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July 27, 2016 at 5:56 pm
Washington - U.S.-backed forces fighting to drive Islamic State out of northern Syria have gathered a massive trove of documents and data belonging to the militant group, potentially shedding more light on its operations, a U.S. military official said on Wednesday.
The material, gathered as fighters moved from village to village surrounding the town of Manbij, includes notebooks, laptops, USB drives, and even advanced math and science textbooks rewritten with pro-Islamic State word problems, Colonel Chris Garver, the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said in a news briefing.
The U.S.-backed fighters - an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces - have gathered more than 4 terabytes of digital information, and the material, most of it in Arabic, is now being analyzed by the U.S-led co...
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July 27, 2016 at 5:42 pm
Brooklyn, NY - A police investigation into several acts of vandalism against the recently constructed Crown Heights eruv has been turned over to the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force.
The Crown Heights eruv was completed in mid-June and has been the subject of heated debate, with supporters contending that an eruv is a vital community institution that is allowed under Jewish law and opponents saying that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, opposed the construction of an eruv in Crown Heights.
Two booklets available for download on Chabad news site COL Live give voice to the two different sides of the issue, with one explaining why there can be no eruv in Crown Heights and another proclaiming the eruv as completely kosher, albeit not necessarily in ...
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July 27, 2016 at 5:40 pm
Baltimore, MD Daily Dvar Halacha - July 27, 2016 / 21Tammuz 5776 - Change Tablecloth For Shabbos During 9 Days? Linen?
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July 27, 2016 at 5:27 pm
West Milford, NJ - A New Jersey man who spent three weeks looking for survivors in the days after the 9/11 attacks is using billboards in a push to have his kidney disease added to the list of covered conditions by a fund to help Ground Zero workers with health problems.
Mike Megna has a rare kidney disease he believes was caused by dust from the rubble of the fallen World Trade Center towers.
The 44-year-old West Milford resident has rented two billboards in New Jersey near New York City that plead, “Add Kidney Disease for 9/11 Rescue Workers!” The signs include Megna’s name and picture.
A spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which administers the fund, says there’s not enough evidence yet to connect the condition to Gro...
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July 27, 2016 at 4:29 pm
New York - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “will not be releasing” his tax returns due to a federal audit, his campaign manager said on Wednesday, despite pressure to release them and provide a window into his finances before the Nov. 8 election.
“Mr. Trump has said that his taxes are under audit, and he will not be releasing them,” campaign manager Paul Manafort said in an interview with CBS on Wednesday. “That issue will be dealt with when the audits are done.”
His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has released tax returns and called on Trump to put out his. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, has called it “disqualifying” for a party’s White House nominee not to make tax returns public.
Trump has com...
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July 27, 2016 at 4:28 pm
Successful Heal-A-Thon Campaign Brings in Over $500,000 for Regional Bikur Cholim to Rescue Hundreds of Children of Dysfunctional Homes in Our Community | Gala Achievement Event at Mahwah Sheraton Hotel on Tuesday July 12 to Express Appreciation for Heroes and Largest Donors
Upstate NY—Two weeks after Regional Bikur Cholim’s Achievement Event of July 12th at the luxurious Mahwah Sheraton Hotel the evening is still on everyone’s lips. For those heroes and donors that experienced it in person, this was an evening to be remembered for a lifetime.
The occasion for this event was to express appreciation for successfully reaching the “Day of the Children” and completing goal of the Heal-A-Thon 2016 Campaign in raising half a million dollars to benefit the children...
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July 27, 2016 at 3:47 pm
Istanbul - Turkey’s state run news agency says close to 1,700 officers have been formally discharged from the military following the country’s failed coup.
Anadolu Agency also says the government has decided to close down dozens of media organizations, including 45 newspapers and 16 television stations.
The government says a U.S.-based Muslim cleric is behind the failed uprising by a faction within the military that led to some 290 deaths on July 15. Thousands have been detained for suspected links to the coup. Tens of thousands have also been purged from state institutions.
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July 27, 2016 at 3:46 pm
Philadelphia - Meet the new Hillary Clinton, repackaged and updated from previous versions. But will voters notice or care?
After decades in the public eye, Clinton is being presented to Americans again at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, this time as a barrier-breaking liberal champion who fights for families and children.
But even as Democratic Party stars delivered one testimonial after another this week, some voters watching from the convention floor said they already know Clinton, or think they do, through her years as first lady, senator and secretary of state, and not all views are favorable. That presents a unique challenge for Clinton and her supporters as they try to reintroduce one of the country’s most visible women to voters who’ve been watchin...
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July 27, 2016 at 3:43 pm
Philadelphia - It’s Hillary Clinton’s show, but rival Donald Trump is doing his best to steal it.
The Democrats’ historic handoff to Clinton arrived with affection from one ex-president and an endorsement from an outgoing one. But also came with a warning: That last glass ceiling isn’t shattered yet and the Republican nominee is a formidable and unpredictable foe.
Clinton formally captured the Democratic nomination Tuesday night and declared the barrier keeping women from the presidency nearly broken. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton offered a personal testimonial, and President Barack Obama was on deck to make the case for electing his former secretary of state.
But Wednesday morning, Clinton’s rival touched off a firestorm with his call ...
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July 27, 2016 at 3:34 pm
Washington - The ALS Association is crediting money raised through the Ice Bucket Challenge for the discovery of a gene’s connection to the progressive disease.
Those who accepted the challenge allowed buckets of ice water to be dumped on their heads to raise awareness and money for ALS.
The challenge became a viral sensation in 2014 and raised $115 million for the association. Figures from the ALS Association show $1 million of that helped fund a global effort to help find genetic drivers of the condition called Project MinE.
The ALS Association says a paper published this week in the journal Nature Genetics reveals Project MinE researchers have identified the NEK1 gene’s connection to ALS. It says understanding the gene’s role will help in developing new targ...
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July 27, 2016 at 3:32 pm
Paris - More horrifying details emerged Wednesday about an attack on a French village church even as the country’s main religious leaders sent a message of unity and solidarity after meeting with President Francois Hollande in Paris.
Two attackers took five hostages Tuesday at the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in northwest France and slit the throat of the elderly priest saying morning Mass. One of three nuns at the Mass slipped out to raise the alarm and both attackers, one of them a local man, were then killed by police outside the church.
Emotions in France are still raw after the July 14 Bastille Day attack in Nice that killed 84 people — and only became more frazzled Tuesday when the church in Normandy was attacked. With the attack threat for the country r...
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July 27, 2016 at 3:26 pm
Berlin - The online magazine of the Islamic State group has described how a 27-year-old Syrian asylum-seeker who blew himself up at a bar in the southern German town of Ansbach spent months planning the attack, once even hiding his home-made bomb in his room moments before a police raid.
The weekly Al-Nabaa magazine’s report, published late Tuesday, added that Mohammad Daleel had fought both in Iraq and Syria with a branch of al-Qaida and the IS group before arriving in Germany as an asylum-seeker two years ago.
Daleel died and 15 people were wounded when the bomb exploded in a wine bar Sunday night after he wasn’t allowed entry to a nearby open-air concert because he didn’t have a ticket.
The Ansbach attack was the last one of four attacks in the countr...
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July 27, 2016 at 3:24 pm
Miami, FL - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took a shot Wednesday at Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, for doing a terrible job as governor of New Jersey.
The problem, of course, is that Kaine was governor of Virginia.
“Her running mate, Tim Kaine, who by the way, did a terrible job in New Jersey,” Trump said at a news conference in Miami. “He was not very popular in New Jersey, and he still isn’t.”
Trump might have confused Kaine with former Republican New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, pronounced the same as Kaine. Kean led the state from 1982 to 1990 while Trump was building his casino empire in Atlantic City.
New Jersey also might have been on Trump’s mind because its current governor, Republican Ch...
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July 27, 2016 at 3:21 pm
Washington - After terrorism fears permeated Republican speeches a week ago, Democrats have barely mentioned the Islamic State group through two days of their convention.
That is perhaps a result of the militant group’s emergence from a localized, Middle East insurgency to a self-proclaimed caliphate and worldwide terrorism threat during President Barack Obama’s time in office. It also reflects a Republican strategy to blame Obama — and, by extension, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — for allowing the Islamic State group to expand.
“After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have?” Republican nominee Donald Trump said at his party’s convention. “ISIS has spread across the region, and the entire world.”
Clinton served...
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July 27, 2016 at 12:44 pm
During a morning news conference, Donald Trump came out swinging against the prosecutor who charged six officers involved in Freddie Gray‘s death. Gray suffered injuries while in a Baltimore Police transport van before falling into a coma and dying.
On Wednesday, in a surprise move, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office announced that all of the remaining charges against the police officers would be dropped. This came after three officers were acquitted and a fourth officer’s trial ended in hung jury last year. Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby has come under fire for her handling of the cases, with one law professor even filing complaints demanding her disbarment.
When asked at a news conference Wednesday about the case, Trum...
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July 27, 2016 at 12:31 pm
Roanoke, VA - Donald Trump was in the middle of creating another nickname for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton - “Hillary Rotten Clinton!” - when he suddenly thought of his mild-mannered vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence.
“You think Mike Pence would say this?” he smiled to the audience in Roanoke, Virginia. “What a high-quality person.”
On their first campaign swing together this week, Trump and Pence are giving voters an initial look at their odd-couple pairing as they prepare to battle against Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, the Virginia governor, in the Nov. 8 presidential election.
Their public routine is a work in progress, but it’s clear that they’ve learned from their first joint appearance, a sometimes awkw...
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July 27, 2016 at 12:28 pm
Philadelphia - President Barack Obama says Republican Donald Trump “is somebody who likes attention and maybe surprised himself that he got this far.”
Obama tells NBC’s “Today Show” that Trump “doesn’t seem to have any plans or policies or proposals or specific solutions.”
The president made the comments in a taped interview aired Wednesday.
Asked about Trump’s remarks that he alone could fix the country’s problems, Obama said: “That’s not how our founders designed our system. We’re not a government where some strong man orders people around and banishes enemies.”
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July 27, 2016 at 12:24 pm
New York - Bill O’Reilly says the slaves who helped build the White House “were well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government.”
The Fox News commentator was responding to first lady Michelle Obama’s remarks in her speech at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, when she praised social progress in the United States.
“I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves,” Mrs. Obama said. “And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.”
O’Reilly said on his show Tuesday that “Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well.”
O’Reill...
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July 27, 2016 at 12:21 pm
Miami, Fl - Donald Trump has a message for Russia: find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails.
The Republican presidential nominee, holding a Wednesday press conference, said that the 30,000 missing emails from Clinton’s private email server would reveal “some beauties” and made an extraordinary plea for a foreign power to locate them.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said. “I think you’ll be rewarded mightily by our press!”
Trump, whom Democrats have accused of having cozy ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, repeatedly declined to condemn the actions of Russia or any other foreign power of trying to intervene in the a U.S. election.
“No,...
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July 27, 2016 at 10:38 am
Baltimore, MD -Prosecutors dropped the remaining charges Wednesday against three Baltimore police officers awaiting trial in the death of Freddie Gray, bringing an end to the case without a conviction.
Gray was a black man whose neck was broken while he was handcuffed and shackled but left unrestrained in the back of a police van in April 2015. His death added fuel to the growing Black Lives Matter movement and caused turmoil in Baltimore, including large protests and the worst riots the city had seen in decades.
The decision by prosecutors comes after a judge had already acquitted three of the six officers charged in the case, including the van driver who the state considered the most responsible and another officer who was the highest-ranking of the group.
A fourth officer ha...
