|
December 17, 2018 at 3:41 pm
Pikesville, MD - Dec. 17, 2018 - 3:09 PM - Emergency officials are checking out people who fell ill at the Beth El School in Pikesville after an envelope was opened Monday, according to the Baltimore County Fire Department.
Hazardous materials crews were called around 12:45 p.m. to the school in the 8100 block of Park Heights Avenue.
Two adult patients were being evaluated by paramedics for mild symptoms after they opened an envelope, fire officials said.
"We received a call from the school for a possible hazardous materials incident. Basically what happened is two people, both adults, were in a room in the school when they opened some kind of envelope that I believe arrived through the mail, and they immediately began complaining of feeling ill," Baltimore County fire spokeswoman Elise...
|
December 17, 2018 at 3:04 pm
San Francisco - Airbnb says it hasn’t reversed its plan to stop listing properties in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Earlier Monday, Israel’s tourism minister, Yariv Levin, said Airbnb pledged “not to implement” its decision during a meeting between the two sides. Airbnb’s plan would affect around 200 properties.
But Airbnb says that report was inaccurate. The San Francisco-based company says it is developing the tools needed to implement its policy while it continues to talk with stakeholders.
The company announced last month that it would stop listing properties in the settlements, which are considered illegal by most of the world.
The decision prompted uproar in Israel. Officials accused the company of anti-Semitism and threatened to imp...
|
December 17, 2018 at 2:49 pm
Updated as of 2:41 PM: Two adults were subsequently evaluated at the scene for mild symptoms. Crews scanned the building with meters for chemicals and gases, but fire officials said nothing significant has been detected. Thirty-three staff and 78 students remain at the school.Additional information was received that the package arrived today and it was an envelope from Dallas, Texas containing Christian religious information regarding being "saved".
Pikesville, MD - Dec. 17, 2018 - Several people at the Beth El School in Pikesville are being check out after a suspicious package was opened Monday, according to the Baltimore County Fire Department.
Hazardous materials crews were called around 1 p.m. to the school in the 8100 block of Park Heights Avenue.
Paramedics are evaluating ...
|
December 17, 2018 at 2:01 pm
Washington - President Donald Trump early on Monday again criticized the Federal Reserve for its current series of interest-rate increases, days before the U.S. central bank is expected to push up interest rates again.
“It is incredible that with a very strong dollar and virtually no inflation, the outside world blowing up around us, Paris is burning and China way down, the Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike. Take the Victory!” Trump wrote in a tweet.
Almost all economists expect the Fed to raise rates again at its meeting this week, while many also see the central bank making increases next year, although at a slower pace in the face of a possible economic recession.
Trump has loudly and frequently blasted the Fed in recent months for this year&rsq...
|
December 17, 2018 at 1:58 pm
Jerusalem - Amid rising tension in the North, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Monday that Israel has missiles that can reach any target throughout the Middle East.
“They develop offensive missiles here that can reach any place in the region and any target,” Netanyahu said during a visit to Israel Aerospace Industries outside of Tel Aviv. “This is an offensive force that belongs to the State of Israel and is relevant for all of our different fronts. They develop weapons here that don’t exist in any other country. “There is a group of minds and people here who develop the best of the defenses needed for the State of Israel. This includes micro satellites that are fired into space, and some missiles that you see here behind me. Space is a huge fiel...
|
December 17, 2018 at 1:55 pm
Scotland - Memorial services in the Scottish town of Lockerbie will this week mark the 30th anniversary of the bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet that killed 270 people.
The jet exploded over Lockerbie on route from London to New York on December 21, 1988. All 259 people on board were killed. Another 11 people were killed on the ground. It is the deadliest ever militant attack in Britain.
Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was jailed for life in 2001 after being found guilty of the attack, in association with others who were never identified. Megrahi was later released because he was suffering from cancer.
In 2003, Muammar Gaddafi accepted Libya’s responsibility for the bombing and paid compensation to the victims’ families but he did not admit to personall...
|
December 17, 2018 at 1:30 pm
United Nations - The United Nations and the Palestinian Authority appealed on Monday for $350 million in aid for Palestinians next year, saying much more was needed but they had to be realistic after a year of funding cuts.
The 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan focused on Palestinians most in need of food, healthcare, shelter, water and sanitation, said Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Donations were down in many areas around the world, he said. But local aid work took a particularly hard hit this year when the United States ended funding for the U.N. agency that helps 5 million Palestinian refugees.
“Humanitarian actors are faced with record-low funding levels of this year, at the same time we face massive and incr...
|
December 17, 2018 at 1:25 pm
Jerusalem - Airbnb’s decision to remove their listings in Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank will not be implemented, according to reports circulated after the meeting between Israel’s Tourism Minister Yariv Levin and Vice President of Airbnb Chris Lahan.
Levin said that he will continue to act in coordination with Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely to ensure that all Israeli citizens receive equal treatment.
In November, Airbnb agreed to boycott West Bank settlements and announced plans Monday to remove settler listings from its popular website of temporary rentals in 191 countries. Read more at JPost
|
December 17, 2018 at 12:26 pm
Baltimore, MD - Dec. 17, 2018 - We cannot thank you enough for the outpouring love and support that has been given to us over the past few days.
We are working day and night to figure out our temporary program arrangements, and greatly appreciate all of the gestures of kindness and willingness to support our journey as we rebuild. This transition will not be an easy one, and each and every one of you is helping to ease the adjustment for the boys and the Lev family as a whole.
The original watsapp group is now full, and we are opening a 2nd group for anyone that would still like to join.
The group is facilitated by Mrs Shani Topper and Mrs Chana Artman, and any questions can be directly messaged to them. Please follow the link below to join:https://chat.whatsapp.com/Gow5F22bDXUAruIMB...
|
December 17, 2018 at 11:52 am
New York - Racial justice. Obstruction of justice. Social justice. The Justice Department. Merriam-Webster has chosen “justice” as its 2018 word of the year, driven by the churning news cycle over months and months.
The word follows “toxic,” picked by Oxford Dictionaries, and “misinformation,” plucked by Dictonary.com.
Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement that “justice” consistently bubbled into the top 20 or 30 lookups on the company’s website, spiking at times due to specific events but also skating close to the surface for much of the year.
While it’s one of those common words people likely know how to spell and use correctly in a sentence, ...
|
December 17, 2018 at 11:48 am
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are mostly lower Monday, although they’ve steadied after a rocky start. Health insurers and hospitals are falling after a judge in Texas ruled that the 2010 Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Retailers are also sinking, but banks are rising. Other companies that tend to do better in times of faster economic growth, including energy and technology companies, are also making gains.
KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 fell as much as 1.2 percent in morning trading but at 11:30 a.m. it was down just 5 points, or 0.2 percent, at 2,594. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 85 points, or 0.4 percent, to 24,015. The Nasdaq composite was unchanged at 6,910. The Russell 2000 index added 4 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,415.
The Russell 2000 has fallen almost...
|
December 17, 2018 at 11:47 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — A report compiled by private researchers and expected to be released Monday by the Senate intelligence committee says that “active and ongoing” Russian interference operations still exist on social media platforms, and that the Russian operation discovered after the 2016 presidential election was much broader than once thought.
The report was compiled by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge with data provided by the Senate committee from major tech companies Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Along with another report expected to be released by the panel, it is the first comprehensive analysis of the Russian interference on social media beyond what the companies themselves have said.
The report says that there are still some ...
|
December 17, 2018 at 11:45 am
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Two men involved in a Turkish lobbying campaign led by former National Security adviser Michael Flynn have been charged with illegally lobbying in a case related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The case unsealed Monday against Flynn’s former business partner, Bijan Kian, and Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin, accuses the two men of conspiring to “covertly and unlawfully” influence U.S. politicians on behalf of Turkey.
The new charges appear to shed light on the cooperation of Flynn, who last year admitted to lying about several aspects of the lobbying work. In recommending he serve no prison time, prosecutors said Flynn not only helped with the Russia probe but also an undisclosed — and separate — crimin...
|
December 17, 2018 at 11:42 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pushing the government to the brink of a partial shutdown, the White House is insisting that Congress provide $5 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border despite lawmaker resistance from both parties.
Without a resolution, parts of the federal government will shut down at midnight Friday.
President Donald Trump kept up the pressure on Democrats on Monday, tweeting: “Time for us to save billions of dollars a year and have, at the same time, far greater safety and control!”
On Sunday, White House senior adviser Stephen Miller said: “We’re going to do whatever is necessary to build the border wall to stop this ongoing crisis of illegal immigration.”
Asked if that meant having a government shutdown, he said: “If it com...
|
December 17, 2018 at 9:08 am
Jerusalem - Facebook has blocked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair for 24 hours after he wrote a post criticizing the social media platform as “thought police” and sharing previously banned content.
Yair Netanyahu blasted the website on Sunday for removing an earlier post in which he called for “avenging the deaths” of two Israeli soldiers killed last week by Palestinian gunmen and calling for the expulsion of Palestinians. He shared a screenshot of the earlier post in violation of Facebook’s community rules.
Facebook deleted a post by Netanyahu last week in which he said he would “prefer” if “All the Muslims leave the land of Israel.”
Facebook had no immediate comment.
Netanyahu’s son has drawn media ...
|
December 17, 2018 at 9:07 am
Jerusalem - Israel stands a better chance to normalize ties with the Arab world without the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli diplomats on Sunday night.
“What is happening at the moment is that we are in a process of normalization with the Arab world without progress in the diplomatic process with the Palestinians,” Netanyahu said.
He spoke with the ambassadors as Israeli-Palestinian ties continued to unravel in the wake of a renewed wave of violence in the West Bank.
Netanyahu explained that a policy of making peace first with the Arab states and only then with the Palestinians, runs counter to the prevailing diplomatic belief that Israel-Arab ties could only occur after the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Today we are goin...
|
December 17, 2018 at 9:07 am
Washington - The U.S. Senate will publish a report this week detailing the vast scope of Russia’s disinformation campaign surrounding the 2016 U.S. election campaign, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The research, a draft of which was obtained by the newspaper, is the first to study the millions of social media posts provided by major technology firms Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and Google, to the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to the Post.
The research provides more detail on known efforts by the Russian government’s Internet Research Agency to bolster Republican Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign and sow discord among U.S. voters by posting on contentious issues such as gun violence and race, according to the Post.
The bipartisan panel has not said ...
|
December 17, 2018 at 9:03 am
West Bank - The Israeli military has partially demolished the home of a Palestinian accused of killing two Israelis in a West Bank attack two months ago.
The house itself, located in a West Bank village, was left intact while a part of its interior was destroyed by bulldozers.
Protesters arrived as the military carried out its work on Monday and clashes between the sides erupted shortly after the demolition.
The military says it was carrying out “operational activity.”
Ashraf Naalweh is accused of killing two Israelis at a West Bank industrial zone in October. Israeli troops killed Naalweh in an arrest raid last week after a two-month manhunt.
Deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence spiked last week in the West Bank. In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the ...
|
December 17, 2018 at 9:02 am
Jerusalem - For the first time since the beginning of Operation Northern Shield, Israel allowed a foreign news source to take a look at one of the tunnels discovered crossing from Lebanon into Israel.
The CNN footage shows reporter Ian Lee dropping a small camera several meters into the ground, passing limestone walls before exposing a sophisticated tunnel, complete with ventilation and lights. “It’s large enough for an NBA player to stand in,” the reporter ascertains.
The hole drilled by the IDF is only meters away from the Lebanese border to avoid any doubt where the tunnel originates.
Israel launched Operation Northern Shield on December 4, aimed at discovering and destroying cross-border tunnels that the terrorist organization Hezbollah dug from Lebanon into Israel...
