WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has lost about five months worth of text messages between two staffers who worked on probes into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails and possible collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to a Republican lawmaker. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, revealed in a Jan. 20 letter that the FBI’s technical system failed to preserve texts that were exchanged between Lisa Page, a lawyer, and Peter Strzok, an agent, between mid-December 2016 through mid-May of 2017. A spokesman for the FBI and a spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment. Congressional Republicans have been focusing on Strzo...
State Democrats blocked a four-week stopgap extension -- including Maryland Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen -- in a late Friday vote to shut down the federal government, and Maryland will see changes as a result.  Nearly 300,000 of Maryland's six million residents work for the federal government. Fort McHenry, part of the National Park Service, will be closed on Saturday. Some faculty members at the Naval Academy will also be affected, the Baltimore Sun reports. There are nearly 10,000 federal employees working in Baltimore City, and Social Security has nearly 11,000 in Baltimore County.  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice both have offices in Baltimore City. Cancer research at Johns Hopkins may also be slowed becaus...
BALTIMORE (AP) — Deputy Police Commissioner Darryl DeSousa, who has steadily risen through the ranks during a 30-year career with Baltimore's police department, will take the helm of the force in a city struggling with a feverish pace of killings. After a record year in per-capita homicides, Baltimore's mayor on Friday fired the city's police commissioner after 2½ years on the job and named DeSousa to the top post, saying a change in leadership was needed immediately. "I am impatient. We need violence reduction. We need the numbers to go down faster," Mayor Catherine Pugh said at a news conference at City Hall after announcing DeSousa's promotion. Although violent crime rates in Baltimore have been high for decades, Baltimore ended 2017 with 343 killings...
Baltimore, MD – Jan. 20, 2018 – It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com (BJL) informs the community of the petirah of Rabbi Zushe Blech, a'h, husband of Vittie Blech, father of Ariella (Yitzchak) Greenberg, Dalya (Dovid) Addi, Benzion (Lakie) Blech, Daniel Blech and brother of Debbie Berson    The Levayah will take place Sunday January 21, 1:30 p.m. Graveside at Agudas Yisrael, 6300 Hamilton Ave Rosedale, MD Shiva will be observed at 6205 Lincoln Ave, Baltimore, MD 21209 (please park at Ner Tamid) Shacharis 7:30   Mincha/Maariv 5:00 PM (Erev Shabbos 1:00 PM)Visiting hoursAfter Shachris till 12:001:30 – 6:00Please no visitors between 12:00 – 1:30, 6:00 – 7:00, and after 9:00 PM.Please respect the above hours. Bila HaMaves LaNetz...
US Vice President Mike Pence began a visit to Israel on Sunday after being praised as a "great friend" by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and shunned by the Palestinians overUS recognitionof Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Pence was welcomed at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport by Israel's Tourism Minister Yariv Levin and US Envoy to Israel David Friedman and made no statement to reporters before travelling to Jerusalem. It is the highest-level US visit to the region since President Donald Trump made his Jerusalem declaration on December 6 and promised to begin the process of moving the American embassy to the city, whose status is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With thePalestinians boycotting Pence, the visit provides little obvious opportunity to b...
The Siyum on Maseches Shavuos took on special meaning for Daf Yomi participants this cycle, as it coincided with the 50th Yartzeit of Rav Eliezer Silver, one of the trailblazing leaders of American Jewry during the mid-20th century. Agudath Israel of America’s Daf Yomi Commission - the primary force behind Daf Yomi learning on our continent – arranged a Siyum on Tuesday evening in Congregation Zichron Eliezer in Cincinnati, OH. The Shul is named in memory of Rav Silver, and is situated in the city where Rav Silver served as Rav for nearly four decades prior to his petirah. As with all Agudath Israel Daf Yomi Siyumim, the event was broadcast live at satellite locations across North America, and many others participated in the ceremony via telephone or LiveStream. Rav Yissochor ...
Amman - Jordan’s king appealed Sunday to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to “rebuild trust and confidence” in the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following fallout from the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Pence, in turn, tried to reassure the monarch that the Trump administration remains committed to restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and views Jordan as a central player. Advertisement: The vice president also said that “the United States of America remains committed, if the parties agree, to a two state solution.” Such a caveat deviates from long-standing U.S. support for a two-state solution as the only possible outcome of any peace deal. ...
Washington - Congressional Democrats are taking a page from the playbook of President Donald Trump and hard-line conservatives: Fight for your base and don’t blink. In forcing a showdown over immigration — and triggering a government shutdown — Democrats have embraced a confrontational, rule-breaking strategy they once blasted as irresponsible when practiced by the other party. But the Trump-era appears to come with new rules for both sides. Rather than playing it safe in an election year, Democrats are calculating the bigger risk would be missing the moment to challenge a deeply unpopular president and deflating the energy that could drive liberal voters to the polls in November. “No one wants to conduct themselves in a way that you are running scared and being a...
WASHINGTON — A prestigious scientific panel is recommending that states significantly lower their drunken driving thresholds as part of a blueprint to eliminate the "entirely preventable" 10,000 alcohol-impaired driving deaths in the United States each year. The U.S. government-commissioned, 489-page report by a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released Wednesday throws the weight of the scientific body behind lowering the blood-alcohol concentration threshold from 0.08 to 0.05. All states have 0.08 thresholds. A Utah law passed last year that lowers the state's threshold to 0.05 doesn't go into effect until Dec. 30. The amount of alcohol required to reach 0.05 would depend on several factors, including the person's...
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is expected to approve a plan to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as early as next year, rather than waiting for several years, Trump administration officials said Friday. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been considering several options since President Donald Trump, late last year, declared Jerusalem to be Israel's capital and announced the United States would finally move its embassy there from Tel Aviv. Tillerson has said previously that building a new facility that satisfies the significant security requirements is a complex process involving site-selection, permitting and construction. He's said that process is starting immediately but will take at least three years. Yet a temporary plan that has bee...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours after shuttering much of the federal government, feuding Democrats and Republicans in Congress spent Saturday dodging blame for a paralyzing standoff over immigration and showed few signs of progress on negotiations needed to end it. The finger-pointing played out in rare weekend proceedings in both the House and Senate, where lawmakers were eager to show voters they were actively working for a solution — or at least actively making their case why the other party was at fault. The scene highlighted the high political stakes for both parties in an election-year shutdown whose consequences were far from clear. "The American people cannot begin to understand why the Senate Democratic leader thinks the entire government should be shut down until he gets hi...
Jerusalem - Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said he has banned Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef from IDF ceremonies after he expressed support for Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu’s call to fire the IDF chief of staff for advancing the integration of women into all branches of the army. Eliyahu made his comments on Wednesday, following a ruling by prominent national-religious leader Rabbi Shlomo Aviner stating that yeshiva students should not enlist until they are able to guarantee they are not placed in a mixed gender unit. Yosef called Eliyahu on Thursday to praise him for his “courageous stance in fulfilling the Chief Rabbinate’s instructions on enlisting girls” and said that Eliyahu’s father the late chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu “is happy with you in H...
Liberman defends himself after coming under attack for attending anti-Shabbat rally in Ashdod. 'I don't want a haredi state.' Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman remained defiant after the haredi parties unloaded on him for making a provocative visit to an Ashdod mall on Shabbat in order to decry what he said was the government's creeping religious coercion "Unfortunately, someone here is trying to create a cultural war, I really think that with all the security threats, this is the last thing the country needs," Liberman said in an interview with Army Radio. Liberman also blamed the haredi parties for changing the status quo on religious issues. "They are the ones who brought all of this legislation challenging the status quo," he continued. "From canceling the...
Jordanian King reportedly expresses 'worry' to VP Pence over Trump's J'lem declaration, warns it will lead to 'instability' in the region. Jordanian leader King Abdullah expressed to US Vice President Mike Pence “worry” over President’s Trump’s historic recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, warning that it would lead to “instability” in the region, Channel 2 reported. Pence is currently in Amman for discussions with the Jordanian King during the second leg of a three-country tour that began yesterday with a visit to Egypt and will continue tonight with a visit in Israel. During his meeting with Pence, Abdullah said that he had "continuously voiced over the past year [his] concerns regarding the US...
Rabbi David Lau condemns leftist protesters who interrupted Attorney General while he was reciting Kaddish in memory of his mother. The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau, on Saturday night strongly condemned the leftist protesters who disrupted services at the Petah Tikva synagogue where Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit was praying, disturbing his recital of the Mourner's Kaddish in memory of his mother, who passed away two weeks ago. The Chief Rabbi noted that "throughout the generations, even people who did not attend the synagogue every day were mindful of the synagogue's sanctity. The act that took place this evening, where people demonstrated while disturbing the worshipers, is an act of desecration which causes harm to the synagogue. It must not be acc...
Leftist protesters demonstrate at Petah Tikva synagogue, disturbing Attorney General Mandelblit's recital of the mourner's prayer. Lefitst protesters on Saturday night disturbed services at the Petah Tikva synagogue where Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit was praying. Shouting, the protesters disturbed Mandelblit's recital of the Mourner's Kaddish (mourner's prayer) in memory of his mother, who passed away two weeks ago. The prayer is said three times a day for amost a year after the loss of a parent. Mandelblit was removed from the scene and escorted home by a security guard. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) said, "Unfortunately, I see it is necessary to explain, so here is a rule of thumb for those protesting in Petah Tikva: When you discover th...
German lawmakers have voted to install a commissioner who would coordinate government activities against anti-Semitism. The lower house approved by a wide majority Thursday a motion proposed by four of the six parliamentary groups to install the official, who would be chosen by independent experts. The center-left Social Democrats called for the commissioner to be installed at the chancellery. The decision follows a recommendation by a panel of experts and comes amid concern over anti-Semitic incidents during recent pro-Palestinian protests. Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Union bloc, told lawmakers that far-right motives are behind the bulk of anti-Semitic crimes but there's been a rising number of acts by migrants. He sa...
Two months after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the federal corruption case against Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and co-defendant Salomon Melgen, the Justice Department on Friday said it wants to retry them — and soon. “The United States files this notice of intent to retry the defendants and requests that the Court set the case for retrial at the earliest possible date,” reads the one-paragraph notice signed by AnnaLou Tirol, acting chief of the department's public integrity section. “Defendants Robert Menendez and Salomon Melgen have been indicted for bribery and corruption by two separate grand juries properly impaneled in the District of New Jersey. The first trial ended in a mistrial with a deadlocked jury. An early retrial date is in the b...
Scientists are reporting progress on a blood test to detect many types of cancer at an early stage, including some of the most deadly ones that lack screening tools now. Many groups are working on liquid biopsy tests, which look for DNA and other things that tumors shed into blood, to try to find cancer before it spreads, when chances of a cure are best. In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, Johns Hopkins University scientists looked to see how well their experimental test detected cancer in people already known to have the disease. The blood tests found about 70 percent of eight common types of cancer in the 1,005 patients. The rates varied depending on the type -- lower for breast tumors but high for ovarian, liver and pancreatic ones. In many cases, the test narrowed ...
If the shutdown lasts just days or even a couple of weeks, the robust stock market that President Donald Trump has boasted about probably will emerge unscathed. A longer impasse, economists say, could rattle consumer and investor confidence, pulling stocks lower and dragging down the economy. Economists and investment advisers interviewed by The Associated Press generally didn't foresee the shutdown that began Saturday lasting long enough to stifle the economy much. With pivotal elections in November, both parties would want to shield voters from any pain. Investors and consumers are feeling optimistic now based on the tax cut signed into law last month, and the economy is strong enough to power through a short shutdown. But Randy Warren, CEO of Warren Financial Service, a Philadelp...
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