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July 26, 2016 at 10:41 pm
Philadelphia - Protesters have set an Israeli flag on fire and chanted “long live the intifada” outside of the Democratic convention site.
A woman wearing a black bandanna on her face lit the flag on fire Tuesday night as protests continued outside of the secure zone around the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Someone stood nearby waving a Palestinian flag.
Protesters also set pro-Bernie Sanders fliers on fire that were hanging on steel fencing around the site.
Separate groups of Sanders supporters, protesters marching against police brutality and others have joined together in the streets outside of the convention.
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July 26, 2016 at 9:48 pm
Abu Dhabi, UAE - The world’s first round-the-world flight to be powered solely by the sun’s energy made history on Tuesday as it landed in Abu Dhabi, where it first took off on an epic 25,000-mile (40,000-kilometer) journey that began more than a year ago.
Since its March 2015 take off, the Swiss-engineered Solar Impulse 2 has made 16 stops across the world without using a drop of fuel to demonstrate that using the plane’s clean technologies on the ground can halve the world’s energy consumption, save natural resources and improve quality of life.
After landing the plane, pilot Bertrand Piccard was greeted outside the cockpit by his Solar Impulse partner and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg. They hugged and pumped their fists in the air.
“The future i...
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July 26, 2016 at 9:41 pm
hiladelphia - Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton secured the Democratic Party’s 2016 nomination for the White House on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to head the ticket of a major party in U.S. history.
Delegates from South Dakota gave Clinton 15 votes, ensuring that she had more than the 2,383 votes needed to win the nomination during a state-by-state roll call at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
After a tough battle with Democratic rival U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton is now the party’s standard-bearer against Republican nominee Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 election.
Delegates chanted “Hillary, Hillary” as U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland formally put forward Clinton’s name for the alphabetical roll-call vote.
&l...
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July 26, 2016 at 9:40 pm
Orlando, FL - Officials in central Florida say the cost of responding to last month’s Pulse nightclub shooting by police officers, firefighters, hazmat crews and others comes to more than $1.7 million.
Figures released Tuesday by the city of Orlando show the city’s expenses at under $600,000, with almost two-thirds of the costs from overtime outlays.
More than a dozen other central Florida agencies spent a combined $1.1 million. The cost to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where most victims were treated, was $632,000.
The U.S. Department of Justice has made $1 million available to help reimburse agencies for the costs of responding to the Pulse massacre.
Gunman Omar Mateen opened fire at Pulse on June 12, killing 49 patrons and injuring 53 people. He was killed in ...
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July 26, 2016 at 9:38 pm
Washington - U.S. President Barack Obama said it was possible that Russia would try to influence the U.S. presidential election, after a leak of Democratic National Committee emails that experts have attributed to Russian hackers.
“Anything is possible,” Obama told NBC News in an interview broadcast on Tuesday when asked if the Russians would try to influence the Nov. 8 election.
Obama said the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the leak on Friday of more than 19,000 DNC emails, which showed the committee had favored Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders for the party’s presidential nomination.
“I know that experts have attributed this to the Russians,” Obama said.
“What we do know is that the Russians hack our syst...
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July 26, 2016 at 9:37 pm
Dallas - The deaths of four children in hot cars in recent days has brought the number across the U.S. this year to at least 23, nearly matching the total for all of last year and prompting experts to plead for vigilance and warn parents that it can happen to anyone.
“It just breaks your heart,” said Janette Fennell, founder and president of KidsAndCars.org, a national child safety nonprofit based in Philadelphia. “We’ve done so much to try to get the word out and maybe that’s why last year was down a bit but this year is not looking very good.”
Four-year-old Samaria Motyka died on Friday in Williamsport, Pennsylvania after her caregiver drove to work instead of taking her to day care. In Dallas, 2-year-old Boi Lei Sang died after being left i...
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July 26, 2016 at 9:36 pm
San Francisco - Apple Inc sold more iPhones than Wall Street expected in the third quarter and forecast revenue in the current period would top many analysts’ targets, soothing fears that demand for Apple’s most important product had hit a wall.
Its shares rose more than 7 percent in after-hours trading.
The world’s most valuable publicly traded company said it sold 40.4 million iPhones in the third quarter, down 15 percent from the year-ago quarter but slightly more than the average analyst forecast of 40.02 million, according to research firm FactSet StreetAccount.
IPhone sales dropped for the second straight quarter, pushing down Apple’s total revenue 14.6 percent in the fiscal third quarter, ended June 25.
Demand for Apple’s phones has waned in...
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July 26, 2016 at 9:34 pm
Israel - Jerusalem-based startup Zore has developed a unique lock for weapons that would prevent them from being used by any unauthorized personnel. The founders of the company have already raised almost half a million dollars and argue that the product is more efficient and user-friendly than traditional weapon locks.
The Zore lock is a cartridge-shaped device that is attached to the weapon and alerts weapon owners on their smartphone of an attempt made to move or unlock their firearm. The device can be unlocked by turning it clockwise and counterclockwise according to a predetermined code sequence.
“Our product is unique,” Zore co-founder and CEO Yonatan Zimmerman told Tazpit Press Service (TPS). “It is quick, not over-complicated, and works reliably with al...
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July 26, 2016 at 6:28 pm
Zurich - Switzerland said it plans to give information to U.S. tax authorities about accounts at HSBC Holdings Plc’s Swiss private bank, as part of a U.S. investigation into tax evasion.
HSBC’s Swiss unit has already paid tens of millions of dollars in fines after admitting substandard compliance on tax evasion and other issues.
The Swiss government said it made the announcement about its plans on Tuesday to alert HSBC account holders whom it has been unable to locate, and to give them the chance to lodge a legal appeal if they object to having their information sent to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The move comes after the IRS asked Swiss tax authorities in April for assistance on HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA accounts held by Swiss-registered “do...
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July 26, 2016 at 6:27 pm
Jerusalem - Israeli Arab MKs rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outreach on Monday night in the release of YouTube videos urging the country’s Arab citizens to engage further in Israeli society.
Joint List head Ayman Odeh in a biting response on Tuesday said, “But Mr. Prime Minister, you are right about one thing, we really want to be part of society, but maybe I’ll surprise you now saying, we do not want to be second-class citizens in a racist and occupying state.”
He also mentioned that “more than one hundred thousand Arab citizens who live in unrecognized villages in the Negev, they cannot listen to your words, not in Hebrew nor in English…simply their homes do not have electricity.”
Joint List MK and Ta’al pa...
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July 26, 2016 at 6:14 pm
Charlotte, NC - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sought to turn a scandal involving the Veterans Administration to his political advantage on Tuesday, pledging to war veterans that he would clean up a mess he blamed on Washington politicians.
“Our debt to you is eternal,” Trump told a gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Yet our politicians have totally failed you.”
The 2014 VA scandal revolved around long wait times for patients and other negligent activities. Trump spoke shortly after the crowd heard from Bob McDonald, President Barack Obama’s secretary of Veterans Affairs.
The scandal fits in with Trump’s effort to portray himself as a political outsider dedicated to fixing the problems left ...
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July 26, 2016 at 6:12 pm
Washington - The White House warned Tuesday of a “revolution” of computer-generated threats to the U.S. stoked by growing cyber aggression by traditional U.S. foes like Russia and North Korea, and issued a color-coded response plan for the federal government to use after major cyberattacks.
Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said while Russia and China grow “more assertive and sophisticated” online, Iran has attacked U.S. banks and North Korea is showing a willingness to attack companies and countries alike. She also warned that non-governmental actors, like the Islamic State group and “hacktivists,” are finding it easy to advance their goals through the internet.
“To put it blunt...
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July 26, 2016 at 6:05 pm
New York - Viewers chose cable news over broadcast TV for coverage of the Republican National Convention last week, with the Nielsen Top 20 claiming eight cable programs focused on the GOP confab.
Among the cable news networks, it was Fox News Channel’s week in particular to shine even as it reeled from the ouster of its founding father, Roger Ailes, accused of sexual harassment.
Besides its flurry of high-ranking individual programs, Fox News ranked No. 1 by far in prime-time among cable networks, averaging 4.1 million viewers. And it was second among all networks, cable or broadcast, behind only by NBC.
Meanwhile, CNN, the week’s second-most-watched cable network, drew an average of 2.4 million viewers with its GOP coverage.
Among the networks overall, NBC led with...
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July 26, 2016 at 6:05 pm
Philadelphia - Sorry, Democrats. #ElectMichelle will never be more than a wishful hashtag.
The same thing that made Michelle Obama such a powerful voice for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention makes it unlikely she’ll spend a huge amount of time on the campaign trail or, heaven forbid, run for president: She’s just not a political animal.
That’s sorry news to delegates who were moved to tears by the first lady’s nailed-it speech at the convention Monday night, where she delivered a compelling argument for Clinton’s election from the perspective of Sasha and Malia’s mom and also managed to skewer Donald Trump without uttering his name.
Democrats were still enthusing over Mrs. Obama’s speech the next day — and hoping the fir...
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July 26, 2016 at 5:48 pm
Paris - One of the two knife-wielding men who attacked a church in France on Tuesday has been named as 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, who was under close surveillance after two failed attempts to reach Syria last year, France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said.
Kermiche and the second attacker, who remains unidentified, were killed by police as they came out of the church in Kermiche’s hometown in Normandy after taking hostages and fatally slitting the throat of an elderly priest.
The Amaq news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic State militant group, said two of its “soldiers” had carried out the attack.
After Kermiche’s last attempt to reach Syria in May 2015, he was detained until March, when he was released despite an appeal by Paris prosecu...
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July 26, 2016 at 5:44 pm
New York - Julianne Moore, Bryan Cranston, Kerry Washington, Mark Ruffalo, Neil Patrick Harris, Lena Dunham, Shonda Rhimes, and Macklemore are among more than 100 celebrities joining a campaign to urge Americans to deny Donald Trump the White House.
The campaign is part of MoveOn.org Political Action’s #UnitedAgainstHate campaign.
“We believe it is our responsibility to use our platforms to bring attention to the dangers of a Trump presidency, and to the real and present threats of his candidacy,” says an open letter signed by the celebrities.
“Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time when fear excused violence, when greed fueled discrimination, and when the state wrote prejudice against marginalized communities into law .... Some of us come...
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July 26, 2016 at 5:32 pm
New York - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump posted a two-point lead over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday, the first time he has been ahead since early May.
Trump’s gains came as he accepted his party’s nomination to the Nov. 8 ballot at the four-day Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week, and as Clinton’s nomination in Philadelphia this week was marred by party divisions and the resignation of a top party official.
The July 22-26 poll found that 39 percent of likely voters supported Trump, 37 percent supported Clinton and 24 percent would vote for neither. The poll had a credibility interval of 4 percentage points, meaning that the two candidates should be considered ...
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July 26, 2016 at 4:55 pm
Philadelphia - Democrats beat Republicans in the TV ratings, according to early data on Tuesday for the first night of the Democratic National Convention ratings.
Preliminary data from the three main TV networks ABC, NBC and CBS showed some 10.6 million Americans watched Monday evening’s 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. hour when first lady Michelle Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders were among the key speakers.
That is about half a million more TV eyes than for the first night of the Republican convention last week when White House contender Donald Trump’s wife Melania was the keynote speaker.
Updated figures, along with TV audiences from cable news channels and smaller networks, are expected later on Tuesday.
All in all, some 23 million Americans watched the first night of the Re...
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July 26, 2016 at 4:54 pm
Sarah Hofstetter wrote the following article for Fortune.com:
When 360i, the ad agency I run, won Oscar Mayer’s business in 2010, I politely declined their invitation to sample products from their new portfolio. It’s not that I wasn’t interested—I had spent countless hours trying to win the hot dog maker’s business—but my faith simply prohibited it.
I’ve been keeping kosher and observing the Jewish Sabbath my entire life, along with striving to stick to the other 611 commandments of the Torah. This has meant resisting the temptations of McDonald’s as a child, fending off rebellious friends trying to get me to sneak out with them on Friday nights, and attempting to find the only kosher establishment in Tokyo (yes, it does exist, and yes, the...
