WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration dove back into Capitol Hill’s COVID-19 negotiations on Tuesday, offering a $916 billion package to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would send a $600 direct payment to most Americans. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made the offer to Pelosi late Tuesday afternoon, he said in a statement. He offered few […]

NEW YORK (JTA) — When 25,000 Jews marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Jan. 5, Evan Bernstein felt something he hadn’t experienced in weeks: optimism. Not even a month earlier, he had prayed with the small Orthodox community in Jersey City, New Jersey, next to the spot where shooters had just killed three people at […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump celebrated the expected approval of the first U.S. vaccine for the coronavirus Tuesday as the White House worked to instill confidence in the massive distribution effort. Trump said the expected approvals are coming before most people thought possible. “They say it’s somewhat of a miracle and I think that’s […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden pledged Tuesday to bring the coronavirus pandemic under enough control to open most of the nation’s schools during his first 100 days as president — going much further on the issue than he has in the past, even while warning that the U.S. is facing a “dark winter.” Biden said […]

BROOKLYN (VINnews/JTA) – New York city officials say they are probing Large crowds that gathered Monday afternoon for the funeral of a beloved Hasidic rabbi in Williamsburg, home to the Satmar Hasidic community in Brooklyn. The funeral took place at the same synagogue where a massive wedding expected to draw thousands was planned and then […]

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Before his death from COVID-19 last week, former Alabama state senator Larry Dixon spoke to his wife of 53 years from his hospital bed and asked her to relay a warning. “Sweetheart, we messed up. We just dropped our guard,” Dr. David Thrasher, a pulmonologist and friend of Dixon’s. recalled him […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators Tuesday released their first scientific evaluation of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and confirmed it offers strong protection, setting the stage for the government to green-light the biggest vaccination effort in the nation’s history. The analysis by Food and Drug Administration scientists comes ahead of a Thursday meeting where the FDA’s independent […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden’s choices for his health care team point to a stronger federal role in the nation’s COVID-19 strategy, restoration of a guiding stress on science and an emphasis on equitable distribution of vaccines and treatments. With Monday’s announcement of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his health secretary and a […]

WARSAW, POLAND – Deepspot, the world’s deepest swimming pool, has officially opened for visitors and amateur divers in the city of Mszczonow, (Amshinov) south-west of Warsaw in Poland. The pool, which cost some 40 million zlotys (about 10.7 million dollars), is 45.4 meters deep and filled with 8000 cubic meters of water, more than twenty […]

LONDON (AP) — A retired British shop clerk received the first shot in the country’s COVID-19 vaccination program Tuesday, the start of an unprecedented global immunization effort intended to offer a route out of a pandemic that has killed 1.5 million. Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, got the shot at 6:31 a.m. on […]