Melbourne - VIN News has sadly learned that Rabbi Yitzchok Rotenberg, 71, a respected mainstay of the New Square, New York Chasidic community, passed away suddenly Wendsday night. Rabbi Rotenberg had been visiting his son in Melbourne, Australia. Details are sketchy, but Rabbi Rotenberg had apparently just finished maariv at Rabbi Becks synagogue Adass Israel Kehillah, and stepped out of shul...

Pakistan - Osama bin Laden's son, Saad bin Laden, has been reportedly killed by a US missile strike in Pakistan. It's believed he was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone sometime this year, according to NPR.org. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official tells NPR that without a body to conduct DNA tests on, it's hard to be completely sure. But he characterized U.S. spy...

Brooklyn, NY - A podiatrist from Staten Island's Dongan Hills section wasn't just hardworking when he billed Medicare for a month's worth of services during a single day, he was downright criminal, federal prosecutors allege. Dr. Simon Levich, who owns Avenue P Medical in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, not only charged for more than 160 hours of services on one day in 2006, but enticed...

Roosevelt, NJ - Attorneys for Yeshiva Me'on Hatorah and the borough of Roosevelt went back and forth at Planning Boards meeting at a packed Borough Hall, as the congregation filed its appeal of an earlier decision, which stated that the school could not conduct business in its Homestead Lane synagogue and that the residence is not in accordance with zoning regulations. "The residence at 28...

Ashdod, Israel - An anti-missionary group’s revelation that an Ashdod bakery owner was actively involved in missionary activity prompted the local rabbinate to pull the establishment’s kashrut certificate. A subsequent High Court ruling demanding that the kashrut certificate be reinstated was rebuffed by rabbis. Three weeks ago, a panel of three High Court judges decided in favor of a...

Jerusalem - A psychiatric evaluation showed that the haredi mother suspected of starving her child is mentally healthy and does not pose a risk to others, ultra-Orthodox sources said Wednesday night. However, the psychiatrist who examined the mother, Dr. Yaakov Weil, refused to discuss the evaluation's results in a talk with Ynet. Earlier, when asked whether he formulated an opinion in the...

Tel Aviv, Israel - Anyone wanting to place a note in the Western Wall need no longer travel to Jerusalem, find a parking spot near the Old City and undergo the security check at the entrance to the wall plaza. One need not even come to Israel. A new Web site offers those seeking to have their prayers answered a chance to "Tweet at the Kotel." The non-profit service, allows people to submit...

Cranbury, NJ - As a student, when he was praised for thinking “outside of the box,” Rabbi Dr. Robert Shorr’s response was, “What box?” His outlook is just as wide open as he speaks now, at 55, about the innovative anti-cancer drug his company is developing. Shorr, who has Orthodox rabbinical ordination as well as a PhD in biochemistry, is the founder and CEO of Cornerstone...

Selestria - The well-known Jerusalem kabbalist, HaRav Binyamin Batzri, and Rav Rafael Pinchasi, who formerly served as Israel's minister of communications, deputy mayor of Bnei Brak and secretary of Shas’s Counsel of Torah Sages, were part of a group that traveled to Selestria, Bulgaria to pray at the gravesite of HaRav Eliezer Yitzchak Papo, zechuso yogen oleinu, better known as the Pele...

Washington - Hot dogs may be as American as baseball and apple pie, but a national cancer-awareness group says they're hazardous to your health and should carry warning labels. The Washington, D.C.-based Cancer Project, a vegan advocacy group, wants to force hot dog makers to use warning labels. The group filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Superior Court in Newark on behalf of three New Jersey...

New York City - Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pushed an ambitious green agenda and cast himself as a national environmental leader, routinely runs afoul of his own anti-pollution policy by letting his official SUVs idle, sometimes for more than an hour. In spot checks over the past week, The Associated Press timed idling periods for the mayor's city-owned SUVs, which shuttle him around the...

Veendam, Netherlands - Arson was the cause of the fire that destroyed the barracks where Anne Frank worked during her imprisonment in a Dutch concentration camp during World War II, Dutch police said today. Police said their investigation had ruled out any technical cause for Sunday's fire that virtually destroyed the barracks where Anne Frank, had worked in 1944. No suspects of the fire have...

New York - New York's attorney general is suing 35 law firms over what he says were botched attempts to collect debts from thousands of people. The lawsuit seeks to overturn nearly 100,000 legal judgments entered against people who failed to respond to court claims over their debts. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says many of those people didn't reply because they didn't know they were being...

Washington - The Senate on Wednesday narrowly defeated an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill that would have negated state laws like New York's that limit the carrying of concealed handguns. The measure, introduced by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), won votes from 58 senators, two short of the 60 needed for approval. "Lives have been saved with the defeat of this amendment," said Sen...

New York - A 26-year-old American-born Long Island man who traveled to Pakistan and trained in a Qaeda camp there last year has been charged with taking part in a rocket attack against a United States base in Afghanistan, according to court papers unsealed on Wednesday. The man, Bryant Neal Vinas, who was arrested in Peshawar, Pakistan, last November, was also charged with assisting Al Qaeda...