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October 12, 2018 at 11:09 am
Jerusalem - Two New Zealand pro-Palestinian activists said on Friday they would not compensate three Israeli teenagers for the cancellation of a concert by singer Lorde in Tel Aviv in June.
Jerusalem Magistrates Court awarded the three 17-year-old girls 45,000 shekels ($12,426.48), plus costs and lawyers’ fees, according to a brief court summary of Wednesday’s ruling.
The case arose from an open letter that activists Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab wrote to Lorde, a New Zealander, on the web site “thespinoff.co.nz” last December urging her to call off her planned concert.
Lorde canceled her concert in Israel that same month after a campaign by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) group, which campaigns for Palestinian rights, that included the open lett...
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October 12, 2018 at 11:09 am
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) — Linda Marquardt rode out Hurricane Michael with her husband at their home in Mexico Beach. When their house filled with surging ocean water, they fled upstairs. Now their home is full of mud and everywhere they look there’s utter devastation in their Florida Panhandle community: fishing boats tossed like toys, roofs lifted off of buildings and pine trees snapped like matchsticks in 155 mph winds.
Row after row of beachfront homes were so obliterated by Michael’s surging seas and howling winds that only slabs of concrete in the sand remain, a testament that this was ground zero when the epic Category 4 hurricane slammed ashore at midweek. The destruction in this and other communities dotting the white-sand beaches is being called catastrophic &mda...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:55 am
The IDF announced on Thursday that it will reconsider its decision not to demolish the home of Adiel Colman’s killer.
Colman, a father of four, was killed in March by Abd al-Rahman Bani Fadel. In September, the IDF said that it would not demolish Fadel’s home as it commonly does with terrorists because of a psychiatric illness the killer was allegedly suffering from.
The decision enraged the Coleman family, who argued that a terrorist who commits a stabbing attack knows how to weigh his steps in advance and is not mentally ill. The Colemans appealed the decision, eventually convinving the Central Command reopen the ruling and issue another demolition order for Fadel’s home.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
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October 12, 2018 at 10:55 am
ALIAGA, Turkey (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump is celebrating the release of an American pastor who was on trial in Turkey, saying he'll be back in the United States soon.
A Turkish court on Friday convicted Andrew Brunson on terror-related charges, but released him from house arrest and allowed him to leave Turkey. The decision is expected to ease strained U.S.-Turkey relations.
The court sentenced Brunson to a little more than three years in prison, but since the 50-year-old evangelical pastor, a native of North Carolina, has already spent two years in detention, he won't serve more time.
In an all-caps tweet Friday, Trump said: "PASTOR BRUNSON JUST RELEASED. WILL BE HOME SOON!"
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5:20 p.m.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he hopes to have U.S. evangelical past...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:50 am
Baltimore City police are working with the Baltimore City Sheriff's Office to redeploy deputy sheriffs from civil enforcement to conduct high-visibility community patrol.
The sheriff's patrol will happen every Friday until further notice. Fifteen deputy sheriffs will walk foot patrol on Monument Street, Eastern Avenue and East 25th Street and the Harford Road corridor in southeast and east Baltimore.
Two deputies will conduct patrols every evening in south Baltimore, with one deputy posted at Baltimore City College during school dismissal to ensure students' safety.
Seven deputies will be deployed at the Fells Point Festival. Thirty deputies will be deployed to Lake Montebello in East Baltimore for the American Cancer Society's Making Strides against Breast Cancer ev...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:48 am
Amid increased complaints about Baltimore's "squeegee kids," the Downtown Partnership is paying for unarmed guards.
Mike Evitts, a spokesman for the business group, said the monitors will be stationed along President Street and Conway Street during peak hours. Those are where the partnership is hearing the most complaints.
The guards' presence isn't meant to be punitive, but to ensure the safety of both kids and drivers. They're set to be in place early next week.
Evitts said the group also plans a text message donation campaign allowing people to donate to local charities serving the homeless.
Late last month, one man had his rear windshield shattered while stopped at Hamburg and Russell streets after he refused a windshield wash. He called 911, then wait...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:33 am
Unless you happen to live in California’s 50th Congressional district, which encompasses parts of San Diego County and Riverside County in the south of the state, you won’t have to choose between incumbent Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar.
But if you did reside in that relentlessly sunny part of America, you would probably be somewhat suspicious of Mr. Campa-Najjar, not only because he is only 29 years old but also because he has a Palestinian father and a Mexican mother, lived as a child in Gaza and once attended an Islamic school in San Diego. And if that didn’t dissuade you from pulling the lever for him, there is the fact that his father served as a Palestinian Authority official.
And his grandfather was Muhammad Y...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:30 am
Police have mobilized across Tanzania to search for a man described as Africa’s youngest billionaire after he was kidnapped by gunmen Thursday morning in the nation’s capital, Dar es Salaam.
Mohammed Dewji, the 43-year-old owner and president of Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Ltd. (METL) and a former member of Tanzania’s parliament, was entering a gym in an upscale hotel for his regular morning workout when he was grabbed off the street by two masked men who fired their guns into the air before driving away from the hotel.
Police have 12 suspects in custody including the hotel’s manager, the AP reported, citing Dar es Salaam regional commissioner Paul Makonda’s comments to a local media outlet.
Dewji, also known as “Mo,” is Tanzania’s only ...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:14 am
Yom HaShishi is Back with Rav Zev Cohen, Rav of Kahl Adas Yeshurin and Rosh Kollel of the CHoshen Mishpat Kollel in Chicago.
Chazal derive from the extra letter ‘hei’ in Yom HaShishi that the entire creation is completely dependant on the Torah which would be given on THE sixth day, the sixth day of Sivan, more than 2000 years later. As long as Torah is studied every second of time, the world continues to exist as a result.
The Yom Hashishi series is dedicated to those who study the daf every day and their wives and families who support them. It doesn’t matter how when or where, they learn The Daf.
This series will feature weekly videos staring leading Rabbanim and Magidei Shiur, leading up to in the upcoming 13th Global Siyum HaShas.
The learnin...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:11 am
Beirut - After being nearly defeated on the battlefields of its would-be caliphate, the Islamic State group has reverted to what it was before its spectacular conquests in 2014, analysts say — a shadowy insurgent network that targets civilian populations with guerrilla-style attacks and exploits state weaknesses to incite sectarian strife.
In Iraq and Syria, hardly a week goes by without the group staging an attack on a town or village, keeping its opponents on edge even as it fights U.S.-backed forces advancing on the last remaining slice of territory under its control near the countries’ shared border.
Hisham al-Hashimi, an IS expert who advises the Iraqi government, said the group now operates like it did in 2010, before its rise in Iraq, which culminated four years later ...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:10 am
Washington - Can we talk? Donald Trump would like to chat.
And, boy, is he ever.
Riding high after Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s successful confirmation, the president has been on a rollicking press tour of late.
He’s inviting reporters up to his private cabin on Air Force One. He’s calling in to his favorite shows. And he’s turning closed White House events into major media moments.
On Thursday alone, Trump held four separate press availabilities, including one that featured a profanity-laced Oval Office performance by Kanye West, the rapper and producer who has emerged as Trump’s top Hollywood fan. And that’s not counting the more than 45 minutes he spent on the phone calling in to “Fox & Friends.”
The president’s i...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:10 am
Ankara - Turkey’s government has told U.S. officials it has audio and video proof that missing Saudi Arabian writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Washington Post reported Friday.
The newspaper, for which Khashoggi is a columnist, cited anonymous officials as saying the recordings show a Saudi security team detained the writer when he went to the consulate on Oct. 2 to pick up a document for his upcoming wedding.
The Associated Press was not immediately able to confirm the report, and Turkish officials would not comment.
A delegation from Saudi Arabia arrived in Turkey Friday as part of an investigation into the writer’s disappearance, Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu said.
Saudi Arabia has called the allegatio...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:10 am
Greenbelt, MD - An investment adviser charged with orchestrating a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars on prayers by Hindu priests in India to ward off a federal investigation and save her failing business, according to testimony at her trial this week.
Using investors’ money, Dawn Bennett paid a man in Washington state approximately $720,000 between 2015 and 2017 to arrange for the priests to perform religious ceremonies meant to ease her troubles, said a Justice Department prosecutor and the man Bennett paid. For one of these “yagya” rituals, Bennett spent $7,250 for five priests to pray for her across 29 consecutive days.
“I am in a very very tough fight going against my enemies and I need all the help I can get,&rd...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:10 am
MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Michael has sped off toward the Atlantic Ocean, but there will be nothing quick about Florida's recovery from the hurricane, where rows upon rows of homes have been smashed to pieces . The storm also has brought flash flooding to hurricane-weary parts of the Carolinas and Virginia .
BY THE NUMBERS
— Hurricane history: first Category 4 hurricane to make landfall in Florida's Panhandle since record-keeping began in 1851.
— Top winds: 155 mph (250 kph), strong enough to completely destroy homes and cause weekslong power outages.
— Powerful pressure: 919 millibars minimum pressure in the eye, the third most intense hurricane landfall in the U.S. in recorded history.
— High water: estimated pe...
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October 12, 2018 at 10:02 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are opening sharply higher on Wall Street following a two-day rout that shattered a long period of calm on the market.
Big technology and consumer-focused companies, which took some of the worst losses earlier this week, were solidly higher in early trading Friday.
Amazon jumped 3.8 percent and Apple clawed back 2.9 percent.
Citigroup jumped 2.5 percent after reporting higher earnings.
Asian and European markets were also higher.
The S&P 500 index rose 41 points, or 1.5 percent, to 2,770. The index is still headed for its worst week since March.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 383 points, or 1.5 percent, to 25,433. The Nasdaq composite jumped 163 points, or 2.2 percent, to 7,491.
Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.16 ...
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October 12, 2018 at 5:45 am
G-d remembered Noach and all the beasts and all the animals, that were with him in the Ark, and G-d caused a spirit to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.(בראשית ח א)
At this turning point in the history of mankind, when G-d decides to implement His attribute of kindness in recreating the world, by stopping the flood and permitting Noach to begin the rebuilding of humanity as we know it, there are two glaring omissions.
Where are the children? Were they not remembered? Secondly, where are the birds? Weren’t they also saved in the Ark?
The brilliant and illustrious Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, who served as the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, during the period of the British Mandate, offers a magnificent answer.
Rashi informs that G-d ‘remembered’ ho...
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October 11, 2018 at 10:50 pm
Elwood, NY - A woman whose daughter survived a limousine accident that killed four women on Long Island in 2015 says Saturday’s deadly crash in rural upstate New York is a reminder that strict legislation is still needed for stretch vehicles.
After the 2015 crash, a special grand jury implored Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to examine the safety of stretch limousines. It appears a task force was never formed, and it’s unclear what Cuomo’s administration did in response.
Nancy DiMonte of Elwood, whose daughter survived the 2015 crash, said in a letter published Thursday in Newsday that she’s launching a campaign urging Cuomo and legislators to change laws.
Cuomo said Monday that sometimes people don’t follow existing laws.
Authorities say the limo in Saturday...
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October 11, 2018 at 10:33 pm
The Torah’s account of the most prominent siblings in early civilization is not a pretty picture. Kayin kills Hevel and Noach’s sons differences spawn the 70 nations. Indeed, most Mepharshim understand the “world is not big enough for all of us” was a prevalent attitude among some of the early brothers. They did not feel they should have to “share” the world with their brothers. Moreover, by the time of Noach, one of his sons saw no reason to give any deference to his father, even though it was in his father’s zchus that the world and his sons were saved.
While no one has all the answers and the world is a constantly changing place, I have been asked repeatedly for my insights into raising children in todays environme...
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October 11, 2018 at 10:32 pm
Panama, City, FL - An insurance company that produces models for catastrophes is estimating Hurricane Michael caused about $8 billion in insured losses.
Boston-based Karen Clark & Company released the estimate Thursday. It includes the privately insured wind and storm surge damage to residential, commercial and industrial properties and automobiles. The figure does not include losses covered by the National Flood Insurance Program.
Michael made landfall as a 155 mph (250 kph), Category 4 storm Wednesday afternoon in Mexico Beach, Florida. The hurricane left a path of destruction through the Florida Panhandle and entered Georgia as a Category 3 storm.
KCC estimates that nearly half of insured loss from Michael occurred in Florida’s Bay and Gulf counties. Total damages from stor...
