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July 20, 2017 at 2:50 pm
Travelers flying to the U.S. from nearly 300 international airports, including those in Mexico and Canada, are now subject to stepped-up security measures that include stricter screening for electronic devices larger than cellphones.
The regulations could include asking passengers to present larger electronic devices for inspection and prove that they can be powered on.
The Homeland Security Department demanded last month that airlines around the world step up security measures for international flights bound for the United States or face the possibility of a total electronics ban for planes. The deadline for some of those changes to take affect was Wednesday.
Airlines and aviation authorities responded by warning passengers to expect longer security screenings at airports.
“Enha...
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July 20, 2017 at 2:41 pm
Long-term U.S. mortgage rates declined this week after two straight weeks of increases. The benchmark 30-year rate slipped back below the significant 4 percent level.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to an average 3.96 percent from 4.03 percent last week. It stood at 3.45 percent a year ago and averaged a record low 3.65 percent in 2016.
The rate on 15-year, fixed-rate home loans, popular with homeowners who are refinancing their mortgages, eased to 3.23 percent from 3.29 percent last week.
Mortgage rates still remain historically low even though the Federal Reserve has begun to ratchet up short-term interest rates.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country between Monday and Wednesday...
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July 20, 2017 at 2:41 pm
Kuwait said Thursday it is shutting the Iranian cultural mission to the country and calling for a reduction in the number of Iranian diplomats stationed there, deepening a rift between the Gulf Arab states and Tehran.
The official Kuwait News Agency announced the move in a brief statement Thursday. It linked the decision to the case of a terrorist cell broken up in 2015 that authorities allege had contacts with Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
The Iranian ambassador to Kuwait has been notified of the decision, the news agency, known as KUNA, reported.
Iranian state television and other news agencies in the Islamic Republic quickly reported the news, citing Arab media.
Embassy staff and officials in Tehran did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The 2...
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July 20, 2017 at 12:32 pm
Israel's Forest Fire In Yerushalayim Has Been Extinguished - What a View!
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July 20, 2017 at 12:31 pm
Sears will begin selling its appliances on Amazon.com, including smart appliances that can be synced with Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa.
The announcement Thursday sent shares of Sears soaring more than 18 percent at the opening bell. The tie-up with the internet behemoth could give shares of the storied retailer one of its biggest one-day percentage gains ever.
Sears, which also owns Kmart, said that its Kenmore Smart appliances will be fully integrated with Amazon's Alexa, allowing users to control things like air conditioners through voice commands.
"The launch of Kenmore products on Amazon.com will significantly expand the distribution and availability of the Kenmore brand in the U.S.," Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert said in a company release.
Sears has struggled w...
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July 20, 2017 at 11:38 am
Elor Azariya, the IDF soldier convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of a wounded Arab terrorist, was released to house arrest. Azariya can no longer be held on base arrest as his compulsory service ended on Thursday, 26 Tammuz.
The decision was made to release him to house arrest pending the decision by the military appeals court in his case as Azariya’s attorney appealed the conviction. He was sentenced to 18-months imprisonment. The court ruling is expected towards the end of July.
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July 20, 2017 at 11:32 am
The White House said Wednesday that President Donald Trump has declined an invitation to speak at the NAACP’s annual convention next week in Baltimore, leading the nation’s oldest civil rights organization to question the president’s commitment to his African American constituents.
“During his campaign, President Trump asked us ‘what do you have to lose?'” NAACP Board Chairman Leon Russell said. “We get the message loud and clear. The president’s decision today underscores the harsh fact: we have lost – we’ve lost the will of the current administration to listen to issues facing the black community.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the announcement to reporters that the president declined the...
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July 20, 2017 at 11:32 am
Not too long after declaring the Jerusalem Forest fire under control, firefighters directed their attention to a fire near Sorotzkin Street and Panim Meiros Streets which has led to the evacuation from some apartments.
At least eleven fire apparatus with assistance from fire planes are working the fire.
The fire is spreading towards the Ramot Forest and planes are working to prevent this from getting out of control.
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July 20, 2017 at 11:31 am
The Jerusalem Forest fire that began earlier in the day, Thursday, 26 Tammuz, continues to burn but firefighters report it is under control.
Residents who were evacuated from their home in Beit HaKerem area have been permitted to return. B’chasdei Hashem there are no reports of injuries.
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July 20, 2017 at 11:31 am
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday he plans to stay on the job at the Department of Justice, on the heels of President Trump sharply criticizing him for recusing himself from the Russia probe.
In a press conference on Thursday scheduled to discuss cybercrime, Sessions' appearance took a quick turn to the issue of whether the top law enforcement official plans to offer his resignation to Trump.
“We in this Department of Justice will continue every single day to work hard to serve the national interest, and we whole-heartedly join in priorities of President Trump,” Sessions responded. “I have the honor of serving as attorney general. It’s something that goes beyond any thought that I’ve ever had for myself.”
Sessions added: “We love...
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July 20, 2017 at 11:31 am
President Donald Trump told The New York Times in an interview Wednesday that he never would have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.
In an extraordinary denouncement of one of his earliest backers in Washington, Trump said Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from all matters related to Russia was “very unfair to the president.”
“Sessions should have never recused himself,” Trump told the paper, “and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
Sessions’ recusal, announced following revelations that he had failed to disclose meetings with Russia’s ambassador to the U....
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July 20, 2017 at 9:39 am
Sen. John McCain’s tumor is one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer, and his family and doctors are deliberating next treatment options.
The senator had undergone surgery last week to have a blood clot removed from above his left eye, and that clot turned out to be a sign that a tumor called a glioblastoma had begun growing.
Here are some things to know:
AGGRESSIVE CANCER
McCain’s doctors at the Mayo Clinic said they managed to remove all the tumor that was visible on brain scans. But this kind of tumor, formally known as a glioblastoma multiforme, is aggressive and sneaky. It puts out microscopic roots that go deeper into brain tissue, explained Dr. Joshua Bederson, chairman of neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, who has no direct knowledge of M...
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July 20, 2017 at 9:38 am
In a plea bargain agreement between his attorney and the prosecution, HaGaon HaRav Avraham Yosef will step down as Chief Rabbi of Holon, the result of a plea bargain agreement in his indictment, which was filed in 2015.
According to the Yisrael Hayom report, the rav was convicted of breach of trust has agreed not to run for another position in the Rabbanut for the next seven years. The rav will also be compelled to suspend himself from the Chief Rabbinate Council and pay a 75,000 NIS fine.
Rabbi Yosef was found guilty of promoting Badatz Beit Yosef, headed by a brother, Rabbi Moshe Yosef, thereby abusing his authority as the city’s chief rabbi. He was also responsible for the kashrus of Ohr Yehuda.
Tel Aviv District Court Vice President Justice Tzachi Uziel accepted the agree...
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July 20, 2017 at 9:33 am
Following a precedent-setting decision by the Supreme Court that from now on women will also be obliged to pay alimony, attorney Edo Divon of Divon & Co. responds:
“The ruling constitutes a real revolution in the law of alimony and in effect establishes a new law, not only in cases of joint custody, but in all the child support payments of parents to children. According to the ruling, when the children are in equal time with each parent and if their income is equal, the father will not be obligated to pay alimony to the mother.
Many fathers will view this judgment as a correction of substantive inequality that was determined for years according to halacha. On the other hand, many mothers will have a serious fear that they will be able to maintain a decent standard of living for...
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July 20, 2017 at 9:08 am
When the banner Republican effort to scuttle and rewrite President Barack Obama’s health care law crumbled this week, the falling debris popped a hefty dent into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s image as a dauntless legislative tactician three chess moves ahead of everyone else.
His two attempts to craft legislation replacing Obama’s law have collapsed for lack of GOP support. Republican opposition seems likely to doom a vote next week on his Plan C, a bill simply repealing much of Obama’s statute.
Along the way, conservative Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., accused McConnell of a “serious breach of trust” by telling moderates that proposed Medicaid cuts would not occur. His fellow Kentucky Republican, Sen. Rand Paul, was a constant thorn and the most...
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July 20, 2017 at 9:03 am
Following the decision of the Israel Police to close the entrance to Har Habayis, the Ichud Leumi party released the following statement:
“The absurdity of our country as Arabs celebrate killing policemen inside the Mount, and Israeli forces find ammunition intended to kill more policemen and innocent civilians, while Jews wait in the heat and express their anger and want to enter but are viewed as creating a disturbance. Is this to be considered logical?”
The prime minister added that “the State of Israel and its leader must change their approach and show who is the sovereign, and every paradox creates a paradox not only in Israel but also in the eyes of the world”.
Gedolei Yisrael over the generations and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel prohibit visiting Har Haba...
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July 20, 2017 at 9:03 am
The Russian lawyer who met with President Donald Trump’s eldest son during the 2016 election campaign said she’s ready to testify before the U.S. Senate and “clarify the situation behind this mass hysteria.”
Donald Trump Jr. agreed to meet with Natalia Veselnitskaya in the expectation of receiving incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s White House campaign, according to emails Trump Jr. has publicly released. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower.
The meeting raised new questions about the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Moscow, which are being scrutinized by federal a...
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July 20, 2017 at 9:02 am
It was a trap, executed imperfectly but with bloody results.
Prosecutors said in a recent court filing that four young men found slaughtered in a Long Island park last April were lured to the site by two female associates of the MS-13 street gang, which was hunting for rivals and perceived enemies.
Once there, the youths — some still in high school — were surrounded by more than a dozen gang members who attacked them with machetes, knives and wooden clubs “in a horrific frenzy of violence,” according to the court papers obtained by Newsday.
A fifth young man who had accompanied the victims to the park ran for his life and escaped, the court memorandum said.
Prosecutors last week quietly charged four people in the killings but have revealed scant details about th...
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July 20, 2017 at 8:46 am
Police in southern Israel discovered that this was not a printing shop. A subsequent police raid on an industrial building in the city of Ashkelon, led to the exposure of a printing press to fake mezuzahs, R”L.
Police and Border Policemen raided an industrial building in the city of Ashqelon, where a printing press is suspected of forging mezuzahs, and during the raid, some of the soldiers were forced to enter the building’s windows. Instead of a lot of printing equipment, which includes, among other things, blocks and raw materials, dozens of cards were also found for distribution.
The operator, a 28-year-old resident of Ashkelon, was arrested by the detectives and taken for interrogation by the police.
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CHECKED YOURS?
