Albany, NY - State Supreme Justice Thomas McNarama directed the warring senators to go back to the drawing board and come up with a solution by 1 p.m. or risk forcing him to settle their differences for them. After conferring with attorneys for roughly 10 minutes behind closed doors, McNarama emerged to say that he was "directing and ordering each of you to go back across the street and talk...

Jerusalem - Six pairs of leg shackles were dragged down the corridor, rattling metallicly as the detainees trekked to the room of the duty judge in the Magistrate's Court. The heroes of the day hid their heads inside their elegant Shabbat coats, which they were wearing at the time of their arrest a day earlier, in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood. That was the price of participating in the...

New York City - The New York State Assembly is expected to approve a bill extending mayoral control of the New York City public school system as soon as Wednesday, lawmakers said Sunday night. The bill, which the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, introduced late Sunday, would add some checks on the mayor's power, by increasing oversight of certain contracts and requiring hearings before...

Cairo - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand in a key speech Sunday that Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people "scuttles the chances for peace," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Monday. Mubarak made the comments in a speech to Egyptian army commandos, the state-run MENA news agency reported. The president said he had informed Netanyahu of his position...

Brooklyn, NY - A state senator is poised to cut a deal with prosecutors that will give his embattled fellow Democrats one less thing to worry about. Short-fused Sen. Kevin Parker (D-Flatbush), whose conviction on felony assault charges would cost the post-coup Senate Democrats a seat they can ill afford to lose, is working on a deal to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with his...

New York - Want to be healthy and live longer? Gossiping may be just what the doctor ordered because it increases progesterone, a hormone that reduces anxiety and stress and makes women happier, according to an article in the London Daily Mail. The new research, at the University of Michigan, paired up 160 female students. Half were instructed to ask each other questions meant to bring...

Albany, NY - State Sen. Hiram Monserrate will announce today that he's returning to the Democratic caucus after voting with fellow Democrat Pedro Espada Jr. last week to give control of the Senate to the Republican minority, according to the New York Daily News. "I'm coming home," the Queens Democrat said in an interview with the Daily News. Monserrate's latest change in course comes after...

Tehran - Iran's supreme leader ordered Monday an investigation into allegations of election fraud, marking a stunning turnaround by the country's most powerful figure and offering hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. State television quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directing a high-level clerical panel, the Guardian...