U.S. stocksOpens a New Window. surged on Tuesday for the second straight day as the Federal ReserveOpens a New Window. began its two-day policy meeting and as the European Central Bank signaled it may soon cut interest rates. President Trump, ahead of announcing his official 2020 run this evening, also gave equities an extra boost confirming he will meet with Chinese President Xi at the G-20 meeting in Japan via a Tweet. Investors viewed the development as a positive sign for progress on trade talks. The Dow Jones Industrials and the Nasdaq Composite rallied over 1 percent, while the S&P 500 gained just under that level. As stocks rose, bonds also rallied pushing the yield on the 10-year Treasury to a 21 month low of 2.08 percent. Boeing, flush with ord...
Quebec passed its so-called secularism law that bans certain public employees — teachers, judges and police officers, among them — from wearing religious symbols including yarmulkes, turbans and hijabs at work. Bill 21 passed Sunday in a 73-35 vote following a marathon legislative session over the weekend that featured contentious debate. Polls have consistently shown widespread support for the legislation among the province’s French-speaking majority. Some Jewish-majority municipalities have passed motions promising never to enforce the law, which has seen months of acrimonious debate and public hearings. Read more at JPOST.
Iran claims it has exposed a U.S. cyberespionage network run by the CIA and that several spies have been arrested in several countries as a result. A senior Iranian security official made the allegation on June 17 amid heightened tensions between Iran and Washington. “One of the most complicated CIA cyberespionage networks that had an important role in the CIA’s operations in different countries was exposed by the Iranian intelligence agencies a while ago and was dismantled,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said on June 17, according to the state broadcaster IRIB. It is unclear how many alleged CIA operatives were arrested. Read more.
Immigration New Zealand, an official government website, published a fact sheet with a map of the Middle East that showed a “Palestine,” but not Israel. Following a barrage of complaints on social media, the web page was removed, though screenshots remain. The Israel Institute of New Zealand called for a retraction of the map. “The most immediately obvious of the errors was a map labeling the whole of modern-day Israel as ‘Palestine,’” said the institute’s director, Ashley Church. “This is incredibly offensive and the equivalent of New Zealand Immigration displaying a map of the UK which removed Scotland and Wales and referred to the entirety of the British Isles as England.” Read more at Arutz Sheva.
Rocket alarms sounded in Israel’s northern region early Tuesday afternoon, shaking resident’s nerves in what turned out to be a false alarm. After checking the incident, an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson confirmed it was a false alert, assuaging fears of an imminent attack. “Following reports regarding sirens sounding in Moshav Dishon, it appears to have been a false alarm.” Read more at i24NEWS.
Former Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the Poor People’s Campaign Presidential forum on Monday and said he could win Texas and Florida as well as other states in the South. “First of all, I plan on campaigning in the South. I plan on, if I’m your nominee, winning Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, believe it or not, and I believe we can win Texas and Florida if you look at the polling data now,” Biden said. Read more.
Facebook on Tuesday announced plans to launch its own digital coin called “Libra” which the tech giant says will become the new global currency. On schedule for a launch in the first half of 2020, the social media giant says the cryptocurrency will be run independently by a group of partner companies and charities called the Libra association. The currency has the backing of some 35 partners, including nonprofits, online commerce and finance firms, and major venture capital firms. Read more at i24NEWS.
Six people were arrested and eight others detained on Monday by the Israel Police Lahav 433 national crimes unit as part of an investigation into a smuggling ring responsible for bringing hundreds of foreign nationals into Israel. The smuggling network, which operated out of Rishon Letzion, is believed to have brought over a thousand Georgian nationals into Israel since 2017. The suspects include contract workers at the Israel Airports Authority, who are alleged to have bypassed security mechanisms and passport control at Ben-Gurion International Airport. They allegedly received as much as $10,000 per person to smuggle Georgians into Israel, some of whom came to work in the country.
The city of Poltava in Eastern Ukraine has decided to sell the site of the massacre of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust to property developers to build homes, prompting an outcry from Ukraine’s Jewish community as well as government officials. Israeli Ambassador to the Ukraine Joel Leon sent a passionate plea to the mayor of Poltava and his city council. He said that as a representative of the State of Israel and a Holocaust survivor himself, he was making an appeal in the name of those no longer able to do so to stop this injustice from taking place. The decision caused outcry from the Ukrainian Jewish community and was addressed by the Ministry of Culture in Kiev, but so far to no avail. Read more at YNET.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has withdrawn from consideration to lead the Pentagon on a permanent basis, President Trump announced Tuesday. Trump said in a pair of tweets Shanahan wanted to “devote more time to his family.” The announcement came after USA Today published the details of a 2010 violent domestic dispute with his then-wife that was investigated by the FBI during his background check. “Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who has done a wonderful job, has decided not to go forward with his confirmation process so that he can devote more time to his family,” Trump tweeted.  The president said he would name Mark Esper, who currently serves as secretary of the Army, as the new acting Defense chief,...
Baltimore, MD - June 18, 2019 - The boys of Mrs. Mozes nursery class at Cheder D’Kahal Chasidim celebrated their siyum Alef Bais with the participation of the mothers and women of the kehilla. These boys will be moving on in to the cheder kindergarten with Rabbi Markowitz next year.
Google Calendar is down for users around the world. Currently, trying to access the calendar generates a 404 error message through a browser. When contacted for comment, a spokesperson from Google pointed us toward the service’s dashboard, which contains a message from Google posted at 10:22AM ET confirming that users are unable to access Google Calendar. “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Calendar,” the message reads. “We will provide more information shortly.” Google’s message categorizes the issue as a “Service disruption” rather than a “Service outage.” As of this writing, other Google services such as Gmail and Google Maps appear to be unaffected, although Hangouts Meet is reportedly experiencin...
Jerusalem, Israel - June 17, 2019 - Beginning in the summer of 1999, "hackathons" have grown to become international events involving thousands of computer programmers and professionals who work in other areas of software development. The goal of a hackathon is to create usable software or hardware and a functioning product or application by the end of a limited time span, often in 72 hours. In the past, many organizations held hackathons over weekends, thus Shabbat was included in these marathon work environment events. From Wednesday to Friday, June 12-14, in Givat Shaul, at the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) Tal Campus Lev Academic Center, more than twenty organizations sponsored a special hackathon called Hack@Tal. Over 100 young women participated in the non-stop volunteer eve...
Several inches of rain are possible from showers and thunderstorms on Tuesday, June 18, according to the National Weather Service. MARYLAND — Heavy rain is in the forecast Tuesday, with showers and thunderstorms arriving in the afternoon that forecasters say could leave several inches of rain in some areas. Ten counties and Baltimore City are under a flash flood watch from 2 to 11 p.m. on Tuesday, June 18. There is a separate flash flood watch for the Eastern Shore, effective until Wednesday morning. In particular, the National Weather Service advised that areas along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border and across the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area could experience scattered cases of flooding. These areas are under the flash flood watch from 2 to 11 p.m. Tuesday: Allegany ...
Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for first lady Melania Trump, is emerging as the top candidate to replace outgoing White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, according to sources familiar with the selection process. Grisham, a former Trump campaign aide who has served in the White House since Trump took office, is known as a shrewd tactician loyal to the first family. But significantly, she meets President Trump’s top criteria: that Sanders’ replacement be a woman. “When he says he wants a woman, he wants a woman,” a source familiar with the selection process told the Washington Examiner. A second source, a former Trump aide, said “the president really wants to have a woman fill this role,” adding Trump has mentioned both Grisham and former State ...
WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Monday that U.S. authorities would begin next week removing millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally. "Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States," Trump tweeted, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. "They will be removed as fast as they come in," he said. He did not offer specifics. There are an estimated 12 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally, mainly from Mexico and Central America. Under a deal reached earlier this month, Mexico has agreed to take Central American immigrants seeking asylum in the United States until their cases are heard in U.S. courts. The agre...
Some city council members have tried for almost ten years to get legislation approved that would ban plastic bags. And now some are trying once again. Councilman Bill Henry is sponsoring the measure, which would charge a five-cent fee for paper or other types of bags at checkout. Business owners would keep a penny of the fee to help pay for their additional costs for paper bags. The city gets the other four cents, which Councilman Henry says would be used to pay for and hand out free reusable bags for city residents. The legislation would also repeal the plastic bag reduction program, which is a voluntary program for stores that have food licenses to register and maintain records on their bag usage. A council committee will now take up the measure.
Chicago's new mayor, Lori E. Lightfoot, walked the streets of West Rogers Park neighborhood over Shabbos in a visit coordinated by Agudath Israel of Illinois (AIOI). The mayor engaged hundreds of Orthodox Jewish families on a nearly mile-long tour of the neighborhood led by Rabbi Shlomo Soroka, AIOI's director of government affairs, and Rabbi Yaakov Robinson, who in addition to serving as the executive director of AIOI's Midwest Council of Synagogue Rabbis, is the rabbi of Beis Medrash Mikor Hachaim and a fourth generation Chicagoan. After the deadly shooting attack in Poway on the last day of Passover, then Mayor-elect Lightfoot reached out to Agudah to discuss what the City of Chicago could do to address concerns over public safety. The ensuing conversation included addre...
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