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July 22, 2016 at 3:30 pm
Israel’s parliament this week took action in response to an Arab Knesset member’s public support of a terrorist who murdered an American-Jewish peace activist.
But if you read the account by New York Times correspondent Isabel Kershner, you wouldn’t know anything about the terrorist or his victim—all you would learn is that Israel’s rulers are suppressing dissent and might be infected by “budding fascism.”
It’s as if Kershner and her editors are living in some kind of alternative universe, in which Israel is always guilty, Arab extremists are always innocent, and the 141 Americans who have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists simply don’t exist.
The current controversy began in February, when Haneen Zoabi and two other A...
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July 22, 2016 at 3:25 pm
CLEVELAND - Will she make a bold choice – a youthful minority or maybe a woman who excites the liberal wing of the party? Or a more cautious choice – a likeable white man with whom she is more comfortable?
Democrat Hillary Clinton will end months of speculation when she announces her running mate this weekend in the battleground state of Florida, just ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Clinton is expected to announce her decision while on a two-day swing in the central and southern parts of the Sunshine State, with appearances Friday and Saturday.
The long-awaited announcement follows a flurry of campaign rallies that served as tryouts for the vice presidential contenders. In recent days, Clinton met with several of them at her Washington, D.C. home.
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July 22, 2016 at 3:16 pm
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has just become the third richest person in the world, unseating billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett for the first time.
When markets closed last night, Bezos was still $200 million shy of Buffett but passed him soon after the opening bell on Friday. By noon Eastern, Bezos’ net worth climbed to $65 billion, putting him $300 million above Buffett, who is now the fourth richest person in the world. The only two billionaires richer than Bezos are Microsoft MSFT +1.37% founder Bill Gates, who has a $78 billion fortune, and Zara founder Amancio Ortega, who has a net worth of $73.1 billion.
Bezos’ rise to the number three spot on the billionaire rankings is powered by Amazon’s strong stock performance–and Buffet...
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July 22, 2016 at 3:12 pm
Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas today to offer condolences on the death of his brother, an Israeli official told AFP.
Abbas' brother Omar died in Qatar on Thursday, with the funeral taking place on today. He had been suffering from cancer according to Israeli media reports. The official, in the Israeli prime minister's office, said Netanyahu called Abbas today but that the conversation was "only to offer condolences." No other topics were discussed, he said. Palestinian state media confirmed the call. Relations between the two men are frosty, with Netanyahu accusing Abbas of libelling the Jewish people last month after he suggested some rabbis had called for Palestinian wells to be poiso...
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July 22, 2016 at 3:03 pm
New York - Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy U.S intelligence officer convicted of spying for Israel, asked a judge on Friday to overturn restrictive probation conditions imposed when he was released in November after serving 30 years in prison.
Eliot Lauer, Pollard’s lawyer, argued in federal court in Manhattan that the U.S. Parole Commission had imposed arbitrary requirements that he wear an electronic tracking device and submit his work computer to monitoring.
Those conditions were based partly on the grounds that Pollard could still disclose government secrets, which Lauer called inconceivable as his client would need to remember classified information from more than 30 years ago.
“The information is ridiculously stale, and it’s the type of information...
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July 22, 2016 at 2:57 pm
San Francisco - The origin of “Pokemon Go” is as peculiar as any of the Voltorbs or Snorlaxes that players track and capture in the surprise hit game.
Its hybrid DNA flows from a digital mapping pioneer’s fascination with the world around him, Google’s affinity for offbeat ideas, Nintendo’s comeback quest and a 20-year-old menagerie of animated monsters so popular that it spawned a company just to be its talent agency.
Then all it took was a prank to hatch a mobile video game that has turned into a cultural phenomenon.
APRIL FOOL, POKEMON
Google unwittingly planted the seed for “Pokemon Go” two years ago in one of the many April Fools’ Day jokes the internet company is famous for. In a mischievous 2014 post, Google announced a new...
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July 22, 2016 at 2:52 pm
New York - The Health Department today reported the first baby delivered with Zika-related microcephaly at a hospital in New York City. The baby and mother are currently in care and being monitored by physicians.
The baby’s mother was infected while in an area with ongoing Zika transmission. The baby has been diagnosed with microcephaly – or a smaller than normal head – and other brain problems. Tests have determined that the baby is positive for Zika. The Health Department is working closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on this case.
“Today, I am the bearer of sad news: we have confirmed New York City’s first baby born with microcephaly associated with the Zika virus,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Dr...
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July 22, 2016 at 1:50 pm
Munich - Police said they expect there will be multiple people dead in a shooting at a shopping mall in Munich, the German news agency dpa reported Friday.
The Bavarian Interior Ministry confirmed at least one dead and multiple people hurt at Olympia Einkaufszentrum mall.
Munich police spokesman Thomas Baumann told dpa the attack started at a fast food restaurant in the mall shortly before 6 p.m. local time. He said police didn’t know whether they were dealing with one or multiple shooters.
Police responded in large numbers to the mall in the northern part of Munich, not far from the city’s Olympic Stadium in the Moosach district of the Bavarian capital.
Munich police urged people to avoid public places. “The situation is still unclear,” they said...
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July 22, 2016 at 1:16 pm
Warsaw - Poland’s foreign minister has defended the country’s education minister, saying that remarks which appeared to deny Polish responsibility for two massacres of Jews in the 1940s have been misunderstood.
The comments by Education Minister Anna Zalewska last week concerned the World War II Jedwabne massacre of 1941, when Poles burned alive some 300 Jews in a barn, and the post-war Kielce massacre of 1946, in which 42 people died, 37 of them Jews.
Jewish organizations have protested after a Zalewska TV interview in which she avoided confirming the responsibility of the Poles for the massacres.
On Friday, Foreign Minister Witold Wszczykowski said Zalewska’s words have been misunderstood.
In 2001, President Aleksander Kwasniewski apologized for Jedwabne, w...
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July 22, 2016 at 1:01 pm
Shots were fired Friday in a major shopping center in Munich and authorities are on the hunt for a gunman, according to reports.
Several people are reported to have been killed, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung is reporting.
Authorities have closed off a wide area around the Munich Olympia Shopping Centre in the Moosach district.
No details were immediately available on injuries or who was responsible for the shooting, a police spokeswoman said.
An official at the shopping center declined comment, saying only, “We are experiencing a problem,” the BBC reported.
Photos from the scene show people fleeing and what appears to be a body on the ground, the Mirror reported.
Security forces have been on high alert after a refugee stabbed five people on a train in Bavaria on Monday.
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July 22, 2016 at 12:50 pm
Cleveland - Donald Trump is saying he would not accept Ted Cruz’s endorsement if it was offered.
Trump, speaking to supporters in Cleveland the morning after accepting the Republican nomination for president, said Cruz “may have ruined his political career” with his convention speech.
Cruz declined to endorse Trump Wednesday night and was booed by the arena crowd when he urged Republicans to “vote your conscience.”
Trump did not touch upon the incident in his convention speech. But he changed course Friday morning, gleefully recalled that Cruz “was booed off the stage.”
“I like Ted, he’s fine,” Trump said. “But I don’t want his endorsement. If he gives it, I will not accept it.”
Trump was also, re-litig...
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July 22, 2016 at 12:48 pm
Jerusalem - For the second time in less than two weeks, an Israeli girl has died after accidentally being left in a car in the brutal summer heat.
The terrible tragedy took place this morning when Chana Rina Feldman, who was approximately 18 months old, was unintentionally left alone in her father’s locked car near her home in Beitar Ilit. When the girl’s father, a Bresolver chosid, returned to the car approximately an hour and a half later, he discovered the unconscious toddler in the backseat, according to Israeli news site Kikar HaShabbat.
Witness told B’Chadrei Chareidim that situation was heartbreaking.
“The picture of the father standing next to his car screaming is something that I will never forget,” said one bystander.
According to initial...
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July 22, 2016 at 12:45 pm
Washington - President Barack Obama dismisses any perception the country is on the “verge of collapse.”
Obama is responding to questions about whether he watched the Republican National Convention, something he says he was too busy to do.
The president responded to a litany of statistics that Donald Trump laid out at the convention. Obama points out that immigration and violence are less of a problem today than they were 20 or 30 years ago.
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July 22, 2016 at 12:43 pm
Duma, West Bank - A Palestinian boy who was seriously wounded in a firebomb attack last year that killed the rest of his family has been released from an Israeli hospital and returned home to the West Bank.
Ahmad Dawabsheh was discharged from the hospital on Friday and greeted with a festive welcome in his village of Duma.
Suspected Jewish settlers hurled firebombs into the family’s home last July, killing his brother, 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. His parents later died of their wounds. Four-year-old Ahmad survived but his burns needed a year of treatment to heal.
The attack and the drawn-out investigation helped fuel months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Hospital director Asher Barzilai says Ahmad arrived with little chance of surviving but that the staff were now pleased...
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July 22, 2016 at 12:37 pm
Tobyhanna, PA - Authorities say a camp minibus rolled onto its side in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, sending nine teenage boys to the hospital.
The crash happened early Friday near Tobyhanna.
Pocono Mountain Regional Police says one boy received injuries severe enough to necessitate being flown to a hospital in Allentown.
The bus driver and five other passengers weren’t injured.
The bus driver’s wife says in a phone interview that the boys were from Sanz Klausenberg Summer Camp in Woodbourne, New York, and had been on a trip.
She says the injuries included a broken foot and “a lot of bad scratches on the head. Miracles, a lot of miracles.”
The driver referred questions to the Sanz Klausenberg Summer Camp office, where a woman who answered ...
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July 22, 2016 at 12:35 pm
Brooklyn, NY - A Chasidic man from Borough Park is hoping to set two records as both the youngest and the first Chasidic man to be voted a Democratic district leader in Brooklyn.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind has served as district leader for the Democratic party in the 48th Assembly District for more than a decade but is choosing to pass the baton to his communications assistant, 22 year old David Schwartz.
Schwartz is the only Democratic candidate in the September 13th election, although he could potentially face a challenge from a write-in candidate.
“I’m busier than ever in my own office and I thought it was time to give the opportunity to someone young and aggressive,” Hikind told VIN News. “Duvy is an extraordinary young man who is very active, very...
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July 22, 2016 at 11:18 am
Washington - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that climate change is as dangerous as, if not more than, the threats posed by the Islamic State and other extremist groups.
Speaking Friday in Vienna at an international climate change conference, Kerry said the issue might not get as much public attention as terrorism but that the meeting is as important as a Thursday gathering he hosted in Washington on combatting the Islamic State.
“What you are doing here right now is of equal importance, because it has the ability literally to save life on this planet,” Kerry told the conference of parties to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a global treaty to end the use of many chlorofluorocarbons from aerosols and refrigerants that deplete the ozone layer.
Treaty member...
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July 22, 2016 at 11:16 am
Baltimore, Md - July 22, 2016 - Please be advised that Peachwave Frozen Yogurt stores are not certified by the Star-K. The use of the Star-K symbol in the stores is unauthorized.
Corrective action is being taken.
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July 22, 2016 at 11:06 am
Baltimore, MD - July 13, 2016 – To provide a smoother ride for thousands of motorists, the Maryland Department of Transportation’s State Highway Administration (SHA) will repair damaged pavement on 1.5 miles of MD 140 (Reisterstown Road) in Pikesville beginning next week. SHA’s contractor, Gray and Son, Inc. of Timonium, will patch and restripe sections of pavement on Reisterstown Road from Seven Mile Lane (Baltimore City/County line) to Naylors Lane (south of the I-695 interchange) weeknights this summer. Weather permitting, the $250,000 highway maintenance project will be complete late summer. Crews will close one lane Sundays through Thursdays between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Approximately 34,000 vehicles use this section of Reisterstown Road each day, so d...
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July 22, 2016 at 10:53 am
New York - Yahoo Inc is focused on selling its core assets to U.S. telecommunications company Verizon Communications Inc
after reviewing final bids that it received in an auction, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
Yahoo views Verizon as the buyer that can deliver the most value, but negotiations between the two companies are continuing, and no deal has yet been reached, the people said.
The value of Verizon’s bid could not be learned.
The sources requested anonymity because the negotiations are confidential. Verizon and Yahoo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bloomberg reported earlier that Verizon was nearing a deal for Yahoo’s core assets.
