Washington – The envoy from Qatar who sparked a bomb scare aboard a Denver-bound plane will being sent home from the United States, a senior State Department official told CBS News. Authorities say the diplomat, identified as Mohammad Al-Madadi, grabbed a surreptitious smoke in a jetliner’s bathroom and he made a joke when confronted by federal [...]

New York, NY – The city is getting ready to welcome Egypt’s boy pharaoh back to the city he wowed in 1979. An exhibit of artifacts from King Tutankhamun’s tomb will make its final stop in New York starting April 23. It is now at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. The New York exhibit will [...]

Bnei Brak, Israel – Dozens of parents and youngsters rallied at the entrance to Bnei Brak to protest haredi draft-dodging. The protesters, all members of The Israeli Forum for the Promotion of Equal Share in the Burden, held up Israeli flags. Some demonstrators also carried signs reading “Must your brothers go to war while you stay [...]

Williamsburg, NY – Flushing Avenue will sprout a protected, two-way bike lane to link cyclists between the Manhattan Bridge and Williamsburg. In an effort to ramp up the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway project, (as was reported here on VIN News), — essentially a borough-circling greenway idealized in 1993 — Department of Transportation officials also proposed that traffic [...]

Alberta, Canada – The city’s only strictly kosher deli was kept alive for six weeks by volunteers when both its owners were ill. “They are a group of angels,” Denise Kavin, the 58-year-old co-owner of Haifa Deli in the city’s southwest, said of the more than 20 volunteers. “How do you thank them all?” Her husband, Ivor [...]

Englewood, NJ – A longstanding legal battle between an Englewood neighborhood group and an expanding synagogue has ended with a thus-far undisclosed settlement in state Superior Court. Two separate legal cases brewing for about a decade have been dismissed because of the settlement. One involves the number of seats East Hill Synagogue can add to the [...]

New York – Internet con men appear to be targeting victims of the Bernard Madoff scandal. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation warned Tuesday that someone had set up a bogus Web site in an attempt to trick Madoff victims into turning over confidential financial information. The site mimics the legitimate one set up by SIPC, with the [...]

New York City – A crooked cabbie stole an estimated $40,000 by overcharging passengers in what appears to be the city’s biggest rider rip-off ever, authorities said Monday. Wasim Khalid Cheema manipulated the meter in his yellow cab to inflate fares paid by unsuspecting passengers, authorities said. A Taxi and Limousine Commission review of trip data concluded [...]

New York City – A crooked cabbie stole an estimated $40,000 by overcharging passengers in what appears to be the city’s biggest rider rip-off ever, authorities said Monday. Wasim Khalid Cheema manipulated the meter in his yellow cab to inflate fares paid by unsuspecting passengers, authorities said. A Taxi and Limousine Commission review of trip data concluded [...]