USA

A rags to riches, real-life Hollywood legend: Kirk Douglas turns 100

He’s ruggedly handsome with his trademark cleft in his square chin, a Hollywood film legend: Issur Danielovitch Demsky. Who? The world knows him as Kirk Douglas. And on Friday he turns 100 years old. A look at Kirk Douglas and his only-in-America career Los Angeles (dpa) – At Thanksgiving, Kirk Douglas’s daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones posted […]

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Ohio legislators approve what would be the country’s toughest restriction on abortion

With little notice and stunning quickness, anti-abortion legislators in Ohio stand one signature away from enacting the nation’s most stringent abortion law in the hopes of sparking a nationwide reversal of the legal right of women to terminate their pregnancies. With a day left in their annual session, lawmakers Wednesday delivered to Gov. John Kasich

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USA

Women rabbis who waded into a sea of opposition still fighting the waves

At New York’s Central Synagogue, five female ‘firsts’ discuss their experiences pioneering the clergy in ‘Breaking Bounds’ panel By Cathryn J. Prince NEW YORK — They’d never be able to lift and carry the Torah. They’d look strange standing there on the bima (pulpit) wearing a yarmulke and prayer shawl. They don’t know how, or

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Jewish Religion, USA

Movie review: Natalie Portman embodies arresting portrait of a first lady in ‘Jackie’

The shock, grief and spotlight glare endured by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, in the days following her husband’s 1963 assassination, was there for all to see. Yet who knows what she was truly thinking, feeling, screaming inside while wiping her husband’s dried blood off her famous pink dress, or watching Lyndon B. Johnson taking the oath

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

This former Clinton official looked straight into the camera and gave the president-elect a piece of his mind

Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor during the administration of President Bill Clinton, appeared on CNN Wednesday night to deliver a message to Republican presidential-elect Donald Trump. Robert Reich: “Lemme just say, because Donald Trump is probably watching right now…” https://t.co/bD5Iskq7br — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 8, 2016 Reich, who also served in

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USA

It’s about Time: Impatient Trump revels as 2016 Person of the Year

Washington (dpa) – Donald Trump felt he should have been Time magazine’s 2015 Person of the Year, even before the first votes were cast in the Republican Party’s nominating process. Instead, the magazine named German Chancellor Angela Merkel last year for her leadership in Europe’s refugee crisis. “I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick

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USA

Senate passes landmark 21st Century Cures, sending legislation to Obama

WASHINGTON – It took nearly three years for Congress to pass the 21st Century Cures Act. The next question is: How long will it take the Food and Drug Administration to implement it? The legislation, designed to accelerate the introduction of new medical treatments by speeding up some FDA approval processes and boosting federal funding,

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Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Trump promises relief for ‘Dreamers,’ but immigrant advocates are taking no chances

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has made many promises on immigration, including a new one Wednesday to “work something out” for the so-called Dreamers — young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. “We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” Trump said in a Time magazine interview.

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International, USA

Judge denies Jill Stein’s request for audit of Philly voting machines

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia judge has denied Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s request for a forensic audit of voting machines used in the city. Common Pleas Court Judge Abbe Fletman, in a written opinion issued Wednesday, said Stein “is mistaken” in her claim that the state Election Code gives her a right to the

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USA

AJC Urges House to Adopt Anti-Semitism Awareness Act

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — AJC is urging members of the U.S. House of Representatives to adopt the bipartisan Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016. The Senate has already passed the measure, and once the House does so it can be delivered to President Obama for his signature before Congress recesses. “The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act

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USA

‘Hate Spaces’ reveals toxic campus bigotry

  By Richard L. Cravatts, PhD BOSTON, Massachusetts — On a November night in 2004, almost four hundred students at Columbia University sat crowded into the theater of the University’s Lerner Hall to watch a troubling 25-minute film that was finally being released to the public, “Columbia Unbecoming,” produced by Dr. Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser.

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Middle East, Richard L. Cravatts, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Scott Pruitt to be Trump’s EPA chief: Report

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to multiple reports. The pick of Mr. Pruitt, who has sued the EPA multiple times to challenge President Obama’s regulatory agenda, is guaranteed to thrill conservatives who think the agency has overstepped its authority. But the

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USA