Latest

On Wednesday morning, April 8, Jews gathered around the world to recite the sacred and rare blessing of the sun (birkat hachama in Hebrew), recited only once every 28 years. The blessing is intended to celebrate the positioning of the sun, stars, and planets in the exact formation in which they were created. Although modern science seems to have disproved such a claim, the blessing is still recited and maintains much symbolic value in the Jewish faith. The sun or the shape of the sun must be seen in order to recite the "BirkatHachamah" after

The crew of a United States-flagged ship managed to retake the craft from four Somali pirates on Wednesday, but the boat's captain is reported to be held hostage in a lifeboat. According to the authorities, a US destroyer and six other vessels were dispatched to the scene. The ship involved in the incident was the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama, which was headed to Mombasa, Kenya. It was attacked by Somali pirates about five hundred kilometers from Somalia's coast, according to the CEO and president of Maersk, John Reinhart. Ken Quinn, the ship'

Susan Stanton, the former city manager of Largo, Florida, has been hired as the new city manager for Lake Worth. Stanton was fired from her job as Largo's city manager in 2007, apparently when her gender transition became public knowledge. "We said all along that we'd pick the best candidate regardless and that's what it's all about, we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't," said Jeff Clemons, the mayor of Lake Worth. He added that the city's commission voted in favor of Stanton 4 to 1. Stanton was the city manager of Largo for 14 years be

Protests which began Monday escalated to a riot on Wednesday consisting of over 10,000 people in Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, protesting the results of Sunday's 2009 Moldovan parliamentary election, which showed an apparent, narrow victory for the Communist Party (Partidul Comuniştilor din Republica Moldova, PCRM). Demonstrators claim the victory was the result of electoral fraud. The demonstration escalated to a “flash mob” of between 10,000 to 15,000 communicating via online tools like email, micro-blogging tool Twitter, and social-netw

Fiji's Court of Appeal has ruled that the removal of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and the appointment of Fiji's interim regime following the military coup in 2006 was unlawful. It has ordered President Josefa Iloilo to appoint a caretaker Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament and call elections. However, it has denied former Prime Minister Qarase's argument that he should be reinstated, instead ruling that the President should appoint an independent person. Former Prime Minister Qarase welcomed the decision. "We are very happy with the dec

The town of Winfield, Missouri in the United States has re-elected its incumbent mayor for a third term nearly a month after his death. Mayor Harry Stonebraker died of a heart attack on March 11, yet came out on top over opponent Alderman Bernie Panther, with 90% of the vote. The ballots had been printed and absentee voting was already underway by the time of Stonebraker's death. County Clerk Elaine Luck commented that Stonebraker was quite popular, especially after his efforts to help the town evacuate during last year's flooding. Just nine

A Boeing 757 passenger jet, operated by Yakutia airlines, successfully made an emergency landing at the Vnukovo airport in the Russian capital of Moscow on Tuesday. The plane requested the landing after technical problems were reported on board. None of the 174 passengers and nine crew members aboard were injured. said a spokeswoman for Vnukovo airport. The plane was originally scheduled to land at 20:20 local time, but circled around the airport in a holding pattern for three and a half hours to burn off excess fuel. Yakutia Flight 478 depa

Ernest Krajniak from Chilton, Wisconsin in the United States has been charged with arson after a lit cigarette ignited gasoline soaked clothes, setting his apartment ablaze. On Friday April 3, Krajniak, 47, cleaned his entire apartment with about five gallons of gasoline, wiping everything down with the soaked clothes. After he was finished, he piled the soaked clothes in the center of his bedroom, lit a cigarette and then threw what was left of the still lit cigarette, into the pile. Krajniak never called the fire department and never pulled

With 351 additional ballots counted, Al Franken has increased his lead over former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman from 225 to 312 votes, local news agencies reported Tuesday. In November, the results of the 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota showed Republican Norm Coleman with a 215 vote lead over the Democratic challenger Franken. The close margin — less than 0.0075 percent — triggered an automatic recount which resulted in Franken leading by 225 votes, the total ratified by the Minnesota Canvasing Board January 5. The Coleman campa

An aftershock with a magnitude of 5.6 shook Central Italy on Tuesday, nearly 48 hours after a major 6.3 quake hit the country. Earlier in the day, another aftershock of 4.2 was also reported. The death toll from the quakes has now surpassed 200 with thousands of others injured. At least one person was killed in the aftershock. The aftershock caused two apartment blocks to collapse in the city of L'Aquila, and slabs of masonry fell from other damaged buildings. Local media reported that an old church and many houses were also damaged. The sh

Editorial journalist Roger Friedman has lost his job at Fox News following a dispute with the company. Friedman admitted in a movie review late last week to having wached a bootlegged online video stream version of a partially-completed copy of the upcoming film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation production. Friedman had worked for several years as a reviewer and media journalist for Fox News. While a press release from Fox says that the company and Friedman had "mutually agreed to part ways immediately", news ar

Gioacchino Giuliani, a researcher at a Gran Sasso physics institute in Italy, claims that he predicted the powerful earthquake that struck the country on Monday, but was dismissed by the authorities as a scaremonger. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) the moment magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Central Italy at 3:32 a.m. local time on April 6. So far, over 150 people have been killed with over 1,500 injured and tens of thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed. A magnitude 5.1 aftershock struck the same region just under 2