NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The U.S. military on Tuesday announced its deadliest airstrike against the al-Shabab extremist group in Somalia in nearly a year, killing about 60 fighters. The U.S. Africa Command said Friday's airstrike occurred near the al-Shabab-controlled community of Harardere in Mudug province in the central part of the country. According to its assessment no civilians were injured or killed, the statement said. It was the largest U.S. airstrike since one on Nov. 21, 2017, killed about 100 al-Shabab fighters. The statement gave no further details about what was targeted, and a U.S. Africa Command spokesman said it was not a camp. The U.S. military has carried out more than two dozen airstrikes, including drone strikes, this year against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shab...
SEATTLE (AP) — Obesity surgery may dramatically lower the danger of heart attacks and strokes in patients with diabetes, new research suggests, reinforcing evidence that benefits extend beyond weight loss. The study tracked about 20,000 severely obese patients with Type 2 diabetes. Those who had weight loss surgery had a 40 percent lower chance of developing a heart attack or stroke in the five years following surgery compared to those who got usual care with diabetes medicines or insulin. For every 1,000 patients in the study who had surgery there were roughly 20 heart attacks or strokes compared to 40 such events per 1,000 who got regular care. More than 30 million Americans have diabetes, mostly Type 2 where the body loses the ability to produce or use insulin to turn food into...
TORONTO (AP) — Tom Clarke has been dealing marijuana illegally in Canada for 30 years. He wrote in his high school yearbook that his dream was to open a cafe in Amsterdam, the Dutch city where people have legally smoked weed in coffee shops since the 1970s. Turns out, Clarke didn't have to go nearly so far to open his own retail cannabis outlet. On Wednesday, Canada becomes the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace. Uruguay was first. Clarke, 43, will be among the first to legally sell recreational marijuana when his shop opens at midnight in Newfoundland, Canada's easternmost province. "I am living my dream. Teenage Tom Clarke is loving what I am doing with my life right now," he said. At least 111 legal pot shops are planning to open a...
Diplomats from across the Arab world warned Australia on Tuesday that Canberra risked both its relations with Arab states as well as the viability of the peace process in the Middle East if it recognizes Yerushalayim as Israel’s capital. Ambassadors from 13 Arab states gathered in the Australian capital city of Canberra on Tuesday to discuss the new Australian premier’s decision to consider relocating his country’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim. Australia’s new Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, who replaced Malcolm Turnbull in late August, suggested Monday that his government may recognize Yerushalayim as Israel’s capital city, following President Trump’s decision last December to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim. ...
Chesed Chesed
Previously spotted in D.C. gift shops and jigsaw puzzle boxes, a fantasy print of Donald Trump entertaining Abraham Lincoln while every other Republican president in history watches now hangs outside the Oval Office. The portrait was shown hanging in Trump’s personal dining room during his “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday, and the freeze frame instantly went viral, baffling people with questions. How did the painting get to the White House? Why does Trump look nearly as svelte as Dwight Eisenhower? Is he drinking a Diet Coke? Is that Taft in the background!? Why is everyone laughing? WHAT IS LINCOLN SAYING TO TRUMP!? The White House has not responded to a request for comment. Fortunately, “The Republican Club” by Andy Thomas is not an obscure artwork. Thoma...
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he had never spoken to President Donald Trump about leaving his position and was continuing to do his job, a day after Trump derided him as “sort of a Democrat” in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and said “it could be” that the Pentagon chief is leaving his post. Mattis, who was speaking to reporters en route to Vietnam, said he had never registered for any political party, having joined the military when he was 18 years old and adhered to its apolitical underpinnings as Republicans and Democrats alike came and went as commander in chief. “Where am I today? I’m a member of the president’s administration. And you have seen President Donald Trump’s military policies, security polici...
London - The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has enjoyed the ultimate protected status from the United States throughout its short history. Riyadh has had a special relationship with the U.S., from President Franklin D. Roosevelt meeting Saudi Arabia’s first King Abdul Aziz on Valentine’s Day in 1945 to the kingdom becoming America’s main Mideast ally following the downfall of Iran’s shah in 1979. Israel, Jordan and Egypt — sworn enemies who later signed peace deals — as well enjoy such a special status with the U.S. But none are the world’s top supplier of crude oil, able to swing the global energy market. With Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hastily dispatched on a damage-limitation mission to Riyadh, behind-the-scenes efforts are in full flow to prese...
Brand new album, including 16 original songs composed by Rabbi Yossi Lowenbraun. "Libi: My Extra Heart" is available at Shabsi's Judaica or available for download
Bronx, NY - New York police say a man who died after he was found unconscious in a subway station probably choked to death when he fell on an escalator and his shirt got caught. Police say 48-year-old Carlos Alvarez fell at a station in the Bronx early Sunday, where he was found unresponsive. He was cut out of the shirt, rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead. Authorities say Alvarez had been drinking.
Washington - Amid speculation that he may soon be replaced, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said President Donald Trump told him he supports the retired Marine general “100 percent.” The assertion comes just days after Trump mused on national television about Mattis leaving his post. Mattis said Trump gave him this assurance during a phone call while Mattis was flying from Washington to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Tuesday. A few hours earlier, Mattis told reporters traveling with him that he and Trump had never discussed the possibility of Mattis leaving the Pentagon job. Mattis initially was responding to reporters’ questions about Trump’s comments on CBS’ “60 Minutes” Sunday that Mattis “may leave” his administration and that he thi...
Panama City, FL - Joanne Garone Behnke has replayed every possible scenario in her mind a hundred times. Maybe her 79-year-old aunt sought shelter at the sturdy condo nearby that withstood Hurricane Michael’s devastating winds. Maybe she was rescued and is lying in a hospital bed somewhere. The pile of rubble that was once her Mexico Beach home is shallow, too shallow for a body to go unnoticed, Garone Behnke tells herself. “It’s torture,” says Garone Behnke, who last talked to her aunt Aggie Vicari right before the storm hit, begging her to leave her cinderblock home. Days after the hurricane slammed into the Florida Panhandle, people are struggling to locate friends and loved ones who haven’t been heard from. How many are missing seems to be anyone’...
Washington - President Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday over DNA test results she released that indicate she has some Native American heritage, saying she is “getting slammed” over the assertion and branded it as a “scam and a lie.” Trump called on his potential 2020 Democratic challenger to apologize. He claimed that even the Cherokee Nation “denies her.” Warren released the test results Monday in part to push back against Trump’s longstanding taunts about her ancestry claims. The results provide some evidence of a Native American in her lineage, though the ancestor probably lived six to 10 generations ago, according to the analysis. An ancestor six generations removed would make Warren 1/64th Native American while an...
The Rishonim discuss whether or not a person may do an aveira so the public can benefit. Tosfos in Shabbos, daf daled amud alef brings proof that it is permissible from the gemara in Gittin, daf lamed ches that tells us that Reb Eliezer freed his slave to complete a minyan despite the fact that there is a lav against freeing slaves. The gemara explains that it was done because this was a mitzvah for the rabim (public.) Tosfos tells us we learn from here that when it comes to a mitzvah for the public one may do an aveirah. Reb Elchanan in Kovetz Hearos explains that the reasoning for permitting an aveira is due to the...
Jerusalem - Israel’s defense minister says the time has come to deliver a “heavy blow” to Gaza’s militant Hamas leaders, after weeks of border violence. Avigdor Lieberman says he’ll recommend doing so when Israel’s security Cabinet meets the following day. The minister spoke on Tuesday during a visit to a military base near the border. He says it’s “the only way to lower the level of violence to zero or close to zero.” Hamas has held weekly border protests for the past six months, aimed at easing a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade. The protests intensified as Egyptian-mediated cease-fire efforts faltered. Over the weekend, Israel halted Qatari-donated fuel shipments to Gaza’s power plant in response to escalating violence. ...
Istanbul - A high-level Turkish official says police have found “certain evidence” during their search of the Saudi Consulate showing that Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed there. The official did not provide details on the evidence that was recovered during the hourslong search at the diplomatic mission that ended early Tuesday. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation. Turkish officials say Saudi agents killed and dismembered the writer at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Saudi Arabia previously called the allegation “baseless,” but U.S. media reports suggest the Saudis may soon acknowledge Khashoggi was killed there, perhaps as part of a botched ...
Rising temperatures and increased drought due to climate change will likely deal a blow to the world’s beer supply, according to a study released on Monday. The effects of climate change will gravely impact the growth of barley, a crop used predominantly to create beer, and in turn make it harder to produce the beverage and more expensive to buy, the study published in Nature Plants found. An international team of researchers from China, Britain and the U.S. looked at how climate change would affect the crop over the next 80 years. Measuring the effects of concurrent drought and heat extremes, they estimated that climate change could result in average barley yield losses of 3 to 17 percent, depending on the condition’s severity. Read more at The Hill.
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday designated five groups, including Hezbollah, as transnational criminal organizations to target with tougher investigations and prosecutions, Reuters reported. A special team of “experienced international narcotics trafficking, terrorism, organized crime, and money laundering prosecutors” will investigate individuals and networks providing support to Hezbollah, Sessions said, according to Reuters. “With this new task force in place, our efforts will be more targeted and more effective than ever,” Sessions added, explaining that in 90 days task-force members will give him specific recommendations “to prosecute these groups and ultimately take them off of our streets.” In addition to Hezbollah, Sessions also sa...
Insects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico, the study found, and the forest's insect-eating animals have gone missing, too. In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves. Th...
Former President Obama will travel to Las Vegas next week to campaign for Democrats running for statewide and congressional offices. The Nevada Democratic Party announced that the 44th president will highlight Rep. Jacky Rosen’s (D-Nev.) bid to unseat Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Steve Sisolak’s (D) gubernatorial candidacy, and “Democratic candidates up and down the ticket” at a rally on Oct. 22. The former president will be in Las Vegas two days after President Trump swings through the state to host a campaign rally in support of Heller. Read more at The Hill.
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