New York, NY - There's a secret buzzing around the rooftops and backyard gardens of New York. Despite city regulations prohibiting it, hundreds of New Yorkers have kept beehives on rooftops and backyard gardens for years, defying the law in their efforts to create something sustainable in the urban environment. They're people like 61-year-old Deborah Romano, a gardener and first-time...

Amarillo, TX - Some fake $100 bills being passed in Amarillo started as real money. Amarillo police are looking for suspects in the passing of the altered $5 bills. Police say various merchants recently have been duped with about $4,000 worth of the fake $100 bills. Police say some of the altered currency still had faint Abraham Lincoln markings, like real $5 bills. Investigators believe...

New Jersey - An attorney who gained fame for helping Holocaust victims, has been banned from practicing law in New Jersey by the state Supreme Court in a ruling filed on Tuesday. That put an end to a four-year case that began with the state Office of Attorney Ethics charging Edward D. Fagan with misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars entrusted to him by two Holocaust...

San Francisco, CA - Orthodox Jews in San Francisco now have the opportunity to relax a little for sabbath. That's because the community, with the help of local leaders, established an eruv. Traditionally, an eruv is a series of boundaries that describe a communal space which is considered private, so biblical laws against carrying things from a private to a public place don't apply. Eruvs...

Highland Park, NJ - While most 18-year-olds are just beginning to explore career options, David Prince of Highland Park already runs a successful marketing and public relations firm with a clientele from the sports and entertainment world. Between jetting to Las Vegas to represent clients, Prince also just completed his senior year at Moshe Aaron Yeshiva High School in South River while...

Brooklyn, NY - How do you say "free day care" in Swedish? Ikea! Brooklyn parents are flocking to the Red Hook furniture giant to drop off their kids at a free day care service called Smaland - even when buying a sofa is not on the agenda. In the year since Ikea has been open, the day care center, which welcomes kids from 36 inches to 50 inches in height, has gained a crew of...

New York, NY - About a million rent-regulated tenants in New York will be paying a little more. Tenant protesters were on hand for the Rent Guidelines Board's final vote, but the board approved a 3 percent hike on 1 year leases; 6 percent on 2 years. Also approved was a $30 fee for people in their apartment for 6 years who pay under a thousand dollars...

Bogota, Colombia - Latin America is notorious for it’s anti-Semitism; foreign-born U.S. Latinos are twice as likely to harbor “hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs” than their American-born counterparts. Hugo Chavez, no friend of the Jews. And yet, there is a movement afoot in Latin America. Christians are increasingly converting to Judaism. And yet, the Jewish community sees something wrong...

Postville, IA - The president of a Canadian plastics plant and two partners have agreed to buy a kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa that was the site of a massive immigration raid last year, pending a bankruptcy hearing. The move confirmed by bankruptcy trustee Joe Sarachek ends months of uncertainty for the Agriprocessors Inc. plant and the town of Postville. Sarachek says Hershey Friedman...

Albany, NY - Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr., who has railed on Gov. David Paterson before, just sent out this press release. “Today’s Senate Session was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever experienced. Yesterday, New York Governor David Paterson bragged to the media about how the leaders of the Republican and Democratic Conferences asked him for more time before calling Special Session...

Albany, NY - Today's extraordinary Senate session went so well that Gov. David Paterson wants to do it again tomorrow, and this time he's putting gay marriage on the agenda. Democratic senators who are lingering the chamber and waiting for something to happen confirm that they have been delivered a second proclamation from the governor declaring another session tomorrow - Same bat time! Same...

Warsaw, Poland - The Polish government and a local Jewish organization have signed an unprecedented cooperation agreement under which prison inmates will help to refurbish Jewish historical sites throughout the country. The deal was inked between Poland's Central Board of Prisons Service and the Warsaw-based Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, and is believed to be...

Brussels - The European Jewish Congress, hailed a new European regulation on animal slaughter agreed on Monday by the European Union Council of Ministers. The new regulation recognises the validity of ‘shechita’ or Jewish animal slaughter according to religious methods and requires that kosher meat can be traded and sold freely in every EU member state. “The European Jewish Congress...

New York - Verified Identity Pass, a company that promised to speed passengers through airport security checkpoints for an annual fee, has shut down, leaving some frequent fliers looking for options to avoid long screening lines and wondering what will happen to the personal information they gave the company. The company said it wasn't able to negotiate a deal with its creditors, and its Clear...

Rome - Premier Silvio Berlusconi likes to cast himself as an international statesman, touting his warm personal ties with Russia's Vladimir Putin and former U.S. President George W. Bush and his efforts to raise Italy's profile on the world stage. Less noticed is his friendship with Israel, reversing a decades-long pro-Arab tilt by Italian governments and making Italy perhaps the Jewish...