Free Republic

VIENNA (Reuters) - Far-right parties in some European countries are winning over Jewish voters by exploiting fears about militant Islamists and mainstream parties must do much more to address Europeans' security concerns, a Jewish leader said on Tuesday. Boosted by Europe's migrant crisis, Norbert Hofer of Austria's anti-immigration Freedom Party only narrowly lost the country's presidential election on May 22. He would have been the first far-right head of state in the European Union. "I understand that, most probably, a not insignificant part of the (Jewish) community here voted for Hofer for the presidency," the head of the Conference of...

Polls closed 3pm EST 23 delegates at stake.

(WaPo, headline only)

(Translated) Armed police converging on Hotel Pullman

Three months ago, Harvard student Aran Khanna was preparing to start a coveted internship at Facebook when he launched a browser application from his dorm room that angered the social media behemoth. His application, called Marauder’s Map — a clever name that Harry Potter fans will appreciate — was a Chrome extension that used data from Facebook Messenger to map where users were when they sent messages. The app also showed the locations, which were accurate to within three feet, in a group chat with people he barely knew. That meant complete strangers could hypothetically see that he had messaged...

Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs.” A year before the deadly Texas shootout that killed nine people on May 17, a lengthy report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detailed the involvement of U.S. military personnel and government employees in outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs. A copy of the...

UKIP have topped the European polls in the UK, with the Labour Party vying with the Conservatives for second place. Sources from the other main parties have conceded Nigel Farage's party will win, with the leader hailing an "earthquake" in British politics. It will be the first time a party other than the Conservatives or Labour has topped a nationwide poll for the first time in 108 years.

On April 8, 2014, Nikkei, the Japanese equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, reported that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Yokohama, Japan, plans to use low-energy nuclear reactions to clean nuclear waste. This patented LENR transmutation method was developed by Mitsubishi physicist Yasuhiro Iwamura. New Energy Times has translated the Nikkei story below. We have also placed online a copy of a recent slide presentation from Iwamura and an updated European patent specification from the company. The patent claims that the reactions occur not by fission or fusion, but by a two-step mechanism beginning with a weak interaction; a neutron is...

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, find that the actions and policies of persons -- including persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine -- that undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat. I hereby order: Section 1. (a) All...

The anti-balaka have outgrown their name. These militias in the Central African Republic, once united under a moniker meaning “anti-machete” in the local Sango language, are exacting their own vicious revenge upon the mainly Muslim rebels who overthrew the government last March and waged months of terror against the Christian population. They are now accused of atrocities far worse than what first prompted them to take up arms. An Amnesty International report on Feb. 12 said attacks on Muslims in January by anti-balaka militias, made up of Christians and animists, had amounted to “ethnic cleansing.” Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor at...

10,000 African migrants stage demonstration in Jerusalem Knesset speaker nixes meeting between protest leaders and MKs; round them up and deport them, says ex-interior minister Protests by African migrants in Israel, unprecedented in their scope, continued for a fourth straight day Wednesday as about 10,000 people, many of whom come by bus from Tel Aviv, gathered at the Rose Garden in Jerusalem across from the Knesset. ... Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein bowed to pressure from within the Knesset and barred protest leaders from entering the building to attend a meeting with opposition MKs Dov Khenin (Hadash) and Michal Rozin (Meretz),...

Original title:Woman teacher, 27, who was found half-naked with pupil, 17, in lay-by could be allowed back to the classroom in just two years (trimmed to fit) A teacher who was found half-naked in a parked car with a teenage pupil could be back in the classroom in just two years. Eppie Sprung Dawson, 27, admitted having sex with Matthew Robinson – who was 17 at the time of the offence – and was found ‘unfit to teach’ by a disciplinary panel. Although the English teacher was placed on the sex offenders’ register after admitting her wrongdoing in court and...

A number of news outlets have reported that Angola has "banned" Islam and started to dismantle mosques in a bold effort to stem the spread of Muslim extremism. Weekly French-language Moroccan newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune published an article on Friday sourcing "several" Angolan officials, including the Southwest African nation's minister of culture, Rosa Cruz, who reportedly offered the following remarks, which have been translated from French: "The process of legalization of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. Their mosques would be closed until further notice." The media reports have not described why Islam...

...Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law. Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.

Until a few weeks ago, Saudi Arabia was riding high. Its regional policies, based on countering revolutionary fervour and containing Iran, appeared to be bearing fruit. Egypt’s army ousted the Islamist president, to plaudits and generous funding from Riyadh; the Syrian opposition elected a new pro-Saudi leadership; and the US seemed poised to launch military strikes on the regime in Damascus that Saudi Arabia has tried to dislodge. ... As the challenges in Syria grow, there are fears in Riyadh that the war could drag on for more than a decade, draining Saudi coffers and destabilising the region. There are...

Norwegian centre-right leader Erna Solberg is set to form a new government after Labour Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg admitted election defeat. Ms Solberg described her win as "a historic election victory for the right-wing parties". Her Conservative Party is widely expected to form a government with the anti-immigration Progress Party. It is oil-rich Norway's first general election since attacks by a far-right extremist left 77 people dead in 2011.

(original title, had to be shortened to fit):Bloodbath in Cairo: More than 120 dead and 1,000 injured after police 'shoot to kill' in violent clashes which have rocked Egypt More than 120 people are believed to have been killed at a protest in support of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi, according to the Muslim Brotherhood. Security forces are reported to have started shooting demonstrators shortly before pre-dawn morning prayers at a round-the-clock vigil in Cairo being staged by backers of Morsi, who was removed from power by the army three weeks ago. Makeshift field hospitals around the area near the...

WASHINGTON — The State Department has hired an alarming number of law-enforcement agents with criminal or checkered backgrounds because of a flawed hiring process, a stunning memo obtained by The Post reveals. The background problems are severe enough that many of the roughly 2,000 agents in State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security can play only limited roles in agency efforts to police bad conduct and prosecute wrongdoers. ... “Department intakes of new . . . officers since the hiring surge a decade ago have reportedly been flawed, with ‘mitigation’ of troubling histories including criminal matters,” according to a December 2012 memo...

An explosion in central Prague on Monday, probably caused by gas, injured as many as 40 people, officials said, and neighboring buildings - including the National Theatre - had to be evacuated. The explosion, in a building facing the Vltava river just a few dozen meters (yards) from the 19th-century theatre, was heard as far away as Prague Castle about a mile away. A police spokesman said the blast was probably caused by gas and that there had been about 15 people in the building, which included an office of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and an art gallery.

GENEVA (AP) - Physicists said Thursday they are now confident they have discovered a crucial subatomic particle known as a Higgs boson - a major discovery that will go a long ways toward helping them explain why the universe is the way it is. They made the statement following study of the data gathered last year from the world's largest atom-smasher, which lies beneath the Swiss-French border outside Geneva. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said that what they found last year was, indeed, a version of what is popularly referred to as the "God particle."