Salt Lake City, UT - Federal prosecutors have charged a man with making threats against President Barack Obama after he allegedly told a bank employee he was on a mission to kill the president. The Salt Lake Tribune of Utah reported that Daniel James Murray allegedly made the remark to a teller at a bank in St. George on May 27 as he withdrew $13,000 from an account. Murray's whereabouts are...

New York, NY - It has been illegal to keep bees as pets in New York City since 1999, when they were classified by the Department of Health as venomous insects. But recently, with the announcement that the Obamas will keep a beehive at the White House, beekeeping seems to have found a second wind. Many New Yorkers have had beehives since before the city ban—some can be found in community...

London - Thousands of Brits are being served chicken pumped up with a water and chemical mix containing pork and beef when they go out for a meal, a report revealed. Restaurants and cafes unwittingly buy chicken containing other animals from wholesalers and dish it up for customers. The meat is bulked up by producers in Germany and Spain. The Food Standards Agency traced the beef and pork...

Queens, NY - The family of the slain Forest Hills dentist formally made its request to a Queens Family Court judge to adopt Daniel Malakov’s surviving daughter. Although the city Administration for Children Services is still in the process of terminating Mazoltuv Borukhova’s parental rights over her 6-year-old daughter, Michelle, the girl’s uncle and foster parent, Gavriel Malakov...

Munich, Germany - Two Orthodox rabbis were ordained by the reestablished Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary, for the first time since the seminary was closed by the Nazis in 1938. At a ceremony broadcast live on German television, Zsolt Balla and Avraham Radbil became the first rabbis to graduate from the seminary, which historians consider the cradle of Modern Orthodoxy. "Sixty years ago, who...

Washington - First Lady Michelle Obama tapped pal Susan Sher to be her new chief of staff, replacing Jackie Norris, who came to know the first lady during the critical Iowa caucus campaign. Sher has a special place in the Obama history--Mrs. Obama's resume hit her desk when she was working at Chicago's City Hall for Mayor Daley and she passed it on to Valerie Jarrett, who ended up hiring her at...

New York - Fewer and fewer people are smoking in New York, and health officials peg part much of the decrease to higher taxes. The Department of Health announced today that just under 17 percent of New Yorkers were smokers in 2008, which represented a 12 percent or nearly 310,000-person drop from the year before. They note that the decrease in smoking came as taxes on cigarettes are hitting...

Houston, TX - Rabbi Maccabee Avishur, popular Director of Judaics at The Emery/Weiner School, was arrested, after attempting to intervene on behalf of a 10th-grade student who had received a traffic citation on her way to school. The student had been pulled over, just inside the school entrance, allegedly for making an illegal turn. According to school officials, Rabbi Avishur came over to aid...

Manhattan, NY - After an ugly, public battle over control of the famed Apthorp apartment building that almost landed it in default, the owners now say they've resolved their differences. Owners Africa Israel Investments and Mann Realty Associates bought the property in 2007 for $426 million with a plan to turn the landmark into a luxury condominium, but their relationship began unraveling as...

Washington - On any given day, work is humming at the White House long before the president awakens about 6:30 a.m. Last Friday, NBC News was given rare access to record a documentary about life in the Obama administration — continuing a longtstanding NBC tradition of doing "day in the life" programs with new presidents, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. You can watch them all...

Brazil - Details have emerged of the moments leading up to the disappearance of flight AF 447 with 228 people on-board, with error messages reportedly suggesting the plane was flying too slowly and that two key computers malfunctioned. Flight data messages provided by an Air France source show the precise chronology of events of flight AF 447 before it plummeted into the sea 400 miles off...

Ioannina, Greece - Vandals attacked a Jewish cemetery in western Greece, damaging at least six graves, the majority of them beyond repair, regional authorities said today. The vandals appeared to have scaled the walls of the cemetery in Ioannina, western Greece, to knock over and break grave stones, including the cemetery's main memorial. The vandals then proceeded to cover them with blood...

Philadelphia, PA - Authorities said they are investigating whether a US Airways employee helped a passenger smuggle a handgun onto a commercial flight Thursday morning at Philadelphia International Airport. The incident involved US Airways flight 1195 to Phoenix, and the employee is being questioned by FBI agents and Philadelphia police. According to police, a witness reported seeing one...

Jerusalem - In the past months, Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical organization which parallels the Red Cross, has sent one message after another that it wants to stop cooperating with the two large Hatzala organization -- Hatzala Gush Dan and United Hatzala. Hatzala says that MDA is motivated by ego and financial issues. Whereas MDA used to be the premier medical emergency treatment...

New York - Life has posted never-before-published photos of Adolf Hitler by German photographer Hugo Jaeger. You can view them here. Jaeger was granted unprecedented access to Hitler from 1936 to 1945, Life says. He traveled with Hitler and chronicled, in color, the Fuhrer and his confidants at small gatherings, public events and private moments. Life says few photographers were using color at...