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April 19, 2018 at 4:59 pm
CHICAGO (AP) — A federal appeals court in Chicago has ruled that President Donald Trump's administration cannot withhold public safety grants from cities that don't cooperate with its immigration enforcement policies, agreeing with a temporary injunction imposed earlier this year by a lower court judge.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday says the administration exceeded its authority in establishing new conditions for cities to qualify for the grants.
The administration in July imposed a condition that cities receiving public safety grants must agree to inform federal agents when immigrants in the country illegally are about to be released from police detention.
All three judges agreed to the injunction Thursday, but one...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:55 pm
Agudath Israel of America applauds the decision handed down today by U.S. District Court Judge Freda L. Wolfson saying that the Toms River Board of Adjustment violated multiple federal laws and the U.S. Constitution when it banned the operation of a township Chabad center without a zoning variance.
Judge Wolfson ruled that it was illegal for Toms River to require Rabbi Moshe Gourarie to obtain a zoning variance in order to run the Chabad Jewish Center and weekly prayer services for a modest number of people out of his township home. These activities, wrote Judge Wolfson, are protected under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the Fair Housing Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Judge Wolfson also ordered Toms River to p...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:54 pm
SECAUCUS, N.J. (AP) — Employees of an LA Fitness in New Jersey wrongly accused a black member and his guest of not paying to work out and called police, prompting an apology from the company.
LA Fitness tells The Associated Press that three employees directly involved in the incident are no longer with the company.
Tshyrad (shah'-RAHD) Oates posted video of the confrontation at the club in Secaucus, outside New York City. He says they were racially profiled.
LA Fitness says Oates' friend, who was not identified, is indeed a club member. Oates didn't return a message seeking comment.
The Irvine-Calif.-based company is considering ways to improve its training.
Executive vice president of operations Jill Greuling (GROO'-ling) says that "regrettably" it...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:50 pm
PARK HALL, Md. (AP) — Police in Maryland say they've arrested an 8-year-old boy after a loaded gun was found in his book bag in his elementary school.
The Washington Post reported that it happened Wednesday at Park Hall Elementary School in St. Mary's County. That's the county where just last month, authorities said a high school boy fatally shot a girl and then killed himself as a school security officer confronted him.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service will dig into how this elementary schooler got access to the semi-automatic handgun. School officials found it after another student alerted a teacher. Police believe he brought it from home in an off-base military housing community. They say both of his parents are on active duty.
The boy has been ...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:48 pm
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — In the wake of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, Maryland is close to enacting a law that some experts say would set a new standard for how states deal with foreign interference in local elections and increase overall transparency in online political ads.
If signed by Gov. Larry Hogan, the law would require online platforms to create a database identifying the purchasers of online ads in state and local elections and how much they spend. The measure would effectively extend disclosure rules that apply to paid political ads for radio, television and print to social media.
The measure is similar in some respects to one introduced in Congress that would require digital platforms with at least 50 million monthly visitors to maintain a pu...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:32 pm
This week’s parsha discusses tzaraas, a spiritually-caused physical affliction that was primarily the result of Loshon Hara, gossiping or speaking negatively about another (Arachin 15b). When one was afflicted with tzaraas, he was required to go to the Kohen who would verify the tzaraas and pronounce him impure. Interestingly, the severe status of impurity did not begin at the time that tzaraas appeared on the body. Rather, even if many kohanim and experts verified that one had tzaraas for a long period of time, the impurity only began once the Kohen VERBALIZED that he is impure (Negaim 3:1). His impurity relied so greatly on the Kohen’s verbalization, in fact, that if the Kohen recognized tzaraas but delayed his verbal declaration, out of respect for a sheva brachos (one'...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:28 pm
Washington - U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told President Donald Trump last week that he is not a target of any part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
Citing two unnamed sources, Bloomberg said Rosenstein brought up the matter and offered the reassurance in a meeting with Trump at the White House last Thursday, and that the development “helped tamp down the president’s desire to remove Rosenstein or Mueller.”
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April 19, 2018 at 4:22 pm
Vienna - Hans Asperger, the Austrian paediatrician who pioneered research into autism and after whom Asperger syndrome is named, “actively cooperated” with a Nazi program under which disabled children were killed, an academic paper published on Thursday says.
The article by medical historian Herwig Czech published in the journal Molecular Autism says that Asperger referred severely disabled children to Vienna’s notorious Am Spiegelgrund clinic where almost 800 children died under the Nazi program—many of them by lethal injection or being gassed.
After reviewing archive documents including Asperger’s personnel files and patient records, Czech found that although Asperger did not join the Nazi party itself he did join affiliated groups and “publicly legi...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:22 pm
Lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort get some traction, but it may not help their client.
A federal judge raised doubts Thursday about the scope of the order used to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to probe alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
During a two-and-a-half hour hearing in one of Mueller’s criminal cases against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson questioned whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s directive appointing Mueller granted him more authority than Justice Department regulations appear to permit.
Manafort’s lead defense attorney, Kevin Downing, noted that the May 17 order appointing Mueller grants him authority to pursue the Trump-Russia probe as ...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:21 pm
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico's power company said Thursday that it has restored electricity to all customers affected by an island-wide blackout that was caused by an excavator hitting a transmission line, but tens of thousands of families still remain without normal service seven months after hurricanes Maria and Irma.
Officials said that power had been restored to more than 1.4 million of its clients following Wednesday's blackout. The outage marked the first time Puerto Rico was hit by an island-wide blackout since Hurricane Maria struck on Sept. 20 and wiped out as much as 75 percent of the power distribution lines.
The blackout snarled traffic, forced businesses and schools to close and sparked long lines at gas stations.
Prior to the blackout on the U.S...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:15 pm
ATLIT, Israel/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Waving Palestinian flags and wearing T-shirts proclaiming Jerusalem to be “the eternal capital of Palestine,” thousands of Israel’s Arab minority turned out on Thursday for a rally to commemorate a war lost 70 years ago.
In a field south of Haifa, near an Arab village that was depopulated and abandoned in 1948, children read the lyrics of nationalist anthems from their iPhones, while their elders sat beneath awnings, listening to dignitarites and musicians.
The gathering was something of an anomaly: the same day that Israelis celebrate the 70th anniversary of their Independence Day, Palestinians lament the Nakba, or “Catastrophe”, when they lost their homeland in the conflict that surrounded the birth of the modern Jewish sta...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:11 pm
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that “at least half a dozen” countries were considering moving their embassies to Jerusalem following the U.S. decision to do so.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced in December that the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, infuriating even Washington’s Arab allies and dismaying Palestinians who want the eastern part of the city as their capital.
The U.S. Embassy is due to relocate to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv on May 14, the date on which Israel declared its independence in 1948.
“In order to promote peace ... move your embassies here,” Netanyahu told foreign diplomats at a reception in Jerusalem celebrating the 70th anniversary of that declaration.
He thanked G...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:09 pm
New York - Paying attention to flight attendants might save your life.
It’s a simple message, but passengers often ignore or passively watch along as safety instructions are given prior to takeoff.
Images from this week’s emergency landing of a Southwest Airlines flight, which lost cabin pressure above 30,000 feet, show several passengers improperly placing oxygen masks on their faces, putting their lives at risk.
For the record, here’s the proper way to secure the mask:
— They will drop from a panel above you. You should pull them toward your face to extend the cord as needed.
— Place the mask over both your nose and mouth.
— With your free hand, pull the elastic string over your head and tighten as needed.
— Adults should always secure the...
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April 19, 2018 at 4:03 pm
Following is an excerpt from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks today (Thursday, 19 April 2018), Independence Day, at the President's Residence in Jerusalem:
"There are two things that you can do to help Israel celebrate this great Independence Day. The first thing is – speak out against Iran. Iran is the enemy of us all – of Israel, the Arab world, Civilization. It openly speaks today, 2018, the 21st century, it openly speaks about liquidating Israel, openly! It encircles the whole Middle East which it wants to conquer, it fires rockets into Riyadh and Saudi Arabia, it is occupying Lebanon effectively, it’s trying to inflame Gaza again, it is in Iraq, and it is trying to establish a military base in Syria, which all peace loving nations should re...
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April 19, 2018 at 3:55 pm
ROCKFORD, Mich. (AP) — There will be no shortage of hand-me-downs for this Michigan kid.
The Grand Rapids Press reports that Kateri and Jay Schwandt welcomed the birth of their 14th son on Wednesday, five days before he was due. They have no daughters.
WOOD-TV reports that the boy weighs 8 pounds, 4 ounces (about 3.7 kilograms) and is 21 inches (53 centimeters) long. His name wasn't immediately announced.
As with their last few children, the couple from Rockford, north of Grand Rapids, didn't want to know the baby's sex ahead of time. Jay Schwandt said earlier this year that he would have loved to have a girl, but didn't think would be in the cards. He was right.
Kateri Schwandt has said she's used to large families, as one of 14 children herself.
The co...
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April 19, 2018 at 3:54 pm
Crowd of Thousands Expected at Boro Park’s Largest Lag B’Omer Bonfire
Boro Park—Preparations are underway once again at the Niklesburg Beis Medrash to accommodate the annual Lag B’Omer festivities. This year’s celebration will take place on Wednesday evening May 3rd in front of the shul at 4912 16th Avenue, and will feature live music with a band, singer and expanded sound system. The hadlaka and dancing is presided over by the beloved Grand Rabbi Mordechai Jungreis shlit”a of Niklesburg.
The Niklesburg bonfire fast became the central Lag B’Omer event in Boro Park, drawing thousands of participants each year. The joyous celebration and spiritually charged atmosphere have earned the event the popular title of Meron—Niklesburg.
The festiviti...
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April 19, 2018 at 3:53 pm
MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian Foreign Ministry says increasing delays by the United States in issuing visas could result in flagship airline Aeroflot ending flights to the U.S.
State-owned Aeroflot is the only airline with scheduled year-round U.S. flights.
A ministry statement Thursday complained that the waiting time for interviews for U.S. visa applicants has stretched to 250 days. "In other words, it's senseless to apply for a visa," it said.
Aeroflot "may be forced to stop (flights) because the crews are experiencing growing difficulty in obtaining American visas," the statement said.
State news agency Tass cited the company as confirming visa problems, but didn't give details.
The ministry said the recent closure of the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg shouldn't...
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April 19, 2018 at 2:50 pm
EU organization takes rare step of condemning both Hamas and Israel, notes Hamas terrorism, but calls for lifting partial blockade.
For the first time, the European Parliament voted to condemn the Hamas terrorist organization for its acts of terrorism and its use of human shields.
The motion, which also criticized Israel, was passed by an overwhelming majority of 524 “yes” votes to 30 “no” votes, with 92 abstentions.
The three-page document notes that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union (EU), that it repeatedly calls for the destruction of Israel, and continues to fire rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The motion dealt largely with the violence which has accompanied the 'March of Return.' Unusually for an EU body, ...
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April 19, 2018 at 2:48 pm
75 years after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Poland holds a day of commemoration, taking a moment of silence to remember those who fell in resistance to the Nazi regime, as well as the millions of others slain in the Holocaust.
People in Warsaw pinned paper daffodils to their clothes as the Polish capital held a day of commemorations Thursday on the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
People stopped in the street and officials stood at attention as sirens wailed and church bells tolled at noon in a sign of mourning for the Jews who died fighting, as well as the millions of other Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
The daffodils tradition comes from Marek Edelman, who was the last surviving commander of the uprising, and on every anniversary used to lay these spring flowers at the ...
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April 19, 2018 at 2:45 pm
Towson, MD — Baltimore County has picked one its own as the new school superintendent.
Verletta White, who has been holding down the top job on a temporary basis, is about to get the job for good.
White became interim superintendent after Dallas Dance suddenly quit and later faced criminal charges. White is about to take on her new role without the full support of her Board of Education, which voted 8-4 to offer her to a new contract.
"There will always be some opposition, but I say, 'Let's work together. Let's make sure we can come together and find common ground.' As long as we have the heart and soul for children, we can find common ground," White said.
Those opposing White's appointment said the board moved too quickly in offering ...
