statement following the meeting. Netanyahu in turn invited Bolsonaro to visit Israel in a bid to strengthen cooperation across several areas including the economy, security, agriculture and technology. Bolsonaro, sometimes called the "Trump of the tropics" for a similar style to US President Donald Trump and rejection of multilateral diplomacy, emphasized the bond he wants to build with Netanyahu, a firm US ally. Following the warm meeting, the premier declared it was  “not a question of 'if' but of 'when'," Bolsonaro would announce an embassy move, a promise made on the campaign trail. In July of this year, Bolsonaro appeared to have gotten cold feet after Egypt, citing “scheduling issues”, cancelled the Brazilian leaders November...
Washington -  The U.S. State Department on Wednesday slammed human rights violations in China, saying the sort of abuses it had inflicted on its Muslim minorities had not been seen “since the 1930s.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo highlighted abuses in Iran, South Sudan, Nicaragua and China in the department’s annual “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” but told reporters that China was “in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations.” “For me, you haven’t seen things like this since the 1930s,” Michael Kozak, the head of the State Department’s human rights and democracy bureau told the same briefing, referring to abuses of China’s Muslim minority. “Rounding up, in some estim...
Miami - Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on Wednesday offered his vision for what an independent presidency could look like, even though he still hasn’t decided whether to enter the White House race himself. In a speech at Miami Dade College, Schultz laid out his plans for protecting democracy and free enterprise and sought to show how a president elected outside the two-party system could repair the current dysfunction in Washington. Schultz also vowed to sign only legislation that has bipartisan support and to not put forward any Supreme Court nominee who cannot be confirmed by two-thirds of the Senate. “The courts have become yet another battlefield in the ongoing war between Democratic and Republican leaders,” Schultz said. “These battles have undermined o...
Hejere, Ethiopia - An emergency response team from Israel, dispatched to Ethiopia to search for remains of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines disaster, said they are frustrated because they have not been able to access the site where the plane crashed. Members of the ZAKA team were seen at the site earlier this week, but they were not permitted to extract material. An Israeli official said the team in Ethiopia is frustrated. Two Israelis were among the 157 killed in the plane crash. Relatives have been wailing and beating their chests at the site of the Ethiopian Airlines crash as others picked through the rubble for any sign of the 157 people who died. Some family members have expressed frustration with the pace of the investigation and release of information. While a bulldozer naviga...
New York - A man said by federal prosecutors to have been a top leader of New York’s notorious Gambino crime family was shot and killed Wednesday on Staten Island. Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, 53, was found with multiple gunshot wounds to his body at his home in the borough’s Todt Hill section just after 9 p.m. Cali was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. There have been no arrests. No other information was provided by police. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had referred to Cali in court filings in recent years as the underboss of the Gambino organization, related through marriage to the Inzerillo clan in the Sicilian Mafia. Multiple press accounts since 2015 said Cali had ascended to the top spot in the gang, although he never faced a criminal ch...
A new initiative has been spreading on social media to put a stop to the Facebook group “Rise Up Ocean County,” an anti semitic group dedicated to stopping the growth of Orthodox families in New Jersey. Read below for the text of the forwarded message: STOP THE HATE AGAINST JEWS PROMOTED ON FACEBOOK Rise Up Ocean County is an Ocean County anti-Semitic group dedicated to demonizing Orthodox Jews. Their hate has been condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and many others. They use a cruel mix of insinuation, outright lies, and anti-Semitic stereotypes to spread its message; its members have written many thousands of hate-filled, anti-Semitic comments on Facebook. They hide behind the veil of free speech, even as they use open anti-Semitic language, calling all Orthodox J...
Austin, Texas - Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke announced Thursday that he’ll seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, ending months of intense speculation over whether he’d try to translate his newfound political celebrity into a White House bid. Until he challenged Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last year, O’Rourke was little known outside his hometown of El Paso. But the Spanish-speaking 46-year-old former punk rocker became a sensation during a campaign that used grassroots organizing and social media savvy to mobilize young voters and minorities. He got within 3 percentage points of upsetting Cruz in the nation’s largest red state — and shattered fundraising records in the process — immediately fueling chatter that he could have higher amb...
New York - Facebook struggled to restore its services fully on Thursday after a 17-hour partial outage made the world’s largest social network inaccessible to users across the globe, driving a wave of online complaints. The number of reports on the crowd-sourced DownDetector website - one of the internet’s most used sources of numbers on outages - peaked at just over 12,000, gradually falling to a couple of hundreds by early Thursday. But with thousands of users complaining on Twitter under the hashtag #facebookdown, a number of media reports put the number affected in the millions. The BBC and a handful of other media outlets said it was the platform’s longest ever outage. Reuters was not immediately able to verify those claims. Facebook representatives took to Twitt...
Baltimore's new police commissioner is already working on getting more officers on the street. Commissioner Michael Harrison was confirmed Monday by the City Council and sworn in Tuesday. He said Wednesday he's using more civilians in positions to free up sworn officers.   Harrison told the 11 News I-Team he heard the same requests from the public in all the meetings he had leading up to his confirmation. He said residents requested that police officers be more visible and proactive. People also he said they want the Police Department to reform its practices. Harrison also told the I-Team that he plans to define what he called the core functions of the Police Department and reform how it operates. He said the focus will be to engage in a constitu...
For the first time in history, a kosher catering company will open in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with plans for a kosher restaurant in the future. According to Yediot Ahronot, the company was founded by the leader of Dubai’s Orthodox Jewish community, Ross Kriel. It is expected to serve all of the Gulf States. Currently, the company serves only dairy and fish-based meals, and does not yet have a consistent mashgiach. Read more at Arutz Sheva.
West Haven, CT - An ailing Connecticut man who had a bucket-list wish fulfilled when he received a call of encouragement from President Donald Trump died Wednesday, his sister said. Jay Barrett was 44. Barrett had been terminally ill with cystic fibrosis and was receiving palliative care at the home of his sister, West Haven City Councilwoman Bridgette Hoskie. Hoskie, a Democrat, had gone on social media to build a campaign for Trump to offer her brother a gesture of support. Last week, the president called Barrett , telling him, “You’re my kind of man, Jay.” Hoskie said she appreciated the help of everyone who reached out to the White House on her brother’s behalf. “He really did live one of the best weeks of his life last week,” she said. “...
West Palm Beach, FL - A New Jersey man had to get a new phone number after he was overwhelmed with birthday wishes when his sons put up a billboard asking people to call him. The SunSentinel reports Chris Ferry doesn’t turn 62 until Saturday. But already he’s received some 15,000 Facebook messages and phone calls from people who saw the sign along a highway in Linwood, New Jersey. The sign has Ferry’s phone number, his photograph and the words ‘WISH MY DAD HAPPY BIRTHDAY”. Ferry’s son, who shares his name, lives in Boynton Beach, Florida. He told station WPBF he and his brother Michael never thought the sign would be such a hit. The elder Ferry took a selfie in front of the billboard, but he’s looking forward to the day it comes down.
Washington - The chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee says he does “not see the need for further action” against Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen after he clarified his testimony under oath about never seeking a pardon from Trump. In a letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings, lawyer Michael Monico clarified that Cohen had asked one of his lawyers to explore the possibility of a pardon before he left a joint-defense agreement with Trump last June. Cohen’s Feb. 27 declaration before Cummings’ committee that “I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from President Trump” set off a firestorm. Congressional investigators promised to look into the claim, and Trump called him a liar on Twitter. The statement Cohen made “coul...
Washington - The Pentagon plans to begin flight tests this year of two types of missiles that have been banned for more than 30 years by a treaty from which both the United States and Russia are expected to withdraw in August, defense officials said Wednesday. By moving forward with these missile projects, the Pentagon is not excluding the possibility that the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty could still survive, although it likely will be terminated in August. At that point, Washington and Moscow would no longer face legal constraints on deploying land-based cruise or ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,410 miles). The INF treaty has been in effect since 1987. The INF treaty was an arms control landmark in the final years of the Cold War, bu...
27 years after he was honored with the Humanitarian Award at Agudath Israel of America’s 70th annual dinner for taking a strong stance against religious discrimination in a Rockland County village, Attorney General William Barr once again proved himself an ally by assuring delegates to the Agudah’s Washington mission of the federal government’s commitment to upholding the religious rights of every United States citizen. Attorney General Barr met with the Agudah group at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building on Wednesday morning. With instances of zoning laws and other regulations cropping up with alarming frequency in an effort to stop the Jewish community’s spread, particularly in the greater Lakewood area and in Upstate New York, religiou...
“One person can make a difference!” This theme, the ability of the very few to make things better for so many others, was the rallying cry of last night’s orientation for Agudah’s annual Washington Mission. The two day lobbying event began on Tuesday afternoon and will include numerous meetings with elected officials and others in the high government positions who work closely with the Agudah’s leadership and regional directors throughout the year. Representing Jewish communities from coast to coast, more than 50 delegates from ten states traveled to Washington D.C. to discuss matters of concern affecting Orthodox Jews with top federal officials during Agudath Israel of America’s Washington Mission.  Agudah board of trustees chairman Shlomo We...
Please be advised the Hometown Food Company initiated a limited, voluntary retail-level recall on two specific lot codes of its Pillsbury® Unbleached All-Purpose 5 lb Flour (UPC 51500-22241) because it may be contaminated with Salmonella. Only Best If Used By Dates APR 19 2020 and APR 20 2020 are impacted. Roughly 12,245 cases of impacted Pillsbury® Unbleached All Purpose Flour product were distributed through a limited number of retailers and distributors nationwide.   The only product lots affected by the recall are as follows: Item NameCase Item CodeUPC Item CodeLot CodeBIUB Date Pillsbury® Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 5Lb 0 5150022241 3 0 5150022241 6 8 292 APR 19 2020 P...
Peace can only be achieved “through strength,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted on Tuesday. Speaking at a state memorial ceremony in Jerusalem for the late former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Netanyahu — the Likud leader who is seeking a fifth term as prime minister in April’s Knesset elections — stated, “Only when our neighbors are convinced that our strength and our presence here are irrefutable facts, only then some of them will be persuaded to make peace with us, and we are fully advancing this recognition and agreement process with our remaining neighbors, not with all of them, but with most of them.” “We are doing this with extensive segments of the Arab and Islamic world in an expedited normalization process, only pa...
A young Lakewood woman has lost nearly every penny she had after falling prey to a scam today. At approximately 1:30 PM this afternoon, a Lakewood businessman walked into a convenience store at the intersection of Route 9 and Chestnut Street, when he saw this young woman crying bitterly. When he asked her what’s wrong, she stated she had just lost almost all her money. The approximately 20-year-old woman, an American-Israeli, moved to Lakewood approximately four months ago. Today, she received a call on her cell phone from a man who threatened her with arrest by the U.S. Marshal’s Office is she doesn’t withdraw all her money from her account and send it to them – or it could become frozen and she would lose it. The scared woman complied to their orders. The woman...
ANNAPOLIS, MD — Harry Hughes, Maryland's 57th governor, has died at the age of 92. The two-term Democratic governor served from 1979 to 1987. Gov. Larry Hogan confirmed the news of Hughes' passing in a statement Wednesday, saying all state flags will fly at half-staff until sunset of the day of interment. "The First Lady and I are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Governor Harry Hughes, a longtime friend and Maryland legend whom I deeply admired. His dedication to our great state - as a distinguished member of the Maryland General Assembly and as our 57th governor - and his service to our nation as a member of the Navy Air Corps during World War II leave a legacy behind that will be forever remembered," Hogan said. "Our most sincere prayers are with his two daug...
More articles