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Rabbis won’t hold Holy Days call with president
Mark Humphrey/Associated Press

NEW YORK — American rabbis critical of President Trump will not try to organize a conference call with him for the Jewish High Holy Days in protest of his response to a white nationalist rally in Virginia.

The conference call for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur was a tradition under President Obama, but was never planned under Trump. Rabbis representing liberal and centrist branches of American Judaism said they would not attempt to plan any such call tied to the holidays next month.

Trump denounced bigotry at the march in Charlottesville, Va., but also said ‘‘very fine people’’ were on ‘‘both sides’’ of the demonstrations, which drew neo-Nazis, white nationalists, members of the Ku Klux Klan, and counterprotesters. One woman was killed when an alleged white nationalist drove his car into a group of counterprotesters.

‘‘The president’s words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia,’’ the rabbis said Wednesday in announcing their decision.

A White House official said the administration has planned ‘‘its own traditions to observe the High Holidays and other important days in the Jewish faith’’ and would announce details in the weeks ahead.

The protest came from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which represent the liberal Reform movement; the Rabbinical Assembly, which represents the centrist Conservative movement; and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association.

The Rabbinical Council of America, which represents modern Orthodox rabbis, had joined the presidential holiday call in the past but did not sign this week’s announcement.

Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the group, said, ‘‘We respect the office of the presidency and believe it is more effective to address questions and concerns directly with the White House.’’

Associated Press

Court says tech firm must reveal e-mail addresses

A D.C. Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that a Los Angeles-based tech company must provide e-mail addresses and other computer user information from users who visited an anti-Trump website in the months leading to Inauguration Day.

During an hourlong hearing, attorneys for DreamHost Inc. the company that hosts the website, Disruptj20.org, argued the federal search warrant still was too broad and would include information of innocent individuals who visited the site but were not part of violent Inauguration Day rioting.

The riots left six police officers injured and caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage when downtown Washington, D.C., businesses were vandalized just blocks from where President Trump and his family paraded following the swearing-in ceremony.

Prosecutors have filed felony rioting charges against some 200 individuals who they say participated in the riots and are asking for the website information as they pursue their criminal cases.

DreamHost attorney Raymond Aghaian said the site was not an anti-Trump website, but instead an ‘‘advocacy site that addresses political issues.’’

‘‘They are requesting all database and database records,’’ Aghaian said. ‘‘With one warrant, they are trying to obtain content from multiple e-mail accounts. That is unconstitutional.’’

The judge’s ruling ordering a data release covers website information between October 2016 and Jan. 20, 2017, Inauguration Day.

Last month, prosecutors sought a court-order to compel DreamHost to turn over e-mails, images, and other information from computer users who visited the anti-Trump website. Prosecutors allege Disrupt J20 helped plan protests that pulled in participants from across the country and last month obtained a warrant to compel DreamHost to turn over e-mails, images, and other information from computer users who visited the website.

The Thursday order restricts the time frame for which data will be reviewed.

In ordering DreamHost to provide user information for a shorter time window, Judge Robert Morin said he was trying to strike a ‘‘balance’’ between the free speech rights of people who used the political site and of what he called ‘‘innocent users of the website’’ and prosecutors’ criminal investigation.

‘‘There is a need to review the data and decide what is relevant,’’ Morin said.

The decision by prosecutors to seek a court-ordered search warrant for website visitor information created an uproar among DreamHost executives and political rights advocates who argued the search violated constitutional protections.

DreamHost is not the first Internet company to challenge the government in its quest to prosecute individuals associated with the riots. Facebook has filed its opposition at the D.C. Court of Appeals to a court order that blocks the social media giant from letting users know when law enforcement investigators ask to search their online information, particularly their political affiliations and comments.

Washington Post

Tweets indicate Trump stumped by spelling

WASHINGTON — Should President Trump thumb through a dictionary before putting his thumb to work on tweets?

Trump confused ‘‘t-o’’ and ‘‘t-o-o’’ during a series of tweets Thursday morning, getting it right after two tries. He also replaced ‘‘t-h-e-i-r’’ with the correct ‘‘t-h-e-r-e’’ in the same two-part tweet.

Over the weekend, Trump was tripped up by ‘‘h-e-e-l’’ when he meant to write ‘‘h-e-a-l’’ in comments about dueling rallies in Boston.

And, of course, there’s Trump’s famous ‘‘covfefe’’ tweet, sent in late May.

In a succession of posts Thursday about his tone in three speeches this week, Trump twice said ‘‘T-o bad the Dems have no one who can change tunes!’’ before changing to the correct ‘‘T-o-o bad the Dems have no one who can change tunes!’’ In the first part of the two-part tweet, Trump used ‘‘t-h-e-i-r’’ before correcting to ‘‘t-h-e-r-e.’’

Trump’s presidential misspelling on Twitter dates to his first full day in office, when he described himself as ‘‘h-o-n-e-r-e-d’’ to serve as the 45th president.

He isn’t the first politician to take bad spelling public.

A whopper occurred in 1992 when Vice President Dan Quayle relied on a faulty flash card and erroneously instructed a New Jersey sixth-grader to put an ‘‘E’’ at the end of ‘‘potato.’’

Associated Press

FOOT NOTES — Amy Hedtke of Texas, took notes during a session of the standing committee on rules at the Republican National Committee meeting Thursday in Nashville.