A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Hundreds of victims of the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas filed five lawsuits on Monday in a California court against the operators of the hotel from which the gunman fired, the organizers of the country music festival he targeted and the killer’s estate.

The largest of the lawsuits was filed on behalf of 450 people who were either injured in or witnessed the shooting, while the other four were brought by families of people who were killed or severely injured.

All five cases were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – More than six years after the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant, workers finally discovered the location of melted uranium fuel rods inside of one of the reactors. The rods melted during the 2011 disaster, making it near-impossible to determine where the liquefied material ended up.

The melted uranium was found using a shoe-box sized robot known as “Little Sunfish.” The machine was sent inside the defunct plant armed with a video camera to send footage back to workers outside. Three days into its mission, the robot sent back video of a hole at the bottom of the Unit 3 reactor with the melted fuel beneath it, the New York Times reported.

“Until now, we didn’t know exactly where the fuel was, or what it looked like,” Takahiro Kimoto, a general manager in the nuclear power division at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), told the New York Times. “Now that we have seen it, we can make plans to retrieve it.” [ Source: IBT (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – A mysterious radioactive cloud hovering above Europe came from Russian nuclear plant pollution, the nation admitted Monday, according to the South China Morning Post. Russia’s meteorological service confirmed there were “extremely high” concentrations of radioactive isotopes in the air in September.

The cloud was first discovered over Italy in early October. Authorities said at the time it appeared the radioactivity originated somewhere in South Russia between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains, according to Jean-Christope Gariel of France’s Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute.

“Probes of radioactive aerosols from monitoring stations Argayash and Novogorny were found to contain radioisotope Ru-106 [between Sept. 25 and Oct. 1],” Russia’s Rosgidromet service said, according to the South China Morning Post.

Authorities said the highest concentration was found in Argayash. Though the specific location of the pollution’s source was not given, Argayash lies near the Mayak nuclear facility. The Mayak plant has had a number of nuclear accidents in the past, including one in 1957 that was the second biggest nuclear disaster in history. A storage tank with highly radioactive liquid waste exploded at the time, releasing more than half the amount that was released during the Chernobyl disaster. [ Source: IBT (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The pro-ISIS Wafa’ Media Foundation is distributing a propaganda poster showing a beheaded Pope Francis poster just days after releasing a video showing a masked man driving towards Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Basilica.

The gruesome image shows an Islamic State member leaning over the decapitated body of the Catholic Church leader in front of a destroyed cityscape and armed ISIS fighters. “I swear to avenge every single drop of blood that you spilled and every house that you have destroyed,” reads the photo caption. “I swear that you will taste the bitterness of the cups of death and make your feasts massacres. You will not even enjoy living in your homes, Allah Willing.”

Last week, a dimly-lit image began circulating through pro-ISIS social media accounts of a masked man behind the wheel of a car approaching St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. The poster’s ominous caption read, “Christmas Blood. So wait…” [ Source: IBT (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah is preparing to pull its cadre of commanders and military advisers from Iraq, with the group’s leader saying Monday it had achieved its goal of defeating the Islamic State in the Middle East country.

During a televised address from Beirut, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said its operations against ISIS in Iraq were coming quickly to an end, and the group needed to redeploy those commanders and advisers “in any other arena that needs them.”

Hezbollah fighters in Iraq will remain in place, for the time being, until Baghdad gives the official word that their forces are no longer needed in the country, Mr. Nasrallah said. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump announced Monday the U.S. is putting North Korea’s “murderous regime” on America’s terrorism blacklist, despite questions about Pyongyang’s support for international attacks beyond the assassination of its leader’s half brother in February.

Trump said the designation as a state sponsor of terror was long overdue, and he promised a new wave of sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure campaign” over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons that could soon pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland.

North Korea will join Iran, Sudan and Syria on the blacklist. The North had been designated for two decades until 2008 when it was removed in a bid to salvage international talks aimed at halting its nuclear efforts. The talks collapsed soon after and haven’t been revived since. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – States with lower taxes on businesses and personal income have higher economic growth, according to an economist at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Jonathan Williams, an economist at the council, spoke at an event on the Hill Monday and used two states, Kansas and North Carolina, to illustrate how raising and cutting taxes can affect the local state economy in either a positive or negative way.

Williams explained that while many try to suggest Kansas’s economic difficulty has been due to tax cuts they have implemented in the past, the data suggest otherwise. [ Source: Washington Free Beacon (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Palestinian terror group Hamas rejected on Monday an Arab League resolution labeling Lebanon’s Hezbollah a terrorist organisation.

In a statement, Hamas said it “rejects the description of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement as terrorist.”

Rather, it added, Israel’s actions against Palestinians should be labelled “terrorism.” [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Saudi Arabia warned Sunday that it would not stand idly by in the face of Iranian “aggression,” as Bahrain said the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah was “in total control” of Lebanon.

The foreign ministers of both Gulf states spoke at an extraordinary general meeting of the Arab League at its Cairo headquarters, called by Riyadh.

The Arab League meeting comes as tensions soar between regional arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, including over League member Lebanon. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Janet Yellen on Monday submitted her resignation from the Federal Reserve board to US President Donald Trump, announcing that she will leave the board when her successor is sworn in as Fed chairman.

In a letter to the president, Yellen said she would “do my utmost” to make sure that there is a smooth transition to Jerome Powell, who was tapped by Trump on November 2 to become the next Fed leader after the president decided not to offer Yellen a second term.

Yellen’s decision gives Trump the chance to fill five positions on the Fed’s seven-member board, in addition to picking Powell to be the next Fed chairman, all in his first year in office. Board member Lael Brainard will be the only Fed board member not nominated by Trump, meaning his selections will have tremendous influence in setting the country’s future monetary policy. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]