The number of people infected in Italy with the new coronavirus rose 40% to 1,576 in just 24 hours, Italian authorities announced Sunday, adding that five more infected people had died. The news came as a new U.S. government advisory urged Americans not to travel to the two Italian regions hardest hit by the virus. That brings the number of deaths in Italy to 34 since cases of the virus exploded in the country on Feb. 21. Italian health authorities say the increase is expected, since it takes as long as two weeks for containment measures to take effect, and because Italy has a large number of elderly people. The U.S.

Pete Buttigieg, who rose from being a small-town Midwestern mayor to a barrier-breaking, top-tier candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is ending his campaign. Three people with knowledge of Buttigieg’s decision told The Associated Press he began informing campaign staff on Sunday. They were not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. His campaign said Buttigieg will speak Sunday night in South Bend, Indiana. Buttigieg, the first openly gay candidate to seriously contend for the presidency, was perhaps the most consistently impressive candidate in the Democratic field — eloquent and disciplined — and tried to make the case that his party thrived when it embraced candidates who offered generational change.

For generations, Yidden would gather in small groups in preparation for Pesach to bake matzos with their family or kehillah. This sacred mitzva was done with joy, excitement and at times with mesirus nefesh to carry on the legacy of the Yidden that left Mitzrayim carrying dough on their backs. In recent years matza has been commercialized in factories, hence the tradition has been lost. That’s about to change! STEEL AND STONE OVENS are revitalizing the cherished tradition of yesteryear. We are proud to present a unique and traditional experience to bake matzos on your own using our exceptional handcrafted European MATZAH OVENS.

A.J. Broome is a 56-year-old married gay man living in St. Petersburg, Florida. Until recently, he was torn over who to pick in the Florida primary. “I seldom vote down party lines,” said Broome, who is a property manager, adding that he voted in presidential elections for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and also Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But when he started thinking about the March 17 primary, he became uneasy. “I was looking at Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders. They intrigued me. Bernie was about real change. And Pete was a newcomer,” Broome said. Then, an alternative emerged: former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. “There you go. He’s the one who’s going to be able to fight Trump,” Broome said. “Bloomberg really can’t be blackmailed.

In spite of repeatedly not passing the electoral threshold in the previous elections, Otzma Yehudit party leader Itamar Ben Gvir has chosen to stay in the election race. Ben Gvir was facing mounting pressure from sources in the right-wing Chareidi camp as well as the Likud party to withdraw his party from the race so as not to lose votes that may otherwise come to support right-wing parties and may end the stalemate in the Israeli Knesset. All polls taken thus far show that the party will not pass the electoral threshold and therefore fail to gain any seats in the upcoming Knesset. On Sunday evening Ben Gvir made an official statement to the media that said: “We are here to stay. The right does not have 61 mandates without Otzma Yehudit.

Rav Meir Turnheim, a Chabbad chassid who lives in Lod has successfully predicted the results of past political elections in Israel and throughout the world with great accuracy, basing his predictions on a specific complex method of singling out letters from one passuk in the parsha read in the week of the elections in the section read on the day of the elections. At times, his predictions were proven true despite the fact that all other predictions and polls predicted otherwise. According to his predictions for the Israeli elections on Monday, Rav Turnheim claims that based on his method, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will win the elections, as his name is mentioned ten times in the parsha (Parshas Tzevah) and Gantz’s name is not even mentioned once.

Concerns about the coronavirus outbreak’s threat to the world economy grew Saturday as authorities in the U.S. reported its first domestic death from the virus and President Donald Trump denounced criticism of his response to the threat as a “hoax” cooked up by his enemies. China’s manufacturing plunged in February by an even wider margin than expected after efforts to contain the virus shut down much of the world’s second-largest economy, an official survey showed. The survey, coming as global stock markets fall sharply on fears that the virus will spread abroad, adds to mounting evidence of the vast cost of the disease that emerged in central China in December and its economic impact worldwide.

To better serve the community in Rockland County, Ramapo Police will soon be launching a brand new “Community Affairs Unit”. YWN has learned that the Ramapo Police Department turned to the Commanding Officer of the NYPD’s 66th Precinct, Deputy Inspector James King, who is turn reached out to the venerable Misaskim Organization in Boro Park for their assistance. As a leading community activist for more than 30 years, Rabbi Jack Meyer has been dealing with police and community issues on a a daily basis for decades, and quickly set up a meeting at Misaskim Headquarters in Boro Park. Attending the meeting were representatives from other major organizations such as Hatzolah, Shomrim, Chaveirim, Community Board and other leading community activists.

By: Naftali A. Schiff Our ancestors are calling! What wouldn’t we do for our parents? What about our parents’ parents, and their parents?  The Holocaust decimated so many Jewish communities throughout Europe. The survivors fled, eager to rebuild their lives. They left memories, and they left cemeteries – the resting place of their loved ones, left behind.  Over the past seven decades, these cemeteries have lain abandoned. Hundreds have been desecrated, used for agricultural, commercial and private purposes. Even those that remained relatively intact require repairs and regular maintenance.  The Heritage Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries (HFPJC), also known as Avoyseinu, is a non-profit organization that committed to transforming this reality.

New York’s governor said Friday he will not approve the state budget without changes to a law that overhauled the state’s bail system. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, third-term Democrat who often uses the state budget to push through his policy priorities, made the comments while speaking on public radio. His remarks could raise the stakes on budget negotiations in the upcoming weeks. The law eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent cases in an effort to prevent poor arrestees from languishing in jail pretrial for low-level crimes. But the law did not eliminate cash bail entirely. Cuomo said he supports removing cash bail in total and allowing judges to have discretion over whether to keep people in custody before a trial.