkable interfaith encounter, one spearheaded by my friend and colleague, Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum in Jerusalem. 

I’ve known Rabba Tamar (as she’s known—the Hebrew title rabba is what non-Orthodox Israelis call female rabbis) for years and had the privilege of editing her very interesting commentary on Pirkei Avot as part of the Pirkei Avot Lev Shalem volume published in 2018 by the Rabbinical Assembly. But Joan and I are also her occasional congregants: when we’re in Israel, we often attend the Friday night service at Tziyon, the congregation she serves in the Baka neighborhood of southern Jerusalem. And it was for that reason, I think, that I received an invitation last week to participate in something the flyer referenced as “a one-of-a-kind online global gathering” to be hosted by a group called Maaminim (“believers” in Hebrew) that was also to be “a spiritual joining of religious faiths and art from the sacred city of Jerusalem” and also “a digital prayer for healing by religious leaders and communities from across the globe.” I get lots of invitations to events like this, particularly in these last months. But because I know Rabba Tamar—and also because I met one of the participants, a Hebrew-speaking Franciscan monk from Italy named Alberto Pari whom I once met at Rabba Tamar’s Friday night table—I decided to bookmark the event and to tune in at the appointed hour.

The experience was exceptional. For one thing, there were hundreds and hundreds of people gathered on the Maaminim zoom platform. Some people added their locations to their signatures, so I could see people signed from all over North America and Israel, but also from many European countries (including Vatican City), from Australia, and from many Asian countries as well. It was a varied group, too: not only multinational, but also multi-generational, multi-ethnic, and very multi-spiritual. The event was led by Rabba Tamar and a Christian priest, who began by speaking to each other—openly and deeply—about the specific way that the vulnerability that the COVID-era has naturally engendered in us all has also made us all more aware of the degree to which we need to rely on each other, to turn to each other, to encounter each other in ways we might otherwise not have even realized possible. There was music too—and lots of it, mostly performed in Jerusalem by members of the various faith groups represented and all of it soulful and heartfelt. And then we were all asked to participate by writing a word or two on a piece of paper and holding it up to the camera, a word we wished to share with this remarkable gathering of people of faith from all across the globe.

Some of what  people wrote was what you’d expect: shalom, strength, courage, unity, health, etc. But there was a secondary theme present too, one suggestive of the core idea that the way to negotiate the COVID-crisis is precisely by engaging with each other, by using the sense of brittle fragility we’re all experiencing not solely as a negative thing to be avoided for as long as we can and then abandoned as quickly as possible, but as a positive thing to be embraced, as something to be accepted as native to the human condition (albeit one we generally try to repress or ignore) and then used as a basis for reaching out to others, for building a community of people who are—paradoxically, but really nonetheless—made stronger by acknowledging their weakness…and more sturdy in their faith by facing the instability that crises like the one upon us naturally engender.

I am usually more than slightly cynical about this kind of undertaking. And yet here were hundreds and hundreds of people from all across the globe, people who looked different from each other and who would normally have no way to join together—and yet who had been prompted by the pandemic to see themselves in the eyes of others and thus to find the common humanity we all share in the contemplation not of how similar we all are, but how different…and how the right dose of humility—and particularly one rooted in an acceptance of the precariousness of the human condition—can allow us to look past the cosmetic and see ourselves as each other’s partner in the great goal of coming out of the COVID-age whole, sane, and well.

In other news, I finished my re-read of Tom Sawyer. I first read the book back in high school, at which time I remember finding it irritating that we, sophisticated tenth-graders that we were, were being asked to read a children’s book. And that really is how it struck me back then—as a book about children and meant for children. Twain himself promoted the book that way back in the day, but he knew perfectly well that it was going to be marketed to adults and read by them—he was, after all, one of America’s bestselling authors when the book came out—and he obviously also knew that a lot of what he was saying in the book would only be intelligible to adult readers anyway. 

In the 1870s, the nation was still reeling from the terrible carnage of the Civil War, America’s bloodiest conflict. So by setting his 1876 book in the 1840s, Twain was inviting his readers to look back to an earlier, happier age. Indeed, by making Tom and Huck into eight- or nine-year-olds (their actual ages are not made clear) in the 1840s, he was also making them precisely the right age to have become soldiers during the Civil War and thus inviting his readers to remember a time when the young men of that generation were not soldiers trying to kill each other, but little children wholly unaware of the conflagration to come and its terrors. In his own way, then, Twain was doing something not entirely dissimilar from what Rabba Tamar was trying to do the other day: to invite people reeling from catastrophe to find comfort and resolve not in contemplating the catastrophe itself but in accepting the vulnerability the contemplation of catastrophe can engender. The book is set in Missouri, a border state that never quite joined the Confederacy—by war’s end 110,000 Missourians had served in the Union Army and only 30,000 in the Confederate Army. So would Tom and Huck have fought for the North or the South? It’s hard to say…and that, of course, is the point: by setting the book where and when he did, he makes of his children-heroes into future soldiers who could have ended up on either side of the conflict and who only might have survived. (Twain himself spent exactly two weeks serving as a volunteer in a Confederate militia called the Marion Rangers before quitting, a detail that seems to have been more or less totally forgotten by most. For more, click here.)

The story, unlike how I remembered it, was far-fetched and unlikely…but just possible enough to lend the book a breezy, almost dream-like quality. The children are innocent beings throughout: even when contemplating lives of crime and piracy, Tom and Huck are depicted as naïve and unambiguously pre-pubescent. (When, for example, Tom and Becky Thatcher end up spending several days together secluded in a labyrinthine cave, there is no hint at all of untoward behavior.) And that too was the point of Twain’s goal, I think: to remind readers that all people start out innocent and guileless, that forgiveness can come from reaching over the present into the past, that the sense of extreme vulnerability engendered by the horrors of day-to-day reality in wartime (be the enemy a virus or an actual enemy army) can be exploited to bring people together and make them feel connected and eager to support each other, just as do the people in the Tom’s town—who are depicted as being kind without being insensitive to wrongdoing, moral without being blind to the nature of childhood, and mutually supportive without transcending the mores of their own day.

So that’s what I learned from my COVID-era re-read of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Next I’ll report to you on my re-read of Huckleberry Finn, possibly the greatest American novel of them all and one that was for several different reasons specifically not assigned to us in high school.

[365footballorg-blog]

DC chillin', no 6 in the engine room & Filthsinho: What you missed in Wk 25

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August 20, 201811:25AM EDT

August is winding towards its end, children across North America are trickling back to school and the standings are posing some blunt truths for MLS teams. Week 25 is in the books; here’s some points to highlight.

A very good week in D.C.

The mistakes of the spring and early summer can blight hopes at this time of year. But no team is better positioned to erase past shortcomings than D.C. United, who are as hot as anyone in the league after reeling off three wins in three home games over the past eight days to build a five-game unbeaten run.

The Black-and-Red wore down a highly physical New England side 2-0 at Audi Field on Sunday night and are increasingly optimistic that they can sustain enough momentum to surge into the postseason with a full head of steam this fall. Of the nine total goals they scored over the week, Wayne Rooney’s two goals and two assists got most of the praise, but don’t sleep on Darren Mattocks’ excellent solo effort against his old team the Portland Timbers:

A very bad week for Portland

…speaking of the Rose City side, theirs was the funhouse reflection of D.C.’s – three games, three losses, nine goals conceded, thanks in large part to two tired-looking road performances in Washington and Kansas City.

“This was a difficult week.”

Hear from Coach Savarese after the loss to Sporting KC. #SKCvPOR #RCTID pic.twitter.com/adzYNItZu4

— Portland Timbers (@TimbersFC) August 19, 2018

Their 15-game unbeaten run is fading in the rearview mirror and coach Giovanni Savarese must find a way to rally his troops ahead of Sunday’s massive Cascadia Cup visit by their fierce rivals from Seattle (9:30 pm ET | FS1 — Full TV and streaming info).

An extremely good month on Puget Sound

…and speaking of the Sounders, they’ve now reeled off a club record six straight wins, the latest coming in Saturday’s emphatic 5-0 thumping of a severely undermanned Galaxy side.

The Sounders won their 6th straight and put up 5 against a depleted LA Galaxy team yesterday. pic.twitter.com/E1Ona92GXX

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) August 19, 2018

Over the past three years Seattle have made such a habit of Jekyll-and-Hyde late-summer turnarounds that they’ve had to deny the idea that it’s their master plan to play possum for the season’s first half. Either way, a road win at Providence Park this weekend would see them leapfrog their hated southern antagonists and seize possession of the Western Conference’s sixth and final playoff slot.

An extremely hard summer in Chicago

Kanye West once waxed poetic about the enduring gorgeousness of “summertime Chi,” yet alas, it’s been a painful time for the Chicago Fire, who’ve now lost eight straight after losing 2-1 at the Montreal Impact and have clanged to the foot of the Eastern Conference table. How painful? I’ll let coach Veljko Paunovic tell you:

The Josef chronicles

Unless you were off the grid and/or under a rock, you probably had a hard time missing this one: Atlanta United’s Josef Martinez kept up his relentless goalscoring pace with a fine effort in Sunday’s win over Columbus, his 27th of the year:

That, of course, draws him level with the three iconic strikers who share the league’s single-season scoring record. With nine games left for Atlanta, the Venezuelan will almost certainly demolish that mark in the coming weeks, and leave a gaudy new number for others – and perhaps himself, too – to chase in the years to come.

Recovery and bravery in DTLA

At the beginning of this month LAFC experienced perhaps the roughest stretch of their brief existence: After blowing a 2-0 lead at home in July 26’s 2-2 draw with the Galaxy, then slumped to consecutive league losses on either side of that agonizing U.S. Open Cup semifinal loss via penalty-kick shootout at Houston on Aug. 8.

The Black-and-Gold seem to have bounced back this week, making the most of two winnable home games with back-to-back 2-0 victories. First Real Salt Lake were comfortably dispatched at midweek, and late Sunday night they rode a strong outing from Lee Nguyen to a defeat of the Colorado Rapids:

⚽️📽️ @LeeNguyen24 opens the scoring with a beautiful shot! #LAFCvCOL pic.twitter.com/s4AMLegWpV

— LAFC (@LAFC) August 20, 2018

As I pondered on Twitter, LAFC seem to have responded to Mark-Anthony Kaye’s season-ending ankle injury by turning even more aggressive, packing their XI with skilful, attack-minded players like Nguyen and doing without an orthodox No. 6. It’s a mighty bold move by Bob Bradley and bears watching down the stretch.

Red Bulls and Five Stripes

There’s plenty of time left for someone else to make a run at them, yet Atlanta and the New York Red Bulls appear to be putting a bit of distance between themselves and the chasing pack in the Supporters’ Shield race. Both are racking up points at a pace of 2 ppg or better, and it’s going to take some work for FC Dallas, Sporting KC or (slumping) New York City FC to catch up.

ATLUTD have lost just once since Memorial Day and the Red Bulls snatched another road point with Saturday’s dramatic last-minute leveler at Vancouver, where Daniel Royer’s hot streak (5 goals/1 assist in his last four games) continued:

Filthadelphia

You’re hearing the term “statement game” a lot around the Philadelphia Union’s impressive 2-0 defeat of NYCFC, as the DOOP squad put an elite team to the sword in style to underline their recent rise to legit East contenders. And that’s all well and good and deserved.

But I just want you to savor the latest flamethrowing extravagance from Ilsinho, the saucy Brazilian who personifies the soccer cliché “mercurial genius” with his glorious, albeit all too occasional, feats of audacious individual skill. This. Is. Delicious:

Series: 

Topics: 

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MLSsoccer.com News

DC chillin', no 6 in the engine room & Filthsinho: What you missed in Wk 25 was originally published on 365 Football

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Incoming Mexican President to Seek Negotiated Peace in Drug War (Reuters) Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s transition team unveiled a plan on Friday to shake up the fight against crime, including reduced jail time but stiffer controls on weapons, as the country reels from a militarized drug war.

Eleven Killed, at Least 45 Missing as Torrential Rain Pounds Japan (Reuters) At least 45 people are missing as torrential rains that have killed 11 people pounded western and central Japan, public broadcaster NHK said on Saturday, with more than 1.6 million people evacuated from their homes.

Both Sides Seek to ‘Clarify’ as Pompeo Holds Second Day of North Korea Talks (Reuters) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began a second day of talks in North Korea on Saturday attempting to agree details on how to dismantle the country’s nuclear program, and both sides said they had things to “clarify” from the previous day.

PM May Will Sack Foreign Minister Johnson if He Undermines Brexit Deal: Times (Reuters) British Prime Minister Theresa May has told senior allies she will sack her foreign minister if he seeks to undermine a Brexit negotiating position agreed by her cabinet on Friday, the Times newspaper reported without citing sources.

France’s Macron to Attend World Cup Game in Russia (Reuters) French President Emmanuel Macron will attend the soccer World Cup in Russia, the Elysee said on Friday, after France beat Uruguay to book a place in the semi-finals.

Palestinian Killed as Gaza Protests Against Israel Enter Fourth Month (Reuters) A Palestinian taking part in a border protest was killed on Friday, Gazan medical officials said, bringing to 136 the number killed in the confrontations that have often drawn a lethal Israeli army response since they began on March 30.

Turkey to Dismiss People From ‘Many Institutions’: PM Quoted (Reuters) Turkey will dismiss people from “many institutions” including the police and military with a decree to be issued late on Friday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was quoted as saying by broadcaster CNN Turk and other media.

EU Judicial Body Backs Polish Supreme Court Head in Dispute With Government (Reuters) The head of the European Union’s judicial advisory body visited Poland on Friday in support of the forcibly retired chief justice of Poland’s Supreme Court, saying an overhaul of the judiciary by Warsaw’s government was endangering democracy.

Russia’s Lavrov: Trade With Iran Will Not Depend on U.S.’whim’ (Reuters) Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that other parties to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal had agreed to work out ways of trading with Iran independently of the United States’ “whim”, Interfax news agency reported.

Trump to Avoid London Protests With Tour of English Country Homes (Reuters) President Donald Trump would like a quick trade deal with Britain once Brexit is finished, the U.S. ambassador to Britain said on Friday ahead of a presidential visit to London next week that will keep Trump largely away from planned mass protests.

Pope and Orthodox Patriarchs Pray for Mideast Christians (AP) Pope Francis denounced the “complicit silence” that has allowed violence to consume the Middle East and drive tens of thousands of Christians from their homes, during a remarkable gathering Saturday of Orthodox patriarchs and Catholic leaders united in praying for peace in the region.

5 Injured in Pamplona’s Annual Running of the Bulls in Spain (AP) Medical officials overseeing the annual Running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, say that five people have been injured at the traditional festival, with at least one gored by a bull’s horns.

Hurricane Beryl Heads for Late Weekend Entry Into Caribbean (AP) A compact Hurricane Beryl, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, was on a path early Saturday that would carry it over the Lesser Antilles at the end of the weekend and into the eastern Caribbean, bringing a new threat to islands still rebuilding from last year’s storms.

Duterte Vows to Resign if Anybody Can Prove God Exists (AP) The Philippine president, who recently sparked outrage for calling God stupid, has courted new controversy in his largely Roman Catholic country by saying he will resign if anybody can prove that God exists.