Tehran – Iran’s president back-pedaled Tuesday on possible talks with Donald Trump, saying the U.S. president must first lift sanctions imposed on Tehran, otherwise a meeting between the two would be a mere photo op. Hassan Rouhani’s change of heart came a day after Trump said Monday that there’s a “really good chance” the two [...]

Jerusalem – If there is one thing that Itamar Ben-Gvir, Otzma Yehudit's ebullient leader, loves, it is media attention and legal controversy. Ben-Gvir thrives on controversy and his party seems to court legal disaster at every turn. Thus it was simply déjà vu to see the Otzma Yehudit party once again in the dock of [...]

Washington – Montana Gov. Steve Bullock was told how he could qualify for the next presidential debate, but it didn’t make much sense: Spend $60. Attract a $1 donor. And repeat, maybe thousands of times. “You spend $60 on Facebook right now to get a $1 donor,” Bullock said last week while campaigning in Iowa [...]

Syzran – Municipal authorities in the Russian city of Syzran returned a synagogue to the local Jewish community that was shut down by the communists nearly 90 years ago. The synagogue, which was built in 1910 and shuttered 20 years later, was returned last week, the SyzranSmall website reported. Syzran, which is located in the [...]

Washington – Take the post down. Put it back up. Stop policing speech. Start silencing extremists. That’s just a sampling of the intense, often contradictory demands facing tech companies and their social media platforms as they try to oversee internet content without infringing on First Amendment rights. The pendulum has swung recently toward restricting hateful [...]

Jerusalem – Cameras cannot be operated at polling stations, the head of Israel’s Central Elections Committee decided. The decision is directed at the Likud party, which had planned to place cameras in more than 1,000 polling stations in Arab communities. During the April election, Likud activists placed more than 1,200 cameras hidden in polling stations [...]

Tokyo – Japan’s downgrading of South Korea’s trade status took effect Wednesday, a decision that has already set off a series of reactions hurting bilateral relations. Japanese manufacturers now must apply for approval for each technology-related contract for South Korean export, rather than the simpler checks granted a preferential trade partner, which is still the [...]

Jerusalem – A veteran Israeli television personality apologized on Tuesday for saying on the air that “Arabs are savages.” Yaron London, 79, had made the remarks a day earlier during his show “London and Geula” on Channel 11, the Kan public broadcaster. They came during a discussion of the HBO series “Our Boys,” centering on [...]

Cairo – A boat carrying dozens of migrants bound for Europe capsized Tuesday in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya, with at least 40 people missing and presumed drowned, U.N. officials said, as a support group reported it had gotten a call from someone on the vessel “crying and shouting” that passengers had died already. At [...]

Columbus, OH – State attorneys general and lawyers representing local governments said Tuesday they are in active settlement talks with Purdue Pharma, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin that is facing billions of dollars in potential liability for its role in the nation’s opioid crisis. Purdue has been cast by attorneys and addiction experts [...]