The United States is struggling to test enough people to track and control the spread of the novel coronavirus, a crucial first step to reopening parts of the economy, which President Donald Trump is pushing to do by May 1. Trump on Thursday released a plan to ease business restriction that hinges on a downward trajectory of positive tests. But more than a month after he declared, “Anybody who wants a test, can get a test,” the reality has been much different. People report being unable to get tested. Labs and public officials say critical supply shortages are making it impossible to increase testing to the levels experts say is necessary to keep the virus in check. “There are places that have enough test swabs, but not enough workers to administer them.

Arab media reports said on Thursday that a convoy of Hezbollah vehicles was attacked in Syria near the Lebanese border on Wednesday by two missiles from an Israeli UAV which caused damage but no casualties since the target managed to escape before the blast. Al-Arabiya reported on Thursday morning that one of the people in the convoy was Mustafa Mughniyeh, the son of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was eliminated in a 2008 car bombing by the Mossad and CIA. Mustafa Mughniyeh is a senior Hezbollah commander and a leader in the terror movement’s operations and military apparatus in the Syrian Golan Heights. Last week, Arab media reports said that Israel attacked Iranian military bases in Syria. What is going on?

A 90-year-old woman from Bnei Brak was transferred to a coronavirus hotel in Tel Aviv after she tested positive for the virus before the last day of Pesach, United Hazalah wrote in a press statement. As lich bentching time approached, the woman realized she didn’t bring any candles to bentch licht at the hotel and the hotel had run out of candles. She called her family who lived in Bnei Brak but they weren’t allowed to leave the city due to the lockdown. Instead, they called United Hatzalah to see if they could help. Hatzlah put out a message to volunteers in the Tel Aviv/Yaffo area and a volunteer in Yaffo, Ebrahim Ayuty, responded. He rushed out on his ambucycle, bought candles at a local store and zoomed over to the hotel to bring them to the woman in time for Yom Tov.

A federal judge released a Massachusetts man on Wednesday to home confinement after he was accused of trying to set fire to a Jewish-sponsored assisted living center. Judge Katherine Robertson released John Michael Rathbun, 36, shortly after he was charged with attempted arson. The judge’s decision garnered a written objection from U.S. Attorney Steven Breslow, who wrote that Robertson’s decision to release Rathbun “appears to have been greatly influenced by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” Breslow added that while the pandemic has created “laudable” concerns, the reasoning is not a sound basis for releasing the East Longmeadow resident, who presents both a flight risk and a risk to public safety.

Knesset MKs held a discussion on Thursday about the lockdown imposed on Bnei Brak and made a decision to ease the regulations as of 6 p.m. on Thursday. In Bnei Brak, all lockdown rules were eased except for the ban on public transportation, which will remain in place until April 20. Private cars are now allowed to enter and leave the city. The Bnei Brak municipality committed to the evacuation of 700 Bnei Brak coronavirus patients to coronavirus hotels. In Jerusalem, the neighborhoods that were placed in lockdown will remain restricted until April 19, with residents being allowed to leave their neighborhoods for essential purposes only. The Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood was added to the list of restricted areas in Jerusalem.

More than a year has passed since the fateful elections of April 9th, 2019 when no government was elected for the first of what now seems to be three consecutive elections. The 21st Knesset was voted in and so were the 22nd and 23rd Knessets. With no government able to be formed by the deadline of the mandate that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz had on Wednesday evening, Israelis are now seriously looking at the unthinkable, a 4th election with the Covid-19 Coronavirus crisis raging in the background. Following stalled talks between the Blue and White faction and the Likud faction on Thursday, President Reuven Rivlin has set August 4 as the date for the fourth round of elections should the two parties continue to fail at creating a unity government.

A total of 32 residents of two Jewish assisted living facilities in Massachusetts that are part of the same nonprofit umbrella group have passed away from the coronavirus and dozens of residents and staff members are ill with the virus, a JTA report said. Chelsea Jewish Life Care, which has three facilities in Boston, suffered 11 fatalities and JGS Lifecare in Longmeadow, a suburb of Springfield had 21 fatalities. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities have been struck hard by the coronavirus throughout the world. In Israel, 52 out of 141 coronavirus fatalities were residents of nursing homes or assisted living facilities and there have been outbreaks of the coronavirus at various senior facilities throughout the country.

Israelis stranded in Morocco due to the coronavirus crisis who were supposed to be brought home on a rescue flight to Israel before Pesach are still trapped there due to a dispute between the Moroccan government in Rabat and the United Arab Emirates, an Army Radio report said on Thursday. The dispute began after the UAE rescued most of its citizens trapped in Morocco but due to lack of room, left 74 of its citizens behind. The UAE, aware that Israelis were also trapped in the country, offered Israel to send another rescue plane to Morocco that would rescue its remaining citizens as well as Israeli citizens. Israel agreed, especially since El Al is banned from direct flights to Morocco.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took to morning TV shows Tuesday to push back against President Donald Trump’s claim of “total” authority to reopen the nation’s virus-stalled economy, noting that a president is not an absolute monarch. “We don’t have a king,” Cuomo said on NBC’s “Today. “We have a president. That was a big decision. We ran away from having a king, and George Washington was president, not King Washington. So the president doesn’t have total authority.” The Democratic governor, whose state has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, was reacting to Trump’s assertion Monday that “when somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total.” “Nope,” Cuomo said.

Former President Barack Obama will endorse Joe Biden on Tuesday, multiple news outlets are reporting. Obama will make the endorsement of his former vice president in a video message, offering why he believes Biden is the candidate needed at this moment of crisis in America. The endorsement reunites the former running mates and positions Obama, whose endorsement of Biden was seen as a forgone conclusion once Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race last week, to be one of Biden’s most powerful surrogates in the race against President Donald Trump. It also marks the public re-emergence of Obama into the political arena. The former president kept a low public profile throughout much of the Democratic nomination fight, but he was active behind the scenes.