(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans unveiled Wednesday their plan for a massive tax overhaul.
The plan, meant to be a framework for Congress to negotiate into legislation, still has missing parts. But read on for a look at who wins and loses under the proposal as it stands now. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – The Pentagon named a senior general to command military relief operations in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico on Thursday and the Trump administration sent a Cabinet emissary to the island as U.S. lawmakers called for a more robust response to the crisis.
The U.S. territory of 3.4 million people struggled through a ninth day with virtually no electricity, patchy communications and shortages of fuel, clean water and other essentials in the wake of Hurricane Maria, the most powerful storm to hit the island in nearly 90 years.
The storm struck on Sept. 20 with lethal, roof-ripping force and torrential rains that caused widespread flooding and heavily damaged homes, roads and other infrastructure. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – As Puerto Rico deals with a lack of power, food and drinking water in the wake of Hurricane Maria, residents are also in dire need of another commodity: Cold hard cash.
And that means what little other resources are available often can’t be purchased by those in need.
“The cash is running out, for a lot of us,” said San Juan resident Monica Morales by phone on Thursday. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – A federal appeals court let stand Thursday a decision that it is unconstitutional to require firearms owners prove a “good reason” in order to carry legally a concealed handgun in the nation’s capital — a win for gun rights advocates that has the potential to send a significant Second Amendment case to the Supreme Court.
The D.C. government had petitioned for the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to rehear a lawsuit against the city’s gun laws, but the court declined to revisit the 2-1 decision handed down earlier this year, noting that none of the 10 judges who considered the matter requested a vote on it.
The decision leaves in place the D.C. Circuit’s prior ruling, which found that the city’s “good reason” requirement was unconstitutional.
It also sets up the potential for the Supreme Court to take up the case as the decision creates a split with four other federal circuits that have found discretionary permitting schemes elsewhere are legal. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – The Pentagon wants Congress to move $416 million from several other defense accounts to pay for “missile defeat enhancements” in the face of an increasingly aggressive North Korea, according to multiple reports.
In a reprogramming request signed by Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist on Sept. 7, the Defense Department asks lawmakers to move the majority of the money, about $330 million, from unused fiscal 2017 Army operations and maintenance funds, InsideDefense.com reported.
The Pentagon official argued that the Army operations and maintenance dollars couldn’t be used because the 2017 budget arrived later than usual. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – Israeli officials believe that Iran is winning its bid for dominance in the Middle East, and they are mobilizing to counter the regional realignment that threatens to follow. The focus of Israel’s military and diplomatic campaign is Syria. Israeli jets have struck Hezbollah and Syrian regime facilities and convoys dozens of times during Syria’s civil war, with the goal of preventing the transfer of weapons systems from Iran to Hezbollah. In an apparent broadening of the scope of this air campaign, on Sept. 7 Israeli jets struck a Syrian weapons facility near Masyaf responsible for the production of chemical weapons and the storing of surface-to-surface missiles.
The strike came after a round of diplomacy in which Israeli officials concluded that their concerns regarding the developing situation in Syria were not being addressed with sufficient seriousness in either the United States or Russia. A senior delegation led by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen visited Washington in late August, reportedly to express Israel’s dissatisfaction with the emerging U.S.-Russian understanding on Syria. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi to raise similar concerns with Moscow.
In both cases, the Israelis were disappointed with the response. Their overriding concern in Syria is the free reign that all the major players there seem willing to afford Iran and its various proxies in the country. And as long as nobody else addresses that concern in satisfactory, Israel is determined to continue addressing it on its own. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – The son of a prominent Hamas leader shocked members of the U.N. Human Rights Council, including representatives of the Palestinian Authority, declaring in testimony that the PA is the “greatest enemy of the Palestinian people.”
“If Israel did not exist, you would have no one to blame; take responsibility for the outcome of your own actions,” said Mosab Hassan Yousef, directing his remarks to the PA.
Yousef, whose father was a founding member of Hamas, the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip, spoke Monday on behalf of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights organization.
The session of the U.N. Human Rights Council focused on alleged Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights. UN Watch point out, in contrast, the council has no special agenda item on nations such as Syria, Sudan, Iran or North Korea. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – For the second time since David Friedman assumed his post as US ambassador to Israel, the US State Department has publicly rejected remarks he made pertaining to Israel’s presence in the West Bank as not reflecting the administration’s stance.
On Thursday afternoon, spokesperson Heather Nauert told reporters that Friedman’s comments in an interview with the Israeli Walla news website that he considers West Bank “settlements are part of Israel” should “not be read as a shift in US policy.”
“I just want to be clear that our policy has not changed,” she added, with emphasis. ”I want to be crystal clear.” [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – The U.S. ambassador to Israel raised eyebrows Thursday by saying that Israel occupies a tiny portion of the West Bank — just 2 percent — and that settlements there are part of the Jewish state proper.
The comments angered the Palestinians and are at odds with decades of U.S policy in the Mideast.
“I think the settlements are part of Israel,” American Ambassador David Friedman said in an interview with the Israeli news site Walla. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – As part of a massive illegal immigration sweep, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Thursday that officials this week arrested nearly 500 illegal immigrants living in sanctuary cities across the country.
The raid, referred to as “Operation ‘Safe City’” in a news release, spanned four days in cities through the U.S., and ended Wednesday.
Illegal immigrants with criminal charges or known gang-affiliations were targeted, the release said, noting that recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program were not. [ Source (Read More…) ]