The Likud Party opened coalition negotiations with Yahadut HaTorah on Sunday evening.
Minister Yariv Levin, who is heading the Likud team, congratulated Yahadut HaTorah for its growth following the recent election and noted, “In the previous coalition negotiations, they were the first to sign the agreement, and I hope that we will uphold this tradition. We see you as loyal partners. We worked very well for a long time in the previous government, and we also managed to overcome disputes. I am sure we will succeed in finding solutions that will also bring us to a stable government this time.”
 
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

The US decision to end sanctions waivers for purchases of Iranian oil later this week will backfire by angering Washington’s allies, Tehran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tells Fox News.
Zarif said US policy is designed to make life hard for the Iranian people so they will “take action” against the Tehran government.
“People are not happy. China is not happy, Turkey is not happy, Russia is not happy. France is not happy. US allies are not happy that this is happening and they say that they will find ways of resisting it.
Zarif also says that Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal because he did not like his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Read more at Times of Israel.

A major Jewish organization is refusing to accept the New York Times’ apology for the Times publishing a cartoon depicting the prime minister of Israel as a dog.
The cartoon, of Netanyahu’s face with dog ears and a dog body, with a blue Jewish star and a leash held by a yarmulke-wearing Donald Trump, was published in the New York Times International Edition on Thursday, April 25.

Chabad leaders worldwide are warning Jewish communities about the possibility of more anti-Semitic terrorist attacks like the San Diego synagogue shooting.
In a message put out after the shooting on the last night of Pesach, which claimed the life of Lori Kayne, Chabad leaders said that “our regional leaders are very worried about the security of every Chabad house and center in hundreds of communities in the U.S. and throughout the world.”
Chabad expressed its gratitude to the municipal and national agencies that worked closely with the organization to ensure the safety of community members.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit denies a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lawyers to delay a indictment hearing scheduled for May 10.
In his decision, Mandelblit says he will not reschedule the hearing because Netanyahu’s lawyers have not yet collected the investigation materials from his office.
“This delay will not have an affect on the date of the hearing,” he says, according to reports in Hebrew-language media.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

The Shin Bet announced on Sunday that it prevented a severe terror attack planned around election day after uncovering a Hamas network in the West Bank.
On March 31, Shin Bet arrested 23-year-old Yihya Abu Dia, an operative recruited by the Gaza-based Islamist group to carry out a suicide attack near the time of the Israel’s April 9 national elections. Abu Dia had been in online contact with senior Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip who instructed him to purchase a car and rent a storage room in order to prepare a car bomb and conduct surveillance activity to identify an ideal attack point in the Ma’aleh Adumim area concentrated with buses, soldiers and civilians.

The driver in a hit-and-run in Yerushalayim last week that left an 11-year-old boy in critical condition has turned himself in to authorities, police said Sunday.
Police had been searching for the suspect since last Sunday’s collision in the Ramot neighborhood that injured a child, who has not been named, who remains in critical condition at Shaare Zedek hospital.
Police said the day after the crash that they knew the identity of the suspected driver, a man in his 20s, who had borrowed the car.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

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.