Sen. Bernie Sanders argued Monday that all prisoners, including domestic terrorists such as the Boston Marathon bomber, should have the right to vote while they are incarcerated.
“If somebody commits a serious crime, assault, murder, they’re going to be punished,” Sanders said. “They may be in jail for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, their whole lives. That’s what happens when you commit a serious crime.”
“But I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy,” he continued. “Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away … you’re running down a slippery slope. … I do believe that even if they are in jail, they’re paying their price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy.”

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ second in command, Fatah Vice Chairman Mahmoud Aloul, said on Monday that if the peace process remains on its current course the PA will cease its security cooperation with Israel and retract its recognition of the Jewish state.
“The leadership is preparing to retract its recognition of Israel and cease its security cooperation with the occupation forces,” Aloul said during an interview with the Shehab news agency on Monday, April 22.

The leader of a right-wing militia group that has been detaining migrants who enter the U.S. through Mexico allegedly bragged two years ago that the group’s members had received training to assassinate figures such as former President Obama.
The papers said that while it had been investigating allegations of “militia extremist activity” in 2017, witnesses accused Larry Hopkins, the leader of the United Constitutional Patriots, of saying his group was planning to assassinate not just Obama, but 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and George Soros, a wealthy supporter of liberal causes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers Monday that there are no plans to immediately open impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, rejecting calls from several Democrats to initiate steps to try to oust the president.
In a rare Monday night conference call, the California Democrat stressed that the near-term strategy in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report is to focus on investigating the president and seeing where the inquiries lead. Members of Pelosi’s leadership team reaffirmed her cautious approach, according to four officials on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
“We have to save our democracy. This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about saving our democracy,” Pelosi said.

The Social Security retirement program will be unable to pay full benefits by 2035, according to a new report issued Monday by the Trump administration.
Without reforms, the report says, payments to beneficiaries would have to be cut by 25 percent starting in 2035 to keep the program solvent.
The report said the program’s roughly $3 trillion in reserves will be depleted by 2035. The government will have to tap into those reserves beginning in 2020, when the costs of the program will begin exceeding the income it receives from taxes.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Senator who ran in the Democratic primaries prior to the November 2016 election, said that the US should not “support one country” run by a “right-wing” and “racist” government.
In an video clip published on CNN, Sanders explained: “I spent a number of months in Israel, I worked on a kibbutz for a while, I have family in Israel. I am not anti-Israel. but the fact of the matter is that [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu is a right-wing politician who I think is treating the Palestinian people extremely unfairly.”
“What I believe, and you know the United States gives billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. What I believe is not radical,” he emphasized.

More than 250 El Al airlines crew members have been vaccinated against the measles after a flight attendant contracted the disease during a flight from New York and is now in a coma with suspected brain damage due to complications from the measles virus. She had only received one shot of the measles vaccine, instead of the recommended two.
Israel’s Health Ministry ordered all local airlines to vaccinate their staff, especially those staff that come into contact with travelers, against measles.
El Al set up a special clinic at Ben Gurion Airport in order to ensure that all staff get inoculated.
At least 3,964 cases of the measles have been confirmed in Israel between March 2018 and February 2019, according to the Health Ministry.

On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration announced the first-of-its-kind approval of a generic nasal spray for opioid overdose treatment, manufactured by the US branch of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. Teva’s drug is the first generic product to receive final approval that does not require medical training to use. Commonly known as Narcan, the spray is considered a life-saving medication. The FDA stated it is working towards approving other generic products for the treatment of opioid overdose.

Samsung announced Monday that it would delay the release of its new $2,000 flagship Galaxy Fold phone after reports of product defects affecting the screen, a major setback for what was the most highly anticipated new mobile device in years.
The phone, which folds like a sandwich, was due to arrive in stores Friday. But last week, product reviewers who received the phones for testing reported problems such as broken hinges that caused the screen to bulge. Others peeled off a layer of plastic that resembles a screen protector, but which was crucial to the folding screen.
Samsung said it would make modifications to its screen design and announce a new release date “in the coming weeks.”

Arab League nations have pledged to pay the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority $100 million per month to offset a budget shortfall left by Israel’s withholding of millions of dollars in tax revenues over the PA’s payments to the families of terrorists and security prisoners.
“We confirm that Arab countries will support the Palestinian state’s budget… (to) resist the political and financial pressure it faces,” the Arab League said Sunday following a meeting in Cairo.
In February, Israel approved a $138 million deduction in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA to counter its payments to families of Palestinians jailed by Israel for attacks against Israelis — a policy critics refer to as “pay for slay”.