SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has likely taken a heavy toll on North Korea, forcing leader Kim Jong Un to avoid public activities and his people into panic buying for daily necessities, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Wednesday. Although North Korea has taken intense quarantine measures, it maintains there are no […]

NEW YORK (JTA) – The impact of the coronavirus on the Jewish world is a study in contrasts. In Israel, where the total death toll as of Tuesday was 238 and the number of new daily infections below 50, the country has significantly eased its lockdown. School has resumed for some grades, businesses have reopened, and […]

BNEI BRAK (VINnews) — In a live video clip transmitted from his home, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, the Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovezh and the president of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah (Council of Torah Sages), spoke to Yeshiva students around the country and gave them words of Chizuk during the present difficult situation: “Baruch Hashem, some Yeshivos […]

JERUSALEM (AP) — As the coronavirus pandemic gathered strength last month, community leaders in a Palestinian neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem tried to impose lockdown and quarantine measures to protect residents. The problem: there were no police to enforce the measures. Kufr Aqab is within the Israeli-drawn municipal boundary of Jerusalem, which Israel views […]

NEW YORK (AP) – New York City’s subway system went silent in the early morning hours of Wednesday, as part of a plan for the normally round-the-clock system to shut down for train cleaning. The trains, which had been running on a reduced schedule since late March, are now going to be stopped from 1 […]

LONDON — A leading epidemiologist whose work heavily influenced Britain’s lockdown measures has resigned from his position as a government adviser after a newspaper revealed he broke social distancing rules. Professor Neil Ferguson says he “made an error of judgment” and regrets “any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing.” […]

NEW YORK (AP) – Take the New York metropolitan area’s progress against the coronavirus out of the equation and the numbers show the rest of the U.S. is moving in the wrong direction, with the known infection rate rising even as states move to lift their lockdowns, an Associated Press analysis found Tuesday. New confirmed […]

BARCO DE VALDORES, SPAIN (VINnews) — 106-year-old Lucia Blanc, a resident of the Galicia region in northwestern Spain, has already seen everything in her life, and now she has also survived the Corona virus to her doctors’ amazement. Blanco, born in December 1913, went through World War I as a child, survived the Spanish influenza, […]

NEW YORK (AP) – As governments around the world consider how to monitor new coronavirus outbreaks while reopening their societies, many are starting to bet on smartphone apps to help stanch the pandemic. But their decisions on which technologies to use — and how far those allow authorities to peer into private lives — are […]

NEW YORK (THE CONVERSATION/AP) – The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea When some people become infected with the coronavirus, they only develop mild or undetectable cases of COVID-19. Others suffer severe symptoms, fighting to breathe on a ventilator for weeks, if they survive at all. Despite a […]