Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said he intends to ask President Reuven Rivlin for an extension to finalize coalition talks.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu reaches the first deadline to form his fifth government. If Rivlin accepts Netanyahu’s request, the prime minister has until May 29 to form a government.
Likud’s spokesman said the request came as a result of “a crowded schedule that included… Pesach, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut and security events.”
Read more at i24NEWS.
{Matzav.com}

The first Democratic presidential debate will take place at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami on June 26 and June 27, NBC News announced Friday.
NBC News, MSNBC and Telemundo are hosting the first official debate of the primary season, which will air live across all three networks from 9 to 11 p.m. ET. each night.
Twenty candidates will participate — 10 on each night — and to qualify, candidates need to meet one of two thresholds: Either register at least 1 percent support in at least three polls or collect at least 65,000 online donations.
So far, at least 18 candidates have qualified, according to an unofficial analysis by NBC News.

There has been an slight uptick in the health of Rafael Shmuel ben Fraydel Miriam, the young boy whp  underwent a transplant last week.
Though Rafael Shmuel lost a lot of blood during the procedure and was is critical condition, the surgery was a success and Rafael Shmuel’s vitals eventually stabilized. The doctor was reportedly astonished at the stunning turnaround and has declared that it is a true miracle.
The young boy still has a long way to go before he is fully recovered,including a second surgery in the immediate future. Everyone is asked to keep in mind for a refuah shelaimah b’toch shaar cholei Yisrael.
 

http://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CsJ2Xy1ZI7hilyzm.mp4
U.S. special envoy for Mideast peace negotiations Jason Greenblatt lambasted the U.N. Security Council on Thursday as members condemned Jewish settlements being built, instead of condemning the most recent rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel, saying it was “baffling and disappointing to see the obvious, continual anti-Israel bias at the U.N.”
“Let’s stop pretending that settlements are what is keeping the sides from a negotiated peaceful solution,” he said. “This farce and obsessive focus on one aspect of this complicated conflict helps no one.”

A Tennessee criminal court judge has been facing calls to resign for posting on his Facebook page a link to an article that states that Jews should “get (***) over the Holocaust.”
Numerous organizations, including Jewish ones such as the Anti-Defamation League, and the Memphis Jewish Federation and Jewish Foundation of Nashville & Middle Tennessee, have called for Jim Lammey of the Shelby County Criminal Court to be reprimanded.
On Wednesday, Shelby County Commissioners took the first step on censure by voting for a resolution that was in favor of doing so. The resolution will be considered by the 13-member commission on Monday.

 
American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has admitted he was “destroyed” in a TV interview this week with British journalist Andrew Neil after being widely mocked for storming out of the debate and telling Neil: “I’m popular, and no one has ever heard of you.”
“I’m not inclined to continue an interview with a person as badly motivated as you,” Shapiro said, cutting the interview short despite earlier telling Neil he had “reached out to so many people across the aisle to have conversations with them.”
Responding to the criticism, Shapiro wrote on Twitter: “(Andrew Neil) DESTROYS Ben Shapiro! So that’s what that feels like https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/72x72/1f609.png" alt="

Apple is headed for its biggest weekly decline this year as the iPhone maker’s profits are seen as particularly vulnerable to a flare-up in the trade war given its reliance on China for production and sales.
The shares were down as much as 9% for the week as of 10:45 a.m. in New York Friday, while the S&P 500 slid as much as 4% this week. A close at that level would be the worst performance since the five days ended Dec. 21, when U.S. equities were tumbling toward the brink of a bear market. Apple has shed about $75 billion of market value since last Friday, a slide that takes it even further away from the $1 trillion valuation it appeared close to reclaiming earlier this month.

Will Democrats bring James Comey back to Capitol Hill to testify? Republican Rep. Jim Jordan says Democrats are more focused on going after Attorney General Bill Barr.
WATCH:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Russia early next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the State Department announced Friday, as tensions simmer between the two countries over a host of issues.
Pompeo will meet with both Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss the “full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges,” the State Department said Friday. The secretary will travel first to Moscow, where he will meet with U.S. embassy staff, and then to Sochi, Russia, where he will meet with Putin and Lavrov.
The visit comes as Washington and Moscow have clashed over a number of foreign policy disputes, most critically during last week’s failed uprising in Venezuela.

According to Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, the number of reported anti-Semitic incidents in Belgium almost doubled last year—from 56 in 2017 to 101 in 2018. The prime minister’s statement was part of a longer response to questions from the European Jewish Press regarding the rise of anti-Semitism in the country in the context of the European and national elections that will take place at the end of this month.
Like other European countries, said Michel, Belgium is witnessing rising anti-Semitism, including “insults, harassment and violence that can lead to deaths, like in the anti-Semitic attack at the Jewish Museum of Brussels in 2014.”