New York, NY - Stocks tanked Friday after AIG's record loss added to worries about the financial sector and more weak economic news intensified fears about a recession the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 31 points at 12,266...

New York, NY - City commuters will pay more to ride buses, subways and commuter trains starting this tomorrow. Fares on the Long Island and Metro-North railroads, will go up tomorrow by as much as 7.7 percent, while monthly and weekly passes will increase by as much as 4.25 percent. New York City Transit base fare for subways and buses will stay at $2, while the cost of a monthly pass will...

Brooklyn, NY +Working Fire+ Fire Department and Boro Park Shomrim Patrol are on the scene at 1248 49th Street between 12th and 13th Avenue's for a working fire on the exterior 2nd floor of a 3-story private dwelling and some people possibly trapped inside. Hatzolah responding on a rush. U/D: 15:23 Fire Department reposting all searches are negative, and fire is P/W/H...

Brussels, Belgium - Misha Defonseca, the Belgian author whose bestselling autobiography described how wolves adopted her after the Nazis deported her Jewish parents, says the story is ``nothing but pure fiction.''Defonseca's, whose real name is Monique De Wael, was Roman Catholic, not Jewish, though her parents were arrested and killed during the war. She made the admission after the...

New York - One of the best editorials we have found on this whole fiasco in the Lipagate scandle, is from a renowned Bal Mechanoch who is widely known, Rabbi Yakkov Horowitz writes on his site the following: The earth seemed to move this past week as this ‘Lipa’ concert saga unfolded. Many decent, ehrliche people were disoriented by this episode that raised so many questions and provided...

Denver, CO - Zaler's Kosher hot dogs were a fan favorite at Broncos and Rockies games. But they may not have been as popular as owner Arnold Zaler wanted investors to believe. A federal grand jury indicted Zaler, 58, on 30 counts of wire, bank and mail fraud after an FBI investigation. The indictment alleges that Zaler falsified orders to sell hot dogs at the Pepsi Center, Invesco Field...

London - A north London Jewish school tumbled down national league tables after pupils refused to answer questions on Shakespeare because they believe he was anti-Semitic.Nine girls at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School in Stamford Hill, were given no marks for their national curriculum Shakespeare tests as a result of their protest. Rabbi Abraham Pinter, the principal, said he was proud...

Borough Park, NY - In a ceremony that took place Thursday , philanthropist tycoon Shaya Boymelgreen and his partner Mier Eichler opened their 3rd branch of Liberty Point bank in NYC, at 13th Ave. The grand opening was attended by many community leaders. Mr. Eichler pointed out in an interview, "all our branches try to provide employment mostly to frum Jews, and to teach them the banking...

New York, NY - Rarely mentioned as a leading candidate for mayor in 2009, Marty Markowitz is leading a recent poll weighing the prospects of potential Democratic candidates to succeed Mayor Bloomberg. In a WNBC/Marist poll released yesterday, 18% of the registered Democrats surveyed said they would support the Brooklyn president if next year's Democratic primary for mayor were held today...

Chicago, IL - Spandex bike shorts have never been standard workout attire at the heavily Orthodox Bernard Horwich Jewish Community Center in West Rogers Park. "No one would wear revealing-type clothes," said Rabbi Louis Fliegelman, who works out at the center several times a week. Nonetheless, for religious reasons some people felt uncomfortable exercising at the center -- until it became one...

Warsaw, Poland - Polish intellectuals have petitioned President Lech Kaczynski to automatically return citizenship to Jews forced out of Poland by the country's communist regime in 1968. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Polish Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors or the children of survivors, lost their jobs and were forced out of Poland during an anti-Semitic campaign launched by the communist...

Chicago, IL - Albert Bitton the frum solider that was killed last week in Iraq [reported by VIN News] was laid to rest this week. This was the NBC5 newscast on the Levayah. For those who don't know the first person shown speaking is not Rabbi Zev Cohen but Rabbi Leonard Matanky משניות לעילוי נשמת עמיחי בן אליהו to send condolence online to the family click here...

Israel - Tel Aviv may turn into a bigger market than New York for ultra-Orthodox businessmen seeking capital. This week Tel Aviv investors learned of another bond offering here, of up to NIS 200 million, by Abraham Leser, owner of a real estate group. According to sector sources here and in the Big Apple, a number of other ultra-Orthodox real estate developers are en route to Tel Aviv. It make...

Rochester, NY - A town council in suburban Rochester is being sued for opening public meetings with Christian prayers.The advocacy group for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit in federal court against the Greece Town Council and Town Supervisor John Auberger. The group says it represents two residents claiming that only one non Christian has been invited to deliver the opening...

Queens, NY - Nabil and Hussein Munasser, spotted a city sanitation agent while chasing a thief who took a roll of duct tape from their family's store and brandished a knife. They asked the agent to call police on her radio, but she said she couldn't and then the agent had something for them: a $100 ticket citing them with litter outside the Sutphin Boulevard shop. City Sanitation...