Bosoton, MA - Former Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank says he would like to fill in for Senator John Kerry, who has been nominated for secretary of state, as Congress battles over the budget and raising the debt ceiling in the next few months. Frank, who retired from Congress this week and was the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, told MSNBC on Friday that he...

Stockholm - Sweden will honor its World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg with an annual commemoration day in recognition of his achievements in saving thousands of Jews from the Nazis in Hungary. Wallenberg, who would have turned 100 this year, was on a diplomatic mission in Hungary when detained by Soviet authorities in 1945. He is believed to have died in captivity, though the time and...

Washington - The Congress formally confirmed on Friday, nearly two months after polls closed, that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden won the 2012 White House election. At a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives, lawmakers carried out the final phase of a process known as the Electoral College that dates back to the founding of the nation. They verified...

Manhattan, NY - A grand jury indicted a New York man arrested on Saturday after police found an explosive compound, bomb-making manuals and weapons in a Greenwich Village apartment he shares with his girlfriend. Aaron Greene, 31, appeared briefly in a New York courtroom on Friday, and was informed of the indictment by a judge. He was returned to jail without bail. Formal charges against...

Cairo, Egypt - Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are "a waste of time and opportunities" as Arabs and Muslims get nothing out of engagement with "the descendants of apes and pigs," current Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi asserted in September 2010, according to newly translated interviews published this week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In the first interview, aired on...

Warsaw, Poland - The Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site in southern Poland registered 1.43 million visitors last year, a record number in its 65-year history as a place of Holocaust remembrance, officials said Friday. For several years now, the grounds of the former Nazi death camp have registered record numbers of visitors. In 2011, there were 1.4 million visitors from across the world, triple...

Washington - More than two months after Superstorm Sandy struck, the House on Friday overwhelmingly approved $9.7 billion to pay flood insurance claims for the many home and business owners flooded out by the storm. The 354-67 vote came days after Northeast Republicans erupted over House Speaker John Boehner's decision to delay a vote earlier in the week; all of the no votes were cast by...

Washington - House minority leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday defended an altered picture of Democratic congresswomen that was posted on her Flickr photo-sharing site. The photo showed four members who were not in the original picture, which was taken Thursday when lawmakers were sworn in as members of the 113th Congress. They arrived at the Capitol steps late, and their images were inserted with...

New York, NY - The United Federation of Teachers has released a TV ad blasting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for taking a "his way or the highway" approach to education. Bloomberg in turn accused the union of walking away from negotiations over a new teacher evaluation system. The UFT ad released Friday accuses Bloomberg of "going after teachers" instead of supporting...

Tel Aviv, Israel - One of Jewish music's brightest stars took to the stage this past Tuesday in an effort to express his gratitude to Israeli soldiers in a record breaking concert held at Tel Aviv's Nokia Arena. Over 8,000 people were in attendance for an evening of music with Yaakov Shwekey, among them 2,000 invited guests, all members of Tzahal. "As a singer, what can you possibly do to...

Egypt - The Islamic Jihad terror group has called on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's Essam al-Erian to resign from his role as advisor to President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt Independent reported Friday, after he called on Egyptian Jews to leave Israel to pave the way for Palestinian independence. “We shall fight them vigorously if they return, especially the Egyptian-Israeli Jews,” said...

Milwaukee, WI - Gerda Lerner spent her 18th birthday in a Nazi prison, sharing a cell with two gentile women arrested for political work who shared their food with the Jewish teenager because jailers restricted rations for Jews. Lerner would say years later that the women taught her during those six weeks how to survive and that the experience taught her how society can manipulate people. It...

Israel - In a demonstration against the lack of public transportation on Shabbat, Meretz will run three free “Shabbat buses” in the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv regions on Friday night that will bring people to major entertainment spots in the cities. The buses will travel under the banner “Good for the environment, good for society, and good for you,” and the Meretz slogan “Your voice is...

Washington - The 113th US Congress was sworn in on Thursday without some of the most prominent pro- Israel voices that have been heard on Capitol Hill in recent years. The number of Jewish lawmakers also dropped, despite three new Jewish representatives and a senator, but pro-Israel activists said they expected the new Congress to remain as supportive of Israel as in years past. Veteran...

Egypt - Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula intercepted a shipment of American-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles destined for the Gaza Strip, Palestinian news agency Ma'an and Egyptian media reported on Friday. After receiving intelligence on the weapons shipment, the Egyptian Interior Ministry raided the location south of El-Arish, Ma'an reported. According to the...