Yeshiva World News

The Rent Guidelines Board votes tonight on how much to jack up rent for rent-stabilized apartments — a meeting that usually erupts in a loud fight as tenant advocates battle to keep rent increases as low as possible.

Last year, housing advocates pushed for a rent freeze. They want the same thing this year because of the continued economic troubles and high unemployment rates.

In May, the Rent Guidelines Board, which regulates rent adjustments for city apartments, lofts and hotel apartments, voted to consider rent hikes of between 2 percent and 4 percent for one-year leases, and 4 percent to 6 percent for two-year leases.

Tonight, the board meets for their final vote on the matter.

Meanwhile, nearly 300,000 tenants of rent-regulated apartments are now owed refunds. On Tuesday, a court ruled the city illegally hiked rents for tenants who lived in their rent-regulated apartments for more than six years and paid less than $1,000 a month by forcing them to pay a supplemental increase of between $45 and $85.

The Rent Guidelines Board, however, is expected to appeal that ruling.

(Source: NBC New York)

Cops who staff bridges and tunnels in New York City were read harrowing details of a terrorist threat Wednesday advising them to be on the lookout for a fuel-filled tanker meant to explode prior to a secondary blast designed to decimate any first responders.

The message, which was read by police brass, noted that as 10:30 am Tuesday, “there is a threat to all crossings, as of this point, being treated as credible, that some type of tanker will explode causing us to respond.”

“At some point during the response, a second explosion (will occur) causing injury to all first responders to this incident,” the message noted.

The message cautioned that “no date or time has been given” for the potential terrorist strike.

The chilling warning was read at roll call for four Port Authority police commands — cops assigned to the Holland and Lincoln Tunnel; the George Washington Bridge; and also the Staten Island command, which incorporates the Bayonne and Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing, a source said.

A Port Authority police source insisted that the grim advisory stemmed from raw intelligence which originated with a prisoner captured in Afghanistan, who allegedly passed along a claim that a gasoline or propane-filled tanker might be arriving from Canada and the Lincoln Tunnel could be a potential target.

(Source: Fox News)

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall on more than 2 million stationary-side cribs from seven different companies because of a potential hazard for entrapment, suffocation and falls.

The agency has recalled 9 million drop-side cribs in the past five years amid safety concerns, and new rules for them have been in the works.

The latest recalls come as the commission has received injury reports of children that had been entrapped or fallen out of the cribs. The products part of the recalls were made from 2000 through 2009.

Delta Enterprise Corp. said it would recall about 747,000 drop-side cribs and all fixed and drop-side cribs using wooden stabilizer bars. Evenflo Inc. said it was recalling about 750,000 units. Other companies whose cribs were recalled are Jardine Enterprises, LaJobi, Million Dollar Baby, Simmons Juvenile Products Inc. and Child Craft Industries Inc.. Child Craft is no longer in operation and sold its Child Craft name to Foundation Worldwide Inc. in July.

The recalling firms are providing consumers with free repair kits to immobilize the drop-sides or other remedies.

The commission urges parents or caretakers to stop using the cribs immediately. The CPSC’s recall hotline is 800-638-2772, and consumers can visit www.cribsafety.org for a list of participating manufacturers and for downloadable materials about ensuring that children sleep safely.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

According to a number of Arab media reports, including Iran’s FARS Agency, Saudi Arabia has permitted Israel Air Force choppers to land it the country, and Saudi leaders have even offered the IAF the ability to establish a logistical base in a northwestern area of the country, an area that would be important to Israel in an aerial assault against Iran.

The reports are based on eyewitness accounts, reporting the choppers were seen over Tabuk, adding the planes landed over the weekend in a civilian airport in the area and unloaded a considerable quantity of cargo.

Interestingly, it is also reported that civilians who arrived at the same airport over the weekend were told that all flights are canceled, without any advanced warning.

This latest report is in line with reports published by the Times of London about two weeks ago, stating the royal Saudi family has agreed to permit IAF jets into its airspace and to land in the country.

There are also reports that Saudi anti-aircraft units have been drilling for the event that IAF jets will be passing over Saudi skies. There were also reports earlier this week that a flotilla including 12 battleships composed of 11 American vessels and one Israel Navy crossed the Suez Canal with Egyptian permission. Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that the Arab community viewed the passed through the Suez as a signal that Israel and the United States are preparing for a military assault against Iran, with the cooperation of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

When asked to comment, the Office of the IDF Spokesman stated that there is no comment regarding military operations. Saudi officials denied the accuracy of the report.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)

The blue Chrysler minivan came barreling down Lenox Avenue, leaving the police in its wake on Tuesday morning.

A gunpoint robbery had happened just minutes before, leading the police to stop the minivan and take the driver into custody. But then another suspect in the minivan grabbed the wheel and took off, going at least twice the speed limit for 20 blocks. The getaway lasted barely a minute.

The Chrysler minivan plowed into a Honda with a mother and son inside, then spun around and hit three pedestrians, including Sister Mary Celine Graham, 83, a nun who died of her injuries.

The frantic episode — which resulted on Wednesday in a murder charge against the man police say drove the minivan — prompted some onlookers to question police tactics regarding vehicle pursuits. Witnesses said they saw an unmarked police car about a block behind, its lights flashing and its siren blaring.

But the police account, pieced together from radio transmissions and reports, makes clear that responding officers did not have time to give chase, and that the unmarked police car began its pursuit only two blocks before the Chrysler crashed.

“Police cars did go south behind the car, but they were at least a block away,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said. “I wouldn’t consider that a close pursuit. I would consider it appropriate police tactics. It was an unfortunate series of events that caused a nun to lose her life.”

Despite the perception that the police eagerly engage in such pursuits, there are patrol guidelines governing chases.

The New York Police Department’s guidelines lay out a number of factors, like the nature of the offense, that officers and their superiors must consider when deciding whether to pursue vehicles. The time of day, population density and weather also come into play.

The policy requires breaking off pursuits “whenever the risks to uniformed members of the service and the public outweigh the danger to the community if the suspect is not immediately apprehended.”

A patrol supervisor and a commander must direct the pursuit and stop it if conditions warrant. Certain tactics are prohibited, including ramming, placing a police vehicle in a position to be hit, driving alongside the pursued vehicle and setting up roadblocks. (The last comes with the caveat that a supervisor may direct otherwise.)

The episode Tuesday unfolded in nine minutes, the police said. Two robbers stole a BlackBerry and $23 from an 18-year-old, who called the police and described the men and the blue minivan.

Minutes later, the police stopped a minivan 20 blocks north, on West 142nd Street. They had pulled the driver out and begun to handcuff him when a second man in the vehicle took the wheel and sped off.

Sixty seconds later, the Chrysler crashed into the other minivan at West 122nd Street. A handgun was found in the Chrysler.

William Robbins, 18, who was arrested before the crash, was charged with robbery. The driver in the crash, identified by the police as Dyson Williams, 20, was arrested Wednesday and charged with murder and robbery.

(Source: NY Times)

Like any new employee, Jack Abramoff is trying to keep a low profile — or as low a profile as a cause célèbre disgraced lobbyist and convicted felon can keep when news cameramen keep staking out his new workplace.

Mr. Abramoff started his new gig this week at Tov Pizza — “the best kosher pizza in town,” according to a catchy jingle that plays while callers are on hold.

He has so far stayed largely cloistered in a back office. He will work about 40 hours a week, said the owner, Ron Rosenbluth. He comes in around 10:30 a.m., leaves around 5:30 p.m., and wears a yarmulke to work, as many of the male customers and employees here do. He earns between $7.50 and $10 an hour (“or a little less than what he used to make”). He has been responsible, punctual, courteous. “He is not the monster he has been portrayed as,” Mr. Rosenbluth said.

Mr. Abramoff did not appear at the front of the restaurant during a two-hour stretch late Wednesday afternoon as families walked in and out, having ordered slices, veggie burgers and baked ziti. There was, however, a chance sighting in a back office (he wore a red polo shirt and appeared to be reading something).

He declined a request for an interview through Mr. Rosenbluth, and departed through a side entrance, skirting photographers waiting for him in a parking lot.

It is too soon to tell if Mr. Abramoff is cut out for a career in the pizza business, Mr. Rosenbluth said Wednesday. “He’s only been here three days,” said Mr. Rosenbluth, who has been here 26 years.

But of course, Mr. Abramoff stands out among the 18 people who work here. He is that Jack Abramoff, the former lobbying macher who pleaded guilty in 2006 to felony counts involving fraud, corruption and conspiracy, and served three and a half years at a minimum security prison camp in Cumberland, Md. He is now living at a nearby halfway house, which arranged for Mr. Abramoff’s employment here.

“People ask me, ‘Why would you ever hire Jack Abramoff?’ ” said Mr. Rosenbluth, who said he has not bothered to learn much about Mr. Abramoff’s past. “I say, ‘Why wouldn’t I hire Jack Abramoff?’ He’s paying his debt to society, right?”

While in prison, Mr. Abramoff reportedly gave regular Torah lectures, according to a report this week in The Baltimore Jewish Times, quoting a former inmate. Mr. Abramoff focused on Jewish law and also led an introduction to prayer course, the publication said.

Mr. Rosenbluth says he is hoping that he can get help with marketing strategies from Mr. Abramoff, who used to run Signatures, a kosher restaurant in Washington.

By “marketing,” Mr. Rosenbluth does not mean that Mr. Abramoff will win notoriety for his establishment — though he clearly has, since the media attention has been steady and, judging from Mr. Rosenbluth’s disposition, somewhat annoying. “I have a restaurant I need to run,” he said.

Still, better Tov Pizza get the attention than the other kosher pizzerias in Baltimore, said Jason Broth, the restaurant’s night manager.

He added, “I think the marketing term is, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

(Source: NY Times)

The New York State legislature is considering a host of new tax increases to help deal with its budget crisis.

Now there’s talk of restoring a tax break that many New York shoppers probably take for granted.

For the last three years, clothing and shoes costing less than $110 have been exempt from the state’s four percent sales tax, costing New York $690 million in tax revenues each year.

With a state budget gap of $9.2 billion dollars and a budget that’s three months late, there’s talk of  bring back the sales tax on clothes under $110.

Governor Paterson confirms that informal tax discussions with Albany lawmakers are underway.

“They have some proposals on the table,” said Paterson. “We’re reviewing them, and frankly, they don’t sound bad.”

Senate Democratic Conference leader John Sampson went on the record in March saying he was against adding new taxes and it’s a dicey proposal for lawmakers – who are all up for reelection this fall.

“My position has always been no new taxes, no new fees,” he said.

A new poll finds 83 percent of New Yorkers are dissatisfied with state government, and half say they’d vote their assemble member and senator out of office this year.

(Source: WCBSTV)

The tzibur in Nachlas Har Chabad in Kiryat Malachi and elsewhere are continuing tefilos on behalf of 5-year-old Eliezer Lipman ben Devorah Leah Gelfrin, who sustained second and third degree burns over much of his body in a blaze, as was reported by YWN-ISRAEL. The young boy remains in very serious condition in an intensive care unit at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.

Eliezer is a cousin to Moishele Holtzberg, the survivor of the Mumbai terror attack, a grandson of the Rosenbergs, the parents of Rebitzen Rivki Holtzberg HY”D.

It appears that the cause of the fire was a burning candle as reported earlier. Eliezer’s mom was home and she heard his screams, but due to the flames and heavy smoke conditions, she was unable to pull him out of the room. His father, R’ Shmulik was not at home at the time.

A 16-year-old downstairs neighbor came to the rescue and extricated Eliezer from the inferno. He sustained light smoke inhalation. (Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)