Thousands of tenants in New York City are organizing for the city’s largest rent strike in decades, according to multiple reports online. The strikers are demanding that Gov. Andrew Cuomo cancel rent and mortgage payments for four months or for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, whichever is longer. The strikers recently got a high-profile supporter. “People can’t pay,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Socilist Democrat from the Bronx, who is co-sponsoring a national bill to cancel rent, said on a call with strikers Monday. “You cannot coerce someone into doing something that they cannot do. There is no money in the bank.” “It’s not that it’s impossible to do and it’s not that we can’t do it,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in a live video on her Facebook page on Monday.

A Chassidish family in Quebec, Canada made a thoughtful gesture to their non-Jewish neighbors who had become the unwitting audience for the outdoor tefillos of their neighbors during the coronavirus pandemic. The family sent the neighbors wrapped packages of homemade pastries accompanied by a letter in English and French stating: “To our dear neighbor: We hope this letter comes to you and your family in good health and great spirit. We would like to thank you and show our appreciation for your patience and understanding in this hard time that we experience together.” “During the last few weeks you have seen us coming out on our porches three times a day to pray. It might have caused inconvenience to some of you and we value your support.” “Please accept our small token of appreciation.

YWN regrets to inform you of the tragic Petira of Hbochur Moshe Just (Yust) Z”L, who was R”L killed in a hit and run accident in Arizona. He was 18. Sources tell YWN that a group of 3 boys were on a cross country trip, when they stopped on the 89 Freeway near Flagstaff Arizona late Sunday night to make a Kiddush Hashem. The boys noticed a vehicle stuck with a flat tire on the side of the road, and stopped to offer their assistance. Minutes later, a speeding vehicle passed by, and struck Moshe. The vehicle sped away and never stopped. He was R”L Niftar at the scene. Misaskim of NY received a phone call about the tragedy and immediately reached out to the Chabad Shliach in Flagstaff Arizon, Rabbi Dovie Schapiro, who rushed to the scene.

International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day, a day similar to Labor Day in the US, is celebrated on May 1st in many countries throughout the world. In Finland, the day was marred for the Jewish community due to an anti-Semitic incident in the Nordic country, Yisrael Hayom reported. A statue of Vladimir Lenin was vandalized with the words “Jewish mass murderer” and an image of a Star of David in the town of Kotka in southern Finland. The week before, a Jewish cemetery in the nearby city of Hamina was vandalized. A member of the Finnish Jewish community told Israel Hayom: “Finland is now like other ‎places.

President Donald Trump says he believes a vaccine for COVID-19 will be available by the end of the year. Trump also says the U.S. government is putting its “full power and might” behind remdesivir, a drug that has shown early promise as a treatment for the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Trump commented Sunday night during a televised town hall sponsored by Fox News Channel. Trump sat inside the Lincoln Memorial and fielded questions from two Fox hosts, as well as from people who submitted questions over Fox’s social media platforms. Trump responded to a Nebraska man who recovered from COVID-19 by saying: “We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year.” He also said his administration was pushing hard for remdesivir. U.S.

NYC Mayor DeBlasio blew an opportunity on Sunday morning to explain a glaring double standard that has brought him under attack. DeBlasio fudged his way out of the question convincing even more people of their accusations. As YWN had reported, the morning after Williamsburg’s Levaya incident last week, the NYPD was out in force and wrote nearly 100 summonses to pedestrians for not wearing masks. One each summonse, it was clearly written that the reason for the summose was “Mayor’s executive order”. Yet on Shabbos afternoon, the NYPD was out around the city and not only were they not giving summonses to people not wearing masks, but they were actually giving out masks to those not wearing them.

Below is a response to a letter written to State Senator Jen Metzger by a Sullivan County Resident. Thank you for writing, Linda. I am well aware of this issue and believe that the safest thing for all residents to do is to stay put in their homes and travel as little as possible. My team and I are doing all that we can to get through to the Governor, requesting that he provide more clarity as it relates to seasonal camps and colonies, which should certainly be shut down during this pandemic as it will be difficult for them to comply with important social distancing measures.

A new mark on North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s wrist could suggest that he has had heart surgery, according to medical experts. Kim made his first public appearance on Friday after a lengthy absence of nearly three weeks from the public eye. North Korean state-run media agency Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released pictures and video of Kim attending the opening of the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer factory near Pyongyang. Closer examination of the video footage has revealed what appears to be a needle mark on Kim’s right wrist, a mark that medical experts say could indicate that Kim had a “cardiovascular procedure.” The mark was not present during Kim’s previous public outing on April 11, according to the independent NK News.

New York’s schools and colleges will remain shut through the end of the academic year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday. The order, which applies to 4.2 million students statewide, continues a shutdown order that was set to expire May 15. Cuomo said it is simply too risky to reopen at a time when the virus is still sending nearly 1,000 people into the hospital every day. “We must protect our children. Every parent and citizen feels that,” he said. A decision about whether to allow summer school will be deferred until the end of May, he said. Whenever schools are allowed to reopen, each district would need to have its plan to do so approved by the state.

Dr Vadimir “Zev” Zelenko who has hyped an anti-malaria drug as a possible COVID-19 treatment has fallen under investigation by the Justice Department after an email blunder. The examination of Zelenko’s records began when conservative commentator Jerome Corsi accidentally sent an email intended for Zelenko to another “Z” name in his address book – federal prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, who as a member of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team had spent months scrutinizing Corsi’s activities during the 2016 presidential election. According to Corsi, Zelinsky responded to the errant email by contacting his lawyer and requesting all of his communications with Zelenko.