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July 14, 2020 at 10:37 am
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh on Monday joined a coalition of 18 attorneys general who have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration’s decision to make international students leave the U.S. if they intend to take classes entirely online starting this fall.
The suit, which follows legal action taken by individual institutions including Johns Hopkins University, seeks to stop the rule from going into effect. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.
“This reversal is a cruel attempt to throw hundreds of thousands of international students out of the country,” Frosh said in a statement. “The more than 20,000 international students attending universities in Maryland contribute $800 million every year to ...
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July 14, 2020 at 10:32 am
'This is the most significant milestone since the launch,' head of space program says
Israel has received its first images from the Ofek 16 satellite, launched into space on July 6, the Defense Ministry allowed for publication Tuesday.
The high quality images were received overnight at an Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) control station in the city of Yehud in central Israel, a ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
In the coming weeks, engineering teams are expected to complete the rigorous tests, and prepare the satellite for full operational use, the statement read.
“This is the most significant milestone since the launch of the Ofek 16 satellite,” Head of the Space and Satellite Administration in the Defense Ministry Amnon Harari said.
“The ...
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July 14, 2020 at 10:20 am
Everything else about the coronavirus has become politicized in America, so why not a return to school as well? That’s the depressing state of play as President Trump pushes schools to reopen while Democrats heed teachers unions that demand more federal money and even then may not return. The losers, as ever, would be the children.
The evidence — scientific, health and economic — argues overwhelmingly for schools to open in the fall. Start with the relative immunity of young children to the disease, which should reassure parents.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 children under age 15 have died from COVID-19. In a typical year 190 children die of the flu, 436 from suicide, 625 from homicide, and 4,114 from unin...
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July 13, 2020 at 10:30 pm
Turkey’s President Erdogan is vowing to “liberate Al-Aqsa mosque” in Yerushalayim from Israel, the official Turkish presidency website said.
Erdogan also announced Muslim prayers at the Hagia Sophia museum, first constructed as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire and converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The mosque became a museum in 1935.
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July 13, 2020 at 10:19 pm
Joe Biden’s pledge to restore American jobs shows he has “good pollsters” but his calls for tax and regulatory increases will kill jobs rather than create them and plunge the United States into a “very deep recession,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich insisted Monday.
“He has always been so close to China that it’s hard to imagine he would follow Trump’s policy of negotiating as toughly as (President Donald) Trump has, for example, with Mexico and Canada,” Gingrich said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “Biden can whistle the tune, but he can’t dance the dance. When you look at his programs they would kill jobs in America.”
Gingrich added that every economist he knows believes Biden’s tax incr...
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July 13, 2020 at 10:15 pm
President Trump is pushing a ludicrous theory that doctors are purposefully lying about the novel coronavirus pandemic because they want to harm his chances of re-election later this year, the Daily Beast reports.
Today, Trump retweeted the conservative conspiracy theorist and former game-show host Chuck Woolery as he dismissed medical experts as politically-motivated liars. The incendiary tweet read: “The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.” Read more at Daily Beast
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July 13, 2020 at 10:10 pm
Scientist Dr. Li-Meng Yan says supervisors covered up her potentially life-saving coronavirus research.
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July 13, 2020 at 10:10 pm
Southwest Airlines warned employees on Monday that passengers numbers need to triple by the end of the year in order to avoid layoffs.
The airline has never had involuntary job cuts but passenger numbers are down 73 percent from 2019, Bloomberg News reported. It gave employees until Wednesday to apply for voluntary separation or to take extended time off because the company is overstaffed for the existing amount of flights.
“Although furloughs and layoffs remain our very last resort, we can’t rule them out as a possibility in this really bad environment,” CEO Gary Kelly said in his weekly message to staff on Monday, according to Bloomberg. “We need a significant recovery by the end of this year, and that’s roughly triple the number of passengers from where w...
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July 13, 2020 at 10:09 pm
A New Jersey woman survived a harrowing mile-long ride through a storm drain after flash floods swept her and her car into the drainage system.
Passaic Fire Chief Patrick Trentacost said Nathalia Bruno, of Newark, attempted to drive through deep and fast-moving water dumped by a powerful storm on July 6 when her car began to fill with water and float. Brook was able to escape from her vehicle before it filled with water but was pulled into a brook that runs beneath Passaic, the North Jersey Herald reported.
Rutherford Police Chief John Russo said Bruno eventually was “shot out” of the drain into the Passaic River and swam across to the other side of the river where she was taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries and shock.
Read more at ABC News.
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July 13, 2020 at 9:49 pm
Baltimore, MD – July 9, 2020 - It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petira of Dovid Moshe Yasnyi, z’l, father of Akiva Yasnyi.
Akiva (443-970-9609) is returning to complete shiva in Baltimore outdoors at 3303 Taney Road, Baltimore, MD, 21215, beginning Tuesday evening 6:30 PM.Mincha/Maariv: 8:20 PMShacharis Wed morning 8:00 AM outdoors after which shiva concludes
Bila HaMaves LaNetzach...
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July 13, 2020 at 4:30 pm
Update as of 4:30 PM:B"h the Rosh Yeshiva situation is not life threatening.He is alert and in good spirits.###All are asked to daven for the posek hador, Maran Rav Dovid Feinstein, who is in need of rachamei Shomayim.
Rav Feinstein has returned to the hospital after experiencing recurring symptoms. The rosh yeshiva, who is in Columbia Medical Center in New York City, needs our tefillos.
Please daven for Dovid ben Shima l’refuah sheleimah.
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July 13, 2020 at 4:24 pm
The American “maximum pressure” campaign has clearly had a major impact on Iran, but a massive influx of Chinese investments will go a long way towards undoing it.
With Iran and China working on a multibillion-dollar 25-year economic and security deal, Israel has many reasons to be concerned and even alarmed.The proposed agreement, leaked to The New York Times, which reported on it on Saturday, would lead to a closer military relationship between Tehran and Beijing, including joint military exercises, research and weapons development and intelligence sharing. It would also increase Chinese investments in Iranian banking, telecommunications and transportation, such as airports and railways. China would reportedly get a discounted supply of Iranian oil...
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July 13, 2020 at 4:23 pm
The Cabinet approved a draft law that includes several issues in the economic plan that will require changes to legislation: Expanding the eligibility for unemployment compensation, adjustment stipends for those aged 67 and over, assistance to the self-employed and businesses, expanding the permit for discharged soldiers to make withdrawals from their discharge deposits, and a tax exemption for withdrawals from advanced training funds.
The Cabinet also approved a draft law to expand the 2020-2021 budgetary framework by NIS 24 billion in order to expand and implement the plan.
The draft laws will be submitted for Knesset approval immediately.
Following are details of the economic plan as approved by the Cabinet:
A) Safety net for wage earners on unpaid leave
1) Unemployment compensatio...
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July 13, 2020 at 4:23 pm
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered the closure of indoor activities of certain businesses statewide as cases of coronavirus surge in the country’s most populous state.
Newsom, a Democrat, announced during a press briefing that all bars across the state must close-up shop and that restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, family entertainment centers, zoos, museums and card rooms have to suspend indoor activities.
The governor also announced that all gyms, places of worship, malls, personal care services, barbershops, salons, and non-critical offices, in counties on the state’s “monitoring list” had to shut down under the new order. The order affects more than 30 counties in the state, or about 80 percent of California’s ...
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July 13, 2020 at 4:18 pm
The American-Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) issued a message to the public to urge senators to oppose efforts to restrict aid to Israel.
In an online petition initiated by AIPAC, the lobby says: "Presidents Barack Obama & George W. Bush agreed to successive 10-year memorandums of understanding with Israel. Neither imposed political restrictions because doing so would undermine U.S. national security interests." Read more at Arutz-7
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July 13, 2020 at 4:13 pm
Bezeq Israel Telecom said on Sunday it would soon double internet speeds to 200 megabits per second after receiving long-awaited approval from regulators.
Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecoms group, has long sought permission from the Communications Ministry to allow it to offer speeds of more than 100 Mbps but the regulator had rejected the request saying its view that Bezeq would not want to deploy a fibre optics network.
But the coronavirus outbreak showed that Israel’s infrastructure was not sufficient, with many parents complaining of network issues when multiple children were learning from home on Zoom and other video services.
“This reality sharpens the need for a high-quality and stable Internet infrastructure capable of delivering high browsing speeds,” said...
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July 13, 2020 at 4:12 pm
Gov. Andrew Cuomo released new information regarding the potential reopening of schools in New York amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuomo said the reopening of schools will echo the state’s economic reopening, and will follow a data-based process to make sure students are not put at risk.
Under the plan, schools will be able to open in the fall for regions that are under phase four. The daily infection rate in these regions must remain lower than 5% over a 14-day average.
Read more at NBC NY.
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July 13, 2020 at 4:11 pm
Whether it was a senior commander in Hamas’s elite naval commando force who defected to Israel, as initially reported on Sunday, or merely a junior officer in the unit as was subsequently reported, the incident still represents a major Israeli intelligence coup.
Unconfirmed reports claimed the Hamas commander escaped aboard an Israeli military boat, carrying his laptop, surveillance equipment and “classified documents” the circulation of which would be harmful to Hamas. He had reportedly been cooperating with Israel since 2009.
Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya on Sunday identified the alleged defector, who reportedly escaped Gaza on Saturday accompanied by his brother, as Mohammed Omar Abu Ajwa.
Citing Hamas’s Interior Ministry and Palestinian med...
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July 13, 2020 at 4:10 pm
Iran warned on Monday that any country found to be responsible for the explosion at its Natanz nuclear enrichment facility on July 2 should expect retaliation.
“After summarizing, a full report will be presented in this regard and then, we will take the necessary actions in accordance with the findings that will be made after the investigation,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi.
“If a regime or a government is involved in the Natanz incident, Iran will react decisively,” stressed Mousavi.
According to The New York Times, the string of explosions in Iran in recent weeks is part of an “evolving” Israeli-American strategy of “short-of-war clandestine strikes, aimed at taking out the most prominen...
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July 13, 2020 at 4:07 pm
New Yorkers should wear a mask or face covering indoors at all times, even at work and in large spaces regardless if social distancing can be met, de Blasio said Monday morning.
Although the city’s key coronavirus indicators have looked favorable in recent weeks, Mayor de Blasio said infection rates in young adults is cause for concern. Infections are up in adults ages 20 to 29 even as other ages groups are experiencing mostly flat or declining rates of coronavirus infections.
Ten new coronavirus testing sites will open in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, the mayor announced. Eight sites are already open and the last two will be open shortly, he said. Despite a growing access to free testing in the city, nationwide outbreaks have led to an overwhelming volume in testing and subseque...
