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NEW YORK (AP) — A former U.S. Army mechanical engineer used his job at a military research center to fetch dozens of classified defense documents for an Israeli agent, prosecutors say. The agent — who was at the center of another, infamous 1980s espionage scandal — provided Ben-ami Kadish with wish lists of secret records, according to prosecutors. Over six years, Kadish took home information about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system, and he let the unidentified Israeli consulate worker photograph the documents in his basement, prosecutors say....

PHILADELPHIA, April 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department says it will monitor voting in Philadelphia during Pennsylvania's presidential primary election Tuesday. The federal monitors will be deployed to try to ensure compliance with federal voting rights laws, the Justice Department said in a news release Monday. The monitoring arises from an April 2007 agreement with the city that settled allegations Philadelphia had violated the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, the statement said. A Civil Rights Division attorney will coordinate the monitoring and maintain contact with local election officials, the Justice Department said. Among other requirements,...

U.S. citizens are twice as likely to land in New Jersey's prisons as legal and illegal immigrants. The statistics fall directly in line with several other new studies by sociologists that consistently have found the immigrant incarceration rates equal or lower to that of U.S. citizens. The findings contradict one long-held conception about immigrants and crime. The New Jersey statistics also come to light at a significant juncture, as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeks to give local police departments a greater role in enforcing immigration laws in New Jersey and across the country. "I first got into this...

PHILADELPHIA - The owner of a famous cheesesteak shop did not discriminate when he posted signs asking customers to speak English, a city panel ruled Wednesday. In a 2-1 vote, a Commission on Human Relations panel found that two signs at Geno's Steaks telling customers, "This is America: WHEN ORDERING 'PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH,'" do not violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance. Shop owner Joe Vento has said he posted the signs in October 2005 because of concerns over immigration reform and an increasing number of people in the area who could not order in English. Vento has said he never...

Boarder gets double life sentence for killing two children by Rudy Larini Saturday March 15, 2008, 6:25 AM John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger Richard Toledo at his sentencing in Toms River on Friday.Richard Toledo was sentenced Friday to consecutive life prison terms for the bludgeoning murder of two brothers, plus 30 more years the kidnapping of their mother two years ago. Toledo, 23, was sentenced to life without parole for the slaying of 7-year-old Zabdiel Gonzalez and a second life sentence for the murder of his 14-year-old brother, Karlo. Both boys were bludgeoned with a claw hammer in the basement of their...

NJ gay group says civil unions are unsatisfactory Home News Tribune Online 02/19/08 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS TRENTON: Gay activists want same-sex marriage rights in New Jersey by year's end. Steven Goldstein, chairman of gay rights group Garden State Equality, said Tuesday a state report that finds civil unions create a second-class status for gay couples boosts their claims that the unions don't work. The report's findings were officially released Tuesday but were first reported Saturday by The Associated Press. The law took effect a year ago and was meant to give same-sex couples marriage equality without the title. The report...

Report says civil unions make 'second-class status' By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Writer MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) -- A commission established to study same-sex civil unions in New Jersey has found in its first report that civil unions create a "second-class status" for gay couples rather than giving them equality. The report stops short of recommending that the state allow gay marriage. But it does find that gay couples in Massachusetts, the only state that now allows gay marriage, do not experience some of the legal complications that those in New Jersey do. The civil union law sought to give...