ISRAEL - Ex-IDF chief gets boost in bid to unseat Netanyahu after launching campaign, teaming up with Ya’alon; survey says he could win election with further tie-ups. An electoral alliance headed by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz would be the second largest faction in the Knesset following national elections in April, according to a new poll released Wednesday, shortly after the retired general’s first political speech. Gantz kicked off his bid to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday with the official launch of his Israel Resilience party’s campaign and announcement he will run on a joint electoral list with fellow former military chief Moshe Ya’alon.

VATICAN - Countries that are unable to assimilate migrants should stop accepting more until they are able to integrate them, Pope Francis told reporters on the papal plane Monday. The pope put forward Sweden as an example of a country that had accepted many migrants in the past but realized recently that the migrants coming in were becoming ghettoized rather than integrating in Swedish society, and so put a moratorium on accepting more. “A ruler must use prudence, because prudence is the virtue of those who govern,” Francis told reporters during a press conference returning from Panama.

USA - Desperate for data on its competitors, Facebook  has been secretly paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity, similar to Facebook’s Onavo Protect app that Apple banned in June and that was removed in August. Facebook sidesteps the App Store and rewards teenagers and adults to download the Research app and give it root access to network traffic in what may be a violation of Apple policy so the social network can decrypt and analyze their phone activity, a TechCrunch investigation confirms. Facebook admitted to TechCrunch it was running the Research program to gather data on usage habits, and it has no plans to stop.

USA - Even though it’s now been 100 percent verified that Nathan Phillips, the Native American activist who provoked the Covington Catholic High School boys by banging a drum in one of their faces, did not serve in Vietnam as he’s repeatedly claimed, the fake news “fact-checking” website Snopes continues to claim otherwise.

EUROPE - Finally I understand everything: why Brexit is proving so impossible to negotiate; why Leave voters are more determined than ever to get the hardest Brexit possible, preferably No Deal; why Theresa May keeps caving to Brussels; why the political class is so out of touch with the electorate; why this can only get uglier… Actually, I knew the answer to all this before. And so did you.

UK - The European Union’s leaders never got around to framing a clear strategy to deal with Brexit, but an optimist might say it’s never too late. Let’s suppose they decided to try. What would a strictly self-interested plan look like? It should be easy to rule out the least-good outcome. That would be a no-deal Brexit.

UK - Suffering the largest parliamentary defeat in modern history would give most prime ministers pause for thought. Not Theresa May. On January 21st she presented the House of Commons with her “Plan B” for Brexit. It turned out to be much the same as the Plan A which they had so decisively thrown out the week before. Mrs May still hopes that the European Union will agree to last-minute concessions, and that these will enable her to overturn the 230-vote majority against her deal. Yet with the clock ticking, that is a formidably tall order. Through a combination of Britain’s weak negotiating position, the Conservative Party’s lack of a parliamentary majority and her own reluctance to compromise, Mrs May is running a zombie government that has lost control of the Brexit process. If no deal is struck by March 29th, Britain is due to fall out of the EU without any exit agreement.

UK - Yup, it’s Crunch Week in Brexit Britain.  But then again, when isn’t it? It was “Crunch Week” when British and EU negotiators raced to sign off on a deal late last year, it was “Crunch Week” when lawmakers in London rebelled against it, and it was “Crunch Week” when May finally presented the agreement to Parliament earlier this month.

USA - A draft of a new committee rules package expected to be approved this week would strike the phrase, “So help me God,” from the oath witnesses take when they testify before the House Committee on Natural Resources. Fox News says it received an exclusive copy of the committee’s draft that places the phrase in red brackets, a sign the words are slated to be eliminated. If the phrase is cut, the House Committee on Natural Resources would ask witnesses to state only: “Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” The full committee will vote on the elimination of “So help me God” this week, and the rule would take effect immediately, says the report.

USA - Children have become such screen addicts they are abandoning their friends and hobbies, a major report warns today. Researchers found under-fives spend an hour and 16 minutes a day online. Their screen time rises to four hours and 16 minutes when gaming and television are included. Youngsters aged 12 to 15 average nearly three hours a day on the web – plus two more hours watching TV.

USA - The USA is facing its coldest winter in more than 50 years as a polar vortex brings freezing temperatures to the US midwest. Here is the latest as Chicago, Detroit and Michigan sees life-threatening cold and snowstorms in the next 48 hours. The Upper Midwest in the USA was hit by a deep freeze on Sunday, as temperatures plunged below -45F. The lows in International Falls, Minnesota beat the previous record in 1966 of -36F. The freezing weather is headed straight for the midwest, plunging the region into a disruptive snowstorm. Americans are already stuggling with burst pipes across the Midwest as temperatures dropped to terrifyingly low levels. Residents faced flooding, no water and sewage problems as engineers across the country struggled to get to the homes - and now they face a second freezing blast. The cold spell will work its way across the Midwest, before unleashing its most extreme conditions in the middle of the week.

USA - I wish Americans would realise that the world looks up to them, People have two reactions in the rest of the world – awe and jealousy. That jealousy has created this cult of trying to figure out ways to bash you, but behind it all is the fact that you are the world leaders, in everything - in morals, in technology and science, in innovation and wealth, power - and I just wish you guys would realise it and even realise that all this self doubt and guilt you guys feel comes from your amazing society, you are good people who want to do good. Ugh, it’s tearing me apart seeing you guys fighting and hating each other like this. And here’s the thing – the media has gaslit the rest of the world to think we are all infighting and hating each other but the average American at least in flyover country typically is living in harmony with their neighbors. My cousin from Australia thinks the USA is like Mad Max and is afraid to come over here because she thinks it’s unsafe and everyone is fighting.

GERMANY - The bulk of the new military equipment delivered to the German Armed Forces last year is not ready for service, the German Defense Ministry has admitted, as the force struggles to free itself from a torrent of failures. Out of 97 pieces of military equipment delivered to the Armed Forces in 2017, only 38 are fully operational, the German Defense Ministry acknowledged, in response to a parliamentary inquiry.

MIDDLE EAST - Israel Hayom has learned that alongside Jerusalem’s decision to postpone the transfer of Qatari funds to Hamas following the escalation on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, Egypt has issued the terrorist organization’s political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh (pictured) an ultimatum. Cairo has made it clear that Haniyeh must decide whether “Hamas takes its orders from Tehran or continues to implement the understandings for calm” formulated by the head of Egyptian intelligence Abbas Kamel.

USA - The US Treasury Department is set to maintain elevated sales of long-term debt to finance the government’s widening budget deficit, with new issuance projected to top $1 trillion for a second-straight year. Many strategists at primary-dealer firms predict that this Wednesday’s quarterly refunding announcement will see the Treasury maintain note and bond sales at the record high levels they have boosted them to in recent months. DoubleLine Capital LP’s Jeffrey Gundlach has warned that the US economy will be plagued by an ocean of debt. He cited the fiscal 2018 rise in America’s national debt among risks in his annual webcast.