New York - Banco Santander of Spain is in advanced talks to acquire Sovereign Bancorp for about $2.5 billion, people briefed on the matter said, as another frantic weekend of talks heralded the next wave of banking consolidation. Santander, which would gain a larger American presence with the deal, will probably pay around $3.81 a share, or where Sovereign’s shares closed Friday. Sovereign...

Bucharest - Nati Meir, a former Israeli currently serving a member of the Romanian parliament, has announced on Sunday his plans to stand down from his position, due to increasing number of anti-Semitic incidents in Romania. Meir is expected to submit his resignation on Monday, but for the moment he is taking the opportunity to warn Israeli businesspeople who are working in the country. ...

Washington - Sen. John McCain's 2006 demand for regulatory action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have prevented current financial crisis, as HUMAN EVENTS learned from the letter shown in full text below. McCain's letter -- signed by nineteen other senators -- said that it was "...vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]...operate...

Westhampton, NY - The leaders of a Jewish group opposing a religious boundary proposed for Westhampton Beach Village urged more than 100 people who attended a Sunday morning meeting to sign petitions voicing their opinions on the matter to utility companies and village officials. At the meeting, held by the organization Jewish People Opposed to the Eruv, the group’s founder and president...

Tehran - Moderate Iranian cleric Mehdi Karroubi, who Sunday declared his intention to run against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in next June's presidential elections, has begun his campaign by calling the current president's past statements on the Holocaust "irrelevant." The 71-year-old cleric is head of the moderate opposition party Etemad Melli (National Trust) and the party's choice run in...

New York, NY - City Council Speaker Christine Quinn says she has decided to support Mayor Michael Bloomberg's bid to modify the city's term-limit law. Quinn held a news conference today, saying she had given the issue careful deliberation. She said voters deserved the choice of whether to keep the current leadership for longer than two terms. Bloomberg, whose last day in office is Dec. 31...

Monsey, NY - One of the governing principle of Vos iz Nieas is that an honest, free and open discussion of the challenges and issues that we face is the best way to address them. Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, Menahel, Yeshiva Darchei Noam of Monsey Director, Project YES, whose columns we often carry on Vos iz Nieas, exemplifies that approach. His courageous and informative columns are a breath of...

Israel - Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger called upon Akko residents to stop the riots in the city. “We were sad to hear about the clashes…and our hearts were especially saddened when we heard that these clashes began on our holiest and dearest day – Yom Kippur,” said the rabbis. “We are calling upon all of Akko’s residents, Jews and Arabs, please rise above the...

Jerusalem - Israel's main stock index dived 7.68 percent on Sunday when the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange opened after a four-day holiday weekend and a 45-minute delay enforced after a sharp drop in preliminary trading. The TA-25 index, which includes the 25 largest Israeli companies by market capitalisation, dropped to 736.66 points while the Tel-Tech index, tied to the booming hi-tech industry...

New York - Since wall street guru Jim Cramer warned last week [reported by VIN News] to get out of the stock market and predicted an imminent crash, The Dow has lost 2,000 points this past week alone, making it the worst sell-off since 1933. Now Cramer says we are not done, though. Friday's late-day rally brought us too far too fast, he said, and bottoms rarely happen on Fridays anyway...

New York - Lately, a disturbing trend has been developing. A number of media articles have been characterizing the halachic position of Torah-true Judaism in regard to women and their exemption to certain Mitzvos as being misogynistic – anti-women. To best understand the underlying issues, we might gain much by first familiarizing ourselves with a rather famous institution in upstate New...

Jerusalem - "Gimmel, Gimmel, Meir Porush…" In a techno-style jingle that hit the Internet today, it couldn't be clearer who Chassidic fusion superstar Lipa Schmeltzer is endorsing in Jerusalem's upcoming mayoral contest. Or can it be? Case in point: this isn't the first time in history a recording artist's talents have been used by political campaigns in Israel, America and elsewhere. ...

Brooklyn, NY - Over the past several years, the Chasidic community of Williamsburg has experienced several incidents in which anonymous community activists destroyed, damaged or defaced advertising or signage of various business establishments. The motivation behind the incidents is spiritual. Ads featuring highly detailed images of tantalizing food—and businesses hawking an unnecessarily...

Jerusalem - Any women who may be planning to attend the traditional Simchat Beit Hashoeva festivities in the Orthodox neighborhood of Meah Shearim this Sukkot may want to think twice, as they may no be allowed to enter the area. The water-drawing festival is a time-honored tradition held in the Hasidic courts of the capital for decades. The celebrations are a known crowd draw, with some 15,000...

New York's efforts to end child abuse got a big boost when 340 "child-protective specialists" completed the Administration for Children's Services training. The caseworkers' ranks will be augmented by 39 "investigative consultants" former NYPD personnel who will help in abuse probes and who also graduated from the six week program. The city now has 1,300 such specialists and 60...