A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lay out a comprehensive case against Iran in his upcoming speech at the United Nations, “connecting the dots” between the nuclear deal and Tehran’s desire to establish itself militarily on Israel’s northern border, Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Sunday.

Netanyahu will make plain that in Jerusalem’s view the Iran nuclear pact must not be left intact, he said.

“The issue of North Korea is concerning, but we care about the Middle East. Iran will be major part of the prime minister’s speech, regarding the nuclear agreement but also what they are doing today in the region,” Danon told The Times of Israel.

“Today, the Iranians have more funds, are able to send more troops and buy more weapons, support Hezbollah. It’s all connected,” Danon said. “I think the PM, who is an expert on that, will connect the dots. He will show they whole picture of what happens since the agreement, and what its consequences are today.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Hurricane Jose is expected to pass east of the North Carolina coast on Monday and remain off the U.S. East Coast from Virginia to New England, while Tropical Storm Maria formed and is forecast to become a hurricane early next week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Saturday.

Maria could threaten several Caribbean islands, some of which were devastated by Hurricane Irma less than two weeks ago. It is expected to approach the Leeward Islands on Monday and become a hurricane around that time, the NHC said.

A hurricane watch is in effect for Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat and France has also issued a hurricane watch for the island of Guadeloupe. A hurricane watch is typically issued 48 hours before the first occurrence of storm-force winds, NHC said. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Six minor earthquakes rattled parts of the South Bay on Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Society, and three of them were strong enough to be felt across the region.

The first two larger quakes occurred within a two-hour span in the morning and a third about 6:20 p.m.

The third temblor, a magnitude 3.3, was cenetered about 2 miles north of the East San Jose foothills, the USGS said. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – China has tightened its ‘choke-hold’ on churches across the country in recent weeks, according to the rights and religious freedom group China Aid.

Recent bans on unregistered church worship and on teaching Christianity to children ‘as if intending to eliminate all house churches at once,’ have alarmed Christians in the country, a China Aid source was quoted as saying by Morning Star News.

In the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, a source told China Aid that in the past week police visited members of unregistered church members at their homes to warn them not to attend Christian worship services, and officers also summoned many of them for questioning.

One Christian who wished to remain unnamed, said: ‘The police called me again today and ordered me to stay away from church gatherings, which irritated me. I don’t know what to do with these people.’ [ Source: Christian Today (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Protests near St. Louis turned violent for the second night Saturday in reaction to the acquittal of a white former police officer in the fatal shooting of a black man, as a small group of demonstrators refused to disperse, breaking windows at dozens of businesses and throwing objects at police, who moved in with hundreds of officers in riot gear to make arrests.

The confrontation took place in the Delmar Loop area of University City, a suburb about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of St. Louis near Washington University. The area is known for concert venues, restaurants, shops and bars and includes the Blueberry Hill club where rock legend Chuck Berry played for many years.

University City had been the scene of a tense but calm march earlier in the evening to protest a judge’s ruling Friday clearing ex-officer Jason Stockley of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting of 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith. That march ended with organizers calling for people to leave and reconvene Sunday afternoon. [ Source:CBN News (Read More…) ]

Acquitted St. Louis officer Stockley speaks out: ‘Feels like a burden has been lifted’

The former St. Louis police officer whose acquittal in the December 2011 shooting death of a black man sparked violent protests this weekend said his life “has been in turmoil” for some time, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“It feels like a burden has been lifted, but the burden of having to kill someone never really lifts,” Jason Stockley, an Iraq War veteran, told the newspaper on Friday. “The taking of someone’s life is the most significant thing one can do, and it’s not done lightly…My main concern now is for the first responders, the people just trying to go to work and the protesters. I don’t want anyone to be hurt in any way over this.”

St. Louis has been hit with daily protests—which have exploded into assaults on officers, property damage and dozens of arrests—since Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson issued his ruling Friday. Stockley had waived his right to a jury trial in favor of a bench trial. [ Source:Fox News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Obamacare repeal is on the brink of coming back from the dead.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his leadership team are seriously considering voting on a bill that would scale back the federal government’s role in the health care system and instead provide block grants to states, congressional and Trump administration sources said.

It would be a last-ditch attempt to repeal Obamacare before the GOP’s power to pass health care legislation through a party-line vote in the Senate expires on Sept. 30.

No final decision has been made, but the GOP leader has told his caucus that if the bill written by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has the support of at least 50 of the 52 GOP senators, he will bring it to the floor, Graham and Cassidy say. That would give Republicans one more crack at repealing the Affordable Care Act, a longtime party pledge.  [ Source: Politico (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Hamas has agreed to dissolve the administration that runs Gaza, it said on Sunday, a major step towards handing control of the enclave to a Palestinian unity government after a decade of bitter rivalry with President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Islamist group, which has ruled Gaza since a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007, said it had taken “a courageous, serious and patriotic decision to dissolve the administrative committee” that runs the territory of 2 million people, and hand power to some form of unity government.

Reunification a decade after Hamas and Abbas’s secular Fatah movement battled for control of Gaza may hinge on whether complex issues related to power-sharing – which stymied reconciliation bids in the past – can be resolved. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed cooperation on the Syrian crisis, Middle East issues, and the agreement to bring peace to Ukraine in a meeting on Sunday, Lavrov’s spokeswoman said.

Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “the meeting was on cooperation in Syria crisis, Middle East issues and Minsk agreement.” No other details were immediately available.

The top Russian and US diplomats met in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Maria, a Category 1 hurricane, poses a significant threat to Irma-devastated areas in the northern Caribbean early this week.

Maria, located 450 miles east-southeast of the Lesser Antilles, continues to strengthen as it tracks west-northwestward. People in the Lesser Antilles should be preparing for yet another impactful hurricane.

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello tweeted that the government is working to finalize plans for Maria.

(Worthy News) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will suggest “concrete ideas” to US President Donald Trump during their meeting in New York on Monday to either change or scrap the Iranian nuclear deal, sources in the Prime Minister’s entourage said on Sunday.

The meeting comes amid a debate in Washington over whether the US should walk away from the deal and what ramifications that move would create.

Last Thursday, Trump renewed an exemption to sanctions on Iran, keeping the deal alive. But next month he will have to decide whether to re-certify the deal by informing Congress whether Iran is living up to its terms. Trump has already re-certified the agreement twice. According to US law, this process needs to be repeated every 90 days. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]