Video and photo evidence coming out of Iran shows multiple crowds refusing to walk on American and Israeli flags amid protests against the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment, signaling a rejection of the Tehran regime’s hardliner narrative and eliciting praise from some Western observers. The Iranian government often depicts domestic unrest as a product of foreign meddling, particularly by the US and Israel, in an effort to undercut the legitimacy of local opposition. Those countries’ flags have been burnt or otherwise damaged at pro-regime rallies, and deliberately placed or painted on the ground in public spaces so they could be symbolically walked over. Yet in a widely-shared video published Sunday, a crowd at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran was...
Eleven U.S. service members were flown out of Iraq and treated for concussion symptoms after Iran's rocket attack targeting Iraqi military bases earlier this month, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command revealed Thursday night. President Trump and U.S. officials had said earlier that no Americans were killed or injured in the Jan. 8 attack. Several U.S. troops "were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed. As a standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injury, and if deemed appropriate are transported to a higher level of care," Capt. Bill Urban, the Central Command spokesman, said Thursday. He said that although no U.S. service members were killed in the a...
Three new polls released Thursday after parties registered for the Knesset election Wednesday show neither side with a decisive advantage, despite the Blue and White party holding a consistent lead over the Likud. According to a poll conducted by Midgam on Thursday and released by Channel 12 Thursday night, if new elections were held today, the right-wing – religious bloc would hold a narrow edge over the left-wing – Arab bloc, with 57 seats to the Left’s 55, while Yisrael Beytenu, which has called for a unity government, would win eight seats. Blue and White would be the largest party in the Knesset once again, the poll shows, with 34 seats, compared to 32 for the Likud. Read more at Arutz Sheva.
Baltimore, MD – Jan. 15, 2020 - Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion is excited to host Mr. Charlie Harary, Esq. this Shabbos, Parshas Shemos. Harary is a prolific motivational speaker who has traveled throughout the world speaking for organizations, schools, universities and institutions on a variety of topics and to audiences of various sizes and affiliations. Harary has created dozens of videos that have received worldwide attention reaching hundreds of thousands of people in over 15 countries. He is a radio host, known internationally for his insights on personal growth, entrepreneurship and social change. He also serves as a Clinical Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University. For more details of when and where you can hear Harary, ...
Baltimore, MD —New campaign finance filings in the race for Baltimore mayor show a flood of high-dollar donations to two candidates in particular. The reports show two families in the Baltimore area are spending a lot of money on the race. One is related to the late H&S Bakery king John Paterakis and the other to the owners of Sinclair Broadcast Group. No one comes close to candidate Thiru Vignarajah's ability to draw big donations in his run for mayor. New campaign filings show that from August 2018 to January 2020, Vignarajah's campaign got 94 contributions from donors who paid $6,000, which is the maximum under Maryland law. That amounts to $564,000 that flowed into Vignarajah's campaign -- more than half the total amount he raised. Three big c...
Incumbent Bernard C. "Jack" Young and former Maryland Deputy Attorney General Thiru Vignrajah lead the pack in fundraising for Baltimore's mayoral race. Young has nearly $960,000 cash on hand, while Vignarajah has just over $840,000, according to campaign finance reports released Thursday. City Council President Brandon M. Scott has $429,000 cash on hand. State Sen. Mary Washington reported over $115,000 in her campaign account. Two candidates who don't currently hold elected office have far less in the bank. Former Mayor Sheila Dixon reported a balance of $88,759, while former police spokesman T.J. Smith has $22,161 available to his campaign. The primary election is on April 28. In heavily Democratic Baltimore, the winner of the primary is all but assured victory in the gen...
Street Closures for 20th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade The 20th annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade will be held on Monday, January 20th beginning at 12:00 noon.   The parade will start at the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Eutaw Street, near the State Office Complex, and proceed SOUTH along Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. It will disband on Baltimore Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Poppleton Street. The following streets will be CLOSED and parking will be prohibited: Street closures for this year’s parade will vary from years past. Changes are noted in italics.  - Franklin Street between Greene Street and Fremont Avenue from 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.  Acce...
Mayoral candidate T.J. Smith went to the scene of Wednesday's fatal shooting outside Royal Farms Arena. What he saw, he told Yuripzy Morgan, was as disturbing as what he didn't see. "There's a person's blood on the side of the Royal Farms Arena, a place that is a destination for tens of thousands of people and artists from all over the world who come to perform there. There's blood on the side of that building from somebody getting shot at 12:30 in the afternoon in broad daylight," Smith said. "While I was there, no elected officials were on that scene and we're blocks from City Hall. I didn't even really see any sort of condemnation which is normal of this suffocating violence. Fifteen murders in 15 days... and there seems to be no collective ...
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland would cut state income taxes for retirees under a proposal announced Thursday by Gov. Larry Hogan. Hogan, a Republican, said his proposal would bring more than $1 billion in tax relief for retirees over five years. Maryland taxes have forced too many Marylanders to leave the state when they retire, the governor said at a news conference announcing the plan. “This legislation will provide tax relief for more than 230,000 Marylanders, and it is the largest tax reduction in Maryland in more than two decades,” Hogan said. “It will help keep tens of thousands of Maryland retirees from being forced to flee our state.” Under the plan, retirees who make $50,000 or less would pay no state income taxes, Hogan said. Retirees earning les...
An IDF combat helicopter attacked an infrastructure used by Hamas for underground operations in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday evening, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit confirmed. The attack was carried out in response to the launching of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory earlier in the day. An explosive device attached to balloons and launched from the Gaza Strip exploded in an open area on Thursday afternoon in the Sdot Negev Regional Council. There were no injuries. Read more at Arutz Sheva.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin could pardon Naama Issachar, a 26-year-old Israeli backpacker jailed in Russia over an alleged attempt to smuggle some 10 grams of pot, ahead of his visit to Israel in late January. The report comes from the Russian Kommersant newspaper on Thursday, citing sources in the Russian government; earlier in the day, Israel’s caretaker PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that progress has been made on the matter in a phone call with the Russian leader. Naama Issachar has been handed a 7.5 year sentence by a Moscow court after about 10 grams of cannabis were allegedly found in her luggage as she flew from India to Israel via Moscow. Read more at i24NEWS.
Video of a man plastering a Nazi swastika symbol in a subway station on New York City’s Upper West Side was released by the NYPD on Thursday. The incident occurred on New Year’s Eve at the 96th Street subway station. Surveillance video showed the man crafting a swastika out of service advisory fliers that had been distributed by the city’s transport authority on the platform. Law enforcement officials hope that the video will aid in apprehending the suspect, who is also being sought by police in connection with an “aggravated harassment incident.” In a separate statement, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he had instructed the Hate Crimes Division of the New York State Police to assist the NYPD in its investigation of the subway incident. &ld...
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors in Washington are investigating a years-old leak of classified information about a Russian intelligence document, and they appear to be focusing on whether the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey illegally provided details to reporters, according to people familiar with the inquiry. The case is the second time the Justice Department has investigated leaks potentially involving Mr. Comey, a frequent target of President Trump, who has repeatedly called him a “leaker.” Mr. Trump recently suggested without evidence that Mr. Comey should be prosecuted for “unlawful conduct” and spend years in prison. The timing of the investigation could raise questions about whether it was motivated at least in part by politics. Prose...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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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