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April 21, 2018 at 9:36 pm
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A school resource officer who fired at a student gunman in Maryland is receiving more honors.
Blaine Gaskill, a deputy first class with the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office, received a governor's citation on Thursday. The Washington Post reports that Gov. Larry Hogan called him a hero who did everything right. Gaskill also was honored by the Washington Nationals, who had him throw the first pitch at their home opener.
Seventeen-year-old Austin Wyatt Rollins mortally wounded 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey before killing himself at Great Mills High School last month.
Officials say Gaskill responded immediately and fired a shot that hit the gun in the teen's hand just as Rollins shot himself in the head.
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April 21, 2018 at 9:34 pm
Fadi M. Albatsh, 35, shot by two assailants in Kuala Lumpur while on his way to the mosque for dawn prayers; Palestinian Islamic Jihad official, a relative of Albatsh, blames Mossad for assassination; Hamas says Albatsh was its member; deputy PM says gov't looking into possibility "foreign agents" involved.
A Palestinian electrical engineer from the Gaza Strip was shot to death Saturday morning in Malaysia by two assailants on a motorcycle, according to Malaysia police.
Dr. Fadi M. Albatsh was declared dead at the scene after the assassins fired 10 rounds at him.
Albatsh, 35, a lecturer at the British Malaysian Institute at the University of Kuala Lumpur, was shot while he was on his way from his home in the Jalan Gombak neighborhood to a nearby mosque for dawn prayers at aro...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:34 pm
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (AP) — Mitt Romney fails to secure GOP nomination for US Senate seat in Utah at convention, must compete in primary.
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April 21, 2018 at 9:24 pm
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Croatia's president visited the site of a World War II concentration camp on Friday and honored its victims, while Jewish leaders are boycotting the main commemoration ceremony for the third year in a row.
President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said visiting the Jasenovac camp near Zagreb "evokes a feeling of deep regret over the crimes that took place here and respect for all the innocent victims."
Croatia "unconditionally condemns crimes committed at this camp," Grabar-Kitarovic said. "No political goal or order can justify crimes done in its name."
The camp was run by Croatia's pro-Nazi regime. Tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs and anti-fascist Croats were killed there.
The right-leaning authorities running Croatia now have faced criticism for their...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:21 pm
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Holocaust survivor told people at a counter-rally held Saturday in a Polish city where far-right groups marched a week earlier that Poland's leaders tolerate organizations with Nazi-inspired ideologies.
Some 1,500 people gathered in Gdansk, the cradle of Poland's pro-democracy Solidarity movement in the 1980s, to protest the convention the far-right groups held in the city and to alert Poland's government to the growing threat of fascism.
Magdalena Wyszynska, 96, a Jewish survivor of the Lvov ghetto, told the crowd that the lack of reaction by Poland's right-wing government could suggests its leaders are "more concerned for the widening of their electorate than for our security."
Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, who organized the rally Satu...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:19 pm
Heavy gunfire in Riyadh sparks conflicting rumors.
Heavy gunfire was reported Saturday night near Saudi Arabian King Salman's palace in Riyadh.
It is not clear who the assailants are or how many there are.
Some rumors claim the attack is part of a royal coup, while others claim palace guards attempted to shoot down a drone which came too close to the palace.
Wall Street's Saudi Arabia journalist Margherita Stancati tweeted, "No coup attempt in Riyadh. A toy drone/plane got too close too the King’s palace and was shot down."
She also noted that it was not clear if there was any actual threat to the palace.
Saudi authorities have not yet commented on the reported events.
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April 21, 2018 at 9:18 pm
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he doesn't expect Michael Cohen, his longtime personal lawyer and fixer, to "flip" as the government investigates Cohen's business dealings.
Trump, in a series of tweets fired off from Florida on the morning of former first lady Barbara Bush's funeral, accused The New York Times and one of its reporters of "going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will 'flip'" — a term that can mean cooperating with the government in exchange for leniency.
"Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble," even if "it means lying or making up stories," Trump said, before adding: "Sorry, I don't see Michael doing that desp...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:18 pm
TOKYO (AP) — The world's oldest person, a 117-year-old Japanese woman, has died.
Nabi Tajima died of old age in a hospital Saturday evening in the town of Kikai in southern Japan, town official Susumu Yoshiyuki confirmed. She had been hospitalized since January.
Tajima was born on Aug. 4, 1900, and reportedly had more than 160 descendants, including great-great-great grandchildren. Her town of Kikai is in Kagoshima prefecture on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands.
She became the world's oldest person seven months ago after the death in September of Violet Brown in Jamaica, also at the age of 117. Video shown on Japanese television showed Tajima moving her hands to the beat of music played on traditional Japanese instruments at a ceremony to mark t...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:18 pm
Education Minister Bennett says Hamas engineer won't be buried in Gaza until Israeli prisoners are returned home.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) on Saturday night spoke about the assassination of Hamas engineer Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh in Malaysia.
According to Bennett, al-Batsh's body should not be allowed into Gaza for burial until the bodies of murdered IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul are returned to Israel for burial. Bennett also promised to bring the issue up on Sunday, during a Security Cabinet meeting.
Hamas has been holding the bodies of Goldin and Shaul since 2014's Operation Protective Edge.
Hearing Bennett's announcement, the Goldin family turned to Yaron Blum, the new coordinator for issues concerning ...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:17 pm
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico and the European Union reached a deal to update their nearly 20-year-old free trade agreement on Saturday, including the elimination of tariffs on a number of Mexican agricultural products.
President Enrique Pena Nieto, who arrived in Hannover, Germany, in the afternoon to begin a five-day tour of three European nations, said via Twitter that the "agreement in principle" was struck in Brussels.
"The modernization of this instrument broadens our markets and consolidates us as priority partners of one of the most important economic blocs in the world," Pena Nieto said.
The announcement comes amid uncertainty for both Mexican and European commercial ties with the United States under the presidency of Donald Trump, who has espoused a more protectionist stance...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:17 pm
LONDON (AP) — The audience at Royal Albert Hall got a rare treat Saturday — the chance to sing "Happy Birthday" to the longest reigning monarch in British history.
Queen Elizabeth II, with her eldest son Prince Charles at her side, waved to the crowd as they celebrated her 92nd birthday in song.
Charles got an enthusiastic response when he introduced her as: "Your majesty, mummy."
The queen took center stage after a varied pop concert featuring British singers Sting, Tom Jones and Jamie Cullum along with Australian star Kylie Minogue, long a fan favorite here.
Shaggy and Craig David also performed, and the festivities took a long stroll down memory lane, with audio from a speech Elizabeth made on her 21st birthday and video from her Golden Jubilee, when roughly 1 million pe...
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April 21, 2018 at 9:16 pm
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea says it has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests, plans to close nuclear test site .
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April 21, 2018 at 9:16 pm
JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel's defense minister said Saturday that Hamas leaders are the "only culprits" in continued bloodshed on the Gaza border, as the European Union and a top United Nations official made new demands to investigate shootings of unarmed Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, including the killing of a 14-year-old boy.
Avigdor Lieberman's comments on Twitter came a day after four Palestinians, including the teen, were shot and killed by Israeli army fire from across the border fence, according to Gaza health officials.
More than 150 Palestinians were wounded Friday, in the fourth round of weekly Hamas-led mass protests in the border area.
The teen, Mohammed Ayyoub, was about 150 meters (yards) from the fence when he was hit, Gaza photogra...
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April 20, 2018 at 6:06 pm
Since the hour is late, just a quick thought: We often strive to find connections between different episodes within the same parsha. It is perhaps less common to find connections from one parsha to the next. The topic that takes up most of parshas Tazria is the illness of tzara'as. Traditionally, (as per Arachin 15b) tzara'as afflicted someone who spoke lashon hara as it did Miriam at the end of parshas Beha'alosecha.
R' Moshe Shternbuch in Ta'am Voda'as, in the name of R' Yisrael Salanter, writes that the end of the previous parsha we are taught of the animals that are not to be eaten and the tum'ah that results when we do. While it seems that very many people are careful about what they put into th...
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April 20, 2018 at 5:52 pm
1) Tzaraas: A Spiritual Malady
Ramban’s famous opinion, which is agreed upon by the Rambam and the Kuzari, is that tzaraas is not a physical malady. Tzaraas is a spiritual malady with a physical manifestation, but it is not contagious.
Garment Tzaraas
“V’habeged ki yihiyeh bo negah tzaraas” (13:57). If one has a garment that has tzaraas. Ramban says this is not a natural malady at all. It wasn’t something that was around in the world. Nigei batim, clothing and on human beings was only something that when the Jews were shelamim with Hashem, when the Jews were in a place of working on their spiritual greatness, and the ruach Hashem was upon them at all times, if they did certain aveiros, and the gemara in Eirichin and multiple other places tells ...
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April 20, 2018 at 5:34 pm
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore’s police commissioner addressed a crowd at a hip-hop concert alongside the mayor, but the audience didn’t seem interested in what he had to say.
“I want to take about 20 seconds to apologize for all the things that the police have done dating back 200 years,” Commissioner Darryl De Sousa said at Wednesday’s Eric B. & Rakim concert at Baltimore Soundstage.
A video posted by Baltimore Fishbowl shows De Sousa being met with a few applause but mostly boo’s — as well as several profanities.
“Two hundred years ago, all the way to civil rights. All the way to the ’80s where crack was prevalent in the cities and it affected disproportionately African-American men. All the way to the &...
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April 20, 2018 at 5:26 pm
WASHINGTON—At least two of the memos that former FBI Director James Comey gave to a friend outside of the government contained information that officials now consider classified, according to people familiar with the matter, prompting a review by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.
Of those two memos, Mr. Comey himself redacted elements of one that he knew to be classified to protect secrets before he handed the documents over to his friend. He determined at the time that another memo contained no classified information, but after he left the Federal Bureau of Investigation, bureau officials upgraded it to “confidential,” the lowest level of classification.
The Justice Department inspector general is now conducting an investigation into classification is...
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April 20, 2018 at 5:21 pm
A steep slide in technology companies weighed on U.S. stocks Friday, pulling the market lower for the second day in a row.
Losses among retailers, packaged food and beverage makers and other consumer goods companies also helped weigh down the market. Banks rose as bond yields continued to climb, reflecting increasing investor concerns of higher inflation in the wake of rising oil and other commodity prices.
"Higher commodity prices, a little bit more inflation pressure and higher interest rates, that sort of takes some wind out of the sails for equity markets, at least short-term," said Edward Campbell, senior portfolio manager at QMA, a business unit of PGIM.
The S&P 500 index fell 22.99 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,670.14. The Dow Jones industrial average slid 201.95 points, or 0....
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April 20, 2018 at 5:19 pm
BALTIMORE (AP) — A former Baltimore County school superintendent who served on prominent national education panels was sentenced Friday to serve six months behind bars after pleading guilty to perjury charges.
The sentencing marked another milestone on a dramatic downward trajectory for Shaun Dallas Dance, a charismatic and ambitious administrator who was just 30 in 2012 when he was chosen to lead Baltimore County schools. The suburban county ringing the city of Baltimore is the country's 25th largest public system, with more than 170 schools, 111,000 students and 21,000 district employees.
Over years, Dance failed to report that he earned nearly $150,000 for part-time consulting work while superintendent. Evidence presented in court showed that he also worked on the side for ...
