Sportswriter's son and Messianic (not a real) Jew David Newhan tries for a roster spot with the Mets.

Newhan bounced around the A's organization and was traded to the Padres in 1997. He made his major league debut with San Diego in 1999.

Then, Newhan said, it all started going wrong. He batted .140 in 32 games. The next year he hit .150. He was traded to Philadelphia and made the team out of spring training in 2001, but he injured his shoulder crashing into a left-field wall and missed most of that season and all of 2002 after having his second shoulder operation.

It was about this time that Newhan started reading scripture and the Old Testament for guidance, and soon, he said, “a different train pulled into the station.” He still held fast to his Jewish beliefs — he had his Bar Mitzvah at a conservative synagogue — but he said that accepting Jesus Christ helped guide him through this rocky period. He observes Passover and Hanukkah and considers himself a Messianic Jew.

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A Cailfornia camera store owner says "some of my best customers are Jews" after refusing a man service because photos of his turn-of-the-century relatives were considered to be  "Jewish terrorists"

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Did supporters of a Scottish soccer club give their Israeli hosts the "Red Hand of Ulster" or "Heil Hitler" salutes?  It appears to have been the first, although their is quite a bit of on-the-field acrimony nevertheless.

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Better late than never, I guess, but this smacks of political pandering and is somewhat offensive.

Islip leader urges U.S. citizenship for Anne Frank

Anne's cousin Edith Gordon, 78, who recently moved from Setauket to San Diego, questioned whether the U.S. should try to claim Anne for its own.

"It doesn't seem right to me somehow, when we didn't let her into the country," she said.

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Too many of these stories wind up in tiny local papers instead of on page A1 of the national papers (you know who you are).  And I know this story is not unique at all.  Thanks for your service and your honesty, sir.

It is one medal no soldier wants to earn.

U.S. Army Cpl. Matt Murray is one of the lucky ones. In person, he accepted his Purple Heart medal for being wounded in combat, the result of an improvised explosive device that detonated under the vehicle in which he was riding. He found out later his neck was broken.

The 2002 Plano Senior High graduate joined the Army Feb. 24, 2004. He arrived in Iraq in August 2006 and his stay was shortened by the attack......

Now, he’s at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. in recovery. He only stayed in Texas for about two weeks in mid-January. He said his recovery and therapy should be complete by the end of March, at which time he will return to his unit in Iraq.

“I have good friends in Plano, but not in the same way as the brotherhood built in the Army. I wouldn’t have wanted to fight next to my friends in Plano,” Murray said. “It’ll be nice to be with my brothers again. They’re still over there and I’m laying in a hospital bed watching this …. on T.V. I need to be over there with my brothers. Nothing is under my control. I think we need to get out of there, personally. I think we are getting caught in the cross fire of a civil war.”

But Murray said he is proud of his service to his country and “if we don’t fight the fight, then who will?”