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March 13, 2019 at 5:34 pm
Jerusalem - A senior Israeli official says the army has opened criminal investigations into the deaths of 11 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire during protests along the Gaza border over the past year.
Israeli officials briefed journalists in Geneva on Wednesday to rebut allegations made in a U.N. human rights report last week alleging soldiers intentionally fired on civilians and could have committed crimes against humanity in violence that has killed 189 people and left more than 6,000 hurt by live ammunition.
The Israeli official says full-fledged criminal investigations in such cases are opened if “reasonable grounds” of suspicion of criminal misconduct are found. Critics say such investigations rarely result in prosecution of soldiers.
The officials spoke on condition ...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:34 pm
The Israel Prison Service has uncovered a sophisticated method of smuggling cellphones into Israeli jails, the agency announced on Sunday.
Security prisoners, the agency said, have been caught trying to smuggle miniature cellphones into prisons by swallowing them. The smugglers would commit petty crimes just so they could be arrested and then deliver the phones to a specific person already behind bars.
In other cases, phones were hidden within the prison walls.
These phones were used by inmates to direct terrorist acts. More than 70 smuggled cellphones have been seized thus far in 2019.
The IPS said it recently began installing jammers in prisons in order to ensure smuggled phones would be rendered unserviceable.
“The IPS is at the forefront of the war on terrorism,” the a...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:33 pm
In 2018, Israel was the eighth largest arms exporter in the world, according to the annual arms transfer report released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control, and disarmament.
Israel was the seventh largest exporter of weapons in the world between 2014 and 2017, according to SIPRI’s previous annual report, accounting for 3.1 percent of the global arms trade, up from 2.1 percent in the four years prior. The five largest suppliers — the US, Russia, France, Germany, and China — made up 75 percent of all arms exports.
Over the past decade, Israeli arms exports increased by 60 percent, according to SIPRI’s report. In comparison, American arms exports increased b...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:28 pm
Germany has said that it will not officially designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group, a development likely to cause tension between Berlin and Washington.
The country’s minister of state, Niels Annen, told Der Spiegel on Friday that the US-designated terrorist group plays a crucial role in Lebanon, and that the European Union already blacklists the organization’s terrorist wing, reported Reuters.
This comes two weeks after the United Kingdom officially designated Hezbollah as a terrorist group, joining 12 other countries that have a similar designation.
Previously, the United Kingdom distinguished between the Hezbollah terrorist and political facets.
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March 13, 2019 at 5:23 pm
Get ready: A rare weather phenomenon that meteorologists have ominously dubbed a “bomb cyclone” is due to hit the central U.S. on Wednesday, bringing in its wake hurricane-force winds, blizzards, and floods. CNN reports the huge weather system is expected to hit the Rockies, Central/Northern Plains to the Upper Midwest with blizzards and winds as strong as 50 to 70 miles per hour. Heavy snow, severe storms, and tornadoes are also possible.
Winter storm warnings are in effect for parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota. More than 45 million Americans are under a high-wind threat; over 10 million are under winter storm threats; and more than 15 million are under a flood threat. The National Weather Service in Boulder, Colorado, warned Tuesday: “Please cancel ...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:19 pm
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A window-rattling late winter storm brought blizzards, high winds, rain or floods to more than 25 states Wednesday, stretching from the northern Rocky Mountains to Texas and beyond.
"This is a very epic cyclone," said Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Prediction Center. "We're looking at something that will go down in the history books."
It could develop into the worst storm of its type in 35 or 40 years, he said.
Blowing snow forced major highways to close in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. About 1,000 flights were canceled at Denver International Airport, and nearly 40 more were canceled at Colorado Springs.
"It caught me completely off guard," said Sarah Brin...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:10 pm
Washington - President Donald Trump has had it with the #fakeMelania conspiracy theories that have been circulating on social media.
Trump claims that photos of his wife were altered to make it appear that a look-alike accompanied him to Alabama last week to survey tornado damage.
Trump’s favorite TV program, Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” reported on the body double theory Wednesday, following up on a Monday segment that aired on ABC’s “The View.”
Trump blames the so-called “fake news” for altering the photos and says “they are only getting more deranged with time!”
Commentators on “The View” noted that the woman with Trump last week looked shorter than the president in photos.
The first lady ditched her cu...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:10 pm
Washington - U.S. health regulators are moving ahead with a plan designed to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers by restricting sales of most flavored products in convenience stores and online.
The new guidelines, first proposed in November, are the latest government effort to reverse what health officials call an epidemic of underage vaping.
E-cigarettes typically heat a flavored nicotine solution into an inhalable vapor. Federal law bans their sale to those under 18, but 1 in 5 high school students report using e-cigarettes, according to the latest survey published last year .
Under proposed guidelines released Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration, e-cigarette makers would restrict sales of most flavored products to stores that verify the age of customers entering...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:08 pm
“As Freud has shown, blunders are not the merest chance. They are the result of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep - as deep as the soul itself. The blunder may amount to the opening of a destiny.”
- Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
“Speak to the Children of Israel, saying, When a person will sin unintentionally from among all the commandments of Hashem that may not be done, and he commits one of them.” (Vayikra 4:2)
Now this, of all commands, strikes one as troubling. To seek atonement for errors and mistakes made consciously and even intentionally… that seems only right. Every one of us must be held accountable for ou...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:07 pm
Waterloo, IL - Authorities say a 4-year-old boy and his grandparents were rescued after their small plane crashed in southern Illinois.
The fixed-wing single-engine Piper PA-32 was traveling from Mobile, Alabama, when it went down Tuesday in rural Monroe County on its way to St. Louis Downtown Airport in Cahokia, Illinois.
The plane crashed into the yard of Waterloo police officer Trin Daws. He says he and another man broke the plane’s windows with a fire extinguisher and pulled the boy out.
Sheriff’s Maj. Jim Lansing says the boy, his grandmother and his grandfather were talking when they were taken to hospitals. He says they suffered injuries that weren’t life threatening.
Lansing says the grandmother told authorities a warning light went on, oil was spewing onto th...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:07 pm
New York - Verizon Communications Inc said on Wednesday its customers in Chicago and Minneapolis would be able to use its fifth generation wireless network from April 11 by paying $10 per month with any of its unlimited mobile plans.
5G, the next-generation wireless network, is expected to offer data speeds up to 50 or 100 times faster than 4G networks.
Verizon said its customers will need a Motorola Z3 mobile and a device called 5G moto mod to connect to the 5G network.
The largest U.S. wireless carrier by subscribers will offer the device for $50 initially and its customers would not have to pay for 5G use for the first three months.
Verizon launched its first commercial 5G service in October when its 5G Home offering went live in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento.
W...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:07 pm
Clarksburg, WV - The FBI says two people have been arrested after a vehicle crashed through a gate at its facility in northern West Virginia.
News outlets report the vehicle went through the gate at the Criminal Justice Information Services Division facility in Clarksburg on Tuesday and went over a hill. The FBI office in Pittsburgh says in a statement that both suspects fled on foot before being apprehended.
The statement says the incident is not believed to be related to terrorism.
The names of the suspects were not released. No charges were immediately filed, and the incident remains under investigation.
The FBI’s website says the high-tech facility provides “state of-the-art tools and services” to law enforcement, the national security and intelligence community a...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Washington - The Federal Aviation Administration says new evidence from the Ethiopian Airlines crash site coupled with its own data gathering led it to order the grounding of Boeing 737 Max planes.
The agency’s order Wednesday said new information had been uncovered from the wreckage of the Ethiopian Airlines jet. That, taken together with data from satellite-based tracking of the plane’s flight path, pointed to similarities with an October crash of a Lion Air 737 Max in the Java Sea.
The FAA said it was ordering the jets’ grounding while investigators determine whether there was a shared cause of the two crashes.
The agency’s move Wednesday came after it had faced mounting criticism for backing the airworthiness of the 737 Max jets as countries around the world ...
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March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Toms River, NJ - Seeds of contention and mistrust that have been blooming in the greater Lakewood area as Orthodox Jews continue relocating in large numbers to Ocean County were countered Tuesday night as a diverse group of women from all walks of life spent several hours building relationships and enjoying each other’s company at a Toms River challah making event.140 women gathered at the Ramada Hotel and Suites on Route 9 to dig their hands into flour, water, eggs, oil, salt, sugar and yeast as part of the #KneadKindness challah bake. Toms River resident Tova Herskovitz, one of the event’s organizers, said that participants included just over two dozen Orthodox Jewish women.
“The mix was amazing,” Herskovitz told VIN News. “We had women of all a...
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March 13, 2019 at 4:33 pm
Former House speaker Paul Ryan went on Twitter Wednesday to predict President Donald Trump will win reelection in 2020 – an apparent effort to clean up remarks earlier this week in which he said a Democrat could prevail if the race turns on Trump’s personality.
During a lecture Monday in Vero Beach, Florida, Ryan said that he thinks there are Democrats in the 2020 field who could defeat Trump, according to an account by Treasure Coast Newspapers that was highlighted Tuesday by other media outlets.
“The person who defines that race is going to win the race. If this is about Donald Trump and his personality, he isn’t going to win it,” Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, reportedly said.
Ryan, who had a rocky relationship with Trump during the 2016 campaign and part...
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March 13, 2019 at 4:33 pm
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Jason Greenblatt discussed the Trump administration’s upcoming Mideast peace plan on Monday with Jordanian King Abdullah, reported Reuters, citing a U.S. source familiar with the 45-minute meeting that occurred at the Jordanian ambassador’s residence in Washington.
The peace plan is scheduled to be released after Israeli elections on April 9.
Additionally, Abdullah met with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to discuss the battle against Islamic State and the administration’s decision to leave a small force in Syria, according to the vice president’s office.
The king also met with U.S. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to discuss defense and military cooperation be...
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March 13, 2019 at 4:03 pm
TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were lower Wednesday amid continuing global uncertainties that weighed on stocks as some traders took profits from a rally earlier in the week.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 dropped 1.2 percent to 21,243.26 in morning trading. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.5 percent to 6,141.30. South Korea's Kospi slipped 0.9 percent to 2,136.52. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.5 percent to 28,776.10, while the Shanghai Composite dipped 0.8 percent at 3,035.15.
On Wall Street, Boeing weighed down the Dow Jones Industrial Average for a second day as shares in the aircraft maker fell amid safety concerns following a second deadly crash involving its most popular plane. The company led a slide in industrial sector stocks.
The benchmark S&P 500 index...
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March 13, 2019 at 3:56 pm
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Colleges and companies moved swiftly to distance themselves from employees swept up in a nationwide college admissions scheme, many of them coaches accused of taking bribes and others prominent parents accused of angling to get their children into top schools by portraying them as recruited athletes.
That celebrities were among the accused parents — actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman headline the list — created much buzz, but other parents charged included people prominent in law, finance, fashion, manufacturing and other fields — people who could afford the steep price.
At least nine athletic coaches and 33 parents were among those charged. Some parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, as much as $6.5 million, to guarantee thei...
