A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Harvey was a tropical storm but intensified Thursday into a hurricane — with the potential for up to 3 feet of rain, 125 mph winds and 12-foot storm surges.

Forecasters said Harvey was gathering strength faster than previously predicted and labeled it a “life-threatening storm” that posed a “grave risk.”

As of midday Thursday, Harvey was about 340 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, moving to the north-northwest at about 10 mph.

Nearly all of the Texas’ 367-mile coast was under a hurricane or tropical storm warning or watch as of Thursday. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – US President Donald Trump’s Mideast negotiating team held talks in Tel Aviv and Ramallah on Thursday, trying to revive the moribund diplomatic process, even as it pointedly refrained from any public commitment to a two-state solution.

Before meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, said that the president “is very committed to achieving a solution here that will be able to bring prosperity and peace to all people in the area.”

He did not, however, give any public indication that Washington believed that solution needed to be a two-state one. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Jerusalem District Police announced Wednesday that starting next week it will allow lawmakers to visit the Temple Mount. The decision comes more than 18 months after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu barred all MKs, Jewish and Arab alike, from visiting the volatile site.

While there is no law on the matter, the police enforce a general ban on Jewish prayer at the holy site, on the grounds that it would be inflammatory. The High Court of Justice has upheld the police ban as long as it is deemed necessary to keeping the peace. There is no provision preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount, however.

But soon after a wave of terrorism erupted in 2015, Netanyahu issued a directive specifically forbidding MKs from visiting the Temple Mount in an effort to avoid aggravating the delicate security situation. The prime minister’s decision followed a police recommendation to that effect. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Amnesty International on Wednesday criticized both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas over their restrictions of freedom of expression.

In a statement, the group said both sides had launched “a repressive clampdown on dissent that has seen journalists from opposition media outlets interrogated and detained in a bid to exert pressure on their political opponents.”

The statement noted that the PA has arrested six journalists in August so far, shut down 29 websites and introduced a controversial Electronic Crimes Law imposing tight controls on media freedom and banning online expression and dissent. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Evangelicals have ‘unprecedented’ levels of influence and access into Donald Trump’s White House, meeting foreign ambassadors and influencing high-level decisions from choosing senior personnel to consulting on policy, one adviser is claiming.

Amid ongoing criticism about Christians leaders’ reluctance to denounce Trump after his handling of the Charlottesville tragedy, Johnnie Moore, a senior member of the president’s evangelical advisory council, told Christian Today they have a duty to stick with him.

‘How can you make a difference if you don’t have a seat at the table?’ he said.

‘Our involvement is less about endorsing every word of action of the president and more about his endorsing of those issues important to us. We win some and we lose some, but – objectively speaking – he has done more to protect religious liberty and the unborn, for instance, than any president since Reagan and most of us believe he’ll do far more than Reagan. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The nation’s largest atheist organization is demanding that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., stop tweeting Bible verses from his Twitter account, telling him that doing so is a violation of the United States Constitution.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates for strict adherence to separation of church and state and has over 1,400 members in Florida, sent the 46-year-old 2016 presidential candidate a demand letter on Tuesday to complain about an increase in Rubio’s Bible-themed tweets since May.

“We understand that you have been tweeting Bible verses from @MarcoRubio to nearly 3 million followers. It appears that you began tweeting the Bible in mid-May and have been doing so regularly ever since. This is not an errant Bible verse or two, but more than 60 Bible verses in three months,” the letter, written by FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel, reads. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Canadian citizens who do not identify as male or female will soon be able to mark “X” on their passports and other identity documents, the government said Thursday (Aug 24).

From Aug 31, citizens will be able to add an “observation” to their passports stating their sex should be “identified as ‘X’, indicating it is unspecified,” the government said in a statement.

The move will help Canadians have documents that “better reflect their gender identity,” it said. [ Source (Read More…) ]