Stocks fell sharply on Monday, as data privacy concerns engulfed Facebook and drove a tech sell-off that weighed on the broader market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 335.60 points, or 1.35%, to 24,610.91. The S&P 500 fell 39.09, or 1.42%, to 2,712.92 The Nasdaq Composite retreated 137.74 points, or 1.84%, to 7,344.24. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was dragged lower by Facebook, which fell about 6.8%, its steepest one-day loss in years. Facebook is being criticized by lawmakers after disclosing that conservative-leaning Cambridge Analytica, a data company known for its work on Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, was given access to customer data. Reports suggested that Cambridge Analytica may not have deleted the data. The company disclosed the problem late Friday. Fac...
A majority of Americans believe the United States government is spying on them, according to a new survey released Monday. The Monmouth University Polling Institute found that 82 percent of respondents believe the government is watching their actions. A majority, 53 percent, says they think that spying is widespread, while 29 percent of respondents believe the government is watching their moves but there is not widespread spying. Only 14 percent of those polled said they do not think the government spies on their actions, while 4 percent said they did not know. Read more at The Hill.
The Four Questions of Matzoh Purchasing The First Question Is: On all other nights of the year, we do not check our matzoh and bread, although we sometimes check our flour before we bake with it; on this night of Pesach, we check our matzoh before eating it. For what are we checking? The Second Question Is: On all other nights of the year, we eat any kind of matzoh; on this night of Pesach, some people eat only hand matzoh, others eat only machine-made matzoh, and still others eat hand matzoh for the bracha and machine matzoh afterwards. What is the basis for these different practices? The Third Question Is: On all other nights of the year, we prepare our food leisurely; on this night of Pesach, we eat matzoh advertised as special “18-minute matzoh.” But I thought that matzo...
Chabad emissary to Moscow describes warm relations between local Jews, Pres. Putin, says anti-Semitism non-existent in Russia. Chabad emissary to Moscow Rabbi Shea Deitsch, who serves as an aide to Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, spoke on Monday about Russian President Vladimir Putin's re-electionand told Arutz Sheva that Putin is responsible for the fact that anti-Semitism is almost nonexistent in Russia. "I told my children that in these elections, we fulfill the mitzvah of showing gratitude," Rabbi Deitsch said. "That was my feeling, my wife's feeling, and my children's feeling. Putin did great...things for Judaism and Chabad. Here in Moscow, there are things which were absent for hundreds of years." "Jews wear a talit (prayer shawl) and kippa (skullc...
Deputy FM Hotovely tells foreign ambassadors that fighting Hamas, Iran, is the only way to help Gazans. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) on Monday spoke with with foreign ambassadors to Israel about the Hamas terror tunnels recently destroyed by the IDF. Speaking to the ambassadors, Hotovely said, "The tunnel destroyed by the IDF last week...led to the town of Kerem Shalom, where we visited two weeks ago. Hamas has thrown Gaza residents to the wind, and is using [humanitarian] funds to carry out terror attacks against Israeli citizens." "It's important to remember that behind each of Hamas' actions is Iran. The Iranian regime transfers $100 million annually to Hamas, and every cent of it is used against Israel. It does not help Gaza residents at all. "We canno...
Israeli forces on Monday made assessments of the home of a Palestinian assailant who fatally stabbed an Israeli security guard in the Old City on Sunday afternoon ahead of its expected demolition, the army said. Israel Defense Force (IDF) troops, together with the Shin Bet security service and Border Police carried out an “engineering mapping” of the home of 28-year-old Abdul Rahmani Faddal in the village of Aqraba, near Shchem, in the northern West Bank. Faddal was shot dead by an Israeli police officer after stabbing 32-year-old Adiel Kolman in the chest at Shaar Ha’Arayos, one of the seven open gates in Jerusalem’s Old City. Read more at i24NEWS.
SAN FRANCISCO — A woman in Tempe, Ariz., died after being hit by a self-driving car operated by Uber, in what appears to be the first known death of a pedestrian struck by an autonomous vehicle on public roads. The Uber vehicle was in autonomous mode with a human safety driver at the wheel when it struck the woman, who was crossing the street outside of a crosswalk, the Tempe police said in a statement. The episode occurred overnight, although the authorities did not specify whether it was late Sunday or early Monday. The woman was not publicly identified....Read more at NY Times
More than 400 schools in England have received a hoax email threatening to detonate a bomb on school grounds if money is not handed over, police said. A number of schools were evacuated after receiving the emails, which demanded cash from them. Humberside Police said counter-terrorism colleagues had advised that the threats were not "credible". Schools in London, Manchester and North Yorkshire were among those that received the email. Police forces in Cumbria, Cambridgeshire, Humberside, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Avon and Somerset and Northumbria Police also issued statements saying schools and colleges in their areas had been targeted. In Humberside, 19 schools reported receiving the threat. Humberside's Det Supt Tony Cockerill said: "We have spoken to all school...
(In part 1 of this series we mentioned different reasonable and attainable weight loss goals for Pesach and how to handle our health during the erev Pesach preparations.  In part 2, we will look at Pesach itself and give you 8 practical tips on how to keep your health in a good place over the holiday) Pesach There are essentially three areas where we all tend to get into trouble: one - the amounts of food we consume sitting at our tables for our festive meals; two - the types of foods we eat; and three - the general lack of activity and exercise during Pesach. Let’s first look at the portion control issue. It seems that during the holiday where we celebrate going from enslavement to freedom, we manage to enslave ourselves to many unnecessary calories, none of which do much to...
 Up to $25,000 in seed funding to be awarded to each winning project NEW YORK – The Orthodox Union (OU), the nation’s oldest and largest umbrella organization for the North American Orthodox Jewish community, has launched the OU Impact Accelerator to rapidly identify and invest in solutions for current and future Jewish communal needs.  The program will run over 18-months and is built on mentorship-based growth and early-stage funding for Jewish nonprofit entrepreneurs. Between four and six projects will be awarded up to $25,000 each.  “The Torah teaches us that we have a shared responsibility for each other, kol yisrael areivim zeh lazeh, and that the needs of others should always be our own concern,” said OU President Moishe Bane. “Ort...
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the bombings in Austin, Texas (all times local): 11:20 a.m. Austin's police chief says officers have completed a sweep of the neighborhood where the latest in a string of bombings occurred and deemed it safe, but he asked those who live there to remain indoors until 2 p.m. Police Chief Brian Manley said at a news conference Monday that although officers didn't find anything suspicious while canvassing the southwestern Austin residential neighborhood of Travis Country, investigators are still collecting evidence. Authorities say that although Sunday night's bombing differed from three earlier this month, they believe they were the work of a serial bomber or bombers. Two men received significant injuries in Sunday's attack. It ...
New York Times op-ed argues for fines scaled to income; reaction on ‘Fox & Friends.’
Jerusalem - Yael Kolman began writing the eulogy for her son, Adiel, after hearing that he had been stabbed in a terror attack in Jerusalem’s Old City, but before she knew he was dead. On Monday, she stood on the stairwell in front of the synagogue in the Kochav HaShachar settlement in the West Bank and read those words out loud. “My dear Adiel. It’s 2 a.m. What am I doing here in Kochav HaShachar, with a righteous family that is hosting us in our pain.  “Adiel, on the way [to the hospital], in the taxi, I thought of the eulogy even though they had not yet told me you had died. I felt that your energy was gone,” Yael said. The body of her son, 32-years-old and a father of four small children, lay in front of her, stretched out on a table and wrapped i...
Facebook Inc's shares fell more than 4 percent in premarket trading after media reports that a political consultancy that worked on President Donald Trump's campaign gained inappropriate access to data on 50 million Facebook users. The move would knock $23.8 billion off the social network's market value of $538 billion as of Friday's close and shares in other social media companies including Twitter Inc and Snap Inc also dipped in early deals in New York. One Wall Street analyst said the reports raised 'systemic problems' with Facebook's business model and a number said it could spur far deeper regulatory scrutiny of the platform. The head of European Parliament said on Monday that EU lawmakers will investigate whether the data misuse has taken place, ...
Sen. John McCain on Sunday praised special counsel Robert Mueller amid speculation that President Trump may be preparing to fire Mueller. “Special Counsel Mueller has served our country with honesty and integrity. It’s critical he be allowed to complete a thorough investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — unimpeded,” McCain tweeted. Read more at The Hill.
NEW YORK (AP) — When the Kushner Cos. bought three apartment buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood of Queens in 2015, most of the tenants were protected by special rules that prevent developers from pushing them out, raising rents and turning a tidy profit. But that's exactly what the company then run by Jared Kushner did, and with remarkable speed. Two years later, it sold all three buildings for $60 million, nearly 50 percent more than it paid. Now a clue has emerged as to how President Donald Trump's son-in-law's firm was able to move so fast: The Kushner Cos. routinely filed false paperwork with the city declaring it had zero rent-regulated tenants in dozens of buildings it owned across the city when, in fact, it had hundreds. While none of the documents durin...
Baltimore, MD – Mar. 18, 2018 - It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petirah of. Devorah Taitlebaum z’l, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Ben Taitelbaum, (Pittsburgh) sister of R' Shlomo Taitelbaum, R' Shmuel Taitelbaum, R' Mordechai Taitelbaum, Mrs. Esther Lejtman, (Baltimore) and Mrs. Rivka EmanuelShiva is being observed at the home of theTaitelbaums, 6347 Waldron St., Pittsburgh, PA 15217 (The family requests no visits between 12-1 5:30-6:30 and not after 9:30 PM)Shacharis 7:15 AMMincha/Maariv: 7:20 PM Bila HaMaves LaNetzach...
(This article originally appeared in Times of Israel.) I was dismayed to read Deborah Klapper’s blog post, Yeshiva College’s policies about women matter to us all, in which the author reprimands Yeshiva University for not permitting a woman to deliver the dvar Torah or derasha at the end of a Shabbos morning minyan. Ms. Klapper accuses YU and its roshei yeshiva of depriving women a role in the teaching of Torah, as she conflates women teaching Torah in general with women delivering the dvar Torah or derasha at a minyan, with women serving as rebbeim for male students, and with women having a dominant role in a traditional yeshiva setting: “Yeshiva College must make clear to our young adults that Torah and Halachah value the voices of women teaching Torah. &nb...
The Trump administration is putting pressure on Senate Republicans to crack down on Democratic efforts to delay its agenda, fueling talk about the need for rules reform among Republicans on Capitol Hill. White House patience with the Senate’s backlog of nominees is wearing out, as Vice President Pence made clear during a private meeting with the Senate Republican Conference on Tuesday, according to lawmakers who attended the discussion. White House legislative affairs director Marc Short on Friday accused Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer of “weaponizing” the rules to keep executive and judicial branch positions vacant. Read more at The Hill.
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