Teaneck, NJ - A house exploded in Teaneck, N.J., around 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, News 4 New York has learned. Police, fire and emergency services are on the scene at 1320 Hastings St., near Reis Avenue. There were reports of one injury due to flying debris, but that person's condition is not known at this time. The house was leveled and the explosion caused four nearby houses to catch fire...

Atlanta - Like many of the growing numbers of Protestant blacks in America and Africa converting to Judaism, Elisheva Chaim grew up believing she had a "Jewish soul." As a black woman and a Baptist in the South, that was a peculiar, somewhat troubling realization. But when she turned her doubts about Christianity into a search for answers, the truth became evident: She had to go deeper than...

Brooklyn, NY - The future of Williamsburg's most famous stalled/stopped building project--the Finger Building--appears to be taking an even more interesting twist. The building was supposed to be going in front of the Board of Standards and Appeals for an appeal of an earlier decision that would have allowed The Finger to continue at its current height of 10 stories and possibly go higher...

Borough Park, BY - Hatzolah responding to 41st Street between Fort Hamilton Parkway and 12th Avenue, for a 50-year-old woman that fell out from the 1st floor window into the basement at the construction site in the rear of location, Medics also responding. U/D: 05:05pm Aided is conscious and alert being transported by Hatzolah ALS to the hospital. ...

Washington - Tomatoes are again safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration said Thursday, weeks after the food was blamed as the source of a salmonella outbreak in several states. The source of the outbreak of salmonella still isn't known. but the FDA says tomatoes are safe. The federal agency lifted its warning about tomatoes but left in place a warning about jalapeño and serrano...

Israel - Thousands attended Israeli funerals on Thursday for two slain soldiers returned in a prisoner swap with Hezbollah and their grief contrasted with Lebanon's joy over guerrillas freed in the deal. Defence Minister Ehud Barak told the soldiers and civilians gathered at the graveside of Ehud Goldwasser, 31, that Israel was "heartbroken" and had "paid a heavy price" to bring home the...

Israel - About 1,000 ultra-Orthodox consumers will be leaving Dor Gas, a subsidiary of Dudi Wiessman's Dor Alon group. The boycott follows an ad in the religious paper Hamodia, which is leading the battle against Wiessman. The ad called on the religious public to cut off ties with Dor Gas, to protest the fact that the convenience store chain AM:PM, which Wiessman also owns, operates on...

Jerusalem - The Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva is negotiating the purchase of America's Barr Pharmaceuticals for a sum of around US $7.5 billion. The deal, if carried out, would probably be a combined cash and share exchange deal. If successful, the purchase would become the largest ever in Israel. Barr is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and has a current market value at $5.2 billion...

New York, NY - New US housing starts rose an unexpected 9.1 per cent in June, but economists cautioned against interpreting the jump as evidence of a bottoming of the US residential property market. The commerce department said the surge to a pace of 1.066m units was driven by multi-family construction in New York, where new building codes were enacted last month. Meanwhile, single-family...

New York - Federal regulators should consider revoking the US banking license of the giant Swiss Bank UBS because of its role in helping wealthy Americans evade billions of dollars in taxes, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) told ABC News today. "I don't think that any bank that goes to the extent that UBS has gone through to avoid doing what their agreements with the United States require them to do...

Monsey, NY - Recent articles about a Hasidic woman having to remove her wig for a mugshot revealed that we who live in the Town of Ramapo have enormous problems that cannot be solved by people getting angry with one another. The table has been set, and we must learn to live amicably. Throwing stones at one another never solved anything. Had the Town Board updated the antiquated Police...

Sullivan County, Wurtsboro, NY - A truck hauling live chickens overturned in the median on Route 17 near Exit 113, EMS responding to evaluate the driver of the truck...

Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, one of the first synagogues founded in New York City by Eastern European immigrants and among the oldest congregations in America, now sits padlocked and empty, with bits of plaster falling from the blue-painted, arched ceiling, and gaping holes in the rain-damaged roof. The Lower East Side, the area between Canal and Houston streets and Broadway and the East River, is...

New York City - Americans can have all sorts of materials injected into their faces in the name of beauty. There’s Botox, a diluted form of botulinum toxin, and Hylaform, a gel derived from rooster combs. Now comes Evolence, an antiwrinkle injection made of pig collagen. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration approved Evolence, from OrthoNeutrogena, a part of Johnson & Johnson, as...

Queens, NY - State regulators signed off on Con Edison's plan to give $100 credits to customers who lost power in the 2006 Queens blackout, as well as to a formal apology. Details of the settlement in April, sparked outrage among Queens residents who said $100 didn't begin to compensate them for their misery during a blackout that lasted up to 10 days in some areas. Many consumer groups...