TOKYO (AP) — Panic and pollution drive the market for protective face masks, so business is booming in Asia, where fear of the virus from China is straining supplies and helping make mask-wearing the new normal. Demand for face masks and hand sanitizing liquid has soared, as both local residents and visitors from China stock […]

BEIJING (AP) – This should be peak season for a 12-room hotel near the train station in the Chinese industrial hub of Wuhan. The Chinese New Year usually brings in plenty of travelers and delivers profits of around $3,000 a month. But the place is empty. Wuhan, the center of a deadly viral outbreak, is […]

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African billionaire businessman has apologized for telling U.S. President Donald Trump that “Africa loves you” during the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. A video of Patrice Motsepe’s remarks to Trump went viral on social media and sparked outrage from people who disagreed with Motsepe and lambasted him for […]

SAO PAULO, Brazil (JTA) — The governor of Brazil’s largest state called the Holocaust “humankind’s day of shame” at the official ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Latin America’s largest nation. “It’s not only about remembering the 6 million Jews who were murdered, but also all others murdered elsewhere in all times, but […]

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — China demanded Monday that a major Danish newspaper, which angered Muslims worldwide by publishing drawings of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006, apologizes for a cartoon on the new virus outbreak in China. Jyllands-Posten’s chief editor, Jacob Nybroe, said the cartoon, which shows the Chinese flag with what resembles viruses instead of […]

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian officials and satellite images suggest the Islamic Republic is preparing to a launch a satellite into space after three major failures last year, the latest for a program which the U.S. claims helps Tehran advance its ballistic missile program. Satellite images from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. that […]

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Moments after President Donald Trump announced his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem released a security alert that warned against traveling to some areas of Jerusalem. The alert referenced “widespread calls for demonstrations in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza,” and warned against personal travel to “the […]

JERUSALEM (JTA) — On Friday, in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, 8-year-old Qais Abd Abu Ramileh drowned in a pit filled by last week’s torrential rains. Reading the news after Shabbat, I was saddened to hear about Qais’ death. From when he was reported missing until early Saturday morning, Israeli police officers, firefighters, municipal […]

JERUSALEM (AP) — The population of Jewish settlements in the West Bank surged by more than 3% in 2019, well above the growth rate of Israel’s overall population, a settler group said Tuesday. It predicted even higher growth this year thanks to a nascent building boom made possible by friendly policies of the Trump administration. […]

BERLIN (AP) — Historians have presented a collection of photos kept by the deputy commander of the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp that they say appears to include images of John Demjanjuk, the retired Ohio auto worker who was tried in Germany for his alleged time as a Sobibor guard. The collection unveiled Tuesday at Berlin’s […]