Hello everyone,

You don't hear high level U.S. officials tell Israel to stop all settlement expansion – even to halt the so-called natural growth of existing settlement – every day. You don't even hear it every decade.

But that's what Hillary Clinton said President Barack Obama's administration wants Israel to do. Speaking after a meeting with her Egyptian counterpart in Washington, D.C., Clinton added: "That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly."

Words that haven't gone down well in Israel, where leaders of both the left and the right wants some exceptions to the settlement freeze.

It's also interesting to note that President Obama is traveling to the Middle East for the first time as president next week without making a stop in Israel.

"It is still hard to believe that an American president will soon visit Cairo without arriving in Israel," complains one op-ed writer on the Ynetnews website.

We'll be live at the White House at the top of the hour as President Obama meets with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. We also have a report from Jerusalem.

Also in the show, late breaking news out of Iran. A deadly explosion killed at least 15 people near the country's border with Pakistan. We'll go live to Tehran for the latest on what happened and for a string of deadly blast in Paksitan.

We'll be taking a walk down Wall Street a bit later in the show and asking what the future holds for General Motors. A deal seems to be in the works to swap GM's debt for a giant stake in the ailing car company. Any way you look at it, most of GM will be own by the U.S. government.

Big banks, insurances companies and now the biggest carmaker owned by Uncle Sam: are we in Sweden or in America? How and when will ownership of these companies be returned to the private sector?

Plus Richard Quest will join me live to talk about Queen Elizabeth's reported anger over not having been invited to the 65th anniversary of the D-day landings in normandy with presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama on June 6th.

If she is indeed angry, who can blame her. She's 83, has been Queen since Winston Churchill, and is the only living head of state to have served in uniform during World War 2.

That, and the rest of the days' top stories as always.

See you on TV,

Hala

Posted by: CNN Anchor, Hala Gorani
Filed under: Today At The I-Desk