WhatsApp will now limit users to forwarding a message only five times, in an attempt to cut down on the spread of misinformation. According to Reuters, the five time forwarding limit is being implemented across the world starting today. WhatsApp initially limited messages to being forwarded 20 times in July, with the five time forwarding limit being tested out in India. Before that, you could forward a message to up to 256 people. WhatsApp began labeling forwarded messages around that time, too. The initial limits were prompted by a series of mob attacks and killings in India, set off by the spread of false information about child kidnappings. While the smaller forwarding limit could help curb the spread of bad information, it won’t necessarily be as limiting as it sounds. Messages...
An online retail shop has taken down a shirt after several on Twitter called out the anti-Semitic phrasing. The item, which appeared on Zazzle, a company which allows users to design merchandise and sell customized items in its virtual store, had the writing: “At least I’m not Jewish” printed on a plain black shirt. The shirt was designed and put up by a user named “The Slesk Bazaar,” who has since been removed from the site. Several users took to social media to express their outrage over the offensive T-shirt. After the backlash, Zazzle removed the shirt and said the product violated its terms of service. In a statement to Fox News, Zazzle defended itself as an open marketplace, and said it took “swift action” to tak...
Top senators said Tuesday they would vote Thursday on two separate bills that could bring an immediate end to the record-breaking government shutdown. One of the bills has the backing of President Trump, and includes $5.7 billion for his long-promised border wall. The other would extend funding for shuttered agencies through Feb. 8, the New York Times reported. The plan, a compromise between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, could be a way to end the shutdown — though the fate of the border-wall-funding bill remained in doubt in both the Senate and the House. And Trump could veto one or both of the bills, prolonging the partial shutdown, which enters its 33rd day on Wednesday. “People are saying isn’t there a way out of th...
Israel should not collaborate with China on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and critical infrastructure projects, domains in which it should favor “democratic regimes,” Israeli venture capitalist Erel Margalit opined speaking at a Tel Aviv event Sunday. Margalit is the founder and chairman of venture capital firm Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), a Jerusalem-based venture capital firm backed by several China-based limited partners, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., that has several cybersecurity firms on its portfolio. A former Israeli Labor party lawmaker, Margalit served as a member of the Israeli parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and its cybersecurity subcommittee. “Democratic regimes, headed by the US, find themselves posed against cou...
Washington - Senate leaders reached an agreement on Tuesday to vote this week on two competing proposals to end the government shutdown, including President Donald Trump’s plan to have Congress pay for the long-stalled wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that’s likely to fail. The other measure, from Democrats, also seems unlikely to pass. It would temporarily reopen the government through Feb. 8 while talks on border security continue. Either package would need to hit the 60-vote threshold to advance on Thursday, a tall order in the narrowly divided Senate where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority. Trump’s wall is the key sticking point in his standoff with Democrats that has led to a partial government shutdown. But the agreement reached to at least start voting sets the...
An Israeli tank fired into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing a Hamas fighter in what the army described as retaliation for the wounding of a soldier and a brief incursion during a violent Palestinian border protest. An Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also canceled a Qatari donation of $15 million for the impoverished enclave that had been due on Wednesday as part of international efforts to head off escalation in Gaza. Palestinian medics in Gaza said a Hamas fighter died and two others were wounded in the Israeli shelling of a lookout post near the fortified frontier in the central sector of the enclave ruled by the Islamist group. Hamas confirmed the three casualties as its members. Earlier on Tuesday, the army said in a statement, one of its officers was shot...
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned a crowd about the urgency of addressing man-made climate change on Monday at an event honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which she warned would “destroy the planet” in a dozen years if humans do not address it. “Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'” Ocasio-Cortez asked Coates. Her remarks refer to a U.N.-backed climate report, published last year, that determined the effects of climate change to be irreversible and unavoidable if carbon emissions are not reigned in over the next 12 years....
Tu B’Shvat, the new year for the trees, marked an auspicious beginning for the intense limudim of Agudath Israel of America’s Yerushalayim Yarchei Kallah. The day started early, particularly for those who took advantage of the opportunity to leave the hotel 75 minutes prior to neitz hachama to daven at the Kosel. For those who remained behind, there was Shacharis at the hotel, after which participants lined up at the Yarchei Kallah registration tables to receive the more than 500 page long book of marei mekomos that would help them further plumb the depths of the sugya d’kallah. Despite having added extra tables to accommodate the largest ever Yarchei Kallah crowd, the hotel beis medrash was jam packed as eager attendees took their seats and began readying them...
Digital speed signs are in response to concerns raised at town hall meeting   (Towson) – County Executive Johnny Olszewski and 5th District Councilman David Marks announced jointly that the County Department of Public Works will initiate a traffic calming pilot program that will position digital speed signs around the County to help mitigate high-speed drivers in residential neighborhoods as part of a comprehensive traffic calming strategy. “Councilman Marks and I heard loud and clear at last week’s town hall meeting that our residents are very concerned about drivers speeding through their neighborhoods,” Olszewski said. “Councilman Marks has advocated for using digital speed monitoring systems to slow down drivers and I am pleased that we are moving ah...
Montana - Fox News host Bret Baier and his family have survived a motor vehicle crash in Montana. In a statement released Tuesday, the anchor and executive editor of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” says that after a weekend of skiing he was driving to the airport on icy roads with his wife and their two sons on Monday morning when they were “involved in a major car crash” in Bozeman. The 48-year-old says a passing motorist named Zach stopped and the family was able to climb out of the flipped vehicle. He says first responders got them to a hospital quickly, from which he says they left “banged up but alive.” Fox says Baier is expected to be back on the air Tuesday night.
Islamberg, NY - Three men are charged with plotting to attack an upstate New York Muslim community with explosives. Court papers say three Rochester-area men are accused of plotting to attack Islamberg, a rural Muslim enclave west of the Catskills. Police in the Rochester suburb of Greece this weekend arrested 20-year-old Brian Colaneri, 18-year-old Andrew Crysel and 19-year-old Vincent Vetromile. Each was charged with weapons possession and conspiracy. Court papers say they intended to use several improvised explosive devices wrapped in duct tape that were shaped like cylinders and a mason jar. Followers of a Pakistani cleric settled Islamberg in the 1980s to flee crime in New York City. It was unclear whether the men had lawyers yet. Attempts to reach relatives to comment weren&rsqu...
Gedolim, Rabbanim and Roshei Yeshiva reviewing the newly published edition of Likutei Basar Likutei, Sefer Shemos שבט תשע"ט
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks across the world are down Tuesday following new signs the global economy is weakening. The International Monetary Fund trimmed its economic forecasts for 2019 and 2020 and pointed to risks including trade tensions and rising interest rates. China’s government said its economy grew in 2018 at the slowest pace since 1990. Technology companies skidded, and so did industrial companies, which were hurt by the slower growth forecast as well as some weak fourth-quarter earnings. Bond prices climbed as investors looked for safer investments, and oil prices fell as traders expected weaker demand. KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 index lost 43 points, or 1.6 percent, to 2,627 as of 1:10 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 374 points, or 1.5 per...
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky boys’ school shut down its campus on Tuesday as a precaution and a small protest was held outside their diocese as fallout continued over an encounter involving white teenagers, Native American marchers and a black religious sect outside the Lincoln Memorial last week. President Donald Trump tweeted early Tuesday that the students at Covington Catholic High School “have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be” but says he hopes the teens will use the attention for good, and “maybe even to bring people together.” The recorded images that initially generated outrage on social media were tightly focused on the students wearing “Make America Great Again” hats who seemed to laugh derisively as they sur...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A tentative deal was reached Tuesday between Los Angeles school officials and the teachers union that will allow educators to return to classrooms after a six-day strike against the nation’s second-largest district, officials said. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, accompanied by leaders United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District, announced the agreement at City Hall a few hours after a 21-hour bargaining session ended before dawn. “I’m proud to announce that pending approval by the teachers represented by UTA and educational professional and this Board of Education we have an agreement that will allow our teachers to go back to work on the campuses tomorrow,” Garcetti said. Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl sa...
Milan - A senator with Italy’s governing 5-Star Movement has apologized for a tweet citing a century-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, which he later deleted. Elio Lannutti came under fire after posting an article on Twitter that cited the fabricated, anti-Semitic “Protocols of Zion,” which asserted a Jewish plan for global domination, to attack the international banking system. A member of the opposition Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti, called the words “the lowest point in this mix of hatred, negation-ism and racism that reappears more and more often.” Lannutti said Tuesday on Facebook that he did not intend to offend anyone, “much less the Jewish community.” He said sharing a link didn’t mean endorsing the contents, adding, “...
Gaza - Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip has left one Palestinian dead and two others wounded after an Israeli soldier was shot along the border of the coastal enclave. The Israeli military said Tuesday that an officer was lightly wounded “during a riot in the southern Gaza Strip” and that Israeli tanks struck a Hamas militant position in response. “An initial investigation in the field found that during a riot, which included rock throwing, a terrorist opened fire at IDF troops. A bullet struck the helmet of an officer who was stationed at the scene”. The Gaza health ministry confirmed that a 24-year-old man was killed and two others were wounded in the shelling. Tuesday’s incident comes at a sensitive time for both Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel, ...
Washington - U.S. home sales cratered in December, causing price growth to slip to the lowest level in more than six years as the housing sector ended 2018 on a decidedly weak note. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales of existing homes plunged 6.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.99 million last month, the worst pace in almost three years. For all of 2018, sales of existing homes fell 3.1 percent from a year ago to 5.34 million units, the weakest total since 2015. “Looking ahead to 2019, expect weaker existing-homes sales as the new year ushered in a government shutdown and worsening economic uncertainty,” said Cheryl Young, a senior economist at Trulia. Home sales have slowed after years of strong price growth and modest inventories...
Iowa City - Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa says she turned down Donald Trump’s request to run as his vice president in 2016 because of family concerns. Ernst made the claim in an affidavit in a divorce proceeding that was first reported by Cityview, a Des Moines alternative newspaper. The filing was made in October but unsealed this month after Ernst and her former husband, Gail Ernst, settled their previously contentious divorce. Ernst wrote that after Trump interviewed her in July 2016 to be his running mate, “I turned Candidate Trump down, knowing it wasn’t the right thing for me or my family.” She says it was a sacrifice she made for her husband, who wasn’t fond of her political career. Ernst has indicated she’ll run for a second six-year Senate term in...
Washington -  The top U.S. diplomat for Europe is resigning after only 16 months on the job in a blow to efforts to steady the Trump administration’s shaky ties with European partners amid questions about its commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance. The State Department said Tuesday that Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell will leave his post in mid-February. “Wess has done an outstanding job as assistant secretary,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. “I have valued his counsel and wisdom as he has led our European team in this administration.” The department’s deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said Mitchell had been “a valued and effective leader” and a “good friend to our allies and p...
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