New York - Sholam Weiss, a son of Brooklyn, was a crook. By all accounts, he was also a rather unpleasant man, hardly the sort to inspire compassion. A federal judge in Florida certainly had no sympathy for him after he was found guilty of a fraud that drained hundreds of millions of dollars from an insurance company and caused its collapse. In February 2000, the judge piled up dozens of...

Iran - The blogger who claimed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots is being detained by the authorities after he was arrested along with 150 university students. Dr. Mehdi Khazali, who reportedly participated in several recent opposition demonstrations, was reportedly summoned to a special court convened for religious figures, detained and transferred to an unknown location. The...

Bridgewater, SD - The man who left 44 tons of meat to rot in a Bridgewater business [reported by VIN] News said he feels badly that a foul stench overtook the town, but “that’s really where the extent of my feeling bad goes” because he does not feel he created a hazard for residents. Ilan Parente, who operated Bridgewater Quality Foods for 10 years before moving to Minnesota in 2008...

Penndel, PA - A toddler left in a hot minivan outside his suburban Philadelphia day care center has died of hyperthermia. Bucks County authorities say 2-year-old Daniel Slutsky was in a locked vehicle with the windows up for six hours Wednesday, when temperatures were in the 80s. Coroner Joseph Campbell says Daniel had been driven to the center in Penndel (PEN'-dul) by a neighbor who...

New York - New Yorkers who order wine online from retailers in other states are breaking the law, according to a decision handed down by a federal appeals court. The ruling is the latest salvo in the war over wine shipping, and only promises to spark further legal fights. A three-judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that New York's law permitting in-state...

Albany, NY - The state comptroller announced today that he has frozen $560,000 in vouchers for state senators' pay, as the governor held a meeting today to try to resolve the legislative leadership crisis. Saying that the State Senate's "stalemate is costing taxpayers across the state millions of dollars a day," State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said his office is withholding more than 250...

Jerusalem - The recent Hafganot about Shabbos violation has revealed a very ugly fact that is happening in our community. Gedolim are quoted on issue “A.” And people respond with behavior “B” – in a manner that is completely antithetical to the Torah way. Yesterday, Rabbi Yakov Horowitz wrote a fabulous editorial about the issue of the hafganot and the manner in which the hafganot...

Washington - Somebody wanted Larry Franklin out of the way. In court documents filed last week, a sketchy tale surfaced suggesting that someone wanted Franklin, the former Pentagon analyst who had agreed to testify against two pro-Israel activists on charges of espionage, dead. In a Tuesday, June 30 interview, Franklin and his attorney Plato Cacheris, the famed criminal defense lawyer...

New York - Stocks tumbled Thursday as a weaker-than-expected jobs report muzzled all the green-shoots talk and investors hunkered down. Trading was being extended to 4:15 p.m. ET today to compensate for an earlier technical glitch. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 200 points "The jobs report was weaker than expected and it throws a little cold water on the...

Manhattan, NY - An emotional Mayor Bloomberg got choked up today as he spoke to a group of newly minted U.S. citizens at a naturalization ceremony on the Upper West Side. Mayor Bloomberg got a little choked up as he congratulated some new Americans. Bloomberg, who delivered the keynote address after about 150 people took the oath of allegiance at the New York Historical Society, got to the...

Washington - Federal officials notified more than 650 U.S. businesses their records would be audited as part of an effort to weed out companies hiring illegal immigrants. The 652 notices issued represented the largest number ever in a single day, exceeding the total sent out in all of fiscal year 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said. "Part of the strategy is to let...

Jerusalem - Petah Tikva resident Yitzhak Yazdanpana has set the new world record for growing the longest cucumber. Working out of his home garden, Yazdanpana grew a three-foot, ten-inch long cucumber (about 117 cm). He said he didn't use any chemical fertilizers. Yazdantana said on Tuesday that he hopes the cucumber will be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records. ...

Tokyo - Rav Moshe Haturi, a former Japanese Protestant minister who converted to Judaism and lives in Israel Shaarei Chesed, has traveled back to Japan to help the two remaining bochurim on trial. Although every ger tzedek has his own amazing story, Rav Haturi's story is unique. Born Novo Taka in the city of Naguya in 1960, Haturi was a spiritual individual since his youth. He studied to be a...

Brooklyn, NY - The Health Department has identified 11 cases of measles in Brooklyn during the past two months, and is urging doctors to be vigilant and promptly report suspected cases to the agency. Nearly all the known cases have occurred in children who went unvaccinated, leaving them unprotected against the disease. Measles is not common in New York City, but it is highly contagious...

Manhattan, NY - The U.S. Marshals Service has taken possession of the $7 million Manhattan penthouse where financier Bernard Madoff and his wife lived. U.S. Marshal Joseph Guccione said that the marshals were at the property pursuant to a court order. Madoff was sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison for a fraud that cost thousands of investors billions of dollars. ...