A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reportedly reserve time during his upcoming trip to the United States to meet with President Donald Trump.

Netanyahu’s trip to the US, which will take place in mid-September after a scheduled tour across Latin America, has yet to be finalized. However, a senior Israeli official said that the Prime Minister’s Office is already engaged in efforts with the White House to set a time and place for such a meeting.

Moreover, the tentatively planned meeting will coincide with Netanyahu’s speech on September 19 at the annual meet up of the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu is expected to depart soon after his speech in time to return to Israel before the onset of Rosh Hoshana, the Jewish New Year, which will start on the evening of September 20. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Two right-leaning rallies in the Bay Area were canceled over the weekend by organizers over fears of violence, but that didn’t stop leftist radicals from creating chaos.

Berkeley police reportedly made 14 arrests Sunday as thousands of counter-protesters flooded Civic Center Park in Berkeley, even though the previously scheduled “No to Marxism in America” rally had been canceled the day before.

Hundreds of black-clad antifa activists jumped police barricades and tracked down the small number of Trump supporters who showed up anyway, beating up at least one man and hitting another with sticks, as shown on video from KCRA-TV in Sacramento. [ Source (Read More…) ]

Antifa chase cops out of MLK plaza in Berkeley. Police fire teargas. http://pic.twitter.com/tz5kQWFWD0

— Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) August 27, 2017

"Take his camera, take his phone," they are shouting at a journalist. #berkeley http://pic.twitter.com/hvsQ5eXalE

— Lizzie Johnson (@lizziejohnsonnn) August 27, 2017

(Worthy News) – Planned Parenthood had been on a legal winning streak, piling up decisions from judges who have ruled that states can’t stop the country’s largest abortion clinic network from receiving federal grant money.

But they suffered a major setback last week when a federal appeals court ruled that Arkansas can kick Planned Parenthood out of its network of Medicaid-approved health providers.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Medicaid recipients are entitled to care, but cannot dictate to the states where they get that care — meaning Planned Parenthood customers can’t protest the removal of the network from Arkansas’s list of approved clinics. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Senior members of the Trump administration and Israeli officials renewed talks over the possibility of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a promise repeatedly made by the president in the 2016 election campaign, during high-level meetings in Israel last week, the Times of Israel has learned.

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, peace envoy Jason Greenblatt and Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy Dina Powell met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday as part of a visit to the region in a bid to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

During that meeting, the embassy move “was brought up by both sides as part of a productive broad conversation about a number of issues,” a US source familiar with the discussions said Sunday, declining to reveal the specifics of discussion. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Ankara on Monday to discuss Palestinian reconciliation, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced.

Fatah, Abbas’s party, and Hamas have been at loggerheads since 2007 when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup d’etat and ousted the Fatah-dominated PA from the territory.

Turkey is one of Hamas’s closest allies and has sent millions of dollars in aid to the Strip in the past 10 years.

In the past couple of months, however, Hamas has placed its bets on improving its relations with one of Turkey’s regional rivals, Egypt. Hamas and Egyptian officials have met a number of times to discuss improving the security situation along the Gaza-Egypt border, economic relief for Gaza, and other issues. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The United Nations has provided the Gaza Strip with $2.5 million in humanitarian aid to help with its water, electricity and fuel crisis.

The funds come as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatens to gradually cut funding to Gaza if Hamas does not allow Fatah to return to the Strip.

Some 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza have been hostage for the last four months to the power play between Fatah and Hamas as Abbas seek to regain control of the Strip 10 years after Hamas ousted his party in a bloody coup. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – North Korea fired several short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast early on Saturday, South Korea and the U.S. military said, as the two allies conducted annual joint military drills that the North denounces as preparation for war.

The U.S. military’s Pacific Command said it had detected three short-range ballistic missiles, fired over a 20 minute period.

One appeared to have blown up almost immediately while two flew about 250 km (155 miles) in a northeasterly direction, Pacific Command said, revising an earlier assessment that two of the missiles had failed in flight. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – U.S. Navy ship collisions in the western Pacific may have killed more American troops so far this year than the war in Afghanistan, illuminating critical readiness challenges facing the military branch.

The collision of the USS John S. McCain with an oil tanker east of Singapore on Monday may have brought to 17 the number of sailors killed by Navy accidents in 2017, compared with 11 service members killed in Afghanistan, an active war zone, NPR reported first, citing the Military Times and icasualties.org.

The Navy announced Thursday it had suspended search-and-rescue operations for 10 missing sailors after recovering “some remains” inside the flooded compartments of the USS McCain. The White House issued an official statement Tuesday expressing condolences for the “United States sailor fatalities.” The Navy has officially declared two dead. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump granted a presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Friday night.

Arpaio had been found guilty of criminal contempt last month for disregarding a court order in a racial profiling case, CNN reports.

In a press release from the office of the press secretary, the White House said “Arpaio’s life and career, which began at the age of 18 when he enlisted in the military after the outbreak of the Korean War, exemplify selfless public service. After serving in the Army, Arpaio became a police officer in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, NV and later served as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), formerly the Bureau of Narcotics. After 25 years of admirable service, Arpaio went on to lead the DEA’s branch in Arizona.”

The statement commended Arpaio’s “life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration,” and said, “Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now eighty-five years old, and after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is a worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Welfare reform implemented in Kansas caused individuals to reenter the labor force while earning higher incomes, according to a report from the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback took office in 2011 and began to implement welfare reform after the previous governor, Kathleen Sebelius, had relaxed requirements for those on welfare to work or search for employment.

From 2000 to 2011, the number of able-bodied adults on cash welfare was increasing by 42 percent in Kansas, while nationally the number on welfare had dropped by a third.

Brownback first began reforming welfare by strengthening sanctions for those who received cash assistance by implementing a three-month ban on those who refused to meet work requirements. If an individual failed to meet the requirement for a second or third time, the ban was prolonged for six months to a year. [ Source (Read More…) ]