Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday told House Democrats he would not furnish President Donald Trump’s tax returns despite their legal request, the latest move by Trump administration officials to shield the president from congressional investigations.
Mnuchin, in a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said he had consulted with the Justice Department and that they had concluded that it would not be lawful for the Trump administration to turn over the tax returns because of potential violations of privacy.
Mnuchin added that requests from Congress “must reasonable serve a legitimate legislative purpose” and that the request from Democrats does not.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) got into a heated online exchange on Monday after Scott took a jab at the Green New Deal
“If you were a female candidate, maybe you’d be called ‘unlikeable,’ ‘crazy,’ or ‘uninformed,'” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to Scott making a jab at the Green New Deal. “But since you’re not, this inadequacy is accepted as normal.
“That a sitting US Senator can say something lacking so much critical thinking + honesty is embarrassing to the institution.”
Scott responded by claiming that he was being sarcastic about the Green New Deal, a progressive proposal that calls for radical reforms to combat climate change.

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President Trump’s approval rating reached new heights in the second half of April, according to the Gallup poll, as nearly half of voters gave him positive marks.
Trump’s approval rating ticked up to 46 percent, up slightly from 45 percent in the first part of April and the highest mark to date for Trump in the Gallup poll. Amongst Republicans, 91 percent gave the president positive marks, just short of the record high of the 92 percent approval  reached in a Gallup survey in November.
The jump comes on the heels of strong economic numbers and the largely favorable outcome of the Russia investigation.
Read more at The Hill.

Arab teenagers shot fireworks at Jewish children in an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood Tuesday morning, residents say.
Residents of the neighborhood of Maaleh HaZeitim, which along with Maalot David is home to over one hundred Jewish families just to the southeast of the Old City of Yerushalayim, say Arab teens targeted elementary school-age children Tuesday morning, shooting fireworks at them from a distance of just several dozen yards.
The children targeted by the Arab teens fled the scene, and managed to avoid injury.
Residents are now demaning “full security around the clock for children” and the rest of the neighborhood’s residents.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

Iran will restart part of its halted nuclear program in response to the U.S. withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal but does not itself plan to pull out of the agreement, the state-run IRIB news agency reported on Monday.
Citing a source close to an official commission which oversees the nuclear deal, IRIB reported that President Hassan Rouhani would announce that Iran would reduce some of its “minor and general” commitments under the deal on May 8 – exactly one year after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. pullout.

As the ceasefire between Israel and terrorist organizations in Gaza takes effect, Qatar has announced that it would transfer $480 million to the Palestinian Authority and Gaza.
Approximately $300 million will go toward the P.A. health and education budget, and the rest will go to funding United Nations programs and electricity services in the West Bank and Gaza.
Both P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh thanked Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
“This honorable decision is a continuation of the unwavering Qatari stance that supports the Palestinian people politically and financially, in addition to defending Palestinian rights on international platforms,” wrote Haniyeh.

President Donald Trump has pardoned Michael Behenna, a former Army lieutenant who served five years in prison for the murder of an Iraqi prisoner in 2008.
Behenna, who was an Army Ranger in the 101st Airborne Division, was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone and sentenced to 25 years after killing Ali Mansur, a detainee and suspected al-Qaida member. Behenna, who stripped Mansur naked, interrogated him without authorization and then shot him twice, has claimed repeatedly that he was acting in self-defense.