New York - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said global financial markets remain severely strained, underscoring the need for quick action to implement the government's $700 billion rescue program. Paulson said all the financial market turmoil has seriously affected the economy, but he said the administration is moving quickly to begin the largest government rescue effort in history. He...

New York - Stocks closed lower after swinging wildly all day as a coordinated global rate cut failed to reassure investors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average alternated between triple-digit gains and equal-sized losses before ending down 189 points a to close at 9,258.00 as the markets continued to worry about the growing credit crisis. "The action we're seeing is very typical of what...

New York - The Chofetz Chaim wrote a number of famous works. He wrote the Mishnah Berurah commentary on the Orach Chaim section of Shulchan Aruch. He also wrote Sefer Chofetz Chaim on the laws of lashon ha’ra. There is another book that he wrote which is not so famous. It is called Ahavas Chesed, and it deals with the obligation to perform chesed—acts of kindness. So now your neighbor wishes...

Providence, RI - A lawyer for a Providence woman will ask a federal appeals court to overturn a decision forcing her to surrender a portrait to the estate of a late Jewish art dealer. A judge ordered Maria-Luise Bissonnette to return the oil painting "Girl from the Sabine Mountains" to the estate of Max Stern in December. Her lawyer will urge the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse...

Oakhurst, NJ - Next week, on Wednesday morning, the Orthodox Jewish members of Synagogue of Oakhurst Community Center will don their holiday clothing and gather in their building to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot. A mile-and-a-half away, in the town hall, a different crowd will gather at the same time to bid on liens being sold in a tax sale — including a lien on the Synagogue of Oakhurst...

Washington - Iran rounded up hundreds of Arabs to help the United States counter al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attack after they crossed the border from Afghanistan, a former Bush administration official said Tuesday. Many were expelled, Hillary Mann Leverett said, and the Iranians made copies of almost 300 of their passports. The copies were sent to Kofi Annan, then the secretary-general of...

Brooklyn, NY - America’s most controversial hockey mom has inspired a new item made for religious women that probably isn’t sold up there in Alaska, gosh darn it! The “Sarah Palin Wig,” based on the hairstyle of the Last Frontier State governor and GOP vice presidential candidate, is the latest head covering to go on sale at Sheitel.com, a Brooklyn wig shop and Web site for Orthodox...

Spring Valley, NY - The village will have to repay more than $500,000 to the federal government because it misused Section 8 funding, according to a comprehensive review of the program that also found tenants' files contained errors and the village had failed to use the majority of its low-income housing vouchers. "As a result, over 300 local residents that desperately needed the help are not...

Kirovograd, Ukraine - A group of far-right extremists in Kirovograd, Ukraine allegedly planned to blow up the local synagogue. The head of the local SBU, a successor agency of the KGB, told a press conference that a 38-year-old former police officer had gathered around him a group of 14 youths, who studied Nazi literature together and "ideologically prepared to commit crimes" including blowing...

Dear readers, friends and supporters, A curious turn of phrase can be found throughout the Yom Kippur davening. Though we are taught from earliest childhood onward, as have generations untold before us, that Yom Kippur is that day allotted to us for personally soliciting G-d's pardon for our shortcomings, the singular chatasi—"I sinned"—is in short supply throughout the Day of Atonement...

Israel - A halachic breakthrough by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, allows patients to drink as much "stale" water as they wish during Yom Kippur. The innovative ruling was issued following years during which patients were instructed by rabbis to only drink small amounts of water not exceeding 9 cc and consume them once every 15 minutes.  But, following an appeal by medical activists in the haredi...

Washington, DC - The Federal Reserve has ordered an emergency interest rate cut of a half a percentage point to cope with the worst financial crisis since the 1929 stock market crash. Other central banks, including the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Swiss, Canadian and Swedish banks also lowered rates by a half-point...

Brooklyn, NY - A motor vehicle accident with a pedestrian that was struck by a vehicle that fled the scene on Ocean Parkway and 18th Avenue. After being left lying in the street, Hatzolah transported the 25-year-old victim to Lutheran Medical Center, in critical condition. NYPD Highway A.I.S. responding for the possible A.I. job. A witness told authorities that the car was driving very...