Israeli police ​forces were rushed to a public park in the southern city of Sderot as residents noticed a suspicious bundle of balloons. ​The police forces professionally and carefully examined the balloons which were indeed connected to explosives. The danger was neutralized. Read more at Arutz Sheva.
In his first public sermon in eight years, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 80, told tens of thousands of chanting worshipers on Friday that God’s backing had allowed his country to “slap the face” of the U.S. “We delivered a slap to U.S.’ image as a superpower.” Khamenei spoke at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, an indoor and outdoor complex used as a communal prayer center for Muslim holidays and as an arena for election campaigns. American flags were spread on the floor in the entrances so that worshipers could tread on them. Banners inside read, “Death to America.”
During a ceremony in the Oval Office on Thursday in which US President Donald Trump issued a new guidance to better protect prayer in public schools and federal funds for religious organizations, he heard from a Jewish public-school student from Florida who recalled being bullied in middle school because of her religion. “In my middle school, I was the only Jewish person and I was very open with my religion,” said Ariana Hoblin. “I would announce when I would have Shabbat plans, which is a day of prayer and rest.” “When we started our Holocaust unit, it ended with everybody being nice to me because I spoke out about it,” she continued. “And I wanted to inform people, and I wanted to help people learn.” Hoblin then went to say tha...
Game changer: After running a pop-up kosher restaurant during winter break, Bryan O’Shields of the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas tells COLlive.com he is working with the local Chabad and OK Kosher to open a Mediterranean-style eatery. Sun, sand, sea and… kosher! A new Glatt Kosher restaurant will be opening at the world-famous luxurious Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, COLlive.com has learned. Thousands of Orthodox Jews flock to the island in the West Indies each year. The Atlantis is a favorite destination for many families, being an all-inclusive resort a three-hour flight from New York with water parks and other family-friendly attractions and activities. Throughout the year, Chabad of the Bahamas directors Rabbi Sholom and Sheera Bluming...
Twelve-year-old Chayale Mendelsohn recently celebrated her bat mitzvah in her hometown of Jackson Hole, Wyo., which is better known for wild elk and exhilarating skiing than Torah study and Shabbat candles. Vivacious and articulate, Chayale is a chip off the old block of her parents, Rabbi Zalman and Raizy Mendelsohn, who have directed Chabad of Wyoming since Chayale was an infant (she now has 5 younger siblings). The bat mitzvah was somewhat of a statewide milestone, attracting guests from hundreds of miles. After the event, Robin Levin from Lander, Wyo., who drove three hours to attend, wrote that it “provided a foundation for a hopeful future, with leadership in the offing.” Still on a high from the beautiful and spiritual ...
Thunderstorms and heavy downpours hit central Israel and are set to spread and intensify throughout the country in the coming days; snowfall in the Golan Heights is also expected to continue A new bout of turbulent weather hit Israel on Sunday morning with heavy rain and thunderstorms hitting central parts of the country. In the north, snow began falling on the Golan Heights and is set to intensify in the coming days. The downpour is also set to intensify and spread to others areas of the country, with flooding expected across the coastal cities, the Judean Desert and the Jordan Valley. Since the early morning hours, heavy rains already forced road closures in some areas of the country. In the central city of Bnei Brak, Lehi Street has been closed off to traffic in both directi...
The number of annual real estate deals has fallen in recent years in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, the Madlan website reports. A slump in the number of deals in Israel's big cities and a slump in the luxury housing market and price rises by tens of percentage points in many cities - these were the more outstanding findings in a report of Israel's real estate market over the past decade by the website Madlan. Madlan CEO Eitan Singer explains that his company gathers data about the real estate market for a range of sources including deals published by the Israel Tax Authority, data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Airbnb apartments in every neighborhood, and more. Jerusalem losing ground According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel's populatio...
At the beginning of October, a 31-year-old construction estimator named Samantha parked her Honda Fit on the street in Chicago. She left her backpack with a laptop and external hard drive in it under the backseat, and carefully covered the seat with a black blanket. Yet by the time she came back to her car, a burglar had smashed a window, broken in, and stolen the bag. Samantha reported the incident to the police but never heard back. Unfortunately, car burglaries are common in the United States, especially in large cities. But Samantha's experience also has something else in common with many other break-ins around the country: It felt like the robbers knew there was valuable gear in the vehicle. "I had other things in the car worth money, like a wallet with $50 ...
The number of lists running in the March 2020 elections is the smallest since Israel's founding in 1948, Israel Hayom noted. According to Israel Hayom, a full thirty party lists will be represented in the voting booths, but thanks to mergers on both left and right, just eight of these lists have a real chance of making it into the Knesset. Several of these lists are made of a few different parties. It is estimated that 144,000 votes will be thrown away on smaller parties which will fail to gather the 3.25% support ensuring them a ticket into the next Knesset. The new record replaces the previous one, set in September 2019, when members of the 22nd Knesset belonged to just nine different lists. In April 2019, 11 lists were represented in the 21st Knesset, while in Ap...
Newly discovered documents that were recovered from the drowned body of a patriot pastor shed light on the fight for religious freedom during the Revolutionary War. The water-stained documents, which are being sold by the Raab Collection, were taken from the body of the Rev. Moses Allen, a pastor and patriot who was captured in Savannah, Ga., by British forces in late 1778. Around the same time, Mordecai Sheftall, a prominent figure in the Savannah Jewish community and officer in the Continental Army, was also captured by the British, along with his son. Mordecai Sheftall is described as the highest-ranking Jew in the American Revolution. Allen and the Sheftalls were taken to the prison ship Nancy. “Allen was persecuted for being a parson who preached freedom from the pulpit,&rdquo...
Senate Republicans are discussing speeding up the pace of President Trump's impeachment trial by using the trial rules to limit the number of days each side has to make opening arguments.   Republicans, according to senators, are discussing giving both Trump's legal team and House managers 24 hours to present their case, similar to the 1999 proceeding. But unlike the Clinton trial, each side would have to use their time within two days.    "We're going to give both sides a full and fair opportunity to present their case. ... Phase one is going to be the opening arguments from the House managers and from the White House. Each will have 24 hours spread out over two days to present the arguments they want," Sen. Ted Cru...
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he made the call to release to the media hundreds of text messages between two high-ranking FBI employees after they criticized then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, according to new court filings the Justice Department released late Friday night. In the messages, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page insulted Trump as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), expressing a preference for Hillary Clinton in the election. The messages, which were exchanged on government cellphones, also revealed that the two were engaged in an extramarital affair, which has made them the subject of public harassment as well as ridicule from the president. During former special cou...
NEW YORK (AP) — Three people were sentenced to prison Friday for a 2015 explosion in Manhattan’s East Village that was caused by an illegally installed gas line and killed two men. Maria Hrynenko, a landlord; Athanasios Ioannidis, a plumber; and Dilber Kukic, a contractor, each received a term of four to 12 years in state prison for manslaughter and assault, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. The blast, which leveled half a block in a crowded neighborhood filled with shops and restaurants, resulted in the deaths of Nicholas Figueroa, 23, and Moises Locon, 26, and seriously injured 13 other people. The men who died were a guest and a busboy in a Japanese restaurant housed in the building on Second Avenue owned by Hrynenko. Ioannidis was operating wit...
Vice President Pence penned a new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, calling for Senate Democrats to acquit President Trump in the upcoming impeachment trial. Retelling the story of President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, Pence highlighted then-Senator Edmund G. Ross’s decision to break with the Republican party and vote to acquit Johnson. “But at the close of the trial on May 16, 1868, he stayed true to his convictions, opposed the passions of his own party, and voted to acquit Johnson. He faced social ostracism and physical assault. Still, he knew he was right,” Pence wrote. Pence goes on in the piece to compare Johnson’s impeachment to Trump’s, and calls on Democrats to buck their party and acquit the president in the same way as Ross. ...
The British government has moved to freeze all assets connected Hezbollah after proscribing the entire group as a terrorist organization, according to Reuters. Britain’s Treasury announced the development in a statement Friday, saying it was given the authority to do so under its Terrorism and Terrorist Financing rules. The entire group is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, Canada, the Arab League, along with various countries in South America and Australia among others. Read more at i24NEWS.
President Donald Trump delivered a dramatic account of the airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, joked that he doesn’t care if construction projects kill all the rattlesnakes and noted his indifference to the budget during a private dinner with deep-pocketed donors Friday night at Mar-a-Lago, according to audio files obtained by The Washington Post. Trump, his tone subdued and conversational, explained his motivation for attacking Soleimani and recounted listening to an anonymous military official countdown to the Jan. 3 strike. The president spoke broadly about Soleimani as “the father of the road side bomb” responsible for “every young, beautiful man or woman who see walking around with no legs, no arms.” Trump said he heard about two weeks a...
President Trump's legal team on Saturday issued a full-throttled defense to the articles of impeachment, refuting the substance and process of the charges while accusing House Democrats of engaging in a "dangerous attack" on the right of the American people to freely choose their president. "This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election now just months away," said a source close to the president's legal team, reading from the expected legal filing. The legal paperwork is the first formal response to the two articles of impeachment read in the Senate on Thursday for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump's lawyers argued that...
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison aimed to reassure residents Friday after a brazen downtown shooting. Khari Johnson, 20, of Gwynn Oak, was gunned down Wednesday afternoon outside Royal Farms Arena. Ashraf Shafie, the owner of a nearby store, voiced his frustrations to WBAL-TV 11 "This is not right. The mayor, the City Council, everybody should be involved in this," Shafie said. "They can't just be sitting there doing nothing. I need help. We need help in here. I thought it was rock bottom until someone got killed on the street in front of my store here. The main street in Baltimore does not have security. I used to have police come here all the time. No one is here anymore." Speaking to C4, Harrison said police share his frustration and stressed that ...
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison and Mayor Jack Young have released statements regarding a viral video that reportedly shows a sergeant being spit on and attacked. "Just before midnight last night, one of our sergeants was conducting a business check on Pennsylvania Avenue when a person in the business became argumentative with the sergeant and spat in his face. Subsequently, as the video that was recently posted online shows, several other people began kicking the sergeant as he was trying to arrest the suspect," says the statement from Harrison.   Young released a statement, saying, "The video circulating of a Baltimore police sergeant being attacked while trying to do his job and make an appropriate arrest is a reminder of the dangers our law enforcement ...
Moshe Greenblatt, the 22-year-old Jewish man who was stabbed Saturday in Kiryat Arba, near Hevron, spoke from his hospital bed about the terror attack. "Thank G-d, I feel good," Greenblatt said. "The knife broke and he didn't manage to stab any of the people around me." "It's sad that a Jew cannot walk wherever he wants in the Land of Israel, especially in Hevron - a place which belongs to us - and they don't do anything to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future." The terrorist who stabbed Greenblatt was apprehended by IDF troops and an Israeli civilian at the scene. Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedic Hanoch Zelinger said: When we arrived at the scene we saw the injured man, a 22-year-old man walking while conscious and stabbed in the shoulder," "We i...
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