Get caught up on news from around the world as you head into the weekend.  Crosstalk helps you do that with our News Round-Up & comment broadcast.  Here’s a sample of what Jim  presented.

–The U.S. delegation to the U.N. has denounced the U.N.’s so-called, “master plan for humanity,” better known as the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals.  

–Wildfires that began Wednesday morning and have burned more than 5,000 acres in Israel have “miraculously” left homes untouched according to Israeli firefighting authorities. 

–Israeli police arrested 18 arson suspects following the spread of wildfires near Jerusalem. 

–After more than 24 hours of firefighting, the massive blaze that engulfed the hills west of Jerusalem had been brought under control.

–2 Israelis were found murdered in Los Angeles in just over a 12 hour period, though it’s unclear if the two are related. 

–6 people were arrested after anti-Israel protesters clashed with Hasidic Jews outside a prominent Brooklyn Synagogue. 

–U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered a stern warning Wednesday to Iran over its ongoing support for Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

–Indirect U.S.-Iran nuclear talks have hit a roadblock as a fourth round of negotiations initially set for this weekend in Rome was postponed. 

–President Trump issued a scathing threat to any nation that might consider purchasing oil from Iran amid efforts to pressure the regime into abandoning its nuclear program.

–Harvard University, in the midst of it’s funding fight with the Trump administration, released its long awaited anti-Semitism report on Tuesday.  It provides a scathing account of life at Harvard in the wake of October 7^th, finding that “politicized instruction” in four Harvard schools “mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism.”

–President Trump announced that he will be revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a significant escalation in the administration’s ongoing battle against the Ivy League school. 

–The University of California Berkeley received donations from a blacklisted Chinese research university, Chinese Communist Party officials and a Beijing state owned chemical company.

–On Thursday the Kremlin blasted President Trump’s historical mineral rights deal with Ukraine.

–Ukraine’s president has urged the world to pressure Russia to stop continuing attacks on its war-torn nation after authorities said at least 2 people were killed and 15 injured in a Russian drone strike on the Black Sea port of Odesa.

–President Trump said Sunday that his tariff policy will substantially reduce, even completely eliminate, income taxes for some American workers.