Vienna - Vienna's Jewish Museum holds hundreds of books and works of art that may have been stolen by Nazis, a newspaper reported on Saturday. A screening programme that started in 2007, years after other Austrian museums began combing their collections for works taken from their rightful owners, has determined that about 500 works of art and 900 books are of dubious origin, Der Standard...

New York - New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has called upon the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the United States Department of Homeland Security to approve federal aid for those houses of worship which were impacted by Hurricane Sandy. In a letter dated Jan 4, 2013 to FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate, Quinn wrote in part, “Churches, synagogues and mosques serve as a...

Tehran - Iran's police chief says the Islamic Republic is developing new software to control social networking sites. Gen. Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam was quoted in Iranian newspapers Saturday as saying the new software will prevent Iranians from being exposed to malicious content online while allowing users to enjoy the benefits of the Internet. He did not say when the software would be...

Germany - The inclusion of a Spiegel online columnist in a 2012 top-ten list of anti-Semites has sparked a fierce debate in the German media since the beginning of the new year. The Simon Wiesenthal Center ranked Jakob Augstein ninth for his written attacks on Jews and the State of Israel. He is a columnist for Spiegel online, owns a large stake in the Hamburg-based Der Spiegel magazine, and...

Israel - Three Israeli parties on Saturday proposed forming a center-left opposition bloc to try to topple conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the January 22 election, but disagreements over the terms suggested any pact could be elusive. Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Hatenuah party, said on Twitter that she and leaders of the centrist Yesh Atid and...

New York - Politicians denounced on Friday a local newspaper that has revealed the names and addresses of thousands of holders of gun permits, and they asked state legislators to make such information confidential. The decision by the Journal News, which serves the suburbs just north of New York City in Westchester and Rockland counties, to publish the identities was "deplorable" and...

Toronto - John Sheardown, a former Canadian diplomat who sheltered fugitive American Embassy staffers at his Tehran home at great personal risk during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, has died. He was 88. His wife Zena said Saturday that Sheardown passed away in an Ottawa hospital on Dec. 30. She says he had been treated for Alzheimer's disease for the past four years but also suffered from other...

Washington - President Barack Obama appeared poised on Friday to pick former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as the next defense secretary and the announcement may come early next week. Sources on Capitol Hill and in the national security community said all signs were pointing to Hagel as Obama's choice to replace current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The choice would likely set up a...

Augusta, GA - A 114-year-old South Carolina woman who was born when William McKinley was president of the United States and had ranked as the oldest known living American for just over two weeks, has died, her daughter said on Saturday. Mamie Rearden died on Wednesday at a hospital in Augusta, Georgia, about 20 miles south of her South Carolina home, her youngest daughter, Sara Rearden, told...

New York, NY - Every day, throngs of riders stand on the edge of danger in the nation's busiest subway system, waiting on platforms with nothing between them and the tracks. Dozens of subway and light rail systems around the world have safety barriers with sliding doors on their platforms, but the idea hasn't gotten traction in New York. Yet transit officials are giving it a new look after two...

Brussels - The European Union has proposed a time and place for further talks on Iran's nuclear program, but Iran has yet to respond, an EU spokesman said on Friday. Iran said earlier on Friday it had agreed to resume talks in January with six major powers - represented by the EU - but the EU spokesman said Tehran had not yet replied to proposals made on December 31. "We offered dates and a...

Troy, MI - A federal appeals court won't overturn a decision that orders the deportation of a Michigan man accused of shooting Jews during World War II. John Kalymon of Troy lost his naturalized citizenship after a trial in 2007. The appeals court said Friday there's nothing wrong with using evidence from that case to justify the retired engineer's deportation in separate hearings. An...

New York - Charities in New York state have raised more than $400 million for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, the state attorney general said. A survey of 88 nonprofit groups by the office of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman found that as of mid-December, the fundraising for storm victims had been dominated by five charities, led by The American Red Cross at $188 million, the Robin Hood...

Syria - Syrian President Bashar Assad will deliver a speech on Sunday in a rare address to the nation, state media said, as rebels fighting to topple his embattled regime pressed ahead with an offensive on the capital. The official SANA news agency said in a brief statement Saturday that Assad will speak about the latest developments in Syria. The speech would be the first by the leader since...

Alaska - A powerful earthquake sparked a tsunami warning for hundreds of miles of Alaskan and Canadian coastline, but the alert was canceled when no damaging waves were generated. The magnitude 7.5 quake and tsunami warning that followed caused concern in some coastal communities, with alarms sounding and people rushing to higher ground for safety. But the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center...