Jared Kushner: Beef with Baltimore? (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images via JTA)

Jared Kushner’s emails, Anthony Weiner’s sexting and Facebook’s ad targeting

Crooked Jared?

Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser to President Donald Trump, used a private email account to conduct government business. “Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” Abbe Lowell, his lawyer, said in a statement to Politico. “Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.” Among the officials who corresponded with Kushner on his personal account since Trump took office in January are Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff; Stephen Bannon, the former chief strategist; National Economic Council director Gary Cohn and spokesman Josh Raffel, according to Politico. There is no indication that Kushner shared any sensitive or classified material on his private account, according to Politico. Kushner is not the only White House official to have been discovered using a personal account, according to The New York Times, but is the closest adviser to do so. The revelation comes as Kushner remains under scrutiny in investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election.

Read: Jared Kushner Used Private Email Account to Conduct Govt. Business

Anthony Weiner
Anthony Weiner leaving Manhattan Federal Court after being sentenced to 21 months in prison, Sept. 25, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

He’s a Weiner, too

Former congressman Anthony Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Weiner, 53, who had pleaded guilty in May to one charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, wept as the sentence was handed down Monday in a Manhattan federal court. He must also register as a sex offender for life for his inappropriate conversations with the North Carolina teen. The once-rising star in the Democratic Party had faced up to 10 years in prison. Last fall, then-FBI Director James Comey cited emails involved in the Weiner case to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server less than two weeks before the presidential election. The FBI shut down the investigation days later, saying that nothing new or damaging had come to light, but Clinton has blamed the new probe in part for her loss to Donald Trump. Weiner’s troubles date back to 2011, when the Jewish lawmaker resigned from Congress after tweeting an explicit photo. He has since been involved in multiple sexting scandals, and his wife, Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide, is in the process of divorcing him.

Read: Anthony Weiner sentenced to 21 months in prison over sexting scandal

Facebook fail

Allowing hateful terms as options was “a fail on our part,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in a post in which she also defended targeted advertising. Sandberg also announced in the message posted on Facebook last week that the company is strengthening its policies and tools on targeted ads. ProPublica, an investigative website, reported earlier this month that a news website was able to target ads at Facebook users who expressed interest in “Jew hater” and “how to burn Jews.” Facebook removed the categories after being alerted to their existence and said it would seek to prevent such categories from popping up for potential advertisers. Sandberg wrote in her post: “Seeing those words made me disgusted and disappointed – disgusted by these sentiments and disappointed that our systems allowed this. Hate has no place on Facebook – and as a Jew, as a mother, and as a human being, I know the damage that can come from hate. The fact that hateful terms were even offered as options was totally inappropriate and a fail on our part. We removed them and when that was not totally effective, we disabled that targeting section in our ad systems.” She defended targeted advertising, which allows companies to place ads based on demographics on the buying history of consumers, or on behavior and self-identification. Facebook relies heavily on algorithms to find and highlight content. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Facebook sent out Happy New Year messages to users it believed to be Jewish. But many who received the message are not Jewish and may have received the greetings because they followed a group with a Jewish theme or posted a message on the Facebook page of a Jewish friend, Mashable reported. “We send messages about religious moments to people in countries where a large proportion of the population observes the religion, or where the religious date is a public holiday,” the company said. “We may also show the message to people who’ve expressed interest in the holiday.”

Read: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg tightens ad policy in face of ‘Jew hater’ controversy

Kosher-certified marijuana

A Quebec company became the first in Canada to obtain kosher certification for its medical marijuana on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. The certification was granted to the Hydropothecary Corp., a medical marijuana producer based near Ottawa, by the Vaad Hakashrut, a kosher certifier in Ottawa. “According to the Torah, according to the Talmud, this is something that if we are able to help [sick people], that is my obligation,” Rabbi Levy Teitlebaum of the Vaad told The National Post. The company’s CEO, Sebastien St-Louis, said in a statement: “As the only medical marijuana company in Canada with kosher-certified processed products, we take great pride in having the support of the kashrut council.” In 2016, Montreal kosher certifiers said medicinal pot needed kosher certification because it is ingested, while certifiers in Toronto said it did not because it is being used as medicine. — JTA

Gal Gadot
Gal Gadot at the “Wonder Woman” premiere in Hollywood, Calif., May 25, 2017. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

‘Wonder’ host

Israeli actress Gal Gadot, known the world over as Wonder Woman, will host “Saturday Night Live.” Gadot is scheduled to make her debut as host of the Emmy Award-winning comedy show on Oct. 7. Sam Smith will be the musical guest. Informing her fans via Twitter, Gadot wrote: “No longer a secret, so excited to be hosting #SNL,” she wrote, retweeting a graphic announcing the first three shows of the season. Her film “Wonder Woman” has broken numerous box office records. — JTA

Banned books

It’s Banned Books Week (Sept. 24-30) so get involved by exercising your right to read whatever you want to read. The event was launched in 1982 in response to a surge in the number of challenges to books. Here are the Top 10 challenged books of 2016:

“This One Summer,” written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
“Drama,” written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier
“George,” written by Alex Gino
“I Am Jazz,” written by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, and illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas
“Two Boys Kissing,” written by David Levithan
“Looking for Alaska,” written by John Green
“Big Hard Sex Criminals,” written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Chip Zdarsky
“Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread,” written by Chuck Palahniuk
“Little Bill” (series), written by Bill Cosby and and illustrated by Varnette P. Honeywood
“Eleanor & Park,” written by Rainbow Rowell

The books are often challenged for their inclusion of LGBT characters, profanity and sexually suggestive scenes.

Learn more at bannedbooksweek.org

Go to facebook.com/JMORELiving every Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. to watch Need to Know with Editor-in-Chief Alan Feiler. Join the discussion on the week’s news and current events.

Top photo: Jared Kushner arriving at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, July 24, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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