USA

Washington calls Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing video ‘inappropriate’

Washington on Friday fumed at comments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video released online in which he accused the Palestinians of advocating ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population in the West Bank. US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters the administration is “engaging in direct conversations with the Israeli government” about […]

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Middle East, USA

Federal government halts Dakota pipeline amid Sioux tribe’s objection

Washington (dpa) – The US Justice Department ordered a halt Friday to construction of an oil pipeline opposed by a native American tribe in North Dakota. The decision in Washington came minutes after a federal judge had rejected the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s plea to temporarily block the Dakota Access underground pipeline. The tribe argues

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USA

Hillary Clinton: Half of Donald Trump supporters in ‘basket of deplorables’

Hillary Clinton said Friday night that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are sexist, racist and homophobic, writing off roughly a quarter of the American population as “irredeemable.” At a fundraiser in New York, Mrs. Clinton attempted to explain the support for Mr. Trump, who is running neck-and-neck with her in some recent polls. “To just

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USA

Israel-Palestine clarity

Moments of sudden clarity in political developments can strike anywhere and at any time, as I experienced in relation to the Palestine-Israel conflict while riding the F-train subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan Tuesday morning. Three separate stories I read in the press during that subway ride explain the sudden clarity I experienced on this complex

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Middle East, USA

Star Trek 50: 10 Times William Shatner Was the Funniest Person in the Galaxy

For today’s 50th anniversary of Star Trek, we could have compiled a list of best and worst episodes, but that’s kind of been done before. Instead, we wanted to pay tribute to the comic genius of the original Captain Kirk, who has been regaling fans with his Kaufmanesque style of humor for almost as long

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Correlation between Jewish holidays and Twitter faux pas?

According to an article in Highline about US Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a friend of Ivanka’s noted a correlation between the occurrence of the Jewish Sabbath and holidays and Donald Trump’s more outstanding Twitter faux pas. The friend attributed the correlation to the fact that Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner are not

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Jewish Religion, USA

Trump says the US should have taken Iraq’s oil; here’s why that wasn’t an option

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump says he wants to end long U.S. military entanglements. But he has also repeatedly said the U.S. should have seized Iraq’s oil after the 2003 invasion — an undertaking that would have been illegal, required decades of occupation by hundreds of thousands of troops, increased the risk of casualties and probably

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Middle East, USA

Obama calls North Korea’s latest nuclear test a ‘grave threat’ to international stability

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama called North Korea’s latest nuclear test a “grave threat” to regional security and international stability and again vowed to take “additional significant steps,” including sanctions, against the rogue state. North Korea’s fifth test, which South Korean officials called its most powerful to date, demonstrates that the communist nation has no

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International, USA

Tim Kaine on Vladimir Putin: ‘There’s a difference between dictatorship and leadership’

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said Friday that the Republican presidential ticket’s recently citing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strong leadership in his country compared to President Obama is “unpatriotic” and demonstrates an “irrational hostility” toward Mr. Obama. Mr. Kaine was asked about GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s comments to CNN Thursday that it’s

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International, USA

Helping Syrian refugees is the Christian thing to do, say these church leaders

People from Syria, lucky enough to have escaped the civil war alive, then to make it all the way to the United States as refugees, have stepped into a political free-fire zone. More than half of US governors, all but one of them Republicans, say that Syrian refugees are not welcome in their states. GOP

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International, USA

Minnesota Republican Party hits back at effort to oust Trump from state’s ballot

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Keith Downey said Friday that a lawsuit by the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party to strike Donald Trump and Gov. Mike Pence from the state ballot in November is “a blatant and frivolous attempt to disenfranchise so many Minnesota voters.” DFL Chairman Ken Martin filed the petition Thursday with the Minnesota

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USA

NBC News chief praises Lauer’s presidential forum performance

NEW YORK — NBC News Chairman Andy Lack is standing up for Matt Lauer after the “Today” co-anchor was torched for his moderating skills at Wednesday’s “Commander In Chief Forum.” Lack issued an internal memo to staffers late Friday congratulating them on the news division’s one-hour special, in which presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald

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USA