Health officials Thursday reported the first U.S. case of person-to-person spread of the new virus from China. The man is married to the Chicago woman who got sick from the virus after she returned from a trip to Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. There have been cases reported of the infectious virus spreading to others in a household or workplace in China and elsewhere. The new case is the sixth reported in the United States. The other five were travelers who developed the illness after returning to the U.S. from China. The latest patient had not been in China. The Chicago woman returned from central China on Jan. 13, then last week went to a hospital with symptoms and was diagnosed with the viral illness. She and her husband, both in their 60s, are hospitalized.

Israel’s police have opened a community assistance and services center for Chareidim in Yerushalayim, the first of its kind in the country.  A number of Chareidi officers will be serving at the center and one of them is a Chassidish Yiddish speaker. Commander of the Yerushalayim area for the police, Deputy Commissioner Doron Yadid, visited the center on Wednesday. According to a statement issued by the police, the center was opened as part of a long-term strategic plan in order to strengthen the connection between the police and the Chareidi community and in an effort to provide better serve the Chareidi communities inside the regional auspices of the Yerushalayim branches.

Ohr Neriya of Petach Tikva, who has been imprisoned in difficult conditions for weeks in Ukraine after being involved in an accident in which the father of a local police officer was killed, was released to house arrest on Wednesday, Kikar H’Shabbos reported. Neriya was imprisoned immediately after the accident despite the fact that he was proven innocent of responsibility for the accident in court. The judge was apparently unsatisfied with the trial’s conclusion and ordered another trial to be held, which will only take place in another six months. Neriya’s mother, Dorit Ohr, has started a fundraising campaign to assist her son who is currently a chassan and was looking forward to his wedding which was forced to be indefinitely delayed.

Six people arrested in a Bronx apartment in possession of $7 million worth of heroin and fentanyl were released without bail – thanks to the new “bail reform law” that went into effect on January 1st in New York State. “The sheer volume of heroin and fentanyl packages assembled in a small apartment just off the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx is shocking. Even veteran narcotics investigators were surprised by the output of this packaging operation, which was run out of a nondescript apartment in the borough afflicted by the city’s highest rate of overdose death,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan.

Naama Issachar and her mother Yaffa are currently flying to Israel together with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara. Naama and her mother met with Netanyahu and his wife Sara around noon on Thursday at the airport in Moscow after Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Netanyahu began his meeting with Putin at the Kremlin by thanking him for pardoning Issachar. “I want to thank you in the name of all the Jewish people for your quick decision to pardon Naama Issachar. This moved all of us and our thankfulness is from all Israeli citizens with all our hearts.” Putin said that his meeting with Yaffa Issachar in Israel last week played a large part in his decision to pardon Naama.

El Al Airlines announced on Thursday that it is halting all flights to China until March 25 due to the outbreak of the quickly spreading coronavirus. The decision was apparently made after El Al employees refused to staff flights to the country where over 170 people have died from the virus and over 7,700 people have been infected, Calcalist reported. El Al will continue their flights to Hong Kong and other airline companies that fly from Israel to China are continuing their service for now. Meanwhile, later on Thursday, a 25-year-old woman was forcibly hospitalized and quarantined at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer due to fear she’s been infected with the coronavirus, Channel 13 News reported.

President Reuven Rivlin delivered a speech in Hebrew on Wednesday in the Bundestag, the German parliament in Berlin, to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, beginning his speech by reciting the tefillah of Yizkor. The parents of fallen soldier Hadar Goldin, hy’d, and Oron Shaul, h’yd, whose bodies have been held captive by Hamas for five and a half years, accompanied Rivlin on his trip to Germany. “The Goldin and Shaul families are here with me today,” Rivlin said in his speech. “Five and a half years ago, during Operation Tzuk Eitan, IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul were killed. Their bodies are still being held by Hamas.

Criminal justice reformers in New York were riding high last spring after the legislature passed an overhaul that eliminated cash bail for most nonviolent crimes. But now, a backlash over the bail law may have diminished their chances of winning additional reforms on issues like parole eligibility, solitary confinement and police accountability. Advocates who cheered the bail overhaul find themselves on defense amid significant criticism from prosecutors and law enforcement officials, who say the new bail law has jeopardized public safety. Most of the concerns revolve around instances of defendants being released under the new law and then committing new crimes.

The Roman Spring in Chamat Tiverya, which hasn’t flowed in ten years, began flowing again on Wednesday morning thanks to the heavy rainfall this winter which has raised the Kinneret’s water level. The temperature of the flowing spring is 140 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the Gemara, these ancient springs were heated when they passed the entrance of Gehinnom. “It’s due to the Kinneret’s rise in water level which put pressure on the aquifer,” explained the manager of the Chamat Tiverya National Park. The Kinneret’s water level, which is currently a meter higher than it was last year at the same time, exerted pressure on the aquifer – the underground layer of water-bearing rock and sediment – and caused the dormant spring within the ground to resume its natural flow.

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5TJT.com “Yeshiva Week” is over and everyone has returned from their midwinter vacation (or most everyone). Some had a Staycation; some went to Eretz Yisroel or Miami; some went skiing, and some went to the New American Dream Mall. There is a verse in Tehillim that is cited by the […]