Crews search for survivors after massive twister strikes near Oklahoma City

The Oklahoma City medical examiner's office says the death toll from a massive tornado that churned through Oklahoma City Monday has been downgraded from 51 to at least 24.

"To date, 24 deceased victims of the tornado have been transported to our Oklahoma City office, and positive identifications have been made in the vast majority of those, and these are ready for return to their loved ones," spokeswoman Amy Elliott told FoxNews.com in an email.

Nine of the bodies are children.

Elliott said during early recovery efforts, 51 deaths were reported to the medical examiner's office, but some of them may have been double-counted.

She cautioned Tuesday, however, that officials could see as many as 40 additional fatalities. Authorities said initially that 20 children were among the dead.

Local news reports, citing officials, said the death toll could top 90. KFOR reports that the current death toll is 91, but that number is not yet confirmed.

The storm decimated scores of buildings in Moore, a community of 41,000 people about 10 miles south of Oklahoma City. Block after block lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.

More than 240 people are being treated at hospitals, including 60 children, Reuters reports.

“Our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today,” President Barack Obama said in a Tuesday news conference, expressing gratitude for the residents and first responders who are assisting with the search and rescue efforts, and teachers who shielded their children as the tornado hit two schools.

“The people of Moore should know that their country will remain on the ground there for them, and be beside them as long as it takes,” Obama said. “Oklahoma needs to get everything that it needs right away.”

Search-and-rescue crews were looking for anyone who may be trapped in the rubble. Many land lines to stricken areas were down, and cellphone networks were congested. The storm was so massive that it will take time to establish communications between rescuers and state officials, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said.

Fallin deployed 80 National Guard members to assist with rescue operations and activated extra highway patrol officers. She also spoke Monday night with Obama, who declared a major disaster and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

Families anxiously waited at nearby churches to hear if their loved ones had survived. A man with a megaphone stood Monday evening near St. Andrews United Methodist Church and called out the names of surviving children. Parents waited nearby, hoping to hear their sons' and daughters' names.

While some parents and children hugged each other as they reunited, others were left to wait, fearing the worst as the night dragged on.

"As long as we are here ... we are going to hold out hope that we will find survivors," said Trooper Betsy Randolph, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

Crews continued their desperate search-and-rescue effort throughout the night at Plaza Towers Elementary, where the storm had ripped off the school's roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal as students and teachers huddled in hallways and bathrooms.

Children from the school were among the dead, but several students were pulled out alive earlier Monday from under a collapsed wall and other heaps of mangled debris. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain of parents and neighborhood volunteers. Parents carried children in their arms to a triage center in the parking lot. Some of the students looked dazed while others appeared terrified.

James Rushing, who lives across the street from the school, heard reports of the approaching twister and ran to the school, where his 5-year-old foster son, Aiden, attends classes. Rushing believed he would be safer there.

"About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart," he said.

As dusk fell, heavy equipment rolled up to the school, and emergency workers wearing yellow crawled among the ruins, searching for survivors. Crews used jackhammers and sledgehammers to tear away concrete, and chunks were being thrown to the side as the workers dug.

Douglas Sherman drove two blocks from his home to help.

"Just having those kids trapped in that school, that really turns the table on a lot of things," he said.

Another school, Briarwood Elementary, was also damaged by the tornado.

In video of the storm, the dark funnel cloud could be seen marching slowly across the green landscape. As it churned through the community, the twister scattered shards of wood, awnings and glass all over the streets.

The tornado also destroyed the community hospital and some retail stores. Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis watched it pass through from his jewelry shop.

"All of my employees were in the vault," Lewis said.

Chris Calvert saw the menacing cloud approaching from about a mile away.

"I was close enough to hear it," he said. "It was just a low roar, and you could see the debris, like pieces of shingles and insulation and stuff like that, rotating around it."

Even though his subdivision is a mile from the tornado's path, it was still covered with debris. He found a picture of a small girl on Santa Claus' lap in his yard.

A map provided by the National Weather Service showed that the storm began west of Newcastle and crossed the Canadian River into Oklahoma City's rural far southwestern side about 3 p.m. When it reached Moore, the twister cut a path through the center of town before lifting back into the sky at Lake Stanley Draper.

The National Weather Service issued an initial finding that the tornado was an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, the second most-powerful type of twister. It also said the tornado was at least a half-mile wide, but other news reports estimated the width to be up to 2 miles.

Monday's powerful tornado loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999; the storm then had winds clocked at 300 mph.

Kelsey Angle, a weather service meteorologist in Kansas City, Mo., said it's unusual for two such powerful tornadoes to track roughly the same path. It was the fourth tornado to hit Moore since 1998. A twister also struck in 2003.

Lewis, who was also mayor during the 1999 storm, said the city was already working to recover.

"We've already started printing the street signs," he said. "It took 61 days to clean up after the 1999 tornado. We had a lot of help then. We've got a lot of help now."

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman had predicted a major outbreak of severe weather Monday in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. The area at risk does not include Moore, Okla.

On Sunday, at least two people were killed and 29 were injured in Oklahoma as a severe storm system generated several tornadoes in Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa, leveling neighborhoods and sending frightened residents scurrying for shelter as extreme conditions are expected to linger across the Midwest.

At least four separate twisters touched down in central Oklahoma late Sunday afternoon, including one near the town of Shawnee, 35 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, that laid waste to much of a mobile home park.

Elliott on Monday said the two people killed in the Shawnee-area tornado were 79-year-old Glen Irish and 76-year-old Billy Hutchinson. Both men were from the town.

Monday's devastation in Oklahoma came almost exactly two years after an enormous twister ripped through the city of Joplin, Mo., killing 158 people and injuring hundreds more.

That May 22, 2011, tornado was the deadliest in the United States since modern tornado record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Before Joplin, the deadliest modern tornado was June 1953 in Flint, Mich., when 116 people died.

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NYPD Narcotics Arrest Turns into Anti-Semitic Tirade

Tuesday night, just as Jews began celebrating the holiday of Shavuos, police officers were arresting two people for selling and buying illegal drugs just a few blocks away from 770. The incident then turned into a despicable racists rant by some of the residents.

The incident occurred on Tuesday, May 14th at around 8:30pm on Kingston and Atlantic Avenues – just 10 blocks away from 770. Anti crime police officers from the 77th Precinct busted one black male for the possession and sale of illegal narcotics, and another for purchasing and possession of the same.

Angry residents took to the street and shouted at police officers, protesting the arrests. Amid the unrest police arrested a third individual for Obstruction of Governmental Administration.

While most of the anger was directed at the police some residents took to accusing the “Jews” of their “problems”. “This aint New York, this is Jew York” shouted one woman, who went on shouting “those Jews are raping and murdering and [the police] doesn’t arrest them.”

The disgusting foul language tirade went on for nearly 5 minutes, until the camera stopped recording.

 

 

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Washington - Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Case Of "Complaining" Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg

Washington, DC - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to weigh whether federal law prevented a customer from suing an airline for kicking him out of its frequent flyer program for allegedly complaining too frequently about the service.

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg sued Northwest Airlines Corp, which ceased operations in 2010 after merging with Delta Air Lines Inc, for breach of contract after the airline said he had abused the program.

Ginsberg, who is from Min

nesota, said he and his wife were thrown out in 2008 for filing too many service complaints.

He said the airline told him it took action in part because he allegedly sought compensation after booking reservations on full flights, knowing he would be bumped to another flight.

Ginsberg said his complaints involved only a small proportion of the flights he took on Northwest and were limited to such issues as long waits for luggage and not being notified about flight cancellations. Northwest said he filed 24 complaints.

A federal judge in California dismissed Ginsberg’s lawsuit, which he filed as a possible class action on behalf of others who might have been treated the same way. The judge said Ginsberg’s claims were foreclosed because of a federal aviation law, the Airline Deregulation Act. The law says states cannot pass laws that address price, route or service of an air carrier.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with the judge, reviving the lawsuit on the basis that Ginsberg’s contractual claim based on Minnesota state law was not related to the price, route or service.

At least four of the nine justices must agree to hear a case before the Supreme Court will accept it. Oral arguments and a ruling are due in the court’s next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2014.

The case is Northwest v. Ginsberg, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-462.

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EU denies holding off on settlement product labeling

The European Union on Monday denied a report that claimed it had frozen a plan to label imported Israeli goods produced beyond the Green Line.

A report in Haaretz on Sunday quoted “European diplomats and senior officials in Jerusalem” as saying that after US pressure the EU agreed to hold off on the move until the end of June.

But an EU spokeperson said legislation to label settlement goods was ongoing.

“Contrary to what was recently reported in the Israeli media, work on the effective enforcement of EU legislation with regard to the labelling of settlement products has not been delayed. Nor has the EU been asked to postpone such work,” a spokesperson of the EU delegation in Israel said in a statement Monday.

The Haaretz report quoted a senior Israeli official as saying that Jerusalem recently asked Washington to intervene in an effort to block or delay the EU move to label settlement goods. According to the official, Israel even appealed directly to US Secretary of State John Kerry.

As a result of Israel’s lobbying, the implementation of the labeling scheme, which was expected to be approved at an EU Foreign Affairs meeting next week, had been delayed until June, the report said.

The EU commission made the initial decision to label settlement goods in May 2012, but is working on legislating guidelines to implement the decision.

According to European officials quoted in the report, the Americans said that the labeling plan would complicate renewed US and EU efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The delay was conditional on progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and if no breakthrough is forthcoming, the EU will initiate the labeling plan, an Israeli official was quoted as saying.

Despite the EU’s insistence that no one asked it to postpone its labeling plans, a diplomatic source in Jerusalem told The Times of Israel on Monday that it was “likely” that the Americans did approach the Europeans and suggested they hold off on any moves that could upset either side on the Israeli-Palestinian divide, including the introduction of a labeling regime for settlement products.

The EU has for several months been working toward enacting guidelines that would require retailers to label Israeli goods produced beyond the pre-1967 lines as not having originated in Israel. Several EU states, including the UK and the Netherlands, have declared their support for such measures; the South African government introduced similar steps recently.

Last week, former US president Jimmy Carter endorsed the EU’s plans to label settlement goods, saying such a measure would pressure Israel into restarting peace talks with the Palestinians. “The EU has repeatedly condemned settlement expansion in the West Bank. It could therefore introduce a clear labeling of products made in Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law,” he said.

“The question of so-called labeling is one of the issues where the Europeans just want to make sure that, according to our consumer laws, the consumers have the information they want to have,” the EU’s special representative to the Middle East peace process, Ambassador Andreas Reinicke, told reporters in Jerusalem earlier this month.

The EU recognizes Israel only in its pre-1967 borders, and an increasing number of states are in favor of labeling Israeli products from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. While last year only one or two countries recommended that retailers label such goods, currently 13 of the EU’s 27 member states are considering similar measures, Reinicke said.

“The settlement issue for us Europeans is a very important issue because we are increasingly convinced that the increasing number of settlements endangers the two-state solution, because it makes it factually impossible,” Reinicke said.

Israel vehemently opposes any efforts to impose labeling requirements for settlement goods, arguing that such policies are discriminatory in that they single out Israel while ignoring territorial disputes elsewhere.

During a meeting with Reinicke on May 8, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin tried to dissuade the ambassador from imposing a labeling regime on settlement products.

“Labeling products is a negative phenomenon that will ultimately hurt the Palestinian economy and the Palestinians who work in factories” in the West Bank, Elkin told Reinicke. “It’s too bad that this phenomenon is being allowed to expand instead of stopping it completely.”

Gavriel Fiske and JTA contributed to this report.

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Israeli food giant admits to abusive slaughterhouse conditions that 'would horrify' meat eaters

In its response to two requests to file class action suits against the company, heard Monday in Jerusalem District Court, Tnuva Food Industries was surprisingly upfront about the practices at its Bet She'an slaughterhouse.

The suit applications follow a televised investigation on Israeli television several months ago with disturbing images from the slaughterhouse.

"Whereas the purchasers of other consumer goods could believe their production does not entail causing suffering and harm to the workers who participate in it,” Tnuva said in its statement to the court, “the consumer of meat products cannot make a similar assumption about the animals from whose flesh they are produced, since slaughtering by its very nature causes the animals great suffering."

On Monday, the court was scheduled to debate the merit of the actions ahead of deciding whether one or both may go forward.

In separate applications, Ruth Kolian and Perach Amzaleg argue that Tnuva has deceived consumers by creating a false impression of strict regulations and fair treatment of the animals, while in reality the production of meat at the slaughterhouse, which is sold under the Adom Adom label, involves great suffering for them.

The claims are based on an investigative report broadcast in December 2012 on Israel Channel 2 television's Kolbotek.

The segment was produced by Ronen Bar, a journalist and animal rights activist who worked at the slaughterhouse for a month and a half while secretly documenting its practices.

In the broadcasted scenes, workers are seen hitting calves and lambs with sticks and electric shockers, holding animals by one leg and dragging them with a forklift, throwing lambs into the air and hanging the animals upside down, still alive and conscious, after slaughter.

Both lawsuit applications cite consumer deception as the legal basis for the action. Kolian and Amzaleg say Tnuva has profited illegally from many consumers who would not have bought its products had they been aware of the practices at the slaughterhouse.

Amzaleg is requesting damages of NIS 200 million for the plaintiffs she plans to represent, which she says includes anyone who purchased Adom Adom brand products and suffered emotional distress after seeing the Kolbotek segment. Kolian seeks NIS 100 million in damages - NIS 500 for each of the estimated 200,000 consumers who were affected. Both Amazaleg and Kilian say they would donate any compensation awarded in the suit to an animal welfare organization.

Attorney Aviad Amzaleg, who is representing his wife, Perach, in the suit, said Tnuva "did not act in good faith when it depicted itself as abiding by hygiene and quality regulations. The investigative report proved that Tnuva’s advertisements are blatantly untrue. Not only is the slaughter process at the plant not of high quality, it is also not under the supervision of inspection agencies and is in violation of regulations."

Aviad Amzaleg told Haaretz that his wife, Perach, decided to file a class action after being horrified by what she saw on Kolbotek and after realizing, from comments on social network sites, that many other Israelis were also horrified.

“It is important to stress that the damage was the result of what was exposed in the investigative report, and not of the report itself," Aviad Amzaleg said.

Kolian, who is an ultra-Orthodox Jew, took the additional step of obtaining from Shlomo Yosef Mahfoud, a Sephardi rabbi, and the Ashkenazi Eda Haredit slaughter board, rabbinical rulings declaring that unnecessary cruelty to animals would render any meat so produced unkosher. “We have a holy Torah,” says Kolian, “and it explicitly prohibits animal cruelty.”

In its response to the court Tnuva said that all slaughter involves cruelty that would horrify any viewer. “There is no reason to assume the claimed damage of ‘profound shock, anger, repugnance and sadness’ would not have been caused to consumers even if what had been documented and broadcast had been the usual, violent procedure in accordance with the regulations concerning the animals at the time of their slaughter, the legality of which is not in dispute."

The document Tnuva submitted to the court describes in detail the banality of the slaughter process: “It suffices to mention that in order to slaughter the animals, when they are fully conscious and sometimes die of fright, they are put into a facility called the holding chamber, in which arms that seize them press hard on their heads and bodies. Then, together with the chamber they are turned 180 degrees and as they are held their neck are slit and they bleed until they lose consciousness. It is indisputable that broadcast of a film documenting these actions ‘proper under the regulations’ would horrify most meat-eating consumers, even though this is absolutely legal behavior.”

Tnuva rejected arguments that it has a duty to inform consumers about how its products are made, saying customers would not want to be exposed to this information.

"Is information provided to consumers, for example, about the processes involved in manufacturing sneakers, or breakfast cereals, or toilet paper? How much more so in the case of meat products: This is exactly the sort of information consumers want to be concealed from them, so as to enable them to enjoy the product while repressing the thought that their enjoyment entails causing suffering to a living creature,” Tnuva's response to the court said.

To exemplify this, the document mentions the popular Internet video “Fresh Pork Sausage prank,” which “documents the reactions of supermarket shoppers who happily sample fresh pork sausages" until, when supplies run out, a live piglet is brought out as if it is intended to provide them with more sausages, at which point shoppers "react with horror, disgust and even aggression.”

Tnuva argued that the prank “proves it suffices to expose consumers of meat products to an entirely ‘clean’ fictional process (without blood, bleats or the images of slaughter) of transforming an animal into sausage to cause them profound horror, anger and disgust. The usual and regulated process animals undergo when they are slaughtered at a slaughterhouse is much more violent and shocking than putting an animal into a closed box and turning the crank on its side,” as in the video.

In its response Tnuva also admitted that kosher slaughter practices do not conform to international animal welfare standards: "All the instructions of the OIE-World Organization for Animal Health concerning the stun methods that can be used on animals prior to slaughter to reduce their suffering in the slaughter process … are incompatible with the Jewish kashrut laws requiring the animal to be fully conscious at the time of slaughter and which Tnuva observes so that the factory's products can be sold as kosher," the response said.

Kolian argues that the harm to the animals at Tnuva's slaughterhouse should horrify every observant Jew. Officials in Israel's Chief Rabbinate, after watched the video from the Kolbotek segments and discussing its implications for animal welfare and kashrut issue, decided not to withdraw the plant's kashrut certification on the basis of the images.

In a response to Haaretz, Tnuva said: "The incident occurred a number of months ago. Adom Adom condemned the actions and took immediate and significant steps in full coordination with the regulators in Israel and ... regrets the incident and is acting to ensure the quality of its products."

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One in 19 private Israeli citizens owns a licensed gun - what criteria must they meet?

There are 292,625 licensed guns in private hands in Israel. Some 160,000 are owned by citizens who meet specific licensing criteria, like former members of the security forces and residents of the territories. The other roughly 130,000 guns are registered to organizations that employ guards, like security firms, and companies located in the territories.

These figures do not include weapons belonging to the Israel Defense Forces, Israel Police, Israel Prison Service and other official bodies.

The math works out to one private weapon per 19 Israeli adults.

For a private citizen to get a gun licenses – as it seems the man who entered the Be'er Sheva bank Monday and killed four people did – he must have a reason that is listed in the official regulations.

The Public Security Ministry allows a person who lives or works in a community in or near the territories to own a single gun and 50 bullets. He must present documented proof of the location of his home or workplace to get a license.

An IDF officer with the rank of captain or higher or a noncommissioned officer with the rank of master sergeant or higher is allowed to carry a gun with the recommendation of the commander of his unit. In 2005, the IDF eliminated the requirement that all officers and noncommissioned officers carry weapons and began limiting the granting of weapon permits.

Another basis for qualifying for a gun permit is having a "security background." Members of this group are officers who retired from the IDF with the rank of lieutenant colonel or higher or serve in the reserves with the rank of captain or higher. The Public Security Ministry requires people who qualify this way to carry valid officer's identification cards. Officers with ranks lower than lieutenant colonel must be recommended by the commanders of their reserve units to get gun licenses.

Security officers at public institutions recognized by the Israel Police with at least a year of experience qualify for gun licenses. But the Public Security Ministry requires the head of the police's security branch to approve each application individually.

The ministry also allows fire fighters, Magen David Adom employees, hunters, regular shooting competition participants and drivers of trucks that haul explosives to get gun licenses. People who have legally and continuously owned pistols, air rifles or air pistols may also apply for gun licenses. There are also a number of hobbies that qualify people to apply for gun licenses.

Public Security Ministry regulations require people with gun licenses to immediately report relevant status changes – like the end of a dangerous job or qualifying hobby – to the gun licensing authority.

Gun licenses must be renewed every three years. The process involves submitting a health declaration signed by a physician, undergoing gun safety and shooting training and demonstrating adequate gun knowledge and control.

In recent years, the Public Security Ministry has reduced the available avenues for getting a gun license, disqualifying, for example, diamond, gold and jewelry traders.

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Be'er Sheva - Four dead in bank robbery; assailant releases hostage and shoots himself

Four people were killed, one seriously wounded and another lightly wounded on Monday during an armed robbery of a bank in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva. The two assailants held a woman hostage during a shootout with the police but eventually released her.

The standoff ended after one robber shot himself dead and another was wounded.

Initial details suggest that thieves entered a Bank Hapoalim branch at 1 P.M. and opened fire. The robbers clashed with police forces and one ultimately shot himself, while the other was wounded and was evacuated to the hospital.

Those wounded have been evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva. Magen David Adom rescue services announced it as a multiple-casualty incident.

A woman outside the bank said, "I heard gunshots, went out and saw many ambulances arriving and numerous people assembling. I also understood that children were not being let out of school. Right now there are a lot of people here and about nine ambulances. I can see police inside the bank but I do not know what is going on inside. We were told to stay where we are."

In August 2011, a Bank Hapoalim security guard was killed during a robbery in Be'er Yaakov by a man who had arrived on a motorcycle. The assailant was later charged with carrying out various bank robberies in a "serial, unique and systematic manner" using a weapon.

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Coming Soon: “Kosher” Smartphones for Haredi Community

A smartphone catering to the haredi community and approved by a rabbinical committee is set to be launched in Israel in the near future, announced Rabbi David Zilbershlag at the Ariel Conference for Ethics in the Media.

Haredi rabbis have in the past strongly opposed advanced mobile devices, claiming that they are a corrupting influence. Zilbershlag however said that the smartphones would not be opposed, saying that they would mostly handle e-mail, Israel’s business daily Globes news reported.

Zilbershlag said that such a device was needed, in part because of the need for haredim to earn a living, and that it would provide a solution similar to the "levels of kashrut" in previous generations of mobile phone, according to Globes.

He said that while an estimated that 40 percent of haredim do access the Internet, it is still considered to be one of "the greatest threats of all time" to the insular community.

Zilbershlag said he believes that the haredim will have to establish their own Internet in the future, similar to the closed Internet operated by the Pentagon, in order to create "a clean environment with boundaries,” Globes reported.

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Two FBI agents with Hostage Rescue Team killed in training accident

Two FBI agents from an elite counterterrorism unit based in Northern Virginia were killed Friday during a training exercise in the Virginia Beach area, the FBI said Sunday.

The agents were part of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, which is part of the Critical Incident Response Group, and is based at Quantico.

The agents were identified as Christopher Lorek, 41, and Stephen Shaw, 40. The FBI said the incident occurred off the coast of Virginia Beach, but gave no further details. An FBI spokeswoman in the Virginia Beach area said the deaths did not involve gunfire.

The FBI said in a statement that the cause of the incident was “under review.”

The deaths brought to at least four the number of agents killed during Hostage Rescue Team training since the group was established in 1983 as a national counterterrorist unit.

TV station WAVY, based in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area, quoted a Navy spokesman as saying that the accident happened aboard a Military Sealift Command ship that the FBI had leased for training.

At the Sealift Command headquarters in Washington, inquiries were referred Sunday night to the FBI. An FBI spokeswoman said Sunday night that the bureau had released no information beyond the statement posted on its website.

A Virginia Beach police spokeswoman said she had no information about the incident. An investigator in the state medical examiner’s office for the Tidewater District said no cause of death could be obtained before Monday.

The two agents were brought by helicopter Friday to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, the highest-level trauma center for the area, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare said. He could provide no information about their treatment or injuries.

Lorek joined the FBI in 1996, the bureau said, and is survived by his wife and two daughters, ages 11 and 8.

Shaw, who joined the FBI in 2005, is survived by his wife, a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III issued a statement mourning the loss of “two brave and courageous men.” Like the others on the hostage rescue team, he said, they accepted “the highest risk each and every day,” whether on missions or in training.

“Our hearts are with their wives, children, and other loved ones who feel their loss most deeply. And they will always be part of the FBI family,” Mueller said.

According to the FBI Web site, the rescue team responds to the “most complex and urgent FBI cases in the United States and abroad.

The team is based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, which is on the Marine Corps base there, about 40 miles south of Washington.

A 2006 federal report described a key capability of the hostage rescue team as the capacity to “fast-rope,” in which an assault team rappels from a helicopter. The report said the technique is particularly useful in assaulting a maritime target because it allows the FBI to place a team aboard a ship quickly.

Fast-roping was described as an advanced skill requiring “great coordination’’ between helicopter pilots and the assault teams.

The FBI Web site indicated that the unit places great emphasis on “extensive, continuous” training.

The first of the two previous deaths to occur in rescue team training came in April 1986, less than three years after the unit was established. James K. McAllister died after falling from a helicopter during training at the FBI Academy, according to the bureau.

According to the bureau’s Web site, Gregory J. Rahoi, a supervisory special agent, was accidentally shot and fatally wounded Dec. 6, 2006, at Fort A.P. Hill, in Virginia’s Caroline County. Rahoi was killed during a live-fire training exercise intended to prepare hostage rescue-team personnel for deployments to Iraq.

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AP president calls on Obama to 'reign in' DOJ probe into wire service's records

Associated Press President Gary Pruitt says the Justice Department sent a strong – and negative -- message to future sources that the government would go after them if they spoke to the press. It’s a move Pruitt called not only unconstitutional, but damaging to the ideal of a free press in the country in his first television interviews on the scandal Sunday.

In a separate interview with the AP, Pruitt said, "It's too early to know if we'll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated."

He said President Obama "should rein in that out-of-control investigation."

"They've been secretive, they've been overbroad and abusive -- so much so that taken together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First Amendment rights," he added.

Although the Justice Department has not explained why it sought phone records from the AP, Pruitt pointed to a May 7, 2012, story that disclosed details of a successful CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Usama bin Laden.

The AP delayed publication of that story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security.

"We respected that, we acted responsibly, we held the story," Pruitt said.

Pruitt said the AP published the story only after officials from two government entities said the threat had passed. He said the administration still asked that the story be held until an official announcement the next day, a request the AP rejected.

The news service viewed the story as important because White House and Homeland Security Department officials were saying publicly there was no credible evidence of a terrorist threat to the U.S. around the one-year anniversary of bin Laden's death.

"So that was misleading to the American public. We felt the American public needed to know this story," Pruitt said.

The AP has seen an effect on its newsgathering since the disclosure of the Justice Department's subpoena, Pruitt said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

“It will hurt,” he said. “We’re already seeing some impact. Officials are saying they’re reluctant to talk.”

The Justice Department sought phone records for a two-month period from more than 20 phone lines in four bureaus, including Washington and New York.

"Their rules require them to come to us first," Pruitt said.

But the Justice Department maintains that telling the AP would have posed a threat to their investigation.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder faced aggressive questioning at a hearing by the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee amid the outcry over the gathering of phone records.

Holder said he had recused himself from the AP investigation and that it was Deputy Attorney General James Cole’s decision to authorize the subpoena. Holder had said he supported the decision and said that the department had seized the phone records in an effort to find out who leaked confidential information about a foiled terror attack in Yemen.

The DOJ went a step further and said the AP’s actions put Americans at risk, something the news organization strongly refuted.

“Rather than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying that notifying us would compromise their investigation,” Pruitt said in a statement on the AP’s website.

Sen. John Cornyn, who was also on “Face The Nation,” called for Holder’s resignation. “I think it’s time for him to go,” he said.

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Vandals spray-paint inciting graffiti outside Jerusalem home of Women of the Wall activist

Inciting graffiti targeting a longstanding member of the board of Women of the Wall was discovered outside her Jerusalem apartment Monday morning.

The words “Torah tag” – evoking the term “price tag” that is used to describe random acts of violence against Palestinians by radical settlers – was spray-painted on the door of Peggy Cidor, a resident of the Talpiyot neighborhood. On the walls of the stairwell leading up to her apartment were also spray-painted the following (in Hebrew): “Women of the Wall are wicked,” “Peggy, Your Time has Expired” and “Jerusalem is Holy.”

“One of my neighbors spotted it when she left her apartment this morning to go to work,” Cidor, who works as a journalist for the local and foreign press. “She immediately called the police. Suddenly, I was woken up at five minutes to eight by two policemen standing at my door.

I panicked because I thought something had happened to one of my sons, and they proceeded to show me the graffiti.”

Cidor has served on the board of Women of the Wall, an organization fighting for the rights of women to pray as they see fit at the Western Wall, for the past 15 years. She said this was the first time anything “nasty” like this had happened to her.

Cidor filed a complaint with police. “The police warned me to be careful now,” she said.

“I expect Haredi leaders to condemn this act,” she said.

Earlier this month, when Women of the Wall held their monthly prayer service at the Western Wall, ultra-Orthodox protestors threw stones, chairs and water bottles at them.

A recent Jerusalem District Court decision found that it is not a violation of “local custom” for women to wear prayer shawls and phylacteries at the Western Wall, a practice common members of this prayer group. The ruling has incensed members of the ultra-Orthodox community.

Yizhar Hess, director of the Masorati-Conservative movement in Israel, called the act of vandalism “terror against pluralism and tolerance.”

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Jerusalem - Arab Vandals Desecrate Tomb Of Shimon Ben Yaakov

Arab vandals defaced the tomb of Shimon Ben Yaakov – believed to be the burial place of the father of one of the 12 tribes of Israel.


While the tomb – located near Kibbutz Eyal, just off Route 6 – is not one of the most popular or well-known tombs of forefathers, it is frequented on a more or less daily basis by Jews.

Those who came there in recent days found that the tomb has been desecrated and defaced, and that Arabic graffiti has been smeared all over it.

An IDF soldier who frequents the site said that he believes Muslims painted the site in Islamic colors to show that it belongs to them. The graffiti appears to say "the Tomb of Shamun (Shimon)."

Photographs of the defaced site have been handed over to an NGO that specializes in renovation of holy sites.

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Dozens throw stones at 2 haredi soldiers in Mea She'arim

Dozens of haredim threw stones at two haredi IDF soldiers in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Mea She'arim neighborhood on Sunday night, police stated.

The haredim lit trash cans on fire and fled the scene.

Firefighters arrived to extinguish the blazes. No injuries were reported.

Th incident came after an anti-draft demonstration staged by the radical Eda Haredit organization turned violent Thursday night, with haredi protestors throwing rocks, glass bottles and other objects at police in front of Jerusalem’s IDF recruiting office in Jerusalem's Romema.

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American accused of spying in Russia has flown out of Moscow

MOSCOW — The US Embassy employee accused of spying in Moscow flew out of Russia on Sunday, five days after he was ordered to leave the country, NTV television reported.

The Kremlin-loyal TV station broadcast video Sunday evening showing Ryan Fogle going through passport control and security at Sheremetyevo International Airport. He also was pictured in the company of embassy staff as he wheeled a suitcase into the Moscow airport, which is used by Delta Air Lines for its direct flights to New York.

Russian security services announced Tuesday that Fogle, a 29-year-old third secretary in the US Embassy, had been caught trying to recruit a Russian counterterrorism officer. Fogle, who was accused of working for the CIA, was widely shown on Russian television wearing a blond wig.

The US Embassy on Sunday again refused to comment on the case.

The attention given to the Fogle case in Russia contrasts with recent moves by Washington and Moscow to develop closer cooperation on counterterrorism in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15.

The bombing suspects — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his elder brother, Tamerlan, who was killed by police — have roots in the Russian republic of Chechnya. Tamerlan spent six months last year in neighboring Dagestan, now the center of an Islamic insurgency, and US investigators have been working with the Russians to try to determine whether he had established any contacts with the militants.

Little is known publicly about Fogle's duties and activities in Russia.

The US State Department confirmed that Fogle worked as an embassy employee but would give no details about his job. The CIA declined comment.

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'Death to Jews’ tattoo costs Hungarian martial artist Prague gig

                                                        Attila Petrovszki

A Hungarian martial arts fighter was disinvited from a tournament in Prague because of his Nazi tattoos, including one reading “death to the Jews.”

Some sponsors of the Heroes Gate event told organizers that Attila Petrovszki was not allowed to attend the May 17 event because he had a tattoo of Adolf Hitler and a swastika on his body and the anti-Semitic words, Radio Prague reported.

The event’s promoter, Ladislav Kutil, told Radio Prague that the fighter’s appearance had been canceled due to “media pressure” on Heroes Gate and its sponsors, which include gyms, car dealerships and Pepsi. The poster also carries the logos of the City of Prague and Czech Television.

Heroes Gate released a statement claiming that Petrovszki’s Hungarian agent had assured them the fighter was no longer an active neo-Nazi and that the tattoos were the result of a troubled youth.

The agent said Petrovszki was taking his life in a new direction through kickboxing, which the promoters said was what martial arts are all about.

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Jerusalem - Defective Shabbat Timer Causes Major Fire At Chabad Synagogue

A defective Shabbat timer was apparently the cause of a major fire at a Chabad synagogue in the Givat Shaul neighborhood of Jerusalem over the weekend.

The fire, which broke out on Shabbat afternoon, did extensive damage to the building, but no one was hurt. The fire consumed many of the synagogue's holy books, but the Torah scrolls remained safe, thanks to the steel safe they were stored in. They were later removed safely by synagogue members.

A worshipper in the synagogue confirmed to Arutz Sheva in an interview that the defective timer, which turns lights and air conditioners on and off, was the most likely cause. A short in the timer apparently generated sparks or a small fire, which quickly spread, the member said. “It's a terrible sight to see,” he said in the interview. “It hurts to see a synagogue go up in flames.”

With that, he said, the Torah scrolls – the most important feature of the synagogue – were safe. “The firefighters extended themselves to ensure that the flames did not reach the Holy Ark where the scrolls are usually stored,” the worshipper said. The ark's interior consists of a steel structure, which doubles as a safe to prevent the scrolls from being stolen. The safe also contributed to the scrolls' safety, he said.

The scrolls were removed when firefighters succeeded in dousing the blaze. Synagogue officials, surveying the damage, feared the worst when they open the Ark, but to their astonishment, “there was a miracle and there was almost no damage to the scrolls, other than a little ash” that had gotten on them when the safe was opened, the worshipper said.

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Video Shows Shooting of Rabbi Dan Mertzbach

Channel 2 TV has aired security video footage showing an IDF soldier mistakenly firing at Rabbi Dan Mertzbach's car 18 months ago, fatally injuring him.

The tragic event took place in the early morning hours of November 11, 2011. IDF soldiers in the south Hevron area were placed on alert and told to watch out for a Skoda-type car and stop it.

The video shows the soldiers setting up a roadblock but the Skoda can be seen passing them, apparently without being noticed. Fifteen seconds later, Rabbi Mertzbach's car appears.

The IDF investigation found that the soldiers tried to get Rabbi Mertzbach to stop his car by waving their arms and a flashing a flashlight, but when he failed to do so they opened fire. A soldier can be seen firing at the car.

The soldier fired eight bullets, which killed the rabbi. The car veered into the guard rail at the right side of the road and then kept going for about 100 meters before stopping.

The Military Prosecution decided not to try the soldier who fired at the car.

The military investigation found that the road block was set up in a faulty way that made it difficult for oncoming cars to see it in time. Instructions to IDF soldiers manning roadblocks were changed following the incident and they may no longer fire at a vehicle that ignores a roadblock unless it endangers them.

Initial statements by the military following the incident blamed the slain rabbi for knowingly driving through the roadblock. These claims have been refuted.

 

 

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Second 'wife' leaves the Rampant Rabbi

Tracey Sharp

The man dubbed the ‘Rampant Rabbi’ after claiming God told him to take seven wives has been left by a second ‘spouse’.

Karyn Sharp shared her ‘husband’ Philip with six other women for ten years in a bizarre arrangement that saw them dubbed Britain’s most unconventional family.

But mother-of-five Karyn, 34, has now walked out amid claims the family is having ‘difficulties’.

Mr Sharp, 53, a self-proclaimed rabbi, has one legal wife and 17 children.

Karyn is the second partner to move out after fellow ‘spouse’ Tracey left the £675,000 farm they shared in Whatlington, East Sussex, last November.

Mr Sharp said he and Karyn had split up amicably but acknowledged that ‘it’s not always hunky dory here’.

Philip, 53, keeps racehorses at the converted oast house he shares with his remaining ‘wives’ Judith, Chava, Margo, Hannah, and Vreni.

They range in age from 29 to 68, and have ten children between them, all of whom are home-schooled.

The £675,000 farm, in Whatlington, East Sussex, incorporates an array of stables and a ramshackle collection of caravans that house the overspill from Philip’s expansive family.

The property, which is for sale, is part-owned by Philip, two of his ‘wives’ and his ‘mother-in-law’ Maureen — Karyn’s mother — who is the family matriarch and does not share the matrimonial bed.

Tracey Sharp left Sussex harem in November after their relationship disintegrated into a succession of blazing rows.

She was the first of Philip Sharp’s devotees to break free and tell, in full, the truth about the bizarre household over which he presides.


She says she finally grew sick of his tyrannical autocracy and the unquestioning obedience he demanded from his women.

When she defied him, they had blistering arguments — she claims that on two occasions he slapped her.

‘I was vulnerable, insecure and lonely when I met him,’ she says. ‘Philip was my rabbi and a father figure. He made me feel safe and supported. He was also charming and charismatic.'

But Philip’s physical assault was the last straw. ‘I left. I felt it was right,’ she says. She rented a flat, won a residency order to take her children with her and for two years kept her distance from Philip.

‘The hardest thing was recognising that he wasn’t a king. He wasn’t called by God. He was just a man with a giant ego,’ she said.

'But despite everything, part of me still loves him. I’m just not prepared to be governed by him any more. The best thing is that I have a choice. My life is my own again.’

When he spoke to the Daily Mail, Philip did not deny that he slapped Tracey; he also conceded that it was wrong.

‘There were a couple of rows in which she punched me and I slapped her. I apologise. There is no excuse for it. I was beside myself, and I slapped her,’ he said.

 

I left rampant rabbi husband after rows with his SIX other wives

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SYDNEY - Rabbi Zvi Telsner Attacked During Holiday Altercation

SYDNEY, Australia  –A senior Australian Orthodox rabbi had his glasses ripped from his face during an altercation inside Chabad’s main synagogue in Melbourne.

Rabbi Zvi Telsner, the spiritual leader of the Yeshivah Center, which houses the city’s Chabad headquarters, offered festive greetings to Chaim Waks at the end of the Shavuot holiday service on Tuesday night.

But Waks, 24, whose brother, Manny, has been at loggerheads with Chabad since he first went public in 2011 with claims he was sexually abused when he was at the Chabad-run school in the 1980s, admitted to asking the rabbi: “How dare you f***ing wish me a good Yom Tov?”

Manny Waks confirmed his brother also admitted throwing Telsner’s glasses on the floor.

Telsner, who was born in New York, declined to comment but confirmed to JTA that the incident happened.

Manny Waks said in a statement: “I have informed Chaim that this type of behavior is completely unacceptable. It makes no difference what an individual has done – in this case the ongoing attacks by Rabbi Telsner and some within his community against my family. The use of violence is never an option and needs to be unequivocally condemned.”

Waks also accuses senior Chabad rabbis of covering up complaints by parents of sexual abuse and even helping alleged perpetrators flee the country, sparking a bitter feud between the family and Chabad officials. He also claims his complaints to Chabad’s then-chief rabbi were ignored.

His father, Zephaniah Waks, claims he has been shunned by his own community and denied rites at Chabad’s main synagogue since the furor erupted in 2011. Chabad officials deny those claims.

Zephaniah Waks claimed he was harassed by another congregant inside the sanctuary the day after the incident between his son and Telsner. He has reported the matter to police.

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