President Biden wrapped a two-hour video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday during which the U.S. president warned Moscow against invading Ukraine. The White House said in a subsequent readout that Biden “voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European Allies about Russia’s escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine and made clear that the U.S. and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation.” “President Biden reiterated his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and called for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy,” the readout continued. Biden held the call with Putin as a Russian troop buildup on the border with U...
On Tuesday, Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott and City Administrator Christopher Shorter announced that the City has authorized a one-time payment of $1,000 to fully vaccinated employees. Officials say that funding from the American Rescue Plan Act will be used to pay for the incentive program.
“This incentive is about doing everything in our power to protect our employees and our residents. We are still in a pandemic. People are still losing their lives and getting seriously ill because they are not vaccinated,” said Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “I want to thank all of our employees who have already uploaded their vaccination status, and to all of our workers who haven’t received their vaccine yet, now is the best time to do so.”
A federal judge in Georgia on Tuesday temporarily halted the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors across the country. The ruling by U.S. District Judge R. Stan Baker, an appointee of former President Trump, is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for President Biden as his administration seeks to blunt the effects of a global pandemic that has killed more than 788,000 people in the U.S.
A very poignant Zois Chanukah reunion for Yigal Calek's London School of Jewish Song. Former choir members in attendance include Nicky Borgenicht, Yossi Fachler, Moishe Stern, Doidy Feld, David Rosenberg, and Dovid Calek (Yigal's son). On the guitar: Shloimy Richman. The event was hosted by Daniel and Freidy Klein.
When the Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case about whether parents may use state education money for sectarian schools, the central question will deal with religious freedom versus separation of church and state.  But lurking just below the surface is a broader battle over school choice, including voucher programs, which could grow significantly depending on how the court rules.
The Maryland State Board of Education is proposing an emergency masking regulation to eventually replace the one set to expire in late February. The board voted Tuesday 12-1 to approve an emergency masking regulation that allows Maryland school superintendents and boards of education to decide whether to lift face covering mandates, under certain conditions. The proposal must still be approved by the state General Assembly's Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review. The conditions are either an individual school has at least 80% of its students and staff fully vaccinated; a school's home county has 80% of residents fully vaccinated; a school's home county's transmission rate falls to moderate or low for at least 14 days.
Israel has carried out three major operations over the last 18 months against Iran’s nuclear sites. These attacks involved as many as a thousand Mossad personnel and were executed with ruthless precision using high-tech weaponry, including drones and a quadcopter — and spies within Tehran’s holy of holies, its nuclear program. While President Biden’s nuclear negotiators try to snatch catastrophe from the jaws of defeat in Vienna, Israel is taking things more seriously. Last week, Naftali Bennett, the Israeli prime minister, pivoted to a new policy on Tehran: retaliating against aggression from militias backed by Tehran with covert strikes on Iranian soil. This builds on the extensive capabilities that the Mossad has built up in the Islamic Republic in recent year...
Four years ago on Zos Chanukah 5778 we all celebrated the miraculous release of Reb Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin. It wasn’t just a Nes and a victory for him and his family, it was a victory for us all – a triumph of trust. As he so clearly demonstrated throughout his ordeal, Emunah and Bitachon are the tools Hashem gave us to overcome adversity. On Gimmel Teves Hashem showed clearly and publicly that trusting in Him will not just help us endure hard times. When we face the hard times with Emunah and Bitachon, we will merit the Geulah. We all face hard times and now more than ever we need to strengthen our Emunah and Bitachon. Join Reb Sholom Mordechai live in celebrating his Nes and in applying its lessons in our lives. The Annual Night of Bitachon will be tonight, Monday nigh...
A Saudi man suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been arrested in France, reports say. Khaled Aedh Al-Otaibi was arrested at Charles-de-Gaulle airport on Tuesday, French media report. He is one of 26 Saudis wanted by Turkey over the journalist's killing. The 33-year-old former Saudi royal guard was travelling under his own name and placed in judicial detention, RTL radio said. Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the government in Riyadh, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Saudi Arabia said the former Washington Post journalist had been killed in a "rogue operation" by a team of agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom. But Turkish officials said the agen...
Baltimore, MD – Dec. 7, 2021 – 11:43AM - A  motor vehicle accident is blocking the road at the corner of Reisterstown Road & Pinkney Road.
Baltimore, MD – Dec. 7, 2021 - BJL wishes a hearty Mazel Tov to Shayna Gertz (Baltimore) and Avi Skurnik (Woodmere) on their engagement. Mazel Tov parents Baruch and Shoshie Gertz and grandfather David Rossman. יה"ר שיזכו לבנות בית נאמן בישראל. אמן!
Israeli Housing Minister Zev Elkin announced that Israel plans to market 500,000 new apartments within the next four years. An additional 280,000 apartments will be started during that time, and land for 300,000 more will be sold to developers.Elkin also spoke of providing cheap apartments to young couples and building 6,500 rental apartments by next year.MK Uri Maklev of UTJ said that the cancelation of a huge building project for chareidim in Kiryat Gat forced the chareidi public to seek homes in the general market and pushed up prices even higher.
The total number of reported coronavirus cases in the United States marched toward 50 million Monday, even as New York City imposed a vaccine mandate for all private employers, federal health authorities warned against travel to several European countries and more nations tightened restrictions on the unvaccinated. The omicron variant of the virus, which is possibly more contagious than the widespread delta variant, had been found in 17 U.S. states as of Monday — just five days after the first case in the country emerged in California. That number reflected the potentially heightened transmissibility of the newest strain and an improved system for detecting it. The latest turn in the two-year-old pandemic also brought echoes of its early stages as authorities reported that at least...
Baltimore will get the first chance for light snow on Wednesday. Tuesday is 20 to 25 degrees colder than Monday was -- so the ground could be cold enough by Wednesday for the snow to stick mostly on the grass (roads should be OK). Overall, Wednesday's snow chance looks like no big deal. Light snow showers could begin after 7 a.m., then most of it will shift south and east of the Baltimore metro by 1 p.m. The snow will be very wet and light, so little to no accumulation is likely and the roads will remain wet. A rain/snow mix will continue on the Eastern Shore through the afternoon, then taper in the evening. Many roads will have a chance to dry out before we drop below freezing on Wednesday night, but as always this time of year, watch for any slick spots into Thursday morning. M...
There’s no evidence that any data was compromised after a “network security incident” that prompted Maryland’s health department to take its website offline over the weekend, a department spokesman said Monday. “As part of the ongoing investigation into the network security incident that occurred, the Maryland Department of Health’s servers will remain offline out of an abundance of caution” department spokesman Andy Owen said in an email. “Data updates will resume as soon as possible.” Owen said the Maryland Security Operations Center is investigating a “network security incident” involving the health department, news outlets reported. State officials are working with federal and state law enforcement and “potential...
A new congressional map that could enable Democrats to gain a seat and sweep all eight Maryland U.S. House seats was advanced Monday by a legislative committee, which did not act on a separate proposal by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.The committee's 18-6 vote on the first day of a special session on redistricting sends the proposal to the House of Delegates, which is expected to take up the map Tuesday.Democrats who hold a supermajority in the General Assembly control the redistricting process in Maryland, but at a hearing there were plenty of critics who say the proposal continues the state's legacy of gerrymandering - in which politicians draw district lines to favor one party.“Citizens living in gerrymandered districts feel as though their vote means nothing, so they stay...
Ashdod - On Tuesday morning just after 10:00 a.m. a man in his 80’s collapsed at home on Hama’apilim Street after suffering a heart attack. Worried family members called emergency services for help.  Avraham Porges, who works as a Kashrut Supervisor for the Rabbinate of the city of Ashdod, was in his office a block away when he received the alert to the emergency. Without hesitation, he put on his helmet and jacket and rushed out the door to his ambucycle, flicked on his lights and sirens, and sped off to the incident.  “I had just gotten back to my office after responding to a serious motorcycle accident that took place on Moshe Sneh Boulevard where I treated a seriously injured motorcyclist who suffered injuries to his head and limbs as well as two other p...
Yesterday we left the light of the Hanukkah lamps behind us, but here is a thought about extending Hanukkah's light throughout the year.I heard the following story from attorney Irit Halevy, who lives in the Givat Massuah neighborhood of Jerusalem. She and her husband, former Knesset member Amit Halevy, together with their children, knocked on the door of the woman living opposite them and invited her over for their Hanukiya lighting. All they knew about her was that she was an older immigrant from the former Soviet Union. And then they discovered who she was: Ruth Alexandrovich, the famous prisoner of Zion.She was born in Latvia and at the age of 14 helped organize the underground Jewish resistance to the Communist regime. Until she succeeded in making aliyah, she led groups that stu...
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941— a date which will live in infamy— the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan,” then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put the surprise attack — which left about 2404 American service-members and civilians dead and thrust the United States into war — into words. Today, as the United States remembers that Sunday morning 80 years ago, the survivors barely number in the dozens. But just one day earlier, all was quiet. But everything changed as morning dawned on December 7, 1941. At 6:10 a.m. local time, the USS Condor sighted a periscope — and within moments, the first wave of Japanese fighters were in the air. They took off from carrie...
More articles