Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg will donate $10 million Thursday to defend vulnerable Democratic House members against paid Republican attacks on their support for impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. The money, which is meant to even an arms race on the 2020 congressional battlefield, was cheered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has been fielding concerns from some of her members over a costly Republican advertising offensive as the House moves toward an impeachment vote next week. “In 2018, Mayor Bloomberg was a critical ally in helping House Democrats regain the majority,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Now, the stakes are even higher as we work to make health care more affordable by reducing the skyrocketing cost of prescription dr...
The Pentagon is halting operational training for all Saudi military students studying in the United States while it investigates last week’s deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola by a Saudi airman, defense officials said. The move is part of a “safety stand-down” ordered Tuesday by Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist under which the military will review how it screens foreign military students and grants them access to bases. Flight training and other operational exercises will cease for the roughly 850 Saudi trainees in the U.S. pending the completion of the review, which could take a week or more, defense officials said. That means Saudi pilots, including several hundred studying at Naval Air Station Pensacola and other Florida bases, will be grounded ...
WASHINGTON—Top lawmakers said they reached a tentative agreement on federal government spending, giving Congress and the White House about a week to approve the particulars before funding runs out after Dec. 20. “There’s a meeting of the minds,” said House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D., N.Y.). The agreement follows a meeting between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the leaders of the two committees on Thursday. Leaving that meeting, Mr. Mnuchin said that negotiators were focusing on a small list of remaining issues and that he planned to update President Trump on the talks later Thursday. The details of the agreement, which covers nearly $1.4 trillion in government spending across a dozen bills, wer...
WASHINGTON (JNS) — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Thursday falsely blamed “white supremacy” for Tuesday’s shooting at the JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City. Tlaib initiallly shared a tweet mourning the victims from IfNotNow, adding “This is heartbreaking. White supremacy kills.” The controversial congresswoman then deleted the tweet, apparently after realizing the identities of the perpetrators. The two suspects in the shooting, who were killed during the rampage at the grocery, also shot dead Jersey City Police Det. Joseph Seals, a 39-year-old father of five. One of the two suspects in the killing at the kosher supermarket was linked to the anti-Semitic Black Hebrew Israelite movement. According to a report on the shooting in the New York Post,...
U.S. negotiators have reached the terms of a phase-one trade deal with China that now awaits President Donald Trump’s approval, according to people briefed on the plans. The deal being presented to Trump includes a delay in the Dec. 15 new round of tariffs, a schedule for a rollback of some of the existing ones and a promise by the Chinese to buy more U.S. agricultural goods, according to the people. The terms have been agreed but the legal text has not yet been finalized, people said. Trade advisers met with the president on Thursday afternoon to discuss the pact and an announcement could come by day’s end, the people said. A White House spokesperson declined to comment. The administration has reached out to allies on Capitol Hill and in the business community to ...
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — The two killers who stormed a kosher market in Jersey City were driven by hatred of Jews and law enforcement, New Jersey’s attorney general said Thursday, adding that the case is being investigated as domestic terrorism. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal disclosed that the killers had five guns, including an AR-15-style rifle and a shotgun they were wielding when they burst into the store in an attack that left the scene littered with several hundred shell casings. Six people in all were killed in the rampage — a police officer gunned down at a cemetery, the killers and three people who had been inside the store. “The evidence points toward acts of hate. I can confirm that we’re investigating this matter as potential acts of domestic t...
BORO PARK (VINnews) — A man was arrested on Thursday after he pointed a handgun at a Hasidic man in Boro Park. Boro Park Shomrim received a call on Thursday to report that a man driving a peculiar bicycle on New Utrecht Avenue and 58th Street had just brandished a handgun. The NYPD was called, but the man had left the area by the time they responded to the scene. Boro Park Shomrim then contacted Crown Heights Shomrim to let them know that the man was heading in their direction. The Crown Heights area police department was notified as well. The suspect was followed by Shomrim from a distance until he reached the Crown Heights area. The NYPD’s 71 Precinct stopped the man at Washington Avenue and President Street, where he was searched. The man was found to have a fake handgun i...
This article is part of the Haaretz Hatovah series featuring Yidden living in, settling, and building up Eretz Yisroel. For more information please contact us at info@naavakodesh.org or visit naavakodesh.org/haaretz-hatovah Reflecting upon my life, I am not certain why or when it started, but in my heart was always a desire to live in Eretz Yisroel. Perhaps its root was in an early trauma of mine – when I was 7 and my brother 4. At that time my father was stationed in Turkey for an extended stay, and my mother left us with relatives to rendezvous with him in Israel! How I wanted to go with her! But all is gam zu l'tova and perhaps those feelings planted the seed… After our marriage, my husband learned in a Rochester kollel for 3 years, then we moved to North Miami ...
WASHINGTON (AP) Near the end of a marathon impeachment hearing in the House of Representatives last month, former White House national security aide Fiona Hill tied conservative jabs at George Soros to “the longest-running anti-Semitic trope that we have in history.” Anti-Soros theories amplified by conservatives are “the new ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’,” Hill told lawmakers, referring to an infamous early-20th-century screed that falsely asserts a Jewish conspiracy to control the world. Her comment focused fresh attention on the role of Soros’ Jewish identity in the right’s long-running portrayal of the liberal billionaire as using his wealth to manipulate events for his own benefit. Indeed, Soros’ status as an enemy of the far...
BERLIN (AP) — One of Germany’s richest families, which owns Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Pret A Manger and other international brands, is giving millions to support Holocaust survivors as it seeks to atone for its use of forced laborers during the Nazi era and its enthusiastic support of Adolf Hitler, The Associated Press has learned. In addition to 5 million euros ($5.5 million) being given to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany to help thousands of elderly survivors around the world, the Reimann family’s JAB Investors company plans to announce Thursday that it will provide another 5 million euros to find and support forced laborers used by its predecessor under the Nazis. An additional 25 million euros will be provided annually to Holocaust education an...
December's full moon is marking the end of the decade in a unique way. It will reach peak fullness at 12:12 a.m. Eastern time on the 12th day of the 12th month of the year, according to NASA. The full moon each December is sometimes known as the "Cold Moon," appearing as the Northern Hemisphere enters its coldest months of the year. According to the Farmer's Almanac, the Algonquin tribes in the northern and eastern United States first named December's full moon the Cold Moon. It's also been called the Long Night Moon by Europeans because of its proximity to the winter solstice — the longest night of the year. Read more at CBS News
JERSEY CITY (VINnews) — Deborah Perruzza, mother of slain Jersey City police officer Joseph Seals experienced a parent’s worst nightmare Tuesday. A son who goes out to work and never comes home. Perruzza recounted what it was like to go in and see her son’s body. “When I saw him yesterday, laying there, it was disgusting,” she told Fox News. “How can people be so cruel?” Seals was one of 4 victims in a deadly shooting attack Tuesday, that killed him, 3 civilians and the shooters themselves. The incident began in Bayview Cemetery, where Seals who was on duty but wearing plainclothes came upon the shooters. Seals was fatally shot on location, after which the bloody battle continued at the nearby JC Kosher Supermarket, where 3 civilians were murdere...
You can only run for so long. At some point the reality of our circumstances catch up with us. Yaakov knew the day would come when he would have to face his brother, Esav. Would Esav be seething with anger or had he moved on?  Could Yaakov and Esav rehabilitate their relationship or would they simply go their own ways? We could only imagine that these questions were on Yaakov’s mind the night before this fateful encounter. The Torah describes that after Yaakov crossed his family over the Jordan River, he found himself all alone, “va’yivaser Yaakov l’vado”. It was at this moment that he was attacked by the ish (man), (Rashi identifies this “man” as the ministering angel of Esav). They wrestled with one another throughout the night. Yaakov was i...
President Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin commented today, Thursday 12 December / 14 Kislev, on the dissolving of the Knesset and appealed to the Israeli public to keep faith in the democratic system President Rivlin: “I pray that the depth of the current political crisis and the divisions it exposes amongst us will lead us as a society and as a country to fight not only for the right to disagree with each other – but also to the duty to find what we can agree about.” “We must not allow ourselves to sink into despair or grievance, which does no good. We must not lose faith in the democratic system or in its ability to create the reality we live in with our own hands.” In his remarks, the president said, “Dear fellow Israeli citizens, after two ...
The Siyum Presents: Why We Learn Volume 2: A Yid Has to Know Shas “Knowing Shas is incredible – but not impossible!”  The Daf Puts Entire Torah Within our Reach Why We Learn: Volume 2 from Agudath Israel on Vimeo. “I am a working man, not the Gadol Hador. Knowing ‘kol haTorah kulah’ is out of my realm.”  This sentiment may be common, but it is untrue. No yid is complete without completing Shas. Even if one is familiar with all the practically relevant halachos, he is missing “the full picture” of the gift that Hashem has given Klal Yisroel. These holy words – and the values and vision behind them – are the core of who we are, and who we will continue to be throughout the generations.  How can one acc...
Agudath Israel of America welcomes President Trump’s Executive Order that seeks to target and combat anti-Semitism at American colleges and universities. This action embodies an understanding of federal law that has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress, and offers a definition of anti-Semitism that has been adopted by the State Department and by several international bodies and foreign governments. It is no secret that Jewish students on campus fear for their safety. The rise in anti-Semitic incidents and the increasingly poisonous atmosphere towards Jews at our institutions of higher education have been widely reported upon and acutely felt in our community. Jewish students on too many campuses face the reality of verbal and even physical attacks by other students, and of hostile...
'Given close proximity of new elections, it would be gratuitous for court to now decide issues raised by petitions,' judges state. Supreme Court Judges Noam Solberg, George Kara, and Yosef Elron today rejected petitions by the Movement for Quality Government and Adv. Raful Shafik demanding that Netanyahu resign and order the Attorney General to declare Netanyahu's incapacity. The petition asked the Supreme Court justices in addition to order Netanyahu to resign as Health Minister, Labor, Social Welfare, and Social Services Minister, Diaspora Minister, and Acting Agriculture and Rural Development Minister. In the decision the judges ruled the petitions be dismissed outright, "both because of failure to exhaust due process, and because the issues do not require adjudi...
A few weeks ago, Ayelet Wasserman, a 17-year-old girl originally from Los Angeles who now lives with her family in Jerusalem, visited the Jerusalem headquarters of United Hatzalah of Israel to donate an emergency ambucycle. Ayelet started raising money for United Hatzalah four years ago when, after a series of terror attacks in Jerusalem, she decided to do something to help protect the people in Israel. She had always had a dream of learning the entire bible and so she committed to learning two chapters a day – every day and to review the weekly portion every Shabbat (Saturday) with the goal of finishing the entire Bible within the year. Thinking of how reassuring it was to see Hatzalah volunteers present at every terror attack and always ready to help, Ayelet decided to use her dai...
(CNN) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to hold a final vote to acquit President Donald Trump should he be impeached, when a majority of senators believe his trial has run its course instead of holding a vote on dismissing the articles of impeachment, two Republican senators told CNN on Wednesday. That's significant, because Republicans want to have a vote on acquittal -- to clear the President of the charges against him -- not simply rely on a 51-vote threshold procedural motion to dismiss the hotly disputed case. The Constitution mandates 67 votes are required to convict the President and remove him from office, a barrier widely considered too high to be reached in this case. One vote McConnell can't rely on is that of Vice President ...
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