The Senate confirmed Lloyd Austin as the next Pentagon chief Friday, making him the nation’s first Black Defense secretary. The Senate voted 93 to 2 to confirm Austin. Austin’s confirmation follows Wednesday’s Senate confirmation of Avril Haines, who became the first woman to the lead nation’s 18 intelligence agencies as the director of national intelligence. In back-to-back votes Thursday, the House and Senate passed legislation granting Austin, a retired four-star Army general, a waiver to lead the Pentagon. The Senate approved Austin’s waiver by a vote of 69-27 and the House approved the waiver by a vote of 326 to 78. Under the National Security Act of 1947, Congress has prohibited any individual from serving as secretary of Defense within seven years of active-duty service.

Lottery players will have another shot Friday night at the second-largest jackpot in Mega Millions history. The Mega Millions top prize climbed to an estimated $1 billion ahead of Friday’s drawing. It is only the third time in lottery history that a national jackpot game tops the $1 billion mark. The current Mega Millions record is $1.536 billion, sold in Oct. 2018. Powerball holds the world record for a jackpot worth $1.586 billion. That was shared among three winning tickets on Jan. 13, 2016. No one has won the Mega Millions jackpot since Sept. 15, allowing the prize to grow larger and larger over four months. The $1 billion prize is for an annuity option, paid over 30 years. Winners almost always opt for cash prizes, which for Mega Millions would be $739.6 million cash. (AP)

Coronavirus czar Prof. Nachman Ash said this week that the first dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has proven to be less effective than the US biotech suggested, Army Radio reported. Ash said that many Israelis contracted the virus after being vaccinated with the first dose. “The data on the protection against the virus after the first dose is lower than Pfizer presented,” he said. Pfizer claimed that its vaccine is about 52% effective after the first dose, and 95% effective a week after the second dose. According to Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health division, over 12,400 Israelis were diagnosed with the virus after being vaccinated, including 69 people who received both doses.

One of the 143 people pardoned by former President Donald Trump in his last days in his office was a Jew named J.B. who was in prison on a ten-year sentence for conducting a marijuana trafficking operation from his parents’ home in Staten Island. J.B.’s cohorts smuggled the marijuana via a nature reserve on the Canadian border and the marijuana was sold across the US. When J.B. realized that the police had become aware of the operation, he fled to Canada, and then to Israel, but subsequently returned home after he realized he would be extradited and would be judged far more harshly than if he turned himself in. J.B. returned to the States and cooperated with law enforcement, pleading guilty to the charges against him in 2011 and signing a plea agreement.

Members of the National Guard have been allowed back into the Capitol Complex after a slate of lawmakers voiced their outrage at guardsmen being banished to a parking garage as a rest area, multiple news outlets are reporting. The Guard will now be allowed to rest in the US Capitol Visitor Center. The change comes after thousands of National Guardsmen were moved to a parking garage after they were told they could no longer use space within the US Capitol Complex, including areas like the cafeteria of a Senate office building, as a rest area. News of the guardsmen’s situation, which was first reported by Politico, drew swift outrage from lawmakers who tweeted their concern over the situation.

The Mea Shearim-based Chareidi home hospitalization organization Chasdei Amram that provides medical treatment for coronavirus patients at home, is facing a dire crisis due to a severe shortage of doctors, Yisrael Hayom reported. The organization has made an urgent appeal to the Health Ministry to allow them to bring in doctors from other countries, funded by anonymous donors. However, at least at the moment, it appears that the plan will not come to fruition due to the opposition of an anti-piracy medical group. The infection rate in Jerusalem is rising, especially in the Chareidi sector, with about 1,000 new virus patients every day – half of them from the Chareidi sector. “The situation is catastrophic,” one of the organization’s representatives told Yisrael Hayom.

The United Arab Emirates signed an agreement with the US to purchase 50 F-35 stealth fighter jets and up to 18 armed Reaper drones about an hour before Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Biden administration officials said they plan on reviewing the $23 billion arms deal the Trump administration reached with the UAE as a sideline to the Abraham Accords. After the White House informed Congress in October of its intention to sell the F-35 jets to the UAE, Democrats in Congress tried to thwart the deal but failed to gain enough support. Democrats said they are concerned after maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, which is legally mandated in  US law.

Georgia conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Thursday made good on her promise to file articles of impeachment against President Biden. The freshman Republican, who has supported QANON conspiracy theories and criticized the 25,000 National Guard deployed to Washington D.C. to protect the presidential inauguration, took to Twitter to make her announcement. “I’ve just filed articles of impeachment on President Joe Biden, we will see how this goes,” Greene said. Congresswoman Greene released the following statement: “President Joe Biden is unfit to hold the office of the Presidency. His pattern of abuse of power as President Obama’s Vice President is lengthy and disturbing.

Parents of 160 IDF soldiers have hired an attorney to protect the rights of their children whom they claim are facing threats and sanctions, including canceled leave, for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Arutz Sheva reported. The leader of the parents’ group, Arnon Grossman, told Arutz Sheva that after Army Radio heard about the issue, it broadcast an IDF spokesperson statement that the IDF does not have a policy to pressure soldiers into receiving the vaccine. Nevertheless, the parents in the group counter that the IDF statement has no basis in reality and their children have been called in for personal discussions with their commanders and have faced shaming and isolation. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Fifteen COVID-19 vaccination hubs run by New York City are postponing all first-dose appointments and other sites have stopped making new appointments as the state burns through its supply of the shots, officials said Thursday. Vaccinations in the city haven’t stopped, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. Another 45,000 doses were administered Wednesday, bringing the total number of people who have gotten a shot in the city to nearly half a million. But the city’s capacity to hand out shots, which was initially limited, now far exceeds the number of doses available. “We’re going to be at 50,000 a day and more very soon if we have the vaccine to go with it,” de Blasio said.