Netivot, Israel - Ultra-Orthodox modesty patrols are threatening local business with boycotts unless they conform to strict religious standards. The group's actions are stoking religious tensions in the normally calm southern town and police opened a criminal investigation into the matter today. The gang members - whom ultra-Orthodox residents of the city say are a minority group not supported...

Brooklyn, NY - If you regularly run laps around Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Sunday mornings, or Thursday evenings, you might pass a pack of bearded men, with one striding confidently in front. This is Chaim Backman, the leader of the TriChai Triathlon Club, the first triathlon group geared specifically to Orthodox Jews. Backman, a Lubavitcher who works as a physical therapist, is a longtime...

Albany, NY - A judge has issued a restraining order blocking Richard Ravitch from serving as New York Gov. David Paterson's lieutenant governor. State Supreme Court Justice William LaMarca in Nassau County issued his ruling late Tuesday afternoon. Paterson appointed Ravitch, a former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, earlier this month as a way of breaking a monthlong...

Rockland County, NY - A committee made up of a cross-section of Rockland residents will work with hard-to-reach local communities to boost response to the 2010 Census. Officials from the U.S. Census Bureau and the county made the announcement today in New City. The all-volunteer Rockland County Complete Count Committee will meet over the next two months to plan grass-roots activities, and...

Sullivan County, NY - Four seasonal communities in Monticello, Woodridge and Liberty are improving the appearance of their properties this summer as part of a Sullivan Renaissance program that helps fund demonstration projects. The program awards up to $2500 in matching grants for beautification projects that demonstrate best practices for other seasonal properties throughout Sullivan...

Manhattan, NY - A Chase bank financial planner looted $110,000 from a wealthy Manhattan client's private account to pay off her personal bills, law enforcement officials said. Robin Katz, 25, worked at the bank's Midtown headquarters. She created a second ATM card for the customer's account, then slowly siphoned off thousand of dollars from June 2008 through June 2009, when the client...

Little Rock, AR - Former U.S. presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee plans to broadcast his weekend show on Fox News from the site of a disputed Israeli construction project in East Jerusalem. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Huckabee will air the talkshow during a solidarity visit to the site of the project, which is in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Dov Hikind, who...

New York - The Dow moved higher in the final hour of trading Tuesday as investors digested Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony on Capitol Hill and better-than-expected earnings from several Dow components. The Dow had shot out of the gate this morning, after beats from several components, but pockets of weakness quickly began to emerge, including chips, hardware, banks and retail. The Nasdaq...

Jerusalem - Israeli airline El Al announced Monday that as of next week it will offer its passengers a low-cost economy class on flights to Europe. If the new service proves successful, it may also expand to flights to the company's other destinations, including the United States and East Asia. Low cost airlines EasyJet and Air Berlin recently announced they will soon start operating flights...

Vilnious, Lithuania - Lithuania will not amend a plan to compensate the loss of Jewish property seized during World War II, despite criticism from Jewish organizations that it fails to repay the properties' full value, the Baltic state's justice minister said Tuesday. "It is very hard, if not impossible, to restore all property rights after more than half a century, a war and two occupations,"...

Scottsdale, AZ - A U.S. survey indicates speech therapy helps the majority of people who stutter but those who stutter are discriminated against. Thirty percent of parents participating in the survey, conducted by the National Stuttering Association, say they have received bad advice about stuttering from pediatricians and speech therapists. The survey found speech therapies that change...

New York, NY - Merchants and elected officials are blasting what they call a parking ticket blitz in the borough that's driving customers away from local businesses. But the NYPD says ticketing has actually gone down since last year. Castle Hill businessman Robert Bieder - who organized 12 north Bronx local merchant associations into the Bronx Merchants Coalition - said a survey of its...

Washington - Former Vice President Dick Cheney's Secret Service protection has been extended for at least another six months, beginning Tuesday. Normally, ex-veeps only get six months of protection at taxpayer expense. But Cheney asked for an extension, and President Obama - whom Cheney has excoriated in several interviews since leaving office - recently signed off. Homeland Security...

Jerusalem - The evil winds of secular, anti-motherhood terror are blowing in our sector. "Taliban mom" and the "starving mother" are just twigs in a fire that has been burning for a while. During the recent Kolech conference, several sessions were dedicated to family planning. The unequivocal demand of the organization's members is to spread the word of limiting birth. "It's possible," they say...

Dearborn, MI - With some 300 interviews in its collection--more than 100 of which are online at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu--the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive at the University of Michigan-Dearborn is a resource that’s useful to people around the world. “Having interviews available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week offers unprecedented accessibility to our...