In a court filing on Thursday, the federal judge tasked with reviewing the FBI-seized materials from Mar-a-Lago directed federal prosecutors to begin producing the approximately 11,000 documents that were recovered last month from former President Donald Trump's Florida home. The plan and timeline laid out by U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie states that by Monday, the Department of Justice must provide electronic copies of the materials not labeled classified to both Dearie and Trump's team. For each document, Trump's attorneys must then say whether he is asserting attorney-client privilege or executive privilege or whether the document is a personal or presidential record, according to Dearie's latest directions.For any document that Trump and his team ma...
A recent article in the New York Times is sparking outrage. The article was about Jewish religious schools in New York, known as Chasidic schools. One America’s Stella Escobedo spoke with Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, who is calling out the article in his latest Newsweek piece.
Baltimore, MD - Sept. 18, 2022 -  Our friendship was born out of a very public dispute. We were speaking more at each other than with each other, and decided studying Torah together would change that. A very good friend of mine passed away this week. His name was Louis Sapolsky, but everyone knew him as “Buddy”, and he was indeed everyone’s buddy. Buddy was unstintingly warm and friendly, a Jewish communal professional with a huge heart and endearing manner. We were close friends, and for more than ten years we were chavrutas, Torah study partners, as Buddy, Eric Nislow, and I would get together every other week for serious Torah study. Those times were of the most cherished slots in our schedules. We would study at 8:30 on Thursday morn...
Jerusalem, Israel - Sept. 22, 2022 - As the end of 5782 rapidly approaches, I have decided to break with my usual process of reviewing books. When a new volume arrives, I usually take time to read the book from cover to cover before posting a book review. However, now it is time to finish up one long overdue project and start the New Year with a clean slate. From the minute the comprehensive 496‑page coffee‑table‑style book The Book of Jewish Knowledge arrived at my door it was different. The heavy weight of the book as the deliveryman handed it over, the packaging and design all indicated that extensive effort and cost had been invested in this volume. It is an ambitious project to explore the teachings, observances, and histo...
Average long-term mortgage rates jumped by more than a quarter-point this week to their highest level since 2007 as the Federal Reserve intensified its effort to tamp down decades-high inflation and cool the economy. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the 30-year rate climbed to 6.29%, from 6.02% last week. That’s the highest it’s been since August 2007, a year before a crash in the housing market triggered the Great Recession. After more than doubling in 2022, rapidly rising mortgage rates threaten to sideline even more homebuyers. Last year, prospective homebuyers were looking at rates well below 3%. On Wednesday, the Fed bumped its benchmark borrowing rate by another three-quarters of a point in an effort to constrain the economy, i...
Gen. Sir Richard Shirreff, former NATO deputy supreme allied commander for Europe, is warning that the West must be prepared for war with Russia. He made his comments during an interview with Times Radio. "There will never be peace in Europe while [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is in the Kremlin," he said. "This is the mark of a desperate man. He's looking to reinforce failure. He's scrambling around desperate to try to stem the chaotic retreat of Russian forces from Ukraine. The bottom line with Putin is the only thing he respects is strength. "We've got to remain strong. I completely second what President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy said: 'There will never be peace in Europe while Putin is in the Kremlin.' So we have to remain strong. We have to be prepared...
Prime Minister Yair Lapid, today (Wednesday, 21 September 2022), during his diplomatic visit to New York, met with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Liz Truss. The Prime Minister expressed his deepest condolences, on his own behalf and on behalf of the people of Israel, on the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Prime Minister Lapid congratulated Prime Minister Truss on taking office, and expressed confidence that under their leadership, ties between Israel and the United Kingdom will reach new heights in various fields, in particular the economy, innovation and security. Prime Minister Lapid emphasized to Prime Minister Truss the necessity of avoiding further compromises with Iran, and further emphasized that Israel’s expectation is the advancement of a longer and s...
A federal appeals court is allowing the Justice Department to continue looking at documents marked as classified that were seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and resort. The emergency intervention upends a trial judge's order over those documents that had blocked federal investigators' work on the documents, and is a strong rebuke of the Trump team's attempt to suggest without evidence that materials were somehow declassified. Trump's options to block the criminal investigation are now dimming with one of his only remaining possibilities being an emergency request to the Supreme Court. The ruling was issued by a three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals -- two of whom were nominated by Trump. A s...
British Prime Minister Liz Truss told Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid that she is considering moving the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim. A British government spokeswoman said Truss had told Lapid “about her review of the current location of the British Embassy in Israel.” Truss, who was the foreign secretary until Sept. 6, pledged during the Conservative Party leadership contest in August to review moving the embassy, adding that she was aware of “the importance and sensitivity” that surrounded the legation’s location. In May 2018, the United States opened its embassy in Yerushalayim, a year after President Donald Trump announced that he would move it to the Israeli capital from Tel Aviv. In a video address at the time, Trump stated...
Former President Donald Trump maintains that a president can declassify documents just by even “thinking about it.” Trump made his comments during a Wednesday interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. The remarks were in reference to the documents seized during an FBI raid of his South Florida estate on Aug. 8. Trump said documents taken out of the White House to his Mar-a-Lago home were declassified when he was in office. “There doesn’t have to be a process [for declassifying documents] as I understand it,” Trump said. “If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified – even by thinking about it. “You’re the president — you make that decision.” Prosecutor...
Baltimore, MD - Sept. 22, 2022 -In this week's episode of The Torah Sparks Podcast, we discuss how an experience of writer's block actually gave the writer inspiration of what to write about. We also talk about the significance of the number 458 and 581 and their connection with Rosh Hashanah. Check it out. This is an episode you do not want to miss. Click here to listenPowered by TYA
With children now back in school, there's growing attention to an invisible and ongoing threat to their health and safety. Leading health experts agree U.S. children are facing a mental health crisis, and new data suggests the country is lagging behind when it comes to meeting young people's urgent needs. Seattle mom Stephanie Simpson will never forget the extreme measures she had to take to keep her child safe as he struggled with his mental health. Her son was just 9 years old, a third-grader, when he started developing symptoms, including debilitating headaches, and eventually suicidal thoughts. To prevent him from harming himself, Stephanie was forced to hide her kitchen knives in a lockbox. At one point, Stephanie rushed her son to the emergency room, desperate to ...
Tesla is recalling nearly 1.1 million of its vehicles due to an automatic window safety issue that can cause a person's fingers to be pinched. The electric vehicle manufacturer informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) via a letter Wednesday that it would perform an over-the-air software update of the automatic window reversal system. NHTSA said a closing window without the proper automatic reversing system may exert excessive force by pinching a driver or passenger before retracting, increasing the risk of injury. The recall covers some 2017-2022 Model 3, 2020-2021 Model Y, and 2021-2022 Model S and Model X vehicles. The issue will be handled like a software bug, with an update alert coming to their apps and screens, not a visit ...
Baltimore, MD - Sept. 22, 2022 - Bikur Cholim will be having a Covid Vaccine clinic this evening beginning at 6:45 and is offering the bivalent booster as well as 1st and 2nd vaccines to all ages.  To register for this evening click here
Baltimore, MD - Sept. 22, 2022  - Ruti Feldman was livid when she shared, “I parked our car in front of the house, in my lovely quiet Indian Village, only to wake up the next day and find that it was gone!” Avi and Ruti Feldman's RING camera, and those of their neighbors, show the culprits driving by a couple of motzei Shabbosos ago at 12:20 a.m., making a U-turn and parking parallel to their Kia. Unfortunately, none of those cameras were able to read the license plate on the thugs’ car. The Feldmans called the Baltimore County police the next morning and filed a report. “At 1:00 a.m. on Monday - less than 25 hours after the theft - we got a call from the Baltimore City cops,” notes Ruti. “They told us that our car was found completely de...
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