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January 16, 2020 at 9:08 pm
NEW YORK (VINnews) — Grafton Thomas (37), the alleged attacker at a Monsey Hanukkah party last month, had more than 20 previous encounters with police in his native town of Greenwood Lake for incidents ranging from an alleged rape, assault and a marijuana bust, according to a New York Post report.
Documents obtained from the Greenwood Lake Police department revealed more than 20 previous police run-ins with Grafton Thomas over the past two decades.
In 2002, Thomas was arrested for smoking marijuana with two other teenagers near Greenwood Lake and in 2009 he was arrested again for allegedly attacking a man near his car on a state highway while the victim’s son watched from the back seat.
In 2005 a 19-year-old woman claimed that Thomas had tried to rape her on a street where h...
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January 16, 2020 at 9:04 pm
BOSTON (AP) — A computer security expert says he found that an election server central to a legal battle over the integrity of Georgia elections showed signs of tampering.
The server was left exposed to the open internet for at least six months, a problem discovered in August 2016. It was subsequently wiped clean in mid-2017 with no notice, just days after election integrity activists filed a lawsuit seeking an overhaul of what they called the state’s unreliable and negligently run election system.
In late December 2019, the plaintiffs were finally able to obtain a copy of the server’s contents that the FBI made in March 2017 and retained.
State officials have said they’ve seen no evidence that any election-related data was compromised.
Logan Lamb, a security ex...
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January 16, 2020 at 8:58 pm
NEW CITY, N.Y. (AP) — The man charged in an attack at a suburban New York Hanukkah celebration that left five people wounded, one critically, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other charges on Thursday.
Grafton Thomas appeared in Rockland County Court. On Monday, he also pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges. Thomas was arrested hours after five people were stabbed at an attack at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City.
His lawyer, Michael Sussman, has said Thomas suffers from mental illness and is not responsible for his actions.
Prosecutor Dominic Crispino said in court on Thursday that Sussman should resign from the case because he videotaped evidence being taken out of Thomas’ cabin and therefore became a w...
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January 16, 2020 at 8:55 pm
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said an attack helicopter struck a Hamas target in the northern Gaza Strip late Thursday in response to the launch of incendiary balloons into Israeli territory earlier in the day.
Israeli police said the balloons touched down in southern Israel and a bomb squad was dispatched. Police said there was an explosion, but there were no injuries.
The Israeli military said its airstrike targeted “infrastructure used for underground activities” by Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group. In Gaza, local reports said the airstrike hit an open area. There were no reports of injuries.
During more than a year and half of mass demonstrations along the Israeli border that began in early 2018, Palestinians frequently launched incendiary balloons ...
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January 16, 2020 at 8:51 pm
The new president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, pledged on Tuesday to “keep the [Guatemalan] embassy in Yerushalayim and designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization” during a meeting in Guatemala City with Ofir Akunis, Israeli Minister of Science, Technology and Space.
The Guatemalan embassy opened in Yerushalayim in May 2018, shortly after the U.S. one did.
Akunis expressed appreciation for Giammattei’s “courageous friendship” with Israel and the Jewish people, as well as for his declaration about the Iranian proxy Hezbollah.
“You express the deep and long-standing friendship between the two countries, Mr. President. Jerusalem has been the heart of the Jewish people for 3,000 years,” he said.
He added that “Hezbollah is a terro...
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January 16, 2020 at 8:48 pm
Billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik has given a $1 million grant to SpaceIL, the Israeli nonprofit organization behind Beresheet, the unmanned spacecraft that crashed on the moon’s surface in April. The Blavatnik Family Foundation made the announcement Wednesday. The grant is intended to advance the goal of landing an unmanned Israeli spacecraft on the moon through the Beresheet 2.0 spacecraft program, according to the foundation’s statement.
Blavatnik’s grant is intended to allow SpaceIL to hire a new CEO, the statement said. SpaceIL has not made any announcements regarding the replacement of its current CEO, Ido Anteby.
In June, SpaceIL said that it regarded its first moon venture a success, as it made Israel the seventh country to reach the moon’s orbit. Spac...
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January 16, 2020 at 8:33 pm
Signs of new tensions between Egypt with Hamas in the Gaza Strip have emerged in recent days, following the recent killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani by the United States.
This source of the rift was Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh’s surprise decision to lead a senior Hamas delegation to Tehran to attend Soleimani’s funeral. While in Tehran, Haniyeh offered his condolences to the Iranian leadership and Soleimani’s family.
Soleimani’s assassination caught Haniyeh during a visit to Qatar. He left Gaza two weeks ago with special permission from Egyptian authorities, who have prevented him from traveling abroad for three years in an attempt to keep Iranian and Turkish influence from endangering Egypt’s efforts to calm the Gaza Strip and move...
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January 16, 2020 at 8:27 pm
Baltimore, MD - Jan. 16, 2020 - It has come to our attention that GE mistakenly removed a critical piece of information from some STAR-K certified oven manuals. In the following list of GE, Hotpoint and Crosley models, Sabbath Mode does NOT control the light inside the oven. The light WILL turn on if you open the oven even when in Sabbath Mode.
Owners of these ovens should either leave the light on over the duration of Shabbos/Yom Tov or simply remove the light bulb ahead of time.
List of affected models is here.
Corrective action is being taken.
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January 16, 2020 at 8:13 pm
A lengthy dialogue between G-d and Moshe ensues subsequent to the encounter at the Burning Bush where G-d reveals his intent to charge Moshe with the task of taking the nation out of Egypt.
Moshe first questions whether the nation will actually believe him. He then objects to this role because of his speech impediment. G-d is patient and doesn’t react to Moshe’s hesitance, attempting to encourage him that He will provide him with all the tools he will need to succeed.
Moshe suddenly takes a totally different tack by claiming that Aharon is the more worthy candidate to lead the nation out of Egypt. Aharon had been devotedly guiding the people for eighty years as a prophet, during the course of the difficult years of slavery, while Moshe disappeared for sixty years, having fled...
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January 16, 2020 at 8:06 pm
An Owings Mills synagogue was the target of threats, which could lead to a 25-year prison sentence, according to federal prosecutors.
BALTIMORE, MD — A man has been indicted on federal charges related to phone calls made to a Maryland synagogue. Authorities allege he threatened to kill members of an Owings Mills synagogue and burn down the building.
Stephen Lyle Orback, 65, was indicted on federal charges of intentionally attempting to obstruct people from exercising their religious beliefs through the threatened use of force and threatening communications.
Orback is accused of threatening to kill members of an Owings Mills synagogue using firearms and explosives and by burning the synagogue down, according to the federal indictment. He made the threats by calling an employee of t...
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January 16, 2020 at 4:17 pm
Stocks climbed to fresh records on Thursday, closing near session highs, after the Senate passed the second historic trade deal in as many days following the signing of the phase one trade deal on Wednesday.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is finished, and once ratified by all three countries will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA. The Dow continued to climb past 29,000 after closing above that level for the first time this week.
A run-up in Google also supported the broader market, the search giant topped $1 trillion in market value for the first time.
Earnings from the big banks wrapped up with Morgan Stanley reporting top and bottom-line results that were ahead of Wall Street estimates as revenue from ...
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January 16, 2020 at 3:54 pm
Baltimore, MD – Jan. 16, 2020 - Seven Mile Market’s Customer Appreciation Kickoff Event held this past Sunday was a BIG success, quite literally. With 3 balloon artists inflating and shaping balloons non-stop for 3 ½ hours, over 3,000 Reisman pastries, 1700 Klein’s mini ice cream sandwiches in two great new flavors, 1500 Norman’s yogurts, 1200 Stern’s pastries, more than 1100 Mehadrin ice cream bars, 750 Mehadrin Yo Bars, over 700 Gevina whole milk yogurts, over 700 samples of Bgan breaded cauliflower, over 700 Shindler’s fish sticks, 600 samples by Jon’s Gourmet made from 30 pounds of cheese and 60 pounds of fries, 600 Meal Mart egg rolls, over 400 Bgan French toast sticks, hundreds of Chef Kingdom donut holes, waffles and blint...
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January 16, 2020 at 3:45 pm
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson emphatically pledged on Wednesday to “stamp out the resurgence of antisemitism.”
Johnson — during Prime Minister’s Questions at the House of Commons — was asked by Conservative MP Andrew Percy whether, in light of the approaching International Holocaust Remembrance Day, he would “commit to more action to stamp out antisemitism and all intolerance in this country.”
The prime minister replied, “We are in the government and in the House — I think across the House — wanting to do absolutely everything we can to stamp out the resurgence of antisemitism.”
“As someone who’s now 55-years-old,” he said, “I find it absolutely incredible that in the 21st century we hav...
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January 16, 2020 at 3:42 pm
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will, on Sunday (19 January 2020), at the weekly Cabinet meeting, submit for Cabinet approval, a draft decision to allocate NIS 30 million to Nahariya for repairing damages from the recent flooding.
During his visit earlier this week to Nahariya, Prime Minister Netanyahu directed Prime Minister's Office Acting Director General Ronen Peretz to prepare a government plan for repairing flood damage in Nahariya. The plan, which was formulated together with Interior, Tourism, Housing and Construction, Energy, Environmental Protection and Finance ministers, includes budgets for the immediate rehabilitation of the city, financing of urgent activities, evacuation of hazards and the upgrading of infrastructures that were damaged in the flooding.
The decision ...
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January 16, 2020 at 3:14 pm
Like so many others, I left MetLife Stadium after the Siyum HaShas celebrating the culmination of the 13th study cycle of Daf Yomi ready to take on the world, or at least the 2,711 pages of the Babylonian Talmud. Having spent four hours at the siyum, it was nearly impossible not to catch “Daf Yomi fever,” and when Sunday, January, 5th, dawned crisp and cold, I sat down with my chavrusa and we began learning the opening words of the first of the 63 tractates of the Talmud. Like so many others, I found myself wondering why the Talmud starts with a discussion of the mitzvah of Krias Shema and segues into a story about Raban Gamliel’s sons coming home quite late after attending a “beis mishte,” described by the Rambam as an exclu...
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January 16, 2020 at 3:09 pm
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov said on Tuesday that a prisoner-exchange deal for an Israeli-American woman being held in Russia on drug charges is not being considered.
“As far as I know, an exchange option is not being looked at,” he said, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.
“[Naama Issachar] was convicted on criminal charges,” he continued. “As for [Issachar’s] complaints with the European Court of Human Rights, it is the job of her attorneys. We can advise nothing about that. It is her right.”
The 27-year-old was arrested by Russian authorities after 9.5 grams of cannabis were found in her luggage during a layover in Moscow in April. She was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years for drug trafficking.
It is widely beli...
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January 16, 2020 at 3:00 pm
As shuls nationwide debate whether to have armed individuals in their building to prevent possible terror attacks, the Secure Community Network has issued new research and scenarios on who might carry arms in a congregation—from trained law-enforcement personnel to congregational members—and how to keep attendees safe.
Titled “Firearms and the Faithful: Approaches to Armed Security in Jewish Community,” the 24-page white paper was crafted by SCN—the security arm of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. It was written in consultations with security experts, including federal and local law-enforcement officials.
The guidelines come just weeks after a terror attack at the home of a rabbi...
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January 16, 2020 at 2:43 pm
Chief Justice John Roberts and the senators who will serve as jurors were sworn in Thursday for the Trump impeachment trial, as the historic proceedings opened in the Senate with a mix of pageantry and partisan swipes.
"Senators, I attend the Senate in conformity with your notice for the purpose of joining with you for the trial of the president of the United States," Roberts said, before Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore, administered the oath to him.
Roberts then immediately swore in the senators, who will act as the jury in the trial. And one-by-one, each senator took turns approaching the well of the Senate to sign an oath book.
Earlier on Thursday, House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving led a procession of Democratic "managers" across the Capi...
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January 16, 2020 at 2:31 pm
Members of Congress have called for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which is closely affiliated with the regime in Tehran, for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires lobbyists and lobbying groups to disclose their activities on behalf of foreign governments.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported the development on Tuesday.
NIAC, which is registered as a U.S. nonprofit, was known for playing a crucial role in the Obama administration’s “echo chamber”—a term coined by Obama National Security Council official Ben Rhodes—in disseminating misleading information about the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“We write to urge you to review the activities of the National Irani...
