The IDF is making significant progress in its efforts to shore up defenses along the Gaza border, including an underground barrier, an above-ground fence and protections against anti-tank missiles.
According to Israeli news site Walla, 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the underground barrier, which is intended to block attack tunnels dug by Hamas and other Gaza terrorist groups, has already been completed.
This is more than half the planned length of the barrier.
During construction of the barrier, the IDF has discovered and mostly destroyed 18 tunnels, apparently dug after the 2014 Gaza war in which large numbers of such tunnels were found and demolished.

The House is set to vote Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt for failing to provide documents related to the Trump administration’s efforts to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 Census, further escalating tensions between Democrats and the White House over congressional oversight.
After a string of legal defeats, President Donald Trump last week abruptly retreated from his efforts to add the question to the census, announcing that he will instead order federal agencies to provide the Commerce Department with records on the numbers of citizens and noncitizens in the country.

[COMMUNICATED]
A Ramat Shlomo family made the news today, after father of 15 Asher Lichtenstein reportedly suffered a stroke as a result of immense financial pressure. The stroke, and its consequent brain damage, has opened a conversation regarding the health risks of fiscal stress, and the effect that disability has on family dynamics.

Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the crime kingpin known as “El Chapo” who controlled much of the illegal drug trade across the Western Hemisphere for almost three decades, was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years in a federal courtroom in New York on Wednesday.
Before he was sentenced, Guzman, 62, told a federal judge in a heavily-guarded Brooklyn courthouse that his case was “stained” by juror misconduct. He said the judge denied him a fair trial on drug trafficking charges “when the whole world was watching.” He said America lacks justice and is corrupt, just as other countries.
He also thanked his family, legal team, prison guards and supporters for prayers, before griping about the conditions of the jail where he has been kept.

[COMMUNICATED]

Lancaster.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) compared Israel’s “dehumanization and racist policies” to 19th-century segregation in the United States.
“There is continued dehumanization and racist policies by the State of Israel that violate international human rights, but also violate my core values of who I am as an American,” the freshman congresswoman told the left-wing outlet Jacobin, which published a Q&A with her on June 13.
“ ‘Separate but equal’ doesn’t work. I know that my ancestors were killed, died, uprooted from their land,” she continued. “That’s something that no one even wants to acknowledge that had to happen to create the State of Israel.”

Former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill, who has made remarks widely considered antisemitic in the past, told a progressive conference on Friday that Fox, ABC, NBC, “or whoever” were Zionist organizations that produced “Zionist content.”
Hill was speaking on a Netroots Nation panel discussing how to put “Palestinian rights” on the “2020 agenda” when he made his remarks.

A Canadian man who lost five family members in one of two crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft is among those scheduled to testify Wednesday at a House aviation subcommittee hearing on the state of aviation safety.
Paul Njoroge lost his wife, Carolyne, his mother-in-law, and his three children, when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed March 10, shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa. All 157 passengers and crew members aboard were killed.
It was the second crash involving a Boeing 737 Max jet in less than five months. In October, a Lion Air flight crashed into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 people aboard.
Njoroge remains haunted by what could have been.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway will ignore a congressional subpoena at the request of President Donald Trump, refusing to testify about a government watchdog’s findings that she broke the law dozens of times, the White House said Monday.
Last month, the House Oversight Committee authorized a subpoena for Conway after special counsel Henry Kerner said she blatantly violated the Hatch Act, a law that bars federal employees from engaging in politics during work.

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, the former Sweet Home teacher who would go on to become New York’s top educator four years ago during a turbulent time for public schools, dropped a big surprise Monday when she announced she will resign in August
Elia confirmed she is leaving to pursue another professional opportunity with a national firm. She would not name the firm but said it has a focus on supporting districts in their efforts to turn around schools.
Elia, 70, made the announcement at a Board of Regents meeting in Albany, after submitting her letter of resignation. Her last day will be Aug. 31.
Read more.
{Matzav.com}