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[] | 2016-08-26T12:53:50 | null | 2016-08-26T06:03:40 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Fbolivia-deputy-minister-killed-after-kidnap-by-miners%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/BOLIVIA-MINISTER-300x216.jpg | en | null | Bolivia: Deputy Minister Killed After Kidnap by Miners | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 6:03 am |
Bolivian Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes is seen in this handout picture provided by Bolivian Presidency. (Reuters/Bolivian Presidency/Handout via Reuters)
LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes was beaten to death after he was kidnapped by striking mine workers on Thursday, the government said, and up to 100 people have been arrested as authorities vowed to punish those responsible.
“At this present time, all the indications are that our deputy minister Rodolfo Illanes has been brutally and cowardly murdered,” Minister of Government Carlos Romero said in broadcast comments.
He said Illanes had gone to talk to protesters earlier on Thursday in Panduro, around 100 miles from the capital, La Paz, but was intercepted and kidnapped by striking miners.
The government was trying to recover his body, Romero said, in a case that has shocked Bolivians.
Defense Minister Reymi Ferreira broke down on television as he described how Illanes, appointed to his post in March, had apparently been “beaten and tortured to death.”
Illanes’ assistant had escaped and was being treated in a hospital in La Paz, he said.
“This crime will not go unpunished. Authorities are investigating … around 100 people have been arrested,” Ferreira said.
Protests by miners in Bolivia demanding changes to laws turned violent this week after a highway was blockaded. Two workers were killed on Wednesday after shots were fired by police. The government said 17 police officers had been wounded.
The National Federation of Mining Cooperatives of Bolivia, once strong allies of leftist President Evo Morales, began what they said would be an indefinite protest after negotiations over mining legislation failed.
Protesters have been demanding more mining concessions with less stringent environmental rules, the right to work for private companies, and greater union representation.
The vast majority of miners in Bolivia, one of South America’s poorest countries, work in cooperatives, scraping a living producing silver, tin and zinc. There are few foreign-owned mining firms, unlike in neighboring Peru and Chile.
Natural gas accounts for roughly half of Bolivia’s total exports. Ex-coca grower Morales nationalized Bolivia’s resources sector after taking power in 2006, initially winning plaudits for plowing the profits into welfare programs and boosting development.
However, his government has been dogged by accusations of cronyism and authoritarianism in recent years, and even the unions who were once his core support have soured on him as falling prices have crimped spending. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/bolivia-deputy-minister-killed-after-kidnap-by-miners/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/c5770b097e3dd480285ff8fcc4336e4d649d63e679598c37217c3aed38d53313.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T08:49:50 | null | 2016-08-30T04:15:31 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fu-s-led-coalition-planes-hit-is-in-north-syria%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/MIDEAST-CRISIS-SYRIA-TURKEY-2-300x200.jpg | en | null | U.S.-Led Coalition Planes Hit IS in North Syria | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 4:15 am |
A wall along the border between Turkey and Syria is pictured near the southeastern town of Deliosman in Kilis Province, Turkey, Tuesday. (Reuters/Umit Bektas)
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition warplanes hit Islamic State targets near the Syrian frontier town of Jarablus overnight, the Turkish military said on Tuesday, as forces backed by Ankara pushed deeper into north Syria. Two A-10 planes hit and destroyed two Islamic State targets, the military said in a statement, without elaborating.
Turkey-backed forces seized Jarablus from Islamic State terrorists last week. They have since pushed into areas held by Kurdish-aligned militias that are supported by Washington.
Differences over Syria policy have long complicated the relationship between NATO allies, Turkey and the United States. While Turkey is a member of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, it is concerned about Washington’s support for Syrian Kurdish fighters, which it sees as an extension of Kurdish terrorists who are waging an insurgency in Turkey.
The United States has scrambled to get its feuding allies, Turkey and the Kurdish YPG militia, to focus their firepower on Islamic State instead of each other after clashes that have threatened to unravel U.S. war strategy in Syria. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/u-s-led-coalition-planes-hit-is-in-north-syria/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/1222ef16c0cce1a453bdda28c3b99c0081d6f8ab00b4372911cdea3878dfd17d.json |
[
"Mike Hashimoto"
] | 2016-08-30T02:49:34 | null | 2016-08-29T21:05:02 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Ftough-republican-days%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | It’s Tough to Be a Republican These Days | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 9:05 pm |
(The Dallas Morning News/TNS) - When last you and I checked in on the most accept-any-substitute presidential election in many a year, one of us — me, I’m sure — was grousing that it was a tough time to be a Republican, even in a red state like Texas.
That was just before the GOP’s national convention in Cleveland, and on the agenda was a lot of food-fighting and Donald Trump’s coronation. Related but not exactly the same.
Thanks to Ted Cruz, our senator, and Trump himself, that’s about what we got. And the days since the convention, through the Democrats’ stab at unity in Philadelphia and beyond, it has been, shall we say, less than uplifting for America’s once-conservative party.
Trump and his people — and those regular Republicans falling in line — have a point when they argue that it sounds worse than it has been when filtered through a left-leaning American media. And, in truth, it’s hard to remember a day when the bias was so overt.
Example: Check your local newspaper for that “Trump visits flood-plagued Louisiana” headline and evocative photograph. Keep looking. No, really, it must be there. No? Like it never happened?
Now check the same newspaper for “President never too busy to comfort the afflicted,” or somesuch, when Barack Obama, refreshed from a full vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, made a swing through Baton Rouge a full four days after Trump (but infinity days before Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton).
Who cares, right? Just a photo-op among people who have better things to do than entertain a presidential candidate or even a president. Except we do remember candidate Obama walking arm in arm with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Or candidate Obama’s full-throated criticism of President George W. Bush for flying over, but not setting foot, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
“One of the benefits of being five months short of leaving here is I don’t worry too much about politics,” Obama said in Baton Rouge. True enough, although it does leave open to interpretation any past disaster photo-ops.
So give that one to Trump, as much as you might hate it. Here’s one to take back: The typical nonsense from a losing candidate that the polls, well, are just wrong. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
I won’t go too far on a limb defending polls and pollsters, but over time, they provide some kind of measuring stick for elections local or national. Still, the two great losing-candidate clichés are:
“The only poll that matters is the one on Election Day.”
And, “I’d feel better about your poll if you were speaking to the right voters, as in the ones who prefer me.”
Not every poll is right on the mark, and methodologies vary, but it’s worth barely a chuckle to hear a Trump surrogate like lawyer Michael Cohen demand to know which polls a CNN interviewer was citing to show his man behind.
“All of them,” Brianna Keilar said.
She wasn’t exaggerating. Trump, whose entire primary campaign seemed built on touting his poll standing and saying whatever popped into his head, hasn’t led Clinton in a single national poll for more than a month. His last was a 5-point lead in a CNN/ORC poll taken July 22–24, when his GOP convention bounce was at full Super Ball height.
Since then, it’s approaching 30 in a row with Clinton ahead, and that’s with Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein tossed in; the head-to-heads with Clinton are generally worse for Trump. So argue it anyway you want, but Trump is losing.
Which is not to say he has lost. If you’re old like me, you can remember when Labor Day was the “traditional start of the presidential campaign season,” which was probably never 100 percent accurate but still a good way to keep our timeline straight.
Typically, the candidate ahead in polling on Labor Day wins, in part because coming from behind means grabbing an increasingly large share of fewer and fewer undecided voters. It may work in theory, but reality is different. In Trump’s case, a refurbished campaign team and a more focused effort is a stylistic improvement, but the substance still isn’t there.
Now, a Trump supporter could argue that national polls ask the wrong question, that the national popular vote counts for nothing, as President Al Gore constantly reminded us.
No, what matters are state-by-state polls, the ones we can extrapolate into who might win actual Electoral College votes. Except here, too, the polling math favors Clinton — and more decisively. No wonder her strategy is to avoid questions, remind that she’s not Trump and run out the clock to November.
In battleground or swing states that Trump really, really needs, he trails Clinton in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Virginia, among others. Trump’s claims to rewrite the red-blue map may be valid only in the way he didn’t expect. He and his people can argue that those polls are wrong, too, but all of them?
The one I’ll dismiss for now is the latest from Texas, which shows Trump with a mere 6-point lead. Sure, a scattering of Republicans will refuse to fill in the box next to Trump’s name, but I seriously doubt it could be enough to cost him our 38 electoral votes, given Clinton’s lack of, um, popularity in our state.
And if Texas really is that close, Trump has far bigger problems than polls he might not like.
Mike Hashimoto is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/tough-republican-days/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/4b99b4fb87559b730229411dd8b1d5d920f8bd85864bddbd55945a69e3aaaecd.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T08:48:37 | null | 2016-08-28T03:48:53 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fjobs-data-to-be-a-big-deal-for-record-high-stocks%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/07/Jobs-5-300x183.jpg | en | null | Jobs Data to Be a Big Deal for Record-High Stocks | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 3:48 am |
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wall Street will fixate on a wave of U.S. economic data next week, crested by payrolls data on Friday that could sway expectations about the timing of future interest rate hikes and spark volatility in record-high stock prices.
Fresh data about employment and consumer confidence could help investors solidify expectations for a December interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve, or lend weight to a minority of strategists predicting a rate rise as early as next month.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said the case for a rate hike is strengthening, but she left open the timing of what would be the first increase since December 2015.
“She did put the market on notice that she’d like to raise rates, which means the payrolls data out on Friday is very important. The wage component, length of the workweek and types of jobs, all are crucial in order to extrapolate to inflation,” said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
Following Yellen’s speech, prices for fed funds futures implied investors see roughly a 60 percent chance of a December hike, up from just above 50 percent on Thursday. Investors see chances of a September hike at 36 percent, up from 21 percent.
Almost a decade of ultra-low interest rates has helped propel stock prices to record highs, even as the economy expands at a lukewarm rate and U.S. largecaps struggle with over a year of declining earnings.
Expectations for higher interest rates would likely continue a recent trend of investors selling high-dividend payers like utilities and telecoms, in favor of sectors tied to economic expansion like financials and industrials.
Underscoring the importance of the upcoming jobs report, Yellen pointed to a recent rebound in employment and said in her speech at a symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming that the Fed expects the economy to continue expanding.
“Chairwoman Yellen put a magnifying glass on next Friday’s jobs report. That really I do believe is going to be a determining factor of the market’s direction for its next leg,” said David Schiegoleit, managing director at U.S. Bank Private Client Reserve in Los Angeles.
The August jobs report is expected to show the economy created 180,000 jobs this month after rising by 255,000 in July, according to a Reuters poll. The forecast is for the unemployment rate to dip one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.8 percent.
Other data in investors’ crosshairs next week include personal consumption on Monday, consumer confidence on Tuesday, and car sales and factory activity on Thursday.
The S&P 500 fell Friday for the fifth time in six sessions, but is just 1 percent below its record high set earlier this month.
“Any potential strength in consumer and jobs data could be very helpful to support equity prices where they are right now,” said Jon Adams, senior investment strategist at BMO Global Asset Management in Chicago. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/jobs-data-to-be-a-big-deal-for-record-high-stocks/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/f6c8bf2fea74911f19673e22d2cb359fde14a90ad62da1ce5123077891c26e93.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T22:49:58 | null | 2016-08-30T18:03:33 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fgrassley-opens-door-lame-duck-action-garland%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP_16189596801256-300x190.jpg | en | null | Grassley Opens Door to Lame-Duck Action on Garland | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 6:03 pm |
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, shown here heading to a meeting last month with Donald Trump and the Senate Republican Conference at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
WASHINGTON (CQ-Roll Call/TNS) - Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley signaled that he is open to possibly acting on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination after the November elections.
Republican leaders have pledged not to take up the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, though a few senators have raised the possibility of a hearing or confirmation vote during a lame-duck session, between Election Day and when the new Congress is seated in January.
Obama nominated Garland, currently the chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on March 16 to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
“(If) we have the election and the majority of the Senate changed their mind about doing it in the lame duck as opposed to January 20, I don’t feel that I could stand in the way of that,” Grassley said at a town hall meeting in Iowa Monday. “But I don’t think I can promote that idea.”
The Democratic Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century captured video of Grassley’s comments at the meeting in Cherokee, Iowa. The Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa, also reported that Grassley made similar remarks at a meeting in Sioux City. Grassley reiterated his position that the next president should fill the court vacancy.
Shortly after Scalia died in February, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Obama’s nominee would not be confirmed, and that voters would decide the ideological direction of the court through the presidential election. Grassley concurred, and all of the Judiciary Committee’s Republicans signed a letter stating they would not hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee until a new president takes office.
But some within the GOP, most notably Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, are considering pushing for Garland’s confirmation should Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton win the White House in November. The thinking is that Clinton would nominate someone who is more liberal than Garland.
McConnell has argued that Garland is not a judicial moderate. But Grassley’s recent comments indicate that the Judiciary Committee could act on its own, hold hearings and vote on the nominee. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/grassley-opens-door-lame-duck-action-garland/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/138835e140da2f77b57bf192483f0d185e5df59336fbd2387e29e4b3e6395ddf.json |
[
"Melinda Deslatte"
] | 2016-08-29T12:49:14 | null | 2016-08-29T06:52:16 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fanalysis-louisiana-will-need-congress-help-after-flooding%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/USA-WEATHER-300x200.jpg | en | null | ANALYSIS: Louisiana Will Need Congress's Help After Flooding | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 6:52 am |
A submerged vehicle is seen in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, August 15. (Reuters/Jonathan Bachman)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Insurance payments and traditional federal aid programs won’t be enough to respond to the catastrophic flooding that ravaged tens of thousands of homes across south Louisiana, wrecking entire subdivisions and devastating entire cities.
Louisiana, once again, will be asking Congress to lend a hand to an ailing state.
But the state delegation lacks some of the seniority it once had, and stalemates in Congress have made it difficult to even get funding for a Zika virus response to final passage, raising worries that flood disaster aid may be hard to get.
Plus, several of Louisiana’s congressional members voted against a Superstorm Sandy relief package only a few years ago, which could make it uncomfortable to ask their colleagues to help their state now.
The full scope of the flood’s destruction is only starting to become clear as people rip out the insides of homes and deposit moldy carpets, soaked drywall, water-damaged furniture and heaps of personal belongings onto their front lawns.
Gov. John Bel Edwards estimates well over 100,000 homes took damage from the floodwaters. That doesn’t include ruined businesses, fire stations, schools and other public buildings.
State officials first will need a better tally of the devastation to make a case for congressional assistance. As a preliminary request, Edwards asked President Barack Obama during his Tuesday visit to push Congress for federal block grant aid.
“This was a one-in-a-thousand-year flood event, and most of the affected homeowners did not, nor were required to, have flood insurance,” the governor wrote in a follow-up letter handed to the president. “The [FEMA] individual assistance funds that will be available, while critical, will simply not be sufficient to allow our citizens to rebuild their homes.”
Obama said he’ll support the recovery effort, both through his oversight of existing federal aid programs and in urging further action from Congress.
“The whole country is going to continue to support you and help you until we get folks back in their homes and lives are rebuilt,” the president told Louisiana residents.
In trying to negotiate a relief package, Louisiana should be helped by the clout of Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, the third-ranking GOP member of the House. In a statement, Scalise said making sure that assistance is available to flood victims is his “top priority.”
Congress isn’t currently in session, but members of the Louisiana delegation say they’ve started laying the groundwork for aid requests.
“We’re going to need some supplemental help,” said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, whose district had widespread damage. “I just don’t see any way out of it, when you have communities where 90 percent of homes were flooded.”
Beyond block grant money, Boustany expects the agriculture industry will need specific aid. He’s also looking at possible tax relief Congress could offer storm victims, like easing penalties for tapping into certain retirement accounts if people need the money to repair and rebuild.
Boustany, running for a Senate seat against Rep. John Fleming and 22 other opponents, said he’s concerned a vote that Fleming, Scalise and Sen. Bill Cassidy took against Sandy relief in 2013 may make it tougher for Louisiana to win support for flood aid.
“I warned members of our delegation and others who have experienced disaster that if you oppose Sandy relief you’re going to come across as being hypocritical, and the next time we need help, we may not have it,” Boustany said.
Fleming, R-Minden, offered a similar defense, saying he didn’t support final passage of some Sandy aid because a long list of spending unrelated to direct storm response was added.
“I support the appropriate use of federal funds to help when disaster strikes,” Fleming said in a statement.
Thousands of Louisiana residents will be waiting to see Congress’s reaction. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/analysis-louisiana-will-need-congress-help-after-flooding/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/8364712ae1e2333872f35756efdd02e93a17d018ac9a0b4ee27438ed43de3921.json |
[
"Martin Crutsinger"
] | 2016-08-30T16:49:52 | null | 2016-08-30T12:27:28 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fconsumer-confidence-august-highest-11-months%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Consumer Confidence in August Highest in 11 Months | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 12:27 pm |
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. consumer confidence rose in August to its highest level in 11 months, suggesting economic growth could pick up in the second half of the year.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 101.1, up from 96.7 in July. It was the highest level for confidence since the index hit 102.6 last September.
The gain reflected consumers’ brighter views about the current economic situation and their expectations for the future.
The percentage of those surveyed who saw business conditions as “good” increased from 27.3 percent to 30 percent. Those who viewed business conditions as “bad” remained virtually unchanged at 18.4 percent.
Consumers who regarded jobs as “plentiful” increased from 23 percent to 26 percent, although those who felt jobs were “hard to get” also rose slightly from 22.1 percent to 23.4 percent.
Economists said that the climb in confidence reflected stronger job gains seen in recent months, as well as strength in the stock market and home prices, which boost consumers’ net worth.
They expect the momentum in jobs to boost incomes and spur stronger consumer spending. That should help growth accelerate in the second half of this year, after four quarters of an anemic average growth rate of 1.2 percent. Many analysts believe gross domestic product will top 3 percent in the current quarter.
“Growth will be supported by consumer confidence and job growth,” Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said in reaction to the consumer confidence report.
The government will release the August jobs report on Friday. Many economists are looking for a gain of around 180,000 jobs. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/consumer-confidence-august-highest-11-months/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/b3614733e86a48b2e3dfd76ec626674e3ae630bc3c58da74724807c81c45145c.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T12:50:16 | null | 2016-08-31T08:12:05 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fpolice-question-suspect-frankfurt-airport-security-breach%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP467852019191-300x206.jpg | en | null | Police Question Suspect After Frankfurt Airport Security Breach | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 8:12 am |
A specialist for defusing bombs drives through the evacuated Hall A of Terminal 1 at Frankfurt airport in Frankfurt central Germany, Wednesday. (Boris Roessler/dpa via AP)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Police were questioning a suspect on Wednesday after a security breach prompted the evacuation of Frankfurt airport’s Terminal 1 and caused significant flight delays at Europe’s fourth largest airport.
The passenger entered into the departure gate area at Frankfurt, a major hub for international travel and home to Lufthansa, without completing the security check, possibly by mistake, police said.
Police did not find any suspicious items in the departure area following the evacuation, a spokeswoman for the federal force told Reuters. She could not provide any further details on the suspect.
The security breach interrupted flight operations, delaying departures and forcing some planes to divert to other German airports instead.
Airport operator Fraport said operations at the terminal resumed at 12:30 local time. All passengers will have to go through the security check again, it said.
In a similar incident, a Spanish man was arrested at Cologne-Bonn airport in May after bypassing the security check, also leading to flight delays. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/police-question-suspect-frankfurt-airport-security-breach/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/5ead41733a2cd3e2a5f7dc2fe19549a5d7bf0b3043a39a3726b78c8d645a92e6.json |
[
"Robert Duffer"
] | 2016-08-28T18:48:57 | null | 2016-08-28T12:55:43 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fauto-review-2017-kia-sportage-contends-crowded-class-compact-crossovers%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/1A-300x225.jpg | en | null | AUTO REVIEW: 2017 Kia Sportage Contends in Crowded Class of Compact Crossovers | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 12:55 pm |
2017 Kia Sportage in SX Turbo trim with AWD steps out of the crowded compact crossover class with distinct packaging and a peppy powertrain. (Robert Duffer/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
(Chicago Tribune/TNS) - There are 16 compact crossovers on the market, another 20 midsize crossovers, and nearly a dozen subcompact crossovers. Then there are the luxury makes.
With so many crossovers on the market, automakers are playing with paint, parts and design — anything and everything — to stand out.
The fourth-generation Kia Sportage once again steps out of the compact crossover class with a sharp design, big wheels and peppy turbo four.
I called the test model gold, my daughter called it bronze, Kia called it burnished copper. I liked it, though the majority of people disagreed.
The prominent snout on the Sportage is flanked by adaptive lights that turn with the car and four-cube fog lights in the top-of-the-line test model. The wheelbase is stretched by 1.6 inches over the last model, and the spoiler and rear windshield cut into the computer mouse shape shared by much of the class. It’s curved and stretched in the front, but nipped and tucked in the back.
The broader wheel arches house 19-inch alloy wheels that give it a high sporty dune buggy vibe. The big wheels and lower-profile tires not only look cooler than the average crossover, they also provide better road feel, which is presumably what buyers of the top-of-the-line SX Turbo model want.
Direct injection 2-liter turbo four-cylinder engines are arguably the most popular engine choice in modern cars. Like the others, Kia’s is quick off the line with little lag, which helps in passing situations. In AWD it pumps out 237 horsepower and a very impressive 260 pound-feet of torque, available at just 1,450 rpm.
It weighs nearly 4,000 pounds, however, so there’s no mistaking this crossover for a hatch. It handles like a car closer to the ground, thanks to the redesigned independent front and rear suspensions and what Kia says are firmer shock absorbers. It felt more capable than its sister, the Hyundai Santa Fe Sport, which has the same engine, weighs 100 pounds less, and is larger inside.
That weight also gives it lackluster mpg rating for this class, at 20 mpg city and 23 mpg highway. In a mix of modes, and a mix of driving conditions over 100 miles at an average of 33 mph, it averaged 26.5 mpg in Eco mode. The A/C was mostly off but that shouldn’t explain such a large discrepancy. I reset the trip meters and did a few 25-mile commutes in Sport and Normal mode at about the same average speed and about the same economy.
The ride is quiet even with the panoramic sunroof. The interior is nice in that homogenous Hyundai/Kia way, with black leather interior, sensible combination of climate dials, radio buttons, redundant steering controls and an 8-inch touch screen.
The price is competitive at this trim level and the Sportage should be in the short list of contenders for the compact crossover buy.
———
2017 Kia Sportage SX Turbo AWD at a glance
Type: compact crossover
Base price: $24,490 (LX in AWD)
As tested: $34,000 (excluding $895 delivery)
EPA mpg: 20 city, 23 highway
Engine: 2-liter turbo four-cylinder
Transmission: six-speed auto in AWD
Parting shot: Capable and quirky enough to be distinctive | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/auto-review-2017-kia-sportage-contends-crowded-class-compact-crossovers/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/788f0f3399e508f4e41f9fea1eeb30dca76bd1c6ab40129043b5c5f1f33b924e.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T12:49:49 | null | 2016-08-30T07:09:33 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fchina-charges-u-s-woman-espionage%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | China Charges U.S. Woman With Espionage | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 7:09 am |
BEIJING (Reuters) - An American businesswoman held in China since last year has been charged with spying, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, the latest development in a case that has added to U.S.-China tension.
Sandy Phan-Gillis, a resident of Houston, Texas who has Chinese ancestry and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested in March 2015 and had been held without charges since then.
“Based on our understanding, Phan-Gillis, because of her suspected crimes of espionage, has been charged according to law by the relevant Chinese department,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters at a regular briefing. “China is a country ruled by law. The relevant Chinese department will handle the case strictly according to law,” she said, without elaborating.
It is unclear what violations the charge covers.
The State Department has urged China to resolve the case “expeditiously.”
The Chinese government has chided the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for saying her detention violated international human rights norms.
That charge comes amid heightened tension in U.S.-China relations, dogged by issues ranging from differences over territorial disputes in the South China Sea to the sentencing in the United States of a Chinese national for conspiracy to hack sensitive military information.
The Chinese man, Su Bin, 51, was sentenced this July to 46 months in jail, after pleading guilty to conspiring to hack into the computer networks of major U.S. defense contractors.
Phan-Gillis has said, in a letter dictated to a U.S. consular official in China, that her detention is because of politics and not due to any crime. She visited China on a trade delegation from Houston and was detained while attempting to cross the border between the southern city of Zhuhai and the peninsula of Macau. Her husband, Jeff Gillis, has insisted repeatedly that she is not a spy or a thief.
China’s State Secrets Law is extremely broad, encompassing everything from industrial data to top leaders’ birthdays. Information can also be declared a state secret retroactively.
There is no independent oversight of China’s law enforcement authorities or courts, which answer to the ruling Communist Party.
Regardless of the Phan-Gillis issue, President Barack Obama is due to arrive in China on Saturday for a G20 summit in the city of Hangzhou. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/china-charges-u-s-woman-espionage/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/0d533a2ead17a709562b90b29d797bee5c4c8e34c86b7802bd93de5ff62fed9f.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T22:49:42 | null | 2016-08-29T17:17:45 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Ffeds-given-another-3-weeks-weigh-ex-virginia-govs-case%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Feds Given Another 3 Weeks to Weigh Ex-Virginia Gov's Case | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 5:17 pm |
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A federal appeals court has granted a request to put former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s case on hold for another three weeks.
Federal prosecutors asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday for more time to figure out the next steps in the Republican’s case after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his corruption conviction in June.
The court approved that request Monday, putting the case on hold until Sept. 19.
McDonnell was convicted in 2014 of violating federal bribery law.
The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, saying his actions were distasteful but didn’t necessarily violate federal bribery laws. The case was returned to an appeals court to decide whether there’s enough evidence for another trial. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/feds-given-another-3-weeks-weigh-ex-virginia-govs-case/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/4c1fc074ef6b1bcb31be39debf5b0566ff3345b156393babc927423c01bc7569.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T20:49:09 | null | 2016-08-28T15:41:13 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fbarrel-bombs-kill-least-16-mourners-aleppo-monitor-says%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16240573488126-300x200.jpg | en | null | Barrel Bombs Kill at Least 16 Mourners in Aleppo, Monitor Says | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 3:41 pm |
Syrian civil defense workers inspecting damaged buildings after barrel bombs were dropped on the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria, on Saturday. (Aleppo Media Center via AP)
BEIRUT (dpa/TNS) - At least 16 people were killed Saturday when unidentified helicopters dropped barrels packed with explosives on a gathering of mourners in the divided city of Aleppo in northern Syria, a monitoring group reported.
The explosives, known as barrel bombs, were dropped on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Bab al-Neirab on the outskirts of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The victims were mourning 15 people, including 11 children, who had been killed in an air attack two days earlier in the same district.
Aleppo, Syria’s prewar commercial hub, has been divided between forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the west and rebels to the east since fighting erupted for the control of the city in mid-2012. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/barrel-bombs-kill-least-16-mourners-aleppo-monitor-says/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/067e752decf495af37f321da2b4dc7acf03bdd7aa84ee6618e78a5afae1d9832.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T18:49:05 | null | 2016-08-26T13:15:57 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Fstocks-slip-losses-yellen-speech%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/stocks-300x193.jpg | en | null | Stocks Slip Into Losses After Yellen Speech | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 1:15 pm |
NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks were mostly lower on Wall Street in early afternoon trading on Friday, giving up modest gains following a generally upbeat assessment of the economy from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. Phone companies and utilities, widely considered safe-play stocks, led the list of declining stocks, while the health-care and technology sectors rose. AT&T and Verizon each fell 1 percent.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 67 points, or 0.4 percent, to 18,382 as of 12:19 p.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index slipped 6 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,167. The Nasdaq composite dipped 10 points, or 0.2 percent, to 5,203.
YELLEN UPBEAT: Federal Reserve Chair Yellen said in a speech that the Fed is moving toward raising interest rates in light of a solid job market and an improved outlook for the U.S. economy and inflation. But she stopped short of signaling any timetable for the next rate hike.
BOND REACTION: After initially rising after Yellen’s speech, U.S. government bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year note, which moves in the opposite direction of the price, rose to 1.59 percent from 1.54 earlier Friday. The yield was 1.58 percent late Thursday.
THE QUOTE: “Who would think the Fed would raise interest rates two months before a very important election and with economic growth that has been back and forth and back and forth for years?” said Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at R.W. Baird. “She suggests the economy is improving, but the GDP numbers for the past three quarters are closer to 1 percent than three percent. That is very anemic.”
SOFTWARE SURGE: Design software company Autodesk rose $4.08, or 6 percent, to $67.78 after reporting a small profit, beating expectations of a loss.
HERBALIFE FALLS: Herbalife fell $3.39, or 5.6 percent, to $58.54 after The Wall Street Journal reported that Carl Icahn, the company’s biggest shareholder and defender, has been trying to unload his stake. Federal regulators recently ordered the company to change its sales practices, but did not agree with Wall Street critics that it was a pyramid scheme.
OVERSEAS: Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3 percent, Germany’s DAX gained 0.6 percent, and France’s CAC 40 climbed 0.8 percent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2 percent after consumer prices fell the most in three years in July. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.4 percent.
OIL: Benchmark U.S. crude oil slipped 9 cents to $47.24 a barrel. Brent crude, used to price oil internationally, fell 25 cents to $49.42 a barrel.
CURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 101.46 yen from 100.57 yen the previous day. The euro fell to $1.1220 from $1.1281. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/stocks-slip-losses-yellen-speech/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/6de26a3d0efb99d910b50573ee7b7924dbcf992c1bd63bc16addb96c37d4db19.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-29T10:49:12 | null | 2016-08-29T06:42:23 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fazarias-unit-commander-real-fear-chevron-terrorist-had-a-bomb%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/07/IDF-Soldier-on-Trial-Accuses-Commanders-of-Lying-205x300.jpg | en | null | Azaria's Unit Commander: 'Real Fear' Chevron Terrorist Had a Bomb | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 6:42 am |
Sgt. Elior Azaria, the IDF soldier who shot a Palestinian terrorist in Chevron, seen after a military court hearing in Jaffa. (Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - In the second day of defense arguments in the trial of Elior Azaria, the soldier’s unit commander testified that soldiers in the unit were “very confused” in the wake of the shooting of the terrorist on Purim morning in Chevron. “There was a great deal of agitation,” said the officer, whose name was withheld from publication. “We told the soldiers not to touch the body of the terrorist until a bomb squad member arrived. We feared that he was carrying a bomb.”
The officer said that he had seen a knife next to the terrorist, and that he was afraid, as were the other soldiers, that the terrorist would get up, grab the knife, and go on a stabbing spree. He also testified that he had yelled out at soldiers to stay away from the terrorist because of the fear of a bomb. The terrorist had been wearing a heavy coat, and there was no way to know if he had a bomb or other device under the coat.
With his testimony, the officer contradicted several of his own commanders, who claimed that in their opinion there was no reason to suspect that the terrorist would blow himself up. However, they were not present at the scene, as he was.
Azaria is on trial for shooting at a terrorist in Chevron on Purim morning when he was neutralized and on the ground, after having been shot when he tried to stab soldiers. He is being tried on charges of manslaughter and conduct unbecoming an IDF soldier.
Evidence on the culpability of the soldier has been mixed, with footage and testimony surfacing that either indicate that the soldier was justified in his claimed fears that the terrorist, who was still alive, could have set off a bomb he may have been carrying on his person, or that he was completely immobilized and “deserved to die,” as some witnesses have claimed the soldier said. This is the first time in a decade that a soldier has been so charged, IDF officials said.
One soldier who testified for the defense Sunday said that after the incident, soldiers were subjected to a lecture about how “serious” the shooting was. The unit commander, asked about this, confirmed that all unit commanders had received orders from higher-ups to hold such discussions within hours of the incident – and before several soldiers who were to be called by internal affairs investigators were questioned.
The officer was asked if he did not realize that the lectures could have played a role in convincing Azaria’s fellow soldiers that he was indeed guilty – that they were being “brainwashed” – but the officer said that he had not thought of that at the time. He added that other lectures were given by higher-ranking officers in the days following the incident discussing its “seriousness.” The soldiers were also instructed not to speak publicly about the incident. In addition, he said, he was instructed by higher-ups to be on alert for an “uprising” by soldiers, but said he did not detect one. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/azarias-unit-commander-real-fear-chevron-terrorist-had-a-bomb/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/cd588b6a7793f2cec55ddf64de0748735db21a7db98bd08e6f3fcedfafa0bbad.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T02:49:03 | null | 2016-08-28T20:58:49 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fappeals-court-nyc-can-use-gps-track-cabbies%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Appeals Court: NYC Can Use GPS To Track Cabbies | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 8:58 pm |
NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Friday that New York City can track taxi drivers by using their cabs’ GPS systems.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling came in the case of cabbie Hassan El-Nahal, who filed a lawsuit in 2013 charging that the tracking system violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
El-Nahal was among the cabbies targeted in a 2010 crackdown on drivers who were overcharging passengers.
The city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission used the GPS devices that had been installed in cabs in 2004 to determine that some drivers were cheating passengers by charging a higher suburban fare when they were still in the city.
The appeals court ruled that the use of the GPS devices was permitted. The court said El-Nahal couldn’t argue that the government had improperly intruded into his property since the GPS device had already been installed when he drove the cab. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/appeals-court-nyc-can-use-gps-track-cabbies/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/f8a945f572093c7669eea53d94eeaa672ea2d801b17b21d92e78b9153597343b.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T02:50:04 | null | 2016-08-30T21:09:34 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Femotional-bill-clinton-eyes-possible-exit-foundation%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16242687970761-300x200.jpg | en | null | An Emotional Bill Clinton Eyes Possible Exit from Foundation | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 9:09 pm |
FILE – In this May 6, 2015, photo, former President Bill Clinton speaks during a plenary session at the Clinton Global Initiative Middle East & Africa meeting in Marrakech, Morocco. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - When Bill Clinton told the staff of his global charity he would have to step down if Hillary Clinton won the White House, he was vividly clear about how that felt: Worse than a root canal, he said.
For Clinton, the foundation that bears his name has shaped much of his post-White House legacy, helping transform him from a popular yet scandal-tainted former president into an international philanthropist and humanitarian. But the Clinton Foundation is also the focus of election-year scrutiny — pushed along by Donald Trump — about the Democratic power couple’s ability and willingness to separate the organization’s wealthy contributors from past and possible future government roles.
The decisions surrounding the foundation’s future are the latest chapter in an unprecedented partnership of personal and political ambitions. While political spouses — Hillary Clinton among them — often put aside their own goals, never before has that been required of a former president.
Friends and associates say that while Bill Clinton knows his role in the high-profile charity has to change, settling on how and when he might walk away has been emotional. He’s also said to be deeply frustrated with the criticism shadowing his potential exit.
“We’re trying to do good things. If there’s something wrong with creating jobs and saving lives, I don’t know what it is,” he said last week.
Mark Updegrove, the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library and an author, said that while the foundation has unquestionably done good work around the world, the former president has no choice but to step aside if his wife wins the White House.
“Bill Clinton is smart enough to know that as much as the Clinton Foundation might help to augment his legacy, Hillary Clinton becoming president will be a far greater legacy than anything he himself can do as a former president,” Updegrove said.
The foundation made some adjustments after she became secretary of state, but it has still faced numerous questions about how rigorously firewalls were upheld that were meant to separate donors from her government work.
An Associated Press review of Clinton’s calendars from a two-year stretch show that more than half of those she met with from outside of government had made contributions to the foundation.
For Trump and other Republicans, the Clintons’ overlapping worlds are rife with ethical lapses. And for some Democrats, even that perception is worrisome in an election year where control of the White House and Congress are at stake.
Meanwhile, there’s an odd reality of modern American politics: What presidents do after leaving the White House can shape their legacy almost as much as their tenure in the Oval Office.
It can be an opportunity to bolster presidential successes and try to make up for failures. And those who leave office relatively young — Clinton was 54 — can spend many more years on these legacy projects than they did in the White House.
“For the last 15 years, it has been his life,” said Tina Flournoy, Clinton’s chief of staff. During the announcement of his potential departure, she said he noted that his role as head of the foundation was “the longest job he has held.”
Jimmy Carter, who was seen by some as an ineffectual one-term president, has dramatically reshaped his image with decades of work on global issues. George W. Bush left office deeply unpopular, but has been applauded for dedicating his post-White House years to programs in Africa and work with wounded military veterans. President Barack Obama has been discussing plans for his White House afterlife with confidants for months.
“There’s a certain expectation that you stay involved, you don’t totally get off the scene,” said Anita McBride, a longtime Bush family aide.
Bill Clinton’s foundation began largely to support the building of his presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas. As his post-White House ambitions grew, so did the foundation, ballooning into a $2 billion charity focused on global health, climate change and other international efforts.
The former president has leveraged his contacts to fill the foundation’s coffers and traveled the world to meet with people helped by its work. He’s the star of the annual Clinton Global Initiative meetings in New York, a mingling of international power players and celebrities that has become the hottest invitation in the philanthropic community.
The plan for the foundation’s future in the event of a Clinton victory this fall includes daughter Chelsea Clinton remaining. Foreign and corporate donations will be halted, though the foundation is looking for ways to spin off some programs and keep them running.
The prospect of Bill Clinton stepping away from the foundation that has been the main outlet for his energy and intellect has renewed discussions about how he would fill his time in his wife’s administration. Though he’s now 70 and slowed by health issues, people close to the Clintons say they fully expect him to seek a prominent role. Hillary Clinton has even raised the prospect of putting her husband in charge of “revitalizing the economy.”
“He just has to feel productive every single day,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a longtime Clinton friend. “If he gets into another situation where he’s going to have that ability, he’s going to be fine.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/emotional-bill-clinton-eyes-possible-exit-foundation/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/52a50c5b190a40731e08f5225f564bbf8f78f4212ace5b03f8fd511b0ca94ae7.json |
[
"Natalie Campisi"
] | 2016-08-29T22:49:31 | null | 2016-08-29T18:46:01 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F5-ways-can-buy-house-even-dont-meet-income-requirements%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | 5 Ways You Can Buy a House Even If You Don’t Meet Income Requirements | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 6:46 pm |
(GOBankingRates.com/TNS) - Buying a home is an exciting process that takes time, research and money. And for people who need a mortgage, it also usually requires a good credit score. If your credit history is less than what most lenders deem acceptable for a home loan, then it’s time to explore your options.
Although rebuilding your credit is one way to improve your chances of qualifying for a mortgage, it can be a lengthy process. Before you even start the application process, use a mortgage qualification calculator to figure out how much you can afford; this will give you an idea of your price range and how much you’ll need to ask the lender for. Many lenders advise not to spend more than 28 percent of your income on your mortgage.
Some folks might want to own a home sooner — because of attractive real estate prices or a low annual interest rate — than it might take to boost their credit score. Even if you don’t have time to make a helpful boost to your credit score, there are still things you can do to help yourself get a mortgage. Here’s a list of alternative strategies to help you figure out how to buy a house when you don’t meet certain requirements.
INCREASE QUALIFYING INCOME
When underwriters look at income, they take a pretty conservative stance. For example, income from your part-time job might not be considered unless you have a history of working more than one job. Rental income might take a 25 percent cut right off the top of your income, and if you deduct business expenses that have yet to be reimbursed on a Schedule 2106, your lender will probably also deduct them from your qualifying income. However, sometimes the rules work in your favor.
As required by the Equal Opportunity Act Amendments of 1976, income that the borrower receives from public assistance programs might be used to qualify for a loan if it can be determined that the income will probably continue for three years or more. This can be helpful in boosting total income.
Here are other sources of income that you might not have considered:
—Alimony or child support
—Automobile allowance
—Boarder income
—Capital gains income
—Disability income — long-term
—Employment offers or contracts
—Employment-related assets as qualifying income
—Foreign income
—Foster-care income
—Interest and dividends income
—Mortgage credit certificates
—Mortgage differential payments income
—Non-occupant borrower income
—Notes receivable income
—Public assistance income
—Retirement, government annuity and pension income
—Royalty payment income
—Social Security income
—Temporary leave income
—Tip income
—Trust income
—Unemployment benefits income
—VA benefits income
CHOOSE A DIFFERENT MORTGAGE
Some mortgages have more forgiving guidelines than others when it comes to income. VA loans, for example, calculate income two ways — the standard debt-to-income method and the “residual income” method, which is much more generous.
For people with lower incomes, a worthwhile option to look into is Freddie Mac’s Home Possible program. To qualify, the borrower must have a yearly income that’s either equivalent to or less than the area median income for the census tract where the property is located. The only exception to this rule is if the property is in a designated underserved area or high-cost area.
The Home Possible rules state that if the property is in a high-cost area, the annual income can exceed the area median income, within certain limits. Likewise, if the property is in an underserved area, AMI requirements don’t apply at all.
Credit might be another option for people who have a history of paying their bills on time, even if they experienced a period of financial hardship. FHA loan qualifications state that these candidates might still be able to qualify for a loan, regardless of isolated cases of late or slow payments.
BRING IN A CO-BORROWER
There’s always the option of bringing in a co-borrower. Extra income allows you to qualify for a bigger mortgage. Co-borrowers can be occupants or non-occupants. An occupying co-borrower lives in the home with you. A non-occupant co-borrower is more like a co-signer; this person doesn’t live in the house but is responsible for the payments.
Lenders are more likely to put restrictions on non-occupant co-borrower loans, such as requiring a higher down payment. Government loans come with fewer restrictions.
For manually underwritten loans, the income from a non-occupant co-borrower might be considered as acceptable qualifying income. This income can offset certain weaknesses that might be in the occupant borrower’s loan application, such as limited financial reserves or limited credit history.
GET A SUBPRIME MORTGAGE
The term “subprime mortgage” often has a negative connotation because of the housing bubble and financial crisis it’s often associated with; however, subprime mortgages can actually be a gateway to homeownership for some people.
Basically, a subprime mortgage is a home loan with higher interest rates than their prime mortgage counterparts. The higher interest rates are in place to offset the risk of loan default by subprime mortgage borrowers who are risky customers because of poor credit. These mortgages might be either fixed or adjustable rate mortgages.
The benefit of this kind of mortgage is that people with poor credit don’t have to wait as long to own a home. They can repair their credit by paying their mortgage each month, rather than waiting years to repair their credit and then buy a home.
The obvious disadvantage, besides higher rates, is that closing costs and fees associated with home loans will usually be higher for subprime borrowers. Although credit score requirements aren’t as stringent for subprime loans, borrowers must still show proof that they can afford the mortgage payments each month.
STRENGTHEN YOUR APPLICATION
It might surprise you to know that income is actually one of the less important underwriting criteria. If you don’t believe it, try calling a few lenders. Tell them you make $1 million a year but have a 500 FICO score and only 5 percent to put down. You won’t get far.
You can build a stronger application by including compensating factors such as:
—History of a low use of debt
—Proof of regular saving habit
—Showing that the home you intend to buy is energy-efficient
—Holding a job with excellent prospects
—Documentation of extra, unofficial income, such as commission income that you haven’t been getting for the required minimum of two years
People with low-to-moderate incomes get mortgages all the time, especially when they have excellent credit, a decent down payment and money in the bank. Establishing great credit and substantial savings are part of the first few steps to buying a house. It also helps to have an emergency fund — enough in the bank to cover two to six months’ worth of bills — and a credit score of 720 or better. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/5-ways-can-buy-house-even-dont-meet-income-requirements/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/c9fea356cdbc93c80e6c9feca7d42546b581e110498e0dba31b0e2ebb835d645.json |
[
"Ann Mcfeatters"
] | 2016-08-29T00:48:59 | null | 2016-08-28T19:42:05 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fno-respite-ridiculous-campaign%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | No Respite From Ridiculous Campaign | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 7:42 pm |
(WASHINGTON/TNS) - The potholed path to election 2016 is so treacherous, we need a break from the awfulness. So instead, let’s marvel at the weirdness.
Donald Trump is pivoting among his positions so fast it’s dizzying. Would-be Hillary Clinton voters are dumbfounded by her blind eye to the perception that much pay-to-play occurred when she was secretary of state and held a great many private meetings with donors to the Clinton Foundation.
Where can we find respite from these daily assaults on sanity?
Well, there was that delicious photo opportunity of Trump in flood-ravaged Louisiana helping unload donated humanitarian supplies from the back of a truck. He spent less than a minute in manual labor, during which he was photographed handing a box of Play-Doh to Mike Pence, his running mate.
The scene was, no doubt, set up by Trump’s newest batch of handlers, who have been struggling to make him softer, less bigoted, less racist, less xenophobic… and have pushed him to read off teleprompters so he won’t say anything outrageously offensive, as he has been happily doing for more than a year. But, really. Play-Doh?
And what’s up with going before white audiences to talk to black Americans, saying their experience is: “Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing, no homes, no ownership. Crime at levels that nobody has seen. You can go to war zones in countries that we are fighting and it’s safer than living in some of our inner cities. … And I ask you this: … What … do you have to lose? Give me a chance. I’ll straighten it out.”
That’s gotta be a sure-fire way to lure the 97 percent of blacks who say they don’t want a Trump presidency.
The Trump campaign is trying to insinuate that Clinton is not physically well despite her doctor’s reassurances. [So she] opened a jar of pickles in a now-famous test for proving good health. We are blessed she did it with a modicum of effort.
Trump is demanding a special prosecutor look into Clinton’s granting of access to financial supporters of her family foundation, which, admittedly, has done valuable charitable work. If elected, she says there won’t be any more foreign or corporate donations accepted. Why didn’t she say that when she was in the Obama administration?
Trump says he knows how the game is played because he has always handed out “yuge” donations to politicians to give him whatever … he wanted from them.
Meanwhile, Trump refuses to discuss what would happen to his complicated business empire if he is elected. Secret trust? It’s not as if you can just forget you own Trump Tower, golf courses and Mar-a-Lago. And what about the hundreds of thousands of dollars his businesses owe in debt, including to foreigners?
He castigates Clinton for resisting the release of her private emails. But, unlike her, he won’t release his tax returns. (His excuse of an audit is no excuse, say the experts.) Is it because he doesn’t pay much if anything in taxes on all those billions of dollars he supposedly has?
Clinton hates the press and avoids press conferences as rigorously as most people resist root canals. Trump bans reporters from The Washington Post from getting credentials to cover his rallies. But in the vein of there’s no such thing as bad publicity, he basks in the free publicity the media eagerly gives him.
Clinton promises she will fight for the middle class, insisting she understands their angst, unease, needs, fears and hopes. But she and her husband are worth a hundred million dollars, by some estimates, gleaned from cashing in on being public office holders. And she raises millions and millions of dollars in the richest enclaves in the nation, hobnobbing with the mighty and the famous.
Trump boasts he is self-funded but now that donors are contributing to him he raises the rents he charges his campaign for office space in his own properties and the use of such things as his private planes.
Sorry. I lied. I promised you a diversion, and you just feel worse. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/no-respite-ridiculous-campaign/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/7045d7c9980da89243a3d54f3306b98683e92360e7e72673f0cdec8ecca382f1.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T22:49:37 | null | 2016-08-29T18:02:23 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fnegative-views-clinton-trump-unprecedented-poll-finds%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Negative Views of Clinton and Trump ‘Unprecedented,’ Poll Finds | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 6:02 pm |
WASHINGTON (McClatchy Washington Bureau/TNS) - The disdain for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is “unprecedented,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said Monday.
His poll found that “nearly no voters have a positive opinion of both Clinton and Trump while one-third do not have a favorable view of either candidate. These results are unusual.”
“It seems like a significant number of voters are backing a presidential candidate about whom they cannot say anything positive,” Murray said.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, does get favorable reviews from 34 percent of voters, while 26 percent see Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, favorably.
But combine the results, and the survey found only 2 percent view both favorably while 35 percent see both unfavorably.
That’s unprecedented in recent times.
“The number of voters in elections going back to 1984 who had a favorable opinion of both candidates was never lower than 5 percent,” said a poll analysis. The number who did not have a favorable opinion of either nominee never topped 9 percent in that period.
Those with unfavorable views of both candidates this year are divided almost evenly between Trump, Clinton and Libertarian Gary Johnson.
Overall, Clinton leads Trump, 46 to 39 percent. Johnson gets 7 percent and Jill Stein of the Green Party gets 2 percent. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/negative-views-clinton-trump-unprecedented-poll-finds/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/ed8c4cc93a348faf7a01ecd2c6013c81c181e85b65478cd70efbdbc18ef6563e.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T10:49:15 | null | 2016-08-29T05:09:09 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Feu-trade-negotiator-plays-down-reports-of-eu-u-s-pact-failure%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/F080324OF01-300x201.jpg | en | null | EU Trade Negotiator Plays Down Reports of EU-U.S. Pact Failure | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 5:09 am |
U.S. and EU currency. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union’s lead negotiator in trade talks with the United States is downplaying an assertion from the German economy minister that negotiations on the proposed pact have failed.
When asked Monday by The Associated Press whether the claims were true, chief EU negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero said: “No, no. Remember what Mark Twain said.” (Twain once quipped that reports of his death were an exaggeration.)
Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Germany’s vice chancellor, said Sunday: “In my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it.”
Gabriel noted that in 14 rounds of talks on the massive transatlantic pact, the two sides haven’t agreed on a single common item out of 27 chapters being discussed. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/eu-trade-negotiator-plays-down-reports-of-eu-u-s-pact-failure/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/6960c504ced3333a36c38c55449c2df46211f6ae5de04d35dd2e2dab62ee25d1.json |
[
"Yoni Weiss"
] | 2016-08-28T16:48:50 | null | 2016-08-28T10:51:01 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fformer-defense-minister-binyamin-ben-eliezer-80%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/f130206ns156-300x200.jpg | en | null | Former Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, 80 | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 10:51 am |
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. (Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Former Minister Binyamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer passed away Sunday afternoon in Tel Aviv’s Asaf Harofei Hospital at the age of 80.
In recent years, Ben-Eliezer suffered from numerous maladies, including heart problems.
Ben-Eliezer, born in Iraq in 1936, served in the IDF for over 20 years, most prominently as Military Governor in Yehudah and Shomron in the late 1970s, and Coordinator of Government Activities in the region in 1983-84. He was also a top commander in South Lebanon, appointed in 1977 as a liaison to the local population.
Upon leaving the army, he entered politics. Ben-Eliezer had been born in Iraq, and became one of the first Mizrachi Jews to rise to prominence in Labor. He was first elected to the Knesset in 1984 on the Yachad list, which eventually merged with the Labor-dominated Alignment. In 1992, he was named Housing Minister in Yitzchak Rabin’s first government, entering the opposition after Labor lost the elections in 1996. He returned as Minister of Communications in Ehud Barak’s government in 1999, and later was appointed Defense Minister in 2001, when a national unity government was formed. In 2003, he once again became a minister, this time of the National Infrastructure Ministry, a post he held until 2005 when Labor left the government, and taking gain in 2006 under Ehud Olmert. He resigned the Knesset in 2014 due to his ongoing health problems.
He quit political life at the end of 2014, citing medical reasons.
Commenting on his passing, Labor Party head Yitzchak Herzog said that Ben-Eliezer, “who came to Israel as a lone immigrant from Iraq, was a fierce fighter who made a strong mark in the IDF, and from there graduated to politics, paving an impressive path all the way to the Defense Ministry and chairmanship of the Labor Party. I spoke with him a great deal in recent months about the legal cloud that surrounded him, and he continued to insist that he was innocent. We leave a man who was beloved by friends and family. May his memory be blessed.”
Ben-Eliezer is survived by his wife and five children. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/former-defense-minister-binyamin-ben-eliezer-80/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/a4dd8cdf9c77a560e897af01ea926a79d99c957004d666f4e5f5307fae205a25.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T00:48:39 | null | 2016-08-27T20:29:37 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2Fu-s-and-russia-fail-to-close-deal-on-ending-violence-in-syria%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/MIDEAST-CRISIS-KERRY-LAVROV-300x205.jpg | en | null | U.S. and Russia Fail to Close Deal on Ending Violence in Syria | null | null | hamodia.com | Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 8:29 pm |
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attend a news conference after a meeting on Syria in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday. (Reuters/Pierre Albouy)
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States and Russia failed on Friday to reach a breakthrough deal on military cooperation and a nationwide cessation of hostilities in Syria, saying they still have issues to resolve before an agreement could be announced.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing a joint news conference after more than nine hours of off-and-on talks in Geneva, said teams from both sides would try to finalize details in the coming days in the Swiss city.
Kerry said the talks with Lavrov had “achieved clarity on the path forward,” but together they offered few details on how they planned to renew a February cessation of hostilities and improve humanitarian assistance.
“We don’t want to have a deal for the sake of the deal,” Kerry said. “We want to have something done that is effective and that works for the people of Syria, that makes the region more stable and secure, and that brings us to the table here in Geneva to find a political solution.”
The talks have been complicated since initial meetings in July by new government attacks on opposition groups, and a significant offensive in the southern part of the divided city of Aleppo led by opposition fighters intermingled with the Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate also seeking to topple Russian-backed President Bashar al-Assad.
In the days ahead, the technical teams, which include U.S. and Russian military and intelligence experts, will try to figure out ways to separate the opposition groups, backed by the United States and Gulf Arab countries, from the jihadis.
It was unclear after Friday’s meetings whether all the outstanding issues could be resolved between Moscow and Washington, which back opposing parties in the Syrian conflict. The United States has insisted that the Syrian air force, which has dropped barrel bombs and chlorine on residential areas, be grounded, but Lavrov said on Friday that was not the goal.
Assad’s future is not part of the current talks. Instead, discussions are focused on finding an effective and lasting solution to end the violence, which would open negotiations on a political transition in Syria.
“If the remaining details can be completed, we believe we will be able to address the two primary challenges to the cessation of hostilities – the regime violations and the increasing influence of the al-Nusra Front,” Kerry said.
Kerry believes the plan is the best chance to limit fighting that is driving thousands of Syrians into exile in Europe and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching tens of thousands more.
The talks came as opposition groups effectively surrendered the Damascus suburb of Daraya to the government after a grueling four-year siege.
Kerry said the Syrian regime had “forced the surrender” of Daraya in contravention of the February cessation of hostilities agreement, but Lavrov said the local accord was an “example” that should be “replicated.”
The Russian foreign minister said another besieged area was “interested in such an operation with mediation of the Russian Federation.” He did not name the area.
Residents and insurgents in Daraya began to leave the besieged area where civilians have been trapped since 2012 and the U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed concern for their safety. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/27/u-s-and-russia-fail-to-close-deal-on-ending-violence-in-syria/ | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/8cc6a3dc718ae00fb79a47a1ae455bb11d0829a0c87b900e33cbe7bf6d2faf70.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T06:49:10 | null | 2016-08-29T02:43:05 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Faustralian-aid-worker-kidnapped-in-afghanistan-freed%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AFGHANISTAN-KIDNAPPING-300x209.jpg | en | null | Australian Aid Worker, Kidnapped in Afghanistan, Freed | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 2:43 am |
An Afghan policeman keeps watch at a checkpoint near the site of a kidnapping in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 8. (Reuters/Omar Sobhani)
SYDNEY/KABUL (Reuters) - An Australian aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan four months ago was freed following a raid by Afghan special forces near the eastern city of Jalalabad, officials said on Monday.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop confirmed in a statement that Kerry Jane Wilson, who was taken by two armed men from the offices of a charity in Jalalabad in April, had been freed and was “safe and well.”
A spokesman for Australia’s Foreign Ministry declined to provide details but Afghanistan’s National Directorate for Security said in a statement that Wilson had been freed on Sunday night after a raid by special forces. Four people were arrested.
“I deeply appreciate the work of the authorities in Afghanistan whose support and assistance facilitated her release,” Bishop said, adding that no further details would be provided about the circumstances of the release.
Kidnapping for ransom has long been a problem in Afghanistan, affecting Afghans more than foreigners, and it has become a lucrative source of income for Islamist terror groups in recent years.
The question of whether to pay ransom is hotly debated. Australia does not pay ransom to kidnappers, as a matter of policy, Bishop said in April.
This month, an Australian and an American, both teachers at the American University of Afghanistan, were kidnapped in the capital, Kabul. They are still missing.
Since June, two Indian aid workers have been kidnapped in Kabul and released after being held for several weeks each. At least two other foreigners were kidnapped in Kabul last year and later released. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/australian-aid-worker-kidnapped-in-afghanistan-freed/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/5f499efcf5d872a14c0e1251ce6f6ad38430420667fb983456b5f2bfe4f8f283.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:54:46 | null | 2016-08-25T20:47:23 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F25%2Fbusiness-briefs-august-25-2016%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Business Briefs | null | null | hamodia.com | Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 8:47 pm |
Applications for U.S. Unemployment Benefits Slipped Last Week
WASHINGTON (AP) – Slightly fewer people filed for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, a sign the American job market remains healthy.
The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for jobless aid slipped by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 261,000. The less volatile four-week average dropped by 1,250 to 264,000. Overall, the number of people receiving unemployment checks fell by 30,000 to 2.15 million, down 5 percent from a year earlier.
Indian Textile Maker Welspun Under Scrutiny Over Sheets
NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. retailers including J.C. Penney and Wal-Mart are scrutinizing whether sheets Welspun India Ltd. had said were high-end Egyptian cotton were actually cheaper knock-offs, questions that have sent the textile company’s shares plunging.
Since Target announced Friday that it was pulling the sheets and was terminating its relationship with the company, other retailers have launched investigations into the certification claims from Welspun.
Welspun told investors this week it’s conducting an audit.
Sears Moves to Quarterly Loss, Sales Keep Faltering
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. (AP) – Sears posted a second-quarter loss, with perpetually weak sales overshadowing the retailer’s efforts to cut costs and slow its cash burn. CEO Edward Lampert’s hedge fund will forward the ailing chain $300 million in additional debt financing.
Traditional department stores like Sears are trying to reinvent themselves as shoppers shift more of their purchases online, buy clothes at discounters and spend more on experiences. But Sears has dealt with weak sales for years, unable to keep up with competitors in appliances, like Home Depot, or general merchandise, like Wal-Mart, or everything, like Amazon.com.
Dollar General, Dollar Tree Report Weak Sales Growth
NEW YORK (AP) – Dollar General and Dollar Tree both reported weaker-than-expected sales figures Thursday, as struggling lower-income shoppers spent less at the rival stores.
Dollar General said a cut in food-stamp benefits in several states kept its customers away. Sales at stores open at least a year, a measure of a retailer’s health, rose 0.7 percent in its second quarter, below market expectations of a 2.7 percent increase.
Dollar Tree said some of its customers were “under pressure” and that sales at stores open at least a year rose 1.2 percent in its second quarter. Analysts expected growth of 2.4 percent. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/25/business-briefs-august-25-2016/ | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/8e140cf92d5b0d8813da96bac8f45c3a7c54593fc01930e1067a3e20f7ab2491.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-29T14:49:24 | null | 2016-08-29T09:46:44 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fkatz-new-northern-rail-line-could-be-extended-to-jordan%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/01/israel-railways-300x211.jpg | en | null | Katz: New Northern Rail Line Could Be Extended to Jordan | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 9:46 am |
An Israel Railways train. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - At a festive ceremony Monday, Transport Minister Yisrael Katz inaugurated the new “Valley Railroad” line, a revival of the historic route between Beit She’an and Haifa. The new line, which passes through Afula, Kfar Yehoshua, Migdal Ha’emek and Nesher, is expected to open up much of the currently-rural lower Galilee to suburban settlement, providing a direct route to jobs in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Katz, along with Israel Railway officials and the mayor of Migdal Ha’emek, Eli Barda, traveled in the inaugural run of the train, between Migdal Ha’emek and Beit She’an. Accompanying them were old-time residents of the area, who had last traveled the route in the early 1950s. The old Valley Rail was closed down in 1956. The new line, which includes two tracks, replaces the old single track that had been shut down since then. The line will go into general use before Sukkos.
Katz said that the railway was having the desired effect even before regular service on the line started. “Already we see a wave of construction in the cities and towns along the rail line. We are working to develop these cities as well, building industrial and high-tech zones, as we did in the south in Netivot, Sderot, and Ofakim when we built the rail line there.”
Katz said that he expected the line to extend beyond Beit She’an. “We intend for the line to continue on through to Jordan and the rest of the Arab world,” said Katz. Currently, hundreds of trucks transfer goods between Israel and Jordan, and Katz hopes that some of those shipments will be made by train. A cargo depot is planned, and initial talks have been conducted with Jordan on the idea, he said.
“This will be a bridge of peace,” Katz added. “I believe that in a very short period of time it will become clear that the investment we made here was worthwhile. I know there some who doubted this, but I believe they will be proven wrong.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/katz-new-northern-rail-line-could-be-extended-to-jordan/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/76e51ba39c8224f914a15d6aca58ab0877ac13d72711f58a0de5d6e0c738a1d1.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T14:49:19 | null | 2016-08-29T10:47:31 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Ffbi-detects-breaches-against-two-state-voter-systems%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/Fbi_mobile_command_center_2-300x214.jpg | en | null | FBI Detects Breaches Against Two State Voter Systems | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 10:47 am |
A FBI Mobile Command Center in Washington DC. (FBI via Wikimedia Commons)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI is urging election officials to increase computer security after it uncovered evidence that hackers have targeted two state election databases in recent weeks, according to a confidential advisory.
The warning was in an Aug. 18 flash alert from the FBI’s Cyber Division. Reuters obtained a copy of the document.
Yahoo News first reported the story Monday, citing unnamed law enforcement officials who said they believed foreign hackers caused the intrusions.
U.S. intelligence officials have become increasingly worried that hackers sponsored by Russia or other countries may attempt to disrupt the upcoming presidential election.
Officials and cyber security experts say recent breaches at the Democratic National Committee and elsewhere in the Democratic Party were likely carried out by people within the Russian government. Kremlin officials have denied the allegations of Moscow’s involvement.
Concerns about election computer security prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to convene a conference call with state election officials earlier this month, when he offered the department’s help in making their voting systems more secure.
The FBI warning did not identify the two states targeted by cyber intruders, but Yahoo News said sources familiar with the document said it referred to Arizona and Illinois, whose voter registration systems were penetrated.
Citing a state election board official, Yahoo News said the Illinois voter registration system was shut down for 10 days in late July after hackers downloaded personal data on up to 200,000 voters.
The Arizona attack was more limited and involved introducing malicious software into the voter registration system, Yahoo News quoted a state official as saying. No data was removed in that attack, the official said. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/fbi-detects-breaches-against-two-state-voter-systems/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/c892013b93726c8827beb02beb352ffdb3ee48001483f686a7f21342c65b1f20.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-30T12:49:48 | null | 2016-08-30T08:02:59 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Freport-importer-literally-crushes-israels-better-place-dreams%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2013/10/Better-300x171.jpg | en | null | Report: Importer Literally Crushes Israel's 'Better Place' Dreams | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 8:02 am |
Offices of the Electric Car company Better Place are closed, near the Glilot Interchange in central Israel. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash 90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Israel’s dreams of clean, green, electric car transportation are being crushed – literally, a report on Channel Two said Tuesday. Footage has emerged of the last vehicles of the Better Place company that were still on Israel’s roads being crushed, as the importer responsible for the cars, Carasso Trading, seeks to buy up whatever Better Place vehicles are still around.
Better Place was formed nine years ago, with much optimism that the well-funded (to the tune of $600 million) company could make electric cars commercially viable – and make Israel a center of the technology. However, the much-anticipated Renault model vehicles sporting the Better Place engine turned out to be a major sales flop – with many blaming regulation and pricing models of the company for the debacle.
Only a few thousand Better Place vehicles were ever sold, and it is estimated that about 1,000 remain on the road, some in the hands of private owners, and some in the hands of leasing companies. After Better Place went bankrupt several years ago, the bankruptcy court ordered Carasso to continue supplying service for the customers who had bought the car in good faith – which required the company to maintain charging stations and supply and maintain exchange batteries, which drivers “flipped” at the charging stations.
Owners of the vehicles have been vociferous in demanding that Carasso fulfill its part of the deal, and have filed many complaints with the courts over what they claim are violations of the court order. As a result, Channel Two said, the company has been seeking to buy up the Better Place vehicles still on the road, paying full current value for them, and offering incentives for customers to trade in their cars. The old cars are being destroyed, the Channel Two footage showed.
Carasso declined to comment on the story. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/report-importer-literally-crushes-israels-better-place-dreams/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/108186a94439320ab89811305444635bd48bf42b861cb9db1d0c15baef0acad7.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-30T10:49:56 | null | 2016-08-30T05:33:27 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fnegev-investors-oppose-kachlon-apartment-tax-plan%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/A-Custom-Designed-Tax-Plan-for-High-Tech-300x200.jpg | en | null | Negev Investors Oppose Kachlon Apartment Tax Plan | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 5:33 am |
Israel Finance Minister Moshe Kachlon. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Investors in southern Israel are demanding that Finance Minister Moshe Kachlon change his plan to tax owners of three apartments or more with what they called “putting an undue burden” on them. The investors own numerous apartments for rental in southern towns and cities, and claim that the tax violates several Basic Laws, as well as their rights as individuals. The investors are threatening to take the case to the High Court.
Beginning January 1, Israelis who own more than two apartments will pay a special tax, if Kachlon has his way. Under his proposal, landlords will pay a 1 percent tax per month on the assessed value of each home or apartment they own, beginning with the third property, up to a limit of NIS 1,500 per month, a total of NIS 18,000 a year. As the average value of homes in most cities is more than NIS 1.5 million, it is expected that most of the Israelis who will have to pay the tax will pay the full amount.
The rule is expected to affect 50,000 people, who own a total of 180,000 homes. The value of the home will be determined by a government-certified assessor, based on home value data supplied by the Central Bureau of Statistics for each geographical area.
But according to the investors, the proposal retroactively harms their investments, in addition to unfairly harming investors in apartments in the north and south, where housing prices and rents are lower. The tax they will have to pay will end up being a far higher percentage of the total rent they can recover than in the higher-priced center of the country, they said.
Elisha Cohen, who represents the group, said that typical of the group was one retiree who, due to a lack of jobs available to him, bought several apartments in order to be able to draw an income, which is more or less fixed, since rents do not rise as quickly in the periphery as in the center of the country. The tax will make a significant dent in his income and make it difficult for him to support himself, Cohen said.
“As is well known, homes in the center of the country are much more expensive than in the periphery,” he said. “It’s not fair that an apartment worth NIS 1.5 million in the Negev should be assessed at the same rate as an apartment in the center worth NIS 10 million. This is clear discrimination against the periphery,” he added. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/negev-investors-oppose-kachlon-apartment-tax-plan/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/55f305cd78823e592ace9c95caa1d6d11fcc4aa10a1ebdd6b6bd06123138b435.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T00:49:39 | null | 2016-08-29T20:39:47 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fnew-account-bloodiest-u-s-prison-riot-names-shooters%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | New Account of Bloodiest U.S. Prison Riot Names Shooters | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 8:39 pm |
ALBANY (AP) - Almost 45 years after America’s bloodiest prison rebellion, a historian’s new account names troopers and Attica prison guards that investigators believed fatally shot hostages and many unarmed inmates.
Heather Ann Thompson also writes that authorities knew hostages would die, and details Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s secret efforts afterward to establish an acceptable narrative of what happened.
Rockefeller ordered the retaking of the maximum-security prison in western New York on Sept. 13, 1971. The 1,300 inmates who had rioted over conditions four days earlier and controlled part of the prison had clubs, knives and makeshift weapons, and threatened to kill hostages.
When state police and guards stormed the facility after negotiations stalled, they fatally shot 29 inmates and 10 hostages.
“They knew they were going to kill the hostages,” Thompson said.
Authorities also never told the inmates of the ultimatums, deciding not to tell them they were coming with guns blazing if they didn’t surrender, she said.
The University of Michigan historian cites from public archives and court documents, some never before public. She found a large cache in an Erie County court storage area a decade ago, no longer available, while being repeatedly thwarted by state officials. They denied formal records requests on the ground that grand jury records are not public, though there are many other documents in the files, she said.
“This is hugely controversial even today,” Thompson said. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder. And there’s no statute of limitations on the possibility of filing civil rights cases.”
A particular document contains notes from a series of meetings held in the pool house of Rockefeller’s mansion in the weeks afterward that were attended by the governor, his top aides, the assistant state attorney general in charge of the investigation and the state police and prison officials in charge of retaking the prison.
“These potential indictees were now at the home of the governor of New York working with the head of the Attica investigation to get a formal narrative of what happened at Attica secured,” Thompson wrote. “Also there to help do this were other members of the State Police who had firsthand knowledge of exactly what had gone down.”
Among the topics discussed was one particular trooper who had shot with his own .357 magnum at close range at an inmate. The trooper was asked to resign four days later, and was told he wouldn’t then be prosecuted.
“Numerous documents from the Attica investigation indicated that everyone knew exactly who had killed John Monteleone — everyone but John Monteleone’s family.”
Thompson said it’s important to note that she does not anywhere call anyone a murderer, which would require a court ruling, very unlikely 45 years later, though it was clear authorities believed troopers fired recklessly and criminally. She felt obliged as a historian to keep names in, she said. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/new-account-bloodiest-u-s-prison-riot-names-shooters/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/3d57eeb572d6363e49b5e20d3094587cc498514bce23999413e67abddf441852.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T08:48:46 | null | 2016-08-28T02:58:52 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F1-rescued-2-missing-after-plane-crash-in-new-orleans-lake%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | 1 Rescued, 2 Missing After Plane Crash in New Orleans Lake | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 2:58 am |
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Authorities say a woman has been rescued and two men remain missing after a small plane crashed into a lake near a New Orleans airport.
New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Dawne Massey said in a statement early Sunday that department officials responded at 8:53 p.m. Saturday to a report that a Cessna aircraft carrying three people had crashed into Lake Ponchatrain near New Orleans Lakefront Airport.
The airport is located about 10 miles northeast of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.
Massey said one female passenger was picked up by a private yacht and transported to Ochsner Hospital. Her medical condition was not immediately known.
Massey said NOPD divers were preparing to deploy in an effort to locate the additional two male passengers and the wreckage.
No further details were immediately available. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/1-rescued-2-missing-after-plane-crash-in-new-orleans-lake/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/7022f6cb05aee3c24a95288949f886275a57524acd942089a539f555b3c126b3.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T22:50:01 | null | 2016-08-30T17:32:48 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Ffire-dept-official-admits-stealing-60000%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Fire Dept. Official Admits Stealing More Than $60,000 | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 5:32 pm |
FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) - The treasurer of a volunteer fire department in New Jersey has admitted to stealing more than $60,000 from the organization.
Monmouth County prosecutors say Chester Jameson pleaded guilty Monday to a theft charge as part of a plea bargain that calls for him to receive a three-year state prison sentence.
Prosecutors say the 52-year-old Old Bridge man wrote more than 100 checks to himself, as well as checks payable to cash, while serving with the Robertsville Volunteer Fire Company in Marlboro.
Jameson will have to forfeit his position with the fire company and will be barred from holding public office. He also must pay $60,000 in restitution. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/fire-dept-official-admits-stealing-60000/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/4cd37ff49d1eed0a3efccebaf62600e37635d52339df5093ccbc4c13a76402c4.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T02:48:35 | null | 2016-08-27T22:45:21 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2Fsuspected-kurdish-terrorists-fire-rockets-turkeys-diyarbakir-airport%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Suspected Kurdish Terrorists Fire Rockets at Turkey's Diyarbakir Airport | null | null | hamodia.com | Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 10:45 pm |
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Suspected Kurdish terrorists fired rockets at the airport in Turkey’s main southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Saturday, sending passengers and staff scrambling for shelter, Dogan news agency said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Four rockets were fired at a police checkpoint outside the VIP lounge, and passengers and staff were taken inside the terminal building for safety, the private news agency said. The attack happened not long before midnight (2100 GMT) on Saturday.
Broadcaster NTV said the rockets landed on wasteland nearby. There were no casualties and no disruption to flights, Diyarbakir governor Huseyin Aksoy told the news channel.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Diyarbakir is the main city in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast, where Kurdish terrorists have waged a three-decade insurgency. The attack comes days after Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria aimed at driving back Islamic State and preventing territorial gains by Kurdish fighters.
Rebels supported by Turkey fought Kurdish-backed forces in northern Syria on Saturday, and Ankara said it had launched air strikes against both Kurdish militia fighters and Islamic State.
Turkey fears Kurdish militia fighters will fill the void as Islamic State is pushed back. It wants to stop Kurdish forces gaining control of a continuous stretch of Syrian territory on its frontier, which it fears could deepen the insurgency by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants on its own soil.
Diyarbakir airport largely handles domestic flights and is served by carriers including Turkish Airlines.
The PKK, which first took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. A ceasefire collapsed just over a year ago, and violence has since surged. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/27/suspected-kurdish-terrorists-fire-rockets-turkeys-diyarbakir-airport/ | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/37c77f38df3d927e3a68039e396b146f62c0dc7dc1c91b4d1eb14fe06e44ffdf.json |
[
"Shimon B. Lifkin"
] | 2016-08-29T20:49:30 | null | 2016-08-29T15:24:44 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Femployment-boom-not-seems%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/Employment-Boom-Not-All-It-Seems-200x300.jpg | en | null | Employment Boom Not All It Seems | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 3:24 pm |
A poor man sits near an ATM of Bank Leumi in Yerushalayim. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Record-breaking low unemployment masks an increase in the number of part-time and low-paid jobs in Israel, Globes reported on Monday, quoting a Bank Leumi report.
The data showed that in July there was a decline in the number of people employed in full-time jobs, paralleled by an uptick of 23,700 people working in part-time jobs, the largest such rise since November 2015.
Employment increase came mostly in low-paid fields, while employment dropped in high-paid fields, according to the head of Leumi Capital Markets Macroeconomic Research Department David Reznik.
“About 50 percent of the new workers in the period between the first quarter of 2014 and the second quarter of 2016 were employed in commerce, hospitality services and food, healthcare and education,” Reznik wrote, “The average nominal wages in these sectors were lower than the average in the economy by 12 percent to 54 percent.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/employment-boom-not-seems/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/551d2225e7a567c6ecff1f2a5687ad273eff7c3e69ad4d00164135bcf24390d9.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-26T12:59:09 | null | 2016-08-26T04:46:10 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Farab-mk-abroad-boycott-of-israel-necessary%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2015/06/Foreign1-300x200.jpg | en | null | Arab MK Abroad: Boycott of Israel 'Necessary' | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 4:46 am |
Arab Israeli parliament member Basel Ghattas wears a kafiya around his shoulders as he addresses the Knesset in 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Many MKs take advantage of the Knesset recess to reach out to supporters in Israel and abroad, journeying to explain Israel’s unique security situation and to appeal for support. United Arab List MK Bassam Ghattas is no different – except that on his trip to the United States and Canada he is encouraging boycotting Israel.
In recordings of speeches made abroad broadcast by Channel Ten, Ghattas said that “1.8 million people are in a state of siege in Gaza. The necessary thing at this time is a boycott of Israel and imposing sanctions on it.”
Ghattas discussed previous political forays of his, and his thoughts about a new law that allows MKs to vote out their fellows for outrageous behavior. “I recently participated in a flotilla to bring aid to Gaza, and when I returned, the hatred, incitement and atmosphere in the Knesset was very ugly. If that law had been on the books at the time I would surely be removed from the Knesset.”
Ghattas said that his entire presence in the Knesset was just a prelude to something bigger. “We see the election to the Knesset as the beginning of a battle,” he said of himself and fellow Balad MKs Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka. “I believe that in not very much time we will decide not to participate in elections at all, and we will boycott them,” at which point Israeli Arabs will “rise up.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/arab-mk-abroad-boycott-of-israel-necessary/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/91f4b52ed65f2f038e7908b5505dc658176f858f21c8308e86140d8101d3578a.json |
[
"Rabbi Yehoshua Berman"
] | 2016-08-30T18:50:03 | null | 2016-08-30T14:44:47 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Frome-part-ii%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | When in Rome (Part II) | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 2:44 pm |
As ironic as flying to Austria via Rome and Munich right after Tishah B’Av was (see last week’s article, “When in Rome”), the experience took on a whole new angle for my friend on the way back. With a layover of just over an hour, it was supposed to be a seamless connection to the second flight. Or so it seemed. The first foreshadowing of a change in plans occurred when their stroller was missing upon disembarking in Rome. Despite my friend’s insistent requests, ground crew practically barked that they would find the stroller at their final destination — no ifs, ands or buts about it! But that was nothing compared to the next hit. Despite their baggage being checked through to their final destination in Munich, they were told that their FCO-to-TLV tickets would only be printed in Rome. No problem. When the Italian clerk printed them out, though, the tickets stated that boarding would be at 9:10 p.m. But their confirmed flight was at 2:45 p.m.! Having overbooked, the airline bumped them. Vociferous and vocal indignation at the injustice of bumping a family with small children was to no avail. Demanding a supervisor also accomplished nothing.
It was official. They were stranded in Rome — without a stroller for a rambunctious two-year-old or a morsel of kosher food — for seven hours.
After experiencing intense anger at the airline — which, on top of bumping them, wasted hours of their time with fruitless “negotiations” — two thoughts started vying for consideration. One: many people suffer yissurim: serious illness, desperation in shidduchim, extreme difficulties with children… this list could go on and on. In the grand scheme of things, then, a seven-hour layover is a small price to pay for kapparas avonos, isn’t it? They were reminded of the story of the Chassid who came to his Rebbe with a litany of sudden tzaros, and, when the Rebbe asked if he had recently resolved an ongoing annoyance, the Chassid recalled his crystal dishes. Frequently, he explained, a dish would fall and break. It was incredibly aggravating, so he just decided to get rid of them. “Go buy them back!” the Rebbe told him. “Those ongoing doses of angst were providing you with whatever atonement you needed.” Indeed, Chazal tell us (Arachin 16b) that even pulling two coins out of your pocket, when you wanted three, counts as yissurim. So, when we get stuck with life’s inevitable irritations, it’s worthwhile to take it in stride. For all we know, this may be Hashem’s way of sparing us from something much worse.
The next thought was the idea made famous by the Baal Shem Tov: Wherever you find yourself is exactly where you’re meant to be. Or, as Chazal put it (Sukkah 53a): “A man’s legs are his guarantors; wherever he is meant to be, they bring him there.” What exactly they were meant to accomplish there, they weren’t sure; but if Hashem saw fit to keep them in Rome for the day, there must be some reason. And when they somehow made their way to the Jewish Ghetto of Rome — yes, they were surprised to learn that it is still called such to this day — where there are some kosher establishments, they experienced an encounter that made them feel a whole lot better about the situation.
The taxi brought them right to the Ghetto, but the restaurant where they were planning to eat was closed. In the moment, it felt like a heap of salt on an open wound! As they made their way further into the Ghetto, though, they asked a passerby for directions. Seeing that this individual knew his way around the Jewish Ghetto, on a whim my friend decided to ask this man if he is Jewish. “Well, my family is half-half.” “Which half, may I ask, is the Jewish half?” “My mother’s side.” “Well, that means that you are Jewish!” “But I never followed anything about Judaism.” “That doesn’t matter. You are 100 percent Jewish! Tell me, have you ever visited Israel?” “Sure.” “Whereabouts?” “Tel Aviv, the Golan, Jerusalem.” “Do you think you may ever visit there again?” “Yes.” “Well, in that case, take my number. The next time you are in Israel, we would be delighted to host you for a Shabbos meal.” The young man — who had just learned that he is not a gentile but a bona fide Jew — was clearly flattered and indeed took down their number (and, no, they are not kiruv professionals).
There was more to their Rome experience, but that encounter was certainly the highlight. And the precision timing — with all the innumerable details that contributed thereto — was not lost on them. Why they had to be in Rome for the day, there really is no way to know. But one thing became crystal clear: Wherever you are, there is a reason for it. It is exactly where you are meant to be. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/rome-part-ii/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/d09daaead85f307cd669123ec045df0f2163ac6508ab526e29c5257f9505c861.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T02:50:03 | null | 2016-08-30T21:07:37 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fgoogle-expand-waze-carpooling-service-san-francisco%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16243771343840-300x199.jpg | en | null | Google to Expand Waze Carpooling Service In San Francisco | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 9:07 pm |
FILE – In this March 15, 2012 file photo, Ben Gleitzman uses a traffic and navigation app called Waze as he drives to work in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Google is preparing to expand a San Francisco carpooling program in a move that could that could set up a showdown with its one-time ally, the popular ride-hailing service Uber.
The plans will build upon a test service that Google’s navigation app Waze launched three months ago in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The program allows anyone using the Waze app to offer a ride to a limited pool of people trying to get to work or home.
Now, only people working at six companies, including Google, Wal-Mart Stores and Adobe Systems, can request rides. The tests have worked well enough to encourage Waze to move into the next phase and allow anyone in the Bay Area with its app to request a ride by the end of this year, spokeswoman Julie Mossler said.
Inviting more people to hitch rides could undercut Uber, which allows people to request drivers who provide a taxi service using their own cars.
Unlike Uber, Waze isn’t trying to make money for itself or the drivers offering to share a ride.
Instead, Waze sets a variable fee of up to 54 cents per mile to reimburse the drivers for gasoline and maintenance on their vehicles. The riders pay that fee.
Waze also limits trips to a rider’s work or home, with a maximum of two trips per day. Although riders can request a ride at any time, Waze is focusing the service on providing trips during peak commute times in the mornings and evenings. Only one rider is allowed per vehicle.
In contrast, Uber touts its around-the-clock service as a way for its drivers to make a decent living or supplement their incomes. Uber also hopes to eventually turn a profit itself to justify its financial backers’ belief that the privately held company is worth more than $60 billion.
Google, now a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., was among Uber’s early investors. It invested $258 million in Uber in 2013.
But the two companies now appear headed down a road more likely to make them foes than friends. Things already have become tense enough to prompt David Drummond, Alphabet’s senior vice president of corporate development, to resign from Uber’s board because of potential conflicts with Google’s ambitions in transportation.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick confirmed Drummond’s departure from the board Monday in a statement that described him as a sage adviser and great personal friend. Kalanick also said he looked forward to “continued cooperation and partnership” with Alphabet.
Uber declined to comment Tuesday on the planned expansion of Waze’s carpooling service in one of its biggest markets.
Besides testing the Waze carpooling service, Google has been building self-driving cars for the past seven years. Uber is now designing its own robot-powered vehicles and is using some of the autonomous cars to provide rides in Pittsburgh.
Google has previously gone to battle with its former allies. In the most prominent instance, then-CEO Eric Schmidt served on Apple’s board for three years, but stepped down in 2009 as Google’s Android operating system for smartphones began undercut sales of Apple’s iPhone. Before he died in 2011, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told his biographer that he believed Google had stolen ideas conceived for the iPhone’s software to create Android. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/google-expand-waze-carpooling-service-san-francisco/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/fddf72d8fe0ec8ecc0342e14c7fcc08e1c189b0e25cad7d4a1abab07f1d79a6d.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-31T08:50:09 | null | 2016-08-31T03:22:43 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fillegal-anti-israel-radio-station-shut%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2013/07/23-300x168.jpg | en | null | Illegal Anti-Israel Radio Station Shut Down | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 3:22 am |
Israeli soldiers. (Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - IDF soldiers and Israeli police overnight Tuesday shut down an illegal radio station in the village of Dura, near Chevron. The al-Sanabel radio station was operating illegally, and preaching anti-Israel incitement, including incitement to violence and murder.
Locals added that Israeli forces detained head of the radio station Ahmad al-Darawish, as well as radio employees Muhammad al-Sus, Nidal Amro, Muntaser Nassar and Hamed al-Nammura after raiding their homes. Spokesperson for the IDF Avichai Adraee said in a statement in Arabic that Israeli forces, police and civil administration authorities closed al-Sanabel upon a military order that claimed that the radio station broadcasts programs inciting against Israel. Adraee added that the five detainees were transferred for interrogation.
On Monday night, IDF soldiers demolished the home of one of the terrorists involved in the murder of Rabbi Miki Mark, Hy”d, in June. The house, located in the village of Dura, belonged Muhammad Abed Al-Amariya, a top Palestinian Authority official, who was the driver of the terror gang in the vehicle that transported the terror group to the site of the attack.
Overnight Tuesday, security officials said they arrested 6 wanted security suspects in other areas in Yehudah and Shomron. The suspects were wanted for participating in rioting and throwing stones and firebombs that endangered Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. Several of the suspects were also charged with belonging to Hamas. All were being questioned on their activities by security forces. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/illegal-anti-israel-radio-station-shut/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/036206fadd05f4d974249cfa1c09f3c744a6fb83ff84d9152dab0f68222e8e64.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T22:48:57 | null | 2016-08-28T16:54:13 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fohio-citys-new-868k-firetruck-doesnt-fit-station%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Ohio City's New $868k Firetruck Doesn't Fit in Station | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 4:54 pm |
LEBANON, Ohio (AP) - Officials in a southwest Ohio city say a new firetruck the city bought for almost $868,000 doesn’t fit in the station houses.
Lebanon city manager Pat Clements tells WLWT the problem started with a ladder truck that was taken out of service a few weeks ago because of mechanical failure. For public safety reasons, Clements issued an emergency order to buy a new truck.
Clements says officials knew the truck wasn’t going to fit into the stations. The bay doors aren’t tall enough to fit standard height ladder trucks.
But plans had already been underway to modify a station with taller doors and allow for a drive-thru. He says a front bay also will be modified to fit the new truck. He expects the renovations to be finished by January. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/ohio-citys-new-868k-firetruck-doesnt-fit-station/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/a453d2d85c3c4d64828d5ade259d09f89810abe818d2e9ae04959d9c4070982f.json |
[
"Hamodia Staff"
] | 2016-08-29T22:49:41 | null | 2016-08-29T17:51:17 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fbill-proposes-absentee-voting-israelis-abroad%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/Bill-Proposes-Absentee-Voting-for-Israelis-Abroad-300x200.jpg | en | null | Bill Proposes Absentee Voting for Israelis Abroad | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 5:51 pm |
A polling station in Bnei Brak in 2015, in the last Israeli general elections. (Yaakov Naumi /Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - A bill to enable Israelis to cast absentee ballots during stays abroad has garnered broad support and will probably be adopted in the coming fall session, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.
The bill drafted by MK Sharren Haskel (Likud) would only allow Israelis that voted in the previous election while in Israel to vote from abroad. This restriction is aimed at limiting the option to those who are out of the country for a relatively short period of time, not for Israelis who have left the country permanently.
The bill’s explanatory portion says its goal is to see that “democracy receives its maximum expression in the election results.”
“In the age of globalization, many citizens are abroad on election day, and they should be allowed to participate in elections through Israeli missions abroad, as most democratic countries in the world do, including: The U.K., Germany, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand,” it reads.
However, Meretz chairwoman Zehava Gal-On spied an anti-democratic agenda lurking in the proposal and urged her fellow leftists to oppose it.
“The real purpose of the initiative is to reduce the influence of Israeli Arab citizens on the results of the next election,” she contended. “That is not something that people [on the Left] should be able to accept or support.”
In addition, Gal-On warned of “a slippery slope that will lead to legitimization allowing all Israelis living abroad to vote.” People who have abandoned Israel to live elsewhere should not be able to influence the elections, since they do not have to live with the results, she argued. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/bill-proposes-absentee-voting-israelis-abroad/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/f2a4695cec8707f6597baaa1cf5bb1252fdb992d0f1c892d90c29d0fa470eee8.json |
[
"Laura Vozzella"
] | 2016-08-28T02:48:31 | null | 2016-08-27T22:30:37 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2Fgop-chooses-primary-convention-2017%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | GOP Chooses Primary Over Convention in 2017 | null | null | hamodia.com | Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 10:30 pm |
RICHMOND, Va. (The Washington Post) - Virginia Republicans will pick their 2017 nominees for governor and other statewide offices in a primary instead of a convention, the party decided Saturday in an about-face that infuriated some grass-roots activists and could have an impact on the presidential election.
The decision was made in a 41-to-40 vote after a passionate, hour-long debate and a surprise appearance by vice-presidential contender Mike Pence, who stressed the critical role Virginia will play in November’s election but did not weigh in on the convention-vs.-primary question.
The switch to the primary embittered some grass-roots activists because the party had recommended making its 2017 picks by convention – a format that tends to favor conservative candidates – just over a year ago.
Some warned the reversal would demoralize activists ahead of the presidential contest. But others said the move would prompt them to seek revenge on the establishment wing by turning out in droves for Donald Trump.
“This is a complete betrayal of the grass roots,” Waverly Woods, a GOP activist from Virginia Beach, fumed after the vote. “This party now – it’s imploding on itself because these Republicans can’t keep their word. . . . I hope everybody now jumps on the Trump train.”
State-run primaries are held in polling places across the commonwealth and are open to all voters because there is no party registration in Virginia. Conventions are day-long events that tend to attract only the most committed – and conservative – activists.
In a compromise in June 2015, the party agreed to choose its 2016 presidential nominee in a primary and made a recommendation for a convention in 2017, when the party will pick its nominee for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and possibly U.S. Senate, if Democrat Hillary Clinton wins the presidency and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, becomes vice president.
But by the narrowest of margins Saturday, members of the State Central Committee gathering in Richmond voted to change course.
The party has changed its mind on the nomination method before, including in 2012, when forces loyal to gubernatorial contender Ken Cuccinelli II scuttled a planned 2013 gubernatorial primary for a convention. Many in the establishment wing of the party blamed that process for nominating candidates Democrats successfully painted as too conservative for Virginia’s changing electorate.
Saturday’s change to the nomination plan came as the party is trying to rebound from a string of losses – and as Virginia is poised to play a key role in choosing the next president. That message was reinforced by Pence’s appearance, which was sandwiched between a meeting with the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s editorial board and a rally in Northern Virginia.
“The road to the White House runs straight through Virginia,” Pence said.
Republicans at the Richmond Convention Center seemed genuinely excited to see Pence – notable because the state’s delegation to the Republican National Convention had supported one of Trump’s rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, by a wide margin.
But the party’s divisions were soon on display, with advocates for conventions and primaries squaring off over which method could best reverse the fortunes of a party that has not won a statewide election since 2009.
Activists took turns making their pitches, often with passion but usually with decorum. Shouting broke out only once, as the sides disagreed over whether military personnel deployed overseas are able to participate in conventions.
Those who favor primaries said it would help the party reach more voters, including students, single parents, small-business owners and others who find it hard to travel across the state to a convention.
“We are not less Republican because we’re choosing to study,” said Ben Dessart, 25, a University of Richmond law student who warned that with conventions, the party would be “silencing the next generation of Republicans.”
Those who favor conventions said they forced candidates to engage in retail politics around the state, instead of running via media ads and sound bites. They also said the event serves as an important fundraiser for the party.
Dan Webb, who proposed the compromise plan last year, said the party will be bitterly divided if it is seen as reneging on what he called a “gentlemen’s agreement.”
“We have been internally wracked with divisions,” he said. “We have an opportunity to show goodwill. . . . I’m really tired of losing.”
National Committeeman Morton Blackwell also warned that Democrats eager to meddle would vote in the primary – particularly in a year when Democrats have already lined up behind their nominees for two offices: Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam for governor, and the incumbent attorney general, Mark Herring.
“We will have large numbers of hostile Democrats participating,” he said. “We shouldn’t let it happen.”
But former attorney general Jerry Kilgore, who backed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for the presidential nomination, said Republicans will pull together to support Trump and the party’s 2017 nominees.
“We’re not going to be divided,” he said. “My nominee didn’t win the presidential nomination this year, but I’m here, and I’m supporting our nominee.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/27/gop-chooses-primary-convention-2017/ | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/d93311b754dc90049c11c9495e089185fd90948c37716c5a901582ba4f571f94.json |
[
"Do Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-29T08:49:22 | null | 2016-08-29T02:52:42 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fidf-arrests-gaza-sailors-seizes-vessel%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/05/F080325AK05-300x201.jpg | en | null | IDF Arrests Gaza Sailors, Seizes Vessel | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 2:52 am |
Palestinian fishermen are seen off the coast in the port of Gaza City in 2008. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Gaza sources said Monday that Israeli naval officers had arrested two people on a fishing boat that had sailed from Gaza City. The fishing boat had veered out of the area that Gaza fishing boats are allowed to traverse. The boat was confiscated as well. Israeli soldiers suspected that it was being used to smuggle illicit goods into Gaza.
Last Thursday, Gaza Arab terrorists fired at an Israeli Navy ship as it interdicted fishing boats off the coast of Gaza. The fishing boat had strayed out of the territorial waters of Gaza where fishing is permitted. Soldiers called on the boat to pull back, but they refused. Israeli ships surrounded the boat and began escorting it back to shore. Shots were then fired from the shore at the Israeli ship. Soldiers returned fire. No IDF soldiers were injured in the incident, but one of the crew of the boat was. He was taken for medical treatment in Israel. The boat was released when it was returned to the permissible area for fishing.
Arabs threw stones at an Israeli vehicle near the Hawara checkpoint in Shomron Sunday. A female driver was not injured, but her vehicle was damaged. The area around the checkpoint is a frequent flashpoint for Arab riots, IDF officials said.
Overnight Sunday, security officials said they arrested 2 wanted security suspects in other areas in Yehudah and Shomron. The suspects were wanted for participating in rioting and throwing stones and firebombs that endangered Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. Several of the suspects were also charged with belonging to Hamas. All were being questioned on their activities by security forces. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/idf-arrests-gaza-sailors-seizes-vessel/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/9e2a12b61747d88cd7bcd5d0e7249493b46d8efad407b73c3e090438b45c41bb.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T10:49:52 | null | 2016-08-30T06:06:10 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Feu-orders-apple-to-pay-up-to-e13b-tax-to-ireland%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/03/APPLE-SECURITY-300x183.jpg | en | null | EU Orders Apple to Pay Up To €13B Tax to Ireland | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 6:06 am |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A 3D printed Apple logo. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration)
EU antitrust regulators ordered Apple on Tuesday to pay up to €13 billion ($14.5 billion) in taxes plus interest to the Irish government after ruling that a special scheme to route profits through Ireland was illegal state aid.
The massive sum, 40 times bigger than the previous known demand by the European Commission to a company in such a case, could be reduced, the EU executive said in a statement, if other countries sought more tax themselves from the U.S. tech giant.
Apple, which with Ireland said it will appeal the decision, paid tax rates on European profits on sales of its iPhone and other devices and services of between just 0.005 percent in 2014 and 1 percent in 2003, the Commission said.
“Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years,” said Competition Commission Margrethe Vestager, whose crackdown on mainly U.S. multinationals has angered Washington, which accuses Brussels of protectionism.
Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. and hamburger group McDonald’s Corp. face probes over taxes in Luxembourg, while coffee chain Starbucks Corp. has been ordered to pay up to €30 million ($33 million) to the Dutch state.
A bill of €300 million this year for Swedish engineer Atlas Copco AB to pay Belgian tax is the current known record. Other companies ordered to pay back taxes in Belgium, many of them European, have not disclosed figures.
For Apple, whose earnings of $18 billion last year were the biggest ever reported by a corporation, finding several billion dollars should not be an insurmountable problem. The €13 billion represents about 6 percent of the firm’s cash pile.
As of June, Apple reported it had cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $231.5 billion, of which 92.8 percent, or $214.9 billion, were held in foreign subsidiaries. It paid $2.67 billion in taxes during its latest quarter at an effective tax rate of 25.5 percent, leaving it with net income of $7.8 billion according to company filings.
The European Commission in 2014 accused Ireland of dodging international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars from tax collectors in return for maintaining jobs. Apple and Ireland rejected the accusation.
“I disagree profoundly with the Commission,” Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said in a statement. “The decision leaves me with no choice but to seek cabinet approval to appeal.
“This is necessary to defend the integrity of our tax system; to provide tax certainty to business; and to challenge the encroachment of EU state aid rules into the sovereign member-state competence of taxation.”
Ireland also said the disputed tax system used in the Apple case no longer applied and that the decision had no effect on Ireland’s 12.5-percent corporate tax rate or on any other company with operations in the country.
Apple said in a statement it was confident of winning an appeal.
“The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The Commission’s case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes, it’s about which government collects the money. It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/eu-orders-apple-to-pay-up-to-e13b-tax-to-ireland/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/ca026ee21c892ea18053f0bf9414706973f91407b4219337507c8ec451181d45.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T18:50:00 | null | 2016-08-30T14:48:23 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fsilent-majority-israel-wants-shabbos%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | The Silent Majority in Israel Wants Shabbos | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 2:48 pm |
When chareidi Knesset members fight to restore yeshivah budgets that have been slashed over the years, they are representing the Torah world. When they fight for Shabbos, they represent the silent majority in Israel.
The latest scandal in Israel involves work that was done this past Shabbos to expand Israel Railways lines in Tel Aviv to accommodate the city’s planned light rail. In a clear violation of the status quo agreement that has governed relations between religious and secular since the founding of the state, the government carried out the work on Shabbos, causing massive and very public desecration of Shabbos.
The government tried to excuse itself by claiming that it was a matter of “pikuach nefesh,” saving lives. Performing the upgrade on a weekday would have entailed shutting down main highways in Tel Aviv, officials argued, making it impossible for emergency vehicles and ambulances to reach those in need. Police and other professionals submitted “expert” opinions confirming this view.
But the argument is specious. For starters, the Tel Aviv municipality shuts down half the city when it wants to hold a marathon and no one worries about “pikuach nefesh” or about the need to bring in hundreds of police to ensure public safety. It would have been no tragedy had the renovation of the rail line been done at night (when traffic is lighter), with ample warning given in advance to drivers about the closures.
Second, thought has to be given at the design stage as to how to build and maintain the train station and other major infrastructure projects without desecrating Shabbos. Instead of creating huge beams that must be transported on super-wide trucks that disrupt traffic, smaller sections can be designed and then assembled at the site. The (false) claim of “pikuach nefesh” cannot become a license to publicly desecrate Shabbos. It must be used judiciously and only with the approval of the Rabbanim. With all due respect, the transport minister is in no position to determine whether something is “pikuach nefesh.”
The status quo agreement, which — on a simplified level — calls for maximum Judaism in public life and minimum interference in private life, has created a modus operandi for religious and secular Jews to live together for the past 60 years. It has made it possible for the country to maintain a Jewish image — an army with a minimum standard of kashrus, the ban on the sale of chametz in public on Pesach — even though, R”l, so many misguided souls conducted themselves differently in their private lives.
But the status quo is being eroded at an alarming rate. And the biggest target for those seeking to turn Israel from a Jewish country into a “country of all its citizens” is Shabbos. Already today Tel Aviv stores that sell food have received municipal permission to open on Shabbos. A High Court ruling is expected in just a few weeks that could, chalilah, pave the way for all stores to open.
The decision, says Harav Yisrael Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo and a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, is both historic and crucial, not so much for the religious, who will have Shabbos no matter what, but for those who are traditional, who would like to observe some form of Shabbos.
“We must think of the small-business [shomer Shabbos] owners, who will be deprived of their livelihood completely when the Shabbos desecraters sell food products on Saturdays and holidays,” Rav Lau argues. “We must also think of the many Jews who are Shabbos observers and would not be able to work in the hundreds of businesses that would be opened on Shabbos. This is serious discrimination and constitutes an exclusion of the religious public from the workforce.”
If the High Court and the “state of Tel Aviv” won’t listen to the Rabbis or to traditional sources, perhaps they’ll heed the advice of Tel Aviv’s first mayor, Meir Dizengoff.
As Rav Lau recounts, the title of city notice number 36 from the Tel Aviv municipality was: “Against the desecration of Shabbat in public.” The notice, signed by Dizengoff, said: “All stores and places of entertainment must be closed from Shabbat eve to its termination.”
“Remember,” Dizengoff wrote, “Shabbat is our most amazing sign of national solidarity from generation to generation, and anyone who undermines it undermines the unity of Israel … Preserve the Shabbat, and it will preserve us.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/silent-majority-israel-wants-shabbos/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/bf2042bb133f3c007be93d65ddd7e844c874fb370efdc08c47df70ac3b958fc6.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T14:48:50 | null | 2016-08-28T09:51:11 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fserbia-bosnian-serbs-hold-joint-anti-terrorism-drill%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16241386011961-300x183.jpg | en | null | Serbia, Bosnian Serbs Hold Joint Anti-Terrorism Drill | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 9:51 am |
Serbian special forces try to apprehend a supposed terrorist during a joint anti-terrorist drill between Serbia and Republic of Srpska, Sunday. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
TRBUSNICA, Serbia (AP) - Police from Serbia and the Serb mini-state in Bosnia have held a joint anti-terrorism drill that could add to simmering tensions in the Balkans stemming from the 1990s war.
The exercise, dubbed “Drina 2016,” was held Sunday at the border between Serbia and Bosnia simulating a terror attack and a bus hijacking. Several thousand people watched the drill.
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic says that the exercise has shown that borders shouldn’t exist when it comes to fighting terrorism.
Joint security drills by Serbian and Bosnian Serb troops remain a sensitive issue because Serbia backed Bosnian Serbs in their fight against Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats during the 1992-95 war.
About 100,000 people died in the war, and millions were made homeless amid numerous atrocities. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/serbia-bosnian-serbs-hold-joint-anti-terrorism-drill/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/ac120b8d9eeb46b700d14df2c2cc01dbee67038cca97d925f94ec9f7469fe4c9.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T20:50:02 | null | 2016-08-30T15:47:48 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fspokesman-killed-syria%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16243667629469-300x169.jpg | en | null | IS Spokesman Killed in Syria | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 3:47 pm |
Abu Muhammed al-Adnani (SITE Intel Group via AP)
BEIRUT (AP) - The Islamic State terror group says its spokesman has been “martyred” in northern Syria.
The IS-run Aamaq news agency said Tuesday that Abu Muhammed al-Adnani was “martyred while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo,” without providing further details.
IS has released several audio files online in which Adnani, a senior leader in the group, delivers fiery sermons urging followers to carry out attacks.
The extremist group has suffered a string of defeats in recent weeks, including in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, where Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels drove IS out of the border town of Jarablus last week. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/spokesman-killed-syria/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/9181ba546180318e8a3493877cb33f5d9cf9fe279232fee879fbb29c9942c2e6.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T08:49:46 | null | 2016-08-30T03:00:13 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fasia-stocks-bounce-investors-no-clearer-on-fed%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/04/GLOBAL-MARKETS-300x214.jpg | en | null | Asia Stocks Bounce, Investors No Clearer on Fed | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 3:00 am |
A man (R) cleans electronic boards showing the Japan’s Nikkei average, the exchange rate between Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar and stock quotation outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan. (Reuters/Issei Kato)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares bounced modestly on Tuesday as doubts the Federal Reserve would hike interest rates next month restrained the dollar, while investors continued to count on more policy stimulus elsewhere in the world.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.5 percent, recouping around half of Monday’s loss. Stocks in South Korea added 0.4 percent and Australia 0.3 percent.
Futures pointed to similar gains for German and French bourses and a dip for London, while EMini futures for the S&P 500 barely budged.
Japan’s Nikkei went flat as the yen stopped falling following a sharp drop late last week.
A raft of Japanese data, from unemployment to retail sales, mostly beat analysts’ forecasts but did nothing to change expectations the Bank of Japan would eventually have to ease further.
Markets are less sure when U.S. policy might change after Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Friday said the case for a rate increase was strengthening, but provided little clarity on when it would next move.
Vice Chair Stanley Fischer suggested a hike was possible as soon as September. Fischer is set to appear again later on Tuesday.
Yet while the initial market reaction was to push up the probability of a September hike to 44 percent, investors quickly had second thoughts and by Tuesday the implied chance was back at 36 percent.
Dealers also reported talk the August payrolls report on Friday might miss expectations and make it that much harder for policymakers to contemplate a September tightening.
On Wall Street, the Dow ended Monday up 0.58 percent, while the S&P 500 added 0.52 percent and the Nasdaq 0.26 percent.
Financials were the best performer on the S&P 500, with Wells Fargo up 2.2 percent.
The sector typically rises with talk of higher rates, on the expectation that banks’ income could rise as they charge more for loans. However, the correlation is not direct as it requires the yield curve to steepen and, so far, it is not obliging.
Indeed, longer-term yields fell further than the short end on Monday, in part because much of the market suspects any Fed tightening would lead to even lower inflation over the long run.
Figures out Monday showed the Fed preferred measure of core inflation stuck at 1.6 percent for a fifth straight month.
The San Francisco Fed underlined the subdued outlook for inflation and rates in a research note.
The “natural” rate of interest – the real rate consistent with full use of economic resources and steady inflation near the Fed’s target level – was near zero and would rise to only 1 percent over the next decade.
“If these projections are accurate, then a monetary policy designed to track the rise in r-star (natural rate) would imply a very gradual normalization of the federal funds rate,” the note said.
The retreat in Treasury yields restrained the dollar, which held at 95.754 against a basket of currencies from a two-week top of 95.834.
The dollar likewise ebbed to 102.15 yen from a peak of 102.39, while the euro was a shade firmer at $1.1171.
In commodity markets, oil steadied after falling by around 1 percent on Monday. Oversupply remained a major concern with U.S. crude stockpiles forecast to have risen by 1.3 million barrels last week, a Reuters poll showed.
Brent crude futures were up 17 cents at $49.43 a barrel, while U.S. crude added 21 cents to $47.19. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/asia-stocks-bounce-investors-no-clearer-on-fed/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/7913d6d86bdc8c5806e66c7adf69442cb991386c1d61c689b3b24b1d40473460.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T08:49:45 | null | 2016-08-30T03:50:33 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fsuicide-bomber-attacks-chinese-embassy-in-kyrgyzstan%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/BLAST-CHINA-300x200.jpg | en | null | Suicide Bomber Attacks Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 3:50 am |
Investigators, Interior Ministry officers and members of security forces gather near the site of a bomb blast outside China’s embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Tuesday. (Reuters/Vladimir Pirogov)
BISHKEK (Reuters) - A suspected suicide bomber rammed the gates of the Chinese embassy in the Kyrgyz capital Bishek on Tuesday, killing himself and wounding three others, officials said.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the car exploded inside the compound and quoted Deputy Prime Minister Janysh Razakov as describing the blast as “a terrorist act.”
Police, who cordoned off the building and the adjacent area, and the GKNB state security service said they were investigating the incident, which occurred around 10:00 local time.
Authorities in Kyrgyzstan, a mostly Muslim former Soviet republic of 6 million people, routinely detain suspected Islamist militants accused of being linked to the Islamic State terror group, which actively recruits from Central Asia.
An anti-Chinese militant group made up of ethnic Uighurs is also active in the region. In 2014, Kyrgyz border guards killed 11 people believed to be members of that group who had illegally crossed the Chinese-Kyrgyz border. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/suicide-bomber-attacks-chinese-embassy-in-kyrgyzstan/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/2b23fec3f796eca3dac8318f538d2512c5f9bf9e82b8c88726d807f226aabc13.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:49:59 | null | 2016-08-30T12:35:44 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fu-s-home-prices-rise-june-slowest-pace-10-months%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | U.S. Home Prices Rise in June at Slowest Pace in 10 Months | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 12:35 pm |
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. home prices rose modestly in June, pushed up by strong sales and a limited supply of available properties.
The Standard & Poor’s CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, increased 5.1 percent in June compared with a year ago. That’s down from a 5.3 percent annual gain in May and is the slowest year-over-year pace since last August.
Home values are still soaring in the Northwest, but have slowed to more sustainable rates elsewhere. In Northeastern cities such as New York and Washington, D.C., they are rising at roughly the rate of inflation, and in Boston, less than 5 percent.
Still, nationwide prices are increasing more quickly than incomes as buyers compete for the dwindling supply of available homes. That reflects an ongoing imbalance in the housing market that could stifle sales in the coming months.
“June represents the fifth straight month of flat or decreasing year-over-year price gains, but homebuyers are still being challenged as prices outpace income growth,” Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at real estate data provider Trulia, said.
Home prices in the Northwest continued to climb at a double-digit pace. They rose 12.6 percent in Portland, 11 percent in Seattle, and 9.2 percent in Denver. Those three cities have topped the list of price gains for the past five months.
Yet those cities are increasingly outliers. Price gains in the Midwest were mixed. Home prices in Cleveland and Chicago rose just 2.5 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively, while in Minneapolis they climbed a faster 5.1 percent.
Southern cities saw stronger price gains. They rose 8.9 percent in Dallas, 7.9 percent in Tampa, and 5.8 percent in Atlanta.
The 20-city price index plunged after the housing bubble started to burst in 2006, plummeting by more than a third before prices began to rise again in March 2012. In June, they were still 8.1 percent below their peak level.
That suggests there are still many homeowners who bought near the peak and have little equity in their homes. Or they remain underwater, owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. In either case it is difficult for them to sell.
The number of homes for sale has fallen 5.8 percent from a year ago, leaving would-be buyers with fewer choices, according to the National Association of Realtors.
That may have hobbled sales in July. Purchases of existing homes fell 3.2 percent that month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.39 million. Still, that decline came after sales reached their highest level in more than nine years in June.
Low mortgage rates are pushing in the other direction by making home purchases more affordable. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was 3.43 percent last week, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac, not far from its record low.
The Case-Shiller index covers roughly half of U.S. homes. The index measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The June figures are the latest available. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/u-s-home-prices-rise-june-slowest-pace-10-months/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/465e20a79a73adc2f5635b01ef5d5b7c732aa6164c709deec8d9f47ff965b36a.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T08:50:07 | null | 2016-08-31T03:39:30 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fs-korea-says-top-n-korean-official-executed%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16244186523908-300x181.jpg | en | null | S. Korea Says Top N. Korean Official Executed | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 3:39 am |
A media broadcast showing a file image of Kim Yong Jin, circled in red, a vice premier on education affairs in North Korea’s cabinet, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R), at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has executed a vice premier and banished two other top officials to rural areas for re-education, South Korean officials said Wednesday.
If confirmed, they would be the latest in a series of killings, purges and dismissals carried out since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.
North Korea is a closed, authoritarian country with a state-controlled press that often makes it difficult for outsiders, and even North Korean citizens, to know what’s happening in the government.
Rival South Korea, which runs several intelligence organizations mainly tasked with spying on North Korea, has a mixed record of accuracy on reporting developments across the border. In May, a former North Korean military chief, who Seoul said had been executed, was found to be alive and holding several new senior-level posts.
Jeong Joon Hee, a spokesman for Seoul’s Unification Ministry, told reporters Wednesday that Kim Yong Jin, a vice premier on education affairs in North Korea’s cabinet, had been executed. Jeong gave no further details, including why and when his ministry believes he was executed and how it obtained the information.
But a South Korean official, speaking on condition of anonymity citing office rules, said Kim was executed by firing squad in July for unspecified anti-revolutionary and factional activities. The official said Kim first faced an investigation because of the way he was seated during a June meeting attended by Kim Jong Un.
Little is known about Kim Yong Jin, who was last mentioned by North Korea’s state news agency on June 15, when it reported he attended an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of North Korea’s Taekwondo Federation.
Kim Jong Un, believed to be his early thirties, is revered at the center of an intense cult of personality, with state media occasionally showing aging senior officials bowing to him. Last year, South Korea’s spy agency said Kim had his defense chief executed with an anti-aircraft gun for complaining about him and sleeping during a meeting he had presided over.
Jeong said General Kim Yong Chol, a top ruling Workers’ Party official in charge of anti-Seoul spy operations, had also been ordered to undertake “revolutionary re-education,” in a reference to banishment at a rural collective farm or a coal mine. Jeong said another senior party official dealing with propaganda affairs, Choe Hwi, was still on a similar “re-education” program.
Seoul officials believe Kim Yong Chol, director of the party’s United Front Department, orchestrated two attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010, when he headed the North Korean army’s intelligence agency. Kim disappeared from the public eye for about 50 days before the North’s state media on Sunday mentioned his name in a list of officials who attended ceremonies marking Youth Day.
Kim Yong Chol was banished to a rural farm for about one month between mid-July and mid-August because of alleged high-handed attitudes and attempts to expand his United Front Department’s authority too much, according to the South Korean official who spoke about Kim Yong Jin’s execution. The official said Kim Yong Chol was recently reinstated.
The rival Koreas have shared the world’s most heavily fortified border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and they bar ordinary citizens from exchanging phone calls, letters and emails without special permission. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/s-korea-says-top-n-korean-official-executed/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/c480cbfdcd0f55f9420602ad3ae07d34ce600aaa0d2cc4efb0902a4f7e3f6809.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T20:49:58 | null | 2016-08-30T15:54:07 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fstate-benghazi-emails-involving-clinton-recovered-fbi%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP_300273704997-300x201.jpg | en | null | State: Benghazi Emails Involving Clinton Recovered by FBI | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 3:54 pm |
A burned-out room in the gutted U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, after the Sep. 11, 2012, attack. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Alaguri)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department says about 30 emails that may be related to the 2012 attack on U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya, are among the thousands of Hillary Clinton emails recovered during the FBI’s recently closed investigation into her use of a private server.
Government lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta Tuesday that an undetermined number of the emails among the 30 were not included in the 55,000 pages previously provided by Clinton. The State Department’s lawyer said it would need until the end of September to review the emails and redact potentially classified information before they are released.
Mehta questioned why it would take so long to release so few documents, and urged that the process be sped up. He ordered the department to report to him in a week with more details about why the review process would take a full month.
The hearing was held in one of several lawsuits filed by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, which has sued over access to government records involving the Democratic presidential nominee. The State Department has said the FBI provided it with about 14,900 emails purported not to have been among those previously released.
Clinton previously had said she withheld and deleted only personal emails not related to her duties as secretary of state. With the November election little more than two months away, Republicans are pressing for the release of as many documents related to Clinton as possible.
In a separate development Tuesday, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the FBI is expected to release documents soon related to its investigation, which focused on whether Clinton and her aides mishandled government secrets.
The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity, said documents in the case would be made public as the FBI responds to Freedom of Information Act requests. It wasn’t immediately clear when the documents would be released or exactly what they would include.
Though he described Clinton’s actions as “extremely careless,” FBI Director James Comey said his agents found no evidence that anyone intended to break the law and said “no reasonable prosecutor” would have brought a criminal case.
The FBI this month provided Congress portions of its file from the agency’s yearlong investigation.
The FBI interviewed Clinton for several hours at FBI headquarters in Washington just days before announcing its decision to close the investigation. The Justice Department accepted the FBI’s recommendation. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/state-benghazi-emails-involving-clinton-recovered-fbi/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/22897ef1e02f518224ab518d8af4505a320859ca44b02eadd4308f7a5e7272e3.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:00:09 | null | 2016-08-26T03:04:08 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Fasian-stocks-wary-dollar-slips-before-fed-chair-yellens-speech%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2015/12/Japan-Financial-Marke_Gold-300x209.jpg | en | null | Asian Stocks Wary, Dollar Slips Before Fed Chair Yellen's Speech | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 3:04 am |
People walk by an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)
SINGAPORE/TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks were largely steady on Friday, with modest losses in some markets and gains in others reflecting nervousness before a keenly anticipated speech by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
European markets are also heading for a flat start, with financial spreadbetter CMC Markets expecting Britain’s FTSE 100 and Germany’s DAX to open little changed, and France’s CAC 40 to begin the day down 0.1 percent.
“The expectation surrounding [Yellen’s speech] has been out of all proportion to the likely outcome, which in all probability is likely to be fairly benign,” Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in London.
“Some in the markets are slowly coming to the realization that central bankers the world over are fumbling around in the dark as they try to reinvigorate their economies,” he added.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed as investors awaited some direction from Yellen on whether the Fed might raise interest rates this year. Yellen will speak at 1400 GMT at the annual gathering of global central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The Asia-Pacific benchmark is on track for a 0.3 percent loss for the week, but is up nearly 9 percent so far this year.
Japan’s Nikkei extended losses to close down 1.2 percent, bringing declines for the week to 1.1 percent. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.2 percent, on track for a 0.9 percent slide for the week.
Chinese shares, however, recouped the previous session’s losses, with some traders attributing the gains to regulators’ denial that insurance money is exiting the market.
The CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite indices each rose 0.2 percent. They’re on track for declines of 1.5 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
U.S. stocks were modestly lower on Thursday, weighed down by a drop in healthcare and consumer companies.
Investors in riskier assets are wary of Yellen hinting at a near-term interest rate hike, which could divert some of the massive liquidity that has underpinned global markets.
“After a week where most markets have barely moved from where they started, there are likely a number of traders who would relish a bit of volatility this evening,” Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG in Melbourne, wrote in a note. “There certainly is a fear evident in markets that Janet Yellen is going to be surprisingly hawkish and talk up a September hike.”
Hawkish comments from a slew of other Fed officials have already raised markets’ expectations of a rate hike this year, though markets are not fully pricing one in until 2017.
On Thursday, several policymakers, including San Francisco Fed President John Williams and Kansas City Fed President Esther George, defended the need to raise interest rates, albeit gradually, to keep the U.S. economy from overheating.
Those comments were roughly in line with the views expressed by Fed policymakers including Vice Chair Stanley Fischer earlier in the week, adding to expectations that Yellen’s comments would be in a similar vein.
But uncertainty pulled the U.S. currency lower, with the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major peers, slipping 0.14 percent to 94.634. That shrunk gains for the week to 0.1 percent.
The dollar was also 0.1 percent weaker versus the yen at 100.48 yen, having risen a modest 0.3 percent so far this week.
The euro was treading water at $1.12920, on track to dip about 0.2 percent on the week.
The Australian dollar nudged up 0.25 percent to $0.7637.
Oil prices pulled back from overnight gains, after Saudi Arabia’s energy minister tempered expectations of strong market intervention by producers during talks next month, saying the market is already moving in the right direction.
Global benchmark Brent crude lost 0.4 percent to $49.49 a barrel, eroding some of the 1.3 percent gains posted overnight and poised for a loss of 2.75 percent for the week.
U.S. crude oil slipped 0.2 percent to $47.22 a barrel after rising 56 cents, or 1 percent, on Thursday. It’s set to end the week 2.7 percent lower.
Wariness ahead of Yellen’s speech gave gold a leg up. Spot gold inched up 0.2 percent to $1,323.67 an ounce, narrowing this week’s losses to 1.3 percent. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/asian-stocks-wary-dollar-slips-before-fed-chair-yellens-speech/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/0afa20e76103f1da289967b6011644664555f877855c3ca2f5d3eee98bda41e5.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T12:50:20 | null | 2016-08-31T07:05:18 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fhistoric-commercial-flight-u-s-cuba-set-take-off%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/02/US-Cuba_Gold-300x176.jpg | en | null | Historic Commercial Flight From U.S. to Cuba Set to Take Off | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 7:05 am |
A Cuban and American flag wave from the balcony of the Hotel Saratoga in Havana in this 2015 file photo. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - The first commercial flight between the United States and Cuba in more than a half century is scheduled to fly from Fort Lauderdale to the central city of Santa Clara on Wednesday morning, re-establishing regular air service severed at the height of the Cold War.
JetBlue Flight 387 was set to take off at 9:45 a.m. EDT for a 72-minute journey that will open a new era of U.S.-Cuba travel, with about 300 flights a week connecting the U.S. with an island cut off from most Americans by the 55-year-old trade embargo on Cuba and formal ban on U.S. citizens engaging in tourism on the island.
“Seeing the American airlines landing routinely around the island will drive a sense of openness, integration and normality. That has a huge psychological impact,” said Richard Feinberg, author of the new book “Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy.”
The restart of commercial travel between the two countries is one of the most important steps in President Barack Obama’s two-year-old policy of normalizing relations with the island. Historians disagree on the exact date of the last commercial flight but it appears to have been after Cuba banned incoming flights during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Secretary of State John Kerry said on social media that the last commercial flight was in 1961.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes and a specially selected five-member crew of Cuban-Americans were slated to be on board the 150-seat Airbus A320.
“It’s a positive step and a concrete contribution to the process of improving relations between the two countries,” Cuba’s vice minister of transportation Eduardo Rodriguez told journalists Monday.
U.S. travel to Cuba is on track to triple this year to more than 300,000 visitors in the wake of the 2014 declaration of detente. Cuba’s cash-starved centrally planned economy has been bolstered by the boom in U.S. visitors, along with hundreds of thousands of travelers from other nations hoping to see Cuba before more Americans arrive.
Commercial flights are expected to significantly increase the number of American visitors, although it’s not clear by how much. Many of the air routes are currently used by expensive charter flights that are largely expected to go out of business with the advent of regularly scheduled service from the U.S.
Hundreds of thousands of Cuban-born Americans fly to the island each year with the chaotic, understaffed charter companies, which require four-hour check-in waits and charge high rates for any luggage in excess of restrictive baggage allowances. Americans without ties to Cuba have found it hard to negotiate the charters, most of which don’t accept online bookings or help travelers navigate the federal affidavit still required for U.S. travelers to Cuba.
Cuban officials insist the continuing U.S. ban on tourism will limit the impact of commercial flights to Cuba, but some experts believe the drastic reduction in the difficulty of flying to Cuba could turn the surge in U.S. visitors into a tidal wave. Americans are allowed to visit the island on “people-to-people” cultural and educational visits, among other reasons.
Americans who fit one of 12 categories will now be able to fill out a federal affidavit by clicking a box on an online form and, in many cases, buy their Cuban tourist visa near the check-in counters of U.S. airports. Within weeks, Americans will be able to fly direct from cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Minneapolis, Miami and Fort Lauderdale to eight Cuban cities and two beach resorts.
The final announcement of routes to Havana, which could be announced Wednesday and start before December, is slated to include flights from Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and Houston, among others. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/historic-commercial-flight-u-s-cuba-set-take-off/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/2c279601af35b60650b61a26fce0fedfcc632e849b55b72ebe1c661febdcfe74.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T14:49:52 | null | 2016-08-30T09:15:24 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Ftrump-influencing-mccain-rubio-senate-re-election-contests%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2013/01/FP-Immigration-Overhaul-300x202.jpg | en | null | Trump Influencing McCain, Rubio, Senate Re-election Contests | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 9:15 am |
L-R: Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) attend a news conference at the U.S. Capitol. (Reuters/Gary Cameron)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican voters in Arizona and Florida are expected to pick Senators John McCain and Marco Rubio as their respective Senate nominees when they go to the polls on Tuesday, but one name not on either ballot, Donald Trump, looms large.
The Republican presidential nominee has endorsed both McCain and Rubio in their re-election bids even though he has rocky relations with both senators.
Trump offended McCain and many other Republicans last year by suggesting that the maverick senator and party’s 2008 presidential nominee was hardly a war hero since he was captured during the Vietnam War after his airplane was shot down during a bombing mission.
In March, Trump ended Rubio’s presidential bid by trouncing him in the Florida primary.
During their re-election efforts, both McCain and Rubio have offered support for Trump as the party’s White House nominee. But they have tiptoed around him, mainly out of concern that his provocative comments on illegal immigration, Muslims, and U.S. support for NATO, could alienate moderate and independent voters in their states.
At the same time, they have steered clear of attacks on Trump that might antagonize his core supporters.
Adding to the intrigue is that the fates of the two senators will likely play a big role in whether Republicans can upset expectations and maintain majority control of the Senate after the Nov. 8 election.
But first, McCain will have to win Tuesday’s Republican primary in Arizona and Rubio will have to prevail in Florida.
McCain, who is trying to extend a 30-year Senate career, faces a challenge from physician and former state Senator Kelli Ward, who is aligned with the conservative Tea Party movement.
McCain leads Ward, 55 percent to 29 percent, according to a CNN opinion poll released last week. But Ward is ratcheting up her attacks, arguing: “It’s time to defeat the establishment and retire McCain.”
Ward has aligned herself with Trump, who will face Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
Echoing Trump’s call for the building of a wall on the southern border with Mexico, Ward has boasted: “It’s time to mix the mortar to fix the border.”
Trying to neutralize Ward’s appeal with conservatives, McCain has touted his support for gun rights, his vow to cut government waste, and endorsements from anti-abortion leaders.
If McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, wins on Tuesday, he would face Democratic Representative Ann Kirkpatrick.
While McCain has said he is engaged in the toughest re-election fight of his career, the CNN poll has him opening a 13-point lead over Kirkpatrick.
Rubio, who decided not to seek re-election to the Senate last year in order to pursue the Republican presidential nomination, jumped into the race in June after his failed White House bid.
His late decision to seek a second Senate term came at the urging of Republican Party leaders, who view him as their best hope for preventing Democrats from taking the seat.
That prompted the major Republican Senate candidates to quit, leaving Carlos Beruff, 58, a millionaire homebuilder and newcomer to politics, as Rubio’s main challenger in the primary. Like Ward, Beruff has embraced Trump and has accused Rubio of only offering Trump lukewarm support.
Rubio is polling well ahead of Beruff. A win on Tuesday means Rubio would likely face Representative Patrick Murphy, who leads the Democratic field. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/trump-influencing-mccain-rubio-senate-re-election-contests/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/141333b790182216cf639a4e1b1b0dcc61343b9dc420a940b8019920e8724a43.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T02:49:39 | null | 2016-08-29T21:03:42 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fbusiness-briefs-august-29-2016%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Business Briefs | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 9:03 pm |
Takata Troubles Worsen as Truck Explodes, Kills Texas Woman
DETROIT (AP) – Air bag maker Takata Corp.’s troubles worsened Monday as the company confirmed that a truck carrying its inflators and a volatile chemical exploded last week in a Texas border town, killing a woman and injuring four others.
The truck, operated by a subcontractor, crashed, caught fire and exploded Aug. 22 in the small town of Quemado, leveling the woman’s house. The company says it sent people to the site and is helping authorities investigate the crash.
Takata has a warehouse in nearby Eagle Pass, Texas, and it has an air bag inflator factory across the border in Monclova, Mexico.
Over 40 Percent of VW Owners Seek Emissions Cheating Settlement
DETROIT (AP) – About 210,000 owners of Volkswagens with 2-liter diesel engines that cheat on emissions tests have registered to settle with the company under the terms of a June court agreement.
The figure was revealed in a federal court motion by class action attorneys seeking final approval of the settlement involving 475,000 owners. It says only 235 have asked to stay out of the settlement and pursue legal action on their own. Another 110 objections to the settlement were filed.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer has given the $15 billion settlement preliminary approval, with a final decision expected Oct. 18.
U.S. Consumer Spending Posts Slower Growth in July
WASHINGTON (AP) – American consumers boosted spending at a slower pace in July, while their incomes accelerated slightly.
Spending grew 0.3 percent in July following a 0.5 percent increase in June, the Commerce Department reported Monday. The slowdown had been expected given an earlier report that retail sales were flat in July.
Economists are counting on solid gains in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, to power overall growth in the second half of the year.
Mondelez Says It Ended Talks to Buy Hershey
NEW YORK (AP) – Mondelez says it has ended discussions to buy The Hershey Co, a combination that would have created a global powerhouse selling some of the world’s best known chocolates and snacks.
Hershey said in June that it rejected a preliminary takeover bid from Mondelez International Inc. valued at roughly $22.3 billion. At the time, it said that the offer provided “no basis for further discussion.” A representative for Hershey did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/business-briefs-august-29-2016/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/3b3c931d2096cabd3c5c7b15ad86d2ab6ecbb2fb6d6917b0021ffeb845774091.json |
[
"Martin Crutsinger"
] | 2016-08-26T16:47:54 | null | 2016-08-26T12:32:06 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Fjackson-hole-yellen-suggests-rate-hike-coming-offers-no-timetable%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/45894901_xxl-300x200.jpg | en | null | In Jackson Hole, Yellen Suggests Rate Hike Is Coming, But Offers No Timetable | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 12:32 pm |
A flock of geese in flight over the Buffalo Fork River in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Friday that the case for raising interest rates has strengthened in light of a solid job market and an improved outlook for the U.S. economy and inflation. But she stopped short of offering any timetable.
Yellen sketched a generally upbeat assessment of the economy in a speech to an annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She pointed to steady gains in employment and strength in consumer spending.
She also noted that while inflation is still running below the Fed’s 2 percent target, it is being depressed mainly by temporary factors.
“In light of the continued solid performance of the labor market and our outlook for economic activity and inflation,” Yellen said, “I believe the case for an increase (in the Fed’s benchmark borrowing rate) has strengthened in recent months.”
Still, Yellen declined to hint at whether the Fed might raise rates at its next policy meeting, Sept, 20-21, or at its subsequent meetings in early November and mid-December. Instead, she stressed, as she frequently has, that the Fed’s rate decisions will depend on whether the freshest economic data continues to confirm its outlook.
“As ever,” she said, “the economic outlook is uncertain, and so monetary policy is not on a preset course.”
Economists took her remarks to mean that while a rate hike remains possible at the Fed’s September meeting, it isn’t necessarily likely.
“We think most officials will want to see more concrete evidence of a rebound in GDP growth and a rise in inflation towards the 2 percent target with a December move still appearing the most likely outcome,” said Andrew Hunter, an economist with Capital Economics.
Hunter pointed to a government report Friday that the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at an anemic 1.1 percent annual rate last quarter as evidence that the Fed likely wants to see stronger growth.
In December, the Fed raised its benchmark rate modestly in response to a brighter economic picture, notably a job market nearing full health. The rate had been kept at a record low near zero since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis.
At the time, the Fed foresaw four additional rate increases in 2016. But since then, global economic pressures, financial market turmoil and a brief slump in the U.S. job market have kept the Fed on the sidelines.
Some economists have said they think conditions are ripe for the Fed to boost rates next month. Others say they foresee no action until after the election in December at the earliest.
Two close Yellen allies — William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Stanley Fischer, the Fed’s vice chairman — suggested in the past week that a strengthening economy would soon warrant a resumption of rate increases.
In her speech Friday, Yellen added that the Fed still believes that future rate increases, whenever they occur, will be “gradual.”
Some have said that if the Fed does decide to act in September, it would need to further prepare investors. After Yellen’s speech, data from the CME Group indicated that investors foresee only a 24 percent probability of a rate hike in September and about a 58 percent chance by December.
Yellen was the lead-off speaker Friday for the annual conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and attended by members of the Fed’s board of governors in Washington and officials from the Fed’s 12 regional banks and monetary leaders from around the world.
The conference’s theme is “Designing Resilient Monetary Policy Frameworks for the Future,” reflecting concern that the global economy has become trapped in a slump of low growth and low inflation and uncertainty about how central banks should respond.
In advance of Yellen’s speech Friday, George, Fischer and eight other Fed officials met Thursday with about 120 activists from the Campaign for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up coalition. The group of policy activists, labor unions and community groups has been lobbying the Fed to keep rates low to allow the economy to strengthen enough to benefit more Americans.
The group, wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan “We Need a People’s Fed,” posed questions about economic policy and the need for diversity to the Fed officials who took part in the hour-long discussion.
The coalition also wants the Fed and Congress to consider changes in the makeup of the boards of directors of the 12 regional banks to promote more diversity among a group of officials that is mainly white and male and dominated by bankers. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/jackson-hole-yellen-suggests-rate-hike-coming-offers-no-timetable/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/7ff613840163ffbd8ef09b9f4e127c7f20ce5cabd5c98ac4d5020afc9b3eb621.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T02:49:36 | null | 2016-08-29T21:02:11 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fbanks-lead-gains-wall-street-hopes-higher-rates%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/1-Stocks-13-112x300.jpg | en | null | Banks Lead Gains on Wall Street On Hopes for Higher Rates | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 9:02 pm |
NEW YORK (AP) - Banks led the stock market higher Monday as investors anticipate that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates this year from their historically low levels. That could help banks recover from a long slump by making lending more profitable.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 107.59 points, or 0.6 percent, to 18,502.99. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index climbed 11.34 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,180.38. The Nasdaq composite edged up 13.41 points, or 0.3 percent, to 5,232.33.
Major U.S. banks posted solid gains as traders bet that the Fed was likely to nudge interest rates higher in December or even at its next policy meeting in September. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told a conference last week that the case for raising rates was strengthening given improvements in the economy.
Raising interest rates from their rock-bottom levels, where they have been since the 2008 financial crisis, could be a good thing not only for markets but for savers, said Rob Lutts, chief investment officer of Cabot Wealth Management in Salem, Mass.
“We’re running out of excuses not to raise interest rates,” Lutts said. “We’re the wealthiest economy on the planet, and everybody who has a bank account is earning virtually zero on those balances today. There’s a lot of spending power that may be released in the economy” if savers earn more on their bank accounts, Lutts said.
Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, rose $1.05, or 2.2 percent, to $49.56 and JPMorgan Chase gained 73 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $66.95. Banks are still one of the worst-performing sectors in the market this year. The financial sector of the S&P 500 has gained just 1.8 percent in 2016 versus a 6.7 percent increase for the broader index.
Herbalife added $2.80, or 4.6 percent, to $63.30 after Icahn said late Friday he had bought an additional 2.3 million shares in the supplements and weight-loss products company, and that he never gave an order to sell his $1 billion stake. A Wall Street Journal report earlier Friday said that the investment bank Jefferies had been looking for buyers for Icahn’s position.
Overseas, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.4 percent and Germany’s DAX fell 0.4 percent. The London Stock Exchange was closed for a summer bank holiday. Earlier in Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 added 2.3 percent South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.3 percent.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 66 cents to $46.98 a barrel. Brent crude, used to price oil internationally, lost 66 cents to $49.26 a barrel. In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline fell 5 cents to $1.47 a gallon, heating oil fell 1 cent to $1.49 a gallon and natural gas fell 2 cents to $2.85 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Trading was subdued ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend in the U.S. Very few companies are reporting earnings this week and there is scant news on the economy, apart from the Labor Department’s monthly job survey coming up on Friday.
U.S. government bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.56 percent from 1.63 percent. The dollar rose to 101.98 yen from 101.86 yen late Friday. The euro rose to $1.1187 from $1.1183.
Precious and industrial metals futures closed mostly higher. Gold edged up $1.20 to $1,327.10 an ounce, silver gained 11 cents to $18.86 an ounce and copper edged down less than a penny to $2.08 a pound. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/banks-lead-gains-wall-street-hopes-higher-rates/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/c82e3cf866d8cb46fbfdd17a485bf646fa3d77ee589eecb0f557b6bbd49d7b15.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T22:49:57 | null | 2016-08-30T17:47:57 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F40-virginia-cases-hepatitis-now-linked-smoothies%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | 40 Virginia Cases of Hepatitis A Now Linked to Smoothies | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 5:47 pm |
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Virginia health officials say there are now 40 confirmed cases of Hepatitis A that are connected to frozen strawberries used at Tropical Smoothie Cafe locations across the state, up from 28 cases less than a week ago.
The Virginia Department of Health said in a news release Monday that about 55 percent of the infected residents have been hospitalized.
There are more than 500 of the smoothie franchises across the country, and Virginia is not the only state affected
All the potentially contaminated Egyptian-sourced berries were pulled from the 96 Tropical Smoothie Cafe locations in Virginia no later than Aug. 8 or Aug. 9.
Officials say more cases could emerge, since some symptoms take as many as 50 days to emerge. The Hepatitis A virus affects the liver. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/40-virginia-cases-hepatitis-now-linked-smoothies/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/853eb6dcfd0602f7065ec147cd365692d9ef15e03fd2b2e815cba1a28d4983d9.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T20:50:01 | null | 2016-08-30T16:14:36 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fnlrb-decides-charter-schools-private-corporations-not-public-schools%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | NLRB Decides Charter Schools Are Private Corporations, Not Public Schools | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 4:14 pm |
(The Washington Post) - The National Labor Relations Board decided in two separate cases last week that — as far as federal labor law is concerned — charter schools are not public schools but private corporations.
The decisions apply only to the specific disputes from which they arose, involving unionization efforts at charter schools in New York and in Pennsylvania. But they plunge the labor board into a long-running debate over the nature of charter schools: publicly funded, privately run institutions that enroll about 3 million students nationwide.
Charter school advocates have long argued that charters are public schools because they are tuition-free, open-enrollment institutions funded primarily with tax dollars. But union leaders and other critics describe charters as private entities that supplant public schools, which are run by elected officials, with nonprofit and for-profit corporations that are run by unelected boards that are unaccountable to voters.
In its recent decisions, both issued Aug. 24, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Hyde Leadership Charter School in Brooklyn and the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School are — like other government contractors — private corporations that receive taxpayer dollars. In the New York case, for example, the board found that even though state law describes charter schools as existing “within the public school system,” the schools were not directly established by a government entity and the people who administer them are not accountable to public officials or to voters.
“Hyde was not established by a state or local government, and is not itself a public school,” reads the board’s majority opinion, signed by Democrats Kent Hirozawa and Lauren McFerran.
The decisions mean that the schools’ employees must organize under the National Labor Relations Act, which applies to private-sector employees, rather than under state laws that apply to public-sector employees.
The board’s lone Republican dissented in each case, opining that regardless of labor laws’ definitions of public vs. private employers, charter schools are a part of states’ public education systems. “Charter schools operate as K-12 public schools, they are substantially regulated under state and local laws, and they are overseen by state and local authorities,” Philip Miscimarra wrote in the Pennsylvania case.
Miscimarra said the board should refrain from becoming involved in any charter school cases; the labor board’s definition of public vs. private is so specific that it must be evaluated case by case, creating unacceptable uncertainty for schools and their employees. He wrote: “Based on the approach embraced by my colleagues today, employees concerned about their working conditions will not know what set of rules applies to them or to whom to turn if the employer infringes on their rights.”
Charter schools are still new — the first law allowing charters was passed 25 years ago — and courts and regulatory agencies are still wrestling with whether, and when, they should be considered private or public institutions. Carl Korn, spokesman for the New York State United Teachers, told the Albany Times-Union last week that charter advocates use those gray areas to their advantage.
“Charter management claims charters are public schools when they want taxpayers’ money, but use legal maneuvers to hide from public audits, seek to evade the rules that govern public pre-K programs and, in this case, claim they are private schools when it comes to union representational elections,” Korn told the Times-Union.
Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said that the labor board’s decisions are narrow, applying only to the organizing rights of employees at the particular charter schools involved. And he acknowledged that charter schools are not the same as public schools in every respect. They are exempt from many of the rules and regulations that govern traditional public schools, for example; in some places, such as the District of Columbia, they are also exempt from open-records and open-meetings laws.
But Ziebarth said he still believes that charter schools are public schools. And it’s a term that matters, he said: Americans have high regard for the importance of public education, and private schools carry connotations of exclusivity that don’t apply to charters.
“They don’t charge tuition and they don’t have admissions requirements,” Ziebarth said, and they are accountable to public officials in several ways, including through state legislators responsible for the state laws that govern how charter schools are approved and allowed to operate. “These are public schools and part of the public education system.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/nlrb-decides-charter-schools-private-corporations-not-public-schools/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/daf9449f0ed1df0484846a794179e2ba75865a59fcf5ffe32dfce08e88b8fe3b.json |
[
"Jennifer A. Dlouhy"
] | 2016-08-28T20:48:56 | null | 2016-08-28T16:38:43 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fgary-johnson-us-election-nuts-just-might-win%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16238808672090-300x203.jpg | en | null | Gary Johnson: US Election So Nuts I Just Might Win | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 4:38 pm |
Gary Johnson at a campaign rally in Concord, N.H., on Thursday. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
(Bloomberg) - Libertarian Gary Johnson’s plan for capturing the White House hinges on voters following through on polls suggesting they dislike the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees more than in any election year in history.
“You know how crazy this election cycle is?” Johnson told Chris Wallace on Sunday.” “I might be the next president.”
First, Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico, has to be allowed into the nationally debates that for now are set to feature only Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. Johnson conceded it’s “game over” if he doesn’t secure a place on the podium.
To get there, the Commission on Presidential Debates requires candidates to secure 15 percent support in five national polls. According to Real Clear Politics’ average of recent polls, Johnson is at 8.1 percent, though he noted he has climbed to 10 percent in five polls identified by the commission and is hitting 16 percent in five states.
The debates begin Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in New York.
Americans want to see Johnson get the chance to take on Clinton and Trump, in far greater numbers than those who say they’d vote for him. In the latest Quinnipiac University poll, 62 percent of respondents said Johnson should be included in the debates.
Johnson says his goal is to win the presidency outright, but there’s another path to the presidency for a third-party candidate. If neither of the mainstream candidates secure a majority — 270 — of electoral votes, the decision would be punted to the House of Representatives.
Johnson and his running mate, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, depart from libertarian principles in some respects, to the dismay of party purists. They have tried to marry the party’s philosophies of limited government and individual freedom with the fiscal conservatism espoused by Republicans and social views embraced by Democrats.
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, left, stands with his vice presidential running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld, during a campaign rally , in Concord, N.H., on Thursday. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
Johnson wants to replace the corporate and income taxes with a national sales tax, arguing that such a levy with a “prebate” sent to households on a monthly basis would “create tens of millions of jobs”
Johnson said he and Weld are “really skeptical about intervening militarily to achieve regime change that I think has resulted in a less-safe world.” He supports the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, putting him at odds with both Trump and Clinton, who have vowed to negotiate better deals.
Where Trump’s evolving position on immigration still has him building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, Johnson says it should be easier for foreigners to enter the U.S. on work visas after clearing background checks. “These are hard-working individuals who are taking jobs that U.S. citizens don’t want,” he said.
Polarization in Congress is sure to be even worse if either Trump or Clinton is elected, Johnson says. “Our pitch is the third alternative, which is a couple of Libertarians in the middle hiring a bipartisan administration, everybody Libertarian-leaning,” he said. “I think you can make a case that that third scenario might work.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/gary-johnson-us-election-nuts-just-might-win/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/54b12eabe2e404ebfdda9323711e2af9ff3857812d3cfb7207f0ce3b50b0fbb7.json |
[
"Troy Wolverton"
] | 2016-08-28T18:48:54 | null | 2016-08-28T12:53:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fplug-hybrids-come-long-way-short-years%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/2A-1-300x191.jpg | en | null | Plug-In Hybrids Have Come a Long Way in a Few Short Years | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 12:53 pm |
Troy Wolverton test-drives a 2017 Chevy Volt in San Jose, Calif. (Karl Mondon/San Jose Mercury News/Bay Area News Group/TNS)
SAN JOSE, Calif. (The Mercury News/TNS) - Even in these days of cheap gasoline, there’s still something liberating about not filling up.
I got a taste of that joy recently when I test-drove a pair of brand-new cars: The 2017 Ford Fusion Energi and the 2017 Chevrolet Volt. I drove each for more than a week, running errands, going to work, and driving to catch the train. I not only didn’t have to visit a gas station, I barely used any gas at all in either one.
I loved the Volt, but enjoyed driving both. They were fun cars for more reasons than just saving gas.
Troy Wolverton test-driving a 2017 Chevy Volt. (Karl Mondon/San Jose Mercury News/Bay Area News Group/TNS)
Both the Volt and Fusion Energi are plug-in hybrids, a class of car that promises some of the same environmental bona fides as full-electric cars without their usually limited overall range. The two vehicles are part of a new wave of plug-ins that will be rolling into showrooms over the next year.
Plug-in hybrid vehicles are kind of a cross between a more traditional hybrid car like Toyota’s Prius and an electric vehicle like Nissan’s Leaf. They include both an electric motor and a gasoline engine, but they have larger battery packs than regular hybrids, which allow them to operate at times like full electric vehicles. As they would with other electric vehicles, users have to recharge the batteries by plugging them into a wall outlet or recharging station.
The electric-only range for a plug-in hybrid is typically far less than that of an all-electric car. But their gasoline engines usually give them a total range that significantly exceeds electric vehicles and, in some cases, can better a typical gasoline-powered vehicle.
Regulators and car companies are promoting plug-ins as a way to save on gas and cut carbon emissions. Federal and state governments have given drivers extra inducements to buy them. They qualify for California’s carpool lane stickers, for example, and purchasers are eligible for state and federal tax credits of up to $9,000 combined.
Troy Wolverton test-drives 2017 Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid Platinum model. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group/TNS)
Plug-in vehicles aren’t exactly new. The first Volt debuted in late 2010, and Toyota and Ford both released their first production plug-in hybrids in 2012.
But like other first-generation products, those first plug-ins weren’t polished. They drew criticism for being pricey, for having very limited electric-only ranges, and for having gas engines that weren’t super-efficient. And consumers only had a handful from which to choose.
The next generation of plug-in hybrids will address many of these concerns. Prices have come down. Electric-only ranges have gone up on some vehicles, as has their gasoline engines’ efficiency. And consumers will soon have a whole lot of choices, with models coming or already in showrooms from companies including Audi, BMW, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Volvo.
Two of the first of that new generation, the Volt and the Fusion Energi, represent two distinct takes on plug-in technology and how such vehicles should look and feel.
While the Fusion Energi has a standard plug-in hybrid system in which both its electric motor and gasoline engine can power the wheels, the Volt’s system is unusual. The car is always powered by its electric motor and will generally run down its batteries completely before switching over to its gasoline engine. And the gas engine doesn’t power the wheels; instead it generates electricity for the Volt’s electric motor.
The Volt is designed to maximize its electric range. Its large battery pack, which stores more than twice as much electricity as that in the Fusion Energi, is located in the center of the car, where the transmission would be in a rear-wheel drive vehicle. That placement means that you can’t seat more than four full-sized adults in the car, because the batteries take up much of what would be the middle seat in the back. So, while it’s a great commuting car, it would be fairly cramped for family trips.
Chevy debuted this new generation of Volt in a limited way last year, then expanded its distribution with this year’s model. Compared with previous versions, the newer Volts are lighter and have a smaller gas engine. The result is much improved efficiency and range. The new Volt will go 53 miles on battery power alone, up from 38 miles previously, according to EPA estimates. And it gets 42 miles to the gallon when it’s running on gas, up from around 37 in the prior models. Because of its improved efficiency, its total range is now 420 miles, compared to 380 in the previous generation.
That extended electric range is amazing. Despite driving my test vehicle all over the Bay Area for more than a week and forgetting at times to recharge it at night, I still only ended up using about a quarter of a gallon of gas while I had it. And while it’s known for its efficiency, the Volt was zippy and fun to drive.
Compared to the Volt, the Fusion Energi was larger and felt more like a standard family sedan. It could comfortably fit five people inside, albeit with one big trade off — trunk space. The car’s battery pack is placed right behind its rear site and takes up a large portion of what would be the trunk. Indeed, the Fusion Energi has less trunk space than the smaller Volt and about half that of the all-gas powered Fusion.
Ford has optimized the car for total range. With its battery all charged and its 14 gallon gas tank full, it will go about 610 miles. That’s up about 60 miles from last year’s model and is great if you’re planning on taking it on long trips.
But the car comes up short when it comes to electric range. The EPA estimates it will go about 22 miles on battery power. That’s up two miles from the prior Fusion Energi, but still a far cry from the Volt. I didn’t drive the Fusion Energi all that much, but I found it wasn’t difficult in everyday driving to use up all the juice in its batteries.
Both cars have attractions beyond their fuel efficiency. Both offer broad selections of semiautonomous features as options, including adaptive cruise control and automated lane keeping. Both have new infotainment systems that support Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto. And both have built-in cellular connections that allow users to remotely start them and unlock their doors.
Such features help make both cars a pleasure to use. Both cars show how plug-in vehicles have now matured to the point that you don’t have to sacrifice much to get a much greener car.
———
Chevrolet Volt:
What: Extended range electric (plug-in hybrid) sedan
Range: 53 miles on battery pack; 420 miles total
Mileage: 106 miles per gallon equivalent (electricity alone); 42 miles per gallon (gas alone)
Technology features and options: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support; automatic braking; adaptive cruise control; assisted parking; automated lane-keeping; built-in 4G LTE radio that provides Wi-Fi hotspot capability with optional subscription; smartphone app allows remote start, charge scheduling and unlocking.
Price: Base model, $34,095. As tested: $39,450. Doesn’t include delivery charges, taxes, license and other fees.
Chevrolet, Environmental Protection Agency
Ford Fusion Energi:
What: Plug-in hybrid sedan
Range: 21 miles on battery pack; 610 miles total
Mileage: 97 miles per gallon (combined electric and gas); 42 miles per gallon (gas alone)
Technology features and options: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support; Sync 3 infotainment system; automatic braking; advanced adaptive cruise control; assisted parking; automated lane-keeping; smartphone app allows remote start, charge scheduling and unlocking
Price: Base model, $31,120. As tested: $39,120. Doesn’t include delivery charges, taxes, license and other fees.
Ford, Environmental Protection Agency | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/plug-hybrids-come-long-way-short-years/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/d9eb7a7bbee6f147f505d4290266c74a7d7ab302a72dec4e557f6ba1938ab8dc.json |
[
"Zalman Ahnsaf"
] | 2016-08-29T22:49:51 | null | 2016-08-29T16:49:39 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fknesset-crack-mks-promoting-boycott%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/Knesset-to-Crack-Down-on-MK’s-Promoting-Boycott-300x200.jpg | en | null | Knesset to Crack Down on MKs Promoting Boycott | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 4:49 pm |
Arab-Israeli MK Basel Ghattas seen in the Knesset. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - MK Basel Ghattas’ (Joint List) appearance in Montreal earlier this month where he promoted the boycott against Israel has prompted a move in the Knesset to punish such behavior, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.
The Knesset House Committee chairman Yoav Kisch (Likud) said that he intends to amend regulations to impose sanctions on Knesset members for activity of this kind that is deemed harmful to the state. The change will be introduced in October, when the Knesset returns from summer recess.
“It’s absurd,” Kisch said, “that we are still giving license to encourage boycotting Israel to our MKs. Ghattas has a license from the Knesset; a license to boycott the state of Israel in his travels around the world.”
“Those licenses must be confiscated,” he declared.
Ghattas’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawmaker from Balad, one of the four parties that make up the Joint List, denounced Israel as an apartheid state, and advocated international sanctions to coerce it into allowing a Palestinian state.
Several MKs called for ousting Ghattas from the Knesset. Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Michael Oren (Kulanu) said that “an MK calling for the destruction of the country he represents cannot sit in the legislature of that country. Imagine a member of Congress calling for the destruction of the U.S. That is essentially what Ghattas did,” Oren charged. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/knesset-crack-mks-promoting-boycott/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/05e38731521cb38a96c95084501717d5290d22208c48726574b8be67524bd091.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-31T10:50:17 | null | 2016-08-31T05:13:14 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Falsheich-no-insult-ethiopians-implied-comments%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2015/12/alshich-300x200.jpg | en | null | Alsheich: No Insult to Ethiopians Implied in My Comments | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 5:13 am |
Police chief Roni Alsheich. (Avshalom Sasoni/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Comments that he made about crime in the Ethiopian Jewish community should not be taken out of context, Israel Police chief Roni Alsheich said Wednesday morning. In a statement, Alsheich said that “the comments made had no intention to damage the reputation or hurt Ethiopian immigrants, but were made in the context of attempting to improve the performance of police.”
In comments made Tuesday to a forum of attorneys, Alsheich, who was asked about whether or not, as some claimed, Ethiopian immigrant criminals were subjected to more police violence than others, said that “statistically, immigrants in general are more involved in crime than other groups. And it is well-known that young people are more involved in crime than other age groups.
“When you put the two together, you come to the conclusion that there are groups that are more involved in crime than others, so that when a police officer comes across a suspect from this group, his brain is ‘wired’ to suspect him more than he would suspect others,” Alsheich added.
The comments elicited condemnation from a large number of MKs and organizations.
Opposition head MK Yitzchak Herzog said that Alsheich needed to “clarify his comments. We cannot allow anyone to walk away thinking that violence or racism against Ethiopians or Arabs is permitted. We cannot allow this kind of profiling to persist.”
United Arab List chairman MK Ayman Odeh said that such an admission “was to be expected. Someone needs to remind the police chief that his job is to seek the security of all Israelis, and not just the white ones. Police have given up on protecting Arabs from crime, and regard them as enemies, not citizens. We see how police take advantage of the weakest population groups.”
MK Betzalel Smotrich (Jewish Home), for his part, praised Alsheich. “Finally we have a police chief who does not avoid the harsh reality of the situation, even when it is unpleasant. The ‘hypocrisy committee’ has seized on these comments and is screaming about them, but I would request from the police chief to ignore them,” he said. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/alsheich-no-insult-ethiopians-implied-comments/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/ed109981f4ce73b4c023d899121eca490019eb594c86df5d402c2eea443ccbe3.json |
[
"Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss"
] | 2016-08-29T14:49:23 | null | 2016-08-29T10:17:17 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fanalysis-cyber-threat-grows-for-bitcoin-exchanges%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/05/AUSTRALIA-BITCOIN-300x200.jpg | en | null | ANALYSIS: Cyber Threat Grows for Bitcoin Exchanges | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 10:17 am |
A bitcoin (virtual currency) paper wallet with QR codes and coins. (Reuters/Benoit Tessier/File Photo)
NEW YORK (Reuters) -
When hackers penetrated a secure authentication system at a bitcoin exchange called Bitfinex earlier this month, they stole about $70 million worth of the virtual currency.
The cyber theft – the second largest at an exchange since hackers took roughly $350 million in bitcoins at Tokyo’s MtGox exchange in early 2014 – is hardly a rare occurrence in the emerging world of crypto-currencies.
New data disclosed to Reuters shows a third of bitcoin trading platforms have been hacked, and nearly half have closed in the half dozen years since they burst on the scene.
This rising risk for bitcoin holders is compounded by the fact that there is no depositor’s insurance to absorb the loss, even though many exchanges act like virtual banks.
Not only does that approach cast the cyber security risk in stark relief, but it also exposes the fact that bitcoin investors have little choice but to do business with undercapitalized exchanges that may not have the capital buffer to absorb these losses the way a traditional and regulated bank or exchange would.
“There is a general sense in the bitcoin community that any centralized repository is at risk,” said a U.S.-based professional trader who lost about $1,000 in bitcoins when Bitfinex was hacked. He declined to be named for this article.
“So when investing, you always have that expectation at the back of your head. I lost a small amount compared to the others, but I know of traders who lost millions of dollars worth of bitcoins,” the trader said.
The security challenge for the bitcoin world does not appear to be letting up, according to experts in the currency.
“I am skeptical there’s going to be any technological silver bullet that’s going to solve security breach problems. No technology, crypto-currency, or financial mechanism can be made safe from hacks,” said Tyler Moore, assistant professor of cyber security at the University of Tulsa’s Tandy School of Computer Science who will soon publish the new research on the vulnerability of bitcoin exchanges.
His study, funded by the Department of Homeland Security and shared with Reuters, shows that since bitcoin’s creation in 2009 to March 2015, 33 percent of all bitcoin exchanges operational during that period were hacked. The figure represents one of the first estimates of the extent of security breaches in the bitcoin world.
In contrast, data from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit organization, showed that of the 6,000 operational U.S. banks, only 67 banks experienced a publicly-disclosed data breach between 2009 and 2015. That’s roughly 1 percent of U.S. banks.
Among the world’s stock exchanges, however, security breaches are much higher, with hackers attracted to the large pools of cash moving in and out of these trading venues. The latest survey of 46 securities exchanges released three years ago by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and World Federation of Exchanges found that more than half had experienced a cyber attack.
Moore collaborated on the research with Nicolas Christin, associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Janos Szurdi, a Ph.D. student also at Carnegie.
In 2013, Moore and Christin wrote a research paper on security risks surrounding bitcoin exchanges when Moore was still a professor at Southern Methodist University. That research, entitled “Beware of the Middleman: Empirical Analysis of Bitcoin Exchange Risk,” was peer-reviewed and presented at the 17th International Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference in Okinawa, Japan in 2013.
In the most recent study, the rate of closure for bitcoin exchanges in Moore’s research edged up to 48 percent among those operating from 2009 to March 2015. Hacking did not necessarily trigger the closure in each case.
“A 48 percent closure is not acceptable, but not surprising given that bitcoin is a new technology,” said Richard Johnson, vice president of market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates. Johnson has written reports on risk and security issues in the crypto-currency world.
Profitability is a big problem for bitcoin exchanges, with many of them unable to generate enough volume to keep afloat.
Bitcoin exchanges overall could be launched for as low as $100,000 and up to $1 million, said Erik Voorhees, founder and chief executive officer of digital currency exchange ShapeShift. That is a fraction of what U.S. forex exchanges are required to put up.
Retail FX trading platform FXCM, for instance, is required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have at least $25 million in capital at all times.
A key factor tied to the risk posed by exchanges is whether customers are reimbursed after closure or after the loss of bitcoins following a hack. Each closure and breach have been handled differently, but Tandy’s Moore said the risk of losing funds stored in exchanges is real.
In the case of Bitfinex, which is now up and running after the hack on August 2, customers lost 36 percent of the assets they had on the platform and were compensated for the losses with tokens of credit that would be converted into equity in the parent company.
At Tokyo’s MtGox, customers have yet to recover their investments more than two years after its closure.
Experts say trading venues acting like banks such as Bitfinex will remain vulnerable. These exchanges act as custodial wallets in which they control users’ digital currencies like banks control customer deposits.
“The big exchanges that hold customer deposits are a big target for hackers,” said ShapeShift’s Voorhees, “and unfortunately most bitcoin exchanges store user funds.”
When customers’ checking accounts are hacked, there is always a third party at the bank that can step in to deal with the theft.
Not so with bitcoin, said Seattle-based Darin Stanchfield, chief executive officer at KeepKey, a hardware wallet provider. He expects more of these attacks to happen despite efforts to improve security at bitcoin exchanges.
“Unfortunately, because of its irreversible nature, bitcoin requires near perfect security.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/analysis-cyber-threat-grows-for-bitcoin-exchanges/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/0bc09c8a804350ea38f006673531758a711f4ce6985f62aa2e011d94dc04d501.json |
[
"Hamodia Staff"
] | 2016-08-31T00:50:04 | null | 2016-08-30T19:29:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fgreenfield-sanitation-stop-ticketing-blitz%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Greenfield to Sanitation: Stop the Ticketing Blitz | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 7:29 pm |
BROOKLYN - A New York City lawmaker says that the sanitation department is on a ticketing blitz for dirty sidewalks and he wants it to stop.
Councilman David Greenfield is also calling on the department to start releasing information on ticketing trends more often than once a year.
The Brooklyn Democrat said in a press release Tuesday that fines accounted for two-thirds of all summonses issued by the Environmental Control Board. More than 417,000 sanitation summonses have been issued in that time — a steep increase from the previous year, when fewer than 369,000 were issued.
“The residents of my district have increasingly been waking up to find tickets taped to their door, despite their good-faith efforts to keep their sidewalks clean,” Greenfield said. “My constituents tell me that in some cases their blocks are being targeted by Sanitation enforcement agents as often as three times a week. This is just plain unfair, and it is unacceptable. The Sanitation police should be using their resources to go after bad actors like those who dump on our streets — not a homeowner who had a potato chip bag blown onto his or her property.”
Greenfield said he will soon introduce a bill to require the sanitation department to report block-by-block summons statistics on a quarterly basis. Currently, statistics are only available on a yearly basis. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/greenfield-sanitation-stop-ticketing-blitz/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/ade2941937419a2f9d864f7bd16bbba802af4d792c67b5bd49696c4620c06827.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-29T08:49:19 | null | 2016-08-29T04:03:40 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Freport-ben-eliezers-son-wont-be-arrested-if-he-attends-funeral%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2014/02/Most-2-300x298.jpg | en | null | Report: Ben-Eliezer's Son Won't Be Arrested If He Attends Funeral | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 4:03 am |
Former Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Former Defense Minister and longtime MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who passed away Sunday of heart complications, is to be laid to rest Tuesday, and there is a good chance his son Ofir will attend the funeral – after he was assured by police that they would not arrest him if he came back to Israel for the funeral and the shivah. He is currently in the United States.
An arrest warrant had been issued against the younger Ben-Eliezer in the context of the police investigation against the family. According to Yediot Acharonot, Ofir Ben-Eliezer has already been questioned by the FBI on money-laundering and illegal transfer of funds. Israeli authorities want to question him on those matters as well.
In the wake of the passing of his father, attorneys for the younger Ben-Eliezer requested immunity for the visit, and according to the report, police officials agreed.
Speaking on Army Radio Monday morning, former minister Yossi Beilin said that he was not retracting a statement he made Sunday night relating to what he called the “hypocrisy of Ben-Eliezer’s so-called friends.” In an interview Sunday right after the death of Ben-Eliezer was announced, Beilin said that while he expected that the entire political establishment would join in to eulogize Ben-Eliezer, he personally could not forget “the truly harsh things people said to me about him over the years. Now they are appearing in the media and are competing about who will praise him more. The hypocrisy is truly ugly.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/report-ben-eliezers-son-wont-be-arrested-if-he-attends-funeral/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/2806cabb1e99dd7f1adf4b728ff5c9b77cf328a2ed9f1834ddc16919f6831a33.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T20:49:06 | null | 2016-08-28T15:50:42 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fsports-authority-customer-data-sold-dicks-customers-can-opt%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Sports Authority Customer Data Sold to Dick’s, But Customers Can Opt Out | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 3:50 pm |
(Chicago Tribune/TNS) - As Sports Authority was holding going out-of-business sales and auctioning off store leases, it also sold its customers’ data to rival Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Customers who don’t want Dick’s to keep any personal information they gave Sports Authority do have a way to opt out, the bankrupt Colorado-based retailer said in an email to customers.
Dick’s will delete customers’ information if they visit www.SAPrivacyTransferNotice.com.
The customer database was among Sports Authority assets, including intellectual property and some store leases, purchased by Dick’s at auction in June.
Sports Authority, once the largest sporting goods chain in the U.S., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March and planned to restructure, but was sold at auction after failing to reach an agreement with creditors or secure a buyer.
All of the chain’s more than 450 stores, including 31 in Illinois, closed earlier this summer. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/sports-authority-customer-data-sold-dicks-customers-can-opt/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/88fd2cfd4708fa179f63aaf7cac3046e7bf14f26cbf8266d452085e1b703db7b.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-30T08:49:49 | null | 2016-08-30T03:05:15 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fidf-demolishes-home-of-terrorist-involved-in-murder-of-rabbi-mark-hyd%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/photo_2016-08-30_09-59-31-300x200.jpg | en | null | IDF Demolishes Home of Terrorist Involved in Murder of Rabbi Mark, Hy"d | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 3:05 am |
IDF troops demolish the home of one of the terrorists involved in the murder of Rabbi Mark in the village of Dura overnight Monday. (IDF Spokesman)
YERUSHALAYIM - IDF troops overnight Monday demolished the home of one of the terrorists involved in the murder of Rabbi Miki Mark, Hy”d, in June. The house, located in the village of Dura, belonged to Muhammad Abed Al-Amariya, a top Palestinian Authority official, who was the driver of the terror gang in the vehicle that transported the terror group to the site of the attack.
Al-Amariya is being held in Israel. The IDF said in statement that the demolition was authorized by the proper authorities. Al-Amariya’s wife said that the demolition would not change the family’s determination to attack Jews.
Overnight Monday, security officials said they arrested 16 wanted security suspects in other areas in Yehudah and Shomron. The suspects were wanted for participating in rioting and throwing stones and firebombs that endangered Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. Several of the suspects were also charged with belonging to Hamas. All were being questioned on their activities by security forces. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/idf-demolishes-home-of-terrorist-involved-in-murder-of-rabbi-mark-hyd/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/09fd6af7eaf6d45d280a5ee36fa2e4e5141a7c2205757ecb20740e77dd3fbc6e.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T10:48:47 | null | 2016-08-28T04:50:12 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F10000th-syrian-reaches-u-s-in-resettlement-program%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/07/AP16207577755226-300x225.jpg | en | null | 10,000th Syrian Reaches U.S. in Resettlement Program | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 4:50 am |
Trash bakes in the sun from 64,000 Syrian refugees stranded in the Ruqban border camp in northeast Jordan. (AP Photo)
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - The U.S. ambassador to Jordan says Washington will reach its target Monday of taking in 10,000 Syrian war refugees in a yearlong resettlement program.
The program emerged as an issue in the presidential campaign, with Republican nominee Donald Trump alleging in the past that displaced Syrians constitute a potential security threat.
Ambassador Alice Wells met Sunday with three refugee families ahead of their departure to San Diego, California and Charlottesville, Virginia. Preference is given to victims of violence, those with medical problems and children.
In a reference to the security debate, Wells said that “refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of travelers to the United States.”
Close to 5 million Syrians have fled civil war since 2011. Most are struggling to survive in tough conditions in neighboring countries. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/10000th-syrian-reaches-u-s-in-resettlement-program/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/2d9ade3926398bbeee91dc852231256e7625c6b0f0e533053c3163af142ade12.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-31T08:50:08 | null | 2016-08-31T03:17:17 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fbennett-taxi-driver-soon-job-past%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/Taxi-Sharing-to-Lower-Fares-Traffic-Congestion-1-300x200.jpg | en | null | Bennett: Taxi Driver Soon to Be 'Job of the Past' | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 3:17 am |
An Israeli taxi with roof insignia. (Kobi Gideon/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Education Minister Naftali Bennett expects the school year to begin on time on Thursday, and Israel police have completed their preparations for the first day of school, police said in a statement. Police officers will be deployed around schools, and will be on alert for potential security problems, while extra officers will be deployed in “seam” areas, where tensions between Arabs and Jews can flare up.
The schools in Israel are run by local authorities, and officials said that they were working hand in hand with police on the deployment of officers to direct traffic and protect children on their way to school. Police asked parents accompanying their children on foot or in vehicles to take extra caution Thursday, as there will be hundreds of thousands of children on the streets who are out of the “habit” of safe walking to school, and would require some time before they got readjusted to safety habits after two months away from school.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting Tuesday morning, Bennett said that one of his main objectives was to prepare the children of Israel for the future. “Many of the professions that people work at today will not be here when the children entering school now leave in 16 years to go out into the world. There will be no more taxi drivers, Bennett said. “I do not believe there will be taxis as they currently exist.
“I am determined that every child leave the education system knowing English at a high level, and have the tools needed to read and write English well,” he added. “We need to produce graduates with practical skills, which is why we have increased the Education Ministry’s budget by tens of millions of shekels.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/bennett-taxi-driver-soon-job-past/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/cdcbf036dd09eee98f21d99618bb82c710dc19c67402db881254eac0ae93f754.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T00:49:10 | null | 2016-08-28T19:06:19 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fflorida-bound-southwest-flight-diverted-engine-problem%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Florida-Bound Southwest Flight Diverted by Engine Problem | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 7:06 pm |
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Orlando, Florida, made an emergency landing Saturday morning due to a major problem with one of its two engines.
Flight 3472 from New Orleans diverted the airplane to Pensacola, Florida, after the pilot detected something had gone wrong with an engine, according to a Southwest statement.
The jet, a Boeing 737-700, landed in Pensacola around 9:40 a.m. CDT with no apparent injuries to the 99 passengers or five crew members on board, according to Southwest.
Pictures taken from the plane and posted online made it appear that part of the engine had blown apart, but Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said there was no explosion. He said Southwest will work with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to determine the cause.
It’s rare for Southwest or any other major airline to have such serious engine trouble, said Michael Boyd, president of airline consulting firm Boyd International.
“It’s a one-off, almost unheard of,” Boyd said Saturday. “Southwest has an outstanding safety record because it spends a lot of money on maintenance.”
After making the emergency landing, the plane was taken of service. Southwest said it was trying to find alternative ways to get the passengers aboard the flight to their destinations. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/florida-bound-southwest-flight-diverted-engine-problem/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/d36be173b8e206ff99daf40d8d7bb9b5e80235d1980266cd0e411930b755c38b.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T22:49:38 | null | 2016-08-29T18:35:34 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fmachnivkah-belz-rebbe-shlita-visiting-belzer-rebbe-shlita-invite-grandsons-wedding%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/DSC_6878-Copy-300x200.jpg | en | null | Machnivkah Belz Rebbe Shlita Visiting the Belzer Rebbe Shlita to Invite to his Grandsons Wedding | null | null | hamodia.com | null | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/machnivkah-belz-rebbe-shlita-visiting-belzer-rebbe-shlita-invite-grandsons-wedding/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/f2be3ccfc0b4d4d375b260fd4f2a708ab33267490b6b6cea7795a2e01ca68b2f.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T22:49:35 | null | 2016-08-29T18:44:13 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Famericans-no-two-executive-departs-united-airlines%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | American's No. Two Executive Departs for United Airlines | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 6:44 pm |
DALLAS (AP) - The president and No. Two executive at American Airlines is leaving to take the same job with rival United Airlines.
United Continental Holdings Inc. said Monday that Scott Kirby has been named president and will oversee operations, sales and other duties.
Kirby, 49, was often seen as a likely successor to American Airlines CEO Doug Parker.
Instead, he will add airline-industry expertise to United’s management. The Chicago-based airline is led by Oscar Munoz, a longtime railroad executive who became CEO less than a year ago.
American Airlines Group Inc., based in Fort Worth, Texas, will replace Kirby by promoting chief operating officer Robert Isom. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/americans-no-two-executive-departs-united-airlines/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/3839e83ef31e13939e16b523ef6d3a0516c6f703d4803c0ba6d450eb205b209c.json |
[
"Hamodia Staff"
] | 2016-08-29T22:49:47 | null | 2016-08-29T16:51:08 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fnorway-denies-funding-anti-israel-boycott%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Norway Denies Funding Anti-Israel Boycott | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 4:51 pm |
YERUSHALAYIM - The Norwegian government denied a report alleging that it has begun indirect funding of the anti-Israel boycotts, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.
The watchdog organization NGO Monitor charged that in the second half of 2016 Norway allocated over $600,000 to the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, which in turn channels money to the BDS movement.
The HR/IHL gave $5.78 million to NGOs supporting BDS during the past four years, equal to over half of its operating budget of $10.38 million. According to its figures, 80 percent of the group’s donations went to 24 NGOs. Of those, Monitor stated that 13 support BDS.
The Norwegian Embassy in Israel dispute Monitor’s allegation: “We do not find their characterizations to be representative of the work that these organizations are doing. Norway does not tolerate hate speech, efforts to delegitimize Israel, or anti-Semitism and have close dialogue with all our partners to make sure this is understood.
“Norway does not provide financial support to organizations whose main goal is to promote the BDS campaign,” the embassy added.
But Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg stood by his organization’s analysis: “The objectives stipulated in the Norwegian agreement — promoting good governance and democratization — are entirely disconnected from the realities of the HR/IHL framework. None of these terms applies to the activities of BDS grantees, leaving major questions regarding the Norwegian government’s decision-making process and the requirement for due diligence.”
Among the recipients of HR/IHL funding is BADIL, which received $260,000 in 2015, and whose website states that the organization “has been fully committed to BDS campaigns from its very inception” and “rejects current proposed settlements such as the Roadmap for Peace and the Arab Peace Initiative.” BADIL also publishes posters calling for the elimination of Israel and cartoons featuring anti-Semitic imagery, NGO Monitor stated.
Al-Haq received $710,000 from the HR/IHL Secretariat in 2015, and spearheads agitation against Israel at the International Criminal Court, as well as BDS activities. Its director, Shawan Jabarin, is a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization.
It was also noted that the HR/IHL Secretariat, managed by the Institute of Law at Birzeit University in Ramallah and the NIRAS consulting firm in Sweden, enjoys contributions from Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/norway-denies-funding-anti-israel-boycott/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/0655dbbdce60afa636bf50b2a72c4cc133863b4848be2b5cf3df7d88ef09ff51.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T10:49:14 | null | 2016-08-29T05:12:24 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fsuicide-bomber-yemen-attack%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/YEMEN-SECURITY-300x170.jpg | en | null | IS Claims Yemen Suicide Bombing That Killed 54 People | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 5:12 am |
People gather at the scene following an attack by a suicide bomber who drove a car laden with explosives into a compound run by local militias in the port city of Aden, Yemen, Monday. (Reuters/Fawaz Salman)
ADEN (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least 54 people when he drove a car bomb into a militia compound in Aden on Monday, the health ministry said, in one of the deadliest attacks claimed by the Islamic State terror group in the southern Yemeni port city.
The director general of Yemen’s health ministry in Aden, al-Khader Laswar, told Reuters that at least 67 other people were wounded in the attack in the city’s Mansoura district.
The Islamic State said in a statement carried by its Amaq news agency one of its suicide bombers carried out the bombing.
“Around 60 dead in a martyrdom operation by a fighter from Islamic State targeting a recruitment center in Aden city,” the statement said, without giving further details.
A security source said the attack targeted a school compound where conscripts of the Popular Committees, forces allied to the internationally recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, were gathered for breakfast.
The blast rocked the area and sent debris flying and residents fleeing, one witness said.
Islamist terrorists have exploited an 18-month-old civil war between the Houthis and Hadi’s supporters and launched a series of attacks targeting senior officials, religious figures, security forces and compounds of the Saudi-led Arab military coalition which supports Hadi. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/suicide-bomber-yemen-attack/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/b3437ea635b56f4e06fea949bb39b5fadfffcee22fd531727455755d35ce6a45.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T18:49:57 | null | 2016-08-26T13:31:27 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Fspacex-dragon-returns-earth-station-science-gear%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/5b-300x192.jpg | en | null | SpaceX Dragon Returns to Earth With Station Science, Gear | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 1:31 pm |
In this frame grab taken from NASA TV, a SpaceX Dragon capsule separates from a robotic arm of the International Space Station en route back to Earth with a load of science experiments and gear from the space station on Friday. (NASA via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A SpaceX Dragon capsule returned to Earth on Friday with scientific gifts from the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins waved goodbye as the Dragon slowly flew away Friday morning. Six hours later, the spacecraft parachuted into the Pacific, just off Mexico’s Baja California coast. It’s loaded with 3,000 pounds of research and equipment, including 12 mice that flew up on the Dragon as part of a genetic study.
“Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed,” SpaceX reported via Twitter.
In this frame grab taken from NASA Television, a SpaceX Dragon capsule, right, separates from a robotic arm of the International Space Station en route back to Earth with a load of science experiments and gear from the space station on Friday. (NASA via AP)
Rubins and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi used the big robot arm to release the capsule. Mission Control thanked the astronauts for their effort, then added, “To the Dragon recovery team, fair winds and following seas.”
The Dragon delivered a new docking port last month that will be used in another year or two by SpaceX and Boeing, which are developing crew capsules for NASA. Its shuttles five years retired, the space agency has turned over orbital deliveries of both cargo and astronauts to private companies, in order to focus on Mars exploration. In the meantime, NASA astronauts ride in Russian capsules to the space station.
SpaceX is the only space station shipper capable of returning items for analysis back to Earth; that’s why the Dragon is so important to NASA. Everyone else’s cargo ships are filled with trash at mission’s end and burn up on re-entry. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/spacex-dragon-returns-earth-station-science-gear/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/062d8f92eb0934ca459bfff47e24f6298a0b09845cf1e4491229270230d1d2d3.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T12:49:47 | null | 2016-08-30T07:50:17 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fnew-beis-medrash-underway-machnovka-belz-bnei-brak%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/F160830YN20-300x200.jpg | en | null | New Beis Medrash Underway for Machnovka-Belz in Bnei Brak | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 7:50 am |
The Machnovka-Belz Rebbe, shlita, inspects the construction of the new beis medrash, Thursday. (Yaakov Naumi/Flash90)
In honor of the yahrtzeit of the Belzer Rebbe, Harav Aharon, zy”a, the uncle of the Machnovka-Belz Rebbe, shlita, a special ceremony was held on Thursday, 21 Av, the day of the yahrtzeit of the Rebbe, zy”a.
At the construction site of his up-and-coming new beis medrash in Bnei Brak, the Machnovka-Belz Rebbe, shlita, led the recital of the fourth sefer of Tehillim, which was followed by the special Yehi Ratzon. The Rebbe then pressed the button to pour the cement for the floor of the main heichal – the groise shtib as it is known in Belz.
Work on the new beis medrash is ongoing. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/new-beis-medrash-underway-machnovka-belz-bnei-brak/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/1a29b3ad602df0a63caab1290d88c76ca033c59345ad3d26285788a6601031dd.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T00:48:30 | null | 2016-08-27T20:33:38 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2Fitaly-mourns-earthquake-victims-as-death-toll-reaches-291%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/ITALY-QUAKE-3-300x195.jpg | en | null | Italy Mourns Earthquake Victims as Death Toll Reaches 291 | null | null | hamodia.com | Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 8:33 pm |
Firefighters stand next to a collapsed house following an earthquake in Amatrice, central Italy, August 27. (Reuters/Ciro De Luca)
ASCOLI PICENO, Italy (dpa/TNS) - Victims of Wednesday’s earthquake in central Italy were given state funerals on Saturday, a day of national mourning on which the provisional death toll from the quake rose to 291.
The magnitude-6 quake struck a rugged mountain area between the regions of Umbria, Lazio and Marche, roughly 90 miles northeast of Rome.
Amatrice was the worst-affected town, with 230 dead. There were 11 victims in nearby Accumoli and 50 in Arquata del Tronto, including a man who died in a hospital on Saturday, Italy’s civil defense agency said in a statement.
In the provincial capital of Ascoli Piceno, a funeral for 35 victims was held, including one for the sister of Giorgia, the four-year-old girl who survived 16 hours under the rubble until she was rescued.
President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi attended the funeral. At the end, they stayed on to consult local authorities and talk individually to grieving relatives.
The 35 were among the 50 dead from Arquata. Amatrice, where rescuers were still looking for people under the rubble, was due to hold its own memorial service on Tuesday, while private funerals have been held in Rome and elsewhere.
Mattarella started the day flying by helicopter to Amatrice, the town with the highest death count. He then made a stopover in Accumoli and, after the funeral, visited more survivors at the hospital of Ascoli Piceno, including little Giorgia.
Flags on public buildings across Italy were flown at half mast.
The Protezione Civile (Civilian Protection) said aftershocks were continuing to plague the earthquake area. More than 1,300 had been counted since Wednesday, including 92 starting overnight Saturday, which did not cause any additional damage.
About 2,500 people were left homeless by the quake, and authorities said the priority was to allow them to continue living in their communities, where basic services and accommodations will have to be provided by temporary structures.
On Friday, Mayor Sergio Pirozzi said wooden houses would be built near destroyed buildings in Amatrice to stop it from turning into a ghost town, while the government in Rome pledged to reopen schools as soon as possible “to give a signal” that life would continue. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/27/italy-mourns-earthquake-victims-as-death-toll-reaches-291/ | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/5ef3270fedbc952e15ba20abfecc82ea13323e02ddb3d06a838f44c723234717.json |
[
"Shimon B. Lifkin"
] | 2016-08-30T18:50:05 | null | 2016-08-30T13:28:15 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fhaifa-rd-behind-intels-new-7th-generation-chip%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/Haifa-RD-Behind-Intel’s-New-7th-Generation-Chip1-300x200.jpg | en | null | Haifa R&D Behind Intel’s New 7th Generation Chip | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 1:28 pm |
Intel in Israel employs around 10,000 workers in its Kiryat Gat production center and in four development centers, in Haifa, Yakum, Yerushalayim and Petach Tikvah. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Israeli high tech basked in the limelight of innovation on Tuesday as Intel unveiled its 7th generation core processor chip, largely a product of the company’s R&D center in Haifa.
“The Israeli team did it again,” proclaimed Intel Israel’s head of R&D Ran Senderovit.
“I think this is one of the great points of pride for Israeli technology,” he added. “This product will be sold to millions of users around the world.”
The high-tech sector has been eulogized in recent months as a has-been of the startup nation, and the news will give it a much-needed boost.
The new chip boasts a 12 percent rise in computer performance, longer battery life and better security.
The Intel Core enhanced 14-nanometer-plus processor, called Kaby Lake, is its “strongest and fastest ever,” Intel said in a statement. It was built on the foundation of the Skylake processors, which the company launched last year and were also led from Israel. The Kaby Lake processors are more than 70 percent faster than a 5-year-old PC and 3.5 times better in 3D graphics performance, the company said.
Kaby Lake will have a longer-lasting battery — 9.5 hours of 4K video playback — and better security, and will enable more natural and intuitive interactions of users with their PCs, Intel said.
The chips are set for inclusion in products starting in September, and in 100 million devices on sale through 2016. They will be specially marked with labels identifying them as 7th generation chips. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/haifa-rd-behind-intels-new-7th-generation-chip/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/b6d91b57874b30e08ed80401ce9b598efc26ff572fd755f14766eb8bc07156d4.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T22:49:45 | null | 2016-08-29T17:13:44 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fapple-expected-show-new-iphone-event-next-week%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Apple Expected to Show New iPhone at Event Next Week | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 5:13 pm |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Apple is expected to show off a new iPhone next week when the company holds its fall product launch event in San Francisco.
The tech giant announced the date for the Sept. 7 launch by sending out invitations to technology journalists and industry analysts on Monday.
Apple didn’t provide any details, in keeping with its usual practice, but it traditionally announces one or two new iPhone models at its annual September event. Apple may also show new models or features for other products like the Apple Watch or Macbook computer.
The Cupertino, California company has sold more than 214 million iPhones over the last 12 months. But sales are down from a year ago, and analysts will be watching closely to see what changes Apple has made in the newest models. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/apple-expected-show-new-iphone-event-next-week/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/6ac05785f931e78d1c606dc2aedcbf98785ea79d523bfdb769c21c12ca60120d.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T02:48:32 | null | 2016-08-27T22:25:39 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2Fu-s-clinton-calendars-wont-released-election%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | U.S.: Clinton Calendars Won't Be Released Until After Election | null | null | hamodia.com | Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 10:25 pm |
WASHINGTON (AP) - Seven months after a federal judge ordered the State Department to begin releasing monthly batches of the detailed daily schedules showing meetings by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, the government told The Associated Press it won’t finish the job before Election Day.
The department has so far released about half of the schedules. Its lawyers said in a phone conference with the AP’s lawyers that the department now expects to release the last of the detailed schedules around Dec. 30, weeks before the next president is inaugurated.
The AP’s lawyers late Friday formally asked the State Department to hasten that effort so that the department could provide all Clinton’s minute-by-minute schedules by Oct. 15. The agency did not immediately respond.
The schedules drew new attention this week after the AP analyzed the ones released so far. The news agency found that more than half the people outside the government who met or spoke by telephone with Clinton while she was secretary of state had given money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. The AP’s analysis focused on people with private interests and excluded her meetings or calls with U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives.
The AP’s reporting was based on official calendars covering Clinton’s entire term plus the more-detailed daily schedules covering roughly half her time as secretary of state. The AP first asked for Clinton’s calendars in 2010 and again in 2013. It then sued the State Department in federal court to obtain the detailed schedules, and the department so far has provided about half of them under court order.
Clinton has said the AP’s analysis was flawed because it did not account fully for all meetings and phone calls during her entire term as secretary. She also said the analysis should have included meetings with federal employees and foreign diplomats. The AP said it focused on her meetings with outsiders because those were more discretionary, as Clinton would normally meet with federal officials and foreign officials as part of her job.
Clinton said she met with people outside government regardless of whether they gave money or charitable commitments to her family’s charity.
“These are people I would be proud to meet with, as any secretary of state would have been proud to meet with, to hear about their work and their insights,” Clinton said this week on CNN.
With the foundation drawing continued attention, Clinton promised Friday to put in place additional safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest with the charity should she win the White House.
The foundation issue, along with continued focus on her use of a private email server, has dogged Clinton politically throughout the week, drawing strong criticism from opponent Donald Trump.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller released a statement Friday night saying: “It is unacceptable that the State Department is now refusing to release her official schedule before the election in full. Voters deserve to know the truth before they cast their ballots.”
Former President Bill Clinton said last week that if she is elected president, the foundation will no longer accept foreign or corporate donations.
The State Department is now estimating there are about 2,700 pages of schedules left. Under its process, it is reviewing and censoring them page-by-page to remove personal details such as private phone numbers or email addresses. In some cases it has censored names of people who met privately with Clinton or the subjects they discussed.
A State Department spokeswoman, Elizabeth Trudeau, declined to discuss the ongoing case and noted the agency is struggling with thousands of public records requests.
In court, the AP in December had asked U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to order the State Department to produce specific percentages of the remaining schedules every 30 days under a formula so that all would be released before the presidential primary elections were complete.
Instead, because the State Department said it did not know how many pages were left, Leon ordered it in January to release at least 600 pages of schedules every 30 days. Each 600-page group covers about three months of Clinton’s tenure.
Under the present rate, a government attorney working on behalf of the State Department notified the AP’s lawyers it will take about four and one-half months — or until Dec. 30 — to release all the remaining schedules through the end of Clinton’s term, in February 2013. The government’s notice late Thursday was the first time the State Department has provided the AP with a measure of how many pages were remaining and when it expected to complete the job.
It was unclear whether the judge will reconsider his earlier decision and order faster results. In the AP’s lawsuit over other Clinton-related files, Leon has said it would be “ridiculous” to allow the State Department to delay until even weeks before the election. He also cited “mounting frustration that this is a project where the State Department may be running out the clock.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/27/u-s-clinton-calendars-wont-released-election/ | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/3217aecef81c26443c3ef14a62d409030312c8533a1341f095cd43999e2c9804.json |
[
"Faysal Itani"
] | 2016-08-30T18:50:01 | null | 2016-08-30T14:43:36 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Fturkey-finally-went-war-syria%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Why Turkey Finally Went to War in Syria | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 2:43 pm |
The United States may finally have a professional military ally against the Islamic State in Syria. The Turkish-led assault on the northern Syria town of Jarablus, which was held by the Islamic State for two-and-a-half years but was re-captured Wednesday with little resistance, will shape the war on IS to Washington’s advantage.
Turkey entered the Syrian war directly for the first time Wednesday morning, sending tanks and special forces to support a rebel offensive on the Islamic State’s only remaining stronghold on the Turkish border. U.S. aircraft also backed the offensive, providing close air support against Islamic State targets — a crucial indication that the Turkish intervention had received Washington’s acceptance. Rebels declared victory within hours, suffering no significant casualties. Turkey has thus quickly achieved its immediate objective of taking Jarablus and has now signaled its attempt to push westward to “cleanse” the border area of the Islamic State.
The campaign itself may launch a new era of U.S.-Turkish cooperation in Syria. It’s true that Ankara’s motives for directly entering the Syrian war do not cleanly overlap with Washington’s and are in direct conflict with those of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is a U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State but is considered a terrorist group by Turkey. Overall, however, Wednesday’s events mark a change for the better for the United States, its alliance with Turkey, and the war on the Islamic State.
Every actor in the Jarablus operation is fighting for its own reasons. Turkey certainly sought to weaken the Islamic State, which has shelled Turkish territory and carried out a series of terrorist attacks — including a suicide bombing in the southern city of Gaziantep just last weekend, which killed 54 people at a wedding. More importantly, Ankara is responding rather belatedly to territorial acquisitions in northern Syria by the PYD-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which aims to connect different “cantons” to form a contiguous Kurdish territory along the Turkish border. As Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Wednesday, Turkey will not accept a Kurdish entity on its border.
But why now? The SDF has been expanding for months, and the Turkish response had been rather muted until Wednesday. Ankara may have hoped the United States, which supports the SDF, would pressure the group to respect territorial red lines, such as staying east of the Euphrates River. This, however, did not happen, as the SDF crossed the Euphrates and eventually took the town of Manbij on Aug. 12 and seemed intent on continuing west to link up with the farthest Kurdish canton in Efrin.
The SDF’s growing momentum seems to have changed Ankara’s calculations, leading to the Jarablus operation. Turkey had already been fighting a rebel proxy war to clear other border areas of the Islamic State and preempt SDF expansion, using local militias but resisting the deployment of Turkish troops into Syria. In taking Jarablus, groups including the Sultan Murad Division, Faylaq al-Sham, Liwa al-Mutasim, and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement were moved from other rebel areas farther west, through Turkish territory, and over the border into the Jarablus fight.
This is Turkey’s most dramatic move in its otherwise inconsistent war on the Islamic State, and it could provide a blueprint for cooperation with the United States going forward. Washington has been hesitant to ally with Turkish-backed rebel groups focused on fighting Damascus, fearing it could be dragged into a war against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. This has left the United States heavily dependent on the PYD, an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — a U.S.-designated terrorist group — and a sworn enemy of Turkey.
The United States desperately needs an ally that can deliver results against the Islamic State, work with local Arab citizens who are suspicious of Kurdish groups, and serve as a strategic international partner rather than a local militia. While Turkey was focused exclusively on defeating the Assad regime and containing the PYD, none of this was possible. But if Ankara calculates that playing a central role against the Islamic State is its best chance to bolster viable Arab partners in northern Syria — while countering the possibility of a united, hostile Kurdish entity — that would change.
The Jarablus operation is therefore the culmination of a strategic Turkish adaptation, PYD overreach, and U.S. eagerness to expand its operations and partners against the Islamic State. Turkey will leave the town in rebel hands, though it may also choose to keep its own troops there to deter or defend against Islamic State counterattacks. If Turkey and its allies can hold it, Jarablus could serve as a springboard for further Turkish-backed expansion of an anti-Islamic State buffer zone. This will cement a new partnership between Turkey and an array of Syrian rebels, with U.S. backing.
These dynamics have potentially enormous implications for the war in northern Syria. They may raise Turkish-PYD tensions in the short term, which the United States will have to manage and factor into its anti-Islamic State strategy. On balance, however, Washington has little choice but to embrace Ankara, a NATO ally, over a controversial militia that is Turkey’s enemy.
Having Turkey as a full-fledged partner in the anti-Islamic State fight also will give Washington greater leverage with its Kurdish allies. In Ankara Wednesday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called for Kurdish forces to withdraw from areas west of the Euphrates, which is the very region Turkish-backed rebels hope to expand into. Kurdish forces will likely have little choice but to comply — or risk losing U.S. military support. Thus, a curb on Kurdish expansion may actually de-escalate Turkish-Kurdish tensions, so long as the United States remains engaged in the war.
If built upon, the Jarablus operation could lay the basis for much-needed U.S.-Turkish cooperation, facilitate an Arab-Kurdish balance of power in northern Syria, and substantially strengthen the war on the Islamic State. And if Washington and Ankara remain closely engaged, they should be able to secure the border area. South of that strip of land, however, things get complicated, as the rebels will eventually run into PYD and regime forces. Their respective foreign backers — Turkey, the United States, Russia, and Iran — will have to work very hard to avoid an escalation. For now, however, Washington has plenty to gain from Ankara’s newfound enthusiasm and aggression against the Islamic State.
(Foreign Policy) | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/turkey-finally-went-war-syria/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/398bae11afa3762dcfeaa8e0266b1b37f5b5cc518939e073c65d13000d95aa3a.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T14:49:22 | null | 2016-08-29T09:20:54 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Ftefillos-at-kivrei-tzaddikim-in-northern-israel%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/F160828YL63-300x200.jpg | en | null | Tefillos at Kivrei Tzaddikim During Bein Hazmanim | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 9:20 am |
A view of mispallelim at the kever of Rashbi in Meron last week. (Yaakov Lederman/Flash90)
As is known, many bachurim, avreichim and families from across Israel try to get away from the big city hustle during bein hazmanim and travel up north, to the cooler air and calmer environment. Many of those utilized the opportunity to daven at the kevarim of the Tanna’im, Amora’im and tzaddikim who are buried in the area.
Tefillos at the kever of the Ramchal, Harav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, zt”l, in Teveriah. (Yaakov Lederman/Flash90) | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/tefillos-at-kivrei-tzaddikim-in-northern-israel/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/2aa6bfbada0e858ece28d48396cc8fe92587e92278bef53ae130535629b8c819.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T18:48:51 | null | 2016-08-28T13:16:27 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fwarsaw-officials-fired-property-restitution-questions%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/pic-5-300x199.jpg | en | null | Warsaw Officials Fired Over Property Restitution Questions | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 1:16 pm |
A plot of land by the landmark Palace of Culture and Science in downtown Warsaw, that is at the center of a media storm over irregularities in the restitution of private property seized by the communists into private hands. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Warsaw’s mayor said Friday she was firing three officials for what she described as lax oversight over town hall decisions to return property seized by the communists to private owners.
Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz also said she wants a special commission to review every restitution decision in Warsaw since 1990, when claims for the return of seized real estate became possible after Poland’s transition to democracy.
By a 1945 decree, the state seized real estate from many pre-war owners, among them many Jews.
Poland now is the only nation in central and eastern Europe without official restitution legislation. Such claims are handled by the courts, which support or deny them. The decisions are then carried out by city officials, a practice that critics say leaves plenty of room for irregularities.
A legislation regulating some of the issues is to take effect in coming days.
Irregularities in the restitution of Warsaw’s private property have long been public knowledge, but this recently became a hot topic in the media amid an apparent political struggle for administrative control of the capital city.
Since 2006, Warsaw has been ruled by the centrist Civic Platform that is in the opposition now to the nationally governing Law and Justice party. Observers say the government is seeking to discredit the mayor and gain control, ahead of 2018 local elections.
The focus is on a downtown plot of land, by the landmark Palace of Culture and Science, which is valued at some 160 million zlotys ($42 million) that was returned to claimants who had bought rights to it from the family of its pre-war Danish owner. Experts say the restitution should not have taken place, because in the 1950s Poland paid compensation to Denmark for property seized from Danish citizens.
In the period since 1990, most Warsaw mayors have been linked to parties that gave rise to the Civic Platform, except for in the period between 2002 and 2005 when Law and Justice ran the city and also issued some restitution decisions.
Gronkiewicz-Waltz said she bears no responsibility for the irregularities, but fired three officials who were in charge of issuing restitution decisions, saying they failed in “diligence and accuracy” in checking facts before they approved the return of the downtown plot and of other property.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that many buildings and ownership documents were destroyed in World War II and many Jewish owners were killed in the Holocaust.
Jan Spiewak, a city councilor and head of the “City is Ours” activist group, told The Associated Press he believes many of the decisions, which hurt tenants in restituted houses, were taken consciously by city officials who might have drawn personal gains from them. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/warsaw-officials-fired-property-restitution-questions/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/230a4b797571b46eacff32b4d9b748df7b7f3f7d5092e97d4c044cb9649d6380.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:58:47 | null | 2016-08-25T20:44:44 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F25%2Fhealth-care-sector-pulls-stock-market-lower%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/1-Stocks-11-112x300.jpg | en | null | Health Care Sector Pulls Stock Market Lower Again | null | null | hamodia.com | Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 8:44 pm |
NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks fell in light trading for a second day on Thursday as investors sifted through a mix of earnings reports.
The major indexes wavered between small gains and losses in the morning, then moved lower in the afternoon as investors dumped health care stocks. Disappointing earnings from a few retailers helped push down stocks of companies that rely on consumer spending.
The losses were modest, and both the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Dow Jones industrial average remain close to their record highs hit last week. Many investors are holding back from big bets now that the bulk of earnings reports are out and many traders are still on vacation. Only 2.9 billion shares traded hand on the New York Stock Exchange, a very low level.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 33.07 points, or 0.2 percent, to 18,448.41. The S&P 500 gave up 2.97 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,172.47. The Nasdaq composite edged down 5.49 points, or 0.1 percent, to 5,212.20.
Biotech stocks stumbled again. Celgene and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals each fell more than 1 percent as investors worry about a backlash in Washington against increases in prices that politicians say amount to price gouging. Mylan, which has been under fire for steep increases in its EpiPen anti-allergy medicine, fell 0.7 percent.
Tiffany & Co. rose the most in the S&P 500 after the luxury retailer reported a slight increase in fiscal second-quarter profits that beat analyst estimates. It rose $4.41, or 6.4 percent, to $73.28.
Results from other companies were disappointing.
The biggest loser in S&P 500 was Dollar General, which plunged $16.18, or nearly 18 percent, to $75.61 after reporting earnings and revenue that fell short of forecasts. Signet Jewelers, the second-biggest decliner, fell $12.06, or nearly 13 percent, to $83.44 after its results also missed estimates.
Overall, earnings per share for companies in the S&P 500 are expected to fall 1.8 percent in the second quarter, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. That would be the fourth quarter in a row of drops, nearly unheard of outside of a recession.
Many analysts expect earnings to surge toward the end of the year, which may explain why stocks are holding near highs. But some experts are not convinced.
“If you look at earnings, they’re just not that great,” said Phil Blancato, CEO of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management. “There isn’t enough news to get people to sell and there isn’t enough news to get people to buy.”
In overseas trading, Germany’s DAX dropped 0.9 percent, France’s CAC-40 lost 0.7 and Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent. Major markets in Asia were mostly unchanged. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.2 percent.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 55 cents to $47.32 a barrel. Brent crude, which is used to price oil internationally, rose 55 cents to $49.60 a barrel. Wholesale gasoline was little changed at $1.51 a gallon, heating oil rose 1 cent to $1.51 a gallon and natural gas rose 5 cents to $2.85 per 1,000 cubic feet.
U.S. government bond prices slipped. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.58 percent. The dollar rose to 100.57 yen from 100.49 yen, while the euro rose to $1.1281 from $1.1261.
The price of gold fell $5.10 to $1,324.60 an ounce, silver fell 7 cents to $18.62 an ounce and copper was little changed at $2.08 a pound. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/25/health-care-sector-pulls-stock-market-lower/ | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/1cf402dc29a3d2b41b69c6bc1fe2a8969d58c4650799a24b754411e579d84100.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-31T14:50:20 | null | 2016-08-31T09:23:17 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fliberman-despite-difficulty-israel-expects-return-missing-soldiers-bodies%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/06/Liberman-Takes-“Oath-of-Silence”-300x200.jpg | en | null | Liberman: Despite Difficulty, Israel Expects Return of Missing Soldiers' Bodies | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 9:23 am |
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said Wednesday that Israel would do “everything possible” to return to Israel the bodies of IDF soldiers lost in action in Gaza – and any inference otherwise from comments he has made are incorrect.
“The army is fully committed to ensure that anyone in captivity is returned home,” Liberman said in a speech in the northern Druze town of Daliat al-Carmel. “The more we talk about this the more difficult the mission. This is one of those things that it is better to remain quiet on.”
The bodies in question are those of Hadar Goldin, Hy”d, and Oron Shaul, Hy”d, who went missing in Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Goldin was last seen being dragged into a Hamas terror tunnel, after he was shot in a battle with terrorists during Operation Protective Edge. He is presumed to be dead, but Hamas is believed to still have his body. The Goldin family, along with the family of IDF officer Oron Shaul, who also went missing in that same battle, demanded that Israel refuse to close its reconciliation deal with Turkey unless Ankara pressured Hamas to release the bodies, but the government did not do so. The two were declared last year as having been killed in battle. Also missing in Gaza and presumed alive is IDF soldier Avraham Mengistu, who was captured by Hamas in September 2014, at the end of Operation Protective Edge.
On Tuesday, Channel Ten said that Liberman had told advisers in closed meetings that there was very little likelihood that Israel could recover the bodies of the soldiers, since he was not willing to release terrorists for the soldiers, as Hamas demands. On a visit to southern Israel Sunday, Liberman said that he did not believe Hamas would release the bodies without such a deal.
But Liberman said Wednesday that he had did not mean that Israel would never recover the bodies. “I did not say that we would never see them again, not in a closed meeting, an open meeting, or in my sleep,” he said, declining to specify how Israel would retrieve the bodies in lieu of an exchange for terrorists. “It’s no secret that I voted in the cabinet against the deal to release terrorists for Gilad Shalit, and I do not regret that decision in hindsight. Some of the terrorists released have gone right back to terror activities.” It’s likely that the same thing would happen in a new deal, he added. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/liberman-despite-difficulty-israel-expects-return-missing-soldiers-bodies/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/2b15b916d903c521976b4a7c85739ec3c7e1e9093a3dbba63b5b277422ab0ebf.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-30T10:49:54 | null | 2016-08-30T05:15:56 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Faroma-recall-drinks-over-listeria-scare%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/F130701FFF84-300x201.jpg | en | null | Aroma Recalls Drinks Over Listeria Scare | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 5:15 am |
Illustration of a sign leading to an Aroma coffee shop. (Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - The popular Aroma coffee shop chain has recalled two of its popular drinks out of concern that some of the ingredients may have been contaminated with listeria, reports said. According to Maariv, the company has recalled two coconut-lychee iced drinks after discovering listeria in some samples.
The bacteria was discovered in a routine inspection by an outside company that is licensed by the Health Ministry to undertake such tests. A notification went out immediately to managers in all 140 Aroma branches throughout the country to immediately stop selling the drinks.
The company has not opened a special hotline for customers who bought the product, because it is assumed that anyone buying the drink would have consumed it immediately and not brought it home to drink later. In a statement, Aroma confirmed the report, saying that the company hoped to restore its full menu in the coming days.
The Health Ministry said that it had dispatched a team to supervise the cleanup of the facility where the drinks are brewed, and was satisfied with the level of cooperation by the coffee shop chain on the matter.
Despite the wave of recalls of food products for contamination by salmonella, listeria and other pathogens – there have been dozens in recent weeks since the original incident reported nearly a month ago in connection with Telma cornflakes – the number of people actually infected with a food-borne disease has actually been on a downward trend in recent months.
The Health Ministry’s latest report on infections of the digestive system – which includes cases of food-borne illnesses treated in hospitals – has been falling throughout the past three months. “Community health centers and health-fund offices are [also seeing] falling [numbers], with fewer people seeking treatment for these conditions,” the report said. “We also see fewer cases and admissions in hospitals for such diseases.” | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/aroma-recall-drinks-over-listeria-scare/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/63310c4523bc6c3f1e17f1f5b68f7f55d3e482bc8b6eb40e1627dac8a7a401f7.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T00:49:06 | null | 2016-08-28T20:41:14 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fnevada-becomes-one-trumps-big-hopes-swing-state-win%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/1-Nevada-Becomes-One-Of-Trump-300x196.jpg | en | null | Nevada Becomes One of Trump’s Big Hopes for Swing State Win | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 8:41 pm |
A union member holds up a sign during a rally in front of the Trump International Hotel, on Friday, in Las Vegas. The Culinary Union is demanding that the Republican presidential candidate start contract negotiations. (AP Photo/John Locher)
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Russ Wheeler bears the financial scars of Nevada’s lost decade, and he hopes Donald Trump can heal them.
He worked for a Las Vegas roofing company when the real estate bust crushed the state’s economy. He took two pay cuts before getting laid off. He had to commute into the California desert to find work after that.
Wheeler considers himself one of the lucky ones. He was able to build up enough savings to retire, but even now his wife had her teaching hours reduced at a community college, dramatically reducing their household’s income.
“It’ll be better with Trump because he’ll bring the jobs back,” Wheeler, 66, said as he stopped by a Republican Party office to scoop up some “Make America Great Again” yard signs and bumper stickers. “Everybody I know is a Trump supporter. He resonates well in Nevada.”
Nevada is the most diverse battleground state. On paper, it should be secure for Democrats. But there are enough people like Wheeler, still rattled by the recession and frustrated about other things, to make it one of Trump’s best swing states.
Democrats and Republicans agree that the state’s competitiveness is not just a quirk of public polling, which has a spotty track record in Nevada, but is reflected in private surveys, the tightness of Nevada’s races for the U.S. Senate and House, and the observations of seasoned political operatives.
Nevada also has one of the lowest rates of college education in the country, with only 23 percent of its population having graduated college, giving Trump a reservoir of noncollege graduates that traditionally form his base. And the state’s anti-establishment streak and rebellious culture may prove a good fit for the brash New York developer. “In Nevada, we have this mindset of it’s us versus the world,” said Charles Munoz, Trump’s state director. “It’s the perfect storm of policy and messaging.”
The stakes in Nevada go beyond the state’s six electoral votes in the presidential election. The race for retiring Democratic Sen. Harry Reid’s seat pits his hand-picked successor, former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, against U.S. Rep. Joe Heck. Two of the state’s four U.S. House seats are also in play.
The state has become a presidential bellwether, voting for the winning candidate in every election since 1980. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/nevada-becomes-one-trumps-big-hopes-swing-state-win/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/4b0de1e6d20f055e362933fbccb2aeeba84b4bc4c0d68a4ec5e270fa18b18262.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-29T08:49:15 | null | 2016-08-29T03:11:09 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2Fpolice-seize-destroy-30000-illegal-eggs%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/photo_2016-08-29_09-57-06-186x300.jpg | en | null | Police Seize, Destroy, 30,000 'Illegal' Eggs | null | null | hamodia.com | Monday, August 29, 2016 at 3:11 am |
Illegal eggs confiscated by Israel Police. (Police Spokesman)
YERUSHALAYIM - Police said that they had early Monday confiscated some 30,000 eggs that were being stored in “unhealthy conditions” in a house in the village of Shfar’am in northern Israel. The eggs were stored in a closed room that was not air-conditioned, where the temperature reached into the 90s Fahrenheit on Israel’s hottest days in August.
That’s a recipe for the development of all sorts of bacteria, including salmonella, which has been a major problem in the Israeli food supply chain in recent weeks. The homeowner was detained and police are determining whether or not to charge him. The eggs were picked up by Health Ministry workers and destroyed.
Generally, eggs of this type that are confiscated originate in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Yehudah and Shomron, and police are investigating if that is where these eggs came from. Often, shipments of such eggs are confiscated as they are transported through IDF checkpoints, but the fact that these eggs had passed through and were already in Israel proper – which means they could have been sold to consumers, caterers and food manufacturers – made the situation especially dangerous, police said.
While importing such eggs into Israel is illegal, many Israelis do take advantage of the substantially lower prices of eggs in PA villages to save as much as 40 percent over the cost of eggs in Israeli supermarkets. Aware of the problem, the government is seeking to allow the importation of eggs from abroad to help lower the prices for consumers.
Like with many of the other products that have seen their duties slashed, eggs are largely marketed by one company – Tnuva – and as a result, the government believes, egg prices in Israel are significantly higher than they are abroad. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/29/police-seize-destroy-30000-illegal-eggs/ | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/ef4414bae4d3713de1a77dff65f4dd6b77fa36fd44e2c23602fbcae7e78ad130.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-28T14:48:55 | null | 2016-08-28T08:56:19 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Freport-u-s-trying-revive-israel-pa-talks%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/03/F090922AO10-300x200.jpg | en | null | Report: U.S. Trying to Revive Israel-PA Talks | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 8:56 am |
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (L) reaches to shake hands with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in front of U.S. President Barack Obama (C) during a trilateral meeting in New York in 2009. (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - A Jordanian report Sunday said that Israel and Palestinian Authority would soon get together to restart talks that have been frozen for over two years. According to the report, both sides acceded to pressure by the United States to hold talks.
However, Palestinian Authority sources said that no talks would take place unless Israel agreed to its two preconditions – a complete construction freeze in all of Yehudah, Shomron and Yerushalayim, as well as an Israeli release of all terrorists held in prison. The report in the Al-Ra’ad newspaper was based on comments by a top PA official, who said that Israel had agreed to hold talks without preconditions.
Wassel Abu Yusuf, the official quoted in the report, said that the PA welcomed all attempts to reach a final status agreement, but that “there are conditions that must be met in order to ensure that the meetings deal with substance, and not just economic issues. We are very interested in advancing the French peace initiative,” he said.
It should be noted that the PA preconditions are just that – requirements just to start the talks. The PA in previous rounds of talks consistently demanded that Israel withdraw from all of Yehudah, Shomron and areas of Yerushalayim liberated in the 1967 Six Day War, that Israel make arrangements for the repatriation of Arabs who fled the 1948 armistice lines when Israel was established, and that the Palestinian capital be located in Yerushalayim. These conditions have been called “non-negotiable” by the PA. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/report-u-s-trying-revive-israel-pa-talks/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/d97b2076f623f5d2e49dddb36d68790341a8133c94419def147920e9b3ebdc5f.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T00:49:09 | null | 2016-08-28T19:01:16 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Ffarc-sets-permanent-cease-fire-colombia-peace-deal%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16241792901157-219x300.jpg | en | null | FARC Sets Permanent Cease-Fire Under Colombia Peace Deal | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 7:01 pm |
Commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timochenko or Timoleon Jimene, talks to the press, in Havana, Cuba, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
HAVANA (AP) - The commander of Colombia’s biggest rebel movement said Sunday its fighters will permanently cease hostilities with the government beginning with the first minute of Monday, as a result of their peace accord ending one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.
Rodrigo Londono, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), made the announcement in Havana, where the two sides negotiated for four years before announcing the peace deal Wednesday.
“Never again will parents be burying their sons and daughters killed in the war,” said Londono, who is also known as Timoshenko. “All rivalries and grudges will remain in the past.”
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Friday that his military would cease attacks on the FARC beginning Monday.
Colombia is expected to hold a national referendum Oct. 2 to give voters the chance to approve the deal for ending a half-century of political violence that has claimed more than 220,000 lives and driven more than 5 million people from their homes
After the agreement is signed, FARC guerrillas are supposed to begin handing their weapons over to United Nations-sponsored monitors. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/farc-sets-permanent-cease-fire-colombia-peace-deal/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/03b8052b7e115846a2436a18d5580e79229de095df370d9467392b1903123920.json |
[
"Hamodia Staff"
] | 2016-08-26T12:50:41 | null | 2016-08-26T05:06:26 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Fsearch-underway-at-bear-mountain-state-park-for-two-missing-bachurim%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/IMG-20160826-WA0014-300x225.jpg | en | null | Search Underway at Bear Mountain State Park for Two Missing Bachurim | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 5:06 am |
Volunteers helping at the search for the missing bachurim. (News Breakers)
NEW YORK - A mass search was underway overnight Thursday at the Bear Mountain State Park in Upstate New York for two bachurim. The two bachurim, from the Stoliner Camp were on a hike Thursday, but got separated from their group and lost.
The search for the bachurim is ongoing by the N.Y. State Parks Police. Earlier, members of Chaveirim of Rockland County and the Misaskim organization, as well as by many volunteers at Bear Mountain.
View of Bear Mountain Bridge from the top of Bear Mountain. (Wikipedia)
Overnight, only the park rangers and police continued searching while all the volunteers were staged outside the park, ready to resume their assistance in the search with first sunlight.
Please daven for Moshe Tzvi ben Esther and Yosef Yitzchak ben Rinah.
Tefillos were held Friday on behalf of the bachurim at the kever of the Karliner Rebbe, zy”a, in Teveriah.
Bear Mountain State Park is a 5,205-acre state park located on the western side of the Hudson River in Rockland County. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/search-underway-at-bear-mountain-state-park-for-two-missing-bachurim/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/001e08ece41421f8371b685c89fd48c3b93a8acf774e7792e6daa05c0fa4fa55.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T02:49:05 | null | 2016-08-28T21:13:48 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fupstate-ny-lags-behind-nyc-rest-country-job-growth%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/wp-content/themes/hamodia/favicon.png | en | null | Upstate NY Lags Behind NYC, Rest of Country in Job Growth | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 9:13 pm |
ALBANY (AP) - Upstate New York continues to trail downstate as well as the nation as a whole when it comes to job growth following the economic downturn, according to a report released Friday by the state comptroller.
Total employment upstate rose 0.3 percent since June 2009, when the Great Recession ended, compared to 2.2 percent for downstate and 1.9 percent nationally.
The area around Albany saw the largest employment gains upstate, while other regions actually lost jobs since the recession ended in 2009. The biggest losses were seen in the Southern Tier, which saw a 2.5 percent decline, and the Mohawk Valley, which experienced a 2.8 percent loss.
Overall, upstate areas have recovered 79 percent of the 128,000 jobs lost during the recession.
“On the surface, New York’s economy has rebounded from the Great Recession,” said Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a Democrat. “But it should come as no surprise that a closer look reveals pockets of the state still have a long way to go to catch up.”
In one positive sign, the upstate economy saw larger gains in average wages than either downstate or the nation last year.
The report also found that the public sector provides 21 percent of jobs in the upstate, its largest single source of employment. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/upstate-ny-lags-behind-nyc-rest-country-job-growth/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/c24a897e51a6b8e628b578a0efb0fb3f64f3227fef739131645846d7a8cb8aad.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-31T10:50:11 | null | 2016-08-31T06:01:51 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fagriculture-minister-ill-try-stop-shabbos-violations-ministry%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/07/Netanyahu-Cancels-Aid-to-Har-Chevron-300x200.jpg | en | null | Agriculture Minister: "I'll Try to Stop Shabbos Violations in My Ministry" | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 6:01 am |
Uri Ariel, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) was outspoken earlier this week over last weekend’s violation of Shabbos by Israel Railways – but on Tuesday he found a problem much closer to home to deal with, after Channel Two revealed that officers of his ministry were themselves deployed to work on Shabbos on a regular basis. In response, Ariel said that this was the first he had heard of it, and that he was conducting an investigation into the matter.
The workers in question are agriculture inspection officers who are stationed at Ben Gurion Airport, and are engaged in conducting agricultural inspections of luggage and cargo that passes through the airport. As flights come into the country on Shabbos, inspectors are needed to examine the luggage and cargo of those planes, said one source among the staff. “As long as they have flights coming in on Shabbos they will need us to inspect those flights,” the source said. “The only way to allow us to take the day off is to halt incoming flights on Shabbos.”
Last Friday, Ariel joined in with chareidi MKs to condemn a plan to conduct work on a portion of the Israel Railways infrastructure on Shabbos. The MKs threatened a coalition crisis, and in a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that they “could not take responsibility for the survival of a government that erases public observance of Shabbos. We respectfully request that the Prime Minister order that the work not be done on Shabbos until the relevant parties can gather and discuss the consequences of this activity.”
In his own statement, MK Ariel said that his party would also see the work as a reason to break up the coalition. “There is no place for a public company in Israel to operate on Shabbos,” he said. “I have appealed to the Prime Minister and other officials to develop alternative plans to conduct the work on weekdays. Shabbos is a main value for the Jewish people, and violation of the status quo is a serious matter that could bring a political crisis that no one wants.”
Responding to the Channel Two report, Ariel said that he had asked the Director-General of the Ministry to look into the matter and determine whether or not it was possible to dispense with the need for Shabbos work among the inspectors. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/agriculture-minister-ill-try-stop-shabbos-violations-ministry/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/63edffcf5f42dda03d7e1e378a76bc7a900c276984c85c96fc071c5956dd7431.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T20:48:54 | null | 2016-08-28T16:27:38 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fjapan-s-korea-agree-currency-swap-talks%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/japan-skorea-25b30684-6d3d-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d-300x225.jpg | en | null | Japan, S. Korea Agree to Currency Swap Talks | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 4:27 pm |
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso, right, and South Korea’s Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il Ho shake hands in Seoul on Saturday. (Munenori Inoue, The Japan News-Yomiuri)
SEOUL (The Japan News/Yomiuri) - Top Japanese and South Korean finance officials have agreed to launch discussions on resuming a bilateral currency swap pact, following the expiration of the two nations’ previous agreement last year.
The agreement was reached on Saturday in Seoul at a session of the officials’ dialogue about economic and financial issues.
A currency swap scheme will allow the two countries to supply each other with foreign currencies if they run short of U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies in the event of emergencies such as a financial crisis.
The previous pact expired in February last year after the two countries’ relationship worsened. The proposal for resuming it was made by the South Korean side.
The recent improvement in the bilateral relationship is believed to have led to the Saturday agreement. The national governments will coordinate on the timing for signing a new pact and the content of the agreement.
Saturday’s meeting was the seventh session of the financial leaders’ dialogue since May last year. It was attended by Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso and South Korea’s Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il Ho, among other attendees from both sides.
After the meeting, Aso said to the press: “The currency swap pact could stabilize the regional financial market. We share the desire to boost economic cooperation between Japan and South Korea.”
At the beginning of the latest session, Yoo said, “We may have a different opinion on some topics, but we’ll remain committed to efforts for strengthening our economic and financial cooperation.”
Japan and South Korea signed the previous pact in 2001, and later strengthened it amid global problems including the European economic crisis. However, it expired last year amid the deteriorated bilateral relationship. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/japan-s-korea-agree-currency-swap-talks/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/416e1dc8e8c47039246592c382373d42673cfd0fa1768643f4cb99bde6c7d539.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T16:47:46 | null | 2016-08-26T12:23:56 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Frep-gowdy-fbi-didnt-ask-clinton-intent%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP_16180471802343-300x200.jpg | en | null | Rep. Gowdy: FBI Didn’t Ask Clinton About Intent | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 12:23 pm |
Rep. Trey Gowdy (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (CQ-Roll Call/TNS) - Republicans unsatisfied with the FBI’s recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state are questioning how the agency conducted its investigation.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told Fox News Thursday that the FBI did not ask the Democratic presidential nominee or others about their intent behind the mishandling of classified information.
“I looked to see what witnesses were questioned on the issue of intent, including her, and I didn’t see that many questions on that issue,” said Gowdy, adding that he reviewed classified documents relating to the probe.
FBI Director James Comey said he declined to recommend charges against Clinton because he could find no evidence that she intended to break the law, despite calling the practice “extremely careless.”
Republicans continue to hammer the FBI on its conclusion and are spending the summer peppering the agency with additional requests about its investigation.
“A lot of the FBI’s time and attention was spent debunking and refuting these fantastically false statements that Secretary Clinton made at the inception of this email story,” Gowdy said.
Gowdy also championed making the classified FBI investigation public. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/rep-gowdy-fbi-didnt-ask-clinton-intent/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/62033f994ce9d913215acc6d2c11c73e49d5ba205934e2b528ac7d5e25cd2edc.json |
[
"Dov Benovadia"
] | 2016-08-26T12:48:12 | null | 2016-08-26T02:45:51 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2Fpolice-say-drop-charges-against-beit-elazari-shooter%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/02/Cuba-First-US-Factory_Werd2-300x172.jpg | en | null | Police Advise Dropping Charges Against Beit Elazari Shooter | null | null | hamodia.com | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 2:45 am |
Farm tractor. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File)
YERUSHALAYIM - Police are recommending that the state drop its case against a truck driver from the moshav of Beit Elazari who apparently accidentally shot someone as he was protecting his property. The driver of the heavy farm vehicle shot in the air at three individuals who attempted to steal his vehicle. The driver said that he did not hit anyone, but after the incident rescue officials found a dead body in a field near where the shootings took place.
The case had received a great deal of media attention, with pundits and politicians debating the limits of self-defense and the appropriate response to an attempted theft. Agriculture Minster Uri Ariel said that he fully supported the shooter, “who was trying to protect himself and his family. Farmers, especially in areas near large Palestinian populations, suffer from robberies, vandalism and nationalistic attacks. Security forces must increase their activities in order to defend these people. With that, we need to increase our activities to prevent the need for individuals to have to defend themselves in this way in the first place.”
Police said that they would be unable to prove that the shooting was not accidental, and that he did not act within his rights by shooting to defend his property.
Speaking Thursday night, Doron Shidalov, head of the Brenner Regional Council said that he was happy with the decision. “We were sure of the driver’s innocence from the beginning, as we realized he was acting in self-defense. Unfortunately, the thefts that led to this shooting are a daily occurrence even now. We are likely to face similar situations in the future unless the state acts to stop this and treats it seriously.”
The Regavim organization has offered legal assistance to any farmer who needs to open fire on a thief or home invader. In a new campaign created in the wake of the shooting case, the group said it would provide free legal representation to farmers, moshav workers, or tractor and truck drivers who shot at thieves trying to steal their vehicles, crops, or animals. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/26/police-say-drop-charges-against-beit-elazari-shooter/ | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/121532965b35873661a198c01b783c4db7329d055a68e699d1ca3257bfe9f636.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T20:49:10 | null | 2016-08-28T15:57:10 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Fny-system-drivers-license-photos-helping-fight-fraud%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/shutterstock_187888442-300x300.jpg | en | null | NY: System for Driver's License Photos Helping to Fight Fraud | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 3:57 pm |
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York authorities say that the new, enhanced computer program for recognizing faces at the state Department of Motor Vehicles has led to more than 100 arrests since January and 900 open cases.
The system is used against identity theft and fraud and to keep high-risk drivers off the road by helping identify people applying for driver’s licenses under false names.
According to the DMV, it doubles the number of measurement points mapped to each digitized driver photograph to 128, better enabling it to match existing photos in the department’s database.
Since the technology was first implemented in 2010, the department says more than 3,800 individuals have been arrested for possessing multiple licenses. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/ny-system-drivers-license-photos-helping-fight-fraud/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/20e7b63028d6245d3d91c7de912f83f4b8c7b8c563237b43aa4bab78e9bcf3b6.json |
[
"Dror Halavy"
] | 2016-08-31T10:50:18 | null | 2016-08-31T06:36:19 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fmanufacturers-plead-head-off-port-strike%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2013/11/SKEP-2-300x174.jpg | en | null | Manufacturers Plead to Head Off Port Strike | null | null | hamodia.com | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 6:36 am |
Shipping containers at the Haifa Port. (Shay Levy/Flash90)
YERUSHALAYIM - Shraga Brosh, head of the Manufacturers’ Association of Israel, has sent an urgent letter to Finance Minister Moshe Kachlon asking him to intervene to stop a planned strike at Israel’s ports. Without intervention or a last-minute settlement, the ports will go on strike on September 8, and cause hundreds of millions of shekels worth of damage to Israel’s economy, if not worse, the letter said.
The Histadrut labor union last week declared a work dispute at the Haifa and Ashdod ports, which, between the two of them, handle 90 percent of Israel’s imports and exports. The union is dissatisfied with the pace of implementation of a new labor agreement for port workers.
Under Israeli law, work disputes must precede strikes by two weeks. Both sides are supposed to take advantage of the work dispute period to step up negotiations and prevent a strike. Histadrut head Avi Nissenkorn said that he had already raised the issue over a week ago, and told management that unless it started paying out raises that had been decided upon in a general labor agreement last March, the union would strike.
Such a strike, wrote Brosh, “will once again place the union and the government in the position of negotiating on the backs of the customers. Such a strike, whose length is anyone’s guess, will bring about untold damage to Israel’s economy and its ability to compete, further deteriorating the country’s growth rate. It will also make it harder for Israel to compete in international markets, in an era when it is getting more difficult to compete altogether.
“At the end of just ten days of such a strike, the direct damage to the economy will be over NIS 800 million,” he added. “The indirect damage will be much, much worse. We therefore ask that all efforts be made to prevent this strike.”
Labor experts said that the threat must be seen in the context of the ongoing government efforts to establish additional, competing ports to challenge the existing ports on price. The union has bitterly fought against the idea, and several strikes have been conducted over the issue. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/31/manufacturers-plead-head-off-port-strike/ | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/36aac0daca9c58f81de52af6d53e621041f0a600234242e962cc11b21284aed0.json |
[
"Hamodia Staff"
] | 2016-08-30T18:50:06 | null | 2016-08-30T13:30:31 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2Frafael-lands-400-million-weapons-contract-lithuania%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/Rafael-Lands-400-Million-Weapons-Contract-With-Lithuania-300x192.jpg | en | null | Rafael Lands $400 Million Weapons Contract With Lithuania | null | null | hamodia.com | Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 1:30 pm |
An Israeli-made Spike ATGM Command & Launcher unit (CLU) with mock-up Spike-LR missile mounted on a tripod. (Dave1185)
YERUSHALAYIM - The contract for the Lithuanian Army’s largest-ever land system procurement has been secured by Israel’s state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
Rafael announced on Tuesday it had signed a deal to provide advanced, remote-controlled weapon stations enabling the launch of accurate Spike missiles, also produced by Rafael.
Defense establishment sources told Globes that Rafael’s share in the deal will be $111.5 million out of a total estimated at nearly $446 million. It marks the company’s first deal in Lithuania. The weapon stations are scheduled for delivery in 2017.
The Samson Mk2 weapon stations will be mounted on 88 Boxer infantry fighting vehicles, to be provided to the Lithuanian infantry by the Dutch-German consortium ARTEC. Rafael will serve as Artec’s subcontractor, and the weapon stations will be modified to match different armament types and calibers. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/30/rafael-lands-400-million-weapons-contract-lithuania/ | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/dbbf6b64089013f18f8a4c498eaac721d8138f8717dd671f702c21fb79a3362c.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T08:48:43 | null | 2016-08-28T03:42:30 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fhamodia.com%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2Ficahn-hits-back-says-he-bought-more-herbalife-shares%2F.json | http://hamodia.com/hamod-uploads/2016/08/AP16139573995588-300x224.jpg | en | null | Icahn Hits Back, Says He Bought More Herbalife Shares | null | null | hamodia.com | Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 3:42 am |
The Herbalife logo at the corporate office in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
NEW YORK (AP) - Activist investor Carl Icahn insists that he’s still in Herbalife’s camp, saying he bought 2.3 million more Herbalife shares Friday and that he never gave an order to sell his $1 billion stake in the supplements and weight-loss products company.
A Wall Street Journal report earlier Friday said that the investment bank Jefferies had been looking for buyers for Icahn’s holding. He is Herbalife’s biggest shareholder and defender.
Major players on Wall Street have used the company’s shares in a proxy war for years now after one of them, Bill Ackman, first called it a pyramid scheme in 2012.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation of Herbalife in July, saying the company needs to rework the way in which it pays its salespeople. The FTC ruled that salespeople have to be paid for selling Herbalife products. Typically, Herbalife salespeople bought products and tried to get others to do the same.
The FTC did not label Herbalife as a pyramid scheme, a victory for the company, but its description of its business model was essentially how a pyramid scheme operates. It ordered the company, which has headquarters in Los Angeles, to put into place changes in its business model by May.
Ackman, who runs the hedge fund Pershing Square Holdings, told CNBC Friday that he was approached by an intermediary who asked if he’d like to buy Icahn’s stake. Icahn said in a statement Friday that he has “never given Jefferies an order to sell any of our Herbalife shares” and that he continues “to believe in Herbalife.”
Before his most recent purchase, Icahn had a roughly 18 percent stake in Herbalife, according to the data company FactSet, twice the size of the next largest stake.
Herbalife CEO Michael Johnson said Friday that the company is grateful to Icahn.
Shares of Herbalife fell $1.43 to close at $60.40 in Friday’s regular trading session. But they jumped $2.49, or 4.1 percent, to $62.99 in after-hours trading following news that Icahn had added to his stake. | http://hamodia.com/2016/08/28/icahn-hits-back-says-he-bought-more-herbalife-shares/ | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | hamodia.com/4db5a412a9966e5e83ff300a510b859410306462e40a002901b34727260e20c4.json |
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