Iran’s underground Fordow uranium-enrichment facility has not followed the 2015 nuclear deal, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Institute for Science and International Security. Apparently, it has “never been repurposed” in that “everything required to enrich uranium to weapons grade could be quickly reconstituted in the underground portion of the facility,” continued the report. The deal stated, “Iran will convert the Fordow facility into a nuclear, physics and technology centre. International collaboration including in the form of scientific joint partnerships will be established in agreed areas of research.” “Fordow is potentially part of Iran’s current threats to progressively go to higher enrichment levels and in...
The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday broadened its investigation into President Donald Trump and possible obstruction of justice, authorizing subpoenas to a dozen individuals that included the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The committee also authorized subpoenas to current and former Trump administration officials related to the “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that led to the separation last year of migrant families who crossed the southern border illegally. Thursday’s dual subpoena authorizations signal the Judiciary Committee is ratcheting up its probes into the Trump administration ahead of the panel’s high-profile hearing next week with former special counsel Robert Mueller. The vote was approved on party lines, 21-12. Read more at&nb...
Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigned amid the fallout over a plea deal he made with wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, charged with trafficking this week. President Donald Trump announced Acosta’s resignation Friday morning with Acosta at his side. Trump said the secretary called him Friday morning to say that the decision to resign was his. “I thought the right thing was to step aside,” Acosta said. Trump, who had defended Acosta after Epstein’s arrest last week, praised him as a “great labor secretary, not a good one,” and added, Acosta did a “very good job.” The White House said Acosta’s deputy, Pattrick Pizzella, would become the acting labor secretary. Read more at USA Today.
Poway, CA - Vice President Mike Pence visited the Chabad of Poway and its rabbi Thursday during an unannounced stop on his tour of San Diego – marking 75 days since a gunman opened fire inside the synagogue, killing one and injuring three others. NBC News San Diego reports that, at 5:15 p.m., Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence walked into the synagogue on Chabad Way and were greeted by Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein. Goldstein’s finger was blown off in the April shooting, and the rabbi could still be seen wearing blue bandages around his hands Thursday. “We had to come,” Pence said to Goldstein as he walked in. The rabbi could be seen giving the vice president a hug. Goldstein described the shooting to Pence, pointing to where the gunman opened fire, where Lori Gilbert-...
Honolulu, HI -  Intense turbulence struck an Air Canada flight to Australia on Thursday and sent unbuckled passengers flying into the ceiling, forcing the plane to land in Hawaii. The flight from Vancouver to Sydney encountered “un-forecasted and sudden turbulence,” about two hours past Hawaii when the plane diverted to Honolulu, Air Canada spokeswoman Angela Mah said in a statement. “The plane just dropped,” passenger Stephanie Beam told The Associated Press. “When we hit turbulence, I woke up and looked over to make sure my kids were buckled. The next thing I knew there’s just literally bodies on the ceiling of the plane.” A woman behind her hit the ceiling so hard that she broke the casing of an oxygen mask, said Beam, of Colorado Spring...
San Francisco - Google contractors regularly listen to and review some recordings of what people say to artificial-intelligence system Google Assistant, via their phone or through smart speakers such as the Google Home. The company acknowledged that humans can access those recordings after some of its Dutch language audio snippets were leaked. Google product manager David Monsees acknowledged the leak in a blog post Thursday, and said the company is investigating the breach. “We are conducting a full review of our safeguards in this space to prevent misconduct like this from happening again,” he wrote. More than 1,000 recordings were obtained by Belgian broadcaster VRT NWS, which noted in a story that some contained sensitive personal conversations — as well as informa...
BALTIMORE — Baltimore City Health Department Office of Animal Control confirms a raccoon picked up on Tuesday, tested positive for rabies. According to officials, the raccoon picked up from Schenley Road in the Roland Par k neighborhood tested positive for rabies. Officials said anyone who came into contact with a raccoon near this location recently should contact the Office of Acute Communicable Disease at 410-396-4436 during business hours or 410-396-3100 after hours. Facts about Rabies: Rabies is a deadly disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system. It is usually spread to humans through the bite of an infected animal or getting saliva from an infected animal into an open wound or in the eyes, nose, or mouth. Rabies is not spread by petting a rabid animal or cont...
The discovery of the latest cross-border Hamas tunnel this week stretching from the Gaza Strip into Israel is a reminder of the fact that Hamas will soon lose this attack capability. The tunnel was discovered during the construction of Israel’s underground barrier, which is designed to block the path of Hamas’s diggers. The subterranean wall uses sensors that send alerts to the Israel Defense Forces if Hamas attempts to dig in Israel’s direction. Since the end of the summer 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas, the IDF has discovered 18 cross-border tunnels, using advanced detection systems, and more recently, through the construction of the underground wall. The 40-mile-long barrier is due to be complete by the end of this year. When it will be done, armed terror sq...
President Donald Trump is “not on board” with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions running for the Senate, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., told The Hill on Thursday. The Senate seat is considered a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans, and Sessions’ name has been in the mix as a potential Alabama candidate who could win it. Shelby said Sessions would be a strong candidate for a seat he held before joining the Trump administration but could “struggle if the president was against him.” In conversations with Trump about the race, Shelby said Trump “was not encouraging” of Sessions running. “How do I say it? He was not on board, OK?” Shelby said. Trump fired Sessions in November 2018 after a tumultous relationship that began when the ...
Baltimore, MD – July 12, 2019 - It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petirah of Mrs. Francis Lomnitz, a"h, mother of   Mrs. Avigayil (Ira) Hisler, Zechariah Lomnitz and Chava Furman. Shiva is being observed at 1473 East 15th Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11230  Avigayil can be reached at 443 418 3369.  Shiva concludes Thursday morning, July 18. Bila HaMaves LaNetzach…
Baltimore, MD – July 12, 2019 - It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petirah Frances P Goldlust, a"h, sister of Howard (Aileen) Friedman The levaya will be held this afternoon (Friday 7/12) in Cleveland Heights, OH. The family will be sitting shiva in Beachwood, OH, following the funeral. Howard can be reached during shiva at 443-850-4975. Bila HaMaves LaNetzach…
It has been five years since the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers near the Gush. Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frenkel were kidnapped and murdered for one great unforgivable infraction.  They were Jews.  I wrote the piece below five years ago and shared it with very few people.  On this occasion I reread the words and with the passage of time I now see that the words were correct then and maybe more correct now, harsh as they are.  Since the writing, we have seen Israel caught up in some very difficult cycles of violence.  Hammas receives arms into Gaza.  Upon rearming, missiles are launched into Israel.  After enough missiles are launched, Israel responds with airstrikes.  With further provocation, a “limited” ground assault...
If they can forgive each other, can we? My wife and I are just back from nearly two weeks in South Africa, during which time we made many friends, spent Shabbos and Shavuos in one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the world, and viewed wondrous scenery around Cape Town. But for me the most fascinating part of the trip was observing the interactions between blacks and whites in South Africa today, and reminding myself that less than 30 years ago blacks and whites could not sit on the same bench or drink from the same water fountain. The notorious Pass Laws severely restricted where blacks could travel and effectively separated families. The ruling Afrikaans government provided, under the Bantu Education Act, only the most rudimentary education to blacks to ensure that they could n...
Amazon, the retail and tech giant with 275,000 full-time U.S. employees, will retrain a third of its domestic workforce to get ahead of technological changes that could overhaul warehouses, retail stores, transportation networks and corporate offices alike. The company on Thursday announced the $700 million initiative that will cover 100,000 workers by 2025. The program will build on existing training programs and add workshops that can help employees move up within the company. The training is not mandatory but marks a corporate emphasis on building skills for current workers, even if that means teaching them tools that apply beyond current day-to-day roles. “While many of our employees want to build their careers here, for others it might be a stepping stone to different aspirati...
Commercial manufacturing of autonomous cars for the private market will need to wait until autonomous taxis are widespread and entrenched as an industry, Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua stated Thursday in an article posted to Intel’s website. His words differ from statements made a few years ago by autonomous vehicle developers, Mobileye among them, who predicted such cars will reach the private market by the beginning of the next decade. Today, a large part of the car industry understands that those phases — robotaxis and private autonomous cars — cannot progress simultaneously, Shashua said. “Series-production passenger car autonomy (SAE levels 4-5) must wait until the robotaxi industry deploys and matures,” Shashua wrote. “This is due to three factors: c...
BALTIMORE — A Baltimore-area mother is pleading for more plasma donors to come forward. A nationwide shortage has people living with immunodeficiencies on edge. "People don't know the diagnosis and therefore they don't understand the treatment. And people don't know that blood donation is very different from plasma donation," said Jana, who wished to only be identified by her first name. Jana is on a mission to educate people about the importance of donating plasma. There's a nationwide shortage right now and her son needs plasma to live. He started getting sick when he started school. "We were told the official diagnosis was CVID, which stands for common variable immune deficiency. I learned a lot that day, and the treatment for it was to get IG plasma infusio...
A new study has linked drinking just a small glass of a sugary drink per day — 100 ml, about a third of a typical can of soda — to an 18% increase in overall cancer risk and a 22% increase in risk for breast cancer. The research, which looked at more than 100,000 French adults, links consumption of sugary drinks to an increased risk of some cancers. This follows a recent study linking sugary beverage consumption to greater risk of premature death. “The results indicate statistically significant correlations between the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and risk of all cancers combined, and of breast cancer,” said Ian Johnson, nutrition researcher and emeritus fellow, Quadram Institute Bioscience, who wasn’t involved in the research. “Surprisingly ...
Alex Acosta says he is resigning as Labor Secretary, effective 7 days from today.
As emergency personnel continue their search for Rabbi Reuven Bauman, a rebbi at Yeshiva Toras Chaim in Norfolk, Virginia, who was swept out to sea earlier this week, Chai Lifeline is offering its resources and support to the community. Project Chai, the crisis intervention, trauma and bereavement department of Chai Lifeline, hosted a community-wide call on Thursday morning, July 11. More than 1,000 people called in to hear Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox, Project Chai Director of Interventions and Community Education, address various psychological, spiritual, parenting, and practical concerns with regard to students, children and adults. "We encourage anyone in need to avail themselves of Chai Lifeline's resources during this difficult time," said Rabbi Simcha Scholar, CEO of Chai Lifeline. ...
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