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American Middle East envoy George Mitchell has asked Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for a "deposit," an advance commitment of a one-year freeze on construction in West Bank settlements. Mitchell raised the idea in his talks with Netanyahu and Barak in Israel last week. He argued that the Arab states will not make gestures toward normalization with Israel without a guarantee of an end to building in the settlements. Mitchell said an Israeli agreement to temporarily freeze construction would facilitate concessions from the Arab states.

(IsraelNN.com) Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain has asked the Chabad-Lubavitch movement to support him in the November elections. In a conference call to 40 of Chabad's leading rabbis, the senator told them that he is the underdog in the race and that Chabad's support "would mean a great deal to me." He pledged "never again" to another Holocaust and he reminded the rabbis of his vow to keep Israel secure. However, Chabad is forbidden from officially endorsing a candidate because it is listed as a tax-exempt and non-profit organization.

MILWAUKEE- A thief found out the hard way that robbing a woman isn't the best way to capture her heart. Two men robbed a U-Haul store around 3 p.m. Sunday, taking an unspecified amount of cash, according the store's owner. But instead of fleeing, one man lingered and tried to strike up a conversation with the woman he had just robbed. "He stuck around and was trying to get the female employee's number," U-Haul general manager Patrick Sobocinski said. "She said he was just saying, 'Hey baby, you're pretty fine.'" According to Sobocinski, one robber went behind the counter, put...

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2007 – An Army mom in Malone, N.Y., is asking Americans to show their compassion and make life a little more pleasant for troops serving overseas through her Have a Heart/Adopt a Soldier program. Have a Heart/Adopt a Soldier is a member of America Supports You, a Defense Department program highlighting the ways Americans and the corporate sector are supporting the nation’s servicemembers. Gladys Walker started the organization in December 2002, when the popularity of her care packages spread beyond her son’s unit. “He called and said there were others … that weren’t getting any mail...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's military government challenged neighboring Afghanistan on Tuesday to identify the terror hideouts that Afghanistan claims exist in Pakistan, using a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to make its argument. Rice, making back-to-back visits to the quarreling allies, could do little but smile thinly while her Pakistani counterpart, Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri, answered Afghan criticisms point by point. "Our view is that we have two good friends and two fierce fighters in the war on terror," Rice said following meetings with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Kasuri. Musharraf became an unlikely ally of the...

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union have asked the FBI to reveal any post-Sept. 11 surveillance of Southern California Muslims. The ACLU made the request for documents Monday, after Islamic leaders said the FBI gave them little information when they alleged that investigators had been monitoring local Muslims and mosques. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU filed the request on behalf of six Islamic organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, along with several individual Muslims. Shakeel Syed, head of the Islamic Shura Council, said many Southern California Muslims...

Turkey's foreign minister asks the EU for blasphemy laws to protect Islam By David Rennie in Brussels (Filed: 13/03/2006) Deep divisions have appeared among European union governments over suggestions that they should alter their blasphemy laws to protect Islam, and not just Christianity. Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, sparked disagreement among his EU counterparts at a weekend meeting in Austria, when he called for European nations to review existing laws, to ensure they outlawed the "defamation" of all religions. Mr Gul told a meeting of EU and Balkan foreign ministers in Salzburg that many Muslims believed that European laws...

New York Asks Help From Poor in Housing Crisis By JANNY SCOTT Published: March 9, 2006 The New York City Housing Authority, landlord to more than 400,000 poor New Yorkers, is facing a budget shortfall of $168 million and has proposed narrowing the gap by charging residents new fees and increasing old ones for everything from owning a dishwasher to getting a toilet unclogged. Deficits at the Housing Authority The authority says its operating deficit stems from enormous increases in energy and pension costs while its federal financing for public housing has been cut. Since 2001, the agency says, it...

'We will cut them until Iran asks for mercy' By Massoud Ansari (Filed: 15/01/2006) Deep in the lawless triangle connecting Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, eight terrified Iranian soldiers are being held hostage by a Sunni group that is vowing to "slaughter" them if Teheran does not bow to its demands. "We will chop their heads once our deadline is over," Abdul Hameed Reeki, chief spokesman of the Jundallah or Brigade of God group, told the Sunday Telegraph, slowly drawing an index finger across his neck to demonstrate the seriousness of his intent. The deadline for the men is tomorrow. The...

AUSTIN, Texas - The state's highest criminal court has asked prosecutors to respond to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's request that the charges against him be dismissed. The all-Republican appeals court on Tuesday gave prosecutors a week to submit arguments regarding the request filed Friday by DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin. The court will decide whether to take the case after the prosecutors' response is received. DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden issued a statement Tuesday night saying the court had agreed to hear the case. A court official said Wednesday that was incorrect. The court's order had noted DeLay has filed...

WASHINGTON - Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco asked Congress on Wednesday for help in rebuilding her devastated state, saying Hurricanes Katrina and Rita "knocked us down but they did not knock us out." Appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Blanco in her opening statement did not mention former FEMA director Michael Brown, who on Tuesday had blamed state and local officials in Louisiana for not responding appropriately to the storm. "We are looking forward, not backward, " Blanco said. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley also were testifying before the committee via teleconference hookup from their state capitols....

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday asked the White House to declare disaster areas in eight Southern California counties ravaged earlier this month by a spate of deadly storms. If the request is approved, the move should help municipalities fund repairs to roads, bridges and other structures damaged by flooding and mudslides triggered by days of heavy rain in the counties of Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura. Twenty-eight deaths were linked to the effects of the storms that began Jan. 7. "I have determined that this incident is of...

Murkowski asks her staff to quit NEW START: Senator says they can reapply, but some won't be rehired By RICHARD MAUER Anchorage Daily News (Published: November 25, 2004) Murkowski Lisa Murkowski said Wednesday that she will be returning to Washington in January for her first term as an elected senator with a revived confidence and such a strong desire to start anew that she has asked her entire 30-member staff to resign and reapply for their jobs. Some won't be rehired, she said. *SNIP* Murkowski said her decision to start fresh with her staff doesn't mean some of the same...

WASHINGTON - Iraq's interim prime minister has formally asked NATO to do more to help stabilize his violence-wracked country by training its nascent security forces. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's request comes in advance of the NATO summit Monday and Tuesday in Istanbul, Turkey, and could help President Bush in his efforts to win a greater NATO commitment in Iraq. The 26-member NATO alliance provides only logistical support to a Polish-commanded multinational division in south-central Iraq. Bush has sought a larger alliance role to help relieve the overstretched U.S. military. The administration has warned that it's in the world's interest...

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites)'s former counterterrorism adviser complained Wednesday about the use of his name and comments critical of Bush in a new broadcast advertisement from a political group supporting Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites). Richard Clarke said he instructed his lawyer to ask the MoveOn.org Voter Fund to pull the ad, which Clarke said was created without his knowledge or permission. The group said it rejected the request. "I just don't want to be used," Clarke told The Associated Press. "I don't want to be part of what looks like a political...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer sent a letter Monday to her re-election opponent, Republican Bill Jones, asking him to debate. "With such clear differences between us on the issues, I believe that debates will be a good opportunity for Californians to better understand the clear choice that they have in this election," wrote Boxer, who criticizes Jones on the campaign trail as too conservative for California. "I hope you will respond favorably to this request and that we can begin the process of working out the specifics," she wrote. Jones spokeswoman Valerie Walston said the former California secretary...

(Washington, DC) - The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm specializing in constitutional law, announced today it has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the high court to uphold a lower court decision that struck down as unconstitutional a provision in the campaign finance law that prohibits persons aged 17 years and younger from donating to the campaigns of candidates. "The campaign finance law clearly targets minors in a fashion that is both discriminatory and unconstitutional," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which successfully challenged the provision barring political...

Barbara Curley stands next to photos of her son, Jeffrey Curley, at her home in Cambridge, Mass., in 1998. Jeffrey was kidnapped and killed in October 1997. BOSTON — A group that promotes sex between men and boys asked a federal judge yesterday to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the parents of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley, who was murdered by one of the group's members. Curley was killed on Oct. 1, 1997. Salvatore Sicari, of Cambridge, was convicted of first-degree murder in the case, while Charles Jaynes, of Brockton and Manchester, N.H., was convicted of second-degree murder and kidnapping. Last...

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA -- The Web site that accepted a personal ad from convicted child killer Susan Smith seeking pen pals from her prison cell has asked her to withdraw the ad because the result has been "kind of a freak show." "However, if Susan wants to keep the ad, we won't force her to get rid of it," Jason Roberts, a spokesman for writeaprisoner.com, said Friday.