The State Department on Wednesday ordered all “non-emergency U.S. government employees” to leave Iraq amid soaring tensions with Iran, which backs proxy forces there.
It said in a statement that the announcement affects both the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Baghdad, and a consulate in the northern city of Irbil.
“Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended,” the department said. “The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq.”

New York – A recent clash with the National Rifle Association (NRA) has shown some doctors who treat gunshot victims a way to heal their own trauma: through activism against gun violence. With rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on par with that of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, trauma surgeons have found that speaking [...]

Top leaders in Congress to receive a classified briefing from administration Thursday; Pelosi: Trump has 'no business' moving toward confrontation without approval from lawmakers

A sun-drenched landscape by Claude Monet fetched $110.7 million at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday, setting a record for the Impressionist painter.
Painted in 1890, “Les Meules,” from the artist’s series featuring haystacks, had been estimated at $55 million. The final price includes fees.
The previous auction record for Monet was $84.7 million, for one of his water lilies works sold at Christie’s last year.
The bidding war lasted for more than eight minutes and drew at least six bidders. The winning bid was placed by a woman sitting in the back of the room, with paddle 989. Her identity wasn’t immediately clear.
(c) 2019, Bloomberg · Katya Kazakina
{Matzav.com}

A Tennessee elementary school will no longer have a student portray Adolf Hitler Y”MS in its living history exhibit after a group of students began giving Nazi salutes.
Rutherford County school district spokesman James Evans said in an email Wednesday that the fifth-grade student portraying Hitler was supposed to give a speech and a Nazi salute as part of the exhibit.

Black, whose newspaper empire included Chicago Sun-Times, Jerusalem Post and The Daily Telegraph of London, also wrote a flattering biography of the president

170 children from the New Sephardi Talmid Torah in Jerusalem are without a building since the building they were in, a private building, was sold by the town, leaving them without a home.
Read more on Yeshiva World News

Iran has officially stopped some commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following an order from its national security council, an informed official in the country’s atomic energy body told the ISNA news agency on Wednesday.
Last week, Iran notified China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom of its decision to halt some commitments under the nuclear deal, a year after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed sanctions.
Under the nuclear deal, Tehran was allowed to produce low-enriched uranium with a 300-kg limit, and produce heavy water with a stock capped around 130 tons. Tehran could ship the excess amounts out of the country for storage or sale.

Shelby County, TN – A Tennessee county commission has voted in favor of censuring a judge who posted racist and anti-Semitic articles on his Facebook page. Prior to the Monday evening hearing, Criminal Court Judge Jim Lammey wrote a letter to the Shelby County Commission to say the article he linked to saying the Jews [...]