Yeshiva World News

Three men accused of making Molotov cocktails had been planning to attack President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home and other targets during this weekend’s NATO summit, prosecutors said Saturday.

The three were arrested Wednesday when police raided an apartment on the city’s South Side ahead of the two-day meeting.

Defense attorneys alleged that the arrests were an effort to scare the thousands of people expected to protest at the gathering of world leaders. They told a judge that undercover police were the ones who brought the Molotov cocktails.

“This is just propaganda to create a climate of fear,” defense attorney Michael Duetsch said.

Later, outside the courtroom, Duetsch said two undercover police officers or informants who called themselves “Mo” and “Gloves” were also arrested during the Wednesday raid, and defense attorneys said they later lost track of the two.

“We believe this is all a setup and entrapment to the highest degree,” Duetsch said.

The trio was charged with providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives.

The suspects were each being held on $1.5 million bond. They apparently came to Chicago late last month to take part in May Day protests. Six others arrested Wednesday in the raid were released Friday without being charged.

Chicago police Lt. Kenneth Stoppa declined to elaborate on the case beyond confirming the charges against the three who were still in custody.

Police identified the suspects as Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H.; and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24. A police spokesman gave Betterly’s hometown as Oakland Park, Mass., but no such town exists. There is an Oakland Park, Fla., that is near Fort Lauderdale.

(Source: ABC News)

Californian company SpaceX aborted the landmark launch of its Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) at the last second early Saturday due to technical problems.

The unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 was due to blast off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 4:55am local time, but was halted with 0.5 seconds to liftoff after one of the rocket’s nine engines exceeded a technical limit.

SpaceX president, Gwynne Shotwell, said at a news conference that high combustion chamber pressure on engine five kept the cargo-carrying rocket grounded. The capsule needs “all nine engines to lift off” successfully, Shotwell said.

She confirmed the launch was rescheduled for 3:44am local time Tuesday.

NASA’s Alan Lindenmoyer added that a backup launch date was booked for Wednesday at 3:21am local time in case further problems occur.

Fueled by a taxpayer investment of nearly $400 million, SpaceX was bidding to become the first private firm to send its own capsule to the ISS amid a high-stakes commercial space race.

But its failure to launch looked likely to spark further criticism of the enterprise and call into question NASA’s continuing attempts to fund private companies to replace Russian crafts in transporting American astronauts to the space hub.

Yet Shotwell told reporters, “This is not a failure. We aborted with purpose. It would have been a failure if we had lifted off [with engine problems].”

(Source: MyFoxNY)

Vice President Biden said he understood the frustration that led many West Virginia Democrats to vote for a felon over President Obama in the state’s presidential primary.

Asked what he made of a felon sitting in a Texas prison who won four out of 10 Democratic primary voters in West Virginia, Biden told Ohio television station WTOV that he doesn’t blame people who are frustrated and angry over the economy.

“Look, I come from a household where whenever there’s a recession, somebody around my grandpop or my dad’s table lost a job. A brother, a sister a friend, a neighbor,” Biden said. “When you’re out of work, man, it’s a depression.”

Biden said a lot of Americans are still hurting because of the recession the Obama administration inherited.

“And so I don’t blame people. They’re frustrated, they’re angry,” Biden said.

He added that Americans would eventually decide that the path back to employment and prosperity would lead them to Obama’s approach rather than Mitt Romney’s.

(Source: The Hill)

It looks like Mayor Bloomberg really was taking a snow day during the 2010 X-Mas Blizzard.

Bloomberg’s public schedule for 2010 fails to account for his whereabouts for more than 24 hours as the deadly snowstorm began to batter the city, records obtained by the Daily News show.

His public schedule shows he attended midnight Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve.

The next entry was made at 2:45 p.m. Dec. 26 and shows that he was at a Sanitation garage on the west side of Manhattan updating the city on the snow removal response.

There’s no entry for any events on Dec. 25 as the snowstorm threatened.

Bloomberg had a private meeting for 90 minutes and a private lunch for two hours — the topics and attendees of which are blacked out of his schedule — on Dec. 24.

The blizzard left New York City buried in more than 20 inches of snow with streets impassable for many emergency vehicles.

Bloomberg was bashed for being AWOL with many people believing he was at his Bermuda getaway. The mayor’s office has never given a full accounting of where he was on Dec. 25.

The mayor’s public schedule was obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request.

When asked why Dec. 25 was missing, Bloomberg spokesman Stuart Loeser said, “Calendars show appointments only, they don’t reflect anything other than that.”

Bloomberg’s botched response to the blizzard marred his third term and prompted a report on the city’s revamped 911 emergency call center, as stranded ambulances were unable to get to medical emergencies.

Bloomberg fought the release of the report and when it was finally made public gave it the cold shoulder, saying he didn’t “bother” to read the city-funded review.

(Source: NY Daily News)

Free checking at Wells Fargo is officially over.

Effective August 7, all Essential Checking customers will pay a $7 monthly service fee. Until recently, some former Wachovia customers were still able to maintain their original free checking accounts, a holdover from the merger of Wachovia and Wells Fargo in 2008. But that will end by late summer, Wells Fargo confirmed this week.

The cost to use an Essential Checking account will be $7 per month for all customers, although account holders who opt for paperless statements can get a $2 discount, paying $5 a month for an account. Customers can get around the service fee by maintaining a daily minimum balance of $1,500 or with direct deposits of at least $500 per month, the bank said.

The change affects customers in five states, including Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, as well as Washington, D.C.
Wells Fargo has been phasing out its free checking over the past two years.

In July 2010, the bank stopped offering free accounts to new customers, but some existing customers, including those who came from Wachovia, were grandfathered into zero-cost accounts. In March the bank announced it would start charging customers in six other states for their checking accounts, beginning in June.

“We make changes based on industry trends and what’s going on in the economic and regulatory environment,” Richele Messick, a Wells Fargo spokewoman, told The Huffington Post on Friday. Wells Fargo has said it costs the bank between $200 and $300 to provide a checking account.

Wells Fargo is based in San Francisco and acquired Wachovia during the 2008 financial crisis. The merger brought the Wells Fargo brand into new areas of the United States, including states in the South and Mid-Atlantic regions.

All banks are trying to find ways to increase revenue, which has been curbed by recent financial regulations on how they can charge overdraft fees, as well as rules limiting the money they can make from fees related to debit-card swipes.

U.S. Bank said this week it was increasing overdrafts fees to $35, up from $33. In April, the cost for a checking account at Citizens Bank doubled. And JPMorgan Chase is debuting a prepaid card this summer that will cost $4.95 per month — a product that JPMorgan has said it wants to position as an alternative to a checking account.

(Source: Huffington Post)

A blind Chinese legal activist who was hurriedly taken from a hospital and put on a plane for the United States on Saturday has arrived at New Jersey’s Newark Airport.

Chen Guangcheng, sitting in a wheelchair and accompanied by his wife and two children, boarded United Airlines Flight 88 for the 12-hour flight to Newark, outside New York City, a few hours after Chinese authorities suddenly told him to pack and prepare to leave.

“Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind,” Chen said at the airport. His concerns, he said, included whether authorities would retaliate for his negotiated departure by punishing his relatives left behind. It also is unclear whether the government will allow him to return.

The Chens’ departure to the United States marks the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by local authorities for the activist.

After seven years of prison and house arrest, Chen made a daring escape from his rural village in late April and was given sanctuary inside the U.S. Embassy, triggering a diplomatic standoff over his fate. With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Beijing for annual high-level discussions, officials struck a deal that let Chen walk free, only to see him have second thoughts, forcing new negotiations that led to an agreement to send him to the U.S. to study law _ a goal of his _ at New York University.

Chen’s supporters welcomed his departure. “I think this is great progress,” said U.S.-based rights activist Bob Fu. “It’s a victory for freedom fighters.”

The 40-year-old Chen is emblematic of a new breed of activists that the Communist Party finds threatening. Often from rural and working-class families, these “rights defenders,” as they are called, are unlike the students and intellectuals from the elite academies and major cities of previous democracy movements and thus could potentially appeal to ordinary Chinese.

Chen gained recognition for crusading for the disabled and for farmers’ rights and fighting against forced abortions in his rural community. That angered local officials, who seemed to wage a personal vendetta against him, convicting him in 2006 on what his supporters say were fabricated charges and then holding him for the past 20 months in illegal house arrest.

Even with the backstage negotiations, Chen’s departure came hastily. Chen spent the last two and a half weeks in a hospital being given medical treatment for the foot he broke escaping house arrest. Only on Wednesday did Chinese authorities help him complete the paperwork needed for his passport.

Chen said by telephone Saturday that he was informed at the hospital just before noon to pack his bags to leave. Officials did not give him and his family passports or inform them of their flight details until after they got to the airport.

(Source: WCBSTV)

Thieves are very busy preying on residents of Teaneck, New Jersey.

The problem is being called an epidemic of identity theft and credit card fraud with more than 200 victims and counting.

The small police force in the town has been swamped with complaints over the past couple days.

“This has really been like an outbreak here in Teaneck,” Councilmember Elie Katz told CBS 2′s Dave Carlin.

Rachel Schechter was shopping in Paramus on Tuesday while thieves were doing the same thing in Florida with her stolen credit card number. The fraud triggered an immediate red flag for Chase Bank and Schechter got a call.

“There was my charges plus their charges,” Schechter told Carlin.

A similar incident has also happened to Councilmember Katz. The number for his Citibank credit card was stolen and used for hotels in the Midwest.

“They need to find a common denominator between the different charges,” he said. “My mother had the same issue and some of her friends.”

As a result, Katz sent out a mass email, warning Teaneck residents to check their accounts.

“You don’t want to use your credit cards anymore because you don’t know who’s getting the numbers,” one resident said.

Some of the victims, acting as amateur detectives, thought they had it narrowed down to stores on one block of Teaneck, but they came to find out other victims who reported issues had never shopped in the area.

“It’s a real mystery,” said Lindsey Mejia.

Criminals may be stealing account information out of people’s mailboxes and victims are being urged to first call their credit card companies and then police.

Authorities want people to pass along all the information to help cops connect the dots, close this case and charge the criminals.

Identity theft experts also said everyone should protect themselves by reviewing statements carefully, verifying mailing addresses with the post office and financial institutions and monitoring credit reports.

(Source: WCBSTV)

Federal investigators say the driver in last year’s deadly bus crash in the Bronx may not have had the sleep he claimed in the days leading up to the accident.

Newly-released documents from the National Transportation Safety Board show Ophadell Williams’ cell phone and rental car were used heavily during hours he said he was sleeping.

The documents also show Williams’ driving privileges were suspended 18 times between 1987 and 2007.

Williams was driving a busload of passengers back to Manhattan after a night of gambling last March when his bus flipped on its side on the New England Thruway.

Fifteen people were killed.

Williams told investigators a truck clipped the bus.

He pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

The NTSB will hold a meeting on the crash in Washington next month.

(Source: NY1)

Top New York City Police Department brass and and the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association are butting heads.

Over the past week, the police officers’ union has flooded city newspapers with ads saying that beat cops are being forced to issue tickets by their superiors.

PBA president Pat Lynch says it amounts to a quota to issue tickets and to get convictions in traffic court. If they don’t, Lynch claims officers are punished.

“There is huge pressure put on our police officers to give out summonses and now there is huge pressure in traffic court to get convictions,” he said.

Officials at One Police Plaza say officers are only disciplined if they don’t show up to appearances in court for tickets that they write.

“That’s not our function,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. “We give out summonses to keep people safe to do what we can to expedite the flow of traffic, not to generate dollars.”

These ads are just the latest development in a growing spat between police plaza and the police officers’ union. And Lynch says they will continue to run them until police plaza and the union can agree on a solution on so-called ticket quotas.

“We don’t want the pressure from the job to do more and more and say if you make a mistake in traffic court, we’re going to take your vacation time away,” Lynch said.”

While union officials are lashing out at top brass, they’re cozying up to other city officials, including Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, who won their backing in her bid for congress.

“I believe police officers stop when they suspect that there is somebody out there that is up to no good, so to speak,” Crowley said.

(Source: NY1)

Pfizer Inc. (PFE)’s antibiotic Zithromax and its generic competitors carry a “small increase” in the risk of cardiovascular death compared with another common antibiotic, a study found.

The pills, which are used to treat infections, caused a “small absolute increase in cardiovascular deaths” among patients, particularly those who had a higher chance of heart problems, according to the study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration “is reviewing the results from this study and will communicate any new information that results,” the agency said in a statement posted on its website.

The study looked at 350,000 patient prescriptions for azithromycin taken by people in Tennessee covered by Medicaid, the state-U.S. health program for the poor. The research showed that 85 of every 1 million treatment courses of the drug were associated with cardiac death. That’s more than twice the rate on the antibiotic amoxicillin, according to the study.

“We are thoroughly reviewing this observational study within the overall context of the data we’ve collected for more than two decades on Zithromax’s benefits and risks,” Joan Campion, a Pfizer spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Zithromax generated about $453 million for Pfizer last year. The drug no longer has patent protection and generic versions also are sold. The medicine is prescribed in patients to treat bacterial infections of the respiratory system and urinary tract and for tonsillitis.

(Source: Bloomberg)

The U.S. has plans in place to attack Iran if necessary to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, Washington’s envoy to Israel said, days ahead of a crucial round of nuclear talks with Tehran.

Dan Shapiro’s message resonated Thursday far beyond the closed forum in which it was made: Iran should not test Washington’s resolve to act on its promise to strike if diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its disputed nuclear program.

Shapiro told the Israel Bar Association the U.S. hopes it will not have to resort to military force.

“But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available. Not just available, but it’s ready,” he said. “The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”

Washington says diplomacy and economic sanctions must be given a chance to run its course, and is taking the lead in the ongoing talks between six global powers and Iran.

Israel, while saying it would prefer a diplomatic solution, has expressed skepticism about these talks and says time is running out for military action to be effective.

President Barack Obama has assured Israel that the U.S. is prepared to take military action if necessary, and it is standard procedure for armies to draw up plans for a broad range of possible scenarios. But Shapiro’s comments were the most explicit sign yet that preparations have been stepped up.

In his speech, Shapiro acknowledged the clock is ticking.

“We do believe there is time. Some time, not an unlimited amount of time,” Shapiro said. “But at a certain point, we may have to make a judgment that the diplomacy will not work.”

The U.S. envoy spoke on Tuesday. The Associated Press obtained a recording of his remarks on Thursday.

READ MORE: FOX NEWS

The Justice Ministry is seeking to significantly expand the number of government agencies authorized to track the moves of citizens for investigation purposes, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.

The new legislation would grant the Antiquities Authority, the Nature and Parks Authority and the Environmental Protection Ministry, among others, permission to tap Israelis’ phones and computers.

The bill aims to amend a law from 2007 that regulates the authorities’ ability to seize individuals’ records from companies that provide communication services. The law enables the relevant agencies to apply for tracking warrants; if granted by the court, these warrants allow officials to eavesdrop on suspects’ phone conversations and go through their text messages, e-mails and computer files.

The Agriculture Ministry and the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment would also be among the government bodies allowed access to personal information if the amendment is ratified.

The revised legislation would not only apply to suspected felonies, as does the original law, but also to misdemeanors, a move that could expose a wider array of citizens to tracking.

The proposed legislation is expected to be put up for the Knesset’s approval by the end of the year.

READ MORE: YNET

Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen shot and killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in February, had traces of marijuana in his system at the time of his death, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.

The report shows that a medical examiner found THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in Martin’s blood and urine. The chemical can remain in an individual’s system weeks after marijuana usee.

Days before his death, Martin had reportedly been suspended from school because an empty baggie with traces of marijuana had been found in his bookbag.

The autopsy report also showed Martin, 17, was shot at an “intermediate range” — described as a distance between one and 18 inches — and that he had an abrasion on one of his fingers.

The report could bolster Zimmerman’s claims that he shot Martin while on his back during a struggle.

Zimmerman, 28, told police he shot Martin in self-defense after the unarmed African-American teen attacked him in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., an Orlando suburb.

In a witness statement made public Thursday, one resident told police he heard a commotion and then witnessed “a black male, wearing a dark colored “hoodie” on top of a white or Hispanic male who was yelling for help, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The witness said the black male was mounted on the white or Hispanic male and throwing punches “MMA (mixed martial arts) style.”

In a 911 call released from the night of the fatal shooting, loud wailing can be heard in the background followed by a gunshot.

Martin’s family identified the screaming voice as the teen’s in their case against Zimmerman, but the shooter’s father, Robert Zimmerman, disputed that claim in an interview investigators released as part of the bundle of evidence made public Thursday.

“That is absolutely, positively George Zimmerman,” the elder Zimmerman told police, according to the Sentinel. “Myself, my wife, family members and friends know that that is George Zimmerman, there is no doubt, who’s yelling for help.”

Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 shooting death of Martin. The six-week interval between Martin’s death and Zimmerman’s arrest sparked national protests about perceived racial injustice.

(Source: MyFoxNY)