Ukraine’s announcement on Thursday of an investigation into alleged surveillance of the U.S. ambassador has come as welcome relief to many in America’s diplomatic corps, but the State Department’s silence on the matter has alarmed a number of current and former diplomats. They are demanding action from the Trump administration. The department has declined repeated requests to offer any public defense of its envoy, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, two days after allegations arose that allies of President Donald Trump had her under illegal surveillance while she was stationed in Kyiv.

Chaim Mualem, an Israeli man who by his own confession used to be anti-Chareidi, left a bag containing NIS 130,000 ($37,500) in cash near a bus station in Haifa, a Collive report said. When he realized he lost his bag, Chaim frantically rushed to the bus station hoping he would find the money. He didn’t see the bag but a Chassidish bochur asked him if he needed help. When Chaim told him what he was looking for, he told him: “I came here 25 minutes ago and saw the bag.

The Iowa caucuses are never simple. Voters spend hours in high school gymnasiums or public libraries, starting their night by declaring support for their preferred presidential candidate. That’s followed by a feverish round of lobbying in which supporters of eliminated candidates are pressed to make a new pick by the evening’s end. This year, the caucuses could be even more chaotic. New rules that will be implemented for the Feb. 3 contest could give presidential candidates an unprecedented opportunity to spin the results. In previous years, the Iowa Democratic Party reported just one number: the number of state delegates won by each candidate. For the first time, the party will this year report two other numbers — who had the most votes at the beginning and at the end of the night.

A judge on Thursday upheld a ban on firearms at a pro-gun rally scheduled for next week in Virginia, rejecting a request from gun-rights groups who had sued to overturn it. The Virginia Citizens Defense League and Gunowners of America filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking an injunction against the ban, which Gov. Ralph Northam had imposed for a rally scheduled to take place Monday on the grounds of the Virginia Capitol. In her written ruling, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Joi Taylor said the governor has the authority under state law to take action related to “the safety and welfare” of the state. Taylor cited rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts that found the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not unlimited.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a new North American trade agreement Thursday that rewrites the rules of trade with Canada and Mexico and gives President Donald Trump a major policy win before senators turn their full attention to his impeachment trial. The vote was 89-10. The measure goes to Trump for his signature. It would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, which tore down most trade barriers and triggered a surge in trade. But Trump and other critics blamed that pact for encouraging U.S. companies to move their manufacturing plants south of the border to take advantage of low-wage Mexican laborers.

The FBI, in a change of policy, is committing to inform state officials if local election systems have been breached, federal officials told The Associated Press. In the past, the FBI would alert local governments about attacks on their electoral systems without automatically sharing that information with the state. That meant state officials, left in the dark, might be in a position of certifying the accuracy of election results without realizing there had been problems in individual counties. Alerting local governments about breaches, but not the states, was in keeping with FBI policy of protecting the privacy and identities of the actual hacking victim.

Join us! Click HERE for more info.
The post This Is Just Plain Awkward appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

Rep. Liz Cheney, a junior but rising GOP leader in the House, is opting to stay on that chamber’s leadership track rather than run for a Senate seat in her home state of Wyoming. The move keeps the combative second-term lawmaker positioned to advance in the House GOP hierarchy. Cheney told her colleagues at a closed-door meeting Thursday that she’s staying put. Cheney was a senior State Department official during the administration of President George W. Bush and is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who once occupied the statewide House seat that she now holds. “I believe I can have the biggest impact for the people of Wyoming by remaining in leadership in the House of Representatives and working (to) take our Republican majority back,” Liz Cheney said in a statement.

The man charged in an attack at a suburban New York Hanukkah celebration that left five people wounded, one critically, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other charges on Thursday. Grafton Thomas appeared in Rockland County Court. On Monday, he also pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges. Thomas was arrested hours after five people were stabbed at an attack at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City. His lawyer, Michael Sussman, has said Thomas suffers from mental illness and is not responsible for his actions. Prosecutor Dominic Crispino said in court on Thursday that Sussman should resign from the case because he videotaped evidence being taken out of Thomas’ cabin and therefore became a witness, the Journal News reported.

Chief Justice John Roberts is likely to play a modest role when he presides over the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, in keeping with his frequently repeated insistence that judges are not politicians. Roberts made the short trip from the Supreme Court to the Capitol on Thursday to be sworn in as the trial’s presiding officer, a duty that is mandated by the Constitution. Wearing an unadorned black judicial robe, Roberts took an oath in which he promised to do “impartial justice” in the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, then asked senators to do the same.