Pyongyang - North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days. Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for...

New York - The Kof-K logo will make an encore appearance on the Streit’s Matzo streits_logobox for Passover 2010, alongside the Soloveichik kashrus seal that has been on Streit’s products since the 1950s. The change is a result of the ban on Streit’s matzo products enacted by the Vaad HaRabonim of Queens and the Vaad HaKashrus of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway just before last...

Postville, IA - The former Postville meat plant executive was granted special permission this morning to leave Iowa for a two-day religious trip to New York. Sholom Rubashkin will leave his home this afternoon and drive through the night to observe the 15-year anniversary of the death of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, a noted holy figure. U.S. District Judge Linda Reade accepted the...

New York - Dear Rabbi Dr. Twerski: I realize I may be out of order, but I am in such great anguish. A year ago my husband, a fine talmid chacham, was operated on for lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking. Recently it recurred, and the doctors are not giving him much time. Only a miracle can save him, and I pray for him every day at the Kotel. I had pleaded with him for years to stop...

New York - What Torah mitzvah might be involved in getting a manicure? (Hint: An acronym for the mitzvah is beis, tav, sin.) Before you read further, go ahead and take a break. Ask around and see if people you know are aware of the answer. The Chofetz Chaim, in his work entitled Ahavas Chesed (ch. 9), writes that the mitzvah of paying workers on time does not just apply to a daily worker; it...

Australia - THE ABC has apologised to the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council after a complaint from the public affairs organisation about the broadcaster's coverage of Israel's West Bank barrier. In a report about the controversial barrier, the ABC's Middle East correspondent, Anne Barker, said both the International Court of Justice and Israel's Supreme Court had ruled the wall...

Jerusalem - At a Rosh Chodesh event held in Ashdod at the Shevet Halevi community in Ashdod, Rav Avraham Eliezer Vozner, the grandson of the Shevet Halevi, spoke about the increased incidence of people who had come down with "yenem machla." He related that his grandfather had recently told him of 10 people who had come down with the machla from his own community. He then asked his grandfather...

Manhattan, NY - Rabbi Allen Schwartz recalls Chaim Regensberg as a family man who hosted fundraisers in his Upper West Side home for charities in Israel or for Congregation Ohab Zedek, where he was an active member. “I always thought he was an honest guy, upright in all areas,” said Ohab Zedek’s rabbi, who has known Regensberg for about 10 years. “But something happened, he got in over...

Jerusalem - A 71-year-old man with a permanent artificial heart pumping in his chest is reportedly the first in the world to take a trans-Atlantic flight and spend a vacation abroad. The Israeli, Gershon Gefen, underwent the implantation of the HeartMate 2 device at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva last year. Only a handful of such implantations have been performed...

Richmond, VA - Governor Tim Kaine wants to make sure that every student in Virginia learns lessons from the Holocaust. The governor visited the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond's Shockoe Bottom where he signed the new Holocaust Education Bill into law. The law requires teachers to include specific Holocaust lessons in both middle and high school history classes. The governor hopes...

Cambria Heights, N.Y - As many as 50,000 people are expected to visit the grave of a revered New York City rabbi to mark the 15th anniversary of his death. Rabbi Menachem Schneerson led the Chabad Lubavitch movement based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, for more than 40 years. He was known as "the rebbe" to national politicians, city leaders and his followers. The Hasidic movement he led...

Manitoba, Canada - A former Liberal candidate who was dumped before last fall's federal election is suing cabinet minister Peter Kent, the Canadian Jewish Congress, B'nai Brith of Canada and four senior members of the two organizations. Lesley Hughes claims the defendants made untrue and defamatory accusations that she was anti-Semitic. She says that, as a result, former federal Liberal leader...

South Carolina - Gov. Mark Sanford arrived in the Hartsville-Jackson International Airport Wednesday morning, having wrapped up a seven-day visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, he said. Sanford said he had not been hiking along the Appalachian Trail, as his staff said in a Tuesday statement to the media. Sanford's whereabouts had been unknown since Thursday, and the mystery surrounding his...

Afghanistan - The New York Times used a private security company with ties to the CIA to bribe Taliban guards as part of its seven month effort to gain the freedom of reporter David Rohde and two others taken hostage with him in Afghanistan, according to people involved in the case. The bribes were reportedly paid in small amounts of only a few hundred dollars at a variety of locations where...

Washington - The Nixon Presidential Library on Tuesday released 150 hours of audio recordings from the months of January and February, 1973, and uncovered new details on the former US President Richard Nixon's views. In one of the conversations released in the recordings, Nixon mused about global anti-Semitism. "This anti-Semitism is stronger than we think, ya know," he said in a...