New York's Lgbt Film Festival Grows, Sheds Some Indie Edge

(JNS) A hush fell on the packed outdoor amphitheater on May 12th at Yad L’Shiryon—the Israeli Army Armored Corp Museum—on the outskirts of Jerusalem for a ceremony at the start of the country’s most somber day of the year: Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day which this year took on added significance. Under the open sky on a temperate spring night, thousands of participants from around the world had gathered in the fields of the Ayalon Valley that date back to the biblical battles of Joshua and then the modern-day State of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence in remembrance of the fallen Israeli soldiers and the victims of terror. Huge banners hung on the stage with the words “We are one”—this year’s theme of the country’s largest English-language Yom Hazikaron ceremony, which was organized by the Masa Israel Journey and held in the backdrop of the seven-month-old war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and an uptick in antisemitism worldwide making the event especially poignant. The 90-minute ceremony, which, like hundreds of others across Israel, got underway following the national siren that sounded at 8 p.m.

Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state’s lengthy coastline. Critics said the measure made law by the former Republican presidential hopeful ignores the reality of climate change threats in Florida, including projections of rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe storms. It takes effect July 1 and would also boost expansion of natural gas, reduce regulation on gas pipelines in the state and increase protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor’s office. DeSantis, who suspended his presidential campaign in January and later endorsed his bitter rival Donald Trump, called the bill a common-sense approach to energy policy. “We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” DeSantis said in a post on the X social media platform. Florida is already about 74% reliant on natural gas to power electric generation, according to the U.

A record level of parochial pork-barrel spending in Florida’s new $117.5 billion state budget shows that the annual practice of paying for thousands of “member projects” is out of hand. Florida TaxWatch made that declaration Wednesday as the business-backed policy research group released its annual “Turkey Watch” report, flagging nearly $1 billion in questionable spending throughout the state that Gov.

By LOLITA C. BALDOR (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of reported sexual assaults across the military decreased last year, and a confidential survey found a 19% drop in the number of service members who said they had experienced some type of unwanted sexual contact, according to new figures obtained by The Associated Press.

(JTA) Despite months of deteriorating relations and increasingly hostile rhetoric, the complete shutdown of trade between Turkey and Israel earlier this month came as a shock to many. The shutdown, which Turkey’s Islamist-leaning president Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced May 3, is putting pressure on prices in Israel, cutting off a major trade route for kosher food and affecting people on both corners of the eastern Mediterranean. “For the last two weeks, everything stopped.