London - Former London mayor Boris Johnson abruptly pulled out of the race to become Britain’s next prime minister on Thursday, in a shock move that upturned a political order shaken by last week’s vote to leave the European Union. Johnson, whose support for the campaign to leave the EU was widely considered one of the decisive factors in the campaign, had been bookmakers’ runaway favorite to succeed David Cameron, who quit last week after failing to persuade British voters to stay in the bloc. Johnson’s unexpected departure from the race, announced just minutes before the party unveiled the list of candidates, shows the speed with which the political landscape is being reshaped. “I must tell you, my friends, you who have waited faithfully for the ...
Helena -A grizzly bear attacked and killed a 38-year-old mountain biker as he was riding along a trail just outside Glacier National Park, Montana authorities said. Brad Treat and another rider were in the Halfmoon Lakes area of the Flathead National Forest Wednesday when they apparently surprised the bear, Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said. The bear knocked Treat off his bike, and the second rider left to look for help, Curry said. Authorities found Treat’s body at the scene, but not the bear. Wildlife and law-enforcement officials were searching for the grizzly Wednesday evening. Treat was a law-enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service. “Brad was an integral member of our area law enforcement team and a friend to us all,” Curry said. Treat g...
The leadership of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America issued the following statement: Today, we mourn the loss of Hallel Yaffa Ariel, a 13-year-old Israeli girl who was heinously attacked by a Palestinian terrorist in the bedroom of her family's home in Israel. The Orthodox Union extends its deepest condolences to the Ariel family and we pray that God and the nation of Israel will comfort them in this time of terrible tragedy. We commend the Israeli security forces that responded quickly and saved the lives of others. We also must say this: When violent attacks occur around the world, standard response is to state that the catalyst for the tragedy is inexplicable. Today, that is not the case at all. There is no doubt that the terrorist's action was a resu...
Yael Kabiliv, the aunt of the young girl murdered in Thursday morning’s vicious terror attack in Kiryat Arba, spoke with journalists in the Shaarei Tzedek hospital, following news that Hallel-Yaffa Ariel had succumbed to her injuries. "A truly wonderful girl was murdered today - Hallel-Yaffa bat Rina Devorah. Hallel, my niece, was the most amazing girl in the world.”"She had slept in late after having danced in a performance the night before. [Then], a disgusting terrorist came in and killed her while she slept in her bed.""We're all in mourning and in terrible pain. It's hard for us to grasp what happened.""They have the courage to just go into our homes - we have to have the courage to go into the Temple Mount, without fear, and say 'this is our ...
Father of Israeli girl murdered in her bed by Palestinian terrorist: 'An evil person killed my daughter.' The father of 13-year-old Hallel-Yaffa Ariel, who was murdered in her sleep by a Palestinian terrorist Thursday morning, has spoken of his gifted girl's dreams of becoming a dancer. "Last night she came back from a dance performance," Amichai Ariel recounted. "She was an amazing girl."  "She worked very hard for years to become a dancer. She put so much effort into everything she did. God gave her a great mind, lots of wisdom. She was so bright." As his wife wept beside him, Amichai said he and his daughter had planned to work together at his local winery. "This morning at 9:30 we were supposed to work together filling bottles with wine." "Hallel...
Istanbul - The three suicide bombers who attacked Istanbul airport were a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz, a senior Turkish official said Thursday, hours after police carried out sweeping raids across the city looking for Islamic State suspects. Tuesday’s gunfire and suicide bombing attack at Ataturk Airport killed 43 people and wounded more than 230 others. The day opened with police conducting raids on 16 locations in Istanbul, rounding up 13 people suspected of having links to the Islamic State group, the most likely perpetrator of the attack at one of the world’s busiest airports. The manhunt spanned three neighbourhoods on the city’s Asian and European sides. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations, did not na...
Ramallah - Five Palestinians, including two police officers, were killed in two overnight shootings in the West Bank, Palestinian police said Thursday. Police spokesman Loaie Izrekat said that 16 others were injured in the shootings. The incidents underscore the inability of Palestinian police to crack down on widespread illegal gun possession in the West Bank. In one incident, a Palestinian shot at the home of a police officer in the town of Nablus. When police arrived to investigate, they came under fire and two officers were killed, Izrekat said. Three more Palestinians were killed in a shootout between two clans that was sparked by an argument over a wedding hall in the town of Yaabad in the northern West Bank, according to Izrekat. He said the argument escalated into clas...
Maya Schulder, a 16-year-old from Arizona, in Israel with her congregational youth group, died of dehydration on a hike June 15. News reports stated that the group lacked adequate water. As is usually the case with such tragedies and near tragedies – e.g., the death of a new IDF recruit on an army tour shortly after induction, an African-American university student who collapsed and died climbing Masada, yeshivos and seminaries being forced to call for emergency evacuation while hiking in oppressive heat – the news came in the form of an email from Mark Newman of Great Neck, New York. My relationship with Mark and his wife Ellen began last June when Mark sent me an email out of the blue people relating how Mishpacha readers are always telling him that we look exactly alike. I...
Nablus, West Bank - On Saturday, 17-year old Mohammad Tarayrah revealed his willingness to become a martyr, writing on Facebook: “Death is a right and I am asking for my right to die.” Mohammad Tarayrah, the 17-year old Palestinian teen who carried out a stabbing attack in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba Thursday morning, killing a 13-year old girl, was planning to become a martyr, a post written on his Facebook page reveals. Tarayrah, who resided in the Nablus area village of Bani Naim, was greatly inspired by Majd al-Hadour, an 18-year old woman from his village who carried out a car ramming attack against IDF soldiers near Kiryat Arba last Friday. Hadour was shot and killed by the IDF following the attack. In the posts he published about her on his...read...
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. - Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost It is true you cannot tell a book by its cover.  Appearances sometimes deceive.  And sometimes it is our ability to comprehend that which limits our vision.  We pass by a young man hobbled by a physical deformity and presume that his limitations extend to his imagination, intellect and dreams.  We see a tall, powerfully-built lad and we bestow upon him the presumption of courage and inner-strength.  We see a teenager in a hoodie… We judge, we presume, we anticipate and we react… based on what? A cursory glance at the surface?  How ironic that we Jews, who have been so unfairly judged, are often guilty of seeing only the surface!  We judge so muc...
I was an ardent supporter of Brexit long before the word had ever been coined, before Nigel Farage and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) were household names. The epiphany came for me about a decade ago. My wife and I were on a bus headed from London to Bournemouth for a convention of the European Agudath Israel. A little over two hours into our journey, and with Bournemouth a scant 45 minutes away, the bus driver pulled into a rest stop and announced that EU rules required a 45-minute rest break at that point. I turned to my wife and wondered aloud how could the traditionally freedom-loving, English-speaking people have surrendered control of their lives to this degree to faceless bureaucrats in Brussels? Brexit was a vote about two principles that have fallen out of favor wit...
An international expert on airport security says that until security forces develop the ability to react to terrorists within seconds, airports will remain vulnerable to attacks like those in Istanbul and Brussels. “If you look at the tactics used by the terrorists in Istanbul, they started by shooting. If the response would have come in a matter of seconds and was effective enough, they probably would have been dead before they detonated their devices and before they managed to cause a large number of casualties,” said Rafi Ron, a former security chief at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport who now works as an airport security consultant in the United States and other countries. Ron declined to say whether that response would come in the form of police snipers...
New York State Thruway - In what has become an annual rite of summer, the Sloatsburg Mincha Area will be reopening tomorrow night, giving Thursday night Catskills-bound travelers a convenient location to catch a minyan or grab a kosher snack. The Mincha Area, located between exits 15A and 16 on the northbound New York State Thruway, was officially founded to serve Orthodox Jewish travelers in 1993, but the origins for what is likely the only official highway Mincha spot anywhere in the world actually began four years earlier. According to the New York Times (http://goo.gl/3FfSrA) it was the summer of 1989 when an official at the Thruway Authority sent a memo to the highway police describing how large groups of cars would pull over onto the shoulder of the highway at the Harrim...
San Francisco - Microsoft has a birthday present for Windows 10 users: more capabilities for its Cortana digital assistant and new ways to ditch passwords. The company is also changing the notices it sends to users of previous versions, following complaints that it was too aggressive in pushing them to get the free Windows 10 upgrade. Microsoft’s “Anniversary Update,” scheduled for release Aug. 2, will let users activate Cortana with a spoken command (“Hey Cortana”) even while their screen has gone into sleep mode. Cortana will be able to recall more types of information, such as frequent flier numbers or parking locations. Users can also ask Cortana to remember specific photos, such as a wine bottle to buy again later. For devices that allow sign-...
Las Vegas - — A British man who authorities say tried to grab a police officer’s gun to shoot presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at a Las Vegas campaign rally was indicted Wednesday on federal criminal charges that, together, could get him up to 30 years in prison. A grand jury on Wednesday charged Michael Steven Sandford, 20, with disrupting an official function and two firearm possession counts, U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said. Sandford’s arraignment was scheduled July 6 in Las Vegas. He remained in federal custody, and his lawyer didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to messages seeking comment. Federal agents say Sandford told them he drove to Las Vegas from San Bernardino, California, with a plan to kill Trump, and went to a La...
New York - Amazon is back in the phone business — sort of. After its own Fire phone flopped, Amazon is selling special editions of other manufacturers’ phones at a $50 discount. They’ll come with ads on the lock screen and lots of Amazon apps on the home screen. You can hide those apps, but won’t be able to uninstall them. Amazon.com Inc. is touting the discount as a benefit of its $100-a-year Prime loyalty program. Membership is required, and Amazon figures that those customers will appreciate having single sign-in access to Amazon’s various services without having to download about 10 individual apps for video, Kindle e-books, music and, of course, shopping. Apart from the presence of Amazon apps, the new phones will bear little resemblance to th...
Washington - Call it ‘Trexit.’ Members of the British Parliament and other foreign politicians want off Donald Trump’s email list, and are seeking to block the presidential candidate from asking them for campaign donations. “Please stop sending begging letters to MPs,” tweeted Stuart McDonald, a member of the British Parliament. “It’s pathetic.” A pair of watchdog groups notes that the practice is not just annoying, it’s illegal. “Donald Trump should have known better,” said Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center, which with Democracy 21 is filing a complaint to the Federal Election Commission. It’s true that federal election law is designed to keep foreign cash out of U.S. political campaigns. It’s ...
Washington - CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday that the attack in Istanbul has the earmarks of strikes by Islamic State militants and that the group is likely trying to hit the United States in the Middle East and on U.S. soil. He said Tuesday’s attack at Istanbul’s busy Ataturk Airport that killed 41 people and wounded hundreds “bears the hallmarks of ISIL’s depravity.” “If anybody here believes the U.S. homeland is hermetically sealed and that ISIL would not consider that, I would guard against it,” Brennan said, using another acronym for the group. Earlier this month, Brennan told Congress that the U.S. battle against the Islamic State has not yet curbed the group’s global reach and that they are expected to plot more at...
Terrorist breaks into Kiryat Arba home, stabs teenage girl dozens of times, killing her. Member of local security team also wounded. A teenage girl was killed Thursday morning in Kiryat Arba when a terrorist broke into her home and stabbed her dozens of times as she lay in bed. A second victim, who responded to the terror attack, has been seriously wounded. The terrorist has been eliminated. MDA emergency responders were called to the scene at around 9:00 a.m. on Thursday following reports of a terror attack. Two victims were transferred to Jerusalem hospitals. A Kiryat Arba spokesperson said the terrorist penetrated the town's security perimeter and entered the Ramat Mamre (Givat Harsina) neighborhood. Officials reported that the terrorist broke into a home and repeat...
'Please tell me Kiryat Arba - our home - is still a place where we can live and not die.' The bereaved mother of the 13-year old girl murdered in Thursday's terror attack in Kiryat Arba spoke to Arutz Sheva at the Shaarei Tzedek hospital, where her daughter was evacuated after being stabbed dozens of times by an Arab terrorist. "My daughter was just sleeping - tranquil, relaxed, happy - when a terrorist came to her bed in Kiryat Arba and murdered her." "I, the mother, am not saying anything, I just ask that everyone consider [our] pain, I ask everyone to come and console us, strengthen us, and tell us that our [home] Kiryat Arba is still a place to live in - and not die in; that we may continue to love our place and our land. May Hallel-Yaffa Ariel's memory be ...
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