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January 11, 2019 at 12:27 pm
The White House has begun laying the groundwork for a declaration of national emergency to build President Donald Trump’s border wall, a move certain to set off a firestorm of opposition in Congress and the courts but one that could pave the way for an end to the three-week government shutdown.
The administration is eyeing unused money in the Army Corps of Engineers budget, specifically a disaster spending bill passed by Congress last year that includes $13.9 billion that has been allocated but not actually spent for civil works projects, two people with knowledge of the developments said Thursday.
Trump has urged the Army Corps to determine how fast contracts could be signed and whether construction could begin within 45 days, according to one of the people who spoke on the condit...
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January 11, 2019 at 12:26 pm
The largest education union in the United Kingdom backtracked on a pledge to boycott advertisements from Israeli companies, with its co-head confirming on Wednesday that the statement was “made in error.”
The clarification came after criticism of a statement made by the National Education Union (NEU) — which claims more than 500,000 members — in the January/February 2019 issue of its magazine, which responded to a concern raised by a subscriber identified as Ian R K Davies from Edinburgh, who said he was pleased to read that the Trades Union Congress endorsed a motion in September “in favour of Palestinian citizens of Israel and of Palestinian refugees” in the previous edition.
The measure was passed without opposition, with dozens of audience members ...
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January 11, 2019 at 12:26 pm
Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang is vowing to pay every American citizen between the ages of 18 and 64 a $1,000 check once a month if he is elected in 2020.
Yang, who is running his presidential campaign largely around the idea of universal basic income, already launched a pilot program for free cash payments known as the Freedom Dividend, CNBC reported on Wednesday.
For the program, Yang selected a family in Goffstown, New Hampshire, who he says will be receiving $12,000 in free cash for the year.
To fund a larger-scale version of his plan that would cover all Americans, Yang told CNBC he plans to impose value-added tax of 10 percent on the goods and services that a company produces once he is elected.
The move could reportedly raise anywhere between $500 billion-$1 trillio...
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January 11, 2019 at 12:25 pm
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Thursday US sanctions against his country were “fully illegal” and Tehran would not comply with them.
“We believe that we should not comply with the illegal sanctions against Iran,” Zanganeh told a joint news conference in Baghdad with his Iraqi counterpart, Thamer al-Ghadhban.
Zanganeh also said Iran would not discuss the volume or destination of its oil exports while it remained under US sanctions.
“We have discussed today how to improve cooperation with Iraq on different aspects, especially on oil issues,” Zanganeh said.
Ghadhban, who also said the discussions had touched on energy issues, added that Iraq had not yet reached an agreement with Iran to develop joint oilfields.
He said a decline in global ...
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January 11, 2019 at 12:24 pm
Israel, the “Startup Nation,” raised a whopping $6.47 billion in 623 technology deals in 2018, according to a new report by IVC Research Center.
Data shows that $4.1 billion of the funds were raised by 100 firms in deals exceeding $20 million apiece, with 538 firms raising funds below $5 million each.
The tech sector earned 950 million more than in 2017, when 661 deals yielded $5.52 billion, and $1.37 billion more than in 2016.
Since 2013, annual high-tech funding has risen by approximately 120 percent.
According to the report, the number of deals below $5 million continued to increase, while deals over $20 million continued to grow, representing some 63 percent of funds raised in 2018.
Of the 2018 deals, $4.7 billions-worth were backed by venture capitalists.
The five bi...
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January 11, 2019 at 12:10 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s early, but officials say the current flu season is shaping up to be gentler than last winter’s unusually brutal one.
In most parts of the country right now, the flu strain causing the most illness is a somewhat milder virus. It tends not to cause as many hospitalizations and deaths as the kind of flu that dominated a year ago. Flu vaccines also work better against it.
Flu usually takes off after Christmas and peaks around February.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday reported the latest flu numbers. Last week, flu was reported to be widespread in 30 states, up from 24 the week before.
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January 11, 2019 at 12:07 pm
BARRON, Wis. (AP) — A 21-year-old man is jailed in the deaths of a Wisconsin couple he killed because he wanted to kidnap their teenage daughter, investigators said Friday, a day after the girl approached a stranger along a rural road saying she'd been abducted in October and held against her will.
Jake Thomas Patterson was taken into custody shortly after 13-year-old Jayme Closs sought help from a woman walking her dog in a rural, heavily wooded neighborhood near the small town of Gordon, about 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) north of Barron. Jayme disappeared from her family's Barron home when her parents were killed Oct. 15.
Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said during a news conference Friday that Jayme was taken against her will. He said investigators believe Patter...
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January 11, 2019 at 11:20 am
Los Angeles - Apple Inc plans to launch three iPhone models this year with some new camera features, including three rear cameras for the most expensive model and two for the other models, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The new iPhones will succeed the XR model that has shown sluggish demand, which according to Apple was due to weak sales in China.
That led several electronics retailers in the world’s second largest economy to slash iPhone prices this week.
Apple was not available for comment outside regular business hours.
The Cupertino, California-based company has decided to stick to liquid-crystal display (LCD) at a time when sluggish sales of iPhone XR cut into its most recent revenue projection, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Last wee...
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January 11, 2019 at 11:20 am
Vermont - Allies of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are rallying behind the embattled presidential prospect, even as they reluctantly begin to ponder a painful possibility: a 2020 presidential field without him.
The 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist is the most prominent presidential contender to face a serious setback in the nascent 2020 campaign season. He’s been forced to confront a series of reports detailing allegations of sexual harassment of women by male staffers when he ran for president in 2016.
Sanders’ loyalists fully expect him to launch a second campaign in the coming weeks. And his broad network of die-hard supporters is hosting hundreds of events across the nation this weekend encouraging him to run.
But the persistent allegations put Sanders in an ...
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January 11, 2019 at 10:13 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says changes are coming in the way that the U.S. handles temporary H1-B visas, which allow American companies to bring high-tech and other skilled workers into the U.S. from abroad.
Trump tweeted Friday that those who hold the temporary H1-B visas can "rest assured" because changes are coming that will bring "both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship."
Trump says the U.S. wants to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue careers in the U.S. As a candidate, he promised to stop H-1B visas from being used as a "cheap labor program."
A draft proposal circulated in January to review regulations, find ways to allocate visas more efficiently and ensure that beneficiaries are "the best and t...
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January 11, 2019 at 10:13 am
Forth Worth, TX - Republicans in one of the most populous counties in Texas voted Thursday to keep a Muslim doctor as their party vice chairman following infighting over some members’ claims about his beliefs.
The executive committee of the Tarrant County Republican Party voted 139-49 to reject the effort to purge Shahid Shafi, a surgeon and City Council member in suburban Fort Worth.
“This vote reaffirms the commitment by a majority of Tarrant County Republicans to our core values and moral compass, a demonstration of our allegiance to the Texas Republican Party Platform and the Constitutions of the United States and Texas, which strictly prohibit religious and racial discrimination of any kind,” Tarrant County Republican Party Chair Darl Easton said in a written state...
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January 11, 2019 at 10:13 am
Beirut - Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says the country’s foreign minister has asked Beirut’s representative at the U.N. Security Council to file a complaint over Israel’s building of a wall along their shared border.
The agency quoted on Friday Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil as calling the Israeli move a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and the militant Hezbollah group.
The wall is being built on the edge of the Lebanese border village of Kfar Kela.
Tension has been rising recently on the border between the two countries that are technically at war.
Israel last month announced the discovery of border tunnels, which it says were part of a Hezbollah plot to sneak in Israel and carry out attacks.
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January 11, 2019 at 10:03 am
Miami - Miami International Airport is closing a terminal this weekend because security screeners have been calling in sick at twice the airport’s normal rate as the federal government shutdown stretches toward a fourth week.
Friday marks the first day screeners will miss a paycheck, and airport spokesman Greg Chin said there’s a concern there won’t be enough workers to handle all 11 checkpoints during normal hours over the weekend.
Chin said Terminal G will close at 1 p.m. Saturday, reopen for flights Sunday morning and close again at 1 p.m. that day. The terminal serves United Airlines along with smaller carriers. Its closure means restaurants and shops that depend on departing flights also will close.
“We felt we had to make a decision before the weekend,&rdqu...
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January 11, 2019 at 7:43 am
Washington - The U.S.-led military coalition in Syria has begun the process of withdrawing troops from Syria, a U.S. military official said Friday, declining to comment on specific timetables or movements.
Col. Sean Ryan, spokesman for the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said the U.S. started “the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria.”
“Out of concern for operational security, we will not discuss specific timelines, locations or troops movements,” he said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict in Syria through a network of activists on the ground, said the withdrawal began Thursday night. It said a convoy of about 10 armored vehicles, in addition to ...
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January 11, 2019 at 7:42 am
DAVIS, Calif. — A rookie California police officer was fatally shot Thursday night when a suspect at an accident scene opened fire, the Sacramento Beereported.
Davis police Officer Natalie Corona, 22, who graduated from a training academy and completed her field training just before Christmas, had responded to a three-car crash when she was shot, the newspaper reported.
Corona was sworn in as an officer two weeks ago, KOVR reported. Her father, Merced Corona, served 26 years as a Colusa County Sheriff’s deputy, the Beereported.
“She was a rising star in the department,” Davis police Chief Darren Pytel said in a news conference late Thursday. “She just worked like you can’t believe.”
Corona was the first Davis police officer ...
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January 11, 2019 at 7:24 am
These tips can help prevent frozen pipes this winter. Plus, ways to handle your insurance claim if your Maryland house is damaged.
BALTIMORE, MD — With wind chills that will feel like the teens at times this week in Maryland, and overnight lows remaining in the 20s, it's important to know how to prevent your home's water pipes from freezing. Frozen water pipes in unheated basements and crawl spaces can be messy and expensive to repair. But if you wake up to a frozen faucet, there are steps you can take to safely thaw out a frozen water line without burning down the house.
Fire officials say it's important during long cold spells to monitor automatic sprinkler systems, fire pumps, hoses and hydrants. Whether or not pipes in these systems actually burst, any freezing o...
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January 11, 2019 at 7:21 am
Maryland Senate President Mike Miller made his diagnosis clear Thursday, mostly through a written statement, that he has prostate cancer.
Miller issued a statement, saying, in part, "This past July, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer along with my osteopathic issues."
As Miller addressed the General Assembly in chambers, he declined questions from the media, saying, "I'm not going to take any questions from the press. This is the story. It's what happened, where we are."
In December, after reporting a sharp pain in his leg, his doctor told him the cancer can no longer be treated with just drugs.
"As a result, I will be undergoing chemotherapy during this legislative session," Miller said in the statement.
In typical Miller style, he broke the news with humor.
"It affects ...
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January 11, 2019 at 7:19 am
There is a chance of accumulating snow to Maryland over the weekend.
Meteorologist Ava Marie predicts the snow will arrive Shabbos afternoon in Maryland and last into Sunday afternoon. Marie says that the heaviest snow will fall through Motzaei Shabbos. She says she is expecting 2-4” falling in the Baltimore metro, with the bulk of that coming before 9 am Sunday.
Marie says the roads will turn slick quickly Motzaei Shabbos due to below-freezing temperatures.
The second piece of the storm will likely be south, so heavier accumulation should just miss the Baltimore area, Marie says.
The storm will not have much moisture as a storm would if it moved up the coast.
But very early accumulation forecasts indicate as much as 2 to 4 inches of snow possible in the Baltimore area and the E...
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January 11, 2019 at 5:51 am
Baltimore, MD – Jan. 5, 2019 - It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petirah of Mrs. Mathilde Hain, a’h, (nee Berlowitz); beloved wife of the late Philipp Hain, z’l; devoted mother of Rabbi Yaakov (Dina) Hain, Naomi (Dov) Katz, Susan (Ervin) Klein and Irving (Rifka) HainShiva will be observed at 3011 Romaric Court, Apt E, Baltimore, MD 21209.Shacharis: 7:00 AM Mincha/Maariv: 4:45 PM (Erev Shabbos 1:00 PM)
Bila HaMaves LaNetzach...
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January 10, 2019 at 9:35 pm
President Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin today, Thursday 10 January / 4 Shevat, visited the logistics center of United Hatzalah at Beit Shemesh. The president met volunteers from all sectors of Israeli society and heard about their activities. The president was escorted by CEO Moshe Teitelbaum.
United Hatzalah is an independent, voluntary Emergency Medical Service organization that gives life-saving first aid and reports directly to the Ministry of Health. The organization has more than 5000 volunteers and dealt with some 300,000 medical emergencies in 2018. United Hatzalah also has voluntary branches in the USA, Brazil, Uman and India.
“The Talmud teaches us that saving a single life is like saving the whole world. You save the lives of men, women and children, 24 hours a day,...
