Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pointedly refused to apologize or express regret for her comparison of US border detention facilities to the Nazi concentration camps.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez made the comparison in a video posted online in June.
“I don’t regret it at all,” she told ABC News in an interview on Friday. “A group, in fact of, I think 200, at least 200, historians, rabbis, academics have come together in support of this term.”
She did not specify which group this referred to or who its members are.
Ocasio-Cortez also reiterated her comparison, saying, “I’ve seen it. I’ve sat on concrete floors with woman whose hair was falling out and they’re developing sores in their mouth.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic presidential field in New Hampshire with 21 percent in a Gravis Marketing poll released Tuesday.
Sanders is followed by former Vice President Joe Biden with 15 percent and by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 12 percent.
The poll stands in contrast from the most recent polls in New Hampshire compiled by RealClearPolitics, which have showed Biden leading in the critical primary state, followed by Sanders.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Tuesday it is banning certain MacBook Pro laptops from flights after Apple recently said that batteries in select units posed fire risks.
The FAA said in a statement to The Hill it was “aware of the recalled batteries that are used in some Apple MacBook Pro laptops” and that it had informed major U.S. airlines of the recall.
The agency went on to remind airlines to follow 2016 safety instructions for products containing recalled batteries, which would mean that the affected laptops should not be taken on airplanes as cargo or in carry-on baggage.

Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Georgia, will not run for president in 2020, instead focusing her efforts on combating voter suppression, according to a person familiar with her plans.
Speaking at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Convention in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Abrams did not explicitly address the possibility of a presidential run. But she made clear that her focus was on expanding Fair Fight, the advocacy group she founded, and fighting voter suppression in 2020.
“We’re going to win. We’re going to win because there are only two things stopping us in 2020: Making sure people have a reason to vote and that they have the right to vote,” Abrams said.

The Israel Innovation Authority has approved the establishment of a new consortium aimed at promoting the development of recycling technologies, and the use of recycled materials in Israel’s plastics industry.
Set to receive an investment of NIS 30 million (around $8,600,000), the CIRCLE consortium will enable companies in the recycling sector, plastic and polymer manufacturers as well as academic and research institutes in the field to develop innovative technologies to give Israeli industry an edge in international markets. The technologies developed by the consortium will allow for the expansion of the range of recycled materials and their applications.

A notorious British antisemite and Holocaust denier has been banned from entering France for the next 40 years.
According to The Jewish Chronicle, Alison Chabloz was stopped from boarding a train to Paris on Monday.
In a Twitter post, she claimed to have been “banned from entering France until 2059.”
“My passport bleeped,” she said. “Questioned first by gendarmes and then Met CTU [Counter Terrorism Unit] under Sec 7 at St Pancras,” an apparent reference to an anti-terrorism law that permits officials to block entry to France by criminals and terrorists.
Chabloz was sentenced in June 2018 to 20 weeks’ imprisonment, which was suspended for two years.

Almost two dozen people in the Midwest have been hospitalized with severe breathing difficulties linked to vaping, and doctors aren’t sure why.
It’s unclear exactly what the patients — many of whom are young adults — had been inhaling or what type of devices they were using. Nor do doctors know where they had purchased the devices or e-liquids.
Some patients said they’d used e-cigarette devices to inhale both nicotine and THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
Four of the cases have been reported in Minnesota, along with 12 in Wisconsin and six in Illinois.
Read more at NBC News.
{Matzav.com}

The FBI arrested an 18-year-old from Ohio for making online threats — including against the federal government and Planned Parenthood — and found a large cache of weapons, authorities said.
When agents raided the Boardman, Ohio, house where Justin Olsen was living they recovered 15 rifles, 10 semi-automatic pistols and roughly 10,000 rounds of ammunition, according to a criminal complaint written by FBI Special Agent Themistocles Tsarnas.
Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Michael McBride decided authorities had to act swiftly on the threats in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, NBC affiliate WFMJ reports. Olsen was charged Monday with one count of threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer.

The Israeli military is bolstering its defenses on the Israel-Gaza border with a new addition to its security barrier.
Israel is currently developing plans to build a massive wall in the northern section of the Gaza security fence in an effort to protect border communities from threats like terrorist infiltrations, attack tunnels and anti-tank weapons.
Over the last 10 days there have been three deadly clashes on the border between the IDF and Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip.
Read more at i24NEWS.
{Matzav.com}

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) is considering ending his White House bid and pursuing a Senate run instead, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Four Democratic sources familiar with his thinking told the outlet that the two-term governor is giving serious consideration to challenging Republican Sen. Cory Gardner (Colo.), a move many have have called for in hopes of helping Democrats retake the Senate.
Hickenlooper’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}