After former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, announced his 2020 presidential campaign, the former Delaware Senator told reporters that he purposely urged Barack Obama to hold off on declaring his approval.
“I asked President Obama not to endorse,” Biden told reporters on Thursday. “Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits.”
A source familiar with Obama’s thinking also told PEOPLE it is “unlikely that he will throw his support behind a specific candidate this early in the primary process – preferring instead to let the candidates make their cases directly to the voters.”
Read more here.
{Matzav.com}

A crowdfunding campaign established to help the victims of an attack on a Chabad synagogue near San Diego, California, raised nearly $50,000 in less than 24 hours.
More than 600 people donated on GoFundMe, with many of the donations ranging from $10 to $36.
The donations will “be used to pay for any necessary medical operations for the victims, funeral services, synagogue [repairs] or anything else the synagogue would need assistance with,” wrote the person who set up the page, who identified himself or herself as Cam N.

Lori Gilbert Kaye, the woman killed in the Chabad of Poway shooting was hailed as a hero after it emerged she was hit when she dived in front of Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, 57, the Rabbi of the shul.
Close friend, Audrey Jacobs, wrote a moving Facebook tribute praising her as a “jewel of our community” dedicated to good deeds and charity.
“Your final good deed was taking the bullets for Rabbi () Goldstein to save his life,” she wrote, noting that she “leaves behind a devastated husband and a 22-year-old daughter.”
Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, Naftali Bennett, called Gilbert-Kaye a “hero who will be remembered in Jewish history.”

Washington DC-based law firm Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner LLP announced that it is filing a $360 million lawsuit against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Syrian Arab Republic for the countries’ support of the 2015 murders of members of the Henkin family. The suit also targets Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security; Bank Markazi Jomhouri, the Central Bank of Iran; Bank Melli Iran; and Bank Saderat Iran for their involvement.

President Trump slammed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Saturday at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, calling her “Pocahontas” and saying her presidential campaign was “finished.”
He also took aim at Warren for releasing DNA results last year that showed she had a Native American ancestor from between six to 10 generations ago.
“Pocahontas she’s finished, she’s out. She’s gone. When it was found that I had more Indian blood in me than she did, then it was determined I had none, but I still had more, that was the end of her 32 year scam,” Trump said.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

A federal judge sentenced Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina to 18 months in prison Friday after calling her plot to penetrate conservative U.S. political circles without disclosing she was working as a foreign agent for the Kremlin “dangerous” and “a threat to our democracy.”
Butina, 30, pleaded guilty in December to conspiring with a senior Russian official to access the National Rifle Association and other groups without registering with the U.S. Justice Department from 2015 until she was arrested and detained in July.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington credited Butina with the more than nine months she already has served in jail and granted a request to expedite her deportation after she completes her sentence.

Chometz may be purchased immediately after Pesach 2019 at the following stores, as per information provided by the Star-K:
Aldi’s
BJ’s
Coffee Bean
Colonial Liquors
Costco
CVS
Dugan’s Liquor
Food Lion
Market Maven
Petco
Petsmart
Rite-Aid
Royal Farms
Sam’s Club
Save-A-Lot
Savings Center 4003 Seven Mile Lane
Seven Mile Market
Shoppers Food Warehouse
Shoprite 37 Aylesbury Road, Timonium
Trader Joe’s
Walgreens
Walmart
Wegmans
Whole Foods
Wine Loft
Due to issues regarding possible Jewish owned distributors, in general, it is commendable not to purchase chometz from Target until the Sunday after May 26.

President Donald Trump was asked by reporters outside the White House on Friday how old was too old to be president.
“Well,” Trump said, “I think that – I just feel like a young man. I’m so young. I can’t believe it. I’m the youngest person. I am a young, vibrant man.”
He compared himself to former vice president Joe Biden, who declared his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday.
“I look at Joe? I don’t know about him. I don’t know.”
Was Biden too old?, Trump was asked.
“I would never say anyone is too old,” he replied, “but I know they’re all making me look very young, both in terms of age and I think in terms of energy.”
Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Biden waved off Trump’s comments.

Israel will release two prisoners in the wake of the recovery by Russian special forces in Syria of the remains of an Israeli soldier missing since 1982, Israeli and Syrian officials said Saturday.
Russia, a key Damascus ally, this month handed over the remains and personal effects of Zachary Baumel, who was 21 when he was declared missing in action along with two other soldiers in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
The source said authorities had pressured Moscow to secure the prisoners’ release after it was reported that the Israeli soldier’s remains were being handed over.

Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday night condemned the shooting attack at the Chabad shul near San Diego.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the evil & cowardly shooting at Chabad of Poway today as Jewish families celebrated Passover. No one should be in fear in a house of worship. Anti-Semitism isn’t just wrong – it’s evil,” he tweeted.
“THANK YOU to our law enforcement & the heroic CBP agent who swiftly stopped the perpetrator!” the Vice President added in a second tweet.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}