Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Russia early next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the State Department announced Friday, as tensions simmer between the two countries over a host of issues.
Pompeo will meet with both Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss the “full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges,” the State Department said Friday. The secretary will travel first to Moscow, where he will meet with U.S. embassy staff, and then to Sochi, Russia, where he will meet with Putin and Lavrov.
The visit comes as Washington and Moscow have clashed over a number of foreign policy disputes, most critically during last week’s failed uprising in Venezuela.

Washington – President Donald Trump says the United States and China “held candid and constructive conversations” on trade after negotiators completed two days of talks Friday without reaching a deal. Trump tweets that “the relationship between President Xi and myself remains a very strong one, and conversations into the future will continue.” Trump says that [...]

Largest survey of Ukrainian Jewry in 15 years exposes rifts following 2014 revolution that toppled previous regime and unleashed explosion of nationalist sentiment

Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that “it sure looks like” there is enough evidence to prosecute President Trump for obstruction of justice based on details laid out in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
Comey, a vocal Trump critic, maintained that there is “no doubt” that Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice if he were not the president. When asked whether Trump should be prosecuted after his time in office, Comey said the Justice Department would have to take a “serious look” at that.
When asked by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper during a town hall whether the evidence was there to prosecute Trump, Comey responded, “It sure looks like it’s there with respect to at least a couple of those episodes of obstruction.”

The true purpose of the seemingly inert human appendix continues to elude modern medicine, but a new study suggests that those who have the organ removed due to appendicitis are at three times greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
Appendicitis is defined as inflammation or rupturing of the appendix, a small organ located at the base of the large intestine. Each year around 300,000 Americans have their appendix removed, usually for this reason.
Using data from over 62 million patients in the US, scientists at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center found 488,190 of them had had their appendices removed. Of those, 4,470 were eventually diagnosed with Parkinson’s — about one percent of the appendectomy group.

 
Tatty, I love learning Gemara!
That’s one of the sweetest sentences a father could hear!
Unfortunately, too many of all our children never gain an affinity for gemara learning.
Read more on Yeshiva World News

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that the United States was prepared for “swift and decisive” action in response to any attack by Iran, as tensions between the Middle East powerplayer and the global hegemon continued to escalate.
“The regime in Tehran should understand that any attacks by them or their proxies of any identity against US interests or citizens will be answered with a swift and decisive US response,” Pompeo said in a statement.
“Our restraint to this point should not be mistaken by Iran for a lack of resolve,” he said.
The moves have sparked concerns of a military confrontation, but Pompeo insisted Thursday: “We do not seek war.”

Baltimore – The actions of students who died tackling gunmen at two U.S. campuses a week apart have been hailed as heroic. At a growing number of schools around the country, they also reflect guidance to students, at least in some situations, to do what they can to disrupt shootings. A majority of school districts [...]

The artist's grotesque black and white comics now draw comparisons with Nazi imagery and accusations of anti-Semitism, but he says he's just exposing hypocrisy of Jewish leaders