London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Friday slammed President Trump ahead of his state visit to the United Kingdom next month, saying Trump is not in the “same class” as presidents who made such trips in the past.
“Of course we should have a close relationship with the president of the United States, but we shouldn’t be rolling out the red carpet; we shouldn’t have a state banquet,” Khan said during an interview with LBC, a British talk-radio station.
“History tells us only two presidents have had a state visit,” Khan said, referring to former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

One hundred terrorists who were released as part of the Shalit deal have returned to terror activities and returned to serve the rest of the prison sentences imposed on them prior to the prisoner exchange.
The terrorists were released on condition that they would not resume terrorist activities, specifically that they refrain from committing any offense punishable by three months or more in prison or any act that harms the security of the State of Israel or the security of the region.

Jacques Houdek, composer of Croatian entry in Eurovision and part of Croatian delegation that arrived in Israel for the annual competition, sings a Yonatan Razel hit “Ki Bemakli”

http://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/VIDEO-2019-05-12-22-30-43.mp4
(via BELAAZ)

A United Nations report released this week found that one-eighth of the world’s animals and plants are at risk of extinction and that biodiversity was declining at an “unprecedented pace,” but David Bernhardt, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, said this dire portrait won’t stop the Trump administration from ending protections for endangered species in the United States.
The Trump administration has long sought to ease protections for endangered species that hinder the gas and oil industry.

In a podcast interview with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the politician attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and accused him of being an obstacle fore peace in the Middle East.
“We can smell it from far away that, no, you don’t want to look at my grandmother in the eye, Netanyahu, and say ‘You are equal to me. You are as human as I am to you,’” Tlaib said.
When asked about the two-state solution, Tlaib criticized Netanyahu and said she does not believe a two-state solution is currently possible because Netanyahu’s doctrine prevents it. She added that the only way for a two-state solution to be possible today would be if Netanyahu “gets up tomorrow morning and decides: ‘I’m going to take down the walls, I’m not going to expand settlements, enough is enough.'”

Bernie Sanders and other progressives slammed Joe Biden on Friday over his still-unreleased climate plan — in yet another sign of how central the issue has become in the crowded Democratic race for president.
The jousting followed a report by Reuters that said the presumed front-runner would seek a “middle ground,” largely similar to the Obama administration’s approach to climate change, in hopes of appealing to both environmentalists and the blue-collar voters who elected Donald Trump. The Biden campaign later denied the claims but not before the report was criticized by Biden’s biggest rival in the Democrat Party.

A story going around Eretz Yisroel gives an inside scoop behind the release of the body of IDF soldier Zachary Baumel after thirty seven years. The soldier was declared missing in action during the 1982 Lebanon war and his body ended up in Syria where it lay deserted for decades until President Putin was able to retrieve it at the behest of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
When Prime Minister Netanyahu arrived at the levaya, one of Zachary’s sisters approached him and told Israel’s premier an incredible addition to the story of her brother’s miraculous return.
“For years our family has held a grudge against you, ” Zachary’s sister admitted. “We felt that the government was not doing enough to get back the bodies of our captured soldiers and we were very angry about it.”

President Donald Trump sees parallels between Joe Biden’s early surge to the front of the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field and his own runaway success in the 2016 Republican primaries.
In an interview with POLITICO on Friday afternoon, Trump cast the former vice president as a clear, if flawed, front runner, noting that Biden had recently flubbed the name of Britain’s prime minister. And he compared Biden’s early success in a heavily crowded field to his own entry and rapid ascent in the 2016 Republican campaign.