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June 23, 2017 at 5:29 pm
The family of Michael Brown, an African American teen whose fatal shooting by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked large-scale protests, has settled its lawsuit against the city for $1.5 million, said Apollo Carey, the city attorney for Ferguson.
The settlement amount was paid by the city’s insurance company “on behalf of multiple defendants,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber’s order approving the settlement didn’t mention the amount, but he said the split of the amount between Brown’s parents, Michael Brown Sr. and Lesley McSpadden, is “fair and reasonable” and “provides for a reasonable amount” for attorney fees and expenses, the Post-Dispatch reported.
The judge ord...
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June 23, 2017 at 5:28 pm
Former U.S. President Barack Obama and his family arrived Friday on the resort island of Bali to begin a vacation in Indonesia, where he lived for several years as a child, officials said.
Obama, his wife and daughters Malia and Sasha arrived on a private jet at the military airport in the provincial capital, Denpasar, base commander Col. Wayan Superman said.
They then drove to a resort in Ubud, an arts and culture center amid hills and rice paddies where they will spend most of their vacation on Bali.
He said they were accompanied by Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and would also visit Yogyakarta, an ancient city on the main island of Java where his mother, Ann Dunham, did anthropological research.
Obama moved to Indonesia in 1967 at age 6 after his divorced mother remarri...
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June 23, 2017 at 5:27 pm
A rear admiral has been named to head the U.S. Navy’s investigation into a collision off Japan that took the lives of seven sailors aboard the USS Fitzgerald.
The Japan-based 7th Fleet said Friday that Brian Fort would lead the probe into the crash with a Philippine-flagged container ship in the pre-dawn hours of June 17.
A large gash in the side of the destroyer flooded berths for 116 sailors. Navy divers found the bodies of seven in the listing ship after it returned to a U.S. base in Yokosuka, Japan.
Fort is a former commander of a squadron of six destroyers. He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and the Naval War College.
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June 23, 2017 at 5:13 pm
Baltimore, MD – June 22, 2017 – It is with sorrow that BJL informs the community of the petira of Rabbi Shlomo Gardner, a’h, beloved husband of Miriam Gardner (nee Mandelbaum), loving father of Yosef Dov (Chana Chaya) Gardner, Chani (Tzvi Aryeh) Gawartin, Yechiel Gardner, and Yisroel Gardner; dear brother of Esther Gardner; devoted son of Devorah and Chaim Gardner; and loving grandchildren.
Shiva will be observed at 3407 W. Strathmore Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215
Shacharis: Sun: 8:00 AM / M-W 7:30 AM
MIncha/Maariv: 8:20 PM
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June 23, 2017 at 4:45 pm
Baghdad - If Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is confirmed dead, he is likely to be succeeded by one of his top two lieutenants, both of whom were army officers under late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Experts on Islamist groups see no clear successor but regard Iyad al-Obaidi and Ayad al-Jumaili as the leading contenders, though neither would be likely to assume Baghdadi’s title of “caliph” or overall commander of Muslims.
Russia’s defense ministry said last week Baghdadi may have been killed in an air strike in Syria and Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian parliamentarian on Friday as saying the likelihood that he had been killed was close to 100 percent.
But armed groups fighting in the region and U.S. officials say they have no evidence he ...
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June 23, 2017 at 4:42 pm
Cape Canaveral, FL - This August, the U.S. will experience its first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in 99 years.
Total solar eclipses occur every year or two or three, often in the middle of nowhere like the South Pacific or Antarctic. What makes this one so special — at least for Americans — is that it will cut diagonally across the entire United States.
The path of totality on Aug. 21 — where day briefly becomes night — will pass over Oregon, continuing through the heartland all the way to Charleston, South Carolina. Those on the outskirts — all the way into Canada, Central America and even the upper part of South America — will be treated to a partial eclipse.
The last time a total solar eclipse swept the whole width of the U.S. was in 1918.
N...
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June 23, 2017 at 4:39 pm
[Ed. Note] Out of the respect and recognition of the impact made by longtime BJL friend and contributor, Reb Shaya Gross, z’l, we will maintain a living memoriam to Shaya through the sweet words and thoughtful insights of his Divrei Torah. BJL readers will remember his weekly column on the Parsha and on various Torah ideas and concepts. These meaningful words will help us remember this special young man who will be sorely missed and for those who did not merit to know him, this will be the most appropriate way for them to become familiar with who he was.
Two of the greatest sins Klal Yisroel committed in the desert were creating the Golden Calf and Korach’s dispute. When Moshe rebuked them in Parshas Devarim, he hinted at each sin by naming a place. ‘וחצר�...
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June 23, 2017 at 4:31 pm
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that a future war waged by Israel against Syria or Lebanon could draw thousands of fighters from countries including Iran, Iraq and Yemen. “The Israeli enemy must know that if an Israeli war is launched on Syria or Lebanon, it is not known that the fighting will remain Lebanese-Israeli, or Syrian-Israeli. This doesn’t mean there are states that might intervene directly,” he said. “But this could open the way for thousands, even hundreds of thousands of fighters from all over the Arab and Islamic world to participate,” he said in a televised speech.
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June 23, 2017 at 4:23 pm
A supporter of President Trump in Texas is using billboard space to slam ABC News over its coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Kyle Courtney of Boerne, Texas, placed an ad saying he "grew up with" ABC News but they let him down with coverage of the scandal, which includes allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the election.
“ABC News: I grew up with you. We are through. The Russians didn’t elect Donald Trump. I did," the billboard reads.
“ABC News was the only channel I watched as a child growing up in Texas but I think they have lost touch with America and forgotten the working man," Courtney said in a statement, according to San Antonio's NBC News affiliate. Boerne is a suburb of San A...
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June 23, 2017 at 4:19 pm
Israel continues to cement its status as a leader of global innovation, the United Nations’ Global Innovation Index for 2017 has found.
For the seventh consecutive year, Israel topped the innovation index’s category for northern Africa and western Asia category. The Jewish state ranked 17th overall in the report’s group of high-income countries, improving its standing by four places from 2016.
“Israel has shown improvement in gross expenditure on R&D and ICT (information and communication technology) exports, while keeping its top spots worldwide in research, venture capital deals, GERD (gross domestic expenditure on R&D) performed by business, and research talent in business enterprise,” the report said.
The Global Innovation Index surveys 130 econ...
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June 23, 2017 at 4:13 pm
Hundreds of France’s Jewish students are finding themselves in an impossible situation. In a country where tests are frequently scheduled for Saturdays and administrators are wary of making accommodations for religion, students are often forced to either violate their commitment to Shabbat observance or fail exams.
This challenge is not new, but Sacha Ghozlan, president of the Union des Etudiants Juifs de France (Union of Jewish Students of France, or UEJF), told The Algemeiner the problem seems to have mushroomed during the past academic year.
“We have had many more students getting in touch with us than in the past,” said Ghozlan, who explained that students appeal to the UEJF for assistance in inte...
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June 23, 2017 at 4:07 pm
The Senate Judiciary Committee has opened a probe into former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s efforts to shape the FBI’s investigation into 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the committee’s chairman announced Friday.
In a letter to Ms. Lynch, the committee asks her to detail the depths of her involvement in the FBI’s investigation, including whether she ever assured Clinton confidantes that the probe wouldn’t “push too deeply into the matter.”
Fired FBI Director James B. Comey has said publicly that Ms. Lynch tried to shape the way he talked about the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails, and he also hinted at other behavior “which I cannot talk about yet” that made him worr...
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June 23, 2017 at 4:03 pm
Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was released from the intensive care unit on Thursday, hospital officials said, over a week after the House majority whip and three others were shot at a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia.
Officials with the MedStar Washington Hospital Center and "Scalise’s continued good progress allowed him to be transferred out" of the ICU on Thursday and he "remains in fair condition as he continues an extended period of healing and rehabilitation."
Dr. Jack Sava, the director of trauma at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center, said last week that Scalise had "sustained a single rifle wound that entered in the area of the left hip. It traveled directly across toward the other hip in what we call a trans pelvic gunshot wound. The round fragmented and did sub...
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June 23, 2017 at 3:55 pm
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani issued a vitriolic call to Muslims across the world on Friday to violently confront Israel, as millions of Iranians attended “Al-Quds Day” rallies across the Islamic Republic.
“The message of Quds Day is that of hatred towards the occupying and usurping regime (Israel) as well as support for the oppressed nation of Palestine,” Rouhani declared in remarks reported by the Tehran regime’s English-language mouthpiece, Press TV.
Iranian Ghadr missiles — which are capable of reaching Israel — were on prominent display at the rallies.
Rouhani’s message was built around Iran’s newest propaganda theme — its conspiratorial accusation that Israel controls the Sunni Islamist terror...
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June 23, 2017 at 3:53 pm
Relatives of victims of Palestinian terror attacks on Friday warned Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt — the two emissaries of US President Donald Trump charged with reviving direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — that a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA) will be impossible until it definitively ends both funding for the families of imprisoned terrorists and wider incitement against the Jewish state.
“This is madness,” Arnold Roth — whose 15-year-old daughter, Malki, was murdered along with 14 other people when a suicide bomber struck the Sbarro pizza restaurant in downtown Jerusalem on August 9, 2001 — told The Algemeiner.
“No progress towards peace will ever come if we tolerate the ongoing sanctification ...
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June 23, 2017 at 3:39 pm
Iran staged anti-Israel rallies across the country on Friday, with protesters condemning Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and chanting “Death to Israel” as the powerful Revolutionary Guard displayed its ballistic missiles, including the type used this week in Syria.
Marchers in Tehran headed from various points of the city toward the Friday prayer ceremony at Tehran University campus grounds. Protesters burned the Israeli and the American flag, as well as effigies of Israeli leaders.
President Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials, including Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, attended the demonstration. State media reported that similar rallies were underway in other cities and towns in Iran.
The anti-Israel rallies are an annual event marking al-Quds ...
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June 23, 2017 at 3:38 pm
The Chilean equivalent of the FBI declassified World War II-era files on Thursday that show Nazi agents in the South American country’s main port of Valparaiso plotted to destroy the Panama Canal.
According to the 1937-1944 files released by Chile’s investigations police, the force’s counterintelligence unit thwarted the plan after it detained the people leading it in Valparaiso. No other details on the plot were provided.
The head of Chile’s investigations police said the Department 50 unit also dismantled two Nazi espionage networks operating in Chile at the time.
“If they had prospered in their objectives, it could have changed not only Chile’s history, but the history of the whole world,” said investigations police director Hector Espinoza. ...
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June 23, 2017 at 3:38 pm
A class-action lawsuit challenging a once-secret government program that delayed immigration and citizenship applications by Muslims can move forward, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle on Wednesday denied the Justice Department’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in February by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.
The lawsuit claims the government since 2008 has used the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program to blacklist thousands of applications for asylum, legal permanent residency or citizenship as national security concerns.
The program imposes criteria on the applications that go far beyond what Congress has authorized, including holding up some applications if the app...
