Washington – U.S. homebuilding dropped to a near two-year low in March, pulled down by persistent weakness in the single-family housing segment, suggesting the housing market continued to struggle despite declining mortgage rates. Some of the weakness in homebuilding reported by the Commerce Department on Friday likely reflected disruptions caused by massive flooding in the [...]

Jerusalem – Israeli airstrikes and tank fire targeted Hamas positions along the Gaza border in retaliation for Palestinian snipers shooting at Israeli soldiers. The incident Friday, in which no one was injured on either side, was the first disturbance of its kind in weeks since an unofficial truce between Hamas and Israel went into effect, [...]

Moscow – Russian Jews honored a nuclear physicist who during communism helped established the first and only official Jewish religious seminary to ever open in the former Soviet Union. At last week’s Limmud FSU conference of Jewish learning in Moscow, Evgeny Velikhov for the first time recounted publicly his involvement in the 1989 opening of [...]

Warsaw – The Great Synagogue of Warsaw, which was destroyed by the German forces during World War II, has made a brief reappearance, as an apparition of light, as part of anniversary commemorations for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Light was projected Thursday night onto the modern glass building in the place where the [...]

Washington – Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce he’s running for president next week. That’s according to three people with knowledge of Biden’s plans. Biden will enter the race as a Democratic front-runner, although the 76-year-old faces questions about his age and whether his more moderate record fits with a party that [...]

Washington – Don McGahn was barely on speaking terms with President Donald Trump when he left the White House last fall. But special counsel Robert Mueller’s report reveals the president may owe his former top lawyer a debt of gratitude. McGahn, who sat with Mueller for about 30 hours of interviews, emerged as a central [...]

New York – Like every Chol HaMoed VIN News, is linking to special files from The Jewish Press (http://www.jewishpress.com ) The Weekly Link (www.weeklylink.com ) and The Monsey View (https://themonseyview.com) who have compiled a special Chol HaMoed guide of places where you can spend your days. If you know of any other kosher entertainment locations [...]

Ankara – Turkey has arrested two intelligence operatives who confessed to spying on Arab nationals for the United Arab Emirates, and it is probing whether the arrival in Turkey of one of them was related to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, a senior Turkish official said on Friday. One of the two men arrived in Turkey in [...]

Washington – At the moment two years ago when Donald Trump learned a special counsel had been appointed to investigate his campaign and Russia, the president responded with profane fury — and something resembling panic. He feared his presidency, then only a few months old, was over. He berated aides for not protecting him. His [...]

Hebron, West Bank – The Israeli military has demolished the family home of a Palestinian charged with the killing of a 19-year-old Israeli woman. Israeli forces bulldozed two apartments belonging to the father of Arafat Erfayieh in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday. Erfaiyeh was arrested and charged in February with the killing [...]