After much speculation, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced his third run for the White House, entering a crowded field of now 20 Democratic contenders for the American presidency in 2020.
Biden, 76, served as a senator from Delaware for almost 36 years before being tapped as vice president in 2009 under Barack Obama. During his long career, which included sitting on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—he served as chair from 2001 to 2003, and from 2007 to 2009—Biden has exhibited an extensive record on Israel, combining enthusiastic support for its existence with occasional tough criticism.

‘Don’t threaten us with slashing aid’

A UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon Thursday confirmed that a tunnel discovered earlier this year by Israel had crossed the Lebanese-Israeli border, in the third such breach of a ceasefire resolution.
The Israeli army said the tunnel from the Lebanese town of Ramyeh — just 800 meters (yards) from the border — reached a few dozen meters into Israel, and descended 55 meters (180 feet) underground.
UNIFIL on Thursday said the tunnel was the third to have crossed the “Blue Line,” a demarcation line drawn by the UN to mark Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

A New Jersey mayor is facing mounting backlash for telling a constituent to call the cops on Jewish people for going to the beach.
Brick Township Mayor John G. Ducey was responding to a flat-out anti-Semitic tweet by user @simms10471 Tuesday night asking: “Can we please do something about our parks and beaches. They are being invaded by the hasidic and orthodox jews and being ruined.”
“Our tax paying residents are being forced out while politicians sit and do nothing,” the user added.
Instead of condemning the tweet, Ducey, a Democrat, responded: “Just call police with any problems and they will send them out.”
Ducey later apologized for “any hurt I caused but [sic] not being careful with what I said.”

Former President Barack Obama offered some warm words for Joe Biden on Thursday after his vice president officially jumped into the 2020 race, but notably did not endorse him.
“President Obama has long said that selecting Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 was one of the best decisions he ever made,” Obama spokeswoman Katie Hill said. “He relied on the vice president’s knowledge, insight and judgment throughout both campaigns and the entire presidency. The two forged a special bond over the last 10 years and remain close today.”
The cryptic message signals that Obama is likely to follow the precedent he set in 2016, when he did not endorse any candidate during the primary despite his former secretary of State’s presence in the race.

North Korea issued a $2 million bill for the hospital care of comatose American Otto Warmbier, insisting that a U.S. official sign a pledge to pay it before being allowed to fly the University of Virginia student from Pyongyang in 2017.
The presentation of the invoice – not previously disclosed by U.S. or North Korean officials – was extraordinarily brazen even for a regime known for its aggressive tactics.
But the main U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions passed down from President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the situation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani reacts to Hillary Clinton’s comments on Trump, Russia, and the Mueller report on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’
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U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) will apparently not be meeting directly with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu during his trip to the Jewish state this week, reported The Times of Israel on Wednesday.
Netanyahu will also not meet with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is traveling with Romney, according to TOI.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met today in Vladivostok, Russia, for the very first summit between the two leaders, The Guardian reports.
Kim reportedly praised Putin when his train first rolled into Khasan, saying, “I have heard a lot of good things about your country and wanted to visit it for a long time… Seven years have passed since I took charge of the country, but I did not have a chance to visit Russia until now.” The North Korean leader also told Russia’s state-owned Rossiya-24 that he’d like to reach a “settlement of the situation in the Korean Peninsula” and hoped the visit would be “successful and useful.”

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden launched a full-on attack of President Donald Trump in his video announcing his campaign for the White House, calling Trump’s term in office “an abhorrent moment in time.”
In the video, Biden speaks over footage of the deadly 2017 neo-Nazi marches in Charlottesville, Virginia, describing those involved as having “crazed faces, illuminated by torches.”