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Violence, instability and terrorism are scaring off plenty of spiritual travelers–Christian as well as Jewish–to the Holy Land. Israel’s Tourism Ministry says American visitors are down by more than 40 percent from 2000. Halfway across the world, tourist arrivals to Nepal–many of them Himalayan pilgrims–have dropped 46 percent in the past two years, largely because of the threat from Maoist rebels. But religious travelers aren’t staying home. They’re simply booking pilgrimages to more obscure religious sites, from Italy and Greece to Ethiopia and Morocco....

The rear of Montoya’s car came loose and he hit the wall in Turn 2. MORE: NASCAR misses Montoya, but he doesn’t miss it | Coke 600 lineup Montoya said that the car just came around on him. He was checked at the track medical center, cleared and released. “Yeah, I am okay,” he said. “People do a lot of dumb things on a restart and we were just being careful, trying to make up some ground....

Team Penske, which signed Montoya to race in IndyCar after Montoya’s release from his NASCAR ride at Chip Ganassi Racing, will field the No. 12 SKF-sponsored car for Montoya in both events. “Juan is a proven winner in multiple racing disciplines, and he is one of the most versatile racecar drivers competing today,” Roger Penske said in a news release. “Michigan and Indianapolis are two important races for Team Penske....

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan stated that “this court will not effectively ignore its own reasoning in denying injunctive relief in the first place to grant injunctive relief now.” The former president had previously stated that he was able to use executive privilege to block the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack from receiving White House records related to that day. However, Judge Chutkan had ruled that, since Trump is no longer the president, he does not have the right to exert such a privilege....

The trial, originally scheduled to begin on Dec. 1, 2015, will now start on Jan. 19. Prosecutors are seeking to obtain further evidence from a law firm that had previously represented Hernandez, according to the Associated Press. MORE: Aaron Hernandez timeline | Photos from investigation Hernandez, convicted in April of the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, is facing charges of killing two men in 2012. Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado were gunned down on June 16, 2012, in Boston’s South End....

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on Friday ruled against Judicial Watch’s quest to halt a motion for summary judgement in their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of State. The conservative group was seeking records related to a video advertisement titled “A Message from the President of the United States Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” During court proceedings last week, Walton reportedly expressed considerable skepticism over the group’s suggestion that the State Department, now under the administration of President Donald Trump, was being less than thorough or truthful in their effort to produce the documents....

Trump had sued Representative Bennie Thompson in his capacity as chair of the committee in order to prevent the committee from accessing documents in the National Archives. The former president asserted that the documents were covered by executive privilege but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled against Trump on Tuesday. His attorney Jesse Binnall has already filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit....

On Friday, Florida District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Clinton that was filed in March alleging that Clinton accused him of colluding with Russia prior to the 2016 presidential election. The ruling dismissing the suit said that Trump’s complaint “is neither short nor plain, and it certainly does not establish that [Trump] is entitled to any relief.” “The amended complaint alleges that the defendants ’engaged in a calculated scheme to defraud the news media, law enforcement, and counterintelligence officials for the purpose of proliferating a false narrative of collusion between Trump and Russia,’” Middlebrooks said in the ruling....

Outside the Rand Supreme Court building the crowds of supporters dressed in African National Congress colors have dwindled to a handful of hangerson. The senior ANC officials who jammed the courtroom at the opening of Winnie Mandela’s kidnap-and-assault trial last February are nowhere to be seen these days. Her staunchest backer, husband Nelson, turned up twice as she took the witness stand last week, only to leave the courthouse minutes later....

Blank stares. “Do you have any idea who this is?” More stares. Finally, a girl raised her hand. “Britney Spears?” Kennedy, 45, laughs as she tells this story, and you can see the laugh lines crinkling around her eyes. “I was very flattered, actually. I thought that was great.” For someone whose family “secrets” are still the subject of tabloid exposes, there’s something luxurious about not being recognized. And much of the time, Kennedy can get away with being just another New York mom on the crosstown bus....

According to the Orleans Parish Coroner, Dardar’s autopsy said she died from asphyxia due to manual strangulation and blunt force injuries to her head and neck, WDSU reported. Last week, police found the dismembered body, now identified as Dardar, on a property belonging to Benjamin Beale. Dardar, 36, was believed to be living with Beale at the time of her death. Her estranged husband reported her missing on December 23, just three days after a friend saw Beale driving Dardar’s car alone, the NOLA....

President Joe Biden signed a resolution on Thursday proclaiming the first national holiday declared since then-President Ronald Reagan named Martin Luther King Jr. Day a holiday in 1983. “Juneteenth National Independence Day” will be celebrated on June 19 each year. In 2021, the federal holiday will be celebrated a day early, as June 19 falls on a Saturday. “This is a day that’s profound in my view—profound in weight and profound in power,” Biden said of the new holiday....

The Reds bounced back from a thrashing at Tottenham a fortnight ago with victory over Huddersfield Town and Maribor - and Klopp then watched Liverpool tear through the Hammers. Liverpool 9/1 to beat Sevillla 1-0 His side were pegged back to 2-1 after Mohamed Salah and Joel Matip had scored in the first half, but further goals through Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and the Egyptian’s second secured victory. And Liverpool could have given the scoreline an even more one-sided appearance, with Klopp pointing to a tactical tweak and picking out Roberto Firmino for particular praise....

Depp’s multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard is getting underway today as the actor is suing his ex-wife for $50 million, alleging that she defamed him in an opinion piece that was published in the Washington Post in December 2018. The former married couple are set to battle it out against one another in court this month in Fairfax County, Virginia and a jury of eleven people, including four alternates, has now been selected to hear Depp’s case....

Sure enough, “Stalin” calls to mind the Don-and we don’t mean the river. Like the young Corleone, Duvall’s Soviet ruler gets his career started with robbery and assassination while surrounding himself with lots of swarthy, mustached thugs, none of whom he trusts. Duvall even sounds like a Georgian De Niro when he launches yet another bloody purge by growling at a flunky: “Geef me da list of dese bastards.” Still, nothing rings false....

NFL place-kickers combined to miss 12 extra points Sunday, including a pair of misses by both New York Giants kicker Robbie Gould and Cincinnati’s Mike Nugent. The Giants were able to overcome the misses in a 22-16 win over Gould’s former team, the Chicago Bears. The Bengals weren’t so fortunate as Nugent’s misses came into play late in a 16-12 loss to the Buffalo Bills. Instead of needing a potential game-winning field goal from Nugent, the Bengals were forced to attempt a Hail Mary pass from the Bills 27-yard line as time expired....

Haynes was thrust back into the spotlight last week after the disclosure of a March 2003 Justice Department memo concluding that federal laws against torture, assault and maiming would not apply to the overseas interrogation of terror suspects. Haynes requested the memo (which was written by the then Justice Department lawyer John Yoo) and he and his boss, the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, later used it to justify harsh interrogation practices on terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay....

The audit report, which was published on Thursday, began in June 2020 as the Justice Department reviewed the use of “body-worn cameras” among ATF and FBI agents, as well as law enforcement officers with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the United States Marshals Service (USMS), which the report referred to collectively as “the Components.” Although the report noted that the federal agencies had made progress toward implementing body-worn cameras, it said that they were still unprepared for full implementation....

On July 14, 2020, the United States put to death Daniel Lewis Lee, thus restoring federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. Having robbed a family, including an eight-year old girl, and shot them with a stun gun, as the Department of Justice website recounts, Lee, a white supremacist, “covered their heads with plastic bags, sealed the bags with duct tape, weighed down each victim with rocks, and threw the family of three into the Illinois bayou....

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the colt tested positive for the banned substance scopoloamine after winning the Santa Anita Derby in April of that year, a violation that should have ruled him out of the Kentucky Derby a month later. California horsemen, however, moved slowly in investigating the test; that delay, in turn, allowed Justify to race in, and win, the Ketucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes and become the 13th Triple Crown winner in thoroughbred racing history....