|
August 24, 2016 at 10:47 am
Warsaw, Poland - A spokesman for explorers searching for a legendary Nazi “gold train” in Poland says there is “no train, no tunnel” at the site where they have dug extensively.
Last week explorers moved in with heavy equipment and dug deep at a site in the southwestern town of Walbrzych, following comments by residents and tests using earth-penetrating radar. Local legend says the Nazis hid a train with valuables in a secret tunnel there in 1945.
But the explorers’ spokesman, Andrzej Gaik, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that they found “no train, no tunnel” there. The machines are now covering over the pits that cost 140,000 zlotys ($37,000) to dig.
Gaik said “hope dies last” and a search using probes will resume at ...
|
August 24, 2016 at 10:37 am
Washington - Hillary Clinton met or talked by phone with at least 154 people from private interests, such as corporations, during her time as secretary of the state. More than half those people had donated either personally or through companies or groups to the Clinton Foundation or pledged to donate to specific programs through the charity’s international arm.
Among them:
—Joseph Duffey, who once worked for Laureate Education, a for-profit education system based in Baltimore, was one of 20 people at a higher education policy dinner with Clinton in August 2009. Weeks earlier, Clinton emailed her staff looking for Duffey’s phone number. Duffey, whom Bill Clinton appointed as director of the U.S. Information Agency, gave between $10,000 and $25,000 to the founda...
|
August 24, 2016 at 10:35 am
Traveling as an observant Jew is no easy task.
Kashrut is one thing, but think about all the smaller issues.
Eruvs, sliding doors, and automatic faucets are a few more points of concern. What about being in a hotel with a key card opener? How do you get in if there is no physical key alternative? Leave a towel in the door? Get a shabbos goy and hint that you can’t get in your room?
David Woolf posted the following video to YouTube showing a very creative way to make sure you can open your door from the outside without breaking shabbos. Make sure to take notes!
Watch below:
|
August 24, 2016 at 10:34 am
Weehawken, NJ - A new ferry soon will be carrying commuters between New Jersey and New York City.
New York Waterway’s 400-passenger Betsy Ross is open for inspection Wednesday at the Port Imperial Ferry Terminal in Weehawken. The Betsy Ross will go into service next week.
The 109-foot vessel has climate-controlled cabins and heated handrails. A marble bar serves coffee in the morning and cocktails in the afternoon.
The ferry’s sister ship, Molly Pitcher, began service last year carrying commuters from Middletown to Paulus Hook in Jersey City, the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan and West 39th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
The Betsey Ross and Molly Pitcher were built by Yank Marine in Cape May County.
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:51 am
Pyongyang - North Korea fired a submarine-launched missile on Wednesday that flew about 500 km (311 miles) toward Japan, a show of improving technological capability for the isolated country that has conducted a series of launches in defiance of UN sanctions.
The missile was fired at around 5:30 a.m. (4:30 p.m. ET) from near the coastal city of Sinpo, where satellite imagery shows a submarine base is located, officials at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defence Ministry told Reuters.
The projectile reached Japan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), an area of control designated by countries to help maintain air security, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.
The distance of the flight indicated the North’s push to develop a submarin...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:42 am
Washington - A Palestinian not seen publicly since his capture by the CIA in 2002 appeared Tuesday at a U.S. government hearing called to determine whether he should remain in detention at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Abu Zubaydah, who sat expressionless during the brief hearing, was the first high-profile al-Qaida terror suspect captured after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the first to vanish into the CIA’s secret “black site” prison network.
The review panel issued no immediate ruling on his status. He has been held at Guantanamo Bay since September 2006.
The U.S. believed that Zubaydah, 45, was one of the most senior figures in al-Qaida when he was captured in Pakistan. It has since dropped that claim. Zubaydah’s lawyers deny ...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:40 am
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly told journalists from the Jewish ultra-Orthodox sector on Tuesday that they would have to compromise on many social issues, such as the status of non-Orthodox Jewish streams in Israel and prayer rights at the Western Wall.
Netanyahu has been conducting personal off-the-record briefings with representatives of Israel’s major news outlets at his office over the past week. Several ultra-Orthodox-affiliated publications, such as Kikar Hashabbat, met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday evening. The meeting lasted over four hours, two hours longer than Netanyahu’s meeting with representatives of Channel Two News.
Netanyahu discussed his policy off-the-record with the journalists and according to reports this morni...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:27 am
Donald J. Trump, after weeks of self-inflicted damage, has seen support for his candidacy in national polls dip into the 30s — Barry Goldwater and Walter F. Mondale territory — while Hillary Clinton has extended her lead to double digits in several crucial swing states.
Time to declare a landslide, right? Not so fast.
The vote may be more favorable to Mr. Trump than the worst-case-scenario prognosticators suggest for a very simple reason: Landslides do not really happen in presidential elections anymore.
It has been 32 years since a president won the popular vote by a double-digit percentage. That was when Mr. Mondale suffered an 18-point defeat to Ronald Reagan in 1984. It was also the last time there was a landslide among states, with Mr. Mondale winning only Min...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:21 am
Sydney - A British woman was stabbed to death on Wednesday at a backpackers’ hostel in Australia and two people were injured, one seriously, in what police say may have been an “extremist” attack.
A spokesman for Queensland state police said the suspected attacker, in Australia on a tourist visa, was a 29-year-old French national who had yelled “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) when arrested.
A 21-year-old British woman died at the scene of the attack, south of Townsville in the state’s far north, police said. A 30-year-old British man was in critical condition in hospital.
“Initial inquiries indicate that comments which may be construed of being of an extremist nature were made by the alleged offender,” Queensland Police Service De...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:20 am
Boston - Cities are increasingly changing bike lanes to make them safer in light of fatal crashes involving cyclists and cars.
From Boston to San Francisco and New York to Tokyo, traditional bike lanes running alongside vehicle traffic are being replaced in favor of “protected” lanes or “cycletracks,” where physical barriers like concrete curbs, planters or fences separate cyclists from vehicle traffic.
“For 50 years, we’ve just been putting down a stripe of white paint, and that was how you accommodated bikes on busy streets,” says Martha Roskowski, director of People for Bikes, a Boulder, Colorado-based advocacy group that’s calling for better designed bike lanes. “What we’ve learned is that simply doesn’t work f...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:18 am
Amatrice, Italy - A strong earthquake in central Italy reduced three towns to rubble as people slept early Wednesday, with reports that as many as 50 people were killed and hundreds injured as rescue crews raced to dig out survivors.
The toll was likely to rise as crews reached homes in more remote hamlets where the scenes were apocalyptic “like Dante’s Inferno,” according to one witness.
“The town isn’t here anymore,” said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of Amatrice. “I believe the toll will rise.”
The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks. The temblor shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche ...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:15 am
Doha - Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has made an iconic purchase in America — a stake in the company that owns New York’s Empire State Building.
The $622-million purchase by the Qatar Investment Authority comes as the Doha fund increases its investments in the U.S. as the small country on the Arabian Peninsula tries to cope with low global oil and gas prices.
The Empire State Realty Trust Inc., which manages the 102-story, 1,454-foot (443-meter) -tall building, announced the Qatari purchase late Tuesday, saying the fund would gain a 9.9-percent stake in the company. The trust owns a total of 14 office properties and six retail properties around the New York area.
The Qatar Investment Authority did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The poin...
|
August 24, 2016 at 9:06 am
New York - An ambitious effort to replace obsolete New York City pay phones with Wi-Fi kiosks that offer free web surfing and phone calls has been a hit with panhandlers and the homeless, the least wired people in the city.
The city doesn’t track who is using the kiosks, but anecdotal evidence suggests many users of the new LinkNYC terminals are living on the streets. On several recent weekdays, people wearing plastic garbage bags or hauling dented shopping carts were hunkered down at terminals in Manhattan.
“It’s free. That’s the best part about it,” said a tall man drinking a beer out of a paper bag as he watched an R. Kelly video at a terminal on Eight Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
The man, who would give only his street name...
|
August 24, 2016 at 8:56 am
Pittsburgh, PA - Young adults with jobs that involve heavy lifting and forceful movements might be at higher risk for back pain later in life, a study from Finland suggests.
“When you’re young, you do things your own way, you muscle your way through it, but sooner or later, that behavior can cause problems,” said Michael Timko, a physical therapist and instructor at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved with the study.
“If we’re going to put a dent on the back pain issue, we should consider training younger people about basic body mechanics like how to lift and load and how to sit properly,” he told Reuters Health by phone.
To examine whether heavy physical work in young adulthood increases the risk of low back pain in midlife, Tea...
|
August 24, 2016 at 8:54 am
Amatrice, Italy - A devastating earthquake rocked central Italy early Wednesday, collapsing homes on top of residents as they slept. At least 38 people were killed in hard-hit towns where rescue crews raced to dig survivors out of the rubble, but the toll was likely to rise as crews reached homes in more remote hamlets.
“The town isn’t here anymore,” said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of Amatrice.
The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks. The temblor shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast.
Premier Matteo Renzi planned to head to the zone later Wednesday and promised: “No family, no city, no ...
|
August 24, 2016 at 8:53 am
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) - In the near decade they’ve flown around the world together the Bergstrom family has never had problems with TSA -- Let alone over 9-year-old Chille’s pacemaker -- until Saturday morning at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.
“Usually, they are friendly, they smile, they give him a sticker, a TSA sticker,” Chille’s mother, Ali Bergstrom, of Wyoming, Minnesota, told FOX 9.
Chille was born with Golden Hars Syndrome. The syndrome in Chille’s case includes four heart defects. The condition has forced Chille to endure 15 open heart surgeries, and requires he live with a pacemaker.
Due to Chille’s disability and pacemaker, the Bergstroms are required to request alternative screening anytime they fly. Every time they fly th...
|
August 24, 2016 at 8:42 am
Jerusalem - Israel’s leader says he has offered Italy rescue assistance following the magnitude 6 earthquake that shook the country.
A statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday says he offered the help to his Italian counterpart Matteo Renzi. The statement says he sends his condolences to the people of Italy.
Italy and Israel are close allies. Israel often offers and sends rescue assistance to countries that have experienced temblors.
|
August 24, 2016 at 8:42 am
Istanbul -Turkish special forces, tanks and jets backed by planes from the U.S.-led coalition launched their first co-ordinated offensive into Syria on Wednesday to try to drive Islamic State from the border and prevent further gains by Kurdish militia fighters.
Turkish tank units and Syrian rebels backed by the NATO member crossed into northern Syria to push Islamic State out of the border town of Jarablus, military sources said. A Reuters reporter at the border counted six Turkish tanks inside Syria and witnessed intense bombardments.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said the operation was targeting Islamic State and the Kurdish PYD party, whose gains in northern Syria have alarmed Turkey. Ankara views the PYD as an extension of Kurdish militants fighting an insurgency...
|
August 24, 2016 at 8:41 am
Israel - An IDF soldier was lightly wounded in an attempted stabbing attack Wednesday afternoon near the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, according to initial reports.
Security forces shot and subdued the suspected assailant at the scene near Nablus.
According to initial accounts, the incident began as the assailant hurled rocks at passing vehicles.
Security forces then pursued the attacker’s vehicle before he...read more at VIN
|
August 24, 2016 at 4:15 am
Baltimore, MD Daily Dvar Halacha - Aug. 24, 2016 / 20 Menchem Av 5776 - Forgot To Say Asher Yotsar Can I Say It A While Later?
