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May 18, 2018 at 5:24 pm
HAVANA (AP) — A Cuban-operated airliner with at least 110 people aboard crashed and burned in a cassava field just after takeoff from the Havana airport Friday. Cuban media reported three survivors.
The Boeing 737 went down just after noon a short distance from the end of the runway at Jose Marti International Airport while on a short-hop flight to the eastern city of Holguin. Firefighters rushed to extinguish the flames that engulfed the jet.
"There is a high number of people who appear to have died," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said from the scene. "Things have been organized, the fire has been put out, and the remains are being identified."
Relatives of those aboard were ushered into a private area at the terminal to await word on their loved ones.
"My daughter is 24, my...
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May 18, 2018 at 5:17 pm
Parshas Bamidbar commences with the tziva from Hashem to once again take a census of Bnei Yisroel. (Bamidbar 1:2) Hashem is very explicit that the census is to be taken “according to their families and according to their father’s household”. (1:2) The Torah then recites the tally for each family (except Shevet Levi, who was excluded from the count) (1:48) reaching a total of 603,550 (1:46). This stands in stark contrast to the census taken in Parshas P’kudei where the tally was taken of the entire B’nei Yisroel, without any regard to the amount in each particular Shevet. (Pikudei, 38:26)
This raises two significant questions. First, why are we doing another census so close to when the last one was done? Second, why in the 2...
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May 18, 2018 at 5:05 pm
Turkish President compares Israel's actions in Gaza to the Nazi persecution of the Jews in World War II.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday compared Israel's actions against Palestinian Arabs in Gaza to the Nazi persecution of the Jews in World War II.
"There is no difference between the atrocity faced by the Jewish people in Europe 75 years ago and the brutality that our Gaza brothers are subjected to," he told a summit of Islamic leaders in Istanbul, according to AFP.
Erdogan had called the extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul following the deaths of some 60 Gazans in the violent riots along the Gaza border.
He added that the leadership of a people "who were subjected to all kinds of torture in the concentra...
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May 18, 2018 at 5:04 pm
SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — The Latest on a shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas (all times local):
3:45 p.m.
A hospital spokesman says a school resource officer who was shot in the arm when he engaged a gunman during a shooting at a Houston-area school is undergoing surgery.
David Marshall, the University of Texas Medical Branch's chief nursing officer, says Santa Fe school resource officer John Barnes is in stable condition Friday afternoon.
Marshall says a bullet hit Barnes' arm, damaging the bone and a major blood vessel around his elbow. He says the blood vessel has been repaired, and that Barnes is expected to emerge from surgery within a few hours.
Marshall says Barnes was the first person to engage a student armed with two guns who opened fire at Santa Fe Hi...
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May 18, 2018 at 4:57 pm
SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — The Texas student charged in the school shooting at Santa Fe High School posted an image on Facebook of himself wearing a "Born to Kill" shirt and used his father's shotgun and pistol in the attack that left 10 dead and 10 wounded, authorities said Friday. A motive wasn't immediately clear for the nation's deadliest attack since February.
The suspect, 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, was held without bond in the Galveston County jail on charges of capital murder, said the county sheriff, Henry Trochesset. Gov. Greg Abbott said both weapons were owned legally by the suspect's father.
It was not clear whether the father knew his son had taken them. Authorities urged parents nationwide to lock away their guns to keep them away from children....
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May 18, 2018 at 4:54 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprise announcement that caught the candidate off-guard, President Donald Trump said Friday he'll nominate acting Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie to permanently lead the beleaguered department.
Trump spilled the news about Wilkie at a White House event on prison reform as he introduced Cabinet members in attendance. When Trump got to Wilkie, he said, "I'll be informing him in a little while — he doesn't know this yet — that we're going to be putting his name up for nomination to be secretary."
Trump added, "I'm sorry that I ruined the surprise."
The president had already appeared impressed with Wilkie, saying publicly last month that he's been doing a "great job" at VA. On Friday, Trump upped his assessmen...
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May 18, 2018 at 4:54 pm
Despite a choppy week of trading and a mixed finish for U.S. stocks, the market extended its recent streak of relative calm Friday.
The S&P 500, the market's benchmark index, notched its 10th day in a row without a gain or drop of 1 percent or more. That's the longest stretch going back to January 26, when the market broke four and a half months of calm with a 1.2 percent gain, which also marked a record high.
Just one week later, the market entered an extended bout of volatility that included a rapid plunge of 10 percent in early February. That was the first "correction" the market had seen in two years.
Since then, the market has returned to quieter trading, even as U.S. companies report fatter profits and investors grow anxious about rising interest rates and the threat...
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May 18, 2018 at 2:47 pm
THE FOLLOWING IS VIA YWN
A fire destroyed a building at Oorah’s Boy Zone, just as hundreds of guests were arriving for Shabbos / Yom Tov.
The fire broke out just after 1:00PM in the maintenance building at the camp located on Scotch Valley Road in Stamford NY (Delaware County). Paint storage and other flammable cleaning supplies likely fed the fire which quickly destroyed the entire building.
Dozens of fire fighters assisted in putting out the blaze. Fire departments from Stamford and Jefferson were on the scene, as well as multiple other departments that were called for mutual aid.
TheZone Jewish sleepaway camps are a division of Oorah, a larger organization that enhances the lives of Jewish families nationwide. TheZone experience continues even after camp is over with...
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May 18, 2018 at 2:36 pm
SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — A sophomore says it was "chaos" when the fire alarm sounded at Santa Fe High School and people realized it was an active shooter situation.
Sixteen-year-old John Robinson says he was in first period English class when the fire alarm went off.
Robinson says: "Everybody was just trying to get away from the school. They kept saying there was a shooter, people were shot."
He says he felt scared and simply wanted to get as far away from the school as possible. He and other students ran to a nearby Shell station.
Robinson says he thinks two of his friends might have been injured in the shooting but that he hasn't been able to speak with them.
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1:05 p.m.
A law enforcement official has identified a person in custody in the Houston-area school shoot...
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May 18, 2018 at 1:32 pm
Legendary singer Avraham Fried turned down an invitation to sing the Shehecheyanu during the US Embassy transfer ceremony because he had already been booked for an event in Nahalal.
“I told them I would very much like to come, but there’s a place called Nahalal and that’s where I will be performing! I arrived here this morning, and I’m so happy to be with you here,” Fried said to a crash of applause.
“I must say that I was in Israel many times, Baruch Hashem, but the joy and history that you feel in the air everywhere in this country is impossible to describe to my brothers in America.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
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May 18, 2018 at 1:29 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — A West Wing aide's morbid remark about gravely ill Sen. John McCain has not yielded widespread White House soul searching. Instead it has produced a push to fire those responsible for leaking that story and others that have bedeviled President Donald Trump's administration.
Nearly a week after Kelly Sadler dismissed McCain's opinion on Trump's CIA nominee during a closed-door meeting by saying "he's dying anyway," a torrent of criticism has rained down upon the White House. The administration has repeatedly declined to publicly apologize, but the fallout has shaken the West Wing, where the focus remains on who leaked to the media.
Trump is demanding that whoever let the story go public be fired, according to a White House official and an o...
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May 18, 2018 at 1:27 pm
Havana - According to a number of media reports, a Boeing 737 crashed shortly after a takeoff from José Marti International Airport in Cuba.
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May 18, 2018 at 1:25 pm
BERLIN (AP) — A 19-year-old Syrian man has been charged in an assault in Berlin last month on an Israeli wearing a skullcap.
Berlin prosecutors said Friday that the suspect, identified only as Knaan Al S. because of German privacy rules, was charged with bodily harm and slander.
The victim, an Arab Israeli, caught the April 17 assault in a video showing the attacker whipping him with a belt while shouting "Yehudi!" — Arabic for "Jew."
The incident fueled concerns about anti-Semitism in Germany and drew condemnation from Chancellor Angela Merkel. The suspect turned himself in to police two days later.
The victim has said he's not Jewish but wore the skullcap as an experiment because he didn't believe a friend who told him it was too dangerous to wear one in public ...
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May 18, 2018 at 1:14 pm
MIAMI (AP) — A gigantic $4 billion retail and entertainment complex won government approval Thursday after years of debate, greenlighting what promises to be the largest mall in North America, just a few miles from the environmentally sensitive Everglades.
The Miami-Dade County Commission voted 9-1 to approve American Dream Miami, which would be built on 175 acres (70 hectares) of now vacant land at the busy confluence of Interstate 75 and Florida's Turnpike, northwest of Miami International Airport.
Plans call for hundreds of retail shops and restaurants, but the developers don't want people to call it a mall. They're pointing to its planned theme-park attractions such as an indoor ski slope, submarine ride, water park and skating rink, along with 2,000 hotel rooms....
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May 18, 2018 at 1:11 pm
BERLIN (AP) — The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Friday to set up a commission of inquiry to look into a deadly crackdown on protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces.
Meeting in a special session in Geneva, the council voted 29-2 with 14 abstentions to back a resolution that also condemned "the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civilians."
Israel condemned the resolution, which was put forward by a group of countries including Pakistan, and the United States decried it as an example of a biased focus on Israel by the council. Both lamented that it didn't mention Gaza's Hamas rulers, whom Israel blames for the violence.
Israeli troops firing into Gaza killed nearly 60 Palestinians at mass border protests on M...
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May 18, 2018 at 1:09 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — In an embarrassment for House Republican leaders, conservatives on Friday scuttled a bill that combines stricter work and job training requirements for food stamp recipients with a renewal of farm subsidies popular in GOP-leaning farm country.
Hard-right conservatives upset over the party's stalled immigration agenda opposed the measure, which failed by a 213-198 vote. Some 30 Republicans joined with every chamber Democrat in opposition.
The vote was a blow to GOP leaders, who had hoped to tout its new work requirements for recipients of food stamps. The work initiative polls well with voters, especially those in the GOP political base.
More broadly, it exposed fissures within the party in the months before the midterm elections, and the Freedom Caucus tacti...
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May 18, 2018 at 1:06 pm
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. regulators Thursday approved the first drug designed to prevent chronic migraines.
The Food and Drug Administration's action clears the monthly shot Aimovig (AIM'-oh-vig) for sale. It's the first in a new class of long-acting drugs for preventing migraines. Three other shots are expected to win approval by next year, and several pills for preventing migraines are being tested.
Current prevention treatments include pills originally developed for epilepsy and other conditions and the wrinkle reducer Botox, but many patients abandon them because they don't help much or cause serious side effects.
Amgen Inc. of Thousand Oaks, California, and Swiss drug giant Novartis AG developed Aimovig. Injected monthly just under the skin using a penlik...
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May 18, 2018 at 1:05 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump accused the Justice Department on Friday of trying to frame him by planting a spy in his 2016 campaign — an allegation his own lawyer said might not be true.
Promoting a theory that is circulating in conservative circles, Trump quoted Fox Business anchor David Asman and tweeted: "Apparently the DOJ put a Spy in the Trump Campaign. This has never been done before and by any means necessary, they are out to frame Donald Trump for crimes he didn't commit."
But Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani cast doubt on that.
On whether there was an "informant" in the 2016 presidential campaign, Giuliani told CNN: "I don't know for sure, nor does the president, if there really was one," though he said they have long been told there was "some kind ...
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May 18, 2018 at 12:52 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a stylist at a Brooklyn barbershop threw a client through the front window after he complained about his haircut.
According to the Daily News of New York, the 33-year-old victim was at the Levels Barbershop in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Thursday afternoon. Police say he threatened to withhold payment for the cut because he didn't like it. Police said the barber was enraged and shoved him through the storefront window, leaving a gaping hole in the glass.
The victim's face was ripped open and his clothing was covered in blood. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital and expected to recover.
The stylist ran off. Other barbers said they didn't know the stylist's name or how to reach him. Police are investigating.
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May 18, 2018 at 12:50 pm
SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — Authorities say possible explosive devices have been found at and adjacent to the Texas high school where a shooting left as many as 10 people dead.
The Santa Fe Independent School District said in a statement Friday that authorities are in the process of rendering the devices safe.
There's no indication how many devices have been found. Police asked the public to "remain vigilant" and to call 911 if they see any suspicious items in the area.
The school outside Houston went on lockdown around 8 a.m. after an active shooting was reported.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says there "could be 8 to 10 fatalities" from the shooting. Gonzalez says the majority of the dead are students.
The sheriff says one person is in custody and a second person has been...
