Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu‏‏ said on Motzei Yom Kippur that Israel’s hospitals are preparing to increase their capacity to treat 1,500 seriously ill coronavirus patients by Thursday, October 1. The prime minister held a series of discussions with senior health officials and other government officials before Yom Kippur about steps to fight the coronavirus as well as gradual steps to emerge from the current lockdown. Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Chezy Levy warned on Sunday that Israel is “almost at the point of no return” and that he doesn’t anticipate that Israel will be able to emerge from the lockdown immediately after Sukkos.

The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus eclipsed 1 million on Tuesday, nine months into a crisis that has devastated the global economy, tested world leaders’ resolve, pitted science against politics and forced multitudes to change the way they live, learn and work. “It’s not just a number. It’s human beings. It’s people we love,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a professor of medical history at the University of Michigan who has advised government officials on containing pandemics and lost his 84-year-old mother to COVID-19 in February. “It’s our brothers, our sisters. It’s people we know,” he added.

A New York Times report that President Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House — and, thanks to colossal losses, no income tax at all in 11 of the 18 years that the Times reviewed — served to raise doubts about Trump’s self-image as a shrewd and successful businessman. That Sunday’s report came just weeks before Trump’s re-election bid served to intensify the spotlight on Trump the businessman — an identity that he has spent decades cultivating and that helped him capture the presidency four years ago in his first run for political office.

Two Magen David Adom volunteers were caught on camera conducting black market corona tests for hundreds of shekel. According to a special report that appeared on Ynet news website, who conducted an undercover investigation, the volunteers are running a network of black market tests. One of the volunteers who was caught on camera, a “high-ranking” volunteer in MDA’s Jerusalem branch, planned an “anonymous” Coronavirus test, that was carried out by a second volunteer. The volunteer who did the testing arrived in a dark vehicle and was not wearing any protective suit, in spite of the danger of being infected by the person who was getting tested. The test was done in exchange for hundreds of shekel.

As Israelis woke up to a new day on Thursday, news headlines flashed grim reports of the new strict lockdown beginning on Friday. Other news reports spoke about the overload in Israel’s hospitals and the shortage of medical staff to tend to seriously ill patients. The Finance Ministry warned that a three-week lockdown will cost the economy NIS 35 billion (($10.06 billion). Israeli’s Employment Service stated on Thursday that over 120,000 new job seekers were registered with the service during the past week, raising the total number of registered job seekers to 854,000.

Some notable quotes from Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a former Notre Dame law professor and current judge on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. President Donald Trump on Saturday announced he was nominating Barrett to fill the seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ___ ON JUDICIAL NOMINEES “However cagey a justice may be at the nomination stage, her approach to the Constitution becomes evident in the opinions she writes. … It would be difficult for a modern justice to avoid revealing her position on whether the original public meaning of the Constitution controls its interpretation.” — 2013 article in the Texas Law Review. ___ “We shouldn’t be putting people on the court that share our policy preferences.

Rosh Hashanah tefillos took place in the United Arab Emirates’ capital city of Abu Dhabi for the first time in history, B’Chadrei Chareidim reported. There has been an organized Jewish community in Dubai for years, but to date, Abu Dhabi has not had any organized Jewish activities outside private homes. “I’ve been active in Abu Dhabi as well almost from the moment I arrived in Dubai but mainly through activities in the homes of Jews living there,” Rabbi Levi Duchman, the only resident Rav in the UAE, said. “We held shiurei Torah or chavrusah learning but we never held tefillos in a minyan in Abu Dhabi or other religious ceremonies.” The new shul is in a central area called Saadiyat Island.

Democrats raised more than $50 million in the hours after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, demonstrating how the liberal icon’s passing and the contentious nomination fight that lies ahead have already galvanized the party’s base. The jaw-dropping sum was raised by 4 p.m. Saturday after news of her death broke late Friday, according to a donation ticker on the website of ActBlue, the party’s online fundraising platform. The 2020 campaign, which will decide control of the White House and the Senate, had already delivered record-shattering fundraising totals for the Democrats, a sign of the motivation within the party to rebuke President Donald Trump on Election Day.

Joe Biden on Sunday slammed President Donald Trump and leading Senate Republicans for trying to jam through a replacement for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and urged more senators to stand with a pair of GOP colleagues who oppose the election-season rush. The extraordinary televised plea from the Democratic presidential candidate to Republican senators reflected the ferocious maneuvering that has followed Ginsburg’s death at 87 on Friday. Her passing upended a campaign that had, until then, focused on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the nation’s economic collapse and racial unrest that has stoked protests in U.S. cities.

The frum community in Melbourne is facing an unprecedented situation not seen since World War II, a Rosh Hashanah without minyanim, a shuttered shul, and brand-new shul furniture which will remain unused. As YWN reported earlier this week, the frum community in Melbourne, which is located in the state of Victoria – currently under strict health regulations due to a coronavirus outbreak – wrote a letter to the local authorities requesting a permit to daven in minyanim for Rosh Hashanah in accordance with social distancing regulations. Their request was not approved. The restrictions preclude gatherings of even ten people and anyone who violates the regulations are subject to huge fines of thousands of dollars.