The nation’s infant mortality rate dropped last year after two years of hovering at a late-pandemic plateau. Some experts think one reason for the drop could be a vaccination campaign against RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of cold-like symptoms that can be dangerous for infants. The infant mortality national rate dropped to about 5.5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted Thursday. That’s down from about 5.6 per 1,000 live births, where it had been the previous two years. CDC officials believe the findings will not change much when the final numbers come out later this year.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering a significant reduction in tariffs on Chinese imports, cutting them from the current 145% to slightly over 50%, potentially starting as early as next week. This development comes as American and Chinese representatives gear up for high-stakes trade negotiations in Switzerland.
According to individuals familiar with the ongoing talks, U.S. officials are evaluating a proposal to bring the tariffs down to somewhere between 50% and 54%. This shift would mark the beginning of extended discussions aimed at achieving a broader trade deal with Beijing.
In addition to the changes targeting Chinese goods, tariffs on other South Asian nations could also be revised downward, possibly to 25%, one insider revealed.

YWN regrets to inform you of the petirah of R’ Tzaddik haLevi “Charlie Buttons” Nassofer Z”L, a beloved personality and cherished fixture in the Crown Heights community. He was 81 years old. Known to generations simply as “Charlie Buttons,” R’ Tzaddik Halevi brought joy and warmth to countless simchos throughout Crown Heights over the decades. With his signature smile, colorful attire adorned with pins and buttons – many of them promoting the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s mivtzoim and other Yiddishe messages – Charlie stood out in both appearance and in heart. He was often seen at the Rebbe’s farbrengens and in 770, always wearing his signature overalls and button-covered headgear.

Senator Bernie Sanders sidestepped a direct answer Wednesday when pressed on whether Joe Biden should have stepped aside earlier in the 2024 election cycle, saying that the challenges facing the Democratic Party go far deeper than Biden’s timing.
“Bret, I’m not going back a year,” Sanders told Fox News anchor Bret Baier during a segment of “Special Report,” after Baier asked if Biden made a mistake by staying in the race for too long.
Sanders made it clear he had no interest in revisiting that particular debate.
“But isn’t that a big part of where the Democratic Party is?” Baier pushed.
“No, no, it’s not,” Sanders replied. “It’s nothing to do with Biden right now or Kamala Harris.”

Judge Menachem Mizrachi, the President of the Rishon L’Tzion Magistrate’s court, slammed the police on Thursday for their conduct in the Qatargate affair, including their overnight arrest of Yonatan Urich, a former advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who is a suspect in the affair. The police re-arrested Urich only minutes before he was due to be released from house arrest. The police summoned him for questioning on Wednesday evening and his wife was told to pick him up at 8:00 p.m. However, after she arrived, along with her baby, she was forced to wait outside the building until 12:30 a.m., when she was informed that the interrogation was over and her husband had been re-arrested. Mizrachi rapped the police, saying that Urich’s arrest was unlawful.

A sweeping new survey by the Pew Research Center, which polled over 50,000 people in 36 countries, found that 83% of Israeli adults believe in Hashem, a figure that places Israel in the upper-middle tier globally. But beneath that surface lies a telling divide: among Israelis with only a high school education or less, belief in Hashem stands at 83%. Among the more educated, it drops sharply to 64%—one of the steepest education-related gaps observed anywhere in the world. Perhaps the most striking revelation is that Israel is the only country surveyed where men pray more than women—40% of men report davening daily, compared to just 28% of women. In nearly every other country, the pattern is reversed.

Chief Justice John Roberts made it clear on Wednesday that stepping down from the Supreme Court isn’t something on his mind. Still, he revealed that he had once asked two close friends to keep an eye on his well-being and let him know if he was no longer fit for the bench.
“I’ve sat down with them and said, ‘I want at the appropriate time’ — because you don’t always notice that you’re slipping — ‘I want the two of you to tell me if it’s time to go,’” Roberts told a group of legal professionals at an event in Buffalo, New York.
He then shared the humorous way the conversation unfolded. “It was a long pause, and at once, the two of them said, ‘It’s time to go.’ So I said, ‘Alright, never mind,’” he continued.

President Trump once again tapped into his pool of allies from Fox News on Thursday, selecting “The Five” co-host Jeanine Pirro to take on the role of interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
“Jeanine is incredibly well qualified for this position, and is considered one of the Top District Attorneys in the History of the State of New York,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She is in a class by herself.”
“Congratulations Jeanine!”
Earlier in the day, Trump withdrew the nomination of Ed Martin for the same role after key Republican senators raised concerns and declined to back his appointment.

The Yesh Atid refused to support a bill submitted by National Unity MK Matan Kahana on Wednesday regarding pension payments to widows of fallen IDF soldiers. Why? The law was submitted jointly with Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har Melech. The Yesh Atid party boycotted the vote because they refused to have anything to do with a bill submitted by a member of Itamar Ben Gvir’s party, and the bill failed to win a majority in a plenum vote. A furor broke out in the Knesset, with the members of Benny Gantz’s National Unity party hurling insults at Yesh Atid members. MK Pnina Tamano-Shata yelled: “You’re a garbage opposition.” Kahana wrote on X: “It turns out you actually can mobilize.