Salt Lake City, UT - Several of the students had a knee-jerk reaction when gun-rights advocate Clark Aposhian blasted his first pistol round into a target Thursday. But it was physical, not ideological. These students from around America were in Salt Lake City to learn and test their beliefs, not to dismiss opposing views. Roughly 40 "Etgar 36" Jewish high schoolers traveling the country are...

New York - Sleepless people sometimes use the Internet to get through the night. Now a small study shows promising results for insomniacs with nine weeks of Internet-based therapy. Advertisement No human therapist is involved. The Internet software gives advice, even specific bedtimes, based on users' sleep diaries. Patients learn better sleep habits — like avoiding daytime naps — through...

Albany, NY - An appellate judge has overruled a decision that blocked Gov. David Paterson from appointing a lieutenant governor. Paterson on Wednesday named Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor. He was hoping to break a leadership logjam in the state Senate. The ruling by state Supreme Court Associate Justice Leonard Austin in Nassau County overturns a restraining order that Republicans had...

alifornia - Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California's San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857. What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major...

Bnei Brak, Israel - The swine flu scare has prompted one of the leading spiritual figures of the ultra-Orthodox world to change one of Judaism's time-honored traditions - that of drinking wine together from the same glass. Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter, seventh and current rabbi of the Hasidic dynasty of Ger, instructed his disciples in Jerusalem a few weeks ago to toast with individual and...

Jerusalem - A majority of the Israeli Jewish public believes that the protests surrounding the Karta parking lot in Jerusalem spur hatred and conflict between the sectors and do not promote Shabbat observing. In a poll conducted for Ynet and the Yesodot organization by the Panels Research Institute, 510 respondents were asked to answer questions surrounding the controversial issue. When...

Cairo - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused Israel of scuttling a deal that was on the verge of ending the three-year captivity in Gaza of soldier Gilad Shalit, in an interview to be published in Israel's top-selling daily on Friday. Mubarak, whose government has led efforts to broker the release of the young conscript seized by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid in June 2006...

Jerusalem - After three months of delays the Tel Aviv District Court read aloud for the first time on Wednesday the indictment against Bentzion Miller, and his attorneys agreed to address the primary charges. Judge Khaled Karov set a date for the first hearing and testimony will be heard in less than three months. Responding to claims Miller actively recruited people to smuggle drugs and even...

Budapest, Hungary - Officials of Hungary's Orthodox Jewish community have urged the government to urgently provide police protection amid growing extremism and violent attacks in the country. Religious Jews still try to pray at few synagogues functioning normally in Budapest. With some 100,000 people, Hungary has the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe, after Russia. Yet...

New Jersey - Low-income families looking to eat healthier may now use their food stamp cards at more than 80 farmers' markets around the state, according to a joint announcement today from Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez and Agriculture Secretary Douglas Fisher. The new program provided the farmers' market operators to the scanning equipment so people on food stamps, now known as...

Albany, NY - Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. will return to the Democratic conference, potentially bringing an end to the month-old struggle for control of the chamber. The Bronx Democrat, who continues to be the subject of a several investigations into his professional and political activities, has claimed the post of Senate president pro tempore since joining with Republican senators on June 8 to try...

L'Aquila, Italy - The Group of Eight leading industrialized nations called on Thursday for the immediately release of Gilad Shalit, after Egyptian-brokered talks to secure the kidnapped Israeli soldier’s release had come to a standstill. The G8, meeting in Italy, also called for the immediate opening of the Gaza Strip’s border crossings to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, goods and...

New York - Everyone seems to be obsessed with Jews. Although numerically we are an insignificant minority of the world's population, the media focus like lasers on everything we say and do. In recent years secular media outlets have become preoccupied with the actions of Orthodox Jews in particular. And, of course, anything that makes Orthodox Jews look bad is given first priority. Whether we...

Sana'a - A young Jewish woman, Lia Saed Hamdi, has either fled her husband's family in Sana'a last Tuesday, or, as some sources claim, was kidnapped by a Muslim man from the family's hometown. Hamdi, who hails from the Kharef area in the northern Amran province, was married two weeks ago to Haroun Salem, a Jew from the nearby Sa'ada province. The wedding was held in Sana'a and was attended by...

Jerusalem - Yaniv Haziza 39, a suspected of conspiring to import ecstasy to the United States was extradited to the US authorities. Haziza's extradition was made possible by a joint effort between Interpol, the State Prosecutor's Office, and the Department for International Affairs. Haziza was indicted in the US in 2004, but escaped. In December 2006, Haziza was arrested in Israel in...