New York, NY - Getting caught trying to beat transit fares is about to get more expensive. Starting Monday, the fine for jumping the subway turnstile or sneaking through the back door of a bus goes up $100 to $160. If you think that those are arts of the past, you're mistaken. The NYPD issued 85,000 summonses for it last year, officials said.  Over $7 million in fines were...

New York - Elk meat is about to become available to kosher consumers. Noah's Ark Processors in South Dakota, which sells kosher meat under the Solomon's Finest Glatt Kosher label, is expecting to slaughter its first elk for the commercial market on Monday. It will be shipped to supermarkets including Fairway and ShopRite the week of July 14, according to owner Ilan Parente. Those stores...

New York - a new cervical-cancer vaccine heavily marketed to woman in ubiquitous ads is under investigation for possible links to paralysis, seizures, and 18 deaths. Federal health officials have logged 8,000 "adverse events" in girls and women injected with the Merck & Co. vaccine introduced two years ago, more than 500 of them from New York. Gardasil was licensed by the Food and Drug...

New York - An ancient tablet with Hebrew writing that offer details about a messiah figure is causing controversy in Israel, experts say. Daniel Boyarin of the University of California at Berkeley says the tablet, which some experts suspect was discovered near the Dead Sea in Jordan, will likely shock most Christians who read its revelations regarding a messiah figure akin to Jesus Christ, The...

Ohio - Honda Motor Co. sales were up a modest 1 percent in June, the only major automaker to show an increase. The Detroit Three, Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. all reported double-digit declines, and the market dropped 18 percent overall.  Industry analysts say Honda has the right products - popular fuel-efficient models like the Fit, Civic and Accord. Plus it has factories that are...

Rockland County, NY - A newly hired town police officer has been given Friday nights to Saturday evenings off to accommodate her religious beliefs. The special work schedule afforded Officer Baile J. Glauber has raised concerns among other officers, said Officer Dennis Procter, the department's Police Benevolent Association president. "I hope the town is not going to give special treatment...

Jerusalem- The Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Barack Obama, is to come to Israel in another two weeks as part of a regional tour he intends to take. The precise date of Obama's visit has been kept under wraps for security reasons, but as best as can be ascertained he will be arriving in Israel on either July 22 or 23 for a two to three day visit. No agenda has yet been set for that...

Germany - The concentration camp established for Jews and other non-Aryans at Auschwitz by German dictator Adolf Hitler's Nazis was without doubt a place of horror, but for camp officers and staff, there were pleasurable activities like sunbathing, going on picnics, music sessions and putting up decorations. According to The Sunday Telegraph, which has acquired access to some rare photographs...

New York, NY - The 400,000 New Yorkers who live in New York City Housing Authority buildings have plenty to worry about: Their landlord is going broke, rents may go up and services are slipping. Last year, 190 NYCHA employees got arrested - almost 1.5% of the agency's workforce. That was worse than in 2006, when 171 employees ended up in handcuffs. The authority says only six workers were...

North Miami Beach, FL - Two and a half years ago, as then-17-year-old Yacov Sakowitz rode his bicycle between Northeast 11th and 12th avenues on 169th Terrace, two teenagers jumped out from behind a parked car and told him to give them his bike. He obliged. The teens beat him anyway. Alan Sakowitz said he is lucky his son was OK but knew that it wasn't an isolated incident. He had heard about...

Rockland County, NY - When a Ramapo police officer recently ordered a jewish woman of Monsey to remove her wig for an arrest photograph, a firestorm erupted in the religious Jewish community. The incident also ignited a debate concerning what extent police officers should consider a person's religious beliefs or cultural mores during arrests. Most law enforcement agencies - including Ramapo...

Sullivan County, NY - Sullivan County, and your Pennsylvania neighbors along the Delaware, brace yourselves. The natural gas rush is on, and your lives will forever change. Prospectors from national energy companies hoping to tap a fertile crescent of gas that stretches from Ohio to the Delaware River are knocking on doors, hoping to secure leases to drill on private property. Supporters of...

Queens, NY - To the Bukharian Jews of Central Asia, a big house is an essential tradition: a place to shelter multiple generations, to hold large parties, memorials and holiday dinners, to reaffirm a community’s unity. So wherever they have put down roots, Bukharians — or, as they are sometimes called, Bukharans — have built aggressively, including in central Queens, where tens of...