New York, NY - Brooklyn GOP Chairman Craig Eaton is launching a "draft Rudy" movement in hopes of convincing the former mayor to run for governor in 2010. "Rudy's the best candidate we have, and we need to get him into this race," Eaton said in a press release. "After just three years of Spitzer and Paterson, even diehard Democrats would vote for Rudy Giuliani for Governor." "Rudy's...

Washington - As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

Goshen, NY - An Orange County realtor from Goshen, who maintains that the County of Orange and County Executive Edward Diana purposely blocked his client from being considered to purchase the former Camp LaGuardia property, has filed a federal lawsuit. Robert Lawrence claims the county and Diana violated the Fair Housing Act when Diana allegedly blocked his client, a Hasidic Jew, from being...

Israel - More than 200 haredi youths enlist in Air Force over course of past year, internal polling indicates ultra-Orthodox candidates most motivated to continue service as officers. A year after its launch, the project to recruit ultra-Orthodox soldiers to various positions within the Air Force is a success. More than half 53% - of haredi servicemen responded positively when asked whether...

New York - Cisco Systems, Travelers to replace General Motors and Citigroup in Dow Jones industrial average, effective June 8. ...

Sullivan County, NY - Motorists are being advised of possible traffic delays as the state Department of Transportation will begin guide rail repair work on Route 17 eastbound and westbound between exit 104 (Raceway/Monticello) and exit 116 (Bloomingburg/Newburgh), beginning 6 a.m., Monday in the towns of Thompson and Mamakating. Motorists will encounter alternating lane closures within the...

Jerusalem - If President Barack Obama thought he could deliver the promise of a few Israeli concessions during his upcoming Cairo speech to the Muslim world, he was sorely mistaken. Far more than his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama has been leaning hard on Israel to halt its expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and to declare its readiness to accept a "two-state...

New York - A little-noticed provision in the state budget adopted by the Legislature in April imposes a sales tax on livery car, limousine and corporate black-car trips. Passengers begin paying the new tax - 8.375% in the city - Monday. In the five boroughs, the statewide tax will generate about $25.6 million for Albany's coffers and an equal amount for the city. Less than $1 million will go...

Detroit, MI - General Motors has filed for bankruptcy this moring at 8:00 AM, GM officials said, forcing the 100-year-old automaker once seen as a symbol of American economic might and dynamism into a new and uncertain era of government ownership. The filing, would be the third-largest in U.S. history and the largest-ever U.S. manufacturing bankruptcy. The decision to push GM into a...

New York, NY - There's wanted and then there's WANTED. American Girl, the doll company based in Middleton, Wis., is expecting strong demand for the newest doll in its historical character line. The 18-inch doll, which went on sale on Sunday, is named Rebecca Rubin and comes with a storybook that describes her life in 1914, growing up on the Lower East Side as the daughter of Jewish Russian...

Stamford Hill, London - A leading member of Stamford Hill’s strictly Orthodox community, Rabbi Avraham Pinter, has accused the medical insurer HSA of “discrimination”, for leaving hundreds of Jewish families to pay out of pocket due to the insurer’s refusal to reimburse them for treatments. They are supported by furious dentists, homeopaths, chiropodists, herbal doctors and opticians...

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Brazil's Air Force says a jet bound from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, disappeared from radar screens over the Atlantic Ocean and a search is under way near the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha. Flight AF 447 had 228 people on board, Air France said. It left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m., a spokesman for the...