Russia called on European signatories to abide by the 2015 Iran nuclear deal hours after Tehran threatened to step up enrichment activity in reaction to world powers not upholding their part of the agreement.
After Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani notified the remaining signatories to the deal about Tehran’s plans to stop respecting the terms of the deal, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
“We will call on them, as we have done before, to concentrate on implementing everything that is enshrined in the JCPOA and approved by the UN Security Council,” Lavrov said in a joint press conference with Zarif on Wednesday.

Speaking at the Memorial Day Ceremony on Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spurned the possibility of Iran’s obtaining nuclear weapons following the announcement by the Islamic Republic just a few hours earlier that it would roll back some of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.
“This morning, on my way here, I heard that Iran intends to continue its nuclear program and we will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu declared at the ceremony for fallen soldiers, terror victims at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.
“The events of the past few days clearly demonstrate what our struggle is about, the attempt of those who seek to destroy our country, uproot us from our land,” he postured.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued Tuesday that President Donald Trump is trying to provoke Democrats into proceeding with impeachment, using some of her strongest language yet on the issue.
“Trump is goading us to impeach him,” she said at an event in New York City hosted by the Cornell University Institute of Politics and Global Affairs. “That’s what he’s doing. Every single day, he’s just like taunting, taunting, taunting because he knows that it would be very divisive in the country, but he doesn’t really care. He just wants to solidify his base.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., has set the dates for her congressional visit to the West Bank from August 17 through the 22nd.
Tlaib, a Palestinian American, proposed the trip last year after she was elected to Congress for the first time as a counterbalance to Israel trips organized by the American Israel Education Foundation, an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In a the flier distributed by Tlaib, the Congresswoman invites other politicians to join her on her trip, which is being sponsored by the Humpty Dumpty Institute.
 
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

For the first time since Zachary Baumel went missing in action in Lebanon 37 years ago, his family has a grave at which to mourn on Yom Hazikaron.
The Baumel family spent almost four decades without knowing what happened to the soldier, who disappeared during a battle near the Syrian border in the First Lebanon War. His remains were located in Syria and brought back to Israel for burial last month.
On Monday, the Baumel family went to visit Zachary’s grave in Mount Herzl military cemetery in Yerushalayim, 30 days after the burial. They were surprised to discover a great crowd awaiting them that wished to honor Zachary’s memory.
Read more at YNET.
{Matzav.com}

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, escalating a growing feud between Democrats and the Trump administration over special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
In a 24-16 vote, Democrats made a formal recommendation that the House hold Barr in contempt for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena for Mueller’s full unredacted report and underlying documents.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) backed the contempt resolution during a Washington Post event earlier Wednesday, and said impeaching Barr is “not off the table.”
Read more at The Hill.

The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr. in relation to his previous testimony to Senate investigators, the first known congressional subpoena to one of President Trump’s children.
The president’s eldest son testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017 that he was “peripherally aware” of plans to expand his father’s businesses into Russia.
However, the president’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen claimed in his February testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee that Trump Jr. was far more involved in the project and said that he briefed both Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump on the project about 10 times.

Yisroel and Chana Sternberg are suing Spirit Airlines alleging that a flight attendant racially discriminated against them spouted antisemitic hate towards them on a flight to Fort Lauderdale from Newark Liberty International Airport in January.
When the  couple was told they could not board with the infant car seat they had brought, even though the couple had bought an extra seat on the plane to accommodate the child,  Yisroel, who was seated separately from his wife, got up to assess the situation.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday confirmed the full implementation of the law mandating the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“On May 14, 2018, the US Embassy in Jerusalem officially opened for business,” Pompeo said in a statement. “Now, as we near the first anniversary of that momentous event, I am pleased to report that I have provided my determination to Congress that the relevant elements of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 have been addressed. Accordingly, no further Presidential waiver of the funding restriction under the Act is necessary.”

Pages