|
April 19, 2018 at 2:41 pm
LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II opened a summit of the 53-nation Commonwealth on Thursday, and backed her son Prince Charles to be the next leader of the association of Britain and its former colonies.
In a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, the queen said she hoped Charles would "carry on the important work" of leading the Commonwealth, a loose alliance of countries large and small that has struggled to carve out a firm place on the world stage.
For decades, the queen has been the driving force behind the Commonwealth but she has no designated successor as chief. Some have suggested that Charles should not take over the helm of the group, which takes in 2.4 billion people on five continents.
"It is my sincere wish that the Commonwealth will continue to offer stability and continuity...
|
April 19, 2018 at 2:39 pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice has referred its findings on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to the U.S. attorney in Washington for possible criminal prosecution, CNN and the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.Spokesmen for the Justice Department and its inspector general’s office declined to comment to Reuters, as did a spokeswoman for McCabe. A representative of U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington could not be immediately reached.
|
April 19, 2018 at 2:35 pm
HOUSTON — A former Houston 911 operator who hung up on thousands of people including calls for help during robberies and homicides will spend 10 days in jail and 18 months on probation.
Harris County jurors on Wednesday found Crenshanda Williams, 44, guilty of interference with emergency telephone calls.
Williams spent a year and a half taking 911 calls at the Houston Emergency Center until she was caught in August 2016 and fired by the city. A supervisor who oversaw Williams was also placed on one year of internal probation, officials said at the time.
Williams’ misdeeds came to light after HEC officials performing routine monthly audits of 911 calls noticed a high volume of Williams’ calls lasted less than 20 seconds, known as “short calls.” In a news rel...
|
April 19, 2018 at 2:30 pm
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza protest organizers moved sit-in tents closer to the Israeli border fence Thursday, a day before a fourth planned mass demonstration, raising fears of more bloodshed.
The protests, largely led by Gaza's Hamas rulers, began March 30. Organizers said they'll gradually move the camps toward the fence until May 15, but made conflicting comments about a possible breach.
Hamas says the protests are aimed at breaking a crippling border blockade that was imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant group overran the territory in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian parliament elections. The marches also press for the return of the descendants of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were forced from homes in the 1948 war ov...
|
April 19, 2018 at 2:29 pm
FORDLAND, Mo. (AP) — Officials say a maintenance worker died when a Missouri television station tower collapsed and he became trapped under a tangle of metal and wires.
Rob Talburt, assistant fire chief for the Logan-Rogersville Fire Protection District, says the 1,980-foot (600-meter) tower near Fordland collapsed Thursday. Missouri State University owns the tower and uses it to broadcast KOZK Ozarks Public Television and KSMU Ozarks Public Radio.
Talburt says six workers were about 105 feet (32 meters) off the ground when the tower tumbled. Five workers suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The cause of the collapse is under investigation.
Webster County Sheriff Roye Cole says the workers were replacing crossbeams on the tower. University spokeswoman Andrea Mostyn says the wor...
|
April 19, 2018 at 2:29 pm
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A package bomber who created a wave of terror across the South is scheduled to be executed in Alabama, nearly 30 years after killing a federal judge with a bomb mailed to his home.
Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 83, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday. At his 1996 trial, prosecutors described Moody as a meticulous coward who committed murder by mail because of his obsession with getting revenge on the legal system, and then committed more bombings to make it look like the Ku Klux Klan was behind the judge's murder.
Judge Robert S. Vance, a member of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was at his kitchen table in Mountain Brook, Alabama, on Dec. 16, 1989, when he opened a package after a morning of errands and yard work.
The e...
|
April 19, 2018 at 1:23 pm
Enjoy this Medrash Rabba shiur on Megilas Rus from Rabbi Goldberger -- Click on link to listen
Megilas Rus
|
April 19, 2018 at 1:20 pm
The Islamic Jihad published a video on Thursday showing senior IDF officers in the gunsights of a sniper rifle.
In the clip, which was disseminated by the Lebanese Al Mayadeen news, Major General Yoav Mordechai can be seen touring the Gaza border fence while a sniper follows his every move.
"You kill our people in cold blood and think that you are protected, at a time when your senior commanders are within sniping range," read the Hebrew caption.
The Hamas terror organization released a similar video in 2014 that showed then-IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz under surveillance from short range. Hamas claimed in the video that it had the capabilities to assassinate high-level IDF officers and claimed that it was ready for "any possible aggression".
21ce6a6a-6068-4878-bb6a-89b46...
|
April 19, 2018 at 1:20 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration moved Thursday to make it easier for U.S. defense contractors to sell armed drones and other conventional weapons to foreign governments.
In policy changes aimed at boosting American firms' ability to compete in the increasingly lucrative global arms market, the administration said it is removing restrictions that barred U.S. manufacturers from directly marketing and selling drones, including those that are armed or can be used to guide missile strikes, abroad. Previously, foreign countries had to go through the U.S. government to buy such drones. They will now be able to deal directly with the companies, although the government will retain oversight.
Despite Thursday's changes, the government must still approve the sales by over...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:46 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The drama of U.S. and allied missiles strikes on Syria has obscured a sobering fact: The U.S.-led campaign to eliminate the Islamic State from Syria has stalled.
The U.S. has 2,000 troops in Syria assisting local Arab and Kurdish fighters against IS, even as President Donald Trump resists deeper U.S. involvement and is eager to withdraw completely in coming months. Trump wants "other people" to deal with Syria, whose civil war has spawned the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II in terms of refugees.
It's unclear whether Trump will go ahead with a total U.S. withdrawal while IS retains even a small presence in Syria.
Since January, when Trump asserted in his State of the Union address that "very close to 100 percent" of IS territory in Syria and I...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:45 pm
Philadelphia's police commissioner is apologizing to two black men who were arrested at a Starbucks in the city.
Commissioner Richard Ross, who is black, apologized to the two men on Thursday after he previously staunchly defended police for their handling of the incident.
Ross says that he "failed miserably" in the messaging around the arrests. He says that the issue of race is not lost on him and he shouldn't be the person making things worse.
He says the police department did not have a policy for dealing for similar situations, but does now. He says it will be released soon.
___
Midnight
Two black men arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks said they were just waiting for a business meeting — and a week later still wonder how that could escalate into a police encount...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:28 pm
Four right-wing Israelis were arrested by police on Thursday after they hung leaflets around Judea and Samaria hitchhiking stops that criticised Samaria Regional Brigade Commander Colonel Gilad Amit.
The flyers accused Amit of "shooting at Jewish people" and decried his "harassment of the settlement movement". The four are charged with insulting a public servant and will be brought before a judge on Thursday.
The Honenu legal organization, which is representing the four, decried the arrests, contending that police had detained their clients in order to censor them. "As the Supreme Court has ruled in the past, these are not crimes and definitely not crimes that warrant an arrest," said Attorney Nati Rom.
“The police are using detention as a punitive measure, and this is against the...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:25 pm
Thousands of students who participated in the 30th March of the Living come to Israel to celebrate the Jewish state's 70th Independence Day.
More than 6,000 students arrived in Israel this week following their participation in the 30th March of the Living in Poland last Thursday, April 12, an international procession from Auschwitz to Birkenau led by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and the top echelon of Israel’s security forces to mark Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom Hashoah). The young participants, both Jews and non-Jews from over 40 countries from around the world, explored the journey from tragedy to renewal by spending the week visiting historical sites, nature reserves and Jewish National Fund forests, and meeting with Israelis from across the country.
On the eve of Tuesd...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:20 pm
US State Department congratulates Israel on 70th birthday. 'Israel is a successful nation that has flourished and continues to thrive.'
The US State Department said that it "looks forward to opening the new Embassy of the United States in Jerusalem" in a congratulatory statement it issued in honor of Israel's 70th Independence Day.
"The State of Israel has prevailed over every challenge it has faced over the past 70 years. In just a short time, the people of Israel have created a successful nation that has flourished and continues to thrive,” said acting Secretary of State John Sullivan.
“The United States established our diplomatic presence in Jerusalem well before the State of Israel was born, over 170 years ago. This year, we look forward to opening ...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:17 pm
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's official portrait will cost $85,000, which is more than taxpayers shelled out for paintings of his three predecessors combined.
The Record reports that Australian artist Paul Newton will paint the portrait of the Republican who left office after eight years in January.
The cost detail was obtained through an open records request.
Democrats Jon Corzine, Richard Codey and Jim McGreevey spent a combined $74,500 for theirs. None served for two terms.
The Christie painting will likely be more formal than one of his best known images of him after he was photographed sitting on a beach closed to the public due to a budget stalemate last year.
Christie appreciated luxury, watching the Dallas Cowboys from ow...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:15 pm
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — U.S. airline regulators have ordered inspections on engine fan blades like the one that snapped off a Southwest Airlines plane and led to the death of a woman who was blown partway out a window.
The Federal Aviation Administration's announcement late Wednesday comes nearly a year after the engine's manufacturer recommended the additional inspections, and a month after European regulators ordered their airlines to do the work.
Pressure for the FAA to act grew after an engine on a Southwest plane blew apart on Tuesday, showering the aircraft with debris and shattering a window. A woman sitting next to the window was partially blown out and died of her injuries. The plane, which was headed from New York to Dallas, made an emergency landing in Philadelphia...
|
April 19, 2018 at 12:01 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — A panel of government health advisers is recommending approval of a medicine made from the marijuana plant to treat childhood epilepsy, moving the medication closer to the U.S. market.
The Food and Drug Administration experts voted unanimously Thursday in favor of the experimental medication from GW Pharmaceuticals. The company's medicine is made from a chemical found in the cannabis plant — one that does not get users high.
Experts said the drug reduced seizures in children with two rare forms of severe epilepsy.
If the FDA follows the group's recommendation, the syrup-based medicine would become the first drug derived from cannabis to win federal approval in the U.S. The FDA is expected to make its decision by late June.
|
April 19, 2018 at 11:58 am
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Rashon Nelson initially brushed it off when the Starbucks manager told him he couldn't use the restroom because he wasn't a paying customer.
He thought nothing of it when he and his business partner, Donte Robinson, were approached at their table and were asked if they needed help. The 23-year-old entrepreneurs declined, explaining they were just waiting for a business meeting.
A few minutes later, they hardly noticed when the police walked into the coffee shop — until officers started walking in their direction.
"That's when we knew she called the police on us," Nelson told The Associated Press in the men's first interview since video of their April 12 arrests went viral.
Nelson and Robinson, black men who became best friends in the ...
