Free Republic

SCHATCHENS FIND BUSINESS BAD AND DEPLORE THE UNHAPPINESS SURE TO FOLLOW- This has been a hard year for the cupids of the ghetto, as the matrimonial agents of the Jewish quarter might be called. To the Jews he is known as the schatchen, but unless the marriage business picks up the broker is going to drop out of sight. Already he is branching out into other ways of making a living. He writes letters for the illiterate, acts as interpreter in business transactions or does odd jobs around the synagogue. Marriage brokerage used to be one of the best paying...

He is the reclusive and enigmatic leader of the world's most famous cult who played best man at TomKat's wedding. But perhaps the biggest mystery shrouding Scientology chairman David Miscavige concerns his wife, Shelly, who has not been seen since 2007. Once a leading Scientologist herself, Shelly Miscavige is even credited as the cupid to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' doomed alliance. Always by her husband's side, it was her to whom Mr Miscavige turned when a lovelorn Cruise begged for help in finding love following the break down of his second marriage to Nicole Kidman. Believing the role of...

(AP) A federal jury awarded as much as $434,000 to a Ukrainian woman who sued the Internet matchmaking service that set her up with the man who allegedly abused her after they wed. Nataliya Fox accused Encounters International of fraud and negligence, saying it should have screened its male clients and told her about a law that helps foreign nationals escape abusive relationships without fear of automatic deportation. Instead, Fox testified, agency owner Natasha Spivack told her to endure the alleged abuse or return to Ukraine. The agency had said it had no obligation to tell Fox about the so-called...