By Rabbi Berach Steinfeld

If a person is worried that he won’t remember to count all the days of Sefirah, should he count with a Bracha or not?

The Torah tell us to count forty-nine days from the bringing of the Omer until the bringing of the korban of Shtei Halechem.

The Rishonim argue whether the Mitzva of counting sefirah is Min HaTorah only during the times of the Bais HaMikdosh or not. The Chinuch in mitzvah 306 says that sefirah is only Min HaTorah during the time of the Bais HaMikdosh. The Rambam in Tmidim Umusafim 7:24 disagrees and says it is Min HaTorah even today.

Channel 14 aired footage from a recent interview with Iyad Jaradat, the terrorist responsible for orchestrating the 2003 attack in Gadish that resulted in the murder of the moshav’s security chief. Jaradat, who was serving a life sentence, was freed as part of the most recent hostage exchange.
In the segment, Jaradat reflected on what prison life was like before Itamar Ben-Gvir took over as Israel’s National Security Minister.
When asked by the interviewer to describe the conditions in prison prior to the October 7th massacre, Jaradat replied: “Honestly, there was respect, there were understandings. Ben-Gvir called it a summer camp. People may say Ben-Gvir was exaggerating. If someone wants, they can get mad, but these prisons really were like summer camps.”

Many Americans were forced to postpone cancer screenings — colonoscopies, mammograms and lung scans — for several months in 2020 as COVID-19 overwhelmed doctors and hospitals. But that delay in screening isn’t making a huge impact on cancer statistics, at least none that can be seen yet by experts who track the data. Cancer death rates continue to decline, and there weren’t huge shifts in late diagnoses, according to a new report published Monday in the journal Cancer. It’s the broadest-yet analysis of the pandemic’s effect on U.S. cancer data. In 2020, as the pandemic began, a greater share of U.S. cancers were caught at later stages, when they’re harder to treat. But in 2021, these worrisome diagnoses returned to prepandemic levels for most types of cancer.

The Trump administration is currently weighing possible replacements for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, amid a fresh wave of criticism related to allegations of mishandling secure information, according to a U.S. official who spoke to NPR on Monday.
The source, who requested anonymity due to the delicate nature of the conversations, emphasized that the process is in its early stages and that no definitive choice has been made regarding leadership changes at the Department of Defense.
The uproar centers on accusations that Hegseth shared classified military data using Signal, a private encrypted messaging app, with people who were not part of any official defense channels.

Nadine Menendez was found guilty on Monday for orchestrating a bribery operation alongside her husband, disgraced New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, trading his political clout for a series of lavish kickbacks, including gold, a luxury vehicle, and cash.
After deliberating for roughly eight hours over the span of two days, the jury convicted the 58-year-old from Englewood Cliffs on all 15 counts of corruption brought against her in federal court.
Clad in black and wearing a pink face mask, Nadine showed no outward response as the jury foreperson delivered the verdict in a nearly empty courtroom in Manhattan.
Her husband, who played a central role in the corruption case, chose not to appear in court during her trial, which stretched over the course of a month.

​Harvard University has initiated legal proceedings against the Trump administration, challenging the federal government’s decision to freeze $2.2 billion in research funding. The university contends that this action is an attempt to exert undue influence over its academic operations. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, Harvard argues that the administration’s demands—such as auditing faculty for plagiarism, reporting international students accused of misconduct, and ensuring “viewpoint diversity” in academic departments—are unconstitutional and threaten the institution’s independence.

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