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August 27, 2016 at 9:42 pm
Vancouver, British Columbia - A photograph of a crying elderly Canadian couple in wheelchairs, separated into two different care homes after 62 years of marriage because no beds were available together, has received international attention.
Wolfram Gottschalk, 83, of Surrey, British Columbia was put in an assisted home in January after he suffered dementia health complications making it impossible for wife Anita, 81, to care for him at home. Four months later, Anita entered a different facility despite family efforts to keep them together.
The facilities are half an hour apart, with family driving Anita to see Wolfram several times a week.
Granddaughter Ashley Bartyik took “the saddest photo I have ever taken” when her grandparents were brought together recently. She...
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August 27, 2016 at 9:39 pm
Washington - Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine is associating Donald Trump’s values with those of the Ku Klux Klan.
Kaine made some of his most pointed comments to date about Trump at a voter registration rally at Florida A&M University, a historically black university in Tallahassee.
Kaine said: “Ku Klux Klan values, David Duke values, Donald Trump values are not American values.” Duke is a former Ku Klux Klan leader.
When by a reporter asked if he thinks Trump is a racist, Kaine said he didn’t know Trump. But Kaine said the Republican presidential candidate has clearly made “bigoted” comments.
Kaine urged the students to help get out the vote, noting Florida may be the closest swing state this election.
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August 27, 2016 at 9:23 pm
Washington - Seven months after a federal judge ordered the State Department to begin releasing monthly batches of the detailed daily schedules showing meetings by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, the government told The Associated Press it won’t finish the job before Election Day.
The department has so far released about half of the schedules. Its lawyers said in a phone conference with the AP’s lawyers that the department now expects to release the last of the detailed schedules around Dec. 30, weeks before the next president is inaugurated.
The AP’s lawyers late Friday formally asked the State Department to hasten that effort so that the department could provide all Clinton’s minute-by-minute schedules by Oct. 15. The agency did n...
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August 27, 2016 at 9:21 pm
A Jewish woman in suburban Philadelphia woke up last week to a spray-painted swastika on her trash bin — and now her neighbors and hundreds of strangers from across the world are rallying to support her by painting their garbage cans with flowers, hearts, birds and butterflies.
The woman, artist Esther Cohen-Eskin, painted over the swastika with flowers. She then put letters in mailboxes asking her neighbors to paint their trash bins as well, turning symbols of hate into symbols of love.
People across Havertown responded, decorating their bins with foxes, flowers, and words like “love” and “unity.”
And after word spread online, strangers from as far away as Canada, Ireland and Germany sent Cohen-Eskin messages of support and pictures of bins they painted th...
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August 27, 2016 at 9:18 pm
General Motors is recalling nearly 368,000 vehicles to fix a defective part that could prevent the windshield wipers from working.
The problem affects the 2013 models of the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain. GM says those vehicles were built with ball joints that could corrode and wear out to render the windshield wipers inoperable.
A report filed with government regulators says a GM manager in Canada spotted the potential safety hazard last December. The auto manufacturer opened an investigation in March and decided to issue a recall earlier this month.
GM says it will cover the repair costs once it determines when it will be able to fix the problem.
Chevrolet Equinox owners can call 1-800-222-1020 and GMC Terrain can call 1-800-462-8782 for further information.
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August 27, 2016 at 9:16 pm
Ex-wife accuses Trump campaign CEO of domestic abuse, claims he made anti-Semitic remarks.
Documents from divorce proceedings reveal that Trump campaign CEO and former Breitbart News chairman Stephen Bannon’s ex-wife had accused him of domestic abuse and said the conservative filmmaker harbored anti-Semitic views.
“He said that he doesn’t like Jews,” Bannon’s second wife, Mary Louise Piccard said in court filings.
Piccard added that “he didn’t want the girls to go to school with Jews,” and that “he doesn’t like the way they [Jews] raise their kids to be ‘whiney brats’”.
“The biggest problem he had with Archer is the number of Jews that attend,” Piccard said in a 2007 signed statement.
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August 27, 2016 at 9:15 pm
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leads her Republican rival Donald Trump by 5 percentage points among likely voters, down from a peak this month of 12 points, according to the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released on Friday.
The Aug. 22-25 opinion poll found that 41 percent of likely voters supported Clinton ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election, while 36 percent supported Trump. Some 23 percent would not pick either candidate and answered “refused,” “other” or “wouldn’t vote.”
Clinton, a former secretary of state, has led real estate developer Trump in the poll since Democrats and Republicans ended their national conventions and formally nominated their presidential candidates in Jul...
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August 27, 2016 at 9:15 pm
A series of newly released State Department emails obtained by ABC News offers fresh insight on direct contact between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s inner circle while she was Secretary of State.
The emails — released as part of a public records lawsuit by conservative group Citizens United and shared exclusively with ABC — reveal what the group claims is new evidence Foundation allies received special treatment. [Read the emails here.]
In one December 2010 email chain with Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin, then-top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band offers names for a State Department lunch with Chinese President Hu Jintao scheduled for January 2011.
On the list were three executives from organizations that have donated millions to the Clinto...
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August 26, 2016 at 4:38 pm
New York - Donald Trump’s presidential campaign now has its own mobile app.
The campaign on Wednesday unveiled its “America First” smartphone application, aimed at engaging the GOP nominee’s supporters.
Supporters can earn points by contributing to the campaign, attending events and sharing messages and videos.
They can also unlock “up to 8 levels of activist badges,” with names like “Apprentice,” the name of his reality television show, and “Big League,” a phrase commonly used by the Republican nominee on the campaign trail.
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August 26, 2016 at 4:38 pm
WhatsApp plans to start sharing account information, including when a member last used the app with its parent company Facebook. For users who would rather they don't, there's a way to opt out.
When presented with WhatsApp's new terms of service, choose "read" and scroll to the bottom of the page. Uncheck the box that says, "Share my WhatsApp account information with Facebook to improve my Facebook ads and products experiences." Next, click "agree."
If you've already agreed to the terms of service, you have a 30-day grace period to opt out of sharing. Click the settings gear in the app, go to account and remove the check mark from the "share my account info" option.
Whatsapp used on a smartphone. Jonathan Brady / PA Wire via ZUMA Press
Sharing account in...
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August 26, 2016 at 4:32 pm
We are now within a seven week period of the Jewish calendar which is referred to as the shiva d’nechemta – the seven (weeks) of consolation. How is this; i.e. where does this term originate?
These seven weeks follow on the heels of ‘Three Weeks’ of mourning over the destruction of the two Temples. During these Three Weeks – beginning with the fast of the seventeenth of Tamuz and ending with fast of the ninth of Av – we read as haftaros (following the regular Torah reading on Sabbath day) selections from our prophets which foretell of the oncoming Destruction of Jerusalem, of the Temple, and the dispersion of the Jewish people from their Land. The Shabbos immediately preceding Tisha b’Av is known as Shabbos Chazon based upon the dire prophecy of I...
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August 26, 2016 at 4:32 pm
Jackson Hole, WY - The case for a U.S. interest rate hike has strengthened in recent months because of improvements in the labor market and expectations for solid economic growth, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Friday.
Yellen did not indicate when the U.S. central bank might raise rates, but her comments reinforced the view that such a move could come later this year. The Fed has policy meetings scheduled in September, November and December.
Speaking at a three-day international gathering of central bankers and academics in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Yellen said the “U.S. economy was nearing the Federal Reserve’s statutory goals of maximum employment and price stability.”
Data released earlier on Friday, however, showed the economy was more sluggish t...
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August 26, 2016 at 4:30 pm
London - Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson said Friday he thought he was going to die after flying head first off his bicycle in the British Virgin Islands.
The Virgin Group boss hit a hump in the road on Virgin Gorda, one of the islands in the Caribbean, catapulting him into the road. The 66-year-old posted pictures of his bloodied face on social media on Friday, showing the gruesome injuries that included a cracked cheek, torn ligaments and severe cuts.
“My life was literally flashing before my eyes,” he wrote. “I really thought I was going to die. I went flying head-first towards the concrete road, but fortunately my shoulder and cheek took the brunt of the impact, and I was wearing a helmet that saved my life.”
Branson traveled to Miami ...
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August 26, 2016 at 4:30 pm
Toward the beginning of the parsha, B’nei Yisrael are reminded (8:4) that their garments did not tatter and their feet did not swell for the duration of their forty-year sojourn. Then, they are told that they should know in their hearts that just as a father chastises his son, so too HaShem chastises B’nei Yisrael. The juxtaposition of these two pesukim is puzzling. Why would the great miracles in the desert be associated with chastising and punishment?
The obvious suggestion is that the chastising is referring not to the blessings mentioned in the previous pasuk but rather, to what precedes that passage. Those pesukim recount how HaShem inflicted suffering and starvation upon B’nei Yisrael, testing them to see if they will keep His mitzvos. Many commentaries understand ...
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August 26, 2016 at 3:12 pm
Washington - A U.S. judge ordered the State Department on Thursday to release by Sept. 13 any emails it finds between Hillary Clinton and the White House from the week of the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, among the thousands of additional emails uncovered by federal investigators.
The order came after the Federal Bureau of Investigation gave the department a disc earlier this month containing 14,900 emails to and from Clinton and other documents it said it had recovered that she did not return to the government.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has been criticized for using an unauthorized private email system run from a server in the basement of her home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, a decision she says was wrong and that she regrets.
The i...
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August 26, 2016 at 2:57 pm
Parshas Aikev / Shabbos Mevorchim Elul / Baltimore Zmanim / Eruv is UP!
Baltimore, MD – Aug. 26, 2016
Parshas: VaEschanan
Today: 22 Menachem Av
Chatzos: 1:08
Hadlakas Nairos: 7:28 PM
Shkiah: 7:46:01 PM
Tzais HaKochavim: 8:37 PM
Rosh Chodesh: Shabbos, September 3 and Sunday, September 4
Kiddush Levanah: Sunday, Sept. 4 7:35 PM – Friday, Sept. 16, 2016 1:57 PM
Kiddush Levanah may only be said at night
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August 26, 2016 at 2:47 pm
Agudath Israel hailed the decision issued today by the federal court in favor of Yeshiva Naos Yaakov.
United States District Judge Freda Wolfson ruled that the denial of the variances by Ocean Township, NJ violates RLUIPA. Agudath Israel of America helped to draft RLUIPA (The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) which became law in 2000. RLUIPA prohibits local zoning boards from imposing or implementing zoning and other land use regulations in a manner that significantly affects the free religious exercise of a person, assembly, or institution. This decision will allow the yeshiva to build a dormitory-based facility.
Rabbi Avi Schnall, Agudath Israel's New Jersey director, said, "This decision makes a statement that the religious liberties of institu...
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August 26, 2016 at 1:32 pm
Orlando, FL - Two months after a gunman killed dozens inside an Orlando nightclub, the sound of popping balloons prompted shoppers to frantically flee an Orlando mall, injuring nine.
Orange County Sheriff’s Officials spokeswoman Deputy Rose Silva tells news outlets there was no gunman at the Florida Mall. The loud sounds were actually from six large balloons being popped as part of an industry-standard inspection for the grand opening of former ‘NSync singer Joey Fatone’s new restaurant.
Deputies say an announcement was made on the PA system informing shoppers and employees that the test was about to be conducted, but the loud noises still caused people to run.
Orange County Fire and Rescue officials say nine people were treated at the scene, including four wh...
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August 26, 2016 at 1:18 pm
Istanbul - Turkey opens one of the world’s biggest suspension bridges on Friday, creating a new link between two continents with the latest megaproject in a $200 billion building spree that President Tayyip Erdogan hopes will secure his place in history.
The bridge across the Bosphorus Strait, which divides Asia and Europe, is built in the style of New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and boasts pylons higher than the Eiffel Tower. It is 1.4 km (0.9 mile) long and 59 meters wide, with eight vehicle lanes and two high-speed rail lines.
Erdogan is seeking to use such projects to drive economic growth and secure a place as Turkey’s most significant leader since the modern republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
“Be proud of your power, Turkey,” said a TV...
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August 26, 2016 at 1:02 pm
BH, we are settling in. Or trying to. Still in our temporary apartment so we can only settle so much. Our lift is now in storage until we are ready for it. I have been hard at work with the kitchen designer and the kablan (contractor) and hope to start renovations on our actual apartment probably the beginning of Elul. Our deadline to be out of our temporary apartment is the end of October, so this will be challenging. But, that is a worry for another time.
Last Shabbos we were with our son and family in Bnei Brak. We stayed over for Sunday and went on a very fun trip to a park in Kibbutz Chofetz Chaim. When we returned to Yerushalyim about 7:00, it was time to shower and change to get ready to go to 2 bar mitzvahs. One was in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood and the other was in Har Nof. We...
