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March 25, 2017 at 8:56 pm
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has deep business and personal ties to Israel that could raise questions about his ability to serve as an honest broker as he oversees the White House’s Mideast peace efforts.
But some say these ties, which include a previously undisclosed real estate deal in New Jersey with a major Israeli insurer, may give Kushner a surprising advantage as he is expected to launch the first peace talks of the Trump era. Having the trust of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the thinking goes, could make Kushner well positioned to extract concessions from the hard-line Israeli leader.
Kushner’s family real estate company has longstanding and ongoing deals with major Israeli financial institutions. These rela...
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March 25, 2017 at 8:53 pm
The 2017 Maryland Legislative Session comes to a close on April 10.
Governor Larry Hogan had a lot to say about the past two and a half months when he joined The Jimmy Mathis Show on Saturday morning.
"It's sort of the good, the bad and the ugly," he said. "We got a lot of things done. ... Many of our initiatives have already been passed in both houses."
Though, Hogan mentioned that some terrible things have happened -- the 'sanctuary state' bill and the attorney general's new power, to name a few.
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Maryland's first Republican governor since 2007 reiterated to Mathis that his goal, as governor, was to play 'goalie or backstop.'
"I knew up front and I said when I was running that...
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March 25, 2017 at 8:49 pm
British Airways is rolling out technology that will allow passengers to go through boarding gates at its main London Heathrow Airport hub using facial recognition.
Biometric devices at the main security-screening area in Terminal 5 capture a traveler’s features along with the boarding pass, and then a facial scan at the gate verifies the person’s identity, allowing them to get on the plane without showing documents, BA said in a letter to staff. The system is designed to speed up boarding and reduce errors, it said.
Three gates are now using the equipment, with another 33 planned in the coming months, the carrier said. The system will be used initially only for domestic routes, with the eventual goal of extending it to international flights.
British Airways, a unit of London...
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March 25, 2017 at 8:48 pm
PM Netanyahu's office says no agreement yet on subject of construction in Judea, Samaria.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office on Saturday night responded to Channel 2's reports claiming US President Donald Trump opposed building outside of existing settlement blocs in exchange for agreeing to allow the building of a new town for Amona expellees.
According to the reports, a final US policy regarding building in Judea and Samaria is in the works, and offers unlimited building in Judea and Samaria - as long as it remains within the settlement blocs.
Sources close to Netanyahu said the report was "inaccurate," and later an official notice was published.
Knesset Eretz Yisrael Lobby heads MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) and MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) sa...
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March 25, 2017 at 8:47 pm
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump ran for president as a businessman who could make a deal. But on Friday, he failed to close the biggest deal of his young presidency.
And then, like a businessman, he moved on.
“That’s what you have to do in business if you fail,” said Rep. Roger Williams, a Texas Republican and, perhaps more relevantly in this instance, a car dealer. “You move on. You don’t worry about it. He’s going to move on.”
For Trump, House leaders’ decision not to vote on a Republican replacement for President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act when they realized they did not have the votes to pass it was his first legislative setback – on one of the biggest promises he’d made on the campaign trail.
Bu...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:58 pm
In this week’s Torah portion, the Torah discusses an accounting, the audit of all of the metals used to build the mishkan. Our Sages explain that this audit was done to demonstrate that Moshe didn’t use one bit of it for himself.
This leads us to the mitzva of not cheating others. How would you answer the following interesting story.
Micha was laid off from his job and held a yard sale to help him pay his mortgage. A potential customer perused the items on the lawn and picked up a painting. “How much are you asking for this”, she asked. “$15 dollars”, he answers. “Only 50 dollars! She said. “What a bargain. I would have paid $100”. The lady handed Micha a $50 dollar bill.
Micha wonders if he is obligated to tell her that he only a...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:42 pm
The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee says former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has volunteered to speak with the panel as part of its ongoing investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election.
Rep. Devin Nunes of California told reporters that Manafort’s counsel contacted the committee Thursday to offer lawmakers the opportunity to interview him.
Nunes said he does not know if the interview will take place in a public forum or behind closed doors.
The Associated Press reported this week that Manafort, before signing up with the Trump campaign, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire and wrote a proposal aimed at benefiting the government in Moscow.
The House intelligence committee is investigating whether any ties exist b...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:42 pm
In a conference sponsored by the European Conference of Rabbis in Italy, Rabbi Hezekiah Samin, head of the Marriage Department of the Israeli Religious Services Ministry announced Tuesday that the Israeli rabbinate has already begun creating a database of all Jews around the world. The purpose of the database, according to Samin, is to enable Jewish marriage registrars to have individual’s personal status reports available at the click of a button. According to reports, Israel has already invested tens of millions of shekels in the initiative.
The heart of the story according to Rabbi Samin, is to prevent a situation in which a Jewish person gets married while still married halachically. Nevertheless, the listing will also indicate as to the Jewish status of any person registered th...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:42 pm
Head of the Israel Government’s Housing Staff, Avigdor Yitzchaki explains the chareidi tzibur erred by deciding not to move into Kasif, which he feels would have been an ideal housing solution. Yitzchaki interviewed with Kikar Shabbos following a visit to the site of the newest planned chareidi community, Shafir, vising the site with Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Deputy Minister (Shas) Meshulam Nahari and Yahadut Hatorah MKs Menachem Eliezer Moses and Yaakov Asher.
“The Shafir Regional Council is one of the solutions we produce for the chareidi tzibur,” he says.
“As long as the chareidim want to live together, in my distant view, we will have to do mixed settlements as much as possible, but here we are producing a solution of more than 9,000 housing units The p...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:41 pm
Haifa City Hall and environmentalist organizations are fuming over a request from Haifa Chemicals to amend the Haifa District Court ruling compelling the emptying of the city’s ammonia tank by April 1, 2017.
Haifa Chemicals wants to leave 600 tons of ammonia in the tank, explaining it does not have the ability to empty it completely. It is explained the ammonia is stored at minus 33 Celsius and emptying the tank to under 600 tons might result in heating the liquid and thereby compromising an insulation layer at the bottom.
In addition, the company warns against the formation of corrosion inside the tank.
The Environmental Ministry has turned to an international company, experts, to empty the tank, explaining the removal of the ammonia will be done under controlled conditions witho...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:40 pm
Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., apologized to his full House Intelligence Committee today for failing to inform the committee’s Democratic ranking member of his findings – that the intelligence community “incidentally collected” surveillance of Trump’s transition team and possibly Trump himself – before he briefed the White House and held a press conference yesterday.
“I am not confident that he can run this committee,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who informed reporters that Nunes apologized in a closed door meeting. A second Democratic member, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, corroborated the story.
Nunes has refused to share the source of his information with the committee. Speier said she believes Nunes obtained it “either from...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:28 pm
In a humiliating setback, President Donald Trump and GOP leaders pulled their “Obamacare” repeal bill off the House floor Friday after it became clear the measure would fail badly.
It was a stunning defeat for the new president after he had demanded House Republicans vote on the legislation Friday, threatening to leave “Obamacare” in place and move on to other issues if the vote failed. The bill was withdrawn minutes before the vote was to occur.
The president’s gamble failed. Instead Trump, who campaigned as a master deal-maker and claimed that he alone could fix the nation’s health care system, saw his ultimatum rejected by Republican lawmakers who made clear they answer to their own voters, not to the president.
Republicans have spent seven years c...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:27 pm
After more than a year of wrangling, senators announced a bipartisan bill Thursday to impose mandatory sanctions on Iran over its spate of ballistic missile tests and support for a group that President Donald Trump may soon dub a terrorist organization.
The measure from top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee comes despite Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s repeated warnings that expanding sanctions against Iran would jeopardize the nuclear deal struck in 2015 – a deal that Trump promised to undo during his presidential campaign.
Leading Democrats resisted an effort last year from Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and high-ranking Democrat Robert Menendez, D-N.J., – both of whom opposed the Iran deal – to impose similar sanctions over fea...
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March 24, 2017 at 4:14 pm
A Weekly Shtikle mazal tov to my niece, Ruti Levy, on her forthcoming marriage to Yoni Epstein of Scranton. Mazal tov to the extended Levy, Bulka and Jakobovits families.
The pasuk (40:22) recounts the placing of the shulchan in the north before the placing of the menorah in the south. However, points out R' Chaim Brisker, the mishkan was arranged from the kodesh hakadashim and out, i.e. they began in the west and moved eastward. There is a general rule in matters pertaining to the holy service, kol pinos she'atah poneh, lo yehu ela derech yamin.(Sotah 15b and various other sources). This is to say that any time there is a choice between turning to the left or to the right, one must turn to the right. If so, when facing east...
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March 24, 2017 at 3:26 pm
The World Jewish Congress has found that more than 382,000 anti-Semitic posts were uploaded to social media over the course of 2016 – an average of 43.6 posts per hour, or one post every 83 seconds. The WJC research, conducted by the Israeli monitoring firm Vigo Social Intelligence, also determined that an overwhelming 63 percent of all anti-Semitic content online can be found on Twitter.
“We knew that anti-Semitism online was on the rise, but the numbers revealed in this report give us concrete data as to how alarming the situation really is,” World Jewish Congress CEO and Executive Vice President Robert R. Singer said. “We hope this serves as a wake-up call to all internet forums to maintain moral standards, rid themselves of offensive content, and make the digit...
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March 24, 2017 at 3:24 pm
Britain says it will vote against UNHRC resolutions until it ends its bias against Israel.
Britain on Friday placed the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) “on notice”, announcing that it would vote against all future UNHRC resolutions criticizing Israel until the body ends its “disproportion and bias” against the Jewish state.
“Israel is a population of eight million in a world of seven billion,” said a statement from the British government, quoted by The Jewish Chronicle.
“Yet since its foundation, the Human Rights Council has adopted 135 country-specific resolutions; 68 of which against Israel. Justice is blind and impartial. This selective focus on Israel is neither,” added the statement, which pointed out that that “Israel ...
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March 24, 2017 at 3:19 pm
Mayor Catherine Pugh said she will veto a bill that would raise Baltimore City's minimum wage. In a press conference Friday, she said her office will instead support statewide measures in Annapolis.
"I don't think there's anybody that wants to see the minimum wage increased more than I do," Pugh said. "But when I think about the economic impact...I think it's important that we follow the lead of the state."
If Baltimore City raises its minimum wage and encircling jurisdictions don't, the city will be the "hole in the donut," Pugh said, economically speaking.
Pugh said she spoke to counterparts across the state, as well as former mayor Kurt Schmoke and representatives of a number of nonprofits.
"You know, Catherine, if you push for the bill and sign for the bill...
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March 24, 2017 at 2:36 pm
Prosecutors said the targeted murder of a black man by a self-proclaimed white supremacist in New York City was most likely an act of terrorism.
James Harris Jackson, 28, of Baltimore, Maryland, appeared in a Manhattan courtroom for his arraignment Thursday. He was formally charged with second-degree murder, but Prosecutor Joan Iluzzi-Orbon said the charges are expected to be upgraded once the case goes before a grand jury.
“The defendant was motivated purely by hatred,” Iluzzi-Orbon said. “Additional charges could include murder in the first degree, as this was most likely an act of terrorism.”
During the hearing, Jackson looked about the room with a curious expression on his face but said nothing. He was escorted by three of the 18 police and court officers who...
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March 24, 2017 at 11:10 am
An Israeli teen accused of making more than 100 bomb threats in the U.S. outran the FBI for months, using Bitcoin and more to stay hidden. Then he made a mistake.The suspect arrested Thursday for a wave of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers in the United States employed an array of technologies, including Bitcoin and Google Voice, to make himself virtually untraceable for months, The Daily Beast has learned. But in the end, it only took one careless slip-up to lead police to his door.Police arrested 19-year-old Michael Kaydar, who has joint Israeli-U.S. citizenship, at his home in Ashkelon, a coastal city in southern Israel. He’s suspected of phoning in over 100 bomb threats to JCCs and Jewish day schools in 33 states since January, with the most recent calls made tw...
