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March 21, 2018 at 5:47 pm
The employee posted a photo of himself on Facebook wearing a t-shirt featuring the name of an SS Waffen division.
Austria's foreign ministry has recalled an employee of its embassy in Israel after an Austrian weekly said he posted a picture of himself on social media wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of a Nazi tank division.The Falter weekly published a screenshot of the attache's Facebook page which shows him in a green shirt with the words "stand your ground" and "Frundsberg." Frundsberg was a German Waffen SS armored division during World War Two.
The attache, Juergen-Michael Kleppich, is a member of the far-right Freedom Party, which is a junior partner in Austria's coalition government. He was sent to Tel Aviv in December to help out at the embassy for a few months, ...
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March 21, 2018 at 5:43 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign mined supporters' personal data from Facebook to benefit its voter turnout program. But former campaign officials said Wednesday they accessed and used the information in vastly different ways than Cambridge Analytica, the firm connected to President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign accused of improperly lifting data on 50 million Facebook users.
Former Obama advisers said they collected the data with their own app, complied with the social media platform's terms of service and received permission from supporters. An estimated 1 million Obama supporters gave the campaign access to their Facebook data.
In most cases, Obama supporters who signed on to the campaign's mailing list were asked to au...
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March 21, 2018 at 5:34 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate Wednesday in a vote of confidence in the U.S. economy's durability while signaling that it plans to continue a gradual approach to rate hikes for 2018 under its new chairman, Jerome Powell.
The Fed said it expects to raise rates twice more this year. And it increased its estimate for rate hikes in 2019 from two to three, reflecting more optimistic expectations for growth and low unemployment.
In a statement after its latest policy meeting, the Fed said it boosted its key short-term rate by a modest quarter-point to a still-low range of 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent. It also said it will keep shrinking its bond portfolio. The two moves mean that many consumers and businesses will face higher loan rates over time.
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March 21, 2018 at 5:28 pm
ROUND ROCK, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the Austin bombings (all times local):
4:15 p.m.
A friend of the suspected Austin bomber says he was an assertive person who would end up being "dominant and intimidating in conversation."
Jeremiah Jensen tells the Austin American-Statesman that he was close to Mark Anthony Conditt in 2012 and 2013. Jensen says they were both homeschooled in the same Pflugerville community and he would often go to the Conditt home for lunch after church on Sundays. He says they also attended Bible study and other activities together.
Jensen says, "I have no idea what caused him to make those bombs."
He says Conditt came from a good family, was athletic and a "deep thinker." He added that Conditt was "really rough around the edges" when they met.
Jensen say...
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March 21, 2018 at 5:16 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — Spring kicked off with a wallop of wintry weather along the East Coast as the fourth nor'easter in three weeks rolled in with the potential for a foot of snow Wednesday.
The first full day of the season included scenes of snow falling on blooming daffodils in suburban Philadelphia, New Yorkers twisting to fix blown-out umbrellas, tractor-trailers stuck on snowy highways and kids making their first snowman of spring.
"I want warm! I'm done with the cold," said Yana Damoiseau, a pedestrian in New York City.
Airlines canceled thousands of flights, an estimated 15,000 customers lost power from West Virginia northward, and school districts throughout the Northeast called off classes ahead of the storm. At least two traffic deaths were reported in New Jersey an...
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March 21, 2018 at 5:13 pm
BALTIMORE (AP) — A rare $1,000 bill from 1863 is expected to sell for about $1 million at an auction in Baltimore.
Stack's Bowers Galleries says the bill is one of only two of its kind available to collectors. The U.S. Treasury Department says thousand-dollar bills haven't been printed in the U.S. since 1945 . U.S. founding father Robert Morris of Pennsylvania is pictured on the bill.
Stack's Bowers Galleries will sell this bill and dozens of others from the same collection on Thursday at the Baltimore Convention Center. It expects to fetch a total of about $6.2 million from those sales.
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March 21, 2018 at 5:07 pm
Rebbetzin Tzipi Lau, Wife of Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Delivers Message of Strength and Encouragement to Women in Bat Melech’s Shelters
In an emotional visit to a shelter for battered women run by Bat Melech, Rebbetzin Tzipi Lau, wife of Israel’s Chief Rabbi David Lau, delivered a powerful and uplifting message of strength and encouragement in advance of the upcoming Pesach holiday. Bat Melech runs the only shelters in Israel for religious victims of domestic violence.
“On the eve of Pesach, women who have suffered from abuse identify with the Festival of Freedom in a powerful and symbolic way,” said Noach Korman, Bat Melech Founder and Director. “Each woman is going through a process of freedom from the enslavement of abuse and domestic violence. We are v...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:57 pm
A vandal attacks Chabad at Flamingo synagogue in Thornhill, Ont. on March 21, 2018 (Photo Credit: Rabbi Mendel Kaplan Facebook)
THORNHILL, Ont. – B'nai Brith Canada is appalled after learning Wednesday morning that a synagogue in Thornhill, Ont. has been targeted by antisemitic vandalism.
On Wednesday at about 9:40 a.m., a vandal smashed the glass doors of Chabad at Flamingo with a rock, according to Chabad Rabbi Mendel Kaplan.
York Regional Police have been contacted and are on the scene.
At 11 a.m., Rabbi Kaplan shared information about the incident to his Facebook page. “ANTISEMITIC ATTACK IN THORNHILL!!!” he wrote. “Our cameras show a man walking by our shul... stopping multiple times looking for rocks — and then running back TWICE ...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:47 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The tempest over President Donald Trump's congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Putin quickly grew on Wednesday into an uproar over White House leaks, sparking an internal investigation and speculation over who might be the next person Trump forces out of the West Wing.
The White House, which has suffered frequent leaks — at times of notable severity — said in a statement it would be a "fireable offense and likely illegal" to leak Trump's briefing papers to the press, after word emerged that the president had been warned in briefing materials not to congratulate the Russian president on his re-election.
Trump did so anyway, and on Wednesday he defended the call, saying George W. Bush did not have the "smarts" to work with Putin, and that Bara...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:43 pm
ROUND ROCK, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the Austin bombings (all times local):
3:35 p.m.
The chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security committee says authorities seem to think the Austin bombing suspect had "above average intelligence."
Republican Congressman Michael McCaul told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the suspect matched the FBI's initial profile suspicion that the bomber was likely a white male. But he says a psychological profile probably won't be known until investigators go through Mark Conditt's writings and social media postings.
Authorities say Conditt blew himself up overnight in his vehicle in a hotel parking lot in another suburb as a SWAT team closed in on him.
McCaul says the suspect bought nails and other bomb-making equipment at a H...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:33 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — Housing Secretary Ben Carson, under fire after his office ordered a $31,000 dining set, told a House panel Tuesday that he left furniture purchasing decisions to his wife.
Carson said that he was unaware of the purchase, and canceled it as soon as he learned about it in news reports. But emails released by an accountability organization last week suggest that Carson and his wife, Candy Carson, both played a role in selecting the furniture.
On Wednesday, Carson told a House Appropriations subcommittee that he and his wife looked at furniture catalogues together. But "the prices were beyond what I wanted to pay," he said. Carson added, "I made it clear that didn't seem right to me."
Carson said he then put his wife in charge of furniture selection.
"I left it...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:28 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — Breaking more than four days of silence, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted mistakes and outlined steps to protect user data in light of a privacy scandal involving a Trump-connected data-mining firm.
Zuckerberg said Wednesday that Facebook has a "responsibility" to protect its users' data and if it fails, "we don't deserve to serve you."
Zuckerberg and Facebook's No. 2 executive, Sheryl Sandberg, have been quiet since news broke Friday that Cambridge Analytica may have used data improperly obtained from roughly 50 million Facebook users to try to sway elections.
Facebook has already taken the most important steps to prevent such a situation from happening again, Zuckerberg said. For example, in 2014, it reduced access outside apps had to user dat...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:27 pm
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be in his home state of Alabama this week to address a black law enforcement group that is sometimes at odds with the Trump administration.
The U.S. attorney's office in Birmingham says Sessions will speak to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives on Friday.
The group has been critical of President Donald Trump for his disparaging comments about immigrants from Africa and Haiti. It has also criticized Trump's move to let police agencies obtain surplus military equipment.
The organization opposed Trump's pardon of Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio (ahr-PY'-oh) and noted Sessions' past opposition to clemency.
Sessions will speak at a meeting that includes numerous large-city po...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:27 pm
Stocks fell Wednesday after the Federal Reserve added a third rate hike to its 2019 plans, reflecting views that inflation is beginning to pick up.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 44.96 points, 0.18%, to 24,682 in recent trading. The S&P 500 fell 5.01 points to 2,711.93. The Nasdaq Composite was down 19.02 points at 7,345.29.
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate and maintained its stance for three rate hikes in 2018, partly easing concerns that the central bank would tighten policy at a faster pace than expected. The Fed said it is looking for three more rate hikes in 2019, up from its previous plan to raise rates two times.
“We suspect the Fed is leaning on the mixed inflation data in wages along with the escalating risks of a trade war to buy some ...
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March 21, 2018 at 4:13 pm
The man suspected of planting four bombs in the Texas capital this month that killed two people and injured four others was an unemployed college dropout who doesn't appear to have left much of a trail online aside from some 2012 blog posts about gay marriage and other topics.
Authorities say Mark Anthony Conditt blew himself up in a motel parking lot overnight as a SWAT team approached his SUV. Police haven't publicly released Conditt's name, but a law enforcement official who had been briefed on the investigation identified Conditt as the suspect on the condition of anonymity because the official hadn't been authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Conditt grew up in Pflugerville, a suburb just northeast of Austin where he was still living after moving out of his pa...
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March 21, 2018 at 2:33 pm
Baltimore, MD – Mar. 21, 2018 – Due to the inclement weather, Seven Mile Market will close this evening, Wednesday, Mar. 21, at 6:00 PM.
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March 21, 2018 at 1:26 pm
Baltimore, MD - Mar. 20, 2018 - On Wednesday evening, March 7, Bais Yaakov of Baltimore hosted their 76th Anniversary Banquet, celebrating “An Education for Eternity.”
Divrei brachah were delivered by Harav Aharon Feldman, shlita, Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel, who praised the school as a premier makom of chinuch habanos. “This Bais Yaakov is a model for the rest of the country,” the Rosh Yeshivah asserted. “In the past 75 years, it was mechanech thousands of mothers and wives. May Hakadosh Baruch Hu bentch everyone who has a share in this remarkable school, which should continue to flourish and educate future wives and mothers.”
The evening was opened by Dr. Shmuel Markovitz, president, who discussed the school’s significant growth, ...
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March 21, 2018 at 1:18 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — As hundreds of people stood in line for food and many went hungry during the days and weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Walmart Inc. and local supermarkets threw out tons of spoiled meat, dairy and produce.
Emails and text messages made public Tuesday in a letter sent by the top Democrat on the House oversight committee describe frantic efforts by officials at Walmart and the Puerto Rican government to get fuel for generators to prevent food from going bad.
From the Federal Emergency Management Agency came only silence.
Within a three-hour time span, Walmart officials were able to connect, through email and text messages, with a congressman's office and local Puerto Rican government officials. They passed on their urgent request for help, just two...
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March 21, 2018 at 12:50 pm
BOSTON (AP) — The top prosecutors in Massachusetts and New York have sent a letter to Facebook demanding the social media giant protect its users' private information.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched a joint investigation Saturday after reports that British data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica captured information from 50 million Facebook users without their consent. The firm is tied to President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
Healey says residents in her state "deserve answers immediately," from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica about what data was shared and how it was allowed to happen. Her office says it has been in touch with Facebook about the investigation.
Schneiderman says that if the company v...
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March 21, 2018 at 12:44 pm
Palestinian teen provocateur Ahed Tamimi was sentenced to eight months in prison Wednesday for an incident in which she slapped an IDF soldier and accosted him and a comrade.
