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March 19, 2018 at 8:30 pm
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are leaning heavily on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to cooperate with American efforts to restart peace talks with Israel, several Arab media outlets reported over the weekend.
The Palestinian newspaper al-Quds reported that both countries were pressuring Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah not to dismiss US President’s Donald Trump’s much-vaunted “deal of the century” out of hand.
Meanwhile, the London-based Al-Khaleej newspaper quoted a senior Palestinian source saying that Saudi Arabia was trying to convince Abbas to agree to the American plan, and that its most recent suggestion was to try and persuade President Trump to postpone the transfer of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, currently scheduled to ta...
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March 19, 2018 at 8:00 pm
A look what happened between President Donald Trump and former FBI director Andrew McCabe and why the former FBI director has been portrayed as corrupt.
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March 19, 2018 at 7:27 pm
Two news events this week underscored that the biggest impediment to Israeli-Palestinian peace is the inability or the refusal of the Palestinian Authority to govern effectively.
In the first case, a convoy carrying PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah through Gaza was struck by an explosion damaging three cars and reportedly injuring one. Though no group has claimed credit, many, including the PA, have blamed Hamas, because it maintains strict military and political control over Gaza, meaning that even if the Hamas government was directly responsible for the bomb, it likely knew who was responsible.
Hamdallah was on his way to the inauguration of a new sewage treatment plant inside the Hamas-ruled territory. The plant is being powered through an agreement between Is...
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March 19, 2018 at 5:45 pm
Israeli authorities have arrested a French citizen who worked in his country’s consulate in Jerusalem on suspicion of using a diplomatic car to smuggle arms to Palestine. Security services claim that Romain Franck, 23, used the official vehicle to bypass Israeli security checks and move 70 pistols and two assault rifles from Gaza to the occupied West Bank. Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said Franck carried out the smuggling for personal financial gain rather than for political reasons, and that his superiors at the consulate were unaware of his actions.
“This is a very serious incident in which the immunity and privileges granted to foreign diplomatic missions in Israel were cynically exploited to smuggle dozens of weapons that may be used for terrorist attacks agai...
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March 19, 2018 at 4:57 pm
Congress is on the verge of unveiling a $1.2 trillion government funding package that would provide the biggest increase to federal spending in years.
The sweeping, two-year budget deal that Congress passed in February increases defense spending by $80 billion and nondefense spending by $63 billion for fiscal 2018.
The House is aiming to vote on the bill Wednesday, leaving the Senate just a few days to pass it and avoid a government shutdown on Friday at midnight.
Read more at The Hill.
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March 19, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Sens. Amy Klobuchar and John Kennedy on Monday called for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to question major technology companies in the wake of a report that a data firm harvested information from millions of Facebook users.
Klobuchar and Kennedy asked committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley to call a hearing with CEOs from companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google.
“Important questions also remain unanswered about the role of these technology companies in our democracy. Major social media platforms store an enormous amount of data and have a user base larger than all of the major broadcasting companies combined,” the senators wrote.
Read more at The Hill.
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March 19, 2018 at 4:49 pm
A wintry mix will usher in the beginning of spring.
A rain-snow mix arrives Monday night in Maryland and lasts throughout Tuesday.
But with temperatures above freezing and the high sun angle, there will not be too much accumulation.
Clouds will increase Monday afternoon and moisture arrives late Monday evening. Widespread moisture will bring a rain-snow mix along the I-95 corridor, snow to the north and west, and rain to the south by early Tuesday morning.
The rain and sleet begin during the Tuesday morning commute, then it starts mixing with some snow. Roads should just be wet during the day Tuesday.
Accumulations of a coating to 3 inches are possible by Tuesday evening, especially northwest of the city and mostly on the grass.
The second round of the storm will begin Tuesday ...
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March 19, 2018 at 4:46 pm
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...
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March 19, 2018 at 3:45 pm
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.
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March 19, 2018 at 3:42 pm
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...
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March 19, 2018 at 1:36 pm
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...
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March 19, 2018 at 1:34 pm
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...
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March 19, 2018 at 1:29 pm
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.
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March 19, 2018 at 1:22 pm
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
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March 19, 2018 at 1:18 pm
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...
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March 19, 2018 at 12:52 pm
(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...
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March 19, 2018 at 12:52 pm
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...
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March 19, 2018 at 12:52 pm
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 ...
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March 19, 2018 at 11:49 am
New York Times op-ed argues for fines scaled to income; reaction on ‘Fox & Friends.’
