New York - U.S. stocks advanced Friday afternoon as investors shrugged off the worst drop in consumer sentiment on record and the first drop in personal spending in two years, putting the market on track to end this mad month on a high note. Traders noted that pension funds were buying stocks to rebalance their portfolios as today is the last day of the October. Indeed, there will many a...

Postville, IA - A St. Louis-based bank is seeking all of Agriprocessors' collateral, claiming the slaughterhouse defaulted on a $35 million loan. First Bank says in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids that Agriprocessors overstated how much money it has available and that the company hasn't met its loan payments. The suit names Agriprocessors owner Aaron...

Albany, NY - Gov. Paterson warned that charities will have to pick up much of the burden while the state deals with its fiscal crisis. "The grim reality is that we are going to have to make some very serious and severe cuts to our budget," Paterson told the UJA-Federation of Jewish Business Leaders at the Russian Tea Room. "Charitable organizations that go into the trenches and help people in...

Montpelier, VT - An independent candidate for Vermont governor is being criticized as anti-Semitic for writing — in an essay for a state-published election guide — that "some Jews allegedly discriminate against disabled Vermonters." Cris Ericson of Chester, who is running both for governor and for Vermont's seat in the U.S. House, made the comments for her entry in a booklet published...

New York, NY - The best places to find deals online to buy electronics are Amazon.com, B&H Photo Video and Crutchfield. That’s according to a forthcoming survey from the prestigious Consumer Reports magazine, which ranks the top 36 places to buy electronics. In the survey, which will be released in full in the magazine’s December issue, the publication called the three ecommerce sites...

Washington - Barack Obama's campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about possibly serving as White House chief of staff, officials said Thursday as the marathon presidential race entered its final, frenzied stretch with a Democratic tilt. The Democrats who described the Obama campaign's approach to Emanuel spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to be...

New York - Although Rush Limbaugh doesn't actually work from a bunker, he does have a bunker mentality. His studio is on the third floor of a (purposefully) anonymous building 100 yards off the white sands of Palm Beach, Florida, and about a mile from his gated mansion (the one next to Chuck Norris's). Along with the Gulfstream jet (cost: $54 million), fleet of sports cars and eight-year...

New York City - Six individuals have been charged with conspiracy and wire fraud arising from their scheme to defraud consumer product manufacturers, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Matthew Friedrich and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Timothy Morrison announced today. The seven-count indictment, unsealed today, was returned by a federal grand...

Saratov, Russia - Vandals painted swastikas and antisemitic graffiti on the walls and door of the Saratov Jewish Agency. The incident occurred at night, vandals also targeted a neighboring building housing the Jewish charitable organization "Chesed." Over the past three years, neo-Nazis and others in Saratov have assaulted Jews, shattered the windows of the Jewish Agency, and set a bomb...

Orange County, NY - Three county lawmakers have sent a scathing letter to County Executive Edward Diana over what they characterize as a long series of transgressions by the Village of Kiryas Joel, the latest being the unauthorized walkway on County Route 44. The wooden walkway was constructed by the village over a 30-foot slope opposite the roadway’s guardrail without county...

London - A Jewish school has been criticised by the admissions watchdog for not offering places to children of other faiths. The schools adjudicator uncovered a series of flaws in the admissions policy of Hasmonean High School in Barnet. The Orthodox Jewish secondary is the latest school to fall foul of the Government's new statutory code on allocating places. But it is not the first time it...

Philadelphia, PA - Students at the University of Pennsylvania are celebrating the Philadelphia Phillies victory against the Tampa Bay Rays to win Major League Baseball’s top title. Adding its own touch to the festivities, the Chabad-Lubavitch House at the University of Pennsylvania will throw a baseball-themed Shabbat kiddush Friday night. With a menu of ballpark favorites like hot dogs and...

Phoenix, AZ - Silent Witness officials said they are upping the cash reward for information that leads to an arrest in the murder of an 84-year-old Jewish Phoenix businessman. On September 2, Irving Shuman was found dead in his North Central Phoenix office, As was reported at that time here on Vos Iz Neias.  Sgt. Paul Penzone said when describing the murder, "This was just an extreme...

Washington, DC - The government sent out more than $1 billion in fraudulent refunds last year and offered this explanationtoday for the bad checks in the mail: The Internal Revenue Service has too few resources to pursue every tax fraud case. IRS investigators never even looked at an estimated $742 million in fraudulent refunds, according to a report by the Treasury Department office that...

Jerusalem - The Indonesian Rescue and Emergency Organization, run by that nation's second-largest Islamic movement, Persyarikatan Muhammadiyah, signed an agreement Wednesday night in Tel Aviv with Israel's first-response organization, Magen David Adom (MDA). The deal was penned in the shadow of serious jihadist threats against Indonesia, which is home to the world's largest Muslim...