Washington - House Speaker Paul Ryan is refusing to support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president, insisting Thursday that the businessman must do more to unify the GOP. The surprise declaration from Ryan on CNN’s “The Lead” amounted to a stunning rebuke of Trump from the Republican Party’s highest-ranking officeholder. “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now,” the Wisconsin Republican said. “And I hope to. And I want to, but I think what is required is that we unify this party.” Ryan had maintained his silence since Trump effectively clinched the nomination with a commanding win in Indiana on Tuesday that forced his last two remaining rivals from the race. Other Republican l...
New York, NY - Three weeks after authorizing his 2013 campaign lawyer to work with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office in the ongoing corruption investigation that has rocked New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has hired that same attorney to represent him in a federal fundraising probe that has cast shadows on City Hall. de Blasio’s office announced today that Barry Berke, a partner at the Kramer Levin law firm, will be representing the mayor at his own expense, as reported by the Daily News.  Berke is said to be one of the top white collar criminal defense lawyers in the United States and is a former trial lawyer for the Federal Defender’s Office for the Southern District of New York.  The City of New York has also hired the law firms of Debevoise ...
New York, NY - New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he’ll sign a bill that imposes a 5-cent fee for single-use plastic bags. The City Council approved the measure Thursday. The Democratic mayor has a goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2030. Backers hope the fee will reduce pollution and unsightly litter from the billions of plastic bags that New Yorkers dispose of annually. Opponents complain that the fee will amount to a new burden on a heavily taxed population. The law will cover plastic and paper bags given out by grocery stores, drugstores and other retailers. Stores will get to keep the fees they collect, not the city.
New York - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Thursday by tweeting a photo of himself with a taco bowl and the caption: “I love Hispanics,” but the gesture was not to everyone’s taste. “Happy #CincoDeMayo!” tweeted Trump (@realDonaldTrump). “The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!” Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican defeat of the French during the Battle of Puebla in 1862. The posting angered, baffled or amused some social media users, including Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, Trump’s likely opponent in the Nov. 8 election. “‘I love Hispanics!’ —Trump, 52 minutes ago,” Clinton (@HillaryClinton) tweeted. &...
Baltimore, MD - May. 5, 2016  27 Nissan 5776  - Daily Dvar Halacha - Coffee for Kiddush?
A shooting has been reported at High Point High School in Beltsville, Md., officials said. The Prince George’s Fire Department is responding to the scene at 3601 Powder Mill Rd., just outside Washington, D.C. One person was killed and another was injured in the shooting on the school grounds, according to WRC-TV. The shooting is domestic in nature and does not involve students
 Watch PM Netanyahu's Yom HaShoah Speech
Some people in the medical profession are not going to be too happy about this particular column. So what did Rav Moshe, zt”l, feel about doctors? Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, grandson of Rav Moshe Feinstein, zatzal, has authored volume two of Mesoras Moshe which has a section that can shed some light on that. Essentially, Rabbi Tendler had kept notebooks and letters of his saintly grandfather’s rulings and thoughts in his 18 years as serving as his grandfather’s Gabbai. The Mesoras Moshe is comprised of Rav Moshe Feinstein’s oral rulings, conversations and thoughts, and other unpublished material. The rulings number well over one thousand, and most of them are quite fascinating. APPROBATIONS Like its predecessor, the book has approbations from both of Rav Moshe&rsqu...
It was a very hot day in July 1951. I was in Tel Aviv and too hot to walk. I boarded Dan bus #4 on the corner of Ben Yehuda and Gordon streets. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories   Free Sign up! The bus was very crowded and there was no available seat. I had to stand next to a Yemenite woman holding a live chicken under her apron. People were chatting, discussing with fervor the day’s news, each one offering a personal description of the political situation, everyone with a different opinion. As is common in Israel, every person holds himself to be the authentic source of “inside” information. This one said “I have a cousin in the police force and he told me……..” Another replied,...
Baltimore police are recommending motorists lock their doors and call 911 during minor fender benders in the city after a string of incidents in which bumps from behind turned into armed carjackings. The incidents have occurred across the city, from the South Baltimore peninsula to the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood neighborhood in North Baltimore. Some motorists have been beaten after getting out of their vehicles to inspect potential damage to their cars, police said. "It's been widespread. It hasn't been isolated to any particular area of the city or any particular time," said T.J. Smith, the Police Department's chief spokesman. "It's something that's a pattern and a problem. We need the citizens to be vigilant and understand that this is g...
Spain - An ancient Spanish town that voted to change its name because it was deemed anti-Semitic has come under attack from extremist groups who have daubed the town’s signposts and buildings with offensive right-wing symbols and messages protesting the change. Castrillo Mota de Judios (“Jews’ Hill Camp”) town mayor Lorenzo Rodriguez Perez said Thursday that after the latest weekend attack the town had decided to file a complaint with police. The north-central village of some 50 inhabitants voted in 2014 to change its name from Castrillo Matajudios (“Camp Kill Jews”) to its current form. Rodriguez said that since then there have been six vandalism incidents as well as protests whenever Jewish or Israeli representatives visited. He said the gr...
The infamous Romanian hacker known as “Guccifer,” speaking exclusively with Fox News, claimed he easily – and repeatedly – breached former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal email server in early 2013.    "For me, it was easy ... easy for me, for everybody," Marcel Lehel Lazar, who goes by the moniker "Guccifer," told Fox News from a Virginia jail where he is being held. Guccifer’s potential role in the Clinton email investigation was first reported by Fox News last month. The hacker subsequently claimed he was able to access the server – and provided extensive details about how he did it and what he found – over the course of a half-hour jailhouse interview and a series of recorded phone calls with Fox News. ...
ANN ARBOR (WWJ) – The Washtenaw County Health Department has been fielding calls from people who shopped at Ann Arbor grocery stores where the FBI says a man has admitted to spraying produce and food bars with mouse poison. The department’s Kristen Schweighoefer said there’s no evidence so far that anyone has gotten sick, but there is a lot of concern in the community. “Given the popularity of these grocery stores, it’s not surprising that a number of people have eaten foods, especially produce, from those grocery stores,” she told WWJ’s Sandra McNeill. “What we’re doing is trying to determine if their symptoms are consistent with the mouse poison and hand sanitizer, things like that.” The FBI says a man, now in custody...
Jerusalem - ‎Israel commemorated the six million Jews who were murdered by Nazis in the Holocaust on Thursday with a two minute siren that brought the country to a halt at 10 a.m. ‎ Events marking Holocaust Remembrance Day began on Wednesday evening at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. At that ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against the resurfacing of anti-Semitic lies in Europe, which he said are reminiscent of the propaganda which “greased the wheels of the Nazi murder machine.” The vilification of the Jewish state has taken the place of vilification of the Jew, Netanyahu said, adding that anti-Semitism did not die with Hitler in his Berlin bunker. “Today millions of people in the Muslim world read and hear horrible falsehoods about the Jewi...
Netanya, Israel - Facing a backlash from right-wing politicians and social media users for comments made during ceremonies marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, the army’s deputy chief of staff sought to clarify on Thursday that he had no intention of comparing Israel or the IDF with Nazi Germany. The brouhaha was ignited on Wednesday evening by Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan, who said during a speech at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak that he had noticed “horrific trends” in present-day Israel that were reminiscent of what took place in the period just before the ascent of the Third Reich. “I had no intention of comparing the IDF and the State of Israel with things that went on during the Nazi period,” the officer is quoted as saying by Army Radio. “The co...
Though Donald Trump has wondered aloud why most Jews voted for President Barack Obama – and why they are likely to cast ballots for presumed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton – he is more “puzzled than furious,” his executive vice president and chief legal officer said on Wednesday, in the immediate aftermath of the withdrawal from the GOP race of remaining rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Jason Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jewish real estate lawyer from Teaneck, New Jersey — who has been working for “The Donald” for the past two decades – made this comment during an hour-long interview with The Algemeiner at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan. Making it clear at the outset that the views he was expressing were his own and assessments o...
Israeli forces arrested Mohammed Atounah at the start of April, when he attempted to carry out an infiltration attack from Gaza. It has been cleared for publication that a veteran Hamas terrorist who was involved in the terror group's tunnel-building efforts has been captured by Israel. Under interrogation the terrorist has revealed a wealth of information about Hamas's network of terror tunnels into Israel. Mohammed Atounah, 29, hails from Jabaliyah in Gaza, and is a 10-year veteran of the Islamist terror group. He was arrested at the beginning of April, after breaching the Gaza-Israel border armed with two knives.  He admitted to security forces that he had planned to kill any Israeli soldiers or civilians he encountered. Atounah was a member of Hamas...
The spreading heroin problem is being described as cheap, powerful and plentiful, and it's probably in your backyard. Pictures from security cameras taken last summer near a methadone clinic in Baltimore show an apparent open-air market for prescription painkillers. Cash and pills exchange hands in the middle of the day around a busy bus stop. The pictures put the country's opioid addiction crisis in full view, and today's pill abuser is likely tomorrow's heroin user. "(I) started using prescription pills, which led to heroin, which, you know, put me where I am at now," said a woman who asked the I-Team to identify her as Tiffany. She's on the street, panhandling to survive. "The pills became harder to get a hold of. They became more expensive. Doctors...
London - Labour candidate Sadiq Khan was set on Thursday to become the first Muslim to be elected mayor of London, loosening the ruling Conservatives’ hold on Britain’s financial center after a campaign marred by charges of anti-Semitism and extremism. His expected victory may be a lone bright spot for Labour on a day of local elections in England, Scotland and Wales. Opinion polls suggested the main opposition party would lose seats in some traditional strongholds, testing the authority of its new left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn. In bright sunshine, Britons trickled in to voting stations to cast their ballots in elections which some campaigners fear could fail to attract many voters, as the contests have been overshadowed by next month’s referendum on whether...
Dr. Sonja Santelises is no stranger to Baltimore City. She served for three years as the district's chief academic officer, but she realizes this new role will be much different. Santelises left to take a job in Washington, D.C., but continued to live in the city and be in the right place at the right time for the CEO assignment. "This is a city I've come to know and respect, and I couldn't imagine doing this work anyplace else," Santelises said. And it's a dream come true for the former academic chief who's set to take the reins of a struggling school system come July. "It is going to be challenging, and I will say right now there is no quick fix. If there were quick fixes, somebody would have marketed it already and been made incredibly wealthy off of...
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