New York, NY - A lawyer for a man accused of strangling 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979 said Friday his client is mentally ill and has a history of hallucinations. Pedro Hernandez was arraigned on a murder charge Friday, the 33rd anniversary of the boy's disappearance. He was held without bail. The 51-year-old Hernandez appeared in court via video camera from a conference room at Bellevue...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit Israel at the end of June, this following talks between high-level officials in Moscow and Jerusalem. During the snap visit, Putin will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. The Russian leader is expected to visit Netanya, where he and Netanyahu will unveil a monument honoring Jewish Red Army soldiers...

Washington - Senator Charles E. Schumer today announced that the Senate has passed his bipartisan legislation that would allow Israeli nationals access to E-2 investor visas, which permit foreign investors to live and work in close proximity to the companies they wish to support, creating jobs in the United States. After obtaining an E-2 visa, foreign investors may initially be admitted into...

Fort Lee, NJ - The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says its police have caught a trucker who used a fake license plate to evade tolls. Port Authority spokesman All Della Fave says the tractor-trailer was pulled over Friday near the George Washington Bridge. The front license plate was missing, the back plate on the truck was covered with tape and the real New Jersey tag on the...

Borough Park, NY - Levi Aron, the confessed killer of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, appeared via video in court Friday and looked like he packed in about 50 pounds since his last hearing two months ago. "He's definitely not working out," quipped a lawyer who saw his image in Brooklyn Supreme Court. The accused child killer was sprawled in a chair at a small interview room, his gargantuan gut...

Schroon, NY - There's only one "dead zone" remaining for cell phone service along a stretch of the interstate highway that cuts through the eastern Adirondacks. Public officials and executives with AT&T Mobile on Thursday unveiled the company's newest cell tower, a 90-foot-tall structure along Interstate 87 — the Adirondack Northway — in the Essex County town of Schroon (skroon). The...

Washington - D.C. Councilmember Marion Barry says he misspoke when he referred to the Polish community with the disparaging term "Polacks." Barry made the remark when he was meeting with Asian-Americans. That meeting was set up after Barry made two offensive statements last month about Asians. He later apologized. Barry was asked Thursday about racial tensions in the United States and he...

New York - While many in the Jewish music business have forecast the end of the industry due to rampant copying and illegal downloading, one music distributor has taken matters into its own hands, by addressing consumers’ main complaints and meeting them head on. According to Mostly Music, which distributes albums under the name Aderet Music, two often cited reasons for illegal duplication...

New York, NY - A former bodega stock clerk arrested for allegedly luring 6-year-old Etan Patz off a SoHo street and strangling him in a basement has been placed on suicide watch at a hospital as a precaution, NBC 4 New York has learned. Pedro Hernandez, 51, was taken to Bellevue Friday, a source familiar with the case said. He had been set to be arraigned after police announced his arrest in...

Vienna - The U.N. atomic agency has found evidence at an underground bunker in Iran that could mean the country has moved closer to producing the uranium threshold needed to arm nuclear missiles, diplomats said Friday. The International Atomic Energy Agency has found traces of uranium enriched up to 27 percent at the Fordo enrichment plant in central Iran, the diplomats told The Associated...

Tel Aviv - Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a stash of rare ancient jewelry near the site of the biblical Armageddon in the north of the country. Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, who co-directed the dig, said this week that the find offers a rare glimpse into ancient Canaanite high society. The 3,000-year-old jewelry was found inside a ceramic vessel, suggesting the owner hid...

Kiev, Ukraine - A violent scuffle erupted in Ukraine's parliament Thursday evening over a bill that would allow the use of the Russian language in courts, hospitals and other institutions in the Russian-speaking regions of the country. The fight broke out between members of the pro-Western opposition who want to take Ukraine out of Russia's shadow and lawmakers from President Viktor...

New York - Tuesday evening, a charming and sincere young man who is a survivor of childhood abuse shared with me that he had driven 7 hours each way in order to attend a protest at the "Internet Asifa" in CitiField. He mentioned how gratifying it was and how pleased he was to have made the trip. This was the second rally recently organized by abuse victims – the first was held at a Williamsburg...

Manhattan, NY - An upper Manhattan public elementary school will be the first in the city to require that students study Arabic, officials said yesterday. Beginning next semester, all 200 second- through fifth-graders at PS 368 in Hamilton Heights will be taught the language twice a week for 45 minutes — putting it on equal footing with science and music courses. One reason Principal...

New York - Shavuos is a prominent holiday in the Jewish calendar celebrating the giving of the Torah (Law on Sinai). Shavuos is the Hebrew name from Hashem's command to count 7 weeks or 50 days from Passover and then to celebrate the end of the harvest. This year Shavuos starts at Saturday night at sundown on May 26th and concludes at sundown on the May 28th. In NYC Alt. side parking...