What happened
Israeli President Isaac Herzog last night formally invited opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot to try to form a government after last month’s inconclusive elections, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In consultations last week, Eisenkot secured the “clear and unequivocal support” of a majority of lawmakers to get first shot at building a governing coalition, Herzog said.

Who said what
Eisenkot’s “potential pathways to power” include joining with Arab-led parties, “forming a coalition ​with ultra-Orthodox parties” and “forging a unity government with Netanyahu,” Reuters said. Each “likely scenario appears to entail compromises or broken promises,” The Associated Press said.

Israel is facing a “devastating” loss of confidence among its “closest friends and strategic allies,” Eisenkot said yesterday. This “state of ​emergency, approaching a point of no return for the State of Israel,” requires a “national emergency government” formed through “creative and ​unconventional political steps.” 

What next?
Eisenkot has 28 days to form a coalition, with a possible two-week extension. Knesset members will be sworn in tomorrow, and Netanyahu will remain caretaker prime minister, with limited powers, until a governing coalition is formed. If Eisenkot fails, Netanyahu will likely get a chance, and if he comes up short, Israel will hold new elections in the spring. Political analysts say “remaining in power by forcing a new round of elections would be a victory” for Netanyahu, The New York Times said. 

What happened
President Donald Trump began shuffling his government following last week’s midterm losses, most notably naming longtime aide and anti-immigrant hardliner Stephen Miller as his new chief of staff on Friday. On Saturday, Trump posted that he was offering the job of White House press secretary to “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior.” The Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, in London for a boxing match, was noncommittal when asked about the offer. Trump last night said he said he was “only kidding” about White as press secretary. 

Who said what
It was “just a little fun,” but “Dana loves the idea, and there’s only one Dana,” Trump told reporters. “I was kidding and then people said ‘you know that’s actually a pretty good idea.’” 

It was “initially unclear whether the job offer was part of an actual plan, or an attention-grabbing stunt,” The Guardian said. Trump has “approached White before about the job,” The Wall Street Journal said. But there’s speculation he got a “couple of Dana Whites confused,” Andrew McCarthy said at National Review, and picked his UFC pal when a “short list of candidates” recommended a Dana W. White with a “solid background in strategic communications” at the Pentagon, Heritage Foundation and Fox News.

What next?
White said Saturday he was “flying to Washington, D.C., right now” to meet with Trump today. Trump confirmed the meeting last night but said it was “for other reasons.”

A 4.1-billion-year-old Mars meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert has a “composition, mineralogy and texture” that’s “distinct from other Martian meteorites,” said a study published in the journal Science. It could provide insight into the geographic history of the red planet and Earth. 

The meteorite, named Teghaza 001 after the salt plain in Mali where it was found, is “really our first piece of Martian crust from a part of Mars we have never had a sample of before,” said study author Lee Saper in a NASA release. Other Mars meteorites are usually about 2 billion years younger. 

Also, unlike other meteorites, Teghaza 001 has a “mix of igneous minerals that tells a story about how the planet’s crust formed from cooling magma before it was eventually altered by subsurface water,” NASA said. Researchers analyzed the sample and determined that it must have formed “roughly within the first 400 million years of Mars’ existence,” said CNN.

Analysis of the meteorite showed that “early Mars may have had a more dynamic water cycle than scientists previously believed,” said CBS News. Teghaza 001 “records interactions of water and rock and maybe even an imprint of the Martian atmosphere as it was losing water,” said Saper. 

These findings could have broader implications for “understanding the habitability of planets,” said study co-author Hayward Melton to CNN. The meteorite is providing a “deeper understanding of not only early Mars but also Earth” and could help us learn why Mars “became dry while the Earth did not.”