New Zealand Police on Tuesday said the man accused of shooting dead 51 Muslim worshipers at two Christchurch mosques will be charged with terrorism, the first time in the nation’s history such a charge has been filed. The charge marks the first time New Zealand has invoked such facet of the terror suppression legislation adopted in 2002 following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. In addition to the terror charge, Tarrant now faces 51 charges of murder and 40 of attempted murder over the March 15 attacks in the South Island city. Read more at i24NEWS.
A funeral 2,000 years in the making: Human remains from an ancient burial tomb near Jericho’s Hasmonean Palace were found scattered and desecrated – the work of local Arab graverobbers. Today, the remains were given a Jewish re-burial in the Kfar Adumim cemetery. Hundreds participated today (Tuesday) in an unusual funeral at the Kfar Adumim cemetery: A final resting place was arranged for human remains that had been desecrated and scattered near the looted burial tombs of the Hasmonean Palace in Jericho. The Second Temple-era burial caves on the outskirts of Jericho, which until recently had been the resting place for Jewish residents of the palace, were looted by Arab grave-robbers. Several days before Passover, “Preserving the Eternal” volunteers hiking near the...
An 8-day-old boy was injured in a car accident on his way home from his own Brit Milah ceremony on Tuesday afternoon.  The incident took place when a bus and two private cars collided on Golda Meir Boulevard in Jerusalem. United Hatzalah volunteer paramedics and EMTs who were in the vicinity rushed to the call to treat the injured and discovered that among them was an 8-day-old baby who was returning from his Brit Milah ceremony. The baby was lightly injured as were two other women involved in the accident.  United Hatzalah volunteer EMT and ambulance driver Nissim Yazdi, who was one of the first responders at the scene said: "when I arrived at the scene together with other volunteers from United Hatzalah, we were told that the family was on their way home from celebrating the...
Baltimore, MD - May 21, 2019 - Last night a gathering was held in Beazer to raise awareness about Menucha- a fixture in our community for children with special needs and their families. A packed room of people filled the home of Eli and Rikki Klein to learn what it means to raise a child with special needs and how Menucha eases that task. Rabbi Aryeh Richter, director of Menucha welcomed the crowd and introduced a parent to share a few personal thoughts which segued into an informative video presentation, filled with testimonials from parents, participants and volunteers of Menucha. Rabbi Richter remarked "I am touched by the fact that so many people took the time to attend and support the work Menucha". To take part in the amazing work of Menucha and help children with special needs, pl...
OU Women’s Initiative Holds First Lay Leadership Confab, Welcomes 100 Women From 56 Communities In The United States, Canada, Israel, United Kingdom & South Africa  Experts And Lay Leaders Address Challenges Of Modern Jewish Communal Leadership At Inaugural Summit WOODCLIFF LAKE, New Jersey – The Orthodox Union Women’s Initiative hosted its inaugural Leadership Summit, a lay leadership conference designed to encourage and develop women serving as lay leaders within their communities. The 100 participants were nominated by 56 communities around the United States, Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom and South Africa to attend the summit which took place May 20-21 at the Hilton Woodcliff Lake in New Jersey. Some of the Baltimore attendees (Photo Credit:...
1) A Jewish Slave Two thoughts for Parshas Behar, and they’re both related.  We have in perek 25, pasuk 39 the idea of a Jewish slave. This is a very hard concept to understand, certainly since the Civil War and many have tried to reconcile the Torah’s view of slavery. But, certainly, what’s even more difficult is the understanding of a Jewish slave, and, of course, there isn’t such a thing nowadays and there shouldn’t be based on our understanding of “Diracheha darchei noam.”  But, the laws of the Torah still remain and the lessons are certainly there. A person should only become a slave if absolutely necessary So, the pasuk say, “V’chi yamuch achicha imach v’nimkar lach”. When your brother becomes destitute an...
Despite recent attempts by the government to change the housing situation, the housing market in Israel is still in crisis, and if far-reaching changes are not implemented immediately, the crisis will turn into a socio-economic disaster in the years to come, Israel Builders Association president Raul Srugo warned at the association’s annual conference, which took place over the weekend in Eilat. Srugo told the conference that the government must “stop pulling the wool over the public’s eyes.” “There is a shortage of apartments here, much greater than the 146,000 households that have registered for the Mehir Lemishtaken [“Move-in Price” subsidized housing program for first-time buyers] lotteries. For years, we have been building fewer than 50,000 ...
Birth rates in the United States have continued to drop for the fourth straight year, even reaching their lowest figures in 32 years in 2018. In a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of new babies born in the country last year was at about 3.7 million. This is 2 percent lower compared to birth rates recorded in 2017. Population experts say the development comes as a surprise seeing how the U.S. job market and the economy, in general, has considerably grown over the past few years. They expected birth rates in the country to stabilize or even rise as a result. Demographers are calling the negative trend in U.S. birth rates a national problem. Read more at Tech Times.
Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon discusses the U.S.-China trade war and the problems facing Europe.
New York - Dressbarn, the women’s clothing chain that’s been around for nearly 60 years, is closing all 650 of its stores. The company’s chief financial officer, Steven Taylor, said Dressbarn has not been operating at an “acceptable level of profitability in today’s retail environment.” Its owner, Ascena Retail Group Inc., says it wants to focus on its more profitable brands. Ascena also owns Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant and other clothing stores. The company did not say when Dressbarn will shut all its stores. Dressbarn employs about 6,800 people. After the news was announced Monday, shares of Ascena Retail Group Inc. rose 2.6% to $1.17 in extended trading. Shares of the Mahwah, New Jersey-based company are down more than 50% so far this year.
Ellicot City, MD. — A handcuffed theft suspect drove away in the police cruiser in which he was being taken into custody Sunday night, police said. Howard County police said they were called to the Walmart on Ridge Road around 10 p.m. for a report of a theft in progress. The responding officer said he located the suspect, who had approximately $3,000 worth of stolen merchandise. The officer approached the suspect, who then ran away, police said. After a foot pursuit, the officer took Jerome Rucker, 32, of Nottingham, into custody. The officer handcuffed Rucker behind the back and placed him into the backseat of a patrol SUV, police said. While the officer was collecting evidence from the Walmart, Rucker got away. "Somehow, the suspect was able to bring the handcuffs to the front ...
Berlin - The International Tracing Service in Germany has uploaded more than 13 million documents from Nazi concentration camps, including prisoner cards and death notices, to help Holocaust researchers and others investigate the fate of victims. Established by the Western Allies in the final days of World War II and initially run by the Red Cross, the ITS also announced Tuesday it was changing its name to “Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution.” The archive in Bad Arolsen says with help from Israel’s Yad Vashem, documents with information on more than 2.2 million people are now available online. Work is still being done to improve searchability. Archive director Floriane Azoulay says with survivors dying out, “it is so important that the or...
New York - President Donald Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, told Congress it was Trump’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, who suggested he tell lawmakers that the negotiations for Trump Tower Moscow ended in January 2016, even though they continued for months after that. The House Intelligence Committee on Monday released two transcripts of closed-door interviews with Cohen from earlier this year, along with some exhibits from the testimony. Cohen, who is serving a three-year prison sentence, pleaded guilty last year and admitted that he misled Congress by saying he had abandoned the Trump Tower Moscow project months earlier than he actually did. During the interviews, legislators repeatedly pressed Cohen for details on his false statement to Congress and tried to nail do...
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels said Tuesday they attacked a Saudi airport and military base with a bomb-laden drone, an assault acknowledged by the kingdom as Mideast tensions remain high between Tehran and the United States. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The attack on the Saudi city of Najran came after Iran announced it has quadrupled its uranium-enrichment production capacity a year after the U.S. withdrew from its nuclear deal with world powers, though still a level far lower than needed for atomic weapons. Underlining the tensions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is seeking expanded executive powers to better deal with “economic war” triggered by the Trump’s administration’s renewa...
Dubai - Bahrain is defending its decision to host a White House-engineered conference to address the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, saying its only objective is to support the “brotherly Palestinian people.” The Palestinian Authority has rejected the economic conference planned for next month, saying any peace push that ignores the Palestinian people’s aspirations for an independent state is doomed to fail. Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, said his country supports the Palestinian demand for an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital. He tweeted Tuesday that it also respects the Palestinian leadership’s steadfast position safeguarding Palestinian rights. The Trump administration hopes to rally Arab Gulf countries to ...
Nearly 400 members of Congress sign letter calling on Trump to safeguard Israel’s interests with Syria’s civil war coming to an end. Nearly 400 members of Congress have signed a bipartisan letter to President Donald Trump calling on him to safeguard Israel’s interests with Syria’s civil war coming to an end, JTAreported on Monday. The letter, sent from members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, urged Trump to ensure that Israel has the support and materiel to maintain its qualitative military edge in the region. It also wants economic and diplomatic pressure on Russia and Iran to retreat from their support for the Assad regime, and intensifying sanctions on Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist militia that is Iran’s ally. “With the r...
If a person has the opportunity to do the mitzvah of Kiddush Levana and the mitzvah of sefiras ha’omer, which mitzvah should he do first? The issue at hand is the concept of “tadir ush’eino tadir tadir kodem.” If something comes around more often than something else, the priority goes to what comes more often. There is another question as far as how to interpret what is considered more often. Do we measure by the amount of times one does the mitzvah, or do we rather measure the mitzvah by how often we experience this mitzvah throughout the year? On one hand, Sefiras Haomer is done more often since we count for forty-nine days, whereas KiddushLevana is done twelve...
Pittsburgh - A county judge ordered Pittsburgh on Friday not to enforce firearms restrictions inspired by the deadly synagogue shooting in the city until lawsuits filed by gun owners are resolved, a decision reached after all parties agreed to the stay. Attorney Eric Tirschwell of gun-control advocacy organization Everytown Law, who is representing the city for free, said the stay was “consistent with the city’s goal all along, which is to put this in front of the court, let the courts decide whether these ordinances are permissible under Pennsylvania law,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported . Attorney Joshua Prince, who represents Firearms Owners Against Crime and the Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League, said he wanted the public to know that there would be no ...
An email sent by former FBI Director James ComeyOpens a New Window. to his staff could reveal some very bad news for former CIA Director John Brennan, according to Judge Andrew Napolitano. Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures”Opens a New Window. that Comey wrote, in an email to his leading upper echelon staff including James Baker, the former general counsel at the FBI, former agent Peter Strzok, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, that Brennan insisted the dossier be included in the intel assessment charge. Brennan has been accusing Trump of treason for the last two years, but if the email is accurate, it would show that it was Brennan who said use the dossier in the intel assessment that Ru...
Albany, NY - Lawmakers in New York are seeking to sharply narrow a proposal that would grant congressional committees access to state tax returns filed by President Donald Trump to address concerns that it could jeopardize the privacy of anyone who pays taxes in the state. Amendments filed over the weekend would revise the bill, so it only applies to elected leaders and top public officials, as well as companies in which they have significant ownership or control. The change, expected to be supported by the Democrat-led Senate and Assembly, could ease the way for passage of the overall bill as early as this week. Under earlier wording, the bill would have applied to any individual or corporation that pays New York taxes. Democrats say the measure is needed to give congressional committe...
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