Yeshiva World News

A man stopped for speeding in central Ohio was charged with illegally making or possessing an explosive device after nearly 50 bombs and four guns were found in his vehicle.

Andrew Scott Boguslawski, 43, was arrested late New Year’s Day on Interstate 70 west of Columbus. Investigators found two pistols, two rifles, 48 explosive devices and tools and materials to make additional explosives, according to The (London) Madison Press. Also inside was a remote detonating device, Assistant Madison County Prosecutor Nick Adkins said.

Investigators are trying to determine why the man had the arsenal. He faces a court hearing Friday in Madison County.

According to the state trooper who stopped him for going 85 mph in a 70-mph zone, Boguslawski said he had no weapons. However, the officer returned with a ticket and saw the handle of a gun between the man’s knees.

“At that point, he drew his service weapon, held the man there and called for backup,” said Adkins.

Boguslawski told authorities he has an attorney, but none was listed on the court docket. There was no phone listing for the street address listed for him on court records.

Adkins said a $1 million bond set for the defendant reflected the possible risk to the public.

(AP)

A majority in the U.S. Senate, 51 senators across party lines, now co-sponsor the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act of 2013, according to multiple Senate aides. North Dakota Republican Senator, John Hoeven, announced his support Tuesday afternoon, according to Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo, thus adding his vote to the number required for a bill to pass.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced the bill just before Christmas with 25 co-sponsors.

But Jewish lawmaker, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) has become a major obstacle to the new bipartisan Iran sanctions measure, The Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday.

Breaking ranks with leading pro-Israel Democrats like New York Senator Chuck Schumer and New Jersey Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker, Ms. Wassermann-Schultz privately urged her fellow Democrats to follow the White House’s lead by opposing the bipartisan House resolution backing new sanctions on Iran, according to multiple congressional sources close to the debate.

Wasserman Schultz’s backroom bid to kill the sanctions measure has angered some Democrats on Capitol Hill and in her hometown of South Florida.

“Debbie has been busy at home telling her constituents she is doing all she can to stop Iran, but in reality it appears she is busy behind the scenes working to scuttle bipartisan action to put increased sanctions pressure on Iran,” one Democrat on Capitol Hill who is closely tracking the Iran debate told The Free Beacon. “Every minute she is publicly silent, or working against bipartisan efforts to pressure Iran, is a minute she is siding with the Mullahs over the American people who overwhelmingly want mounting pressure,” said the source, who asked for anonymity.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

Embattled mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, is already off with a shaky start in his reelection bid. Hisd newly minted campaign has already managed to commit a likely violation of election rules on Monday afternoon with a website that included a grand total of two sentences, The Toronto Star reports.

The two sentences included his city email address and mayor’s office phone number.

“Thank you for visiting the website,” the site, RobFordForMayor.ca, began under a red-white-blue “Ford For Mayor” logo. “If you would like to contact Mayor Ford please send your inquiry to Mayor_Ford@toronto.ca or 416-397-FORD (3673).”

The Star noted Toronto’s “elections rules are clear: candidates are not allowed to use city resources or facilities to support their campaigns. That included email accounts, phone lines, and city hall offices.”

Following the revelations, the Ford campaign fixed the problem by Monday night. The website now says: “Thank you for visiting the website. If you would like to contact Mayor Ford please call 416-233-6934,” which is the mayor’s home number.

Mr. Ford’s main rival, former councilor David Soknacki, launched his mayoral campaign on Monday morning in studiously high-minded fashion and refused to take any real shots at the scandal-plagued mayor.

An automated response that was sent to people signing up to the campaign website, read: “Thanks for your interest in David Soknacki’s campaign to ‘stop the crazy train’ and bring politically courageous, experienced and professional leadership to city hall.”

Mr. Soknacki’s spokeswoman Supriya Dwivedi told The Star,that the Soknacki campaign is not calling the Mayor himself crazy.

“It’s not referring to Ford,” she said. “It’s first and foremost a play on gravy train. The ‘crazy’ train refers to the general ‘craziness’ at city hall in terms of media circus when all the international media was parked outside and the dysfunction at council.”

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

What Americans knew for some years, the Israeli public is now finding out. In a lengthy profile in the weekend edition of Ma’ariv, author Tzach Yoked exposed to Israelis Mark Obama Ndesandjo, one of the president’s eight half-brothers, who happens to be Jewish, according to the halacha.

Mark was born to Barack Obama’s father and to his Jewish wife Ruth Baker. Ruth was born to a Jewish family that immigrated to the United States from Lithuania. She married Obama Sr. in 1964 and moved to Kenya. Ruth divorced her husband after seven years of abusive marriage.

“My mother is a liberal person who did not keep the religious rituals,” Mark Obama told Ma’ariv. “However, she always taught me to be proud of the fact that I am Jewish … as far as I am concerned, the main aspect of my Jewish identity does not stem from performing the religious rituals and prayers, but out of a strong sense that I am Jewish. It is something that you simply feel, a strong sense of secular Jewish identity that my mother gave me … she is the woman who taught me what’s important in life, who helped me to understand Torah, taught me music, helped me with my studies.”

“I am a Jew not only because I have a Jewish mother but first and foremost because there exists in me great pride to be a part of the Jewish people. I feel great belonging to Jewish heritage, to Jewish culture, and to the Jewish philosophers,” he added.

Mark first met his brother Barack in 1988, and claims to not have been in touch with the President lately.

Mark told Ma’ariv that when he first met Barack, he was struck by his brother’s rejection of Western culture.

“I remember that my impression at the first meeting was that Barack thought that I was too white, and I thought that he was too black,” he said. “He was an American citizen on a journey in search of his African roots, while I was a resident of Kenya seeking to find his white roots.”

“I remember that when I spoke with him about the heroes of Western culture he rolled his eyes impatiently. My feeling was that, here is an American who in many ways is trying to be a local Kenyan youth. This is something I tried to flee my entire life.”

Asked what he has in common genetically with Barack, Ndesandjo said, “I think that the common link between us comes not from [our] shared father, rather more from our mothers. Both of us had strong mothers, women who took great risks to raise their children and to protect them. Barack and I love our mothers to no end, because they defended us and protected us.”

“I thought it was amazing how much he resembles me,” he said of their first meeting. “And yet, we were like two Siamese twins who looked in the direction of the other, and we were unable to see each other.”

In 2011, Mark Obama Ndesandjo visited Israel secretly. One of the main purposes of his trip was to meet with the then Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger and receive a blessing and a letter for his mother, Ruth Nidesand. He met Rabbi Metzger wearing a bandanna topped by a yarmulke.

“He looked so similar to his brother that even if he didn’t say anything I would have recognized him,” Metzger said following the meeting.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

British Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to travel to Israel next month for his long-awaited first official visit as Prime Minister. Mr. Cameron had confirmed his intention to visit Israel at the Downing Street Chanukah party last month.

Israeli Foreign Ministry sources reported that Mr Cameron would arrive in mid-February, within a week of a visit to the country from German chancellor Angela Merkel, according to The Jewish Chronicle.

The visit would be an opportunity to “show solidarity” and mark the country’s “extraordinary achievements,” Prime Minister Cameron said.

The exact date of Mr Cameron’s planned visit has not been announced. A Number 10 spokesperson said there would be no official comment on the Prime Minister’s travel plans ahead of the trip.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

The New York Post is standing by its cover story about the grisly murder of Menachem Stark.

“The Post does not say Mr. Stark deserved to die but our reporting showed that he had many enemies, which may have led to the commission of this terrible crime,” a spokesperson for the paper told Capital late Sunday afternoon. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time of loss.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

On the very first day of the 2014 campaign period, Embattled Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, registered Thursday for the 2014 mayoral election — and made it clear that he will try to run on his fiscal record while ignoring serious concerns about his character, The toronto Star reports.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Ford said he had picked a catchy slogan this time: “Ford more years.”

“My track record speaks for himself. If you want to get personal, that’s fine. I’m sticking to my record, and talk is cheap,” Mr. Ford said when asked how people can ever trust him again, after a year in which he was revealed to have lied about crack cocaine use. “You’re going to see action like you’ve never seen before.”

According to The Star, Mayor Ford dropped off his nomination papers as soon as city hall’s election office opened its doors at 8:30 a.m. He arrived so early — 8:15 a.m. — that he had to wait in the hall.

Mar. Ford’s challengers so far include: Toronto Councillor and TTC chair Karen Stintz and businessman and former Councillor David Soknacki, who are both right-leaning.

Photo: Darren Calabrese/National Post

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

NBA basketball player Tony Parker has apologised for a newly surfaced photo picturing him making the same anti-Semitic gesture which soccer star Nicolas Anelka displayed last weekend, causing outrage in their home country of France. Former Real Madrid star Anelka has now vowed never to repeat his controversial goal celebration however has not aapologized claiming he did not even know the gesture has anti-Semitic undertones.

Until recently, a quenelle was simply a type of dumpling that is a speciality of the south-eastern French city of Lyon. But the term is now also associated with French anti-Zionist comedian and would-be politician Dieudonné’s gesture of pointing one arm downwards while touching the upper arm with the other hand, in what some describe as a Nazi-style salute.

The scandal has led to renewed calls by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls to ban public appearances by  Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, who is credited with inventing the gesture.

(YWN – Studio B)

A civil liberties group sued the U.S. government Monday, saying various agencies have failed to provide adequate documents related to what it calls the sweeping monitoring of Americans’ international communications.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in the lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan that its Freedom of Information Act requests since May had been largely ignored by the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and the Department of State. It sought a court order to force the government to turn over information about the rules governing how it monitors the international calls and the emails of Americans.

The ACLU said it wants to learn what protections are given to Americans whose communications are monitored and whether they are legally sufficient. The lawsuit said legal standards and limitations are sought rather than operational details.

A government spokeswoman said there was no immediate comment.

In a blog, ACLU staff attorney Alex Abdo said revelations over the last year have increased the public’s understanding about how the government conducts surveillance when it sweeps up Americans’ international communication when it takes place on U.S. soil. But he said there was little known about an executive order which allows U.S. agencies to monitor Americans’ communication in other countries.

According to the lawsuit, the executive order signed in December 1981 and modified numerous times since allows surveillance that is not overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It said that while it was known that the order permits the government to target foreigners abroad for surveillance, recent revelations have confirmed that the government interprets the authority to permit sweeping monitoring of Americans’ international communications.

“How the government conducts this surveillance, and whether it appropriately accommodates the constitutional rights of American citizens and residents whose communications are intercepted in the course of that surveillance, are matters of great public significance and concern,” the lawsuit said.

Abdo said the lawsuit brought by the ACLU and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School was filed after it was learned that the surveillance overseas is being conducted on Americans without any real oversight.

“We now know too well that unchecked surveillance authority can lead to dangerous overreach,” he said.

The lawsuit cited news reports that NSA is collecting nearly 5 billion records per day on the locations of cell phones and hundreds of millions of contact lists or address books from personal email and instant messaging accounts.

(AP)

In an almost annual ritual, Congress is letting a package of 55 popular tax breaks expire at the end of the year, creating uncertainty — once again — for millions of individuals and businesses.

Lawmakers let these tax breaks lapse almost every year, even though they save businesses and individuals billions of dollars. And almost every year, Congress eventually renews them, retroactively, so taxpayers can claim them by the time they file their tax returns.

No harm, no foul, right? After all, taxpayers filing returns in the spring won’t be hurt because the tax breaks were in effect for 2013. Taxpayers won’t be hit until 2015, when they file tax returns for next year.

Not so far. Trade groups and tax experts complain that Congress is making it impossible for businesses and individuals to plan for the future. What if lawmakers don’t renew the tax break you depend on? Or what if they change it and you’re no longer eligible?

“It’s a totally ridiculous way to run our tax system,” said Rachelle Bernstein, vice president and tax counsel for the National Retail Federation. “It’s impossible to plan when every year this happens, but yet business has gotten used to that.”

Some of the tax breaks are big, including billions in credits for companies that invest in research and development, generous exemptions for financial institutions doing business overseas, and several breaks that let businesses write off capital investments faster.

Others are more obscure, the benefits targeted to film producers, race track owners, makers of electric motorcycles and teachers who buy classroom supplies with their own money.

There are tax rebates to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands from a tax on rum imported into the United States, and a credit for expenses related to railroad track maintenance.

A deduction for state and local sales taxes benefits people who live in the nine states without state income taxes. Smaller tax breaks benefit college students and commuters who use public transportation.

A series of tax breaks promote renewable energy, including a credit for power companies that produce electricity with windmills.

The annual practice of letting these tax breaks expire is a symptom a divided, dysfunctional Congress that struggles to pass routine legislation, said Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a senior Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

“It’s not fair, it’s very hard, it’s very difficult for a business person, a company, to plan, not just for the short term but to do long-term planning,” Lewis said. “It’s shameful.”

With Congress on vacation until January, there is no chance the tax breaks will be renewed before they expire. And there is plenty of precedent for Congress to let them expire for months without addressing them. Most recently, they expired at the end of 2011, and Congress didn’t renew them for the entire year, waiting until New Year’s Day 2013 — just in time for taxpayers to claim them on their 2012 returns.

But Congress only renewed the package though the end of 2013.

Why such a short extension? Washington accounting is partly to blame. The two-year extension Congress passed in January cost $76 billion in reduced revenue for the government, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. Making those tax breaks permanent could add $400 billion or more to the deficit over the next decade.

With budget deficits already high, many in Congress are reluctant to vote for a bill that would add so much red ink. So, they do it slowly, one or two years at time.

“More cynically, some people say, if you just put it in for a year or two, then that keeps the lobbyists having to come back and wine-and-dine the congressmen to get it extended again, and maybe make some campaign contributions,” said Mark Luscombe, principal tax analyst for CCH, a consulting firm based in Riverwoods, Ill.

This year, the package of tax breaks has been caught up in a debate about overhauling the entire tax code. The two top tax writers in Congress — House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. — have been pushing to simplify the tax code by reducing tax breaks and using the additional revenue to lower overall tax rates.

But their efforts have yet to bear fruit, leaving both tax reform and the package of temporary breaks in limbo. When asked how businesses should prepare, given the uncertainty, Camp said: “They need to get on board with tax reform, that’s what they need to do.”

Further complicating the issue, President Barack Obama has nominated Baucus to become U.S. ambassador to China, meaning he will soon leave the Senate, if he is confirmed by his colleagues.

As the Senate wound down its 2013 session, Democratic leaders made a late push to extend many of the tax breaks by asking Republican colleagues to pass a package on the floor of the Senate without debate or amendments. Republicans objected, saying it wasn’t a serious offer, and the effort failed.

So should taxpayers count on these breaks as they plan their budgets for 2014?

“The best thing I would say is, budget accordingly,” said Jackie Perlman, principle tax research analyst at The Tax Institute at H&R Block. “As the saying goes, hope for the best but plan for the worst. Then if you get it, great, that’s a nice perk. But don’t count on it.”

(AP)

The British Government is working to declassify more than 100 secret documents detailing discussions that took place between former Prime ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and President George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. The UK Independent reported Monday.

The decision will give the green light for the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry to publish an account of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the military action and the aftermath, covering an eight year period between 2001 and 2009.

Private notes from Mr. Blair to Mr. Bush, records of telephone conversations and meetings, as well as up to 200 minutes of cabinet-level discussions are to be published in the new year, according to The Independent. The documents are likely to be made available to the public, either by the Government or on the Iraq Inquiry website.

“The intention is to be as open as possible,” a British government source told The Independent. “There is an ongoing process of declassification, which is attempting to strike a careful balance to ensure that you are not setting a legal precedent that could oblige you to publish other documents in the future or damage national security.”

The Iraq Inquiry was set up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown 5 years ago.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

A Lithuanian ruling party senior member suggested this week that Jews are only seeking the burden of others in making money. Bronius Bradauskas, chairman of the Lithuanian Parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance, told the BNS news agency that, “Jews were just looking to take money,” JTA reports.

Mr. Bradauskas made the statement in connection to a government proposal to grant additional pension payments to about 200 Lithuanian Righteous among the Nations, non-Jews recognized by the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem for having risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust.

“I do not see why the Lithuanian state should pay,” Mr. Bradauskas told BNS. “It would be quite logical if we turned to Israel, and that it should pay. But no, the Jews do not want to pay, they are just looking to take from Lithuania.”

Lithuania’s Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius rushed to condemn his Party member’s comment. “I judge this statement to be very negative and it doesn’t represent the party’s position,” said Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius.

A spokesperson for Butkevicius’ Social Democratic Party of Lithuania said the party “does not tolerate any forms of anti-Semitism.”

According to JTA, Lithuania had a Jewish population of 250,000 in 1939 but 95 percent of its Jews were murdered during the Holocaust by Nazi soldiers and Lithuanian collaborators. Today Lithuania has some 5,000 Jews, according to the European Jewish Congress.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

Dozens of Jewish groups nationwide are glorifying the name of Hashem by volunteering to help the needy on the holiday season.

AP reports of hundreds of volunteers from the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center be working in the community on X-mas Day in the district, Maryland and Virginia — preparing food for the homeless, hosting parties at shelters, serving meals, wrapping gifts and visiting senior citizens.

In Baltimore, CBS affiliate reports, hundreds of volunteers pack the JCC local center in what is called ‘Mitzvah Day’ – by putting together 1500 winter care packages for the homeless full of toiletries, bottled water, toothpaste, gloves, socks and even homemade scarves. The winter care packages are loaded into vans and then delivered to Baltimore homeless shelters and soup kitchens.

“Mitzvah Day is a program of the Jewish Volunteer Connection that gets over a thousand people at the Park Heights JCC, the Owings Mills JCC and various locations throughout the community to volunteer and give a day of service,” Micah Damareck, co-chair of Mitzvah Day, told CBS/WJZ. “We have about 300 or 400 people at this location, the JCC Park Heights, loading gift bags to be delivered throughout Baltimore City. They will go to various locations that need help.”

“A mitzvah is doing a good deed, doing something for someone else besides yourself; it’s giving back,” he added.

“It’s another way for us to have our faith in action,.not just faith in words but to go out and serve people,” said Je Devance, Mitzvah Day volunteer.

In Jacksonville, Florida, FOX affiliate reported of more than 60 Jewish volunteer drivers that showed up to pick up 420 meals, delivering them to seniors. After the meals are delivered, the volunteers delivered more than 5,000 sweets to fire stations and police sub-stations around Jacksonville.

Wiatt Bowers of The Congregation Ahavath Chesed board of trustees, who helped organize the event this year, told WTEV that the Jewish community in Jacksonville enjoys volunteering on the Christian holiday to honor the bond the two religions share.

“Judaism talks about acts of love and kindness; it doesn’t differentiate religion. But the interesting thing is this gives us an opportunity on X-mas Day that allows the regular workers to be at home with their families,” said Bowers.

Bowers told Action News all the meals cost about $1,200. The food is paid for partially by Aging True and the other part would come from the synagogue’s social action.

“It’s good to have people that care about people, and that’s what this world is about,” said Florence Coleman, a Meals on Wheels recipient.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

Republicans see the 2014 midterm elections as a chance to capitalize on voter frustration with the problem-plagued health care overhaul, but the GOP first must settle a slate of Senate primaries where conservatives are arguing over the best way to oppose President Barack Obama’s signature law.

In intraparty skirmishes from Georgia to Nebraska, the GOP’s most strident candidates and activists are insisting on a no-holds-barred approach. They accuse fellow Republicans — including several incumbent senators — of being too soft in their opposition to the Affordable Care Act and to the president in general.

The outcomes will help determine just how conservative the Senate Republican caucus will be during Obama’s final two years. And they could influence which party controls the chamber, with Democrats hoping that the most uncompromising Republican standard-bearers will emerge from the primaries and fare as poorly in general elections as their counterparts did in several 2012 Senate races. Republicans need to gain six seats for a majority.

Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, who wants to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss, stepped into the rift recently when he seemed to scold much of his party during an interview on a conservative talk radio show.

“A lot of conservatives say, ‘Nah, just step back and let this thing fall to pieces on its own,” Kingston said. “Well, I don’t think that’s always the responsible thing to do.”

Rep. Paul Broun, one of Kingston’s rivals in a crowded primary field, pounced immediately, declaring in an Internet ad, “I don’t want to fix Obamacare, I want to get rid of it.” Conservative commentators hammered Kingston with headlines like “Kingston has surrendered on Obamacare.”

In Tennessee, state Rep. Joe Carr blasted Sen. Lamar Alexander for serving as a key GOP negotiator in the deal to end the partial government shutdown that resulted from House Republicans’ efforts to deny funding for the health care law. Alexander subsequently described himself as a “conservative problem solver,” a characterization that Carr says “typifies how out of touch he is.”

Kentucky businessman Matt Bevin is using a similar line of attack in trying to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as is Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel in his primary challenge to Sen. Thad Cochran. Carr, Bevin and McDaniel all say they’d be more like freshmen Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas, tea party favorites who pushed the defunding strategy and vexed their longer-serving colleagues.

In Nebraska and Louisiana, Republican candidates who say they oppose the health care law have had to defend their past positions on health care.

National Republicans settled on Rep. Bill Cassidy as their best shot to beat Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. But retired Air Force Colonel Rob Maness notes that Cassidy, as a state senator and a physician in the state’s public hospital system, pushed health care policies similar to those in the Affordable Care Act.

“He has to defend his entire record, regardless of how he’s voted in Washington,” said Maness, a GOP candidate who hopes to unseat Landrieu with tea party support.

Midland University President Ben Sasse, one of several Republicans running in Nebraska for retiring Sen. Mike Johanns’ seat, says he opposes the health care law but has had to explain previous speeches and writings in which he was less absolute, at one point calling the act “an important first step” in overhauling American health care.

“This goes right to the bigger fight between the ideologues and the pragmatists,” said Republican strategist Todd Rehm of Georgia, who isn’t affiliated with any of the eight GOP candidates for Chambliss’ seat. Candidates who want to capture the divided Republican electorate, he said, “see that you can’t compromise on any of it. … The moment you start to sound like you’re open to any compromise, you’ve sold out the ideologues.”

Indeed, Alexander, McConnell, Kingston and Cassidy all voted against the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and for symbolic repeal proposals since then. Some in the GOP leadership say the intraparty struggle is only about tactics, not the bottom line. Carr insists that’s exactly the point.

“Their presumption is that tactics don’t matter because the outcome would be the same,” he said. “But it wouldn’t. There wasn’t a single Republican vote that passed the Affordable Care Act, whether we’re talking establishment, tea party, moderate, conservative, whatever. … So if it’s so bad — and it is — the question is why did establishment Republicans not fight to defund it?”

Leaders of national conservative groups, which have been key players in recent Senate elections, say the distinction is an important consideration as they decide endorsements.

“I would say that any candidate who is a vocal opponent of that (defunding) strategy would certainly cause us hesitation,” said Easton Randall of FreedomWorks political action committee. “The burden is on them to explain what they would do differently to achieve a goal we all claim to share.”

So far, FreedomWorks has endorsed McDaniel over Cochran in Mississippi and Nebraska state Treasurer Shane Osborn over Sasse. The group is watching several other races.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, founded by former Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, split with FreedomWorks in Nebraska, siding with Sasse. But the fund endorsed Maness in Louisiana, Bevin in Kentucky and McDaniel in Mississippi, among others. DeMint now runs the Heritage Foundation, whose political arm also is monitoring several other races.

Those groups’ recent record is mixed. Democrats are hoping for a repeat of 2010 and 2012 races where the far right groups backed less-viable candidates who lost general elections in Colorado, Nevada, Delaware and Indiana. But the same groups also helped elect Lee, Cruz and Marco Rubio in the presidential swing state of Florida.

At FreedomWorks, PAC treasurer and policy chief Dean Clancy dismissed any notion that his efforts would hurt the party.

“Republicans make a mistake when they try to waffle on these issues or sound like Democrat-lite,” he said.

(AP)

Mailing a letter is about to get a little more expensive.

Postal regulators on Tuesday approved a price hike of 3 cents for a first-class stamp, bringing the charge to 49 cents a letter.

The independent Postal Regulatory Commission said the change was justified by severe mail volume decreases since 2008.

The new price is effective Jan. 26 and will last no more than two years, allowing the Postal Service to recoup $2.8 billion in losses.

Regulators rejected a request to make the price hike permanent.

Bulk mail, periodicals and package service rates rise 6 percent.

The mail industry opposes the price increases. It says charities using mass mailings and bookstores competing with Amazon will suffer.

The Postal Service says it lost $5 billion in the last fiscal year.

(AP)

A court decision on a child services case involving the Lev Tahor cult, won’t be decided until the new year.

A judge in Chatham Monday adjourned the hearing until Jan. 10.

Earlier in the day a judge heard from lawyer Iain Mackinnon that the media should be allowed to attend and report the ruling in a child service case involving 14 children belonging to Lev Tahor. Chatham-Kent Children’s Services opposed the motion.

CTV’s Chris Campbell was at the proceedings, where the judge lifted the ban, stating the matter is of public interest. The judge also ruled in favour of allowing media access to Lev Tahor court filed documents, under the stipulation that names of witnesses and children go unreported.

On Nov. 27, a Quebec court ordered the 14 children into foster care, after the group fled to Ontario amid an investigation into alleged child neglect.

Approximately 40 families with Lev Tahor left Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que. in November, and relocated to Chatham.

(Source: CTV)

Major British multinational retailer, Marks & Spencer has confirmed that Jewish employees do not have to serve pork products at tills to its customers, if it goes against their religious beliefs, The Jewish Chronicle reports.

The chain founded by Polish-Jewish refugee Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in the late 19th century, confirmed that, in the same way a Muslim member of staff could refuse to handle pork and alcohol, a Jewish employee could decline to sell pork sausages, bacon rashers and sea-food, as well as opt not to work on Shabbos.

“We recognize that some of our employees practice religions that restrict the food or drink they can handle, or that mean they cannot work at certain times,” said a spokesman for Marks & Spencer.”M&S promotes an environment free from discrimination and so, where specific requests are made, we will always make reasonable adjustments to accommodate them, whilst ensuring high levels of customer service.”

The spokesman said that their policy would be applied to other religions, including Christians who did not want to work Sunday’s and Jews who choose not to work Saturday.

Morrisons supermarket joined M&S in saying it would “respect and work around anyone’s wishes not to handle specific products for religious or cultural reasons”.

Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, has issued its official policy on the matter in the form of a pamphlet called “The Little Book of Faith,” according to The Independent. It said it had concluded that just because a person was not able to eat pork or drink alcohol didn’t mean they should be allowed to avoid handling them altogether.

Asda and Tesco both said they were unlikely to employ a person at the checkout registers who could not handle some goods – though the latter said they dealt with the issue on a case-by-case basis.

As expected, a Facebook campaign group calling on people to boycott Marks & Spencer has attracted almost 2,000 ‘likes’ within a day of being set up. The store’s Jewish policy is not attacked in the byline, rather what was highly reported about Muslim staffers refusing to check out customers for religious reasons.

Marks and Spencer customer Matt Syson accused M&S of creating “division and hatred within our communities”.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)

Despite the President’s opposition, Senator Chuck Schumer said Sunday sanctions against Iran are still needed to force the nation to negotiate over its nuclear program.

“The Iranians didn’t come to the table out of the goodness of their heart,” Mr. Schumer said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s pretty logical that it’s sanctions, tough sanctions, that brought them to the table.”

In a Friday press conference, President Obama suggested Congress talking tough on Iran as a desire to cater to the pro-Israel crowd. “I’m not surprised that there’s been some talk from some members of Congress about new sanctions — I think the politics of trying to look tough on Iran are often good when you’re running for office or if you’re in office,” said President Obama.

But Senator Schumer maintained that the measures taken by Congress will benefit the prospects of a good deal. “The best way to get Iran to give up nukes is to increase sanctions – it’s simple and logical. We have to be tough,” he said “I think that will make them negotiate and give up more.”

Meanwhile, as Obama heads off for a week vacation, Iranian lawmakers on Friday threatened that the Senate bill would be met with the appropriate response.

Mehdi Moussavinejad, a senior member of the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, said lawmakers were considering a measure that would increase Iran’s uranium enrichment from the current 20 percent to more than 60%, substantially closer to the 90% needed for nuclear weapons fuel.

“Given the method that the other negotiating side — the U.S. in particular — has adopted during the nuclear negotiations, the legislators are working on a bill that will require the government to increase the level of uranium to over 60%,” Moussavinejad told the official Iranian Republic News Agency.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)