Israel - ‪Arabs raided the yeshiva of Homesh in Samaria and torched dozens of seforim of the Talmud and of the Five Books of Moses, leaving behind a pile of ashes. The arsonists ignored personal equipment, including beds, tables and chairs, and concentrated all their energies on Jewish texts. "It was a horrible sight to see dozen of holy books of the Talmud and Bible burned almost...

Comoros Islands - A young girl believed to be the only survivor of an Indian Ocean plane crash flew back to Paris on Thursday to the waiting arms of her father, who gently embraced her and joked to lift her spirits. Bahia Bakari, 14, returned to France from the Comoros Islands on a plane carrying a government minister and other French officials. The Falcon-900 jet with medical facilities left...

New York City - After seven months of being held hostage by the Taliban, David Rohde returned to The New York Times on Wednesday and to perhaps the most sustained ovation ever heard in the paper’s newsroom. Mr. Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, escaped from his captors two weeks ago, along with Tahir Ludin, an Afghan reporter who had served as his translator and escort. In an...

Sullivan County, NY - It's steamy. So hot the highway is doing that mirage thing. And there you sit, in your car, stuck in traffic with a full bladder, a sunburn and a case of road rage rising in your throat. Whatever happened to the leisurely Sunday drive? It's a nightmare out there, and you don't need us to tell you that. So this is not a story about magical detours or top-secret...

New York, NY - The New York City Police Department Special Operations Division is conducting a counterterrorism drill in New York Harbor. At noon today, police participating in the simulation will respond to a report of shots fired on a NY Waterway Ferry in the waters between Liberty Island and Ellis Island. Members of the Emergency Services Unit will drop in on the boat from a helicopter...

Chicago, IL - Visitors to the Sears Tower's new glass balconies all seem to agree: The first step is the hardest. The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building's 103rd floor Skydeck. Their transparent walls, floor and ceiling leave visitors with the impression they're floating over the city. "It's like walking on ice," said Margaret Kemp, of...

Brooklyn, NY - A recent rash of constituent reports involving mystery shopping, alleged monetary windfalls, “free grants” and other financial scams has prompted Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) to push for tougher consumer protection laws. Hikind is concerned about what he sees as a burgeoning industry preying on countless innocent people, many of whom are unemployed or in dire financial...

Kishinev, Moldova - Rabbi Israel Livshits, head of the Jewish community at the cultural and religious center in Chisinau, has been attacked and robbed. "I have no doubts that the attack was anti-Semitic," he said on local TV. The attack occurred in Panasesti where Livshitz was camping and angling with his pupils. "A group of eight or nine local young men aged 16 to 20 treacherously...

New York - For many Jews that meticulously observing halacha, secular holidays often bring up a quandary. On the one hand, Torah observant Jews do not want to do anything that counters halacha. On the other hand, there are natural feelings of hakaras HaTov, the recognition of appreciation that anyone would wish to express to those that have done us a good turn. Thanksgiving and the Fourth of...

Manhattan, NY - Council Member Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) is preparing to submit a bill to the Council that would eliminate the public advocate’s office, according to Council sources. The legislation, now under review by Council staffers involved with bill drafting, would likely come before the Council sometime this summer. If passed, a referendum on the matter could go before the voters as...

Turkey - Instanbul's Neve Shalom synagogue is tucked away on a winding street near the Galata Tower. The synagogue isn't as easy to spot as the landmark turret with its panorama of the city's iconic mosques, but that hasn't stopped terrorists from finding the Jewish house of prayer over the years. In 1983 gun- and grenade-wielding attackers stormed worshipers, taking 23 lives; in 2003 a car bomb...

New York - Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the government said on Thursday in a report that showed a labor market continuing to struggle with a deep recession. The June job losses were more than 100,000 greater than the 363,000 consensus of Wall Street economists polled by Reuters and broke a four-month trend of...

Philadelphia, PA - The American carrier U.S. Airways is commencing service between the United States and Israel. Today it inaugurates a regular line, flying nonstop between Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion International Airport and Philadelphia. The airline will be flying Airbus 330 jets. The line between Philadephia and Tel Aviv will be one of the longest that U.S. Airways flies, more than 9,000...

Jerusalem - Members of the Haredi community were setting trash cans on fire on Jerusalem's Bar Ilan Street now, in protest of the Carta parking lot's opening on Saturdays. Police were on the scene and no traffic disturbances were reported. More protests were planned for this upcoming Saturday in anticipation that Jerusalem Major Nir Barkat would not change his mind regarding the opening of...

Israel - Women ought not to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, IDF Chief Rabbi Avichai Ronski said at a conference. The conference was attended by several dozen religious women soldiers, and the topic was supposed to be the special problems they face. Most religious women opt to do civilian national service instead of army service. But Ronski told the women, "I personally think that a...