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Like the Dodgers, the Baltimore Orioles are playing a division series Game 3 on the brink of elimination.Unlike the Dodgers, the Orioles’ starting pitcher will have been drafted and signed by the Dodgers. And he broke ground as the first Israeli pitcher selected in the MLB draft when he was taken by a team other than the Dodgers.Dean Kremer‘s groundbreaking journey to becoming an established big leaguer is singular, but he will take the mound Tuesday against the Texas Rangers with a heavy heart and no small amount of anxiety. Kremer, who holds Israeli and American citizenship, has many family members living in Israel, where he still spends two months a year.After a surprise attack Saturday by the militant group Hamas, Israel declared war on Hamas and launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip t...

WASHINGTON —  John A. Boehner lasted five years as House speaker before he ran out of patience with his party’s hard-line Freedom Caucus.“Legislative terrorists,” the Ohio Republican called its members after he quit in 2015. “They can’t tell you what they’re for. They can tell you everything they’re against. They’re anarchists. They want total chaos.”Next came Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who lasted three years. “The House is broken,” he griped on his way out.Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) lasted all of nine months.“They are not conservatives,” he said of the Freedom Caucus after they led the drive to oust him as speaker last week. “They don’t get to say they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic.”See a pattern?Ever since the tea party movement of 2010 elected a wav...

WASHINGTON —  Its hands largely tied, the Biden administration is weighing options for next steps in working with its longtime ally Israel, but aware that the traditional formulae for restoring calm in the volatile Middle East region no longer apply.Never has Israel suffered this number of casualties — 700 dead at latest count — in such a short period of time as in Saturday’s surprise cross-border attack on civilians and military targets from the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants. It is a unique moment when Israeli casualties exceed those among the Palestinians incurred in numerous fights throughout the decades. At least four U.S. citizens were among the dead, U.S. officials said.Like the United States, world leaders Sunday urged restraint. But Israel will not be able politically or psychologi...

AMMAN, Jordan —  With at least 700 people reported dead in Hamas terrorist and rocket attacks, and more than 400 Gazans reported killed in Israeli counterattacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday of a protracted conflict as Israel reacts to the bloodiest attack on its own soil in 50 years.Israel pressed its bombing campaign on Gaza on Sunday, firing a relentless barrage on the coastal strip and formally declaring war as Gaza’s Hamas rulers said their fighters continued to battle Israeli forces inside Israel.Israeli citizens were reeling from the unprecedented scale of the mayhem, in which militants slaughtered more than 200 youths at a musical festival and kidnapped elderly people and entire families. The violence shattered the relative comfort that many Israelis have enjo...