Former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a mass shooting in her Arizona district two years ago, met with Newtown officials on Friday afternoon before heading to visit with families of the victims of last month’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Giffords arrived at Newtown’s town hall a bit before 3 p.m. ET (2000 GMT)…
Israel’s National Library has unveiled a trove of ancient Hebrew manuscripts that were rescued from Afghanistan. The Associated Press reported that the recently purchased documents run the gamut of life experiences, including biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records. Researchers say the collection, which they dubbed “Afghan Genizah,” is the greatest such archive found since…
Hatnuah chairwoman Tzipi Livni on Friday called on Israel’s centrist parties to come together and form a united front against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu. During an appearance on Israel’s Channel 2, the former foreign minister issued a public call to Labor chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid for an urgent meeting…
A Cairo-born Israeli has grabbed headlines in leading Arab media with a letter mocking a top Egyptian official’s call for the return of Egypt’s Jews from Israel. Azi Nagar’s letter, which received coverage in Al-Hayat and Aharam, ridicules the call made last week by Essam al-Erian, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice…
A well-known Brazilian cartoonist hit back at the Simon Wiesenthal Center for including him on its top-ten slur list. Carlos Latuff recently published a cartoon of the center’s founder, Rabbi Marvin Hier, awarding Latuff a medal in response to the center’s publication in December of a list of the top ten anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs…
Street protests in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland pose a new challenge to Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as shock waves from the Sunni-led insurgency in nearby Syria strain his country’s fragile political balance. Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of Sunnis have staged demonstrations, and in Anbar province they have blocked a highway…
The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved $9.7 billion in initial federal funds for victims of Superstorm Sandy, with New York and New Jersey lawmakers still seething over delays in voting on the rest of a $60 billion aid package. The 354-67 vote will keep the National Flood Insurance Program solvent and able to…
President Mahmoud Abbas predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave. “Soon we will regain our unity,” Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since…
Former Massachusetts U.S. 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…
Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula reportedly intercepted a shipment of American-made missiles destined for the Gaza Strip. After receiving intelligence on the weapons shipment, the Egyptian Interior Ministry raided a location south of El-Arish, Ma’an, the Palestinian news agency, reported on Friday. According to the report, security forces discovered six U.S.-manufactured missiles being…
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians joined a rare rally staged by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group in Gaza on Friday, as tensions ease with rival Hamas Islamists ruling the enclave since 2007. A long hiatus in peace talks between Abbas’s administration and Israel has narrowed ideological differences between the two main Palestinian factions. Solidarity has…
