ASAP/Blogging

ASAP was the AP’s younger audience service, aimed at attracting the 18-to-34-year-old demographic group to AP’s members and subscribers. ASAP content includes words, pictures, sounds, moving images, blogs and interactive features. It was packaged for every format and designed to appeal to the next generation of news consumers. Writing for ASAP allowed me to do some “outside the box” writing I didn’t often get a chance to do for the main wire. After it shut down, I continued writing for AP’s travel and food departments. Here is a a selection of some of my ASAP pieces plus blogs and other offbeat AP writing.

May 15, 2020

VIRUS DIARY: Navigating a flu-like illness in the corona age

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — For those of us from a region where outbursts of violence are an occupational hazard, coping with coronavirus seemed simple enough: Stay at home and you’ll be fine. For the most part it has been….

January 04, 2017

A winter visit to Athens offers a pleasant alternative

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — As a seaside metropolis with a lively outdoor vibe and dozens of picturesque islands beckoning nearby, Athens is more often considered a summer tourist destination than a winter escape. But if you’ve got more than beaches…

June 29, 2016

Serenity Now: Israel’s northern tip offers peaceful hike

METULLA, Israel (AP) — A frontier town that juts into a hostile neighboring country and has a long history of militants firing upon it doesn’t seem like a typical place to seek serenity. But that’s exactly what you will find…

March 08, 2016

Serenity Now: Ancient mosque offers respite from Cairo chaos

CAIRO (AP) — Amid Cairo’s cramped mass of humanity and traffic, with its incessant honking and haggling, visitors will be hard-pressed to find some solitude. But if you’re willing to go off the beaten tourist track a bit, serenity can…

February 25, 2016

Bleisure Bits: Khan el-Khalil Bazaar offers a taste of Cairo

CAIRO (AP) — When it comes to Cairo tourism, it’s all about the Pyramids and a trip to this sprawling metropolis filled with mosques, markets and monuments would not be complete without a visit to the collection of ancient pharaonic…

November 17, 2015

Neighborhoods: Tel Aviv’s Florentin a bustling bohemian hub

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Your typical Tel Aviv tourist will naturally navigate toward its famous beaches, boulevards and Bauhaus buildings. But if it’s people- (and dog-) watching that you fancy, nothing tops an afternoon or evening stroll in the…

August 04, 2015

Serenity Now: A calm perch above Jerusalem’s hectic Old City

JERUSALEM (AP) — In one of the most contentious tracts of real estate on the planet, serenity is not that easy to find. The Old City of Jerusalem is a tourism paradise for history buffs or religious pilgrims, featuring the…

July 04, 2014

My ‘Brazil Beat’ posts from the 2014 World Cup

Throughout the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Associated Press reporters filed dispatches about happenings in and around and country. Here is a collection of mine from my three-and-a-half week assignment in the Sao Paulo region: July 4 – UPLIFTING SWISS…

April 22, 2014

Go For the Food: Homemade food in Jerusalem market

JERUSALEM (AP) — Jerusalem’s bustling open-air Mahane Yehuda market offers a dizzying assault on the senses. Vendors compete with screams over the prices of their produce as the smell of spices and fresh fish wafts through the air. From old-school…

April 03, 2014

Travel column: Tel Aviv – 5 free things for visitors to do

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — As a city regularly ranked the most expensive in the Middle East, you are going to have a hard time enjoying Tel Aviv’s plethora of hopping clubs, swanky bars and mouthwatering restaurants without making a…

September 27, 2012

An arduous journey to the UN: planes, cars, and a school bus

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ After a 2-hour security screening in Tel Aviv, a 12-hour flight to New York and another hour in Big Apple rush-hour traffic, we were starting to run out of gas. But the oddest part of our…

August 02, 2011

Facebook blog on Netanyahu, the dance remix

Israel’s popular revolt over rising prices and expensive housing has inspired its first YouTube sensation. With over 100,000 Israelis taking to the streets, Tel Aviv-based musician and Internet buff Noy Alooshe married protest footage with an old Benjamin Netanyahu TV…

August 27, 2007

The ‘Voice of Israel Baseball’

PETAH TIKVA, Israel (AP) _ My first childhood dream was to be a major league baseball player. My second was to be a broadcast journalist. It’s always good to have a backup plan, and growing up in Israel, with its…

May 09, 2007

The many fronts of Israel’s PR offensive

JERUSALEM (AP) _ Ivri Lider is Israel’s newest freelance ambassador. The openly gay musician is one of a new breed of unofficial envoys trying to improve Israel’s international image — a battle the government has been waging for decades. Lider…

February 02, 2007

Ivri Lider: Gay, Israeli and famous

JERUSALEM (AP) _ Late on a Friday night, inside a dark, trendy club, a crowd of young men and women gaze at Ivri Lider and sing along as he performs his hit love song, “Zachiti Le’ehov – I Was Blessed…

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