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WASHINGTON — President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had a poisonous relationship long before Mr. Netanyahu swept to victory on Tuesday night in elections watched minute-by-minute at the White House. But now that Mr. Netanyahu has won after aggressively campaigning against a Palestinian state and Mr. Obama’s potential nuclear deal with Iran, the question is whether the president and prime minister can ever repair their relationship — and whether Mr. Obama will even try. On Wednesday, part of the answer seemed to be that the president would not make the effort. In strikingly strong criticism, the White...

Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s initial hope for a more stable coalition, and the Israeli left’s later hope that it would score an upset, the balance of power in the Israeli Knesset is almost exactly the same as it was after the last elections in 2013: 2013: Likud+Lieberman+Bennett = 43 (right-wing Zionist bloc) 2015: Likud+Lieberman+Bennett = 43 2013: Labor+Meretz+Tzipi = 27 (left-wing Zionist bloc) 2015: Labor+Tzipi+Meretz = 28 2013: Lapid+Kadima = 21 (centrist Zionist bloc) 2015: Lapid+Kahlon = 21 2013: Haredim = 18 (Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties) 2015: Haredim = 14 2013: Arabs (divided) = 11 (Arab parties) 2015: Arabs (united)...

Last week, sandwiched between a row of shops and apartments, you may have noticed that a store hawking firearms miraculously opened for two days on Manhattan’s Lower East Side Had you ventured inside and asked the gruff-sounding owner whether you could take a closer look at, say, a revolver, you probably would have encountered the following sales pitch: “…this revolver, it’s the easiest gun we have to use. It’s our most popular one. It’s a 22-caliber, six-inch revolver,” the clerk begins. “It’s also a gun that a five-year-old found in his parents’ bedroom, went down and shot his nine-month-old baby...

TEL AVIV — After a bruising campaign focused on his failings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel won a clear victory in Tuesday’s elections and seemed all but certain to form a new government and serve a fourth term, though he offended many voters and alienated allies in the process. With 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, the YNet news site reported Wednesday morning that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had captured 29 or 30 of the 120 seats in Parliament, sweeping past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union alliance, which got 24 seats.

Cardinal Dolan Dishonors St. Patrick - Gays March Past Cathedral

New York’s John F. Kennedy airport was bustling with Israelis this morning who were seeking to catch flights home. For many, their goal was to make it back in time to vote in the general elections being held today, Israel’s NRG reported on Tuesday. While for some their flight home today is just a coincidence, today’s elections are the main topic of discussion among the travelers in the terminal. Some of the travelers even joked that a debate could be held in the airport, with representatives from all parties, according to the report. One couple, David and Betty Gordon, told...

More than a dozen insurers offer plans on the New York health insurance marketplace. But despite being spoiled for choice in many ways, there’s one popular feature that most New Yorkers can’t find in any of the health plans offered on their state exchange: out-of-network coverage. Except for offerings by a few insurers in far western New York and the Albany area, the only options available elsewhere in the state, including the entire New York City metro area, are plans that cover care provided only by doctors and hospitals in the plan’s network. People who go out of network for...

IT is time to talk about President Obama’s contingency plan for health care. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments earlier this month in King v. Burwell, a case challenging the provision of tax credits on federal insurance exchanges. While the legal issues are dry lawyers’ fare — how to interpret several interconnected phrases of the Affordable Care Act — the practical stakes are high. The government estimates that millions of Americans will be left without affordable health insurance if it loses. While the administration may well prevail, it has expressed remarkable pessimism about its options if it does lose. The...

New York City police are employing a high-tech system to pinpoint gunfire amid an uptick in shootings in the nation's largest city, officials said on Monday. With the installation of the tracking system, ShotSpotter, New York continues its foray into technology-assisted policing, which recently equipped New York Police Department officers with body cameras, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton told a news conference.

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James Carville said in an interview broadcast Sunday that it would be a waste of time for any Democrat to challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016. “I’ve had maybe three people come up to me and say, ‘Well, I’m for somebody else other than Hillary,’ “ the Democratic strategist told host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on AM 970 in New York. “And I know I run into more Democrats in more places than maybe anybody else in the United States,” he added. “Of course, Senator [Jim] Webb and Governor [Martin] O’Malley can say anything they want. But, in terms...

Vengeful Obama confidante Valeria Jarrett went through back channels to leak Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to the press, an explosive new report reveals. The New York Post‘s Edward Klein reports that a source familiar with Bill Clinton said that the former president told him: “The Obamas are out to get us any way they can.” Jarrett blamed the Democratic party’s 2014 midterm losses on the Clintons’ insinuations that Obama’s unpopular policies, including executive amnesty for foreigners gobbling up American jobs, made the president an “albatross” around the reigning party’s neck. Jarrett, Obama, and Obama’s wife greeted...

The video shows a group of girls punching another girl as a cheering crowd encircles them at a McDonald's in Brooklyn. The young woman attacked at the McDonald's falls to the ground and is kicked and stomped. On Friday, police arrested 17-year-old Tilani Marshall and a 15-year-old girl whose name is not being released because of her age, said a New York Police Department spokeswoman. The girls face charges of robbery and gang assault in the second degree, and another person connected to the attack was arrested on Friday in Atlanta, she said. Atlanta police spokesman Ralph Woolfolk in an...

Maybe it is her short, spiky hair, or the cigarettes, which she gives to the men repairing the wiring in her Brooklyn apartment. Maybe it is because she swears. For whatever reason, the Rev. Ann Kansfield does not fit the stereotype of a minister. Not that she is worried about meeting anyone’s expectations for what a clergywoman should say or do. “We shouldn’t have to hide ourselves or worry about being judged,” Ms. Kansfield, who ministers at the Greenpoint Reformed Church, said. In her newest ministry, that self-assuredness is likely to serve her well. Ms. Kansfield, 39, is to...

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says President Barack Obama is to blame for the police shootings in Ferguson, Missouri, and other disturbing events because he sets the tone for the nation. ... Giuliani also says Obama should say the kinds of things comedian Bill Cosby used to say before he was accused of sexual assault, which Cosby denies. Cosby often exhorted black people to focus on education and parenting.

It’s one of Rockland’s worst kept secrets. GOP and Preserve Airmont candidate for mayor Philip Gigante is the grandson of the late Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, longtime godfather of the Genovese crime family and arguably the most powerful gangster of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The Chin Gigante was best known for an intricate act he put on to appear insane, so clever that he was able to fool court-appointed psychiatrists, and for walking around in bathrobes and talking to himself around Greenwich Village. The act earned him the monicker “The Oddfather.” He also gained fame for a...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said officer Darren Wilson should be “commended” for fatally shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, last August in Ferguson, Missouri. “A man committed a robbery, attempted to assault a police officer, and the police officer, to save his life, shot him,” Giuliani told Fox News on Thursday. “The police officer did his duty. The police officer should be commended for what he did. He did exactly what you should do.” Wilson was cleared of any charges by a local grand jury last fall. The Justice Department last week released a report on his...

Michael Bloomberg is spending tens of millions of dollars trying to convince state legislatures to support restrictive gun control laws. From television and newspaper ads, to blanketing communities with flyers, to bringing in people from out of state to testify, no effort seems too great. Then again, he is worth of over $36 billion. But Bloombeg’s newest campaign has become so extreme that even gun control advocates may wonder that he is becoming a liability to their cause. And he has already earned a reputation for fabricating numbers, with even liberal-leaning PolitiFact slamming Bloomberg for exaggerating the number of school...

California, New York and 12 other states are joining in the push to salvage President Obama’s plan to grant legal protection to millions of people in the U.S. illegally – even if it’s only revived in their parts of the country. A federal judge has frozen the immigration program while a lawsuit filed by Texas and 25 other states proceeds. Those states, mostly led by Republican governors, contend Obama is forcing their taxpayers to pick up the financial burden for millions of immigrants. Now, 14 mostly Democratic-led states – some with the highest populations of immigrants eligible for Obama’s program...

Gary Murphy is a Chappaqua, NY resident and wasn’t too happy about the latest Hillary Clinton scandal about her personal email use while serving as Secretary of State. The only difference between him and you, is that he resides not too far from where the Clintons own a home and he decided to make his frustration known…and we’re so happy that he did.