WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and the special counsel's Russia investigation (all times local): 1:10 p.m. President Donald Trump says he "would like to" testify before the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Here's what Trump said when he was asked at the White House whether he would like to testify: ""Yes. I would like to." His comment comes shortly after his lead lawyer in the Russia investigation resigned amid a shake-up of the president's legal team. Mueller is looking into contacts between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia and Russian meddling in the presidential election.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer heaped praise Thursday on President Trump’s decision to crack down on China’s trade practices. “I don’t agree with President Trump on a whole lot, but today I want to give him a big pat on the back. He is doing the right thing when it comes to China,” Schumer said from the Senate floor. He added that “unfortunately, previous presidents, Democrat and Republican, just stood by as China did what it did to us. President Trump is exactly right.” Read more at The Hill.
 NEW YORK (AP) — Dow Jones industrials drop 723 points, or 2.9 percent, as worries over trade tensions with China rattle markets.
Baltimore, MD - Mar. 22, 2018 - A new audit of Baltimore City finances confirms what many customers in its water system already know -- the billing system has had its problems. Listening to the auditor this morning, it's easy to understand the concerns about lack of oversight of police overtime. The auditor noted problems with payroll accountability citywide and water bills. The new audit gives many city water customers the right to say, "I told you so." The new billing system that went into effect, auditors say, has caused problems. "During the transition, a significant number of accounts were not billed or were billed inconsistently, which led to non-billing or incorrect billing for certain customers," said Audrey Askew, Baltimore City comptroller. The audit was presented to th...
This Shabbos carries more than the name of its Parsha, Tzav. It is also known as Shabbos Hagadol because of its proximity to Pesach. There is a unique mitzvah that precedes the holiday of Pesach; the mitzvah of maos chittim.  This mitzvah obligates every member of the city to provide the needy folks in the city with the means to celebrate the holiday. It is a bit perplexing what the purpose of this mitzvah is? There already is a mitzvah for the members of the city to contribute to the communal Kupah, which is the fund from which the needs of all members of the community are provided. Why is there an additional collection for Pesach. Furthermore, next Friday night, the Jewish people will be seated with their families and friends to celebrate the birth of our nation. They will begin th...
Jerusalem, Israel - Tonight, Israel will move her clocks forward one hour at 2:00AM. As a result, the time difference between Jerusalem and Baltimore, MD  will once again be seven hours.Licht benching in Yerushalyim will be 6:17 PM.  
President Donald Trump on Thursday called Joe Biden “weak, both mentally and physically,” suggesting he could easily beat up the former vice president, in response to Biden’s comment that he would have sought to fight Trump over his remarks about women if the two were in high school together. “Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault,” Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday morning. “He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!” Read more at POLITICO. {Matzav.com}
NEW YORK (AP) — CNN chief Jeff Zucker sharply attacked the network's rivals at Fox News Channel on Thursday, saying that it has become a propaganda machine that is "doing an incredible disservice to the country." Zucker spoke at the Financial Times Future of News conference two days after a former Fox military analyst quit, claiming he was ashamed at the way the network's opinion hosts were backing President Donald Trump. Zucker said that analyst, Ralph Peters, voiced what a lot of people have been thinking about Fox in the post-Roger Ailes era. "What has happened to that network in the last 18 months, especially the last year, is that it has just turned itself into state-run TV," Zucker said. "TASS has nothing on them," he said in reference to the Russian news agency. T...
WASHINGTON (AP) — He came, he saw, he got fired on Twitter. And now Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said farewell, with a parting plea Thursday to America's diplomats not to let anyone violate their integrity. Tillerson did not mention his erstwhile boss, President Donald Trump, as he spoke to several hundred State Department workers who gathered at headquarters in Foggy Bottom to watch him depart. Nor did he directly address the icy manner in which he was terminated last week after one of the shortest stints by a secretary of state in recent history. "This can be a very mean-spirited town," Tillerson said, eliciting laughter at first and then applause. "But you don't have to choose to participate in that." When he arrived in the nation's capital last year, Til...
U.S. stocks took heavy losses Thursday spurred by falling technology shares and President Trump’s announcement of tariffs on China. The Dow Jones industrial average fell as much as 1,200 points before noon Thursday, a 2 percent drop. The Nasdaq fell roughy 1.9 percent, while the Standard and Poor’s 500 index slid 1.7 percent. Word of Trump’s planned tariffs on China exacerbated investor fears that the White House would trigger a trade war that would derail economic growth. Read more at The Hill.
The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday voted along party lines to release its controversial, Republican-authored report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, bookending a year of contentious committee infighting. The report will not immediately be made public. It must first be sent to the intelligence community for a declassification review. Read more at The Hill.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's lead lawyer in the special counsel's Russia investigation has resigned amid a shake-up of the president's team, an exit that removes the primary negotiator and legal strategist who had been molding Trump's defense. The departure of attorney John Dowd comes as the president has personally intensified his attacks on the special counsel and just days after the Trump legal team added a new lawyer, former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova, who has alleged on television that FBI officials were involved in a "brazen plot" to exonerate Hillary Clinton in the email investigation and to "frame" Trump for nonexistent crimes. Dowd confirmed his decision in an email Thursday to The Associated Press, saying, "I love the President and wis...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was ready to hit China with billions of dollars in trade sanctions Thursday for stealing American technology and pressuring U.S. companies to hand it over. Farmers, electronics retailers and other U.S. businesses braced for a backlash as the Chinese government vowed to take "all necessary measures" to defend itself in an emerging economic showdown. The expected penalties include restrictions on Chinese investment and tariffs on as much as $60 billion worth of Chinese products. Financial markets edged downward ahead of the announcement. Dozens of industry groups sent a letter last weekend to Trump warning that "the imposition of sweeping tariffs would trigger a chain reaction of negative consequences for the U.S. economy, provoking retaliatio...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders have finalized a sweeping $1.3 trillion budget bill that substantially boosts military and domestic spending but leaves behind young immigrant "Dreamers," deprives President Donald Trump some of his border wall money and takes only incremental steps to address gun violence. As negotiators stumbled toward an end-of-the-week deadline to fund the government or face a federal shutdown, House Speaker Paul Ryan dashed to the White House amid concerns Trump's support was wavering. Although some conservative Republicans balked at the size of the spending increases and the rush to pass the bill, the White House said the president backed the legislation. Trump himself sounded less than enthused, tweeting late Wednesday: "Had to waste money on Dem ...
SAN BRUNO, Calif. (AP) — YouTube has tightened its restrictions on firearms videos. The video-serving network owned by Google is banning videos that provide instructions on how to make a firearm, ammunition, high-capacity magazines, and accessories such as bump stocks and silencers. The ban includes showing viewers how to install the accessories or modifications. YouTube also prohibits content about the sale of guns or firearm accessories. The policy comes weeks after a mass shooting at a Florida high school left 17 people dead. The National Sports Shooting Foundation says such restrictions "impinge on the Second Amendment." The group worries about the potential for blocking "educational content" that instructs and improves skills.
NEW YORK (AP) — Toy company executive Isaac Larian and other investors have pledged a total of $200 million and hope to raise four times that amount in crowdfunding in a bid to save potentially more than half of the 735 Toys R Us stores that will go dark in bankruptcy proceedings. The unsolicited bid faces a number of hurdles like finding other deep-pocketed investors, as well as getting a bankruptcy judge to approve such an unusual plan. It is the first known plan to keep the Toys R Us brand alive. The long-shot bid would be a huge benefit to Larian. Nearly 1 in every 5 sales made by Bratz doll-maker MGA Entertainment, where Larian is CEO, is rung up at a Toys R Us store. Larian says he and the other investors, which he declined to name, believe that saving part of Toys R Us will...
NEW YORK (AP) — The latest nor'easter lost some punch as it rolled into New England on Thursday, as millions of others in the Northeast dug out from the storm that dumped more than a foot of snow in some places, knocked out power to tens of thousands of customers and had many wishing for more spring-like weather. "We're supposed to be getting ready for Easter, not a nor'easter," said 46-year-old Raeme Dempsey, as her 6-year-old daughter, Jadalynn, pulled her toward a Philadelphia park so they could see the trees blanketed in freshly fallen snow. Long Island took a hard hit, with Bay Shore and Patchogue leading the way with 19 inches of snow. While some parts of Pennsylvania saw more than a foot of snow, major cities along the Interstate 95 corridor saw much less. New...
PRAGUE (AP) — An explosion rocked a chemical factory Thursday in the Czech Republic, killing six people and injuring two others, officials said. Unipetrol, a Czech oil processor and plastics producer, said the blast took place inside one of the storage tank for fuels and additives in its refinery in the town of Kralupy nad Vltavou, 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of the capital Prague. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast. A Kralupy town crisis manager, Lukas Hodik, said the explosion seemed to occur when workers were cleaning an empty tank. Regional firefighters confirmed that six people were killed and that the two injured were sent to the hospital. Spokesman Petr Svoboda said there was no danger of further explosions at the site. No dangerous substances have leak...
LIMA, Peru (AP) — He took office in 2016 as a political outsider boasting that his strong business credentials would buoy Peru's economy while sweeping away endemic corruption. But with his offer of resignation, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski joins a long list of recent Peruvian presidents undone by scandals that have destroyed voters' trust in their elected officials. Kuczynski, flanked by his cabinet, announced his decision to resign Wednesday in a nationally televised address, accusing opponents led by the daughter of former strongman Alberto Fujimori of plotting his overthrow for months and making it impossible to govern. Shortly after, he exited the back door of the baroque presidential palace built by Spanish conquerors and was driven off, all alone, in an SUV. Congress was...
BRUSSELS (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May urged European Union leaders on Thursday to unite and condemn Russia, as Moscow slammed the U.K. as untrustworthy in its investigation of the poisoning of a former spy. Amid a heated war of words between London and Moscow, Russia's ambassador to the U.K., Alexander Yakovenko, said his country "can't take British words for granted," and accused the U.K. of having a "bad record of violating international law and misleading the international community." "History shows that British statements must be verified," he told reporters in London. "We demand full transparency of the investigation and full cooperation with Russia" and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Britain says it is complying with the inte...
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