A federal judge sentenced Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina to 18 months in prison Friday after calling her plot to penetrate conservative U.S. political circles without disclosing she was working as a foreign agent for the Kremlin “dangerous” and “a threat to our democracy.”
Butina, 30, pleaded guilty in December to conspiring with a senior Russian official to access the National Rifle Association and other groups without registering with the U.S. Justice Department from 2015 until she was arrested and detained in July.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington credited Butina with the more than nine months she already has served in jail and granted a request to expedite her deportation after she completes her sentence.

By Rabbi Elchanan Poupko
Just recently, two pregnant women in Brooklyn were found to have the measles with the disease hitting a shocking 390 victims in New York City alone. While many debate the topic of vaccines, there is a group of victims that cannot speak up on the topic: babies and unborn children. The primary risk antivaxxers pose, is to pregnant women’s health, and newborns.

Chometz may be purchased immediately after Pesach 2019 at the following stores, as per information provided by the Star-K:
Aldi’s
BJ’s
Coffee Bean
Colonial Liquors
Costco
CVS
Dugan’s Liquor
Food Lion
Market Maven
Petco
Petsmart
Rite-Aid
Royal Farms
Sam’s Club
Save-A-Lot
Savings Center 4003 Seven Mile Lane
Seven Mile Market
Shoppers Food Warehouse
Shoprite 37 Aylesbury Road, Timonium
Trader Joe’s
Walgreens
Walmart
Wegmans
Whole Foods
Wine Loft
Due to issues regarding possible Jewish owned distributors, in general, it is commendable not to purchase chometz from Target until the Sunday after May 26.

President Donald Trump was asked by reporters outside the White House on Friday how old was too old to be president.
“Well,” Trump said, “I think that – I just feel like a young man. I’m so young. I can’t believe it. I’m the youngest person. I am a young, vibrant man.”
He compared himself to former vice president Joe Biden, who declared his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday.
“I look at Joe? I don’t know about him. I don’t know.”
Was Biden too old?, Trump was asked.
“I would never say anyone is too old,” he replied, “but I know they’re all making me look very young, both in terms of age and I think in terms of energy.”
Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Biden waved off Trump’s comments.

Israel will release two prisoners in the wake of the recovery by Russian special forces in Syria of the remains of an Israeli soldier missing since 1982, Israeli and Syrian officials said Saturday.
Russia, a key Damascus ally, this month handed over the remains and personal effects of Zachary Baumel, who was 21 when he was declared missing in action along with two other soldiers in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
The source said authorities had pressured Moscow to secure the prisoners’ release after it was reported that the Israeli soldier’s remains were being handed over.

Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday night condemned the shooting attack at the Chabad shul near San Diego.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the evil & cowardly shooting at Chabad of Poway today as Jewish families celebrated Passover. No one should be in fear in a house of worship. Anti-Semitism isn’t just wrong – it’s evil,” he tweeted.
“THANK YOU to our law enforcement & the heroic CBP agent who swiftly stopped the perpetrator!” the Vice President added in a second tweet.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

Donald Trump Jr. on Saturday ripped The New York Times over a cartoon published in its international print edition this week that the newspaper pulled because of “anti-Semitic tropes.”
“Disgusting. I have no words for flagrant anti-Semitism on display here,” the president’s son tweeted. “Imagine this was in something other than a leftist newspaper?”
The New York Times Opinion section apologized on Saturday for the cartoon, which depicted President Trump wearing a yarmulke and walking a portrayal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog on a leash.
“The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it,” the newspaper said in a tweet. “It was provided by The New York Times News Service and Syndicate, which has since deleted it.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to share the details of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with the United States, the Associated Press reports. Such high-level diplomacy would essentially set up Putin as the powerful middleman to kickstart stalled negotiations between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim on Pyongyang’s path to denuclearization.

President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States did not pay any money to North Korea, which had issued a $2 million bill for the hospice care of American Otto Warmbier, the comatose University of Virginia student sent home from Pyongyang in 2017.
“No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else,” Trump said in a tweet in which he suggested he has taken a different approach to hostage negotiations than his predecessor.
Trump reiterated the point two hours later as he spoke to reporters outside the White House.
“We did not pay money for our great Otto,” Trump said. “I haven’t paid money for any hostage. . . . We don’t pay money for hostages.”

Researchers have developed a mechanism to translate brain activity into simple sentences, a breakthrough that could lead to new tools for people who are unable to communicate through speech.
In a paper published in Nature this week, a team from the University of California, San Francisco explained how they created a “neural decoder” that can create speech. The team included neurosergeon Edward Chang, computer scientist Gopala Anumanchipalli, and PhD student Josh Chartier.
“Our central goal was to make an ‘artificial vocal tract,'” Chartier told The Washington Post via email on Friday. “Not a real physical one, but a computer one that could generate full sentences, not just words.”
“Our goal is to help those who cannot speak to say what they wish to say,” he said.