Yeshiva World News

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev downloaded bomb-making instructions from an al-Qaida magazine, gathered online material on Islamic jihad and martyrdom, and later scribbled anti-American messages inside the boat where he lay wounded, a federal indictment charged Thursday.

The 30-count indictment contains the bombing charges, punishable by the death penalty, that were brought against the 19-year-old Tsarnaev in April. But prosecutors added charges covering the slaying of an MIT police officer and the carjacking of a motorist during the getaway attempt that left Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, dead.

Three people were killed and more than 260 wounded by the two pressure-cooker bombs that went off near the finish line of the marathon on April 15.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured four days later, hiding in a boat parked in a backyard in Watertown, Mass.

According to the indictment, he scrawled messages on the inside of the vessel that said, among other things, “The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians,” ”I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished,” and “We Muslims are one body you hurt one you hurt us all.”

The Tsarnaev brothers had roots in the turbulent Russian regions of Dagestan and Chechnya, which have become recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists. They had been living in the U.S. about a decade.

But the indictment made no mention of any larger conspiracy beyond the brothers, and no reference to any direct overseas contacts with extremists. Instead, the indictment suggests the Internet played a central role in the suspects’ radicalization.

Before the attack, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev downloaded onto his computer the summer 2010 issue of Inspire, an online English-language magazine published by al-Qaida, according to the indictment. The issue detailed how to make bombs from pressure cookers, explosive powder extracted from fireworks, and lethal shrapnel.

He also downloaded extremist Muslim literature, including “Defense of the Muslim Lands, the First Obligation after Imam,” which advocates “violence designed to terrorize the perceived enemies of Islam, among other things,” the indictment said.

Another tract downloaded included a foreword by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American propagandist for al-Qaida who was killed in a U.S. drone strike, federal prosecutors said.

The indictment assembled and confirmed details of the case that have been widely reported over the past two months, and added new pieces of information.

For example, it confirmed that Tamerlan Tsarnaev bought 48 fireworks mortar shells containing about eight pounds of explosive powder from a Seabrook, N.H., fireworks store. It also disclosed that he used the Internet to order electronic components that could be used in making bombs.

The papers detail how the brothers then placed knapsacks containing shrapnel-packed bombs near the finish line of the 26.2-mile race.

“The defendant’s alleged conduct forever changed lives,” U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in announcing the indictment.

The court papers also confirm that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev inadvertently contributed to his brother’s death by running him over during a shootout and police chase.

The charges cover the slaying of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, who authorities said was shot in the head at close range in his cruiser by the Tsarnaevs during their getaway attempt. The brothers tried to take his gun, prosecutors said.

In addition, prosecutors said that during the carjacking, the Tsarnaev brothers forced the motorist to turn over his ATM card and his password, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev withdrew $800 from the man’s account.

At the same time the federal indictment was announced, Massachusetts authorities brought a 15-count state indictment against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev over the MIT officer’s slaying and the police shootout.

(AP)

Seven Cheshvan 5774 will mark the 80th anniversary of the petira of Rabbi Yehuda Meir Shapira of Lublin ZT”VL, the father of daf yomi. The international council to perpetuate his name is quite busy preparing for the special yahrzeit.

Jerusalem askan Rav Chaim Miller has informed the council that efforts are underway to perpetuate the rav’s name, davka this year, by naming a square after him. In addition, special Torah events will be held with the participation of Maranan Rabbanan Gedolei Yisrael Shlita in Eretz Yisrael and around the world.

Rav Miller has reached agreement with Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yosef Deutsch to name a traffic circle in Givat Moshe near the Shevet Halevy Beis Medrash headed by HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Halevy Wosner Shlita in memory of Rav Shapira. Rav Wosner is a talmid of the niftar.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling erasing part of a federal anti-gay marriage law was a “bad decision” and an example of “judicial supremacy.”

In January, the Republican governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate vetoed a New Jersey same-gender marriage bill. On a radio program Wednesday, he said he’d do the same to any new legislation.

If an “institution that’s over 2,000 years old” is to be changed, he says a referendum should be held.

The Supreme Court struck down a provision of a federal law denying federal benefits to married same-gender couples.

Christie calls it an “example of judicial supremacy rather than having a government run by the people we actually vote for.”

He also says, “I thought it was a bad decision.”

(AP)

The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday, 19 Tammuz 5773 sentenced Muhmad Shuish, a resident of the eastern capital, to five years imprisonment. Shuish was convicted of a stabbing attack that occurred last April in which a chareidi male was targeted near Herod’s Gate.

The attacked was an act of terror, and the conviction was the result of a plea bargain agreement between the state and the defense attorney. Justice Rafi Carmel Tzion added the circumstances surrounding the serious attack call for a stiffer sentence.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

According to a report in the daily Haaretz on Thursday, 19 Tammuz 5773, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is willing to hand over most of Yehuda and Shomron to the PA (Palestinian Authority). The report is based on quotes from senior Likud ministers, who are not named, stating the prime minister is willing to give up Israeli sovereignty over 90% of Yehuda and Shomron. They explain that for Mr. Netanyahu, it’s about security and if and when he is satisfied that the nation’s security interests are not compromised, he would move ahead with such a deal towards reaching a comprehensive agreement with the PA.

According to the unnamed ministers, the prime minister has already decided in upcoming talks with the PA orchestrated by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Israel will not be able to maintain more than 10% of those areas. As such, the prime minister is looking at another major expulsion, pushing tens of thousands of Jews from their homes as he and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) define the borders of the future State of Palestine.

Bayit Yehudi officials have indicated that if such a process appears to be taking place it would pull out of the government coalition.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

The Senate has passed historic immigration legislation offering the hope of American citizenship to millions, while promising a military-style surge to secure the border.

The vote was 68-32, eight more than needed to send the measure to the House. Prospects there are not nearly as good and many conservatives are opposed.

Vice President Joe Biden presided, and senators cast their votes from their desks, both steps reserved for momentous votes.

The bill, a priority for President Barack Obama, would amount to the most sweeping changes in decades to the nation’s immigration laws.

(AP)

Minister of Economic Affairs (Bayit Yehudi) Naftali Bennett on Wednesday, 18 Tammuz 5773 met with a delegation of Conservative Jewish leaders in the Knesset. Bennett said “since Har Sinai there has always been different shades of Judaism. I appreciate and admire your movement, the Conservative Movement. I wish to ensure, at least for myself, that we are entering into a new era.”

Bennett promised “there will be dialogue between us, not like in previous administrations.”

The Rabbinical Assembly is visiting in Israel, made of close to 200 rabbis from the Conservative Movement around the world. They are meeting with President Shimon Peres to discuss matters of religion and state. Bennett met with some of them along with attorney Yitzhar Hess, the director of the Conservative Movement.

Hess told Srugim that from his perspective, “the meeting was an historic event. It was the first time that the minister of religious affairs met with rabbis affiliated with the Conservative Movement. I think there was merit to the meeting above the concrete promises from Minister Bennett regarding promised changes in matters of religion and state, but the atmosphere of respect regarding his attitude towards Conservative Judaism was the right thing at the right time.”

Hess told Srugim that twice during their meeting Bennett made a point of saying ‘I am Orthodox’, but added that as a Jew and a cabinet minister of Israel he represents everyone, not just his sector. He promised to do his utmost to increase ahavas Yisrael towards the Jewish People uniting as one.”

In a meeting with President Peres the president told Conservative leaders that change has already begun in Israel towards recognizing non-Orthodox streams of Judaism, adding “Pluralism is already in progress.”

When the delegation met with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein he told them that regarding religion and state, it is important to learn how to handle the disagreement and disputes. He added “when one side wins, the Jewish People lose.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

Ecuador’s diplomatic mission in London issued a safe-conduct pass so National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden could travel to Ecuador to seek political asylum, but the action was unauthorized and the pass is invalid, government officials said Thursday.

President Obama sought to downplay the international chase for the man he called “a 29-year-old hacker” and lower the temperature of an issue that has raised tensions between the U.S. and uneasy partners Russia and China. Obama said in Senegal that the damage to U.S. national security has already been done and his top focus now is making sure it can’t happen again.

In contrast, Ecuadorean officials took a defiant tone as they scrambled to explain a single-page, unsigned letter dated June 22 that says Snowden has the right to travel to Ecuador for purposes of political asylum, and asks other countries to allow him safe passage. The letter was published by the Univision television network Wednesday night.

Ecuadorean officials have repeatedly expressed sympathy for Snowden for revealing secret global U.S. surveillance programs, but have insisted they have taken no decision on granting him asylum.

But they reacted strongly to threats from U.S. lawmakers that amnesty for Snowden would cost Ecuador valuable trade preferences. Officials announced they were “renouncing” the benefits and said they were being used as blackmail.

Secretary of Political Management Betty Tola told a news conference the safe-conduct pass “has no validity and is the exclusive responsibility of the person who issued it.”

Another government official said that while the document is authentic, it was issued without approval from the Foreign Ministry or other officials in the capital and thus has no legal power. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Tola told reporters that Snowden’s asylum application hadn’t been processed because he was not in Ecuador as required by law. She also threatened legal action against whoever had leaked the document. She and other officials offered no further details about his case.

The back-and-forth over the document is part of a series of varying messages from Ecuador’s leftist government about whether to offer asylum to Snowden, who is believed to remain in limbo in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after flying in from Hong Kong. Officials have appeared to signal a preference for asylum, once describing it as a choice between the interests of global elites and ordinary people, but also have said such a decision could take days, weeks or months.

The embarrassment for the Obama administration over the surveillance revelations continued as the British newspaper The Guardian reported that it allowed the National Security Agency for more than two years to collect records detailing email and Internet use by Americans. The story cited documents showing that under the program a federal judge could approve a bulk collection order for Internet metadata every 90 days.

A senior Obama administration confirmed the program and said it ended in 2011, according to The Guardian. The records were first collected during the Bush administration and the agency collected “bulk Internet metadata” that involved “communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States.”

The report said that eventually, the NSA was allowed to “analyze communications metadata associated with United States persons and persons believed to be in the United States,” according to a 2007 Justice Department memo marked secret.

On Wednesday, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, promised to lead an effort to block extension of U.S. tariff benefits if Ecuador grants asylum to Snowden.

Nearly half of Ecuador’s foreign trade depends on the United States and hundreds of millions of dollars in trade are at risk.

Communications Minister Fernando Alvarado reacted by saying his country rejects economic “blackmail.”

The program, initially meant to help Andean countries aiding in the fight against drugs, was facing an uphill fight for renewal. Alvarado did not explicitly mention a separate effort to win trade benefits under a presidential order.

“The preferences were authorized for Andean countries as compensation for the fight against drugs, but soon became a new instrument of pressure,” he said. “As a result, Ecuador unilaterally and irrevocably renounces these preferences.”

In Senegal, President Barack Obama said Thursday that The United States won’t be scrambling military jets or engaging in high-level diplomatic bartering to get Snowden extradited to the U.S.

“I’m not going to have one case with a suspect who we’re trying to extradite suddenly be elevated to the point where I’ve got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues, simply to get a guy extradited so he can face the justice system,” Obama said at a joint news conference with Senegal’s President Macky Sall.

Snowden’s intercontinental efforts to evade U.S. authorities — taking him from a hotel hideout in Hong Kong to an airport transit zone in Moscow, where he’s believed to be holed up — has already undercut Obama’s efforts to strengthen ties with China and threatened to worsen tensions with Russia just as Obama is seeking Moscow’s cooperation on Syria. At the same time, Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum from Ecuador and other nations have underscored Obama’s limited sway in a number of foreign capitals.

Obama’s comment came on the first full day of a weeklong, 3-country trip to Africa, his first major tour of sub-Saharan Africa since he took office more than four years ago.

(AP)

When MK (Yahadut Hatorah) Rabbi Uri Maklev addressed the Knesset plenum, he opted to direct the focus of his attention to the recent passing of the amended daylight savings bill.

Maklev explained “The bill passed because if affects certain populations in Israel”, accusing Minister of the Interior (Likud) Gideon Saar of pushing a “populist” bill. He questioned the sudden urgency of the bill, asking rhetorically “prior to the bill there was no clock, no sun? The difference is that once upon a time they took everyone into consideration regarding daylight savings time, but now it appears things have changed.”

Maklev explained that for decades those responsible for making decisions as to when DST would be observed always realized the advantageous of extending it, but those individuals always took the Shomer Shabbos community into consideration and therefore they never extended DST to the end of October.

Maklev questions how DST can be changed just months after the bill setting the DST dates into law was passed in Knesset.

“You use the power, drunken power, to pass things that were never required before. You don’t bother thinking about the consequences and don’t permit adequate time before implementing it. What about all the calendars that have already been printed and as a result, people may be mechalel Shabbos chas v’sholom. What about people who ordered plane tickets or planned events? It would appear the public is not of interest to the decision makers.”

“Daylight savings time is not a matter of Halacha but when people cannot daven properly because they must head to work and this does not only concern Halachic experts but it affects a large population in Israel” Maklev concluded.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Watch for most of New Jersey.

The Tornado Watch is in effect for Atlantic; Burlington; Camden; Cape May; Cumberland; Gloucester; Hunterdon; Mercer; Middlesex; Monmouth; Morris; Ocean; Salem; Somerset; Sussex; and Warren counties until 10 p.m. Thursday.

A Tornado Watch means that weather conditions are favorable for the development of severe thunderstorms that can produce tornadoes.

If you find yourself in the area affected by the Tornado Watch you should remain alert for approaching thunstorms.

A tornado is a violent rotating column of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to the ground, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s definition.

(Source: MyFoxNY)

A federal grand jury on Thursday returned a 30-count indictment against the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, and many of the charges carry the possibility of life in prison or the death penalty.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was indicted on charges including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, resulting in death.

Three people were killed and more than 260 injured in twin explosions near the finish line of the marathon on April 15. The charges also cover the death of MIT police officer Sean Collier, who authorities say was shot to death in his cruiser by the Tsarnaevs a few days after the bombing.

Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed following a shootout with police on April 19.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured later that day hiding in a boat in a backyard in Watertown, Mass. According to the indictment, he wrote a message on the inside of the boat that said, among other things, “The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians,” ”I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished,” and “We Muslims are one body you hurt one you hurt us all.”

The Tsarnaev brothers had roots in the turbulent Russian regions of Dagestan and Chechnya, which have become recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists. They had been living in the United States for about a decade.

Authorities said each of the brothers placed a knapsack containing a shrapnel-packed pressure cooker bomb near the finish line of the 26.2-mile race. The bombs went off within seconds of one another.

The U.S. attorney’s office says 17 of the charges against Tsarnaev could bring life in prison or the death penalty.

(AP)

The Ministry of Interior District Planning Board has approved the next phase of the Jerusalem light rail, to extend the line to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. This means the train service will begin in N’vei Yaakov in the northern capital and continue to Hadassah Hospital, making the length of the line 22.5 kilometers (14 miles).

Today, the train line is about half the planned length, beginning in Pisgat Ze’ev in the northern capital and continuing to Mount Herzl. The new section approved will run from Mount Herzl along Bayit Vegan, Kiryas Yovel, Kiryas Menachem, Moshav Ora, Hadassah Medical School and Hadassah Hospital.

The experts predict the number of daily riders with the addition from N’vei Yaakov to Ein Kerem will double, reaching 250,000 daily. Ministry of Transportation officials report the budget for the extension of the line is 4 billion NIS.

Once the planning phase is complete, officials hope to set deadlines in place for completion of the work.

Hadassah reports about 30,000 visitors enter the hospital complex daily in addition to hospital staff. The hospital currently has 3,000 parking spaces, some quite far from the building, resulting in the need for ongoing shuttle buses. Officials feel that once the train runs to the hospital complex, it is likely to be the quickest and most efficient way of arriving at the complex. For one thing, it will alleviate the need for one to look for a parking space in addition to paying for parking.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)