A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – It was billed as a re-enactment of the charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba but it ended up being a gentle walk.

Thousands of Australians had gathered in stands at a dust bowl called Be’ersheva River Park, where the Australian mounted troops began the charge that stormed the town a century ago.

A band played the Australian classics On The Road To Gundagai and Click Go The Shears along with a modern composition of bush poetry set to music which described the ride.

Chants of “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!” filled their air at regular intervals. [ Source: News (Australia) (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Hamas leaders newly returned from an official visit to Iran have hailed their restored ties with the Tehran regime, praising the Islamic Republic’s “making no secret” of the “exceptional support” it provides to the Palestinian terrorist organization.

In an interview with the Qatari-financed Al Jazeera broadcaster last week, Saleh al Arouri — the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau who led the delegation to Iran — explained, “[I]t is well known that Iran supported the Lebanese resistance, until the Israeli occupation was driven out.”

Iran “supports the resistance in Palestine as well,” al-Arouri said, in remarks translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “They make no secret of this. They give us exceptional support. The resistance is in dire need of this to be able to confront the aggression of the Israeli entity.” [ Source: Algemeiner (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The tunnel the IDF blew up was “meant to bring about the release of Palestinian prisoners from the Israeli prisons,” Khaled al-Batash, a senior Islamic Jihad official, said Tuesday.

Essentially, according to various media reports, that means it was intended to be used for the abduction of Israeli soldiers.

Al-Batash was speaking at the funeral of three of the terrorists who were killed Monday when the tunnel, which ran from Khan Yunis into Israel, collapsed on them when it was blown up by the IDF.

Al-Batash said Islamic Jihad will dig another tunnel for the exact same purposes. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised alarm about mysterious foreign forces collecting DNA from ordinary citizens, triggering concerns in parliament about a biological attack—as well as memes from those less convinced of the danger of his pronouncement.

Speaking to his Presidential Council for Human Rights on Monday, where an official raised the issue of Russians being photographed by third parties, Putin doubled down on the concern, suggesting that there were bigger issues at stake.

“The images [being collected], that is OK. Do you know that biological material is being collected across the whole country?” Putin asked, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. “Here is the question—why are they doing this?” [ Source: Newsweek (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Authorities say a young white man is accused of setting fire to the sanctuary of a predominantly black church in Louisiana.

The News-Star of Monroe reports the fire at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church on Tuesday burned down its new sanctuary but spared the century-old church community’s older building.

Witnesses said they talked to the driver of an Entergy Corp. truck leaving the scene shortly before smoke began rising from the church. Authorities found the vehicle with the suspect, confirmed the juvenile is connected to a second Entergy theft, and believe he used one of the utility trucks to ram vehicles at Caldwell Parish High School. [ Source: Townhall (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Top lawyers from Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday that Russian-linked posts and advertisements placed on the social networks after Election Day sought to sow doubt about President Donald Trump’s victory.

Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a Senate Judiciary panel that content generated by a Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency after Nov. 8 centered on “fomenting discord about the validity of [Trump’s] election.” That’s a change from Russia’s pre-election activity, which was largely centered on trying to denigrate Hillary Clinton, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a January report.

“During the election, they were trying to create discord between Americans, most of it directed against Clinton. After the election you saw Russian-tied groups and organizations trying to undermine President Trump’s legitimacy. Is that what you saw on Facebook?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked at the hearing. [ Source: Politico (Read More…) ]

Related: How The Russians Got 10,000 People To Turn Out For This One Protest And Got CNN To Cover It

(Worthy News) – U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Donald E. Jackson told Senate lawmakers on Tuesday that some Puerto Rico officials have refused to cooperate with the military and the Federal Emergency Management Agency during ongoing recovery efforts.

“We’ve run into some really interesting politics within the 78 municipalities that make up Puerto Rico in terms of how they are allowing us to gain access,” Jackson, the deputy commanding general for civil and emergency operations, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee when asked about debris cleanup efforts.

“We’re in some significant negotiations. Many of the municipalities have come back and said ‘we don’t really want you to do it, we’ll take care of it ourselves,'” Jackson added. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – House Republicans postponed the much-anticipated rollout of their tax reform proposal Tuesday night, an ominous sign for a direly needed legislative accomplishment for President Donald Trump and his party.

House Ways and Means Committee members spent all day Tuesday holed up in conference rooms trying to iron out last-minute disagreements. Senior committee staff worked through the night Monday and were expected to do the same on Tuesday to unveil the bill at a GOP Conference meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

But in a move that foreshadows the difficulties awaiting the party of Reagan, GOP leaders and tax writers postponed their big reveal to buy themselves more time. They now hope to release the bill Thursday but privately acknowledge they have a number of disagreements to resolve first. [ Source: Politico (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Some Senate Republicans aren’t ruling out including a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate in a tax reform bill even though leaders of the House effort have nixed the idea in their legislation.

The House is expected to release its tax reform legislation on Wednesday and the Senate some time later. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, head of the House Ways and Means Committee and leading the House tax reform effort, said Tuesday that the bill wouldn’t include a repeal of Obamacare’s mandate that every individual have insurance or pay a penalty.

But Brady’s counterpart in the Senate, Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wouldn’t say whether the Senate tax bill would include the repeal. “We’ll have to see. We are still working,” he said. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The United States is pursuing a rigorous new regime for international inspections of Iran’s nuclear program that includes access to off-limits military sites as well as increased transparency on the Islamic Republic’s often obfuscated enrichment of uranium, the key component in a nuclear bomb, according to U.S. officials and congressional leaders spearheading the new inspection effort.

A delegation of 13 leading senators petitioned the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, led by Ambassador Nikki Haley, to implement a series of stricter inspection methods that would give Western countries a deeper look into Iran’s suspected use of military sites to continue contested nuclear work prohibited under the landmark nuclear agreement, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

The Trump administration is said to be fully on board with these tougher inspection measures, which could address lingering questions about Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, U.S. officials said. Iran has been found in breach several times since the accord was implemented. [ Source: Washington Free Beacon (Read More…) ]