Vladimir Putin is considering a pardon for an American-Israeli woman jailed in Russia on drug charges, a Russian media outlet reported Thursday on the eve of visit to Israel. Naama Issachar was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after Russian authorities caught her with 9.5 grams of cannabis while on a connecting flight from India to Israel. As YWN reported earlier this week, Putin is scheduled to visit Israel for the International Holocaust Remembrance Forum at Yad Vashem on January 23 and the unveiling of a monument to the victims of the Siege of Leningrad during World War II. According to the report, the Kremlin is still extremely displeased, however. with Israel’s extradition of a Russian hacker to the U.S. late last year.

by Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5TJT.com “A bunch of ganoovim!”  was the cry of an elderly holocaust survivor living in America – whenever he encountered theft or chicanery.  What would he have said about the proliferation of Amazon package thefts in our times? And another question:  What if the package came on Shabbos?   May one […]

“The House’s hour is over,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared Thursday in a floor speech slamming Democrats for putting on a “partisan performance” celebrating the signing of articles of impeachment by handing out souvenirs and posing for smiling photos. To critics, the tone of the event seemed celebratory — a far cry from December, when Pelosi wore black and insisted on the House floor it was a “solemn” day before the Democrat-controlled body voted to impeach the president on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress allegations. Later, she even cut short two rounds of cheers from Democrats when the articles were adopted.

Time magazine on Thursday dropped its latest cover story, a look at the power President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner wields within the White House. It notes his influence on Trump’s 2020 reelection bid and rehashes the highlights and lowlights of his first three years as one of Trump’s main advisers. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
The post Jared Kushner Makes Front Page Of TIME Magazine appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

The federal government’s watchdog agency said Thursday a White House office violated federal law in withholding security assistance to Ukraine. The Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Office of Management and Budget violated the law in holding up the aid. The freeze is at center of the impeachment of President Donald Trump. The independent agency, which reports to Congress, said OMB violated the Impoundment Control Act in delaying the security assistance Congress authorized for Ukraine for “policy reasons,” rather than technical budgetary needs. “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” wrote the agency’s general counsel, Thomas Armstrong, in the report.

An NYPD investigation is underway after a person was fatally struck by an MTA bus in Flatbush. It happened just after 9:00AM at Flatbush Avenue near Flatlands Avenue. An NYPD source tells YWN that the victim was unfortunately pronounced dead at the scene. There was no word if Chevra Kaddisha services were needed in this tragic incident. Expect heavy delays in the area, as the NYPD Accident Investigation Team operates on the scene. View this post on Instagram Brooklyn: Pedestrian fatally struck by MTA bus at Flatlands Ave & Flatbush Ave. Victim was pronounced dead on the scene. #NYPD CIS investigation underway. A post shared by TheYeshivaWorld.com (@theyeshivaworld) on Jan 16, 2020 at 7:40am PST (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

An NYPD Traffic enforcement vehicle was captured on camera driving on a sidewalk in Boro Park. The video, provided to YWN by BP24, shows the marked police cruiser on 14th Avenue and 49th Street driving on the sidewalk. The police car does not have his emergency lights and sirens on. Last year YWN reported about a Boro Park resident that took the sidewalk and was arrested for doing so. [EPIC VIDEO: NYPD ‘Smart-Car’ Takes Sidewalk To Get Down Boro Park Street] (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

First New York gave drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, and now the next step. Individuals facing deportation would have a statutory right to a lawyer if they can’t afford one under legislation introduced Wednesday. State Sen. Brad Hoylman, who is sponsoring the legislation, said immigrants with attorneys are more likely to win their case compared to those without. Under the current system, his office says people facing deportation must depend on nonprofit attorneys or go up against the judicial system by themselves. “For an immigrant facing deportation, having an attorney on their case can be the difference between staying in New York or being separated from their family,” the Manhattan Democrat said in a statement.

It would be hard to find a more unlikely scenario than a royal Bas Mitzvah in Cambodia, a southeastern Asian county where the official religion is Buddhism. Cambodia, which is a constitutional monarchy, is also one of the few elective monarchies in the world, where the king is not necessarily the heir of the former king but is elected by a council from the pool of candidates with royal blood. The mother of the Bas Mitzvah girl, Susie Koroghli, was born to Princess Sisowath Neary Bong Nga, the daughter of Sisowath Monivong, the King of Cambodia from 1875 until 1941. Susie was born in Washington D.C., where her father, Thay Sok, was the Cambodian ambassador to the United States. Susie was completely Westernized but was also steeped in Cambodian culture from her Buddhist home.

Elizabeth Warren accused Bernie Sanders of calling her a liar before a national television audience during a tense, post-debate exchange in which she refused to shake his outstretched hand, according to audio released by CNN. The Democratic presidential rivals are strong progressives who had steadfastly refused to attack each other for more than a year on the campaign trail. But that changed Monday, when Warren said that, during a private meeting between the two in 2018, he disagreed with her that a woman could win the presidency. Sanders, a senator from Vermont, has denied that, and did so again during Tuesday night’s presidential debate, which was hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register and held in Iowa, whose first-in-the-nation caucuses are Feb. 3.