Iran’s foreign minister bluntly told an invited audience in New York City on Wednesday that the US must recognize the authority of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) if it wanted to navigate the Strait of Hormuz — the strategically-vital sea passage that connects the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea.
During an appearance at the Asia Society in Manhattan, Mohammad Javad Zarif was questioned as to whether the Tehran regime might close off the Strait of Hormuz — through which approximately 35 percent of the world’s oil supply is carried — to international shipping.
“When the US enters the Strait of Hormuz, they have to talk to those who are protecting the Strait of Hormuz — and that is the [Islamic] Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Zarif answered.

Democratic 2020 hopeful Kamala Harris wants the House to impeach President Donald Trump, but doesn’t necessarily expect it to be a successful effort.
Harris joined fellow Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren in calling for Trump’s impeachment following the release of a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the 2016 election. Impeachment has been a sensitive topic for Democrats, who have largely opted to say they would look into the president’s actions rather than directly call for impeachment.

President Trump will make a three-day state visit to the UK from 3 to 5 June, Buckingham Palace has announced.
The president and First Lady Melania Trump will be guests of the Queen and attend a ceremony in Portsmouth to mark 75 years since the D-Day landings.
He will also have official talks with the prime minister at Downing Street. Trump previously met the Queen at Windsor Castle when he came to the UK in July 2018 on a working visit.
The White House said the upcoming trip would reaffirm the “steadfast and special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom”.
Read more at BBC News.
{Matzav.com}
 

Measles cases in the United States have surpassed the highest number on record since the disease was declared eliminated nationwide in 2000.
As of Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 626 individual cases of measles confirmed in 22 states. This includes illnesses reported by state health departments to the CDC through April 19 and therefore does not include cases reported since then.
Previously, the highest number of reported cases since elimination was 667 in 2014.
Read more at KMBC.
{Matzav.com}

Boeing executives announced Wednesday that their revenues slid more than $1 billion this quarter after more than 50 countries around the world grounded the company’s 737 Max planes following two deadly crashes.
Revenue for the first quarter of 2019 fell 2 percent overall following last month’s decision to ground the planes, Boeing told The New York Times, with revenue from commercial airlines down more than $1 billion.
The revenue loss constituted a 9 percent drop in the company’s earnings from commercial airline sales, according to the Times, which reported that Boeing earned $11.8 billion in total this quarter from such sales.

A Chabad rabbi and his wife were violently assaulted during a home invasion at a Chabad House in Nairobi, Kenya before dawn early Wednesday morning.
Five burglars broke into the Chabad house in Nairobi, which is operated by Israeli native Rabbi Shmuel Notik and his wife, Chaya, who operate the Jewish center for travelers in the Kenyan capital city. The burglars tied up and gagged two young men staying at the Chabad House and proceeded to beat up the Notiks with bats, demanding the couple hand over their money. Chaya Notik reported suffered head injuries during the home invasion, and required surgery to treat her injuries.

A group of men and boys heckled and threw stones at an IDF soldier walking through the Mea Shearim neighborhood on Wednesday.
One of the stones nearly hit a father who was holding his six-month old daughter. Footage from the scene showed the father — with his baby still in his arms — yelling at the mob as they continued to hiss at the soldier. The child’s mother then appeared to scream at them as well, before the two of them walk away in disgust.
Police were dispatched to the scene and said that officers managed to scatter the crowd and safely evacuate the soldier, who was unharmed in the incident.
Read more at Times of Israel.

 
President Donald Trump raged at the New York Times in a set of unhinged tweets this morning.

Said Trump: “I wonder if the New York Times will apologize to me a second time, as they did after the 2016 Election. But this one will have to be a far bigger & better apology. On this one they will have to get down on their knees & beg for forgiveness—they are truly the Enemy of the People!”

{Matzav.com}

Today is the first yahrtzeit of chosson and kallah Yisroel Levin z”l and Elisheva Kaplan a”h, who were killed one year ago, on Chol Hamoed Pesach 5778.
Five cars, with nine total occupants, were involved in the crash at about 1:40 a.m. last year on Chol Hamoed on the Nassau Expressway between Burnside Avenue and Peninsula Boulevard.
Ten thousand shidduchim, ten thousand refuos and ten thousand bursts of siyata dishmaya in emunah for Klal Yisroel. 
This was the plea of R’ Shaya Levin, father of Yisroel, to Hashem that reverberated through the overflowing crowd at the levaya of his son and daughter-in-law to be.