A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – A summer camp for Arab-Israeli youths organized by the Arab-Israeli Balad party held its concluding ceremony this week in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, with campers marching alongside the camp’s children in a procession honoring the “martyrs.”

Draped in Palestinian flags, the children attending the camp marched through the refugee camp chanting invectives aimed at Israel.

The march’s repertoire included calls saying “with spirit and blood we will redeem you, martyr” and “with spirit and blood we will redeem you, Palestine.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The effort to defund Planned Parenthood may be stalled at the federal level, but recent legal and legislative victories have given states more power than ever to cut off taxpayer funding to the nation’s largest abortion provider.

South Carolina became just the latest state to make defunding Planned Parenthood a top priority last week, when Republican Gov. Henry McMaster issued an order directing state agencies to stop funding clinics and doctors who perform abortions.

With Republicans in control of 33 governor’s mansions and 32 state legislatures, Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, said there are “plenty of different possibilities and avenues” when it comes to defunding Planned Parenthood. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Twelve years to the day after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, another deadly storm forced the rescue of hundreds of people from floodwaters in southwestern Louisiana and prompted New Orleans to shut down its schools and other key institutions as a precaution.

Tropical Storm Harvey flooded neighbourhoods overnight with chest-deep water in the Lake Charles area, near the Texas line, although water abated in some places Tuesday as rain slackened.

National Weather Service meteorologists said Tuesday that officials expect Harvey will make another landfall in Cameron Parish early Wednesday, after hitting Texas and meandering back into the Gulf of Mexico.

As much as 6 to 12 more inches of rain (15 to 30 centimetres) could fall in western Louisiana. [ Source (Read More…) ]

Editor’s Note: 12 Years to the Day (12 Months * 12 Years = 144 Months) since Hurricane Katrina.

Crippled Houston watches dams, levees; forecast offers hope

With its flood defenses strained, the crippled city of Houston anxiously watched dams and levees Tuesday to see if they would hold until the rain stops, and meteorologists offered the first reason for hope — a forecast with less than an inch of rain and even a chance for sunshine.

The human toll continued to mount, both in deaths and in the ever-swelling number of scared people made homeless by the catastrophic storm that is now the heaviest tropical downpour in U.S. history.

The city’s largest shelter was overflowing when the mayor announced plans to create space for thousands of extra people by opening two and possibly three more mega-shelters. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – A large rock will fly past Earth on Sept. 1, 2017, at a distance of 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers). Asteroid 3122 Florence, named after modern nursing founder Florence Nightingale, is the largest object to make a close-encounter since NASA began tracking near-Earth objects (NEO) in the 1990s.

“While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on Sept. 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Florence is estimated to be about 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) in diameter. Were an asteroid of that size to strike Earth, it would have worldwide effects. However, this particular rock is not expected to present a risk of collision with the planet anytime soon as its next close approach will not be until after the year 2500. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed there would be “no more uprooting of settlements in the Land of Israel” at an event marking the 50th anniversary of Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

“It has been proven that this does not help peace,” said the Israeli leader, who spoke as the secretary general of the United Nations, which is highly critical of Israeli construction in the West Bank, was visiting Israel. “We uprooted towns and received missiles. That will not be the case any longer. We are taking care of and protecting this place and it is protecting us, as a strategic asset for Israel.”

Netanyahu told the audience in the settlement of Barkan that there was momentum for construction in the West Bank and that “there has been no government that worked more for the sake of settlement than the government I head.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Israeli lawmaker Yehuda Glick, shot in 2014 over his campaign for Jewish prayer an ultra-sensitive Jerusalem holy site, visited there on Tuesday during a one-day break in a government ban.

No incidents occurred as MP Yehuda Glick, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, toured the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Some Muslim worshippers yelled “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as he left and he waved to them.[ Source (Read More…) ]