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June 18, 2018 at 3:05 pm
Washington - U.S. President Donald Trump is continuing his assault on the media by suggesting that its coverage of the North Korea summit would have been more favorable had his predecessor done it.
Trump tweeted Monday that “if President Obama…had gotten along with North Korea” and taken steps toward peace “the Fake News would have named him a national hero!”
The president also asserted without evidence that his predecessor “would have had to go to war with many millions of people being killed.”
Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week in Singapore.
The president has strongly suggested that the meeting ensured that North Korea was no longer a threat. Some critics believe Trump made too many concessions and did not receive enoug...
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June 18, 2018 at 2:31 pm
Damascus, Syria - Jewish artifacts, including ancient parchment torahs from one of the world’s oldest synagogues, have gone missing from the Syrian capital amid the tumult of ongoing civil war, with some precious items reportedly surfacing abroad.
Activists say the artifacts, moved from the now-destroyed Jobar Synagogue in Damascus’ eastern Ghouta suburb when it was taken by rebels, were allegedly put into safe keeping to avoid theft and damage in 2013, but twice since then local officials have discovered some are missing.
The main missing cache, they say, contained torahs written on gazelle leather as well as tapestries and chandeliers, and was given to a militia by a local council for safekeeping when rebels surrendered the neighborhood to government forces earlier this yea...
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June 18, 2018 at 2:29 pm
Washington - “The economy,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell declared this week, “is doing very well.”
And it is. Steady hiring has shrunk unemployment to 3.8 percent — the lowest since the 1960’s. Consumers are spending. Taxes are down. Inflation is tame. Factories are busy. Demand for homes is strong. Household wealth is up.
Yet the numbers that collectively sketch a picture of a vibrant economy don’t reflect reality for a range of Americans who still feel far from financially secure even nine years into an economic expansion.
From drivers paying more for gas and families bearing heavier child care costs to workers still awaiting decent pay raises and couples struggling to afford a home, people throughout the economy are straining to suc...
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June 18, 2018 at 2:25 pm
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman on Monday to discuss regional developments, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s commitment to maintaining the status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem,” the statement said.
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June 18, 2018 at 2:22 pm
Jerusalem - The status of Jerusalem in the royal itinerary for Prince William’s upcoming visit has angered an Israeli Cabinet member.
Jerusalem affairs minister Zeev Elkin wrote on Facebook Monday that a “distortion” cannot “change reality.”
The Prince is to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories next week, the first official visit by a British royal.
His schedule lists Jerusalem as part of the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 war from Jordan and annexed it in a move not internationally recognized.
Israel views the territory, home to key holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, as an inseparable part of its capital.
Palestinians claim it as the capital of a future state.
The city&...
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June 18, 2018 at 2:22 pm
Washington - Facing rising outrage from some Republicans as well as Democrats over the forced separation of migrant children and parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Donald Trump dug in Monday, again falsely blaming Democrats and declaring he would keep the U.S. from becoming “a migrant camp.”
Democrats have turned up the pressure over the administration policy, and some Republicans have joined the chorus of criticism. Former first lady Laura Bush has called the separation policy “cruel” and “immoral” while GOP Sen. Susan Collins expressed concern about it and a former adviser to Trump questioned using the policy to pressure Democrats on immigration legislation.
Trump continued to cast blame on Democrats Monday, as he detoured from planned rema...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:38 pm
Jerusalem, Israel - June 17, 2018 - In 2016, from November 22-27, 80 fires ravaged drought-stricken Israel, from Naharia in the North to Beer Sheva in the South. Seventy-one of those fires, or 90%, were set by Arab arsonists.
On November 25, 2016, the arson terror hit Beit Meir, near Shoresh, in the Judean Hills outside of Jerusalem. Families were evacuated, while 25 fire crews fought to save homes and property. The home and family of contemporary artist Yoram Raanan were saved, but the studio containing his life's work of magnificent abstract masterpieces went up in flames.
At this point, I should disclose that almost five years ago, I instantly became a Raanan fan when I saw his "Dance of Life," inspired by Roee Rosen's writing in memory of his mother Eliyah Rosen z"l in Tel ...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:38 pm
San Francisco - Apple is trying to drag the U.S.‘s antiquated system for handling 911 calls into the 21st century.
If it lives up to Apple’s promise, the iPhone’s next operating system will automatically deliver quicker and more reliable information pinpointing the location of 911 calls to about 6,300 emergency response centers in the U.S.
Apple is trying to solve a problem caused by the technological mismatch between a 50-year-old system built for landlines and today’s increasingly sophisticated smartphones.
An estimated 80 percent of roughly 240 million emergency calls in the U.S. this year will come from mobile phones, most of which are capable of precisely tracking where their users are.
Emergency calling centers, however, don’t get that detailed locat...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:28 pm
Haifa, Israel - In a significant and rare ruling, the Haifa Rabbinical Court voided the marriage of Oded Guez, a well-known divorce refuser, freeing his wife after more than four years as an agunah.
The ruling follows a groundbreaking ruling earlier this month by a private rabbinical court annulling the marriage of a woman who was an agunah for 23 years, although that was a more complex and controversial case and the ruling was more revolutionary from the standpoint of Jewish law.
The Haifa Rabbinical Court sealed the ruling and details of the decision and the reasoning in Jewish law behind it will not be made known.
The Guez case became notorious after rabbinical court rulings were issued for him to be publicly shamed and ostracized because of his divorce recalcitrance, and his continu...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:24 pm
Jerusalem - Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency has cleared for publication the arrest of 20 Hamas cell members from the West Bank city of Nablus who planned lethal terror attacks across the country, including a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
“In recent months, the Shin Bet, Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police uncovered a Hamas terror cell, extraordinary in its size and level of activity, which operated in the Nablus area,” the Shin Bet said in a statement Sunday.
According to the Shin Bet, the joint operation with the IDF and Israel Police took place over the course of the past few months leading to the arrest of cell members who operated from October 2017 until their arrest at the end of April.
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The cell, led by 35 year old Mu&rsq...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:14 pm
Berlin - Almost 80 years after the first “Kindertransport” evacuations of Jewish children to safety in Britain, 42 people set off Sunday on a memorial bike ride that will retrace their journey from Berlin to London.
The cyclists set off from Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station, where a statue commemorates the 10,000 mostly Jewish children who made it to Britain from Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Europe starting in late 1938.
Organized by the British-based World Jewish Relief group, the ride retraces the route of the trains. It’s expected to take the riders six days to get to London’s Liverpool Street station.
Among the saved children was Paul Alexander. The only participant in the ride who was on a Kindertransport — “children’s transport&rdq...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:11 pm
Madison, WI - With a holstered handgun next to her on a kitchen table, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Leah Vukmir promises in her first television ad of the campaign released Monday to stand with President Donald Trump just as she did against death threats in Wisconsin.
Vukmir, a state senator, faces management consultant and political newcomer Kevin Nicholson in the Republican primary on Aug. 14. Nicholson is running as the outsider in the race and brands Vukmir as a career politician. She has tried to play up her conservative voting record and support for Trump even though she did not initially endorse him.
The winner will take on Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in November in a race that has attracted more spending by outside groups than any other in the country, based on a tally by t...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:10 pm
Ramallah, West Bank - The family of a female Palestinian lawmaker who has been held without charge for nearly a year says that Israel has extended her detention by four months.
Khalida Jarrar was scheduled to be released on June 30. But her husband, Ghassan, said Sunday that her lawyer was informed of the extension by Israeli authorities.
Jarrar is being held under “administrative detention,” an Israeli policy that permits holding people for months at a time without charges.
In 2015, she served 15 months after being convicted of incitement to violence and “promoting terror activities.”
Jarrar, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was arrested again last year and has remained in administrative detention.
Her husband calls it a &l...
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June 18, 2018 at 1:09 pm
B'H, the children have been found by a Lakewood Police Officer in a forest, in good condition, THE FOLLOWING IS VIA YWN
A search in Lakewood has been launched for two young boys that have gone missing.
The two boys, age 7 and 8, are brothers.They were last seen when they left their home in “Lakewood Commons” in the vicinity of Coles Way at around 8:30AM. They were supposed to take the bus to yeshiva, but never got on the bus. Read more at YWN
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June 18, 2018 at 12:43 pm
Jerusalem - Maran Harav HaGaon Chaim Kanievsky, shlita, told senior United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni on Sunday that the recently proposed bill for Charedi enlistment is acceptable and can be advanced through the Knesset.
The Jerusalem Post has learned that the rabbi described the bill as “the lesser of two evils,” that Degel Hatorah MKs – forming half of the UTJ Knesset faction – should not go to war over the legislation, and that it could be supported in general.
Maran did not, however, authorize the specific wording and clauses of the bill, but rather the proposal in general terms. Changes may be requested.
Gafni met with several other leading haredi rabbis on Sunday morning to discuss the issue, including Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, ...
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June 18, 2018 at 12:35 pm
Big Wells, TX - At least five people were killed and several others hurt Sunday as an SUV carrying more than a dozen people crashed while fleeing from Border Patrol agents in South Texas.
The SUV carrying 14 people went out of control at more than 100 mph and overturned on Texas Highway 85, ejecting most of the occupants, Dimmit County Sheriff Marion Boyd said.
“From what we can tell the vehicle ran off the road and caught gravel and then tried to recorrect,” Boyd said, adding that “caused the vehicle to turn over several times.”
Four victims were dead at the scene, Boyd said. He said at least one and possibly two others died at a hospital.
Most of the occupants were believed in the country without legal permission. Boyd said the driver and one passenger w...
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June 18, 2018 at 12:34 pm
Washington - Special counsel Robert Mueller is examining a previously undisclosed meeting between longtime Donald Trump confidante Roger Stone and a Russian figure who allegedly tried to sell him dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The meeting between Stone and a man who identified himself as Henry Greenberg was described in a pair of letters sent Friday to the House Intelligence Committee and first reported by The Washington Post.
Stone and Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign aide who arranged the 2016 meeting, did not disclose the contact in their interviews with the committee. But they now believe the man was an FBI informant trying to set them up in a bid to undermine Trump’s campaign. Greenberg could not immediately be reached for comment, but in a text to the Post he denied he was working ...
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June 18, 2018 at 12:30 pm
Jerusalem - El Al Israel Airlines is setting up a pilot academy in the United States, the company announced on Sunday, a move away from primarily relying on training in the Israel Air Force.
The school will start operating this week at the Aviator College, Flight Academy & Flight Training School in Fort Pierce, Florida.
The new operations are a change from how El Al typically draws upon its pilots. Today, around 10% of El Al’s pilots, those who did not serve in the IAF, undergo private training at their own expense.
El Al is heading overseas in a bid to recruit more potential candidates.
“Like everyone, we’re suffering from a lack of personnel,” El Al executive Oranit Beit Halahmy Amir told the trade publication Aviation Week. A slew of early retirements, al...
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June 18, 2018 at 12:30 pm
BEIRUT (AP) — Iraqi Shiite forces and Syria accused the United States on Monday of targeting their troops inside Syria with an airstrike, a charge the U.S. denied but that ratcheted up tensions in the area.
Iraq's Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces, the units' umbrella organization, said in a statement that U.S. aircraft late Sunday night fired two missiles that hit a group of its fighters deployed along the Iraq-Syria border to prevent breaches by the Islamic State group. The statement said the attack left 22 fighters dead and 12 wounded, adding that Iraqi and Syrian authorities were aware of their deployment.
"We demand that the American side issues a clarification for what happened," the Iraqi group said.
Syrian state media had reported earlier that the airstrike...
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June 18, 2018 at 12:23 pm
Illinois - Elizabeth Brackett, a longtime Chicago journalist and world-champion triathlete, has died four days after an apparent bicycle accident. She was 76.
PBS affiliate WTTW, where Brackett hosted “Chicago Tonight” for two decades, said on its website Brackett died in the hospital surrounded by family members.
Brackett had been in a coma with a fractured vertebra in her neck following the apparent fall Wednesday morning near the city’s lakefront bike trail. She had been training for a triathlon.
As a world-champion triathlete, Brackett had won five international titles in her age group — including last year in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The Emmy-winning host and correspondent covered the 1980 Democratic convention, 1986 Challenger disaster and championship seas...
