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February 18, 2018 at 9:32 pm
US President Donald Trump (R) gestures toward China's President Xi Jinping (C), as US First Lady Melania Trump (back C) is seen in the background, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
During President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing last November, a US Secret Service agent reportedly tackled a Chinese security official after attempts to block the movement of the "nuclear football."
The nuclear football , officially known as the "president's emergency satchel," is a black leather briefcase that allows the US president to authorize a nuclear strike while away from a command center. It is carried by a military aide and is supposed to be in close proximity to the president at all times.
Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesA military aide car...
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February 18, 2018 at 9:21 pm
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid announced that Tzefas Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu is unfit to serve as a city rov due to his criticism of Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot.
Rav Eliyahu charged that due to Eizenkot’s support of “purity of arms,” expressed in a recent statement that a soldier shouldn’t empty a gun on someone who murders a Jew, a soldier at last week’s murder of Rav Itamar Ben-Gal tried to ram the terrorist with his vehicle instead of emptying a gun on him.
“The Chief of Staff isn’t a deity and I can criticize him and his decisions,” Rav Eliyahu said.
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February 18, 2018 at 9:05 pm
U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman lambasted Haaretz after opinion writer Gideon Levi criticized his donation of an ambulance to Har Bracha, hometown of the recently murdered father of four, Itamar Ben Gal.
“20 years ago I gave an ambulance to Har Bracha hoping it would be used to deliver healthy babies,” Friedman tweeted after the murder. “Instead, a man from Har Bracha was just murdered by a terrorist, leaving behind a wife and four children.”
Levi blasted Friedman for helping Israel’s seizure of Palestinian land, writing:
“With Friedman’s ambulance or without it, Har Bracha is a mountain of curses. It was a settlement established, like all the others, to poke a stick in the Palestinian eye and drive a stake into any chanc...
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February 18, 2018 at 9:03 pm
Alerted by tipoffs from passengers, the OK hechsher issued a warning that economy airline WOW Air was displaying “an unauthorized OK kosher symbol on their menus for flights departing from Tel Aviv.”
Religious flyers reported that the airline was advertising Gouda sandwiches, Greek salads and Mediterranean sandwiches as kosher with the OK symbol.
WOW Air subsequently told Chadrei Chareidim that no deception was intended.
“WOW Air offers kosher food only on its Tel Aviv- Reykjavik/Iceland flights,” the company said. “From there, people change to a continuing flight to the U.S. The food is provided by the TMM company which has an Israeli hechsher.”
As for the OK symbol, it was only meant to represent the word kosher. The airlin...
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February 18, 2018 at 8:34 pm
A serial survivor of scandals, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be in trouble once more after police recommended a range of bribery and other charges against him in two separate investigations. Yet the law doesn't require him to step down until convicted, the process could drag on for months, and the determined, loquacious leader is digging in his heels.
For now, his coalition is lining up behind him, but public opinion could change that. If his Likud Party concludes he has become a liability, minnows could quickly turn into sharks and the party could replace him and retain power with the existing coalition.
Police say there is sufficient evidence to indict Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, accusations he rejects.
Attorney General Avihai Mandelbl...
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February 18, 2018 at 8:07 pm
Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport announced Friday that a valet parking service at the airport’s hourly garage is open and operational.
The new Fly Away valet service is located on level 5 of the garage, which is connected directly to the airport terminal.
“The new Fly Away valet parking offers our customers an easy, convenient experience,” said Ricky Smith, executive director of BWI Marshall Airport. “This valet parking option is our latest initiative to provide excellent, efficient customer service for our travelers.”
The initial daily rate for the Fly Away valet parking service will be $30. Through February 2018, an online coupon is available for customers to try the valet parking for only $22 per day, which is the regular rate...
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February 18, 2018 at 8:05 pm
The Maryland Transit Administration plans a second shutdown of the Baltimore Metro system in August, WBAL-TV 11 News has learned.
Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn and MTA Administrator Kevin Quinn told the Baltimore City state legislative delegation Friday that's there was always going to be a disruption for track repair, and that it just happened sooner than anticipated.
The August shutdown of the Metro system to replace worn track had already been on MTA's calendar, but an inspection conducted in January in preparation of the August closure revealed 11 areas of elevated track that couldn't wait for repairs.
"The circumstance has changed, and in their opinion, it was not safe to operate on those rails in that condition," Rahn said.
A report cites excessive we...
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February 18, 2018 at 8:02 pm
PARKLAND, Florida -- The 19-year-old suspect in the Florida school shooting that killed 17 people didn't know how to use a microwave, didn't pick up after himself and didn't know how to do his own laundry.
The family that took him in following his mother's death spoke to the Sun Sentinel.The paper published a story Sunday about the family, who said that what Nikolas Cruz did baffles them.They made Cruz buy a locking gun safe to put in his room the day he moved in. Cruz had a handful of guns, including the AR-15 and two other rifles that James Snead said would be considered assault rifles. Cruz, a hunter, also had knives, BB guns and pellet guns.Snead thought he had the only key to the cabinet but has figured out Cruz must have kept a key for himself. The family ke...
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February 18, 2018 at 7:56 pm
Three Jewish New Jersey brothers, Ned, Roger and Steven Landau, discovered that a strange painting they inherited from their mother in 2010 was painted by Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn in the 17th century when an anonymous bidder bought it for $1.1 million dollars instead of not the $500 they were expecting.
Their grandfather apparently picked it up before the Great Depression.
Fortunately, suspecting the painting might be worth something, Ned did not sell it in a garage sale he held after their grandmother’s death.
Roger told Fox News that he did not learn of the good news the day of the auction because it was on Yom Kippur, and he didn’t answer his phone.
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February 18, 2018 at 7:56 pm
Britain’s Channel 4 announced the production of a documentary that tells the story of a secret organization of Holocaust survivors known as the Avengers, led by Vilna Ghetto survivor Abba Kovner, which planned to murder six million Germans in 1946 as retribution for the six million victims of the Holocaust.
The feature includes testimony from the last surviving members of the group as well as a 1985 tape recording in which the key members recorded what they did.
Avenger agents infiltrated waterworks of four German cities, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Munich, but failed to poison the water supplies. An attempt to target 50,000 SS officers held in POW camps in Nuremberg and Munich may have partially succeeded.
The group claimed that two future Israeli presidents, Chai...
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February 18, 2018 at 7:55 pm
The mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead has sparked calls for walkouts, sit-ins and other actions on school campuses across the United States aimed at pushing lawmakers to pass tougher gun laws.
Organizers behind the Women's March, an anti-Trump and female empowerment protest, called for a 17-minute walkout on March 14 to "protest Congress' inaction to do more than tweet thoughts and prayers in response to the gun violence plaguing our schools and neighborhoods."
The Network for Public Education, an advocacy organization for public schools, meanwhile, announced a "national day of action" on April 20, the anniversary of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two students opened fire on their classmates, killing 12 students an...
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February 18, 2018 at 7:49 pm
In a cynical article titled, “Strongest army in the Middle East claims earthquakes only happen ‘if G-d wills them,'” Haaretz linked a fifth grade Civil Defense booklet with complaints that religion is being promoted in Israel’s secular school system.
Meant for distribution to religious and secular schools, the booklet emphasized, “We know and believe that all natural phenomena take place solely if G-d wills it and at His command.”
A section on earthquakes stated, after offering a scientific explanation for earthquakes: “It is important to know that this explanation is the scientific explanation for earthquakes. But we believe and know that every natural phenomenon which happens is only through Hashem’s will and command. Even ...
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February 18, 2018 at 7:49 pm
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A Long Island man has died a day after after a piece of a fire escape fell off a building in SoHo, critically injuring him and another person.
Police said 58-year-old Richard Marchart succumbed to his injuries Saturday.
He and a 24-year-old woman were rushed to Bellevue Hospital “with serious, life-threatening injuries” shortly before 2 p.m Friday.
Marchant, a married father of three, lived in Garden City with his wife and high school-aged daughter, CBS2’s Dave Carlin reported. His two sons are in college.
The young female artist was on her way to a studio at the New York Academy of Art on Franklin Street.
Fire officials said the building on Howard Street was undergoing an inspection of its facade at the time t...
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February 18, 2018 at 7:42 pm
Westerbook, Holland’s transit camp where Anne Frank and 100,000 other Jews passed through on their way to concentration camps, has reconstructed the camp with virtual reality simulations that depict details down to bricks, strands of barbed wire, and imperfections on wooden shingles, Times of Israel reported.
The actual camp was destroyed in the 1960s and replaced with highly sensitive radio telescopes precluding people from entering the area. They have to make do with a museum located two miles away.
Virtual reality (VR) simulation is also available at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Germany.
VR was also used in 2015 by Germany’s Public Prosecution Service to demonstrate what accused war criminals could see of killing operations from where they were posted...
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February 18, 2018 at 5:37 pm
According to figures released by the Council for Higher Education, there were 12,300 chareidi students in Israel last year, comprising 4% of the student body in Israel. This was a 60% increase over 2013. 9% of those earning bachelor’s degrees are studying computer science and software engineering.
70% of chareidi students are females. In the general population, the proportion of men to women is reversed.
A quarter of chareidim who began learning for bachelor’s degree in 2015 dropped out, in contrast to only 8% of the general population.
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February 18, 2018 at 5:36 pm
In a Times of Israel blog, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of Efrat, recommended the abandonment of religious coercion.
Opposing “the promulgation of laws that secular Israelis neither understand nor accept,” he advocates influencing the secular “through their understanding that the religious community loves and respects them, and that the religious will make every attempt not to enforce, but to inspire.”
He says that “most Israeli citizens would understand and even agree to the closing of commercial businesses on (Shabbos)” and recommends “running non-Jewish-controlled bus lines for non-religious areas, so that secular Jews without cars would not experience undeserved hardship because of (Shabbos).”
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February 18, 2018 at 5:32 pm
Israeli President blasts Polish PM over 'Jewish perpetrators' Holocaust remark, says Israel 'will stop Iran's race to the nuclear bomb.'
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin castigated Poland’s Prime Minister over his recent claim of “Jewish perpetrators” during the Holocaust, calling the remark “a new low”, as the diplomatic stand-off between the Jewish state and Poland deepens following the passage of a Holocaust censorship law.
The controversial law would not only ban the phrase “Polish death camps”, but also prohibit claims that Poland collaborated with the German regime during the Holocaust.
“Saying that our people collaborated with the Nazis, is a new low,” said Rivlin during his address at ...
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February 18, 2018 at 5:32 pm
Four Israel Defense Force soldiers were wounded today when an explosive device detonated along the Israel-Gaza border. The soldiers from the Golani infantry brigades were removing a flag placed on the Gaza border fence according to standard procedure east of the Gazan city of Khan Yunis, when a bomb attached the flag detonated.
The four soldiers were evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva. Three of the soldiers underwent emergency surgery, but hospital officials said they were not in life-threatening condition. Two of the soldiers injuries are classified as serious. One soldier was moderately injured, and one lightly injured.
Saturday night, a missile launched from Gaza made a direct hit on an Israeli house in the southern Israeli town of Shaar HaNegev. The family was present at...
