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January 16, 2019 at 9:16 am
Washington - The Internal Revenue Service is recalling about 46,000 of its employees furloughed by the government shutdown — nearly 60 percent of its workforce — to handle tax returns and pay out refunds. The employees won’t be paid.
With the official start of the tax filing season coming Jan. 28, the Trump administration has promised that taxpayers owed refunds will be paid on time, despite the disruption in government services caused by the partial shutdown now in its fourth week. There had been growing concern that the shutdown would delay refunds going out because the money wouldn’t be available for them from Congress.
Last week, the administration said customary shutdown policies will be reversed to make the money available and refund payments on time possibl...
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January 16, 2019 at 9:12 am
Malaysia - Malaysia’s foreign minister said Wednesday that the government will not budge over a ban on Israeli athletes in a para swimming competition and has decided that the country will not host any events in the future involving Israel.
Malaysia, a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, is among the predominantly Muslim countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. The government has said Israeli swimmers cannot join the competition in eastern Sarawak state in July, which serves as a qualifying event for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said the Cabinet affirmed last week that no Israeli delegates can enter Malaysia for sporting or other events in solidarity with the Palestinians.
“The Cabinet has also decided that Malays...
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January 16, 2019 at 9:12 am
East Providence, RI - A wheeled robot named Marty is rolling into nearly 500 grocery stores to alert employees if it encounters spilled granola, squashed tomatoes or a broken jar of mayonnaise.
But there could be a human watching from behind its cartoonish googly eyes.
Badger Technologies CEO Tim Rowland says its camera-equipped robots stop after detecting a potential spill. But to make sure, humans working in a control center in the Philippines review the imagery before triggering a cleanup message over the loudspeaker.
Rowland says 25 of the robots are now operating at certain Giant, Martin’s and Stop & Shop stores, with 30 more arriving each week. Carlisle, Pennsylvania-based Giant says it has two robots now working at stores in the state, and plans to expand to all 172 Gia...
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January 16, 2019 at 9:11 am
Westbrook, Maine - Think of it as a crop circle, but in a river.
A curious formation that has grabbed the attention of Greater Portland, Maine, is actually a spinning ice disk, and it’s roughly 100 yards wide. The formation in the Presumpscot River was widely shared on social media, and it has drawn comparisons to an alien spacecraft, a carousel and the moon.
Rob Mitchell, who owns a nearby office building, spotted the alien-looking disk Monday morning and immediately notified the city of Westbrook, just outside Portland. Officials say the disk is spinning slowly counter-clockwise, and has served as a big raft for ducks and other birds.
Mitchell says “the ducks were rotating on this big Lazy Susan.”
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January 16, 2019 at 9:06 am
New York - Sears will live on— at least for now.
The company’s chairman and largest shareholder and chairman, Eddie Lampert, won a bankruptcy auction for Sears in New York, averting liquidation of the iconic chain, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The person agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiation publicly.
Lampert was the only one to put forth a proposal to rescue the floundering company in its entirety. He had sweetened his bid multiple times to more than $5 billion over the last few days through an affiliate of his hedge fund ESL. Details of the final terms couldn’t be learned.
Lampert, who steered the company into bankruptcy protection, may be able to keep the roughly 400 remaining S...
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January 16, 2019 at 9:04 am
Gaza - A 24-hour standoff between Italian diplomats visiting Gaza and the Hamas terror group ended Tuesday evening with the Italians’ release.
The incident began Monday when a group of Italians who were part of a diplomatic team which arrived in Gaza for advance security preparations ahead of a visit by the Italian ambassador to Israel was suspected by Hamas of being undercover Israeli agents.
Four diplomats who were armed were asked to turn over their weapons by Hamas operatives at a checkpoint in Gaza. They refused and fled the checkpoint, seeking refuge in a UNRWA building. They were released only after the Italian ambassador intervened.
Some reports say they were questioned by Hamas before their release. Read more at VINnews
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January 16, 2019 at 9:04 am
New York - Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that if he decides to run for president he can still win despite being older.
The 76-year-old billionaire said there is a thought in America that if you are over 50, white and male you are never going to get elected, but he disagrees. He said during a question and answer session at the University of Toronto that people still want maturity, experience and accomplishment.
“There is nothing wrong with people being young. But there is also nothing wrong with people being older,” said Bloomberg, who turns 77 next month. “Getting older is a process that I hope continues.”
Bloomberg is weighing a 2020 Democratic presidential bid and said he has to decide whether winning is possible.
Former Vice Presid...
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January 16, 2019 at 9:03 am
Baltimore, MD, Jan. 16, 2019 — The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 1000 traditional rabbis in matters of public policy, commended the Democratic National Committee today for dropping its sponsorship of the Women's March, Inc., in the wake of ongoing revelations linking Women's March leaders to Antisemitism. In an appearance on The View earlier this week, Women's March co-leader Tamika Mallory repeatedly refused to condemn statements by Louis Farrakhan, who has called Jews "Satanic," "termites," and "false Jews," even after his hateful words were read to her by The View co-host Meghan McCain.
"Ms. Mallory would never associate with people in leadership roles who identify with haters like David Duke, yet her mentor Louis Farrakhan is cut from t...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:40 pm
Much has been said about the widely publicized incident that took place last week when community members removed an about-to-be towed car from an NYPD tow truck and urged the driver to flee the scene before making disparaging comments to an NYPD tow truck operator who was just doing his job. Over the last few days, police tow trucks have been out in force in Boro Park, but the idea that the NYPD is exacting revenge for what happened this past Thursday is a very grave error.
We have been in close contact with the NYPD who is very much aware of a massive scam that is taking place in various communities involving bogus inspection stickers and doctored registration decals. There are vehicles on our streets that have these fake stickers and the NYPD is out there looking for them an...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:38 pm
Confidential information about United Airlines’ top corporate clients has been leaked on to the internet.
A blogger posted a picture of a promotional poster created by the airline that showed that Apple is its biggest corporate customer, with the tech giant booking a staggering 50 business class seats a day on its No. 1 route alone – San Francisco to Shanghai, spending $150 million each year on flights, with San Francisco to Shanghai accounting for $35 million, or 25 per cent.
The next biggest corporate clients according to the poster are Deloitte, McKinsey and Company, Cisco, Applied Material, PWC and Oracle, as they all spend between $12 million and $17 million with the airline.
Companies spending over $10 million are Intel, Visa and Chevron, the poster claimed.
Rea...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:36 pm
Boca Raton, FL - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing for sanctions against Airbnb unless it reverses its decision barring lodging listings in the disputed West Bank in the Middle East.
The Republican governor on Tuesday criticized the online lodging marketplace for a policy he said unfairly targets Jewish people.
DeSantis is suspending the use of Airbnb for any state-paid travel. DeSantis also said the state was looking into whether to bar the state’s pension fund from investing in Airbnb even though right now the company is not publicly traded.
Airbnb announced in November that it would cease its operations in Israeli settlements “that are at the core of the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
In a response to DeSantis’ announcement, company spokes...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:36 pm
Providence, RI - When her paychecks dried up because of the partial government shutdown, Cheryl Inzunza Blum sought out a side job that has become a popular option in the current economy: She rented out a room on Airbnb.
Other government workers are driving for Uber, relying on word-of-mouth and social networks to find handyman work and looking for traditional temp gigs to help pay the bills during the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
The hundreds of thousands of out-of-work government employees have more options than in past shutdowns given the rise of the so-called “gig economy” that has made an entire workforce out of people doing home vacation rentals and driving for companies like Uber, Lyft and Postmates.
Blum decided to capitalize on the busy winter travel season in ...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:35 pm
Washington - Staring down the next deadline to pay federal workers, the White House shifted tactics Tuesday, trying to bypass House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to negotiate with rank-and-file lawmakers even as President Donald Trump dug in for a prolonged shutdown.
The House and Senate announced they would stay in session, canceling an upcoming recess week at home if the shutdown continued, which seemed likely. On the shutdown’s 25th day, Trump did not move off his demand to have Congress provide $5.7 billion to build his promised border wall with Mexico. Democrats say they will discuss border security once the government has reopened, but Pelosi is refusing money for the wall they view as ineffective and immoral.
The president, on a conference call with supporters, showed no signs of bac...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:35 pm
San Fransico - Facebook Inc will invest $300 million over three years in local news globally as it faces blistering criticism over its role in the erosion of the news business worldwide.
The investment in time and money is a significant expansion of a plan to help newsrooms in the U.S. and abroad create and sustain viable business models to survive, the company said on Tuesday.
Unlike earlier investments in the news business, this latest round is distinguished by how it is not tied to Facebook-related products, recipients of the investments say.
Earlier rounds of investments in the news business were designed to encourage publishers to rely on delivering its products over Facebook, which eventually hurt many news organizations when Facebook’s strategies shifted.
“We’r...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:33 pm
Manhattan, NY - Defense attorneys say federal inmates awaiting trial in New York have refused meals after being denied visits with their families and lawyers due to staffing shortages worsened by the partial government shutdown.
Details surrounding the hunger strike at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan remained unclear, including when it began and if it is ongoing.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said in an email Tuesday that it had “suspended” visitation at the facility but that it has “since resumed.”
The agency did not comment on the hunger strike.
David Patton, head of the federal defenders officers in New York, says a higher than usual number of correctional officers are calling in sick because they have not been receiving their pay checks during...
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January 15, 2019 at 8:33 pm
Mankato, Minnesota - Authorities in Minnesota say a 2-year-old child is OK after tumbling from the back seat of a moving vehicle while still strapped in a car seat.
Dash camera video captured the moment the car seat and toddler rolled out of the vehicle on Monday as the vehicle turned a corner on a street in Mankato. Witness Chad Mock was driving behind the car. He stopped his vehicle and ran to the child’s aid.
Police and paramedics responded and checked the child for injuries. Officials say the child’s mother was driving the vehicle. Mock tells KMSP-TV a woman later walked back to get the toddler.
Police say the child was properly strapped into the car seat, but that the car seat wasn’t fastened to the seat in the vehicle.
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Information from: KMSP-TV, http://ww...
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January 15, 2019 at 4:33 pm
New York - It’s 1 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon in Wallingford, Connecticut, and about 20 children are watching a screen at the front of the room as they take turns navigating challenges and collecting virtual currency to unlock powers, outfits and pets for their characters.
The game they’re playing has some similarities to the online battle game “Fortnite.” But the kids aren’t fighting one another — they’re racking up points for participation and good behavior in their classroom at Dag Hammarskjold Middle School, where their teacher is presenting a home economics lesson with help from Classcraft, a fantasy-themed educational program.
“It’s actually a lot of fun,” said 13-year-old Caiden McManus. “The pets —...
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January 15, 2019 at 4:32 pm
Brooklyn, NY - A witness at the U.S. trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman testified on Tuesday that he previously told U.S. authorities the accused Mexican drug lord once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Alex Cifuentes, who has said he was a close associate of Guzman for years, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal court. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered, “That’s right.”
Pena Nieto was president of Mexico from December 2012 until November 2018. He previously served as governor of the state that includes Mexico City. Read more at Reuters
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January 15, 2019 at 4:30 pm
The Democratic National Committee has become the latest group to removed its name from the list of sponsors of the Women’s March less than 24 hours after one of the March’s leaders refused to denounce Louis Farrakhan during a nationally televised interview.
The committee’s name no longer appears on the Women’s March partner list on Monday, after march co-presidents Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland appeared on The View to address the criticism of their leadership and allegations of anti-semitism that have been levied against them by former members of their leadership team.
As recently as the morning of January 13, 2019, the committee was listed among the “2019 Women’s March Sponsors,” according to an Internet archive search, and it is not lo...
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January 15, 2019 at 4:00 pm
Chicago, IL - Jan. 15, 2019:
Dear Friends,
Whether your מנהג is to say פרשת המן daily or only once a year, today is an important reminder to focus on where our פרנסה and all the ברכות in our lives come from.
Today, over 500 members of the Chicago community are gathering together in hopes of 'בעזרת ה securing funding from the one hundred million dollars available in Illinois Tax Credit Scholarships, for our families and our schools. Let us do our part, and allocate time today to engage in our primary השתדלות, by davening for the success of the program and the welfare of our community and its מוסדות.
May we all merit a year of comfortable פרנסה, and may all our מוסדות be on the firm financial footing that will enable each one of the...
