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Thieves broke into a Queens synagogue and stole a valuable Torah scroll - casting a pall over the festival of Shavuot, which celebrates the revelation of the Ten Commandments."It's a terrible thing," Rabbi Yigal Haimoff of Temple Ohel-Simcha told The Post last night."They're not human," he said of the thieves. "I don't know what they are, but they're not human." The Torah, which has gold-plated handles and is valued at about $30,000, was donated to the Sephardic temple by a congregant whose family had owned it for at least 30 years. It was swiped from a special closet in the ...

-- Le tout nation's capital is both salivating and asweat over the return of First Lady Laura Bush this week from spending a fortnight fixin' up the new presidential retreat at their ranch out there in Crawford, Texas. One imagines the expense account-wielding White House press corps looking forward to Crawford with much the same Epicurean relish it did to hanging out in Americus, Ga., when President Carter retreated in nearby Plains.)What's causing all the fret is that Laura Bush's settling into the Executive Mansion means that we're finally going to start up the royal court that traditionally surrounds a ...

The president of the United States, no less, has lightheartedly questioned the legitimacy of the presidential election. Lightheartedly, not in the sense of a roast, at which you are invited to say uproariously improvised defamations of the guest of honor; lightheartedly in the sense of Mr. Clinton's historical insouciance. No one can know better than a president who has served in office the axiomatic dependence on legitimacy. Now Mr. Clinton is making jokes on the subject that should be off limits this side of Letterman and Leno. What he said about campaign manager William Daley was, "I think he did ...

A current employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory was arrested for alleged hacking and witness tampering. But lab officials stress that the alleged incidents occurred before the employee started working at the lab.An employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation's top nuclear weapons research facility, has been arrested on charges of tampering with the eBay auction Web site, law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS on Thursday.The alleged activity took place before the man came to work at Los Alamos and apparently while he was an employee at the Qualcomm company, the sources said.Officials at the U.S. Attorney's Office ...

Those who have survived the ethics-checking grinder to take a job in Washington say revelations of the sort that sank Linda Chavez (news - external web site)'s nomination as labor secretary can be avoided by sticking to one principle: Own up to everything, fast.However obvious that advice, some still don't take it and public service is scattered with broken ambitions as a result.Chavez withdrew her nomination Tuesday after it came out she had provided room and some money to an illegal alien in the early 1990s.Her mistake, she acknowledged, was in ``not thinking through that this might be misinterpreted and ...

The mystery of how confidential debate preparation materials made their way from Texas Gov. George W. Bush's inner circle to Vice President Gore's debate coach is not going to be officially solved anytime soon. After an initial round of interviews and evidence-gathering by the FBI, the investigation in recent weeks has been much less visible. Members of the Gore and Bush camps said they are frustrated but resigned to the lack of resolution before the public goes to the polls.Attorney General Janet Reno, asked last week whether the investigation has been routed onto a slow track until the election is ...

- President Clinton (news - web sites) vetoed legislation on Saturday that could impose prison terms on officials who leak classified information, a measure that had drawn fire from news organizations.Dozens of news organizations wrote to the president to complain about the bill, saying the language was too broad and that it violated the free speech provision in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.``Today I am disapproving H.R. 4392, the 'Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001'', because of one badly flawed provision that would have made a felony of unauthorized disclosures of classified information.''The legislation, which was passed ...

Working a security detail for former president George Bush during a 1993 visit, Calvin Bridges didn't know what to expect when Bush walked up to him and peered at his name tag. After all, it was Bridges who had arrested Bush's son in Kennebunkport in 1976 for drinking and driving, and the police officer wasn't exactly expecting a pat on the back.But Bush smiled broadly. He shook Bridges's hand. And he gave him a present: a tie clip.''He said, `You are the officer who arrested my son,''' Bridges recalled yesterday. ''And he told me that it was the best thing ...

Tennessee, the state Al Gore (news - web sites) calls home, is hardly treating him like a favorite son.Three days before the election, the Democratic presidential nominee found himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to avoid the embarrassment of losing his home state.He returned to Tennessee late on Friday for rallies in Alcoa and Memphis and a prayer breakfast on Saturday -- his second visit in 10 days to overcome the slight edge enjoyed here by his Republican rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush (news - web sites).``My friends, it is such a joy to be here,'' Gore told ...

Asked by Congress to explain a pair of theft schemes at his agency, Education Secretary Richard Riley said Wednesday more than half the $3 million taken this year has been recovered.Riley, who blamed the incidents on ``misplaced faith'' in a longtime, career employee and ``abuse of our trust,'' said $1.9 million in stolen grants for children who live on Indian reservations and military bases had been returned to two South Dakota school districts.The money was diverted in July with forged documents into Maryland bank accounts and used to purchase a Cadillac, real estate and other property.The government seized the property ...

- After months of open partisan warfare over tax cuts, President Clinton (news - web sites) and congressional Republicans neared agreement Wednesday on a tax relief package that would help people save for retirement, pay for long-term health care and give businesses breaks to offset the costs of a $1 minimum wage increase.The legislation, expected to cost about $245 billion over 10 years, also would provide a host of new tax incentives to revitalize downtrodden communities and set up a new tax system for U.S. exporters to avert a trade war with the European UnionAlthough disagreement remained in some areas, ...

- Scores of outreach programs for the elderly, from legal assistance to the popular Meals-on-Wheels service, would be renewed for five years under a bill passed by the House on Wednesday.The massive package, known as the Older Americans Act, expired five years ago but has continued to be funded through the appropriations process.The House reauthorized the package for another five years by a 405-2 vote with only Republican Reps. Ron Paul of Texas and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, both fiscal conservatives, opposing the bill.The measure now goes to the Senate where it is expected to pass.``The Older Americans Act ...

- Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites), tweaking Democratic Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) on the eve of their final debate, stopped in the home state of his rival's boss, Bill Clinton, on Monday and declared it Bush country.Polls rate Arkansas, once reliably Democratic, a toss-up in the Nov. 7 presidential election and Bush held a riverside rally in Little Rock which has the state's largest concentration of the independent and swing voters likely to provide the margin of victory.``This election is going to come down to the wire,'' Bush said, urging supporters to get ...

A record number of Americans will vote before Election Day this year, a phenomenon that's transforming the parties' get-out-the-vote drives and that could affect tight races for president and Congress.Oregon is holding the nation's first all-mail balloting, and millions more will vote absentee in states such as California, Washington, Nevada and Arizona, where control of the House and Senate could be settled.The numbers keep rising as states make it easier to vote ahead of time.Washington, where the absentee vote is expected to top 50 percent, has three competitive House races, a key Senate contest and a tight presidential battle, too. ...

With 18 incumbent Republican senators on the ballot, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is working to pass key year-end legislation without giving Democrats a chance to force votes on their favored campaign issues such as health care. Republican officials say Lott hopes to clear a tax bill, a bankruptcy bill, Medicare legislation and even a minimum wage increase by taking advantage of parliamentary rules that greatly restrict or prevent any possibility of amendments.The GOP tactics have drawn criticism from Democrats who claim they are being muzzled. ``The controversy that we are facing is not about procedural niceties,'' the party's leader, ...

The Supreme Court dealt a new blow Monday to efforts by District of Columbia residents to get a vote in Congress.The justices affirmed a lower court ruling that said the district's half-million residents are not entitled to voting membership in the House of Representatives.The vote was 8-1, with Justice John Paul Stevens voting to hear arguments in one appeal and to dismiss a second appeal. Among the Supreme Court's nine justices, three live in the nation's capital: Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.``It's a tremendous disappointment,'' said Charles A. Miller, lawyer for 54 district residents ...

A group of Arab Americans from the Detroit area, which has one of the largest concentrations in the country, has endorsed Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush (news - web sites) for president.The Arab American Political Action Committee, made up of influential businessmen and other community leaders, on Sunday gave its unanimous endorsement Bush over the Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites), the Detroit Free Press reported.Members voted for Bush because he has courted the Arab vote and has shown a flexibility on Middle East issues. They noted Bush's mention of two issues important to Arabs ...

I received a letter from Jim Rogan Friday and I would like to share part of it with the Freepers. We are less than one month away from the most important election of the new century....the election that decides the direction we will take our country.I must raise $675,000 between now and October 18th to keep our cable ads on the air, send out ten more issue pieces and turn out our favorable voters on November 7th.I am under attack from all corners. My race is one of the most watched in the country.It is not just a local election, ...

Just when you thought the presidential race couldn’t get any more rancorous, violence erupts in the Middle East and the candidates unite in outrage over the shedding of American blood. Overseas events probably stymie the efforts of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore’s campaign to win the spin war in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s debate, and maybe even freezes the public perception that Republican George W. Bush did well. This puts more pressure on Gore to score big at the final debate next Tuesday night in St. Louis, so as to avoid the perception of a net loss. The ...

A federal appeals court on Friday refused to allow Puerto Rico's 2.4 million registered voters to cast ballots in U.S. presidential elections, saying the Constitution gave them no such right without statehood.The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston overturned an Aug. 29 decision in Puerto Rico by a U.S. District Court judge who had found that residents of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, had the right to vote for president in a general election even though Puerto Rico is not a state.But the appeals court, siding with the Justice Department (news - web sites), found that the U.S. ...