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February 17, 2019 at 10:50 am
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Winter weather enveloping California’s mountains for a fourth straight day Friday kept skiers from hitting the slopes at the start of the Presidents Day holiday weekend, with snow so deep that plows could not tackle it and cities scrambled to find places to pile it.
Several routes to the ski mecca of Lake Tahoe shut down, including about 70 miles (110 kilometers) of Interstate 80 from Colfax, California, to the Nevada state line.
I-80 was reopened to passenger vehicles Friday evening.
Chains were required for travel in many other parts of the towering Sierra Nevada.
“All avid skiers are itching to get out on the mountain, but the roads are pretty treacherous right now,” said Kevin Cooper, marketing director for Lake Tahoe TV.
The storm was ...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:50 am
Paris - A Paris court said on Sunday it had begun an investigation into anti-Semitic insults hurled at French philosopher and intellectual Alain Finkielkraut on the sidelines of Saturday’s “yellow vests” protest.
A video on several French media channels showed Finkielkraut being accosted by several protesters, with the words and threats like “dirty Zionists”, “bastard”, “We are in France,” heard aimed at him.
The “yellow vests” demonstrations, named after the protesters’ high-visibility jackets, began in November over fuel taxes but have morphed into a more general revolt against politicians and a government they see as out of touch.
Finkielkraut told Le Parisien newspaper that he came across a group of protesters a...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:50 am
Jerusalem - Israel’s prime minister has appointed an interim foreign minister after holding the post himself for the last four years.
Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that Transportation Minister Israel Katz would serve as foreign minister until the formation of a new government after April elections.
A good governance group petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court against Netanyahu’s multitude of roles after he took over the defense minister’s portfolio following his resignation late last year. Netanyahu also serves as Israel’s health minister.
Katz recently finished first among serving ministers in the ruling Likud party primaries, and the upgrade solidifies his position as Netanyahu’s top deputy and potential successor. Katz says he’ll run for pa...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:49 am
Beirut - The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group has denied U.S. assertions that it has cells in Venezuela saying the Latin American nation “does not need them.”
Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech Saturday that his Iran-backed group is in “solidarity with the political leadership and state of Venezuela against the American aggression.”
Nasrallah added that his group does not have influence in Venezuela nor does it have cells operating there.
Venezuela has plunged deeper into political chaos following by the U.S. demand that President Nicolas Maduro steps down a month into his second term, which the U.S. and allies consider illegitimate.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that “Hezbollah has active cells” in Venezuela and...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:49 am
Sofia - Bulgarian nationalists have marched through Sofia, the country’s capital, to honor a World War II general known for his anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi activities.
The annual Lukov March, staged by the far-right Bulgarian National Union, attracted hundreds of dark-clad supporters who walked through downtown Sofia holding torches and Bulgarian flags and chanting nationalist slogans.
It came despite strong condemnation by human rights groups, political parties and foreign embassies. The city mayor had banned the rally but organizers won a court order overturning the ban.
A heavy police presence blocked any clashes between nationalists and their opponents.
Ahead of the march, the World Jewish Congress warned about the rise of far-right activities across Europe aimed at promoting a...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:49 am
Tehran - Iran on Saturday rejected accusations of anti-Semitism leveled against it by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, saying it respected Judaism but opposed Israel, which Tehran said was acting like a “killing machine against the Palestinians”.
Pence accused Iran of Nazi-like anti-Semitism on Friday after visiting the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, maintaining his harsh rhetoric just a day after attacking European powers for trying to undermine U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
“Iran’s historic and cultural record of coexistence and respect for divine religions, particularly Judaism, is recorded in reliable historic documents of various nations,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said.
“The principle that underlies...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:49 am
Washington - Let the lawsuits begin.
President Donald Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border Friday and predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.
That might have been the only thing Trump said Friday that produced near-universal agreement.
The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Trump’s declaration that the “current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic state attorneys general already have said they might go to court.
The coming legal...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:48 am
Munich - Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said on Saturday he had not yet decided whether to run for president in 2020 but would do so “in the near term”.
More than two dozen Democrats could ultimately opt to run for president, creating a crowded field hoping to challenge President Donald Trump. Biden, who served two terms as vice president after decades in the U.S. Senate, would have the advantage of name recognition should he enter the race.
The 76-year old would also find himself at the center of a debate among Democrats about whether their party would best be led in the November 2020 vote by a political newcomer or a seasoned veteran.
“I haven’t reached a decision,” Biden told reporters at the annual Munich Security Conference. “I...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:48 am
Lightstone Group’s David Lichtenstein said Friday that Amazon’s about-face on its New York megacomplex was the “worst day for NYC since 9-11.”
“Except this time, the terrorists were elected,” the developer added in an email to The Real Deal, in a dig to the politicians who fiercely criticized the tech giant’s deal with the city for the nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and government incentives it came with. On Thursday, Amazon cited pressure from the local politicians as its reason to abandon the deal for the Long Island City campus, which was to bring 25,000 new jobs to New York and would create, by some expectations, $27 billion in tax revenue over a decade.
Since November, Amazon had faced fierce backlash from...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:48 am
Today, Sunday, Feb 17th, will be an emotional one for benefactors and supporters of Bobov-45 as the Kehilla celebrates the culmination of an extensive project that saw the community purchase and renovate the future home of its girls school and the thousands of students who receive an exceptional education in this Beis Chinuch.
The 150,000 SF building located on 15th avenue in Borough Park is the largest of its kind for any institution in the neighborhood and will be able to meet the school’s growing need for space. With nearly 4,000 students enrolled in the Bobov-45 school system, the community was faced with an increasing need for space. To that end, a $7-million building was purchased on behalf of the Talmud Torah and another $4-million home was acquired for the Yeshiva boy...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:46 am
The Syrian government and affiliated forces have launched more than 300 attacks using chemical weapons during the country’s nearly eight-year conflict, a report said Sunday.
The findings by the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute offer the most comprehensive record to date of presumed chemicals weapons use in Syria, where the long war appears to be winding down.
The tally by the policy group also could be cited as part of any possible international war crimes cases against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI) said it had “credibly substantiated” 336 uses of chemical weapons, ranging from nerve agents to crude but dangerous chlorine bombs,
Almost all the attacks – 98 percent – were attributed to A...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:46 am
It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of Rebbetzin Naomi Stein a”h, wife Rav Pesach Stein zt”l, rosh yeshiva of Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland.
Rebbetzin Stein was a daughter of Rav Zalman Bloch, menahel ruchani of the Telshe Yeshiva in Lithuania.
In 1948, Rebbetzin Stein married Rav Pesach, who was a son of Rav Aharon Shmuel Stein, the head of the Breinsk Bais Din and a talmid of Rav Shimon Shkop, who was the sandek at Rav Pesach’s bris. Rav Pesach learned in Breinsk, at the Slonim Yeshiva under Rav Shabsi Yogel, and in 1936 at the Mir Yeshiva in Poland, where he formed a close relationship with the rosh yeshiva, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel. With the start of World War II, Rav Pesach fled wit...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:46 am
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said New Yorkers deserve “dignified jobs” in the aftermath of a scrapped deal to build a second Amazon headquarters in Queens.
“We need to create dignified jobs in New York City,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a ceremonial inauguration ceremony Saturday in the Bronx. “We don’t have to settle for scraps in the greatest city in the world.”
The comments come days after Amazon decided to abandon plans to build a second headquarters in the Long Island City neighborhood in Queens, which Ocasio-Cortez staunchly opposed.
Read more at The Hill.
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February 17, 2019 at 10:45 am
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Sunday that his government would allocate the necessary funds to complete a long-promised museum honoring Jewish World War II veterans.
The project has been bogged down in bureaucratic stalemate for more than a decade as donor money has dried up and the government has wavered on its degree of support. The museum appeared doomed when the government did not renew its matching funds commitment four years ago. But a recent private donation appears to have convinced Netanyahu to provide the remaining resources.
A designated 2,200-square-meter (23,500-square-foot) structure was built in Latrun, in central Israel, near the site of one of the most significant battles in Israel’s 1948 war of independence. But it has remained empt...
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February 17, 2019 at 10:45 am
A Reisterstown man changing a tire on his truck on Interstate 795 was struck by a speeding car and killed, Maryland State Police said.
Kennedy Sooklal was changing a tire on his truck around 10 A.M. Saturday on I-795 near McDonogh Road in the Garrison area, when a car involved in a speed contest with another car lost control and struck him before ending up in an embankment, state police said.
Sooklal was taken to Sinai Hospital, where he died.
Witnesses said the two cars had been speeding just before the collision. The driver of the car involved in the crash, Carlos Daniel Gonzales-Rabines, of Windsor Mill, was arrested at the scene and remained held pending interrogation and consultation with the Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office.
The driver of the other car fled.
...
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February 17, 2019 at 7:26 am
A new survey finds three out of four Baltimore police officers feel restricted by the consent decree for reform.
PDF: Read the survey
What led to the consent decree were findings by the U.S. Department of Justice that for decades the Baltimore Police Department violated the constitution in its policing. The survey, which was done by a member of the City Council, is more evidence that change is hard.
About 360 Baltimore police officers responded to the survey. It found confusion and resistance to the federal consent decree for police reform.
According to the survey, 74 percent of officers said they feel restricted by the consent decree, 44 percent said they don't understand it and 43 percent said they don't feel comfortable making self-initia...
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February 16, 2019 at 9:58 pm
Munich - German Chancellor Angela Merkel robustly defended European nations’ decision to stand by the Iran nuclear deal in a spirited backing Saturday of her multilateral approach to global affairs, but U.S. Vice President Mike Pence promptly accused Europe of once again undermining the United States.
Merkel’s comments at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top global defense and foreign policy officials, followed days of tensions between Washington and Europe over Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement last year, leaving the others involved — Germany, Britain, France, China, Russia and the European Union — scrambling to try and keep it alive. The deal offers Iran sanctions relief for limitin...
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February 16, 2019 at 9:57 pm
Some Democrats are criticizing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her role in Amazon’s decision to cancel plans for a huge investment in New York; Doug McKelway reports.
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February 16, 2019 at 9:57 pm
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has recorded, but not yet released, a video to announce he’s running for president in 2020, Politico reported, citing unnamed sources. The independent’s team has also been holding interviews to fill top staff positions, according to the news site.
Sanders, a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist,” was the runner-up for the Democratic nomination in 2016. He’s widely viewed as a key figure in the party’s leftward tilt since then.
It’s not clear if or when Sanders will release his new video.
Read more at NY POST.
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February 16, 2019 at 9:10 pm
Baltimore, MD - Feb. 16, 2019 - During Shabbos the Skulaner Rebbe’s condition became critical. After many hours doctors managed to stabilize him . Please Daven for Yisroel Avraham ben Shaina Ruchel.
