Palestinian protesters look on during clashes with Israeli security forces at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, on May 7, 2021.(photo credit: POLICE SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
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(TJVNEWS.COM) After causing a violent melee on Friday at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Arab rioters were confronted by Israeli police as they entered the compound. Palestinians threw rocks and bottles at officers, as widespread clashes in Jerusalem spread to the holy site following prayers held there on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as was reported by the Times of Israel.
TOI reported that video from the scene showed pitched battles, with Palestinians throwing chairs, shoes, rocks and bottles and police responding with stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets. At least six officers were wounded, police said.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 53 Palestinians were wounded in clashes in Jerusalem on Friday night, mostly around the Temple Mount and by Damascus Gate. Some 23 Palestinians were hospitalized, including one who was shot in the head with a rubber-coated metal bullet.
According to the TOI report, protesters chanted “Allahu Akbar,” or God is great. Several wounded demonstrators could be seen being carried away on stretchers.
“We will not allow riots, violence and attempts to harm police officers through taking advantage of the freedom of worship and religion, and turning it into a violent incident,” police said.
Nick Clegg speaking at an event in October 2018. (YouTube/Entrepreneur First/Screenshot)
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
A former British deputy prime minister has been the driving force behind Facebook’s policies towards the suspension of former President Donald Trump’s account, a report from the New York Times revealed on Wednesday.
Nick Clegg, who was once the chair of the left-leaning Liberal Democrats party in the UK and served in parliament for more than a decade, worked closely with former Prime Minister David Cameron.
According to the Times, Clegg “developed the main justification used by [Mark] Zuckerberg for barring Trump,” and was the chief architect of Facebook’s Oversight Board.
When Facebook banned Trump, CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a justification for the decision on his page. But according to the Times, it was Clegg who actually wrote the statement.
Clegg joined Facebook in 2018 as vice-president of global affairs, in what was essentially a public relations move by the industry titan. At the time Facebook recruited Clegg, the platform’s reputation had been sullied by the Cambridge Analytica scandal and other reports of flagrant privacy violations.
During an internal company meeting discussing whether Trump’s ban should be reviewed by an advisory board, the company turned to Clegg as a guide.
“I defer to you, Nick,” Zuckerberg reportedly said.
On Wednesday, the panel upheld the social media giant’s ban on Trump, which was issued in January 2021 after the Capitol Hill riots.
The ban, which bars Trump from posting on Facebook or Instagram, was originally indefinite. The Board has stated Facebook should revisit the possibility of un-banning Trump in another six months’ time.
A British politician slammed Clegg for his involvement with Facebook, suggesting that his presence lends legitimacy to an organization operating under murky ethos.
“‘Are you sure you’re on the right side here?’ That is the question that will get thrown back at Clegg,” Damian Collins, a British MP who has led investigations into social media in politics, told the Times. “He’s taken a lot of money to go work for a company that doesn’t meet the highest ethical standards.”
Israeli security forces after a Palestinian terror attack. (Flash90/Nasser Ishtayeh)
By World Israel News Staff
Three terrorists armed with Carlo-type weapons arrived Friday morning at the Salem outpost in northern Samaria and opened fire at the base gate, Israel’s Hebrew-language media reported.
Israeli Border Police responded and neutralized the terrorists. Two were killed, and the third was wounded and taken to hospital in serious condition. No Israeli casualties were reported.
“The terrorists fired at the gate of the base. Border Police officers and an IDF soldier responded by firing and neutralizing the three terrorists,” police said in a statement.
Knives were also found in the terrorists’ possession.
According to a preliminary investigation, the terrorists apparently crossed the separation fence from the Jenin area into the Green Line or at the footpath that leads to the military court in Salem.
The head of the Shomron Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, praised the border fighters for preventing a deadly attack.
“These difficult days remind us again and again that we are one people. The entire people of Israel and the settlement in Samaria as part of it will defeat the cowardly terror of the Palestinian Authority. I call on the government to learn from the fighters on the ground how to seek contact and eliminate terrorism,” Dagan said.
Earlier in the day, a 27-year-old female Hebron resident was arrested on suspicion of attempting to carry out a stabbing attack in the Cave of the Patriarchs.
According to the police statement, the fighters noticed the suspect arriving at one of the checkpoints “stressed and frightened.” When they opened an investigation, they found a knife in her possession. She was taken for questioning, at the end of which she was taken to the Sharon Prison.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has blamed Israel for the recent escalation of violence in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. According to a statement from his spokesman, Nabil Abu Radina, “the continued aggression of Israel and the violation of the rights of the Palestinians, along with the incident today in Salem, is what will create tensions and sharp escalation.”
The identities of the terrorists are still being investigated by Israeli security officials
Fox News noted the glaring omission of any reference to God in Biden’s prepared remarks.
The administration of former President Barack Obama mentioned “God” in the proclamation on the National Day of Prayer, Fox News reported.
Biden references Americans’ “many religions and belief systems” and the “power of prayer.”
“Throughout our history, Americans of many religions and belief systems have turned to prayer for strength, hope, and guidance,” Biden’s proclamation began. “Prayer has nourished countless souls and powered moral movements — including essential fights against racial injustice, child labor and infringement on the rights of disabled Americans. Prayer is also a daily practice for many, whether it is to ask for help or strength, or to give thanks over blessings bestowed.”
It was noted by Fox News that Biden used God in his in-person remarks, crediting the vaccine development “by the grace of God.”
Former President Trump mentioned “God” 5 times in 2017, 5 times in 2018, 7 times in 2019, and 11 times in 2020, while Obama referenced God twice in his 2011 proclamation, Fox News reported.
“Let us pray for the police officers, firefighters and other first responders who put themselves in harm’s way every day to protect their fellow citizens,” Obama said in 2011, according to Fox News. “And let us ask God for the sustenance and guidance for all of us to meet the great challenges we face as a Nation.
“I invite all citizens of our Nation, as their own faith or conscience directs them, to join me in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy, and I ask all people of faith to join me in asking God for guidance, mercy and protection for our Nation,” Obama said.
The National Day of Prayer has traditionally been the first Thursday in May.
The 17-day total lockdown and other measures have helped Turkey drastically bring down the number of daily coronavirus infections, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Wednesday, according to a report on the Daily Sabah web site.
“We have seen a significant reduction in case numbers. We believe the measures will also lead to a drop in the number of deaths and patients in critical condition,” Koca said during a brief virtual press conference.
The Daily Sabah reported that for much of April, Turkey has been reporting a record number of cases, with the number of daily infections reaching a record high of 63,082 on April 16th.
The spike in daily cases prompted the government to reintroduce several restrictions that were eased previously, including weekend curfews, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan saying Ankara would reevaluate the situation after two weeks, as was reported by the Daily Sabah.
After case numbers failed to fall as much as the government hoped, Erdoğan last week announced a 17-day total lockdown that went into effect Thursday. With the strictest lockdown that Turkey has ever seen since the beginning of the pandemic, case numbers started to decline once again, reaching as low as 24,733 on May 3rd.
On April 26th, the Government of Turkey (GoT) announced additional restrictions and closures to stop the spread of COVID-19, including a full-time curfew throughout all of Turkey, through 5:00 am on Monday, May 17, 2021. This encompasses weekdays and weekends.
On May 4, 2020, the government of Turkey announced that from May 7, 2021 onward only essential food items, cleaning products, pet food, and cosmetics products (except for perfumery and make-up products) will be allowed to be sold in markets (including chain grocery stores) throughout the lock-down. The circular noted excluded items. .
The U.S. Embassy in Ankara, U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, U.S. Consulate in Adana, and Consular Agency in Izmir will be closed for routine consular services for the duration of the curfew. During this period, only emergency services will be provided. Foreign travelers who are in the country for short trips and tourism are exempt from the curfews. Foreigners who are in the country as residents, under protected status, or international status, are subject to the curfew restrictions.
Until the end of Ramadan, Thursday, May 13, 2021 dining establishments such as restaurants, patisseries, cafés, and cafeterias will be available for 24/7 delivery services only.
PCR testing while staying in Turkey for foreigners is limited to those who have symptoms, or those who may have an entry requirement back to their home country. Testing is paid for by the traveler. The government of Turkey has updated their website with the list of facilities in Turkey that perform COVID-19 tests. PCR testing is available at Istanbul Airport. There is no need for an appointment to visit the airport’s testing center, as it is open 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The testing center is in front of Entrance 14 in Arrivals Hall. The test fee is 250 TL or about $35 for all ages. You must arrive at the airport at least 6 hours prior to your flight with a valid ticket and a valid passport, test results take up to 5 hours.
As of May 15, 2021, a PCR test will not be requested from passengers arriving to Turkey from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Israel, Japan, United Kingdom, Latvia, Luxembourg, Ukraine and Estonia.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) has come under fire for accusing Israel of “apartheid” and “stealing Palestinian homes and burning their lands,” and spreading the lie Israelis had set fires to Palestinian fields.
“@RashidaTlaib, you shared a falsehood about Israeli Jews setting fire to Palestinian fields. This ugly claim has been retracted. You’re a member of Congress. Take down your tweet. Or is it okay to perpetuate untruths when they fit your policy agenda?” the American Jewish Committee (AJC) tweeted Thursday.
.@RashidaTlaib, you shared a falsehood about Israeli Jews setting fire to Palestinian fields. This ugly claim has been retracted.
You’re a member of Congress. Take down your tweet. Or is it okay to perpetuate untruths when they fit your policy agenda? https://t.co/0DqG6i6Tpl
— American Jewish Committee (@AJCGlobal) May 6, 2021
Tlaib retweeted an article that cited Palestinian media sources and a tweet posted Tuesday by the radical left-wing NGO B’Tselem, which shared a dramatic image of the blaze and said Israeli “settlers” were to blame.
“Stealing Palestinian homes and burning their lands. The actions of an apartheid state. We cannot stand by and watch this happen,” Tlaib wrote, tagging the account of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Billions of US taxpayers dollars support Netanyahu’s government and this racist violence. We must condemn this swiftly.”
It later emerged the fires were actually started by Palestinian arsonists.
According to the Jerusalem Post, B’Tselem acknowledged that the “The fires in Burin tonight are being re-examined. I will update with any new information I have,” but that no updated information followed.
The Samaria Regional Council, the umbrella organization for settlements in that region of West Bank, said it would sue B’Tselem for slander.
Stealing Palestinian homes and burning their lands. The actions of an apartheid state.
We cannot stand by and watch this happen. @SecBlinken, billions of U.S. taxpayers dollars support Netanyahu’s government and this racist violence. We must condemn this swiftly.
“At night, the Arab residents of the village lit a fire that endangered the lives of the Jews, and in the morning their extreme-Left friends lit a fire of hatred against the settlers,” Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan said.
“Freedom of speech is a sacred value, but not freedom of speech and defamation,” he added.
This isn’t the first time Tlaib has come under fire for sharing incendiary tweets about Israel and the Palestinians. In November 2020, the Congresswoman shared a tweet that featured a popular Palestinian phrase calling for Israel’s elimination.
Tucker Carlson discussed the NYC mayoral race on Fox News and made some very important observations about the future of the city and how important this race actually is, transcript below
Have you been to New York City recently? If you have, you know the truth: It’s awful — awful in a very recognizable way.
New York today looks like New York in the 1970s, but without Studio 54. The city has once again become dirty, chaotic, and increasingly dangerous. The parks and train stations look like refugee camps for mentally ill drug users. Just as in the 1970s, a lot of people who live in New York are fleeing. Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe you’re reading this right now, maskless, from your patio in Ft. Lauderdale or Naples, a glass of wine in hand, and thinking to yourself: “Why should I care about what happens in New York? I voted with my feet and got out of that place. Let it rot.”
And, honestly, that’s a fair point. But consider another perspective. New York is the biggest city in the United States. More than eight million people live there, including Americans. What happens in New York affects all of us. In the end, we’ll have to pay for the damage anyway, so we might as well root for the best outcome.
Right now, believe it or not, something good might be happening in New York. In fact, something good is happening. Bill DeBlasio is heading for retirement. We know that for sure. The single worst mayor in the history of representative government has reached the end of his second, disastrous term. The long municipal nightmare is over. DeBlasio’s leaving. So, the question is, who replaces him?
Until recently, we assumed it would be Andrew Yang, the guy who just the other day was running for president. We talked to him as he ran, and we found that unlike a lot of the 2020 Democrats — we’re talking about you, Beto O’Rourke — Andrew Yang is not stupid. In fact, he’s legitimately smart. At times he’s been insightful and willing to talk about interesting ideas in public. Unfortunately, in the end, the weight of Yang’s life credentials — Exeter, Brown, Columbia Law School — pulled him back to the poisonous culture that produced him in the first place, and he embraced, probably inevitably, the dumbest kind of identity politics. At this point, the only real difference between Andrew Yang and the next unhappy lady browsing the aisles at Whole Foods in a mask, is that Andrew Yang is slightly more articulate. And that’s sad. Another one bites the dust. Still, we assumed that Yang would win the Democratic primary in New York because it’s the Democratic primary in New York. But we were wrong. He may not win. It turns out, New York is changing. All the urban decay seems to have awakened voters to actual issues.
According to a new poll, Andrew Yang is losing, as of today, to a guy called Eric Adams, who’s the Brooklyn Borough President. Controversial for many years. In a lot of ways, Eric Adams is a conventional big-city Democrat. He’s into identity politics too. The difference is, Eric Adams is eccentric enough to say what he really thinks once in a while. For example, in a speech last year, Adams launched into an attack on the smug, fussy liberals who’ve flooded into New York over the last three decades. He addressed an audience of people who have to live with them. You can sympathize with them.
You were here before Starbucks. You were here before others came and decided they wanted to be part of this city. Folks are not only hijacking your apartments and displacing your living arrangements, they displace your conversations, and say that things that are important to you, are no longer important.”
So what exactly was Eric Adams talking about? What are the important things that smug, fussy liberals don’t want to talk about? Crime and disorder, mostly. And those matter. Once you’re afraid of getting shot to death while walking to the store — once you can’t use the park across the street because vagrants are living in it — nothing else really matters. No matter what color you are, crime and disorder define your life. Whatever else he is, Eric Adams is bright enough to understand that. He spent 20 years as a cop in New York. Here’s what he said in his announcement for mayor:
ERIC ADAMS: We’re facing a crisis like we’ve never seen before. Businesses are closing. Crime is rising. Homelessness is soaring and our families are struggling…We can’t have an education system that fails to put our children on the pathway to success and leaves them at a dead-end of crime and hopelessness.
So, “Businesses are closing. Crime is rising. Homelessness is soaring.” Adams said it out loud. By itself, that’s a victory in the context of New York politics — a victory of reality over delusion. For years, there’s been a rigid code among those smug, fussy liberals in New York City that you’re not allowed to notice as things fall apart. To the extent you do notice, you’re supposed to think it’s charming, or diverse, or somehow related to equity. “More drug OD’s in Penn Station. How vibrant!”
Eric Adams doesn’t think that way at all. He thinks all of that is awful. Here’s his solution: don’t put up with this crap. Bring back order. Crack down. Make New York a safe city again. Everything depends on it. And he’s right.
ERIC ADAMS: It doesn’t make any consolation if a police officer shoots someone illegally or if it’s a gangbanger in blue jeans. No matter what community I’m in, people want their families to be safe and that resonates with every day New Yorkers and I know my message will resonate with them…If we’re not safe in the city, companies will not come to New York. Our multi-billion dollar tourism industry will not return if tourists are shot at Grand Central Station. And so the first order of business is to get the violence under control.
The first order of business is to get the violence under control. You’d think that’d be the top priority of every New York City politician. Why have a mayor otherwise?
But it’s not their top priority. Not even close. The current mayor spends half his life opining on global warming, even as he pollutes the atmosphere with his weed smoke. Eric Adams is actually serious about fighting crime. How serious? He said if he becomes mayor he plans to carry his own gun. Can you imagine Bill De Blasio doing that? He’d shoot himself by accident:
HOST: So as mayor would you carry a firearm on you even with a security detail?
ADAMS: Yes I will, number one. And number two, I won’t have a security detail. If the city’s safe, the mayor shouldn’t have a security detail with him. He should be walking the street by himself. Number three, the hypocrisy of those who are citywide officials who said you shouldn’t have guns in church, those guys that walk in with them – they got guns.
You can tell how true something is by how the usual hysterics respond to it. In this case, they were totally horrified. “Display bravery? Defend yourself? Show evidence of a higher than average testosterone level? How could you?” Eric Adams later suggested he might have been joking. But as you just read, he wasn’t joking. He obviously meant that. And normal voters appreciated it. Why wouldn’t they?
Meanwhile, once-promising Andrew Yang has descended deeper into the self-discrediting absurdity of identity politics — something that, it turns out, most voters actually don’t like. Who knew? At a forum the other day, Yang was asked about violence against Asian-Americans. Now, every single human being in New York City understands where that violence comes from, but of course, Yang didn’t say that. His solution: give more taxpayer money to racial affinity groups aligned with the Democratic Party. That’ll make Asian grandmothers safe. Except it won’t make Asian grandmothers or anyone else safe. We know because we tried it. It doesn’t work. All that does work is enforcing the law. And most people know that.
Yet enforcing the law is the one thing Andrew Yang opposes. Yang has called for taking more money from the NYPD budget and giving it to “mental health services,” whatever that means. Then, in a radio interview, Yang suggested that defunding the police by a billion dollars, which they’ve done, might not be enough.
CHARLEMAGNE THA GOD: You know they did shift a billion dollars from the NYPD, you know, to other things. But would you do more than that? Would you do more than a billion?
ANDREW YANG: I think that’s what we need to be looking at…The reality is, if you’re going to look at the city budget, the NYPD is the most likely place to look because we’re just spending a lot of money on the NYPD.
The sad thing is people like Andrew Yang, Exeter, Brown, Colombia, are such craven butt-kissers they don’t understand the advantage of telling the truth. If he’d said to the radio host “are you joking? Defund the police? That’s insane.” The radio host probably would have agreed with him. But that’s not what Yang did. He tried to suck up, and he humiliated himself, and then he went on from there.
Yang has demanded that the police learn martial arts — purple belt, at a minimum — so they won’t have to use their weapons, just well-placed karate chops. Yang has also called for changing the uniforms and titles in police departments across the country.
“I might rename them ‘Guardians,’” he wrote, “and adopt a different color scheme.”
Oh, a different color scheme. You have to wonder, is there still a constituency for ideas this stupid? Of course, there is. Grad school liberals love it. Fawning over criminals makes them feel good about themselves. And then when things disintegrate, as of course, they will, the grad school liberals just leave. They literally head for the hills — Telluride, Aspen, Beaver Creek — anywhere without the “crime problem.” A lot of them are doing that now. The liberals who still remain in New York don’t have much use for Eric Adams. He’s the one black candidate they don’t like. You get the feeling he doesn’t like them back. He definitely doesn’t believe them when they talk. Here’s Adams on the radio in July — sympathizing with, of all people, Donald Trump.
ERIC ADAMS: We’re in the period of sexy headlines. Truth be damned. Nobody cares about the truth anymore. This is an Instagram, Twitter universe where people push what’s sexy and what sells. Everything they accused Donald Trump of, that far left is (laughs). Moderate communication and real facts don’t even matter in this universe we’re in right now.
Could it be that things have fallen apart to such an extent in New York, they’ve gotten so crazy, that someone like Eric Adams, who you would have laughed off the stage eighteen months ago as crazy himself, is actually the sanest guy running and maybe the one person who can save the city from itself.
We don’t know, but it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened this year.
National Guard members are seen as a person flies a Black Lives Matter flag during a rally outside of the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis on Monday, April 19, 2021. Photo Credit: AP
(AP) A federal grand jury has indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest and death, accusing them of willfully violating the Black man’s constitutional rights as he was restrained face-down on the pavement.
A three-count indictment unsealed Friday names Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Kueng, and Tou Thao.
Specifically, Chauvin is charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure and unreasonable force by a police officer. Thao and Kueng are also charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure, alleging they did not intervene to stop Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd’s neck. All four officers are charged for failing to provide Floyd with medical care.
Floyd’s May 25 arrest and death, which a bystander captured on cellphone video, sparked protests nationwide.
Chauvin was also charged in a second indictment, stemming from the arrest and neck restraint of a 14-year-old boy in 2017.
Lane, Thao, and Kueng made their initial court appearances Friday via videoconference in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. Chauvin was not part of the court appearance.
Chauvin was convicted last month on state charges of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death and is in Minnesota’s only maximum-security prison as he awaits sentencing. The other three former officers face a state trial in August, and they are free on bond. They were allowed to remain free after Friday’s federal court appearance.
Floyd, 46, died after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck while Floyd, who was handcuffed, repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe.
Kueng and Lane also helped restrain Floyd — state prosecutors have said Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held down Floyd’s legs. State prosecutors say Thao held back bystanders and kept them from intervening during the 9 1/2-minute restraint.
Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, argued during his murder trial that Chauvin acted reasonably in the situation and that Floyd died because of underlying health issues and drug use. He has filed a request for a new trial, citing many issues including the judge’s refusal to move the trial due to publicity.
Nelson had no comment on the federal charges Friday. Messages left with attorneys for two of the other officers were not immediately returned, and an attorney for the fourth officer was getting in an elevator and disconnected when reached by The Associated Press.
To bring federal charges in deaths involving police, prosecutors must believe that an officer acted under the “color of law,” or government authority, and willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights, including the right to be free from unreasonable seizures or the use of unreasonable force. That’s a high legal standard; an accident, bad judgment or simple negligence on the officer’s part isn’t enough to support federal charges.
Roy Austin, who prosecuted such cases as a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said prosecutors have to prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong in that moment but did it anyway.
Conviction on a federal civil rights charge is punishable by up to life in prison or even the death penalty, but those stiff sentences are extremely rare and federal sentencing guidelines rely on complicated formulas that indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.
In Chauvin’s case, if the federal court uses second-degree murder as his underlying offense, he could face anywhere from 14 years to slightly more than 24 years, depending on whether he takes responsibility, said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Osler said the guidelines clearly state that any federal sentence would be served at the same time as a state sentence — the sentences wouldn’t stack. Chauvin is due to be sentenced on the state charges June 25.
The first indictment says Thao and Kueng were aware Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck, even after Floyd became unresponsive, and “willfully failed to intervene to stop Defendant Chauvin’s use of unreasonable force.”
All four officers are charged with willfully depriving Floyd of liberty without due process — for their alleged deliberate indifference to Floyd’s medical needs.
The second indictment, against Chauvin only, alleges he deprived a 14-year-old of his right to be free of unreasonable force when he held the teen by the throat, hit him in the head with a flashlight, and held his knee on the boy’s neck and upper back while he was prone, handcuffed and unresisting.
According to a police report from that 2017 encounter, Chauvin wrote that the teen resisted arrest and that after the teen, who he described as 6-foot-2 and about 240 pounds, was handcuffed, Chauvin “used body weight to pin” the boy to the floor. The boy was bleeding from the ear and needed two stitches.
President Joe Biden’s administration has made policing reform a major issue. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he was refocusing the department around civil rights and does not believe there is equal justice under the law.
In late April, the Justice Department indicted three men on federal hate crime charges in the February 2020 death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was running in a Georgia neighborhood when he was chased down and shot. At the time, it was the most significant civil rights prosecution undertaken by Biden’s Justice Department.
The Justice Department also recently announced it was opening a sweeping investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department. The investigation will examine whether there is a pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing at the department, and it could result in major changes.
Garland announced a similar probe into policing in Louisville, Kentucky, over the March 2020 death of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot by police during a raid at her home.
Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Experts say he will likely face no more than 30 years in prison when he is sentenced in June. The other officers face charges alleging they aided and abetted second-degree murder and manslaughter. All four officers were fired.
The U.S. economy added just 266,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.1 percent, the Labor Department said in its monthly labor assessment Friday, smashing expectations.
This was far below expectations. Analysts surveyed by Econoday had predicted Friday’s report would show between 755,000 and 1.25 million workers added to payrolls in April. The median forecast was for 938,000 and an unemployment rate of 5.8 percent.
The disappointing number for April could be a sign that hiring is being held back by enhanced unemployment benefits and schools that have not reopened full time, requiring some parents to stay home to take care of children. Many businesses say that they cannot hire enough workers to fill positions because of the government’s enhanced unemployment benefits program.
The economy has outperformed expectations on many metrics this year as vaccinations have boosted business and consumer confidence and restrictions on businesses have been lifted. Friday’s employment numbers represent a rare miss.
In April, average hourly earnings increased by 21 cents to $30.17, a 0.7 percent increase, following a decline of 4 cents in the prior month. Average hourly earnings for private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 20 cents to $25.45.
“The data for April suggest that the rising demand for labor associated with the recovery from the pandemic may have put upward pressure on wages,” the Department of Labor said.
The jobs number for February was revised up by 68,000, from 468,000 to 536,000. March was revised down by 146,000, from 916,000
to 770,000. With these revisions, employment in February and March combined is 78,000 lower than previously reported.
Leisure and hospitality added 331,000, including 187,000 jobs in restaurants and bars. Those figures are lower than what many analysts expected given that many states and cities lifted or eased restrictions on dining and drinking businesses in April.
Construction was flat for the month, a surprising result given the strength of the housing market.
Manufacturing shed 18,000 jobs, led down by automaker employment declining by 27,000. Wood product producers shed 7,000 jobs, perhaps reflecting extremely high prices for lumber.
The messenger and courier business shed 77,000 jobs in April, making it one of the biggest declining categories. The reason for that is not at all clear.
Employment at food and beverage stores fell by 49,400. Gas station employment fell by 8,900.
The temporary administrative help services sector contracted by 111,000 jobs in April.
The private sector overall added 218,000 jobs and governments added 48,000.
The labor force participation rate climbed to 61.7 percent, up two-tenths of a percentage point from March.
In April, 18.3 percent of workers performed their jobs remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic, down from 21.0 percent in the prior month.
The number of people saying they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic declined to 9.2 million, from 11.4 million in the previous month. Among those who reported in April that they were unable to work because of pandemic-related closures or lost business, 9.3 percent received at least some pay from their employer for the hours not worked, little changed
from the previous month.
Among those not in the labor force in April, 2.8 million persons were prevented from looking for work due to the pandemic. This measure is down from 3.7 million the month before.
The Netanyahu family filed a defamation lawsuit against former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday after he questioned their mental stability during an interview on television.
Netanyahu’s attorney is demanding monetary compensation of NIS 837,000 for repeated defamations of the prime minister and his family, including a statement during a television interview that Netanyahu, his wife and son are suffering from a mental illness and that “a hospitalization order should be issued for them.”
The defamation lawsuit filed by Adv. Yossi Cohen, on behalf of the Netanyahu family, states that “instead of coming to terms with reality, bowing his head and paying his debt to society, Olmert began to obsessively and successively engage in malicious and vicious slanders against the Netanyahu family.”
“Only a person imbued with blind and unrestrained hatred is able to say such serious and offensive remarks in the media – this is a dangerous statement that the court must condemn and determine that it is not a matter of freedom of expression,” the suit states.
Olmert was offered to retract his statements in a subsequent interview but refused to do so, and when asked about the threat of a defamation suit, he said he would be happy to defend his claims in court.
Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid holds a press conference in Tel Aviv, May 06, 2021. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
By Associated Press and World Israel News Staff
Israel’s opposition leader on Thursday called for a unity government and vowed to find common ground among the ideologically diverse parties seeking to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yair Lapid, head of the center-left Yesh Atid party, issued the appeal in his first speech since he was tapped by Israel’s president on Wednesday to form a new government.
“I believe in the good intentions of my future partners,” Lapid said. “They are different people with different views, but the fact that someone doesn’t agree with us doesn’t make them an enemy.”
President Reuven Rivlin gave Lapid four weeks to try to form a new coalition government after Netanyahu failed to meet a midnight deadline the previous day.
Lapid will have to bring seven parties with vastly different ideologies into a single coalition. He has expressed optimism he can pull off the task and make history by ending Netanyahu’s record-setting 12-year term in office.
The right-wing Yemina party has agreed to join Lapid, despite earlier promises never to do so. Its leader, Naftali Bennett, on Wednesday, called for an emergency government of national unity, asking all right-wing parties to join Lapid’s coalition in order to avoid a fifth Israeli national election in just over two years.
Lapid has vowed to break the stalemate and heal the bitter divisions in Israeli society. He also wants to address deeper economic and social problems.
“From my first day in politics, that’s been my wish, it’s my mission: To find the shared good. To take Israeli society from disagreement to agreement,” Lapid said.
Lapid, 57, entered parliament in 2013 after a successful career as a newspaper columnist, TV anchor and author.
In this Nov. 20, 2019 file photo, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., listens during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
(AP) — Rep. Elise Stefanik stated her case Thursday for replacing Rep. Liz Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican leader, implicitly lambasting Cheney’s battles with former President Donald Trump by saying, “We are one team and that means working with the president.”
The remarks by Stefanik, R-N.Y., a one-time moderate who’s evolved into an ardent Trump champion, came as Cheney seems likely to be tossed from her leadership post next week. Cheney, R-Wyo., has repeatedly rejected Trump’s insistence that he lost the 2020 election because of widespread fraud, and has blamed him for inflaming followers who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Speaking on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Stefanik said she is committed to “sending a clear message that we are one team and that means working with the president and working with all of our excellent Republican members of Congress.” Stefanik repeatedly used “president” in referring to Trump.
Facing opposition from Trump and the House’s two top Republicans — Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise — Cheney has remained defiant.
In an opinion essay in The Washington Post, Cheney implored her GOP colleagues on Wednesday to pry themselves from a Trump “cult of personality” and declared that the party and even American democracy were at stake. “History is watching,” she said.
Trump issued a statement giving his “COMPLETE and TOTAL Endorsement” to Stefanik, 36, who’s played an increasingly visible role within the GOP.
Stefanik responded quickly, highlighting his backing to colleagues who will decide her political future.
“Thank you President Trump for your 100% support for House GOP Conference Chair. We are unified and focused on FIRING PELOSI & WINNING in 2022!” she tweeted.
In her essay, Cheney denounced the “dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality,” and warned her fellow Republicans against embracing or ignoring his statements “for fundraising and political purposes.”
She said McCarthy has “changed his story” after initially saying Trump “bears responsibility” for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. McCarthy, who is tacitly backing the drive to oust her, has said Trump issued a video to try halting the violence.
Dozens of state and local officials and judges from both parties have found no evidence to support Trump’s assertions that he was cheated out of an election victory.
Cheney, in the Post, agreed with Democrats that a bipartisan investigation should focus solely on the riot and not on disturbances at some of last summer’s racial justice protests. In an apparent reference to her own situation, she said she would defend “basic principles” of democracy, “no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.”
Biden weighed in at the White House on Wednesday.
“I think Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point,” he told reporters.
Cheney, a daughter of Dick Cheney, who was George W. Bush’s vice president and before that a Wyoming congressman, seemed to have almost unlimited potential until this year. Her career began listing after she was among just 10 House Republicans to back Trump’s impeachment for inciting supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, when five died.
Stefanik, who represents a mammoth upstate New York district, began her House career in 2015 as a moderate Republican.
She opposed Trump’s ban on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, and joined Democrats in voting against Trump’s effort to unilaterally redirect money to building a wall along the Southwest border. She also led an effort to recruit female candidates for her party.
Stefanik’s rural district, which Barack Obama carried in his successful 2008 and 2012 presidential runs, was subsequently won twice by Trump. She morphed into a stalwart Trump defender and was given a high-profile role during the 2019 House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings.
That was widely seen as a strategic move by the GOP to soften its image by giving a woman a prominent role. Stefanik’s status and visibility within the GOP have soared since then.
Cheney is the highest-ranking GOP woman in Congress. There are just 31 Republican women in the House, about one-third of Democrats’ total but up from the 13 who served in the last Congress.
There were no other visible contenders for Cheney’s post, with a secret ballot by House Republicans on her fate possible next week. A vote on a replacement, seemingly Stefanik, could come that day as well.
Cheney was making little noticeable effort to cement support by calling colleagues or enlisting others to lobby on her behalf, said two House GOP aides who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the situation. A third person familiar with Cheney’s effort also said she was not lining up votes.
Cheney’s opposition to Trump put her out of step with most House Republicans, 138 of whom voted against certifying the Electoral College vote for Biden’s victory.
Republicans say a McCarthy speech backing Cheney at a closed-door House GOP meeting in February was largely credited with her surviving an earlier push by conservatives oust her, in a 145-61 secret ballot.
A top House GOP aide has said McCarthy won’t do that this time.
President Joe Biden’s “sanctuary country” orders, preventing the deportation of about 9-in-10 illegal aliens, are hugely forcing down the number of illegal aliens being deported which has now dropped to the lowest monthly total since federal officials began tracking the number.
According to data reviewed by the Washington Post, only 2,962 illegal aliens were deported in the month of April by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents — the first time the monthly deportation total has dropped under 3,000.
In March, Biden had forced down deportations to a historic low with just 3,716 illegal aliens being deported by ICE agents that month. At the current pace, fewer than 55,000 illegal aliens are expected to be deported this fiscal year, the lowest annual number in recorded history.
Compare that annual deportation rate to that of former President Trump’s, who deported, on average, about 240,000 illegal aliens each year in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
The gutting of interior immigration enforcement comes after Biden issued the so-called sanctuary country orders that prevent ICE agents from arresting and deporting illegal aliens unless they are recently-convicted aggravated felons, terrorists, or known gang members.
“In private, ICE officials say their work is being essentially abolished through restrictions on their ability to make arrests and deportations,” the Post reports.
The orders have likely allowed thousands of criminal illegal aliens to be released into American communities who would have otherwise been deported, one report states. Those illegal aliens include sex offenders.
This week, Breitbart News reported that top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have no plans to deport thousands of criminal illegal aliens in federal custody convicted of crimes such as homicide, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, obscenity, and larceny.
The historic drop in deportations is coupled with a similar drop in arrests of illegal aliens. As Breitbart News reported, ICE arrests of illegal aliens have been cut by 80 percent by the Biden administration compared to the same time last year.
Across the board, arrests of illegal aliens charged with homicide, sexual assault, burglary, drunk driving, kidnapping, gun crimes, security threats, and immigration violations have been reduced anywhere from 17 to 71 percent, depending on the category of crime.
Today, anywhere from 11-to-22 million illegal aliens are living in the U.S. More than a million of those illegal aliens have final deportation orders by a federal judge but have yet to be deported.
US semiconductor giant Intel announced on Monday that it would be making a number of major investments in Israel to expand the multinational’s product offerings, boost R&D facilities, and “retain its position as a market-leading innovator.”
The announcement came a day after Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger arrived in the country for a one-day visit in Jerusalem, during which he also met with Intel Israel’s management teams and with Profesor Amnon Shashua, co-founder and CEO of Mobileye, the developer of autonomous driving systems, which Intel acquired in 2017 for over $15 billion.
“I’ve been visiting Israel for four decades and it’s been amazing to see our growth from just four employees in 1974 to over 14,000 employees now. Intel Israel is a microcosm of our global company with investments and innovation across research, development and manufacturing at scale in one location,” Gelsinger said in a press statement.
Indeed, Intel is the largest private employer in Israel and its over 14,000 employees include some 2,500 from Mobileye and from Ness Ziona-based Moovit, the public transit data company Intel acquired last year for $900 million. Intel also previously acquired Habana Labs, a Tel Aviv-based developer of artificial intelligence processors, for $2 billion in 2019.
Israel is one of Intel’s global R&D and manufacturing hubs, with wafer fabrication plants, computing, communications and AI R&D teams. Intel operates several sites across Israel, including the manufacturing site in Kiryat Gat, the development center in Haifa, the design and development center in Petach Tikva for the development of components and software in the cellular communications market, and a design and development center in Yakum in central Israel which provides chipsets for mobile platforms.
According to Monday’s announcement, Intel will invest $200 million to expand the existing R&D facility in Haifa by adding a new development center, dubbed IDC12, next to it to form a “mega chip design campus” with a capacity of 6,000 employees. Another $400 million will go toward turning Mobileye’s existing HQ and R&D center into a new campus, projected to be the largest in Jerusalem. The tech giant said that, when completed in October 2022, Mobileye’s new 128,000 square-meters center will include a pool, a spa, a gym and a one-of-a-kind auditorium and host up to 2,700 employees.
Intel also announced that it will increase its manufacturing capacity at the Kiryat Gat facility, confirming that it is injecting a total of $10 billion and that the first phase of construction has begun. In 2019, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, then headed by Moshe Kahlon, said Intel had indicated its intentions to build a new chip plant to the tune of some NIS 40 billion ($10.88 billion), but the company did not confirm the amount at the time. According to local media, Intel will get a grant of $1 billion.
“Our continued investment to extend our existing R&D facilities and increase our manufacturing capacity in our Israel, coupled with our acquisitions of Mobileye, the global leader in driving assistance and self-driving solutions , Moovit smart-transit and Habana Labs for leadership AI, promise a vibrant future for Intel and Israel for decades to come,” Gelsinger said.
Intel’s Kiryat Gat site, Fab28, currently produces 10 nanometer (nm) chips. The company has not disclosed what additional chips will be manufactured there, but it has set its sights on more advanced chips. In March, Intel unveiled its IDM (integrated device manufacturing) 2.0 strategy to expand manufacturing capacity beginning with an investment of roughly $20 billion to build two new fabs in Arizona, and plans to become a major provider of foundry capacity in the US and Europe to serve customers globally. There are also plans to invest at the manufacturing facility Rio Rancho in New Mexico.
“We are setting a course for a new era of innovation and product leadership at Intel,” Gelsinger said in March. “Intel is the only company with the depth and breadth of software, silicon and platforms, packaging, and process with at-scale manufacturing customers can depend on for their next-generation innovations. IDM 2.0 is an elegant strategy that only Intel can deliver – and it’s a winning formula. We will use it to design the best products and manufacture them in the best way possible for every category we compete in.”
Earlier this year, Intel Israel said its exports grew to a record $8 billion in 2020, up significantly from $6.6 billion in 2019. Intel began operating in Israel in 1974 and has said that its investments in the Israeli economy have totaled over $35 billion since then.
Allegations that John Kerry revealed sensitive information about Israeli covert operations to Iran’s foreign minister should be thoroughly probed, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a new letter to State Department leaders.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and State Department Acting Inspector General Diana Shaw were the recipients of the Grassley letter about Kerry, a former secretary of state and current Biden administration climate czar.
Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif claimed Kerry told him about covert Israeli operations on Iranian targets in Syria in a leaked recorded interview. Kerry has denied the accusations.
Grassley and several GOP colleagues sent a letter to President Joe Biden early last week asking him to investigate Kerry. That letter went unanswered, however, according to reporter Sara Carter’s website.
Now, as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Grassley is asking for the records regarding meetings Kerry had with Zarif be sent to the committee for review by May 18.
“President Biden has the power to act and so do you,” Grassley wrote in the letter to Blinken and Shaw.
After the State Department Inspector General was asked for comment about the issue, a spokesperson replied, “We have no additional information to share at this time.”
The State Department issued a similar comment.
“The department respects the role of Congress and does not comment on congressional correspondence,” a State Department spokesperson said.
Zarif claimed in a leaked audiotape, while Kerryrevealed more than 200 operations that Israel had conducted against Iranian targets.
Kerry also reportedly has met with Zarif as a private citizen after leaving office, which is raising concern about what he may have told him and other Iranian officials.
In an April 26 statement posted to Twitter, Kerry called the allegations being made about him “unequivocally false.”
The news prompted some lawmakers to demand Kerry resign from his current position as presidential envoy for climate on the National Security Council.
“It’s become clear,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said on the Senate floor, “that our adversaries, whether Beijing or Iran, like it when John Kerry is in charge of foreign policy and national security. Why? Because they know how to use him to their advantage.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., agreed, tweeting Kerry should resign if Zarif’s claims turn out to be true.
Others such as Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., asked Kerry’s security clearance be temporarily suspended while he is investigated.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News, that Kerry “put our men and women in uniform at risk” and “this is something that deserves a Senate investigation..
“This is something that is serious,” said Blackburn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This is someone who has served our nation at very high levels, that had information, whether as a senator or as Secretary of State and knew what was happening on the diplomatic and military front, to give that information to someone who is an adversary is something of tremendous concern to me.”
Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization for America, told Fox News, there should be an “immediate and thorough investigation” into Kerry. Brian E. Leib, the executive director for Iranian Americans for Liberty, said if Zarif’s allegations turn out to be true, they are “grounds for treason” charges against Kerry.
The Tennessee Legislature approved a measure that bans the Marxist-inspired critical race theory from being taught in the state’s public and charter schools.
The legislation prohibits teaching students that any race or sex is superior to any other or that an individual is “inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive” due to their race or sex. It also forbids teachers from instructing students that the United States is inherently sexist or racist, and it also bans teaching that the U.S. government should be violently overthrown.
Generally, critical race theory redefines U.S. history by claiming that the nation was built through the struggle between “oppressors,” typically white people, and the “oppressed,” or various minorities—similarly to Marxism’s reduction of human history to a struggle between the “bourgeoisie” and the “proletariat.”
State Rep. John Ragan said that proponents of critical race theory are engaging in the “pursuit of political” power by advancing their agenda.
“We have much work left for our children to be able to realize the full promise of our nation. To fulfill that promise, our children must be educated, that they stand as individuals, equal before our laws as they will one day stand before the Creator,” Ragan, a Republican, said on the floor of the Assembly on May 4. “They must learn their identity is defined by the content of their character, not the color of the skin, their sex, ethnicity, or membership in some social class.”
State Sen. Brian Kelsey, a Republican, noted that the theory posits that the “rule of law does not exist,” only political power.
“That is the very definition of critical race theory,” Kelsey said. “I was subject to this teaching 20 years ago in law school and know it very well, and that is the very definition of it.”
Republican Gov. Bill Lee is expected to sign the measure into law. He hasn’t vetoed a bill since he took office.
Democrats voiced opposition to the bill, claiming that it would promote revisionist history.
“I do not cast blame, but I think we do have to admit that slavery did occur,” state Sen. Brenda Gilmore, a Democrat, told her colleagues. “It was a dark period in our history. We have to acknowledge the wrongs of our society, even when it’s a difficult conversation to have.”
However, the bill doesn’t mention slavery and allows for the teaching of the “historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, or geographic region.”
Other states are considering or have passed similar measures that prevent the instruction of critical race theory in the classroom, such as the Oklahoma Legislature, which voted to pass a similar bill last week. (theepochtimes.com)
