With June just a few days away and the conclusion of the virtula school year nearing, Gov. Phil Murphy said today that he is optimistic summer camps could reopen this year as long as the coronavirus outbreak continues to slow in New Jersey. He also put day care centers in the same category.
NJ.com reports:
“I have a high degree of confidence, assuming that the numbers keep going in the right direction, that we can have summer camp activity. We’re just not there yet,” Murphy said at his daily COVID-19 briefing in Trenton.

Only 63 people were hospitalized with suspected COVID-19 in New York City on Monday – a tenth of how many went into hospitals on March 20, the day the city shut down – but Mayor Bill de Blasio is adamant about keeping the lockdown going until June at least.
New York City is the last region in the state of New York to reopen and de Blasio has been vague about when the first phase will begin.
It has met five of the seven reopening requirements set out by Gov. Cuomo but is still two percent short on hospital capacity and doesn’t have enough contact tracers.
Read more at DAILY MAIL.
{Matzav.com}

[COMMUNICATED]
To our dear friends and supporters, I want to invite you… twice!
#1  To fulfill the #1 priority in tzedaka (Shulchan Aruch) giving which is Pidyon Shvuyim – (redeeming of captives) by helping Yad L’Achim rescue trapped women & children before Shavuos…
(Many of us were “trapped” in our homes, perhaps so we can appreciate the magnitude of what these women & children are going through)
2.  To please join the tefillah @the Baal Shem Tov in Mezhibuzh for free, but hurry, as the deadline is approaching…

It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of Mrs. Phyllis Needle a”h.

Mrs. Needle was the wife of Rabbi Marvin Needle z”l.

Mrs. Needle together with her husband was involved in many institutions & organizations in the Chicago community. She was a founding donor to Chicago’s Hatzalah and was the first person in the community who reached out to Chicago’s Hatzalah when they started and wanted to be a participant.

Yehi zichrah boruch.

{Matzav.com}

Antibody tests used to determine if people have been infected in the past with Covid-19 might be wrong up to half the time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in new guidance posted on its website, CNN reports.

[COMMUNICATED]
No one can forget The Siyum.
Though it took place in a very different pre-Corona era, its voices and spirit reverberate even throughout its stormy aftermath.
100,000 Jews gathering together is something that’s hard to imagine now-
But we can relive the echoes of that resounding unity.
Alone in our home but unified in our joint mission, we invite you to join our V’Nismach event TONIGHT, on Leil Erev Shavuos, May 27, at 6:45 PM.
What we now lack in physical proximity, we compensate with the greatest uniting force of every Jew: Ki Heim Chayeinu.
Day by quarantined day, our learning keeps our focus from flagging even in these unthinkable times.

Coronavirus lockdowns may have cost more lives than they saved, according to a Nobel laureate who accurately predicted when China would peak in the crisis, the NY Post reports.
Stanford University biophysicist Michael Levitt, a British American Israeli who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, said he believed other health precautions, such as enforcing the use of masks, would have been more effective in combating the pandemic, the Telegraph reported.

[COMMUNICATED]
Dear Friends, 
We miss you!
We were so looking forward to Receiving the Torah together in a beautiful setting combining the spiritual with the physical- ‘Chatzi La’Hashem chatzi lachem’. 
Hashem planned for us otherwise. 
Please enjoy a ‘Taste of Torah’ from this array of inspiring Presenters. 
Although we can’t celebrate together with the culinary cuisine, we can certainly relish the spiritual cuisine. 
Watch Now at www.gatewaysonline.org/shavuos5780

Bowing to pressure, Maimonides Medical Center in Boro Park is allowing patients to have visitors and be accompanied by relatives for a limited pilot program.
Boro Park’s premier hospital on Tuesday rolled out a visitors’ protocol, days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that family members must be allowed to visit relatives and visually monitor their medical progress. It comes after patients reported horror stories of neglect and not being adequately fed and cared for. Hospitals across the state have barred any visitors out of concern they could spread the coronavirus.
Starting Tuesday, Maimonides will allow each patient to have two visitors a day, one at a time, during select hours, as New York’s pilot program gets underway in 21 hospitals across the state.

The Justice Department has notified Sens. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that it has closed insider trading investigations of their stock sales before the coronavirus pandemic crashed global markets, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The notifications leaves open a Justice Department investigation into Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who earlier this month stepped down as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee after FBI agents seized his cellphone and executed a search warrant for his electronic communications.