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.

Sen. Rand Paul slammed the Senate Intelligence Committee for subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr. for further testimony in its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, suggesting it could end up being a perjury trap.
“I think it’s a real travesty of justice. I think it’s very unfair to the president and the president‘s family on this. Mueller spend $35 million and two years, and the president was cleared. For the Senate to be calling up the president’s son and putting him in jeopardy by bringing him in and grilling him… I think it’s really a tragedy,” Paul said Sunday on John Catsimatidis’ radio show.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has approved a new deployment of Patriot missiles to the Middle East, an American official told Reuters on Friday, in the latest US response to what Washington sees as a growing threat from Iran.
The decision further bolsters US defenses and comes after the Trump administration expedited the deployment of a carrier strike group and sent bombers to the Middle East following what it said were troubling indications of possible preparations for an attack by Iran.
The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to say how many Patriot batteries would be deployed. The Patriot missile defense system is made by Raytheon Co. and is designed to intercept incoming missiles.

An Arab Israeli lawmaker rips Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement earlier today that a site has been located in the Golan Heights for the establishment of a new community that will be named after US President Donald Trump.
“It is fitting for the American President Trump that a settlement whose establishment is illegal and contradicts international law will be named after him,” Hadash-Ta’al MK Yousef Jabareen writes on his Twitter account.
“Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights is spitting in the face of the world. The transfer of Israeli citizens to the Syrian Golan is a war crime according to the International Criminal Court — a war crime in Trump’s name,” Jabareen adds.
 

A pair of East Jerusalem residents are charged today with planning to carry out a attack on behalf of Palestinian terror group Hamas. A third East Jerusalem man, Issa Bin Nazem Natsheh, was also indicted for a related charge.
Adam Muselmani and Mahmoud Abdel Latif planned to carry out a shooting in Hamas’s name at a beach in Tel Aviv following their releases from prison, the charge sheets say, citing the high number of attacks in Jerusalem and the heavy police presence in the capital.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Saturday said he’s instructed his political envoy in Washington to immediately open relations with the U.S. military in a bid to bring more pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to resign.
The leader said he’s asked Carlos Vecchio, who the U.S. recognizes as Venezuela’s ambassador, to open “direct communications” toward possible military “coordination.”