Watch: Priestly blessing at Western Wall

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/278568

Traditional priestly blessing during Pesach takes place in a limited format in accordance with instructions. US ambassador participating.

In India, Coronavirus Fans Religious Hatred

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/world/asia/india-coronavirus-muslims-bigotry.html

In a global pandemic, there is always the hunt for blame. President Trump has done it, insisting for a time on calling the coronavirus a “Chinese virus.’’ All over the world people are pointing fingers, driven by their fears and anxieties to go after The Other.

He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html

An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.

His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.

President Trump is wrong in so many ways about hydroxychloroquine studies. Here are the facts

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/10/health/trump-wrong-about-hydroxychloroquine/index.html

 There are several treatments being studied to prevent or treat coronavirus, but President Trump has been a cheerleader for one in particular: hydroxychloroquine, a drug currently used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Over the past month, he's made many optimistic statements about hydroxychloroquine. CNN has fact-checked the president multiple times -- such as here, here, and here -- and found that he's being unrealistically enthusiastic.

 

Trump asked what metrics he's using. See his response.

'Liar': Trump Fact-Checked For Dangerous Coronavirus Claims | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

Trump Spent Years Disparaging the Administrative State. Then Coronavirus Hit

https://time.com/5817899/trump-administrative-state-coronavirus/

The efficiency of a small government has always been a dream in some corners of the Republican Party. As the anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist famously put it in a 2001, ‘I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.’

Bill Barr Accuses Media of 'Jihad' to Discredit Hydroxychloroquine After Trump Touts Drug as COVID-19 Treatment

https://www.newsweek.com/bill-barr-hydroxychloroquine-fox-news-ingraham-1497021

Attorney General William Barr has condemned the media for what he says are partisan attacks on President Donald Trump for touting the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible weapon against the novel coronavirus.

 

Nationwide lockdown eased, Bnei Brak restrictions relaxed amid cautious optimism

https://www.timesofisrael.com/nationwide-lockdown-eased-bnei-brak-restrictions-relaxed-amid-cautious-optimism/

Partial lockdown remains in place, with people only allowed to leave home for work or other essentials; Health Ministry tells Israelis to continue keeping social distancing rules

 

Trump Says Widespread Coronavirus Testing 'Would Never Happen' and Isn't Needed To Reopen Country

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-widespread-coronavirus-testing-would-never-happen-isnt-needed-reopen-country-1497210

President Donald Trump on Thursday said a widespread COVID-19 testing program to assess whether workers can safely return to their workplaces is "never going to happen" in the United States.

What Went Wrong in the Wisconsin Election, and What We Can Learn From It Before November

https://time.com/5818773/wisconsin-coronavirus-elections/

Watching it unfold, it was impossible not to wonder: Is this what we’re all in for in November? Both national parties treated the Wisconsin situation as a test case for their arguments about how voting should take place during the coronavirus pandemic — and how that might benefit them as they look ahead to this fall’s high-stakes presidential election. The factors that created the mess—bitter partisanship, a dysfunctional and poorly funded patchwork of different election systems and the win-at-all-costs ethos of Trumpism, all overlaid with an unprecedented public-health emergency of unknown duration—are all national in scope. “Wisconsin’s in-person vote, held in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, is unconscionable, and portends major problems for the November election should the pandemic recur in the fall,” says Adam Hilton, a political scientist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

 

‘Silent spreaders’: Almost a third of infected kids under 9 are asymptomatic

https://www.timesofisrael.com/silent-spreaders-almost-a-third-of-infected-kids-under-9-are-asymptomatic/

In Israel, highest number of cases seen in the 20-29 age group; overwhelming number of seriously ill are over 60

United Hatzalah chief Eli Beer regains consciousness

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/278525

Eli Beer, founder of United Hatzalah, is now alert and communicating.

Report: Even Trump’s Allies Are Fed Up with His Press Briefings

 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/trump-allies-criticize-coronavirus-press-briefings

One day after the right-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board came out against Trump’s briefings, which they write “are now all about the President,” the Times reported that a number of GOP allies and advisers of the president would really prefer that he stepped back from the free-wheeling pressers. Republicans in the White House and Congress are “worried” about the briefings and “believe the briefings are hurting the president more than helping him,” describing the president’s daily diatribes “as a kind of original sin from which all of his missteps flow.” Trump “sometimes drowns out his own message,” Senator Lindsey Graham told the Times. (“Any suggestion that President Trump is struggling on tone or message is completely false. During these difficult times, Americans are receiving comfort, hope and resources from their president, as well as their local officials, and Americans are responding in unprecedented ways,” White House spokesman Judd Deere rebutted in a statement to the Times.)