NEW YORK (AP) – The Navy hospital ship sent to relieve stress on New York City hospitals at the height the pandemic is discharging or transferring its last 12 patients this weekend as it nears the end of its mission, according to Northwell Health, which provides operational assistance to the vessel. The USNS Comfort, docked […]

NEW YORK (AP) – He’d retreat to his basement, surrounded by thousands of books on the Holocaust. He’d return from Europe with photos of cemeteries. The lessons of relatives who were killed and parents who lived were so striking, he’d make sure his passport was at hand if he ever needed to flee. Yet Isaiah […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says his press briefings are “not worth the time & effort” as his administration prepares to adjust his public presence amid the coronavirus pandemic toward addressing the nation’s economic woes. Tweeting on Saturday, one of the few days in which he has not held a daily briefing since the start […]

ATLANTA (AP) — As the global death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 200,000 on Saturday, countries took cautious steps toward easing lockdowns imposed amid the pandemic, but fears of a surge in infections made even some outbreak-wounded businesses reluctant to reopen. The states of Georgia, Oklahoma and Alaska started loosening restrictions on businesses despite warnings […]

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Video calls weren’t really cutting it for Fiet Aussen, a 91-year-old widow who has spent the past six weeks in lockdown at this city’s Jewish nursing home. Nearly deaf, she isn’t really able to use that technology to communicate with family members, who have been unable to visit her at Beth Shalom […]

NEW YORK (AP) — Paul Stein felt useless — stuck in his Brooklyn brownstone apartment, watching his neighbors suffer deprivations as COVID-19 swept the city. Then, on television, the retired public-sector lawyer and political activist saw people around the world rallying: “I saw people in France and Italy banging pots and pans out their windows, […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — What President Donald Trump says and does often flies in the face of mainstream science. Coronavirus and the idea of injecting disinfectants is only the latest episode. When a rare solar eclipse happened in 2017, astronomers and eye doctors repeatedly warned people not to stare directly at the sun without protection. Photos […]

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Some businesses in Georgia reopened cautiously Friday as the Republican governor eased a monthlong shutdown amid experts’ warnings of a potential new surge in coronavirus infections and a potent objection from President Donald Trump. Georgia has ranked in the bottom per capita for testing — a key component in preventing a […]

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — State and local governments across the United States have obtained 30 million doses of a malaria drug touted by President Trump to treat patients with the new coronavirus, despite warnings from doctors that more research is needed. At least 21 states and Washington, D.C. secured shipments of the drug, hydroxychloroquine, […]

NEW YORK (Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com) — Enclosed is a letter from the Rabbis of the Five Towns/Far Rockaway community that is a result of a meeting that occurred this week. It should be noted that in another letter from Rav Chaim Kanievsky shlita – to be posted soon, he writes regarding all Chutz […]