The Justice Department will begin considering clemency applications from nonviolent federal inmates who have behaved in prison, have no significant criminal history and have already served more than 10 years behind bars, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The initiative is part of a broader Obama administration effort to trim the nation's prison population and ease sentencing disparities arising from drug possession crimes. The goal of the new criteria, which were to be detailed Wednesday, is to create a broader pool of ...
[By Rabbi Yair Hoffman]
What follows is an overview of some of the spiritual dimensions of Sfiras HaOmer followed by some of the pertinent Halachos. Aside from the actual Mitzvah of counting the Omer, he period of Sfiras HaOmer can be a bit confusing. The reason that it may cause confusion is that there are actually three aspects to it.
There is the first aspect that it was the ...
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A frum IDF soldier who serves in Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) was attacked by delinquents on Tuesday night the eve of 23 Nissan 5774. The attack took place in the heart of the community, on Rabbi Akiva Street at about 19:00. The victim, Baruch Indig, was heading home when he was targeted. Two Bochrim handed him a flyer and before he could see what was written they shouted at him “Chardak ...
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A request by the New York City Police Department has backfired — in a very public way.
Its request that Twitter users share pictures of them posing with police officers has caused people to start sending in photos of police brutality.
The NYPD sent a tweet on Tuesday, saying it might feature the photographs on its Facebook page.
The responses soon turned ugly when Occupy Wall ...
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Unidentified material that has washed ashore in southwestern Australia is being examined for any link to the lost Malaysian plane, authorities said Wednesday.
Police secured the material, which washed ashore 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Augusta in Western Australia state, the search coordination center said in a statement, without describing the material found. The Australian ...
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Rabbonim Shlita are urging the tzibur to be extra cautious following the drowning incident involving a 20-year-old talmid yeshiva in a Beit Shean area spring. The victim, Meir Kedar z”l, was transported to the hospital in critical condition.
Magen David Adom paramedic Shai Ashkenazi reported that he and his colleague began advanced life support CPR in an effort to save the young ...
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PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has threatened to dismantle the PA (Palestinian Authority) and return control of PA areas back over to Israel. In response to his threat, the United States warned such radical actions would have dire consequences, including cuts in financial assistance to the PA. A US State Department official released a statement explaining how donor nations ...
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In an interview with Razi Barkai of Galei Tzahal (Army Radio), Shas leader Aryeh Deri announced that former Rishon L’Tzion HaGaon HaRav Shlomo Amar is not a member of the Shas leadership. He added that Rav Amar was never a contender to take over for Maran HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef ZT”L.
Days after HaGaon HaRav Shlomo Cohen
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Rabbi Meir Soloveichik’s tour of Har Habayis on Sunday, erev 7th day of Pesach was cut short when violent rioting broke out on the holy site. It was the first time that Har Habayis had been open to Jews since the beginning of Pesach. Riots forced Rabbi Meir Soloveichik and his family, who were accompanied by Temple Institute International Director Rabbi Chaim Richman, off the site ...
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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says it is "not acceptable" that ambulances took more than 10 minutes to respond to fire that killed two 4-year-olds.
The blaze ignited Saturday at a home in Far Rockaway, Queens. Authorities say it was set by the children playing with fire.
Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano says an investigation has been launched into why it took an ambulance ...
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Some ran to honor the dead and wounded. Others were out to prove something to the world about their sport, the city or their country. And some wanted to prove something to themselves.
With the names of the victims scrawled on their bodies or their race bibs, more than 32,000 people ran in the Boston Marathon on Monday in a powerful show of defiance a year after the deadly ...
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An Egyptian cleric defended the Sept. 11 attacks in a broadcast interview, saying it left Muslims and non-Muslims around the world happy, according to a tape played for the jury at his terrorism trial on Monday.
Mustafa Kamel Mustafa could be heard casually speaking of the attacks in the undated interview with a Canadian broadcaster, even equating what al-Qaida did to the hero in ...
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AT&T plans a major expansion of super-fast Internet services to cover as many as 100 municipalities in 25 metropolitan areas.
The service, called GigaPower, has a 1 gigabit per second speed that is about 100 times what U.S. consumers typically get with broadband. That means faster video downloads and the ability for more devices to connect to the network without ...
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An air search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was suspended for a day due to stormy weather on Tuesday as the painstakingly slow sonar scanning of the targeted patch of seabed continued.
Up to 10 planes were to scour the ocean surface for debris on Tuesday over an area covering 49,500 square kilometers (19,000 square miles) centered 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) northwest of ...
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New York's comptroller says the state is in a favorable financial position, but relies heavily on borrowing and temporary resources.
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released a report Monday showing the fiscal year-end general fund balance of $2.2 billion was $432 million more than projected in February and the state put money in a "rainy day fund" for the first time since ...
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo is maintaining a double-digit lead over his Republican challenger, but he could be vulnerable to a challenge from the left, according to a poll of New York voters released Tuesday.
The Siena College poll shows the Democrat leading Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino 58 percent to 28 percent. Cuomo had a lead of 61 percent to Astorino's 26 percent in Siena's ...
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A New York hospital is reinforcing its ban on electronic cigarettes after a patient on oxygen was burned by a fire that erupted while she was puffing on one of the devices.
Syracuse Fire Department investigator Joe Galloway tells The Post-Standard the exact cause of last month's fire at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center has not yet been determined. But he says the patient had a ...
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President Barack Obama's hometown and Hillary Rodham Clinton's home base as a senator are among the 15 cities the Democratic National Committee is considering to host the party's presidential nominating convention in 2016, officials said Tuesday.
The DNC is inviting cities from Miami to Las Vegas to bid to host the party faithful for the made-for-TV festivities. Local officials have ...
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B’chasdei Hashem this story is not one of tragedy as rockets were fired into southern Israel on the last day of Pesach. One of the rockets landed directly adjacent to a shul in Sderot, a shul that was crowded with mispallalim.
The air force retaliated by striking terrorists targets in Gaza following the launching of ten rockets into Israel. Terror attacks included the firing of ...
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The New York Police Department says a large balloon is being unleashed above the city for two days to measure the heights of the city’s buildings.
The police department said the balloon will remain aloft for about nine hours on Sunday in lower Manhattan and more than 13 hours on Monday in midtown.
Police said the balloon will be about 800 feet in the air as it collects data for ...
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[By Rabbi Yair Hoffman]
This year, the Daf HaYomi of Shvii shel Pesach deals with the issue of bathing on Yom Tov. The notion of showering on Yom Tov remains a very controversial area of halacha. This article will attempt to explain the complex issues involved. We will begin with the general prohibitions and we will continue with the exceptions. It should be noted that this article ...
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A transcript released Sunday shows the South Korean ferry that sank was crippled with confusion and indecision well after it began listing dangerously, possibly adding to a death toll that is officially at 58 but could eventually exceed 300.
Three times in succession, and about half an hour after the ferry Sewol began tilting on Wednesday, a crew member asked Jindo Vessel Traffic ...
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A warning has been issued to Rockland County residents after a wild animal was spotted Saturday night.
A coyote was seen wandering near Pearl and Centre streets in Pearl River.
Police are warning residents to take precautions, and to keep small children and pets close by when outdoors.
They advise residents to remain calm if they come across a coyote, and to start making a lot ...
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A cracked windshield is blamed for forcing a United Airlines flight from JFK to make an emergency landing Saturday.
United Flight 766, a Boeing 757, was headed to San Francisco when a crack appeared in a cockpit window.
The flight was diverted to Indianapolis, where it landed safely Saturday night.
United says the 138 passengers aboard were put on another plane.
Maintenance ...
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Police officials in New York City have changed the way officers respond to fires following the death of an officer.
They’ll now require officers responding to structures on fire to take the stairs.
Deputy Chief Kim Royster said Friday an internal memo detailing the preliminary guidelines has been distributed to precincts.
Royster says the new protocol replaces a memo ...
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Motorists who repeatedly speed through New York state toll booths without paying would see their vehicle registrations suspended under legislation being considered by state lawmakers.
Under current law, toll evaders are contacted by a collection agency and can only face the loss of their registration if they commit multiple violations within the same locality.
Scofflaws run up ...
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Charlotte van den Berg was a 20-year-old college student working part-time in Amsterdam's city archives when she and other interns came across a shocking find: letters from Jewish Holocaust survivors complaining that the city was forcing them to pay back taxes and late payment fines on property seized after they were deported to Nazi death camps.
How, the survivors asked, could they ...
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General Motors waited years to recall nearly 335,000 Saturn Ions for power steering failures despite getting thousands of consumer complaints and more than 30,000 warranty repair claims, according to government documents released Saturday.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government's auto safety watchdog, also didn't seek a recall of the compact car from the ...
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Several days after the Boston Marathon bombing, Gov. Deval Patrick received a call in the pre-dawn hours from a top aide telling him that police officers outside the city had just engaged in a ferocious gun battle with the two men suspected of setting the bombs and that one was dead and the other had fled.
Within hours, Patrick shut down the region's public transportation system and ...
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Travelers at Asian airports have asked questions about the March 8 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Here are some of them, followed by answers.
Samuel Rogers, a 20-year-old German on a backpacking trip, in Bangkok and on his way to Malaysia.
He asked: "Why did the Malaysian military see the plane on their radar but not ...
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People who have accounts on the enrollment website for President Barack Obama's signature health care law are being told to change their passwords following an administration-wide review of the government's vulnerability to the confounding Heartbleed Internet security flaw.
Senior administration officials said there is no indication that the HealthCare.gov site has been compromised ...
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Thousands of pages of documents from President Bill Clinton's White House affirm a longtime adage: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
As Clinton prepared for an August 1994 news conference in which he hoped to build public support for his struggling — and ultimately unsuccessful — health care overhaul, he told his advisers: "A lot of them want to know they can ...
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