Nyack, NY - All southbound lanes of the Tappen Zee Bridge are closed due to a man who had abanded his vehicle mid span and is climbing up the cables of the bridge. New York State Police are on the scene, Fire Departments from Nyack, Tarrytown and Irvington, also Aviation and FD boats with divers are all responding to the scene. U/D: 10:42pm The 39-year-old man from Pearl River, has just...

Iowa - in flooded Iowa City, neighbors today blamed a disabled Jewish veteran for the rising water. David Akiva Miller, who is fighting the Veterans Administration over aggressive Christian proselytizing during his hospitalization (see our earlier report), was buying groceries on Sunday when an older couple, also shopping, approached him. In an email, Miller wrote that The man said something...

Ramapo, NY - An appeals court has rejected the latest bid by Venera Held to keep the house she insists was stolen from her. The dispute, though, which has been ongoing since 2003 when Held said she was duped into signing a contract in a bagel shop, is not out of court. Joel Scheinert, a Nanuet attorney representing the buyer, Michael Goldstein, said he was in the process of appealing a...

Starting July 4, travelers at Baltimore/Washington International who are returning rental cars with a partially filled gas tank will get a price break. Following an investigation by the attorney general's office in Maryland, rental car companies operating in the state agreed to cut their refueling costs — which can be as much as $8 a gallon — by up to 40%. Maryland's investigation began...

Mclean VA - The director of a Saudi government-funded Islamic school has been arrested and charged with failing to report a child abuse allegation, adding to scrutiny of the northern Virginia academy as protesters came out Tuesday to call for a federal investigation of its teachings. Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, director of the Islamic Saudi Academy, was also charged with obstruction of justice...

Washington - Representatives of the American Jewish Committee are lobbying before various US institutions for including Bulgaria in the US program for travels without a US visa. Bulgaria's Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev, who is on an official visit to the US had met with the Executive Director of the Jewish Committee, David Harris late Monday in New York. Harris had shared the Premier's...

Middletown, NY - As occurs every year, an extremely vital Jewish community public safety meeting was held today at Middletown Police Headquarters, with Hatzalah members from the state of New York , community activists, law enforcement officials and emergency personnel of upstate New York in attendance. Participants came from as near and far as Kingston, Liberty, Putnam, Ulster, Sullivan...

Côte St. Luc, Canada - Quebec's Jewish chaplain for prisons got a speeding ticket quashed after convincing a judge he'd been rushing to a medical emergency: a baby boy who was bleeding from a ritual circumcision. "It wasn't like I was going 120 kilometres an hour - I was going a reasonable speed," Jacob Lévy told Judge Alain St-Pierre in Outremont municipal court, where he contested the...

Middletown, NY - Hatzolah BLS and Medics are on the scene at 33 Mulberry Street for a person that fell down an elevator shaft and sustained serious injuries. Requesting ropes and ladders forthwith for the aided that's in a confined space, Medevac on stand-by. U/D: 01:18pm Fire Department are reporting that the victim is out of the shaft and is being transported by Mobile-Life and Hatzolah EMS...

Warsaw, Poland - Ronald Lauder, president of the New York-based World Jewish Congress, urged Poland to redress what he described as one of the thorniest problems still weighing on Polish-Jewish relations - Warsaw's failure to compensate Jews for property seized during the Nazi and communist eras. Lauder called on the Polish government to enact urgently a compensation law that has been in the...

Williamsburg, NY - Ken Diamondstone, who recently abandoned a bid to try for the second time to unseat State Senator Marty Connor, just announced this morning that he will run for City Council in the 33rd district. The district, which includes Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO, is currently represented by term-limited David Yassky. In the announcement, Diamondstone’s...

Israel - The Open House in Jerusalem announced on Monday that the city's Pride Parade would take place on Thursday of next week, with the theme of "free love". This year marks the parade's seventh anniversary in Jerusalem, and it has become well-known for sparking annual controversy among the ultra-Orthodox communities in the city. One such protest rally took place on Monday, in the...

New York City - A city initiative to enroll eligible residents into federal food stamp programs has identified about 600,000 New Yorkers who may qualify for government aid, city officials announced yesterday. The city will begin sending information to these people in July, explaining that they may be entitled to receive more benefits than they currently do. "The food stamp data match...

Queens, NY - Estelle Itzkowitz survived pancreatic cancer, a near-fatal liver infection and two husbands. Nothing could stop the 90-pound Jewish grandmother — until she bit into a kosher hot dog at the Savoy assisted-living facility in Queens. She choked to death at lunch, while slow-footed staff failed to perform the Heimlich maneuver in the crucial minutes after the first bite lodged in...

New York City - The City Council has become the latest government agency to take a stand against bottled water. Last week, the speaker’s office announced that it would stop buying bottled water for the Council’s downtown offices, which went through at least 6,000 single-serving bottles last year. As a result, bottled water will no longer be available at City Council events or official...