Once ridiculed by Sen. Ted Cruz for lounging on the sand during a state government shutdown, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said this week he has little sympathy for the embattled Texas lawmaker amid his tone-deaf jaunt to Cancun, Mexico.
Simply put, Christie declared Friday on Fox News Radio’s “Guy Benson Show,” Cruz has “just not been a very likeable guy.”
The two became a memorable meme this week, after Internet wags doctored Christie’s infamous 2017 beachfront snap to show the Texas senator joining the sun-worshipping governor.
But Cruz, he went on, “has taken every chance he can to take shots at people on both sides of the aisle over the course of his career.”

Rosh Yeshivas Mir Hagaon HaRav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel on Sunday called for yeshivah bochurim from abroad to remain in Israel for Pesach since their ability to return to yeshivah once they fly home cannot be guaranteed. The Mir administration sent the following letter to parents on Friday: “Due to the current situation in Eretz Yisroel, the appropriate authorities have advised us about a serious possibility, that Talmidei HaYeshiva who will leave for Pesach will not be able to return for the upcoming Summer Z’man.

Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry warned Friday that there are just nine years left for the U.S. to evade the worst possible climate change consequences.
During remarks at the Munich Security Conference, Kerry noted that a “group of scientists told us three years ago that we had 12 years.”
“Around 2030 is the date at which we have to get the world now on the right path in order to cap the level of warming at that level of 1.5 [degrees].”
Read more at The Hill. 
{Matzav.com}

A United Airlines flight bound for Honolulu suffered a right engine failure on Saturday shortly after departing Denver International Airport, scattering debris but returning safely to the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
United said in a statement there were no reported injuries on Flight 328, which had 231 passengers and 10 crew on board.
Broomfield, Colorado police posted photos of pieces of debris from the Boeing 777-200 airplane but there were no immediate reports of any injuries on the ground. The FAA said it and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will investigate.

The carcass of an almost 17-metre fin whale has washed up on a southern Israeli shore, an AFP photographer said Friday, in the aftermath of a storm that caused massive tar pollution.
Powerful winds and unusually high waves pummelled Israel’s entire Mediterranean coastline over Tuesday and Wednesday, with tonnes of tar staining beaches from Rosh Hanikra, just south of Lebanon, to Ashkelon just north of Gaza.
The rare appearance of the dead whale, of the second-biggest mammal species in the world after the Blue Whale, was initially thought to have been connected to the tar pollution.
Read.more at MSN.
{Matzav.com}

Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) agreed that Israel vaccinate some 100,000 Palestinians who enter Israel from the West Bank on a daily basis for work, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Friday.
The decision followed a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian health officials, who agreed to cooperate to stem the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus and its latest variants, the Palestinians said.
The PA received an initial supply of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine earlier this month and has launched a campaign to inoculate frontline healthcare workers in the West Bank.

The United States has no plan to ease sanctions or take other steps such as issuing an executive order about returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal before possible talks with Iran and major powers, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as U.S. President Joe Biden flew to Michigan, Psaki said “there is no plan to take additional steps” on Iran in advance of having a “diplomatic conversation.”
The United States said on Thursday it was ready to talk to Iran about both nations returning to a 2015 pact that aimed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump abandoned nearly three years ago.

The United States will keep tariffs imposed on Chinese goods by the former Trump administration in place for now, but will evaluate how to proceed after a thorough review, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNBC on Thursday.
“For the moment, we have kept the tariffs in place that were put in by the Trump administration … and we’ll evaluate going forward what we think is appropriate,” Yellen told the cable news network, adding that Washington expected Beijing to adhere to its commitments on trade.
Asked if tariffs worked, Yellen hesitated, then said, “We’ll look at that.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) released a statement on Friday calling for a “full investigation” into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes.
Why it matters: Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths has been under scrutiny for months, but the backlash has become increasingly bipartisan after audio leaked of a top Cuomo aide saying a Democratic request for nursing homes data was rejected because the administration feared it could “be used against us” by federal investigators.
The big picture: The results of an investigation released last month by New York Attorney General Letitia James, also a Democrat, found that the Cuomo administration undercounted deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50%.