Shorts: U.S.

Report: Circumcision reduces HIV risk

new york (jta) | Circumcision reduces the risk that men will contract HIV through intercourse with women, according to recent scientific research.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that French and South African researchers have apparently found that circumcision reduces the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, by 70 percent.

The board monitoring the research halted the study in February because it decided that to continue without offering the uncircumcised group circumcisions would have been unethical. But some researchers interviewed by the Journal stressed caution because the study's findings have not been published yet. They also said further research would be necessary to confirm the findings.




Baseball team bid gets anti-Semitic spin

washington (jta) | A team of investors bidding for the Washington Nationals is led by a Nixon administration official who cracked down on Jewish government employees.

Fred Malek, who leads the investors, compiled a list of Jews who worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics at President Nixon's behest. Nixon believed that Jewish staffers were skewing employment statistics to make him look bad. Some of the staffers later were demoted or transferred. Malek, then Nixon's personnel chief, says he regrets his role and tried to talk Nixon out of the task.

Malek's Republican-dominated investment bid came to light this week after the revelation that financier George Soros, who is Jewish, was a minority investor in a bid affiliated with prominent Democrats. Some congressional Republicans, who favor the Malek bid, suggested that Major League baseball could lose its favorable anti-trust status if Soros becomes a part-owner. Soros spent millions of dollars last year trying to unseat President Bush.




Poll: 1 in 10 U.S. Jews interested in aliyah

new york (jta) | Ten percent of American Jews are interested in living in Israel, a study found.

According to the Jewish Agency for Israel survey released last week, 10 percent of American Jews would like to immigrate to Israel.

Six percent of the 1,690 respondents said they planned to move to Israel within the next five years, the poll found.




House approves Israel, Palestinian aid

washington (jta) | The U.S. House of Representatives approved aid for Israel and the Palestinians last week.

Israel, as usual, was the biggest single beneficiary of the assistance, receiving $2.52 billion — $2.28 billion in military assistance and $240 million in economic assistance.

The House also acceded to President Bush's request for $150 million for the Palestinians, in addition to the $150 million already agreed to earlier this year.




Arkansas student charged with planning jihad

washington (jta) | A Palestinian American student accused of planning to engage in terrorist activities waived his right to a court hearing. Arwah Jaber of Fayetteville, Ark., is charged with planning to travel to the West Bank to engage in jihad, or holy war, against Israel.

Explaining to a professor why he couldn't graduate on time, Jaber wrote, "I decided to take an honorable job in Palestine with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Organization to pursue a more noble cause — freedom, justice and peace for the Palestinians and to fight the Israeli terrorism."