Jewish & World News

Not your average great-great grandfather, Fauja Singh has completed nine 26-mile (42-kilometer) marathons since taking up long-distance running just over a decade ago. On Sunday, the 101-year-old Sikh finished his final competitive race in Hong Kong, putting an end to a sporting career that has raised thousands of dollars for charity and been an inspiration to many around the world.

The cost of the Winter Olympics in Russia next year will exceed $50 billion, a government official said Monday in Moscow, making the Games one of the most expensive in history. The government and private investors will share the cost, the bulk of which is being spent upgrading infrastructure in the host city of Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak was quoted as saying Monday by Russian news agencies.

Super Bowl fans will have kosher food available at the New Orleans Superdome. A glatt kosher food cart under the supervision of the Louisiana Kosher Committee will be located on the fifth floor concourse of the stadium, according to the Chabad.org website.

More than one-quarter of Americans believe God plays a role in determining sports outcomes, according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. That 27 percent believed in divine intervention in athletic competition was among the findings of the January Religion and Politics Tracking Survey, which also found that 53 percent of Americans believe that God rewards athletes who have faith with good health and success.

The next Olympics may appear far in the distant future, but Carlos Arthur Nuzman, president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, is hard at work preparing for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. All across the vast South American city famous for its sea, sand and samba, construction crews are busy digging tunnels, laying foundations for buildings and prettifying neighborhoods in anticipation of an event set to take place four years from now.

Most Britons believe the London Olympics have delivered good value for money, according to a poll published Saturday, as the hosts revel in Britain's best performance at the Games for more than a century. Some 55 percent of the British population think the Games are "well worth" the £9 billion ($14 billion, 11.5 billion euro) pricetag, cheering the nation up as it battles recession, according to the Guardian/ICM poll.

Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday that Britain's Olympic cycling glory has driven France "mad", and rejected claims of cheating by pointing out that the riders' wheels are made across the Channel. "We've got a system that seems to be delivering. It's driving the French mad," Cameron told BBC radio in an interview.

A German Olympic rower who left the London games prematurely has denied claims her boyfriend is a neo-Nazi and insisted she will continue in the sport. The allegation last week prompted Nadja Drygalla (23) to depart the Olympic village on Friday having already completed her participation in the games.

Jewish Australian kayaker Jessica Fox won a silver medal at the Olympic Games. Fox, the daughter of French Olympian Myriam Jerusalmi, who won bronze at the Atlanta Games in 1996, trumped her mother by winning silver in the slalom (K1) on Aug. 2 in London.

An Israeli sprinter lost his bid to make the semifinals in the Olympic 400m dash after his shoes were stolen. Donald Sanford failed to qualify for the 400m after running Saturday in borrowed shoes.

German rower Nadja Drygalla left the Olympic village on Friday following reports that her boyfriend was a far-right extremist. The German Olympic Committee said Drygalla, who had already finished competing at the Games as part of the women's rowing eight team, left of her own accord after a 90-minute conversation German officials. "Miss Drygalla confirmed credibly her commitment to the Olympic Charter," the head of Germany's committee Michael Vesper said. "She is leaving the Olympic Village so as not to be a burden for the team."

The sister of an Israeli athlete murdered at the Munich Olympics said Mitt Romney's failure to press for a moment of silence on the 30th anniversary of the killings was painful. Barbara Berger, whose brother, David, was on the Israeli wrestling team in 1972, wrote in Haaretz on Wednesday that families of the 11 victims of a Palestinian terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics would continue to advocate for a formal moment of silence at the Olympics, despite the refusal of the International Olympics Committee to allow such a moment this year, the massacre's 40th anniversary.

It's still a mystery why President Barack Obama was holding a baseball bat during his telephone conversation with Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan earlier this week.  An official White House photo shows the president with the bat in one hand and a phone in the other.

London Mayor Boris Johnson got stuck midair on a zip line Wednesday during a celebration for 2012 Olympic Games. ITV, the British partner of NBC News, reported that Johnson had to be pulled the remainder of the way by people on the ground.

The Olympics have definitely been good to GE. The General Electric Co made about $100 million selling lights, power supplies and medical devices for the London Olympic Games, reports Reuters. Since signing on as a top Olympic sponsor in 2005, it’s pulled in about $1 billion selling equipment to the Games in Torino, Beijing and Vancouver. Half of that amount was generated through deals with the 2008 Beijing Games alone.

Sally Becker saved hundreds of lives in Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990′s and was chosen as one of the 8 people to carry the Olympic flag during last Friday’s opening ceremony at the London Olympics. “I’ve been waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say ‘this is a big mistake,’” she told The Algemeiner.

Germans have leapt to the defence of Walther Tröger, an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, after it was suggested he gave a ‘Nazi’ salute at the London 2012 opening ceremony. As his team paraded around the stadium Mr Tröger was caught on video repeatedly extending his left arm back and forth prompting a few awkward stares from members of the crowd.

The German government had advance warning of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Der Spiegel reported online on Sunday. A few weeks before the massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed by the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September, the report indicates that German intelligence and the German foreign ministry received information indicating that a terror operation was being planned at the Olympics. A few days before the Olympics, an Italian paper reported the same threat.

Complaining that the Olympic movement is still ignoring their pain, Israelis marked the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre on Sunday with a modest service in the atrium of a London apartment block. Prayers were read for the 11 murdered Israelis, wreaths were laid for them and a plaque unveiled about four miles (six kilometers) from the Olympic Stadium.

Next week in London, athletes from around the world will go for the gold. But as it turns out, the Olympic gold medal is mostly made of silver. Weighing in at 412 grams -- or roughly the weight of a can of green beans -- the gold medal is made up of only 1.34%, or about 6 grams of gold. The rest is comprised of 93% silver and 6% copper.