New York, NY - The agency that New Yorkers love to hate is getting a makeover. The Environmental Control Board (ECB), which processes more than 700,000 tickets a year for sanitation violations, building code problems and other quality-of-life issues, is being put under a new department and ordered to become more customer-friendly. "If you get a ticket, we're going to make it easy to pay. If you...

Brooklyn, NY - A Bensonhurst synagogue that was simply trying to make its facility more accessible to the handicapped was the victim of an unholy theft when someone made off with the centers $15,000 exterior fence. Recent renovations at the Jewish Community Center of Bensonhurst, which is on 23rd Avenue at 63rd Street, required the shul to temporarily remove part of its carbon steel enclosure...

Crown Heights, NY - Hatzolah on the scene at Eastren Parkway and Classon Avenue with for a child that was struck by a vehicle at the location and is pinned under the vehicle, requesting Medics and NYPD ESU to respond to the scene...

Washington, DC - Lawmakers today questioned the legality and effectiveness of the government's crackdown in a May raid on a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa — called Agriprocessors — that led to the arrest of nearly 400 immigrants. Most of the workers, who faced charges of aggravated identity theft for using immigration or Social Security numbers that did not belong to them...

Stamford Hill, London - Rabbi Nochum Rosenberg of Brooklyn, New York, and a controversial figure in its Williamsburg-neighborhood Chasidic community, was physically accosted this evening by dozens of angry Chasidim in London's Stamford Hill, after he visited today that community to assist in a private matter. Seeing a hostile situation about to erupt out of control, Rabbi Rosenberg managed to...

Jerusalem - Reevaluating discrimination: Only 10 of the 4,623 people employed by the Haifa Municipality are ultra-Orthodox, and only 5% of Ashdod’s municipality consists of new immigrants - even though 35% of the city’s residents are recent olim. These figures and others similar to them were presented Thursday during a session held by the Knesset's Internal Affairs and Environment Committee...

Tel Aviv, Israel - The shortage in burial plots in Israel is worsening, leaving some municipal cemeteries with scarce few spots available. The Yarkon Cemetery, the final resting place of most of the Dan agglomeration's deceased, announced today that it would completely run out of plots within a year's time. Many cemeteries throughout the country have already begun using saturated burial methods...

Sullivan County, NY - The National Weather Service has has issued a Flood Warning Thursday for Sullivan County, specifically the area along the Beaverkill River until 9 a.m. Friday morning. "Sullivan County is preparing for another bout of thunderstorms and potentially severe weather that could dump a half inch to an inch of rain within an hour," said acting Sullivan County manager Joshua...

New York, NY - Stocks ended sharply lower as the market got a triple whammy: Oil resumed its ascent, major earnings reports sparked a fresh wave of concern about corporate profits and home sales hit a 10-year low. All three major indexes fell steadily throughout the day, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending down nearly 280 points, or 2.4 percent. The S&P 500 index shed 2.3 percent and...

Germany - Before the largest crowd of his campaign, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago. "The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand," Obama said, speaking not far from where...

Lakewood, NJ - Fire department making progress on a structure fire at Nolan Place and Ridge Avenue, the fire fully engulfed the vacant house, with heavy fire showing through the roof...

Brooklyn, NY - The initial meeting of the newly formed Jewish Community Council of Marine Park took place recently, with a keynote address by New York State Assemblyman Alan Maisel (D-Marine Park). Marine Park is home to over 800 Orthodox Jewish families and 13 synagogues. The JCC plans on offering a variety of services to the Marine Park community at-large. Their first endeavor is a...

New York, NY - Workers who cleaned the B&H superstore until last week are passing out leaflets to customers of the photo and video giant charging they were fired following a union organizing campaign, and informing customers that the camera and video store doesn’t seem to care about the cleaners. Shortly after all 31 workers signed union cards with the powerful building service workers...

New York - For those of you who weren’t aware, New York State passed a new law that went into effect on June 1, 2008. The law, dubbed “the Amazon tax,” requires all internet companies with affiliates in NY State to charge sales tax on shipments bound for New York. The State expects this to increase tax revenue by $50 million. Why is this law a problem? Well, according to the Supreme...

Velka Ida, Slovakia - An unknown perpetrator vandalized about twelve gravestones at the Jewish cemetery in Velka Ida, Eastern Slovakia, the police said today. If convicted, the perpetrator may be sentenced up to two years in prison. "He defaced the gravestones at twelve tombs. After pushing out the protective grating on the chapel he got inside where he also defaced a gravestone," Kosice...