Washington – U.S. officials say the Trump administration has notified Congress it plans to send 1,500 troops to the Middle East amid heightened tensions with Iran. Officials said members of Congress were notified following a White House meeting Thursday to discuss Pentagon proposals to bolster the U.S. force presence in the Middle East. The officials [...]

Washington – Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said Palestinian leaders are not “the right kinds of partners” for peace, but that Israel’s leaders need American guidance. Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and a former naval intelligence officer, made his remarks Thursday at a meeting with several dozen representatives of Jewish groups held in [...]

Washington – A House GOP conservative complaining of Washington’s free-spending and opaque ways blocked a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid bill on Friday, extending a tempest over hurricane and flood relief that has left the measure meandering for months. Texas Republican Chip Roy, a former aide to Texas firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz, objected to speeding [...]

Jerusalem – Wildfires in the Jerusalem area on Friday ravaged one of Israel’s prettiest and largest memorial forests. The fires, aided by a scorching heat of over 104 degrees and eastern winds, consumed the Jewish National Fund’s forest around the Kdoshei Zaglambia Holocaust monument, Ynet reported. Situated on the western slopes of the Judean Hills, [...]

London – Theresa May has joined the ranks of Conservative prime ministers whose time in office has been overwhelmed — and cut short — by the issue of Europe. Ever since Edward Heath took the U.K. into what was then the European Economic Community in 1973, the Conservative Party has been anguished by how close [...]

Beijing – Stepping up Beijing’s propaganda offensive in the tariffs standoff with Washington, Chinese state media on Friday accused the U.S. of seeking to “colonize global business” with moves against Huawei and other Chinese technology companies. There was no word from either side on progress toward resuming talks between the world’s two largest economies, though [...]

New York – New York City police have made an arrest in their investigation into a series of subway emergency brake activations. Police said on Friday that the 23-year-old Brooklyn man is charged with one brake-pulling incident. Investigators have been looking into about 40 similar crimes between February and this month. They believe someone has [...]

Washington – Sometimes even the president of the United States needs somebody to vouch for him. No, Trump insisted Thursday, he did not have a temper tantrum a day earlier when he cut off a White House meeting with congressional Democrats after just three minutes. To prove it — in the middle of a meeting [...]

Seoul – North Korea said Friday that nuclear negotiations with the United States will never resume unless the Trump administration moves away from what Pyongyang described as unilateral demands for disarmament. The statement by an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman published in state media was the country’s latest expression of displeasure over the stalled [...]

Paris – A French-Jewish taxi driver was mugged and beaten in what he said was an anti-Semitic crime by perpetrators who targeted him because of his Jewish-sounding name. The driver, a 33-year-old man from the Paris region whose first name is Israel Hai, said that he accepted a ride in Clichy Sous-Bois near Paris early [...]