Rockland County, NY – Fewer than 150 women turned out for a vaccine education program in Monsey, New York, less than a month after the same hall was filled with many hundreds of men and women for an anti-vaccine symposium. The women’s-only event in Monsey, a Rockland County town with a large haredi Orthodox population, [...]

Ramallah – The Palestinian labor market in the West Bank was limping along in 2017, with unemployment stubbornly high and economic growth slowing. But that didn’t stop the Palestinian Cabinet from secretly giving itself a series of lavish payouts and perks, highlighted by a 67% salary hike. The payments and perks were kept quiet for [...]

New York – The majority owner of a former Trump-branded hotel in Panama alleged in a court filing on Monday that the U.S. president’s company misrepresented finances of the building to evade taxes in the country. A filing in New York federal court by property owner Orestes Fintiklis alleges that President Donald Trump’s hotel management [...]

Jerusalem – Israel expects to launch U.S.-mediated talks within weeks with Lebanon on setting their maritime border, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday, naming a U.N. peacekeeper compound in southern Lebanon as a possible venue. Lebanon has not commented publicly on whether it would attend talks or on any possible timeline. The United States, [...]

Washington – Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the Federal Reserve is prepared to respond to the Trump administration’s trade conflicts to protect the U.S. economy, signaling that the Fed will cut interest rates if necessary. Powell’s comments gave a lift to stock markets, with the Dow Jones industrial average up over 400 points at [...]

Seoul – The powerful younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended a public event in Pyongyang for the first time in more than 50 days, casting further doubt on media speculation that he had ordered her to lay low over the failed nuclear summit with Washington. North Korea’s state media on Tuesday [...]

Washington – The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed major new travel restrictions on visits to Cuba by U.S. citizens, including a ban on many forms of educational and recreational travel. The Treasury Department said in a statement that the U.S. will no longer allow the group educational and cultural trips known as “people to people” [...]

Berlin – An award-winning German blogger who was accused of inventing a Jewish family history has been stripped of the title of “Female Blogger of the Year 2017″ by a blogging network in Germany. Marie Sophie Hingst, who lives in Ireland, is said to have made false statements about her descent both in her blog [...]

Beijing – China issued a travel warning for the U.S. on Tuesday, saying Chinese visitors have been interrogated, interviewed and subjected to other forms of what it called harassment by U.S. law enforcement agencies. The warning urges Chinese citizens and Chinese-funded bodies in the U.S. to step up their safety awareness and preventative measures and [...]

Jerusalem – McDonald’s should not be given a tender to open at Ben Gurion Airport because it will not open branches in West Bank communities, a settler leader has charged. The unwillingness to open McDonald’s franchises in the West Bank is a boycott and therefore illegal under Israeli law, Samarian Regional Council Mayor Yossi Dagan [...]