|
February 8, 2019 at 11:01 am
Baltimore, MD - Feb. 8, 2019 - What’s better than a program that includes father-son learning and a Melava Malka? One includes that grandfathers, too! On February 2, Motza'ei Shabbos Parshas Mishpatim, YKY/TI's 5th and 6th graders enjoyed a special learning session with their fathers and grandfathers, followed by a Melava Malka with delicious food, live music, and a game.
The event took place Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion and began with a beautiful display of inspired learning. Talmidim, fathers, grandfathers packed the main shul, producing a booming kol Torah.
After learning, the attendees moved into the social hall for a Melava Malka coordinated by Details by Dean and catered by the Knish Shop. One talmid was overheard saying, “Wow, they made a whole banquet...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:34 am
This Wednesday, the New York State legislature held its annual joint Senate and Assembly budget hearings on the topic of education in New York State. These hearings directly impact the final budget allocations for education-related expenses in the state. The legislature heard testimony from State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, and other stakeholders.
Video of Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Agudath Israel's Director of New York Government Relations, Testifying at the New York State Legislature Budget Hearings
Rabbi Yeruchim Silber Testifies at the New York State Education Budget Hearings from Agudath Israel on Vimeo.
Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Agudath Israel’s Director of New York Government Relations, test...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:31 am
Tehran - Iranians will chant “Death to America” as long as Washington continues its hostile policies, but the slogan is directed at President Donald Trump and U.S. leaders, not the American nation, Iran’s supreme leader said on Friday.
“As long as America continues its wickedness, the Iranian nation will not abandon ‘Death to America’,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a gathering of Iranian Air Force officers marking the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, according to his official website.
Trump pulled out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers last year and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran, dealing a blow to the country’s economy.
“‘Death to America’ means death to Trump, (National Security Advis...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:27 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s appearance before a House committee (all times local):
10:20 a.m.
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker says he has “not interfered in any way” in the special counsel’s Russia investigation.
Whitaker also says he has not talked to President Donald Trump or senior White House officials about the investigation.
The acting attorney general made the comments Friday during a contentious hearing of the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee.
Whitaker has been supervising special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after rejecting the advice of career ethics officials to step aside out of an abundance of caution.
The testimony comes as Whitaker is likely winding down his tenu...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:20 am
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. joined with the Supreme Court’s liberals Thursday night to block a Louisiana law that opponents say would close most of the state’s abortion clinics and leave it with only one doctor eligible to perform the procedure.
The justices may yet consider whether the 2014 law – requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals – unduly burdens a woman’s access to abortion. The Louisiana law has never been enforced, and the Supreme Court in 2016 found a nearly identical Texas law to be unconstitutional.
“The Supreme Court has stepped in under the wire to protect the rights of Louisiana women,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented t...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:20 am
U.S. President Donald Trump clashed with the intelligence community last week over the threats posed by Iran and North Korea, a position that has some U.S. and Israeli experts nodding in agreement.
Former weapons’ inspector David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, told JNS that the U.S. intelligence community in essence told us that “Iran does not have a structured nuclear-weapons program—something we all know.”
However, he said, the intelligence community “punted on the more important questions of whether Iran is preserving capabilities to make nuclear weapons, e.g., the Atomic Archive, or working on certain activities to overcome bottlenecks in their nuclear-weapons program.”
Trump criticized the...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:13 am
Some 77 percent of adults in Israel use social media, putting the country 1 percentage point ahead of South Korea in social media usage, according to a Pew Research Center survey released this week. The United States was sixth at 70 percent.
At the same time, Israel ranks second in smartphone ownership, with 88 percent of its adults owning smartphones. South Korea was first with 95 percent of adults owning a smartphone and the U.S. sixth again at 81 percent.
Among Israelis, smartphone ownership is on the rise for the over-50 set: 80 percent as compared to 50 percent in 2015.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:13 am
A Babe Ruth baseball card cost a California man a couple of singles — but it might be a grand slam for his bank account.
Dale Ball, of Visalia, bought the card from a collectibles store in Nevada to add to his son Dennis’ collection, he told ABC 30. The owner told him he thought the card was fake, since he couldn’t find it anywhere on the internet.
Convinced that the card is a rare Shotwell W-575-1 Babe Ruth card made by the Shotwell Company in 1921, Ball brought it to an antique expert in Beverly Hills. The next step is for Ball to have the card authenticated and graded by professional appraisers.
While the card has yet to be authenticated, Ball is telling interested buyers that bidding will start at $2 million.
Read more at NY POST.
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:10 am
The ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, survived a coup attempt last month launched by foreign fighters in his eastern Syrian hideout, intelligence officials believe, and the terrorist group has since placed a bounty on the main plotter’s head.
The incident is believed to have taken place on 10 January in a village near Hajin in the Euphrates River valley, where the jihadist group is clinging to its last sliver of land. Regional intelligence officials say a planned move against Baghdadi led to a firefight between foreign fighters and the fugitive terrorist chief’s bodyguards, who spirited him away to the nearby deserts.
ISIS has offered a reward to whomever kills Abu Muath al-Jazairi, believed to be a veteran foreign fighter, one of an estimated 500 ISIS fighters thought to re...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:09 am
Detroit - Right up until the end, John Dingell wouldn’t go down without a fight — or a tweet.
The longest-serving member of Congress in American history, who died on Thursday at age 92, boasted more than 250,000 followers on the account he started in 2010. After his wife, current Rep. Debbie Dingell, tweeted Wednesday — the day before he died — that she was home with him and they had “entered a new phase” as he was receiving hospice care, news stories proliferated.
Well wishes poured in. John Dingell even gained about 4,000 followers over the course of the day. Still, he said in a tweet later Wednesday that he was grateful, but not giving up.
“The Lovely Deborah is insisting I rest and stay off here, but after long negotiations we’ve worke...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:09 am
Scientists think they have achieved the first gene editing inside the body, altering DNA in adults to try to treat a disease, although it's too soon to know if this will help.
Preliminary results suggest that two men with a rare disorder now have a corrective gene at very low levels, which may not be enough to make the therapy a success.
Still, it's a scientific milestone toward one day doctoring DNA to treat many diseases caused by faulty genes.
"This is a first step," said Dr. Joseph Muenzer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who helped test the treatment. "It's just not potent enough."
He gave the results Thursday at a conference in Orlando, Florida, and has consulted for the therapy's maker, California-based Sangamo Therapeutics. Researchers are...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:06 am
Jerusalem - Former military chief Benny Gantz has burst onto Israel’s political scene as the great hope of the country’s shrinking “peace camp” with a message that is anything but dovish.
The retired general, who wants to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in April 9 elections, boasts of killing Palestinian militants and aligns himself with political hard-liners. He fires back at Netanyahu’s criticism with scathing counterattacks.
In today’s Israel, Gantz’s ready-to-rumble rhetoric appears to be the only way to bring down the long-serving Netanyahu. That’s turning him into an unlikely source of hope for Israelis who view ending their country’s rule over the Palestinians, now in its 51st year, as a priority.
Yossi Beilin, an arc...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:06 am
Washington - White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said she was assaulted at a Maryland restaurant last year by a woman who grabbed and shook her, an accusation the woman has denied, CNN reported on Friday.
Conway said in an interview with CNN that the incident took place while she was dining out with her daughter at the Mexican restaurant Uncle Julio’s in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, and that the woman grabbed her arms from behind and was “out of control.”
The accused woman, 63-year-old Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, disputed Conway’s account, her lawyer told CNN, saying she did not assault the top White House staffer but expressed her personal opinions to a public figure in a public place.
Inabinett faces state charges of second degree assault and disord...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:06 am
Rio De Janeiro - A fire tore through the sprawling training complex of one of Brazil’s biggest soccer clubs Friday, killing 10 people and leaving three teenagers injured, firefighters said.
Firefighters were called in just after 5 a.m. to battle a blaze at the Ninho de Urubu training ground of the Flamengo soccer club in Rio de Janeiro’s western region, a fire official told The Associated Press.
There was no word yet on the cause of the fire.
“Flamengo is in mourning” the team posted on its Twitter account.
The ages and identities of those killed were not released but the three injured were 14, 15 and 16 years old, the fire official said. The injured were taken to local hospitals and their conditions were not immediately known, said the official, who asked his n...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:05 am
Saudi Arabia - A year before Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told an aide he would use “a bullet” on the journalist if he did not return home and end his criticism of the government, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
The crown prince’s comments to a top aide in 2017 were made well before Khashoggi was killed last October in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Times reported, citing current and former U.S. and foreign officials knowledgeable about intelligence reports.
The comments were intercepted by American intelligence agencies, the newspaper reported.
U.S. intelligence analysts have interpreted the “bullet” comment metaphorically, meaning the crown prince did not necessarily mean to have Khashoggi shot...
|
February 8, 2019 at 10:05 am
Detroit - Cold temperatures can sap electric car batteries, temporarily reducing their range by more than 40 percent when interior heaters are used, a new study found.
The study of five electric vehicles by AAA also found that high temperatures can cut into battery range, but not nearly as much as the cold. The range returns to normal in more comfortable temperatures.
Many owners discovered the range limitations last week when much of the country was in the grips of a polar vortex. Owners of vehicles made by manufacturers including Tesla, the top-selling electric vehicle company in the U.S., complained on social media about reduced range and frozen door handles during the cold snap.
“As long as drivers understand that there are limitations when operating electric vehicles in more ...
|
February 8, 2019 at 7:59 am
Ori Ansbacher HY”D, the 19 year-old Israeli teenager from Takua who was savagely murdered in a forest in Jerusalem in Thursday night has just been laid to rest. She was doing her national service in Jerusalem and was from the Gush Etzion community of Tekoa. Her father is a rabbi at the Yeshiva there.The murder was so brutal that the courts have placed a gag order on the details of her murder. The police together with the Shin bet are investigating if it was a criminal act or terrorism and are still searching for suspects. Four Arab suspects had been detained for questioning, but were released after questioning. Her body was found in Ein Yael, Which lies between the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo and the Arab village of WalajaMay her family be comforted among the morning of Tzion ...
|
February 8, 2019 at 7:54 am
The Russian government will not be moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim, Russia’s ambassador said Thursday night, despite signals from Moscow that Russia has shifted its stance on the Israeli capital.
In 2017, Russia’s foreign ministry explicitly recognized the western portion of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.
Despite these moves, however, on Thursday, Russian ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov told the Russian TASS outlet that his government would not be relocating its embassy to Yerushalayim.
“The issue of transferring the Russian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is outside the agenda. Russia is committed to the international legal framework concerning Jerusalem, including corresponding United Nations Security Council resolutions...
|
February 8, 2019 at 5:49 am
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Comptroller Peter Franchot are fighting a Senate bill that would undo Hogan's executive order that forced schools to start after Labor Day.
Hogan issued the order in 2016, with Franchot cheering the extra money that Marylanders would spend on excursions to Ocean City and other destinations. The bill, sponsored by Prince George's County Sen. Paul Pinsky and Montgomery County Sen. Nancy King, would essentially undo that order, directing that each county board set the start and end date of its school year.
The bill cleared a preliminary Senate vote, 32-14, with a final vote expected next Tuesday. Three amendments were rejected.
Hogan proposed the issue go before voters, and claimed Democrats are spreading lies about the issue. His office pointed...
