JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Updated 02/08/12 @ 03:41PM EST

• The Jewish Federations of North America commended the Obama administration for maintaining the deductibility rate of charitable donations.
• Jewish groups split on their response to a federal appeals court ruling that allows same-sex couples to marry in California.
• Calls are growing in Congress to reconsider U.S. aid to Egypt.
• Israel's Public Utility Authority granted the first-ever license for a solar project in the Bedouin community that is being funded by the U.S. government.
• Rick Santorum won three contests in the race for the Republican nod for the presidency.

• The Jewish owner of a real estate company in New York is donating his $50,000 winnings from a Super Bowl bet to charity.
• Four people were charged with hate crimes in an assault on a Jewish man in New York State.
• A Chasidic teenager pleaded guilty to assault in the firebombing of the home of a neighbor over a religious disagreement.
• Delta Airlines removed the phrase "Occupied Palestinian Territories" from its list of Middle East destinations.
• Israeli workers launched an open-ended general strike.

• George Clooney is expected to star in a film about U.S. and British art experts who tracked down Nazi-looted artworks, mainly from Jewish owners.
• Orthodox Jews have appealed to a court in Sydney to overturn a decision to deny them an eruv.
• Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reconfirmed his commitment to a two-state solution during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington.
• Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, considered this generation's leading halachic authority, is in critical condition.
• Two Messianic Jewish organizations condemned a self-styled Messianic rabbi for conducting a church service in which a Baptist bishop was wrapped in a Torah scroll and called a king.

• Two top Hadassah officials are being investigated by the organization for possible misuse of funds.
• A senior official at Susan G. Komen For the Cure resigned after the organization was embroiled in controversy over its attempt to defund Planned Parenthood.
• A box of surgical tools owned by the commandant of the Theresienstadt concentration camp is set to be auctioned.
• An Israeli couple reportedly serving as Chabad emissaries in the Indian city of Kochi are being deported for "suspicious activities."
• At least eight Israelis described as former military personnel are being investigated for drug trafficking in Colombia.

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