Brooklyn, NY - As reported first by VIN News yesterday, the name of the Jewish grandmother who won the NY scratch off lotto game has been identified As Mrs. Sharon Miltz. A stay-at-home grandmother Fifty-three-year-old Sharon Miltz of Flatbush, Brooklyn doesn’t usually play the Lottery. “I probably only spent $20 on Lottery this whole year,” said the self-described “novice.” Miltz...

North Miami Beach, FL - A community fearing for its safety after several residents wound up on a path of danger are taking action and meeting with police. The victims were simply trying to get some exercise along a jogging path when they were badly beaten by several suspects. Monday afternoon, their neighbors, including one of the victims, took their concerns to police. North Miami Beach's...

Morristown, NY - An upstate New York town judge says members of an Amish sect failed to prove how local building codes hinder their religion and their case will now go to trial. St. Lawrence County assistant public defender Steven Ballan sought dismissal of building permit violation charges against eight Amish men on grounds of free religious exercise and in the "interest of justice." After...

New York, NY - A subway riders advocacy group, the Straphangers Campaign, has released its annual report on the city's 22 subway lines, saying the timeliness and quality of service on most lines has deteriorated from the previous year. The 2007 "State of the Subways" report card analyzes service in key areas including wait time, regular arrival, a chance for a seat, clean cars, and...

Jerusalem - The three Israeli teens who were arrested last week in Cyprus for allegedly breaking into a room in the hotel they were staying were released on Saturday and have returned home. One of the detainees, Snir Batito, asked the judge to take into consideration that he was a terror victim, as his mother Shlomit was shot dead while she was passing near (the former Gaza Strip settlement...

Postville, Ia. – African immigrants are adding to Postville’s multi-cultural story, but their chapter could wind up being short. Scores of people from Somalia have arrived here in recent weeks to work at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant. Most of them are young men who are filling jobs previously held by hundreds of Guatemalan and Mexican workers seized in an immigration raid May...

Damascus, Syria - The Syrian ambassador's office in Jordan received an unusual request this week: The editor of an Arabic language news website, contacted Syria on behalf of a group of Israelis, asking that they be allowed to visit the grave of Rabbi Hayim Vital, near Damascus. "I contacted the ambassador in Amman, and I told him that a group of Jews from Israel requests to be allowed to make...

Borough Park, NY - NYPD of the 66th Pct and NYPD hate Crime Units are on the scene at 18th Avenue and 58th Street for 4 swastikas larger then 2" that were found on the Torah Times box, in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn. ...

South Amboy, NJ - Authorities evacuated about 200 people from a NJ Transit train in South Amboy after a passenger found a suspicious note. The train was removed from the main line after the note was found on the train traveling from New York to Long Branch on the North Jersey Coastline. Transit police searched the cars with dogs, said NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel. The incident did not...

Stamford Hill, London - The Home Office, Foreign Office and UK Border Agency all acknowledge that there are no forced marriages in the Jewish community in Britain. This undisputed fact only becomes interesting in the light of the Home Office's announcement that it is to raise the age for marriage visas from 18 to 21. The move is described as part of a crackdown on forced marriages in the UK but...

New York - New York's business climate was ranked the second-worst in the nation by corporate executives in a new report. Respondents to the report rated New York's business climate as the 2nd least favorable among states in the report, 'A View From Corporate America: Winning Strategies in Economic Development Marketing, which was conducted by New York-based Development Counsellors...

New York City - Don't you hate when you're walking through an airport, dying for a hot dog or a potato knish with not a one in sight? Us too! So we were thrilled to find these vending machines on a recent trip through JFK's Terminal 4. To the left, the frankfurter dispenser had kosher dogs ($4.50), while the Hot Nosh machines had all sorts of goodies, from cheese pizza to onion rings to...

Loch Sheldrake, NY - A gas war between mini-mart stations less than a mile apart in Loch Sheldrake has escalated to the point that both are charging $3.79 a gallon for regular unleaded. That's about 25 cents less than any gas station in the region, and possibly the lowest price for regular unleaded in the state. The Valero and Mobil stations on Route 52 in this tiny hamlet in the Town of...

New York, NY - Fewer New Yorkers are getting slapped with $100 tickets for dirty sidewalks and gutters - yet the city's streets keep getting cleaner. The Sanitation Department wrote 43% fewer tickets for litter on residential sidewalks in the first six months of this year compared with the same period last year. The change came after the City Council ordered sanitation agents last fall to...

New York, NY - City property tax owners will find out over the next few months whether they will get a 7 percent property tax cut for the second year in a row, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today. New York City's economy is sliding with Wall Street's profits. The independent mayor tried to take back that property tax cut in the new budget that started on July 1, but he failed to persuade the...