Gov. Kathy Hochul declared in a rare address on Tuesday that New York State has “zero tolerance” for hate, outlining new anti-hate police investments appealing to New Yorkers’ sense of shared community and seeking to soothe Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers who have been rattled by threats as a bloody war rages in Israel and Gaza.
“We cannot let the fervor and passion of our beliefs devolve into a blind righteousness that cannot see different viewpoints,” Hochul said. “And the safety and security of New Yorkers cannot — and will not — be threatened without consequences.”
In remarks from Manhattan, Hochul laid out a series of steps she said the state would take to root out hate — directing $75 million toward the prevention of hate crimes, expanding the state police unit that monitors threats on social media, and ordering for a comprehensive review of anti-discrimination policies at the City University of New York.
Jonathan Lippman, the state’s former chief judge, will lead the review, which will serve as a roadmap for the state university system, Hochul said.
Describing New York as a guiding light that has pushed the nation forward on issues of equality for decades, Hochul urged New Yorkers not to backslide, and not to allow geopolitical passions push them into hatred.
“We cannot let hate and intimidation become normalized,” said Hochul, a Buffalo Democrat who has long made fighting discrimination a central focus of her administration. “We cannot risk losing our identity.”
The governor said New Yorkers had stood up for Muslims after 9/11, for Asian-Americans during the COVID years and for African Americans after the killing of George Floyd. And she said New Yorkers — including those who oppose Israel’s bloody offensive in Gaza — must now support the local Jewish community and stand against antisemitism.
Jewish New Yorkers are facing the largest jump in antisemitic hate crimes in decades, Hochul said. “Where are their allies now?” she asked rhetorically.
Hochul, who visited Israel earlier in October on a solidarity mission, has been criticized by some who have felt she has not sufficiently addressed the anxieties of Palestinian New Yorkers in recent weeks.
More than 8,000 people are said to have died in Gaza since Israel launched its attack on the enclave, after Hamas, which rules Gaza, conducted a ruthless rampage through southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,000 people.
In her speech Tuesday, the governor said that “for Jewish and Mulisms alike, the pain is deep,” and she acknowledged the viewpoint of the Israeli government. But she said opposition to Israeli policies should not prevent solidarity with Jewish New Yorkers.
“You can vigorously oppose Israel’s response following the attack on their people,” Hochul said, “But still be vigorously opposed to terrorism, Hamas, antisemitism and hate in all of its forms.”
The speech came after threats of violence were made against the Center for Jewish Living at Cornell University over the weekend, prompting cops to swarm the campus. Hochul visited Cornell on Monday.
At Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y., ominous threats were posted on Greekrank, a website for grading fraternities and sororities, according to The Cornell Daily Sun, the school’s newspaper. One post’s author said they intended to “shoot up” the Center for Jewish Living, according to a screenshot.
The New York State Police have assisted the Cornell Police in securing the Center for Jewish Living. The FBI said in a statement Monday that it was working to determine the credibility of the threats and to “take appropriate investigative action.”
New York State is home to an estimated 2 million Jews, the largest Jewish population outside Israel. At least one New Yorker, Omer Neutra, 22, of Long Island, was taken hostage in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Hochul has often said her top priority is the safety of every New Yorker.
“We cannot allow any New Yorker to live in fear,” Hochul said. “For the day we are willing to accept that is the day that our moral compass has broken and spun out of control.”
For “Grey’s Anatomy” heartthrob Patrick Dempsey, being crowned People’s Sexiest Man Alive has been a long time coming.
“I’ve been the bridesmaid for People Sexiest Man Alive 10 times. Now I get the big picture, not the little picture that’s on the side [of the People magazine cover],” Dempsey said in his Sexiest Man Alive interview.
Dempsey, a Maine native, broke out in 2005 as neurosurgeon Dr. Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in Shonda Rhimes’ long-running ABC medical drama. He starred alongside Ellen Pompeo.
In 2006 and 2007, Dempsey, now 57, was among the scores of male celebrities featured in People’s annual “Sexiest Man Alive” issue, but never the cover star. It’s one of the reasons he said he couldn’t believe the honor at first.
“‘This is a joke, right?’” Dempsey recalled about his reaction to the title. He added that he has kept his family in the dark about the honor, but that they’ll most likely poke fun at him.
“It’s nice to have the recognition, it’s fun but I think it gives me a platform to actually talk about the Dempsey Center and the type of work we’re doing there,” he said. In 2008, the “Enchanted” star founded a center to help improve the lives of people affected by cancer.
With the People honor, Dempsey added that “certainly my ego takes a nice little bump.”
On Tuesday evening, Jimmy Kimmel revealed that Dempsey was the newest Sexiest Man Alive cover star. For the late-night host, Dempsey’s honor was “like uncorking a bottle of fine wine.
“They decided to wait till just the right year. Now, next year, you’ll be a mess, on the downslide,” Kimmel joked.
Since his dramatic “Grey’s Anatomy” send-off in 2015, Dempsey shifted his focus to a variety of Hollywood projects including the Sky TV series “Devils,” and the Disney+ “Enchanted” sequel, “Disenchanted.” In 2021, he returned to “Grey’s” briefly as Pompeo’s Meredith battled COVID-19.
Later this year, Dempsey will star in the biopic “Ferrari” and the holiday thriller “Thanksgiving.”
Beyond Hollywood, Dempsey is also a professional race car driver. Since beginning his racing career in 2009, he has driven in competitions including 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship.
After years of snubs, the actor can now proudly say, “My name is Patrick Dempsey and finally I am this year’s People’s Sexiest Man Alive — for the next ten years.”
He joked: “I don’t know why there should be anybody after me, to be honest with you. This is it, this is the end of it. It has been a great run for People.”
A pair of studies have found that older adults who use marijuana have more risk of heart attack or stroke when hospitalized than non-users and are more likely to develop heart failure if they are a daily user.
The two studies, which have not been published, were presented Monday at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia. Both studies excluded cannabis users who also smoke tobacco to focus solely on the cardiovascular effects of marijuana consumption.
The AHA recommends against smoking tobacco or marijuana because of the potential damaging effects on the heart, lungs and blood vessels.
“The latest research about cannabis use indicates that smoking and inhaling cannabis increases concentrations of blood carboxyhemoglobin (carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas) and tar (partly burned combustible matter) similar to the effects of inhaling a tobacco cigarette, both of which have been linked to heart muscle disease, chest pain, heart rhythm disturbances, heart attacks and other serious conditions,” University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences professor Robert Page II said in a statement.
The number of seniors age 65 and over who report smoking marijuana or consuming edibles increased in recent years, even doubling between 2015 and 2018, according to CNN.
One of the studies presented Monday found that frequent marijuana use has a negative effect on people with chronic conditions, like high blood pressure and cholesterol or diabetes. The researchers found that people who use marijuana had a 20% greater risk of of having a heart attack or stroke while hospitalized.
Furthermore, in the short term, smoking marijuana lowers blood pressure, which can lead to stroke if levels drop enough. Over longer periods of time, marijuana use can lead to an increase in blood pressure, which can lead to cardiovascular difficulties.
The second study, which was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, found that daily marijuana users were more likely to develop heart failure — when the heart does not pump oxygenated blood to support other internal organs as well as efficiently as it can — compared to people who reported not smoking.
Roughly 6.2 million adults in the United States have heart failure, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We want to provide the population with high-quality information on marijuana use and to help inform policy decisions at the state level, to educate patients and to guide health care professionals,” lead study author Yakubu Bene-Alhasan, M.D., M.P.H., a resident physician at Medstar Health in Baltimore, said in a statement.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, was the only senator to vote against Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who last week became the first woman to serve in a permanent role on the Joint Chiefs of Staff when she was confirmed as chief of Naval Operations.
His reason? He thinks she epitomizes President Joe Biden’s emphasis on diversity and inclusion.
“President Biden nominated Adm. Franchetti not because she is qualified or competent to do the job but because of this administration’s obsession with diversity and inclusion,” Marshall said in a written statement. “He even disregarded the recommendation of his own Secretary of Defense for this position. Confirming Admiral Franchetti will not make our country safer.”
Franchetti has served in the Navy for more than 38 years and was among the first wave of women who were able to serve on board a Navy combatant ship after Congress repealed a law in 1993 that barred them from doing so. She previously led the U.S. Naval Forces in Korea and served as the second in command in the Navy — which cleared the Senate in 2022 without objection — before taking the top role.
“She is a highly decorated naval officer with extensive operational experience,” said Sean Savet, the deputy spokesman at the National Security Council. “We appreciate the 95 Senators who agreed that having her serve as Chief of Naval Operations will help ensure that the U.S. military, in particular the U.S. Navy, remains the most powerful and capable forces in the world at this critical moment.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did favor a different nominee for the post — Admiral Samuel Paparo, who leads the Pacific Fleet at a time when the U.S. Navy is focusing on China’s military power — but, according to Politico, Austin also presented Franchetti as a choice for the post and was satisfied with her nomination after a discussion with Biden, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Marshall, who was a captain in the Army Reserve, is among a group of conservatives in Congress who are critical of the Department of Defense’s efforts to increase diversity among its ranks, an issue that has injected the political culture wars into typically bipartisan legislation, like the National Defense Authorization Act.
He also opposed the confirmation of Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, along with another 10 Republicans. Marshall was the sole vote against confirming Gen. David Allvin as the Air Force Chief of Staff because he said he was picked by Brown. Marshall said Brown, the first black Air Force chief of staff, was “fundamental in making the military more woke and less lethal” and that Allvin would continue in that vein.
“We must get back to confirming nominees focused on our national security, not candidates who have put their political agenda over our military readiness,” Marshall said.
Marshall’s opposition to the nominees comes at a time of intense frustration between the Department of Defense and Congress. For months, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, has blocked more than 400 military nominees from Senate confirmation in protest to the Defense Department’s policies on abortion.
His blockade has reached a boiling point in the Senate last week, when Republican senators held the floor for hours late into the night pushing Tuberville to lift his hold on the nominees. Tuberville has refused to budge and reiterated this week that the only way he’ll lift his hold is if the Defense Department changes its policy allowing active duty military members to travel out-of-state to get abortion services if they are based in a state without access to the procedure.
The government does not pay for the abortion, but military members can be reimbursed for the travel expenses.
In a speech honoring the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of the military this summer, Biden said the diversity of the military is its strength.
“As our military became more diverse, it became stronger, tougher, and more capable — proving our diversity is a strength, not a weakness — a necessary part of our warfighting and our deterrence and our successful military operations,” Biden said.
The father of alleged Highland Park parade shooter Robert Crimo III entered a guilty plea to misdemeanor reckless conduct charges Monday in Lake County Court.
Robert Crimo Jr. was sentenced to 60 days in the Lake County jail as part of an 11th-hour negotiated plea with Lake County prosecutors.
He was also ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. He will surrender to authorities to begin serving the jail term on Nov. 15.
He was charged in late 2022 with felony reckless conduct about five months after his son allegedly opened fire on the July 4 parade in Highland Park, killing seven people and injuring dozens of others.
Authorities alleged that the father knew his son was a poor candidate for firearms ownership when the father signed an affidavit for his then-underage son in 2019 that allowed him to get a firearm owners ID card and purchase guns. One of the guns Crimo III purchased was the assault rifle he used on July 4. 2022.
Defense attorney George Gomez said Crimo Jr. felt it was in the best interest of his family and the Highland Park community not to publicly relive the tragedies of the Fourth of July shooting in a public trial.
“The last thing Mr. Crimo wants is the Highland Park community to relive these tragic events and make a public spectacle,” Gomez said at a news conference.
As the trial date approached, Gomez said it appeared the state’s strategy required pitting the Crimo family against one another, especially given the father would be prosecuted before the son, disclosing key evidence to the public and jeopardizing his son’s right to a fair trial.
“As a father, Mr. Crimo wanted to ensure that his son received a fair trial,” Gomez said.
During Sunday’s game vs. Washington Commanders at Gillette Stadium. Patriots coach Bill Belichick isn’t wearing the brown gear most NFL coaches wear as part of the league’s annual Salute to Service month.
Belichick, who is not a member of the NFL Coaches Association, annually hasn’t participated in wearing khaki, camouflage or other initiatives. Belichick wore a blue short-sleeve shirt. Some other New England staff members wore the official gear.
Each member of the Patriots coaching staff wore pins and the players wore helmet stickers honoring a Gold Star Family. It’s part of the team’s ties to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), which describes its mission as “caring for the families of America’s fallen heroes.”
Every year in conjunction with TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, the Patriots pick one game, whichever home game is closest to Veterans Day, to honor military personnel who’ve been killed while on active duty.
The West Point Band performed the national anthem while colors were presented by the USS Constitution Honor Guard. There was a flyover with four helicopters from the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade based at Fort Drum, New York.
The halftime ceremony will include an Army and National Guard enlistment ceremony and another performance West Point Band, which will be back at Foxborough next month for the Army-Navy game.
Belichick, who grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, where his father Steve Belichick held many roles with the Navy football program, has spoken reverently about the Navy and military in the past. He opened his press conference in 2021 last year discussing the pin he wore.
In 2018, Belichick was asked about not wearing a camouflage sweatshirt:
“I don’t know. I mean, I usually wear the same thing for every game – I mean, not the same thing, but depending on the weather and so forth, I just wear the same thing for every game. So, I don’t change what I wear weekly based on whatever the theme of the week is,” he said. “But, Salute to Service is – look, the military and the job that our servicemen and women do and the sacrifices that they make are very important to me and my family, always has been, always will be, and I always want to recognize those and I do it. So, I don’t have any objection to what anybody else does, but I just choose to – honestly, I don’t think what sweatshirt I wear is that important. What’s important to me is what your actions are, what you do, so I try to make those count.”
NFL sells the military gear. According to NFLShop.com the league “does not profit from the sale of Salute to Service products. Charitable contributions are donated to the NFL’s military nonprofit partners. For more information, please visit www.NFL.com/Salute.”
More than half the children who attend Munchkin Land Daycare near Billings, Montana, have special needs or compromised immune systems. The kids, who range in age from 4 months to 9 years, have conditions that include fetal alcohol syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and Down syndrome, according to owner Sheryl Hutzenbiler.
“These families came to me knowing we could offer them a safe and healthy environment,” Hutzenbiler said. Part of ensuring that healthy environment is having a strong vaccination policy, she said, especially for those who are immunocompromised or too young to receive the full slate of childhood vaccines.
So, when officials at Montana’s health department revived a proposal that would allow people to claim religious exemptions from immunization requirements at child care facilities, Hutzenbiler was both dismayed and relieved. Dismayed, because allowing more children to claim exemptions could compromise the community immunity levels necessary to defend against highly infectious diseases like measles and pertussis. Relieved, because as she scoured the proposed regulations, she found that her facility, which is licensed to care for up to 15 children, would be in a category of smaller providers that could choose whether to enroll unvaccinated kids.
“If it came down to where I had to, I had no choice, I would stop enrolling children today,” Hutzenbiler said. “In five years, I would be closed.”
Montana, like 44 other states, allows religious exemptions from immunization requirements for school-age children. If the state is successful in expanding its policy to child care facilities, it would become the second this year to add a religious exemption to its immunization requirements for younger kids. Mississippi began allowing such exemptions for schools and child care centers in July following a court ruling that the state’s lack of a religious exemption violated the U.S. Constitution’s free exercise clause.
Until recently, the trend had been going the other way, with four states — California, New York, Connecticut, and Maine — removing religious exemption policies over the past decade. West Virginia has never had a religious exemption.
But religious exemptions, fueled by conservative backlash to covid-19 vaccinations, have become caught up in partisan politics, said Mary Ziegler, a University of California-Davis law professor who specializes in the law, history, and politics of reproduction, health care, and conservatism.
“It tends to be breaking down much more along red state-blue state lines, where progressive states are moving in the direction of mandating vaccines in more situations and conservative states are moving more in the direction of broadening exemptions,” Ziegler said. “So, as much as religious exemptions for vaccines are not a new issue, they’ve become polarized in a new way.”
The proposal in Montana is similar to one the state Department of Public Health and Human Services floated last year, which a legislative committee temporarily blocked after public health advocates and child care providers objected. Afterward, in October 2022, health department officials said they would not enforce a religious exemption ban in child care centers.
“We are committed to ensuring that these families have viable child care options in accordance with state and federal law,” department spokesperson Jon Ebelt told the Montana Free Press at the time.
However, in the state’s latest proposal, 45 pages into a 97-page draft rewrite of child care licensure rules, the health department seeks to extend that exemption to child care facilities, where a family now can claim a vaccine exemption only for medical reasons. (There is an existing religious exemption for the vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae Type B.)
KFF Health News sent the health department a list of questions about its decision to include a religious exemption in the rules proposal. Ebelt emailed a statement that did not address the exemption at all.
“The rules package cuts red tape to increase access to child care for hardworking Montana families, and ensures that related regulations align with statutory changes directed by the Legislature in 2021 and 2023,” his statement said.
The Montana Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibits the state from infringing on a person’s right to the exercise of religion. Another act bans discrimination based on vaccination status.
A religious exemption under Montana’s proposed rules would require a child’s parent or guardian to submit a form attesting that vaccination is contrary to their religious belief, observance, or practice. With no mechanism to check the validity of such claims, health professionals worry exemptions would spike, reducing community immunity levels.
“Exemptions lead to less people being vaccinated, which can lead to more outbreaks and more sick kids,” said Marian Kummer, a retired pediatrician who practiced in Billings for 36 years.
The risk of disease outbreaks would increase not only in those child care centers but in communities as well, said Sophia Newcomer, an associate professor at the University of Montana School of Public and Community Health Sciences.
A community is protected by herd immunity from measles, for example, if 95% of the population is vaccinated against it, according to the World Health Organization. Montana’s vaccine exemption rate among kindergartners was 3.5% in the 2020-21 school year, according to the most recent data available, putting it within that range of protection.
The health department’s proposed changes also would eliminate a requirement that child care facilities keep out infected and unvaccinated children and staffers when someone becomes sick with a vaccine-preventable disease, said Kiely Lammers, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Montana Families for Vaccines.
Some have questioned the legitimacy of religious exemptions. Most religions, including a majority of Christian denominations, have no theological objection to vaccination, according to a scientific review published in 2013 in the journal Vaccine. And the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled limits do exist on religious and parental rights: “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death,” says the 1944 ruling in Prince v. Massachusetts.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for the elimination of all nonmedical exemptions, including both religious exemptions and personal-belief exemptions, “as inappropriate for individual, public health, and ethical reasons,” according to a 2016 policy statement.
In Connecticut, plaintiffs who challenged the state’s decision to remove religious exemptions said they objected to the use of fetal or animal cell lines in the research and development of vaccines. But a three-judge panel for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in August that religious exemptions do not serve “to protect the health and safety of Connecticut students and the broader public” when it upheld Connecticut’s decision.
Yet even in California, which eliminated nonmedical exemptions in 2016, efforts are underway to overturn the law. In a lawsuit filed Oct. 31, several parents backed by a conservative law firm are challenging the law’s constitutionality. One plaintiff, Sarah Clark, said she believes vaccines run counter to her interpretation of the Bible “because they are a foreign substance and are harmful to the body.” Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said Nov. 1 it hadn’t been served with the case yet but will review the complaint and respond as appropriate.
Montana’s proposed rule is scheduled for a public hearing Nov. 13. Some child care providers, like Hutzenbiler, expect it ultimately to take effect. She said she is already drafting language to submit to the state as required under the proposed rules, saying Munchkin Land Daycare will not accept unvaccinated children.
Lammers said state officials should be open to changes and give child care centers with 16 or more kids the same choice as smaller facilities not to enroll unvaccinated children.
“I’m hoping at the very least we can make it equal in all settings,” she said of the rule proposal.
Kummer, the retired pediatrician, said she hopes the proposal prompts enough opposition that the state removes the plans for the religious exemption. But she doubts that will happen, given the anti-vaccination sentiment of Montana policymakers.
“It’s going to take a tragedy in our state or somewhere else where people wake up to the fact that we need vaccinations,” Kummer said.
Matthew Perry’s funeral took place in Los Angeles and was attended by his “Friends” family Friday, just under a week after his sudden death.
Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc were present to lay the five-time Emmy nominee, 54, to rest at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, not far from where the show filmed at Warner Bros. Studios, Entertainment Tonight reports.
The five former co-stars, who have remained close off-screen, released a joint statement earlier this week to say they “were all so utterly devastated” by Perry’s death.
“We were more than just cast mates. We are a family,” they said. “There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
Also on Friday, the Matthew Perry Foundation was launched to help those struggling with addiction, as the beloved actor had.
Perry was alone when paramedics found him dead in his hot tub last Saturday, after he’d played pickleball and sent his assistant on errands.
Those close to Perry have made clear he was sober and in a great place mentally in the days and weeks preceding his sudden passing.
Last year, while promoting his memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry said he didn’t want his “Friends” role as Chandler Bing to dominate his legacy.
“I want helping others to be the first thing that’s mentioned,” he told Q with Tom Power last November. “And I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.”
Authorities did not find any narcotics at Perry’s residence, but they did find prescription anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications, as well as medication for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which affects breathing.
Preliminary tests show that neither fentanyl nor methamphetamine were found in Perry’s system. His official cause of death is pending a full toxicology report, which is expected to take between six weeks and six months.
“To be honest with you, I hate guns,” Peter, 76, shouted over the sound of gunshots Saturday afternoon as his wife took aim at a target at Gun World in Deerfield Beach. “But it’s better us than someone else.”
The Jewish couple had arrived for their Intro to Handguns lesson with Florida Firearms Training about noon. Peter, who asked to keep his last name private for safety reasons, had shot a rifle decades ago; his wife had never shot a gun before. By the end of the day they would be returning home with one.
So would Justine Youngleson, 58, and Sandi Lazar, 65, a South African Jewish couple from Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, and Jackie Rubin, 64, a former orthodox Jew who converted to Christianity, who wore a T-shirt with a giant heart on it and described herself as a “very peaceful person.”
Firearms instructor Bob Pruitt talks with student Jackie Rubin, a former orthodox Jew who converted to Christianity, during an introduction to handguns course at the Gun World shooting range. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel/TNS)
Across South Florida, Jewish residents are buying guns and learning to use them, many of them older, more liberal-leaning people who never thought they’d touch a gun in their lives. Spouses are dragging each other to lessons, children are going with parents. Introductory shooting classes are booked up months into the future, even on the Sabbath, because people are so desperate for slots.
Still others are buying security cameras, taking self-defense classes like Krav Maga, the Israeli martial arts that focuses on surviving real-life scenarios, contemplating leaving jewelry at home, and removing mezuzahs from their doors, as they speak of a fear they have not felt before.
‘A huge blip’
On the door leading into owner Kim Waltuch’s office at Gun World, a picture of a menorah reading “Happy Chanukah” sits adjacent to a sticker of a Glock.
Her office is similarly cluttered: Piles of papers, a mug reading “Boss Lady,” sound-canceling headphones, and a box of chocolate ammo cover her desk. On the wall are children’s drawings next to a framed picture of Hebrew word for love. The kids make the drawings while they wait for their parents to be done shooting, Waltuch explained.
Peter, who is Jewish, fires his gun during an introduction to handguns course at the Gun World shooting range in Deerfield Beach, Florida, on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel/TNS)
In the last month, Gun World has had a “surge” in interest in guns, Waltuch said. So many people want lessons, they began offering double the amount per week.
“As soon as the guns have been going in, they’re going out,” she explained.
As she spoke, people kept popping in to say hello; the store was crowded. One of the customers was Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine, an outspoken supporter of Israel who reiterated the same motives as everyone else: “I just thought, with everything going on in the world, it’s better to be educated.”
Florida Firearms Training has had so many requests for the Introduction to Handguns course that it is booked all the way into December, said Will Farrugia, the company’s director of training, who led Saturday’s lesson, which was also on the Jewish Sabbath.
In an average week, FFT sees about 40 students in its intro class, Farrugia said. Now they’re looking at 80 to 90 students.
“There’s definitely a blip on the graph, a huge blip of just an influx of new shooters,” he said. “Of which I would say fifty to sixty percent are Jewish.”
Sandi Lazar, who is Jewish, shows off her target during an introduction to handguns course at the Gun World shooting range in Deerfield Beach, Florida, on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel/TNS)
The students are not gun nuts, or even necessarily conservative. Many know little to nothing about guns.
These are “people that have never thought of buying a gun, that are now saying ‘I need a gun,’” Farrugia said. “It’s all for the same reason. There’s that concern of, ‘Can something happen here? Can something happen to my family? I need to have a way of defending my family and my home.’ Sad, but that’s where we’re at.”
On Saturday, students spoke of their dislike for guns at the same time as they prepared to buy them, their own shooting targets in their hands.
Lazar said that she still thinks guns are bad, and she does not believe she should have them while driving around or in the supermarket, an opinion that did not change Saturday.
“She’s the neurotic one,” Lazar said, gesturing to Youngleson. It was Youngleson’s idea to buy the gun, and Youngleson said that she was going to do just that, but Lazar needed to know how to use it if it was going to be in the house.
“This is not what you think you’ll be doing at 58,” Youngleson said.
Need for self-defense is critical
The heightened fears aren’t present only in gun-training classes.
Lazar and Youngelson have bought Ring cameras and lights for their home. Growing numbers of Jewish residents are looking for situational awareness or self-defense classes like Krav Maga, said Carson Nightwine, the director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County.
“Never has the need for self-defense been more critical,” reads a Facebook post from the Ruth & Norman Rales Jewish Family Services, advertising a Krav Maga class in early November.
The owner of AIKMO Krav Maga in Oakland Park, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, said that he had seen a small uptick in the number of students in his own classes, as well as a larger increase in synagogues asking for workshops.
While they’re warming up, students trade stories of having their cars slapped at stoplights or being told to “burn in hell” for putting up posters of Israeli hostages, he said.
He tries to keep the class positive but practical, in the spirit of Krav Maga, which is meant to address real-life threats. At synagogues, AIKMO teaches kidnapping prevention, self-defense, knife and gun defense, forced entry and active shooter drills.
“I hate to say it’s become necessary and timely,” the owner said. “If we lived in a better world I’d be happy to be put out of business. This would be the new yoga; we’d do this for fun.”
Rising antisemitism threat
Since Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7, national and local officials began warning the public of the heightened potential for antisemitic incidents and hate crimes. But those early statements turned increasingly ominous as hatred brewed and the Israel-Hamas war stretched on with a bombing campaign that has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.
In one week, a Jewish cemetery in Vienna was sprayed with swastikas and set on fire. Stars of David were spray-painted outside of buildings in Paris. And in Dagestan, Russia, a mob of protesters stormed a plane from Israel and searched a hotel, looking for Jews.
On Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray told members of Congress that the terrorism threat to Americans, already elevated in 2023, had increased “to a whole other level” due to the war and warned of “historic” levels of antisemitism.
For residents of South Florida’s predominantly Jewish neighborhoods and cities, already on alert, a different kind of fear followed Oct. 7.
“This is the first time I really feel unsafe in the U.S.,” said Michele Lazarow, a Hallandale Beach city commissioner who is Jewish. “Maybe it’ll finally be when I get a firearm.”
The chabad houses that pepper Hallandale Beach always used to make her feel safe. Now she wonders if, like herself, the city is a target.
“I don’t even want to say it,” she told the Sun Sentinel on Tuesday. “There’s a very large Jewish community.”
Already, stirrings of hate have emerged in South Florida; in Parkland last Saturday, a group of masked minors shouted threats at Jewish congregants as they left synagogue, according to deputies and Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who belongs to the synagogue.
Palm Beach County has seen an uptick in reported incidents since Oct. 7, said Nightwine, the community security director. At the same time, rumors, false threats and hate speech have exploded online, which add to people’s fears.
He spends much of his time trying to distinguish misinformation from real threats.
“Just getting to what is actually credible and providing the community with a sense of safety, and the amount of just utter hate speech, and these threats, it’s a colossal work,” Nightwine said.
Islamophobic incidents and hate crimes have also risen nationwide since the attacks. In Illinois, a landlord is accused of stabbing a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy to death, shouting “you Muslims must die.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations has reported the largest wave in incidents since 2015, when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
But as home to one of the nation’s largest Jewish populations, South Florida has long contended with antisemitism. Over the two years prior to 2023, antisemitic incidents had already sharply increased in South Florida, though they were largely perpetrated by right-wing, neo-Nazi groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Almost 60% of all religion-based hate crimes in the U.S. in 2020 targeted Jews, more than any other group, despite the fact that they account for only 2% of the U.S population, according to the FBI.
Since the Oct. 7 attacks, antisemitic incidents across the country have increased nearly 400%, mostly attributed to pro-Palestine and anti-Israel sentiment and protests. Antisemitic rhetoric has also increased on the right; the ADL reported an over 1,000% increase in “the daily average of violent messages mentioning Jews and Israel” on right-wing extremist Telegram channels.
On Thursday, when Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody visited the Florida Department of Law Enforcement office in Boynton Beach for a confidential security meeting, a reporter asked whether she thought Palm Beach County was vulnerable.
“It’s no coincidence we chose to come to South Florida to make sure we’re imploring our communities to stay on guard,” Moody replied.
‘We’re Jewish, we don’t feel safe’
Kayla, 22, went to a gun range with her parents last month at her mother’s request. Her family had shot guns once, in Israel, where the recent college grad, who asked to keep her last name private for safety reasons, was supposed to move on Oct. 10. The plans are now delayed indefinitely, though that has not spared her family worry as antisemitic incidents unfold across the world, including the U.S.
“We were like ‘okay, we don’t really feel safe anymore,’” said Kayla, who lives in Hollywood. “We want to arm ourselves, especially because we’re visibly Jewish and we go to synagogue. Every aspect of our daily lives is Jewish: The supermarket, the restaurants we go to, and the neighborhood we live in.”
Soon after submitting her request, she got a call from Steve Triana, a local firearms instructor who works for Florida Defense Training and runs his own company, Triana Training Concepts.
When Kayla, her mother, and her 63-year-old father arrived at the range for their lesson, he asked them for their back story and why they chose to learn, as he does every lesson.
“If you’re coming and you’re over twenty-one, my question is, ‘why now?’” he explained, referring to the legal buying age in Florida. There’s always a reason, something that makes the person feel unsafe in a way they hadn’t before.
Reluctantly, Kayla shared hers.
“It’s always kind of scary to tell people ‘We’re Jewish, we don’t feel safe,’” she told the Sun Sentinel. “I told him anyways, ‘We’re Jewish, we’re really not feeling safe.’”
Triana, it turned out, was also Jewish. He told Kayla’s family that they were not the first to call.
His evenings have been booked with students like them since Oct. 7. In the last two-and-a-half weeks, he told the Sun Sentinel on Tuesday, he has had 18 students, 14 of whom are Jewish, what he estimates is a 90% increase in Jewish students since before the war.
He knows they’re Jewish because he asks, but also because many are openly orthodox. Some have told him they’re rabbis; others come in with yarmulkes on. Like those in Saturday’s class, many are older, often couples.
For Triana, the influx began four days after the war broke out, when the company he works for, Florida Defense Training, began sending a large number of new students his way.
The fact that most of them were Jewish and Triana is also Jewish was a coincidence, said Carlos Gutierrez, the company’s co-owner. But word has since spread to others in the community; Kayla told Triana she’d share his contact information with her synagogue.
For Gun World, word-of-mouth in the Jewish community has also brougth new business. People in the community want to support a Jewish-owned business, Waltuch explained, even though, she added, “as a nice Jewish girl who owns a gun range, I like to go under the radar.”
A political shift?
The new interest in guns perhaps signals a broader shift since Oct. 7 and its aftermath as Jewish South Floridians re-examine their politics.
On the right, Gov. Ron DeSantis has used his pro-Israel stance as a selling point, sending law enforcement officers to protect synagogues and schools, decrying left-wing protests on college campuses and criticizing the Biden administration for sending aid to civilians in Gaza.
Rabbi Mark Rosenberg of Miami-Dade, a chaplain for Florida Highway Patrol, thanked DeSantis publicly on “behalf of the Jewish community” at the news conference in Boynton Beach on Thursday, saying that “Florida has emerged as a leader during troubled times.”
But many of South Florida’s Jewish voters have leaned away from DeSantis and the right, where antisemitism has also mobilized extremists.
“A lot of my friends who are liberal Jews are very, very confused right now,” said Triana, the firearms instructor. “They are struggling to make sense of the world. The world they saw on 10/6 is not what they’re realizing is the way the world worked.”
Commissioner Lazarow, a self-proclaimed liberal, said that she, too, had recently begun to question her political leanings.
“I used to say I vote Democrat, woman, Jewish,” she said. “Now I vote woman, Jewish, maybe Democrat.”
Before the war, Lazarow’s Jewish identity was rarely foremost in her mind. She would have mezuzahs on her door and wear a Star of David around her neck and think nothing of it. Now they are conscious decisions.
“This is the first time in my life I’ve ever worried about wearing the Jewish star,” she said incredulously. “Now I’m wearing it as a resistance. As a symbol of resistance.”
By the end of class on Saturday, some students described a sense of empowerment mixed into their fear and aversion to guns.
“That’s good, honey!” Peter said Saturday, as his wife hesitantly lifted her paper target, the bullet holes a bit off from the center, but still very much within the silhouette. “Don’t worry, you would stop them.”
Each time Rubin finished her turn shooting, she was so nervous that her hands shook. But as class neared an end, she appeared more determined.
“I think I know what I want,” she said, walking over to where some of the other students were sitting, repeating it out loud as she scrawled it on the back of her target: “A Smith and Wesson, nine millimeter.”
The 64-year-old says her friends think she’s crazy for buying a gun, but her Jewish family doesn’t. And even though she no longer practices the religion, Rubin said, she is still a Jew, she doesn’t know what is coming next, and she wants to protect herself.
“I’ve seen the way the world is changing,” she explained. “I need to change with the world.”
OpenAI is now letting users build custom versions of ChatGPT to accomplish specific personal and professional tasks as the artificial intelligence startup works to beat back competition in an increasingly crowded market.
With the new option, users will be able to quickly create their own specialized versions of ChatGPT — simply called GPTs — that can help teach math to a child or explain the rules of a board game, the company said on Monday. No coding is required, the company said. OpenAI also plans to introduce a store later this month where users can find tailored GPTs from other users — and make money from their own — much as they might with apps in Apple Inc.’s App Store.
At its first-ever developer conference on Monday, OpenAI also said it’s introducing a preview version of GPT-4 Turbo, a more powerful and speedier version of its most recent large language model, the technology that underpins ChatGPT.
ChatGPT was released to the public a year ago this month, kicking off a global frenzy around all things AI. Roughly 100 million people now use ChatGPT each week, the company said at the conference, and more than 90% of Fortune 500 businesses are building tools on OpenAI’s platform. But the ChatGPT maker is also confronting rival products from well-funded AI startups, tech giants and, most recently, Elon Musk, an early OpenAI backer.
For OpenAI, the conference represents a chance to show how much influence it wields over the developer community. Hosting a developers conference is also standard for leading tech companies, including Apple, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook. Often, these annual events offer a chance for tech companies to preview major software or product updates.
OpenAI said the Turbo version of GPT-4 was built with a trove of online data running through April of this year, giving it a greater awareness of current events. The original version of GPT-4 had access to data running through September, 2021, though the company rolled out a feature this year that enabled ChatGPT users to browse the internet to get up-to-date information.
OpenAI said the Turbo version of ChatGPT will be able to process and respond to novel-length prompts from users. By comparison, the company’s GPT-4 model has been limited to as much as about 50 pages worth of text. Turbo will also be cheaper for developers to use, the company said.
Founded in 2015, OpenAI has put out numerous AI models over the years. The technology has become more adept at what’s known as generative AI — software that can ingest a short written prompt and spit out content in response, whether it’s text that can mimic what’s written by humans or realistic-looking images.
Some people have already used OpenAI’s tools to write lyrics, draft emails, do homework assignments and create children’s books. But OpenAI and its rivals have also ignited a new wave of copyright concerns. On Monday, OpenAI said it would pay any costs users incur from copyright infringement claims. Microsoft Corp. and Google have previously taken similar steps.
OpenAI’s event was held just blocks from San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood, which some have nicknamed “Cerebral Valley” for the growing number of AI startups based there. The venue, SVN West, is a multi-story event space that in past incarnations was a ballroom and, more recently, a Honda dealership.
