A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – After years of investigations that began primarily due to whistleblower videos, the FBI has finally decided to investigate Planned Parenthood for trafficking in human remains from abortion. Between that and the Center for Medical Progress’s latest undercover video showing how PP colluded with medical company StemExpress to sell the most aborted baby parts for the most profit, the GOP should finally defund this shady organization that still receives a large guaranteed taxpayer subsidy.

Last week, The Hill reported that the FBI is seeking thousands of pages of unredacted documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation and criminal referrals of Planned Parenthood and StemExpress. Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed in congressional testimony that the referrals’ findings could form the basis of criminal charges against Planned Parenthood and StemExpress, once verified by the Department of Justice. [ Source: The Federalist (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Top U.S. military commanders and diplomats are weighing a proposed strategy shift in the Afghanistan War centered on expanded military collaboration with Russia.

On separate occasions this week, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Army Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, spoke publicly of Washington and Moscow’s shared interests in the fight that could also align with each country’s larger regional security goals.

“There may be opportunities for cooperation in Afghanistan. We’ve not yet come to what that might be, but we’re talking about it,” Mr. Tillerson said Tuesday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The discovery of late-Roman era mortar under a slab of marble at the site which some believe to be the burial place of Jesus Christ backs up contemporary accounts of the tomb’s discovery, scientists say.

According to historical accounts, the Emperor Constantine — who was the first Roman ruler to convert to Christianity — discovered the rocky tomb with assistance from his mother, Helena, between 325 and 326 AD, buried beneath a temple to the Roman goddess Venus in Jerusalem

Today the tomb lies at the heart of Holy Sepulchre church in the Old City, where it is visited regularly by millions of pilgrims and tended by priests from several Christian denominations under strict rules still in place from the Ottoman era. [ Source: ABC News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Remnants of four ballistic missiles fired into Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this year appear to have been designed and manufactured by Riyadh’s regional rival Iran, a confidential report by United Nations sanctions monitors said, bolstering a push by the United States to punish the Tehran government.

The independent panel of U.N. monitors, in a Nov. 24 report to the Security Council seen by Reuters on Thursday, said it “as yet has no evidence as to the identity of the broker or supplier” of the missiles, which were likely shipped to the Houthis in violation of a targeted U.N. arms embargo imposed in April 2015.

Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley accused Iran of supplying Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the United Nations to hold Tehran accountable for violating two U.N. Security Council resolutions. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Three earthquakes hit eastern Iran in quick succession early Friday, the first a fairly strong magnitude 6.0 tremor that struck at a shallow depth close to the populous city of Kerman, the US Geological Survey said.

It was followed by two less powerful 5.0 and 5.1 aftershocks in the same area, the survey said.

“For the moment, no deaths have been reported but there has been destruction in several villages,” Hossein-Ali Mehrabizadeh, an official with the crisis unit in Kerman, told state television. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – After months of clashes on policy and personality, President Donald Trump is considering ousting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replacing him with hard-nosed CIA Director Mike Pompeo following less than a year on the job, senior US officials said Thursday as turmoil within Trump’s national security team burst into the open.

The White House plan, which Trump has not yet signed off on, would force a major realignment early in his term, also creating a vacancy atop the CIA that officials said could be filled by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. The overhaul could produce a significant shift in both the tone and direction of the president’s foreign policy, removing it from the understated former oil man whose style has never fit well with Trump’s.

It is exceedingly rare for a secretary of state, America’s face on the global stage, to be fired or to serve for a year or less. Nor is it common for presidents to have such a significant Cabinet revamp so soon after taking office. Too much churn could fuel the perception of chaos in the Trump White House — perhaps one reason he has yet to pull the trigger. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Senate Republicans are considering a tax increase as a plan B to raise revenue to get their party’s deficit hawks to support their tax bill, Republican Whip John Cornyn said Thursday evening, as the “debt trigger” idea the party had been working on ran afoul of Senate rules.

“It doesn’t look like the trigger is going to work, according to the parliamentarian, so we have an alternative, frankly a tax increase we don’t want to do, to try to address” the concerns of deficit hawks, Cornyn told reporters at the Capitol after a surprisingly tense procedural vote that saw Republicans hold an animated group discussion on the Senate floor.

Republicans hadn’t yet settled on the alternative. Cornyn said that one possibility was a “stairstep” in the 20 percent corporate tax rate, with it scheduled to rise a half a percentage point after six years. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that Republicans are also discussing an increase in taxes akin to an alternative minimum tax that would automatically kick in after a period of years, falling most likely on corporations and high-income earners. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Members of the small Jewish community in the West German city of Bochum announced that they will no longer wear kippot because of attacks on them by Muslim youths.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, “Germans, more than any other people in Europe, should understand what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. When I raised the issue brought to Germany by many Arab and Muslim immigrants with the German justice minister, I was told this issue would be dealt with in the context of the German authorities’ efforts to integrate newcomers into German life and values.”

He added, “The German authorities, Church leadership and NGOs have a moral obligation to ensure 21st century German Jews will never have to hide their Jewish identities on the streets of Germany.” [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – A twenty year-old man was stabbed to death in the southern Israeli city of Arad on Thursday in what police said was an apparent terrorist attack.

At around 22:00 local time, paramedics reported that while attending a call near a shopping mall in the small city at the edge of the Negev desert, they located the man who was suffered from multiple stab wounds.

He died despite attempts to resuscitate him. [ Source: i24 News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Israeli officials are reportedly expecting US President Donald Trump to make a landmark announcement in the coming days regarding the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing the highly-sensitive holy city as Israel’s capital, according to a local TV report on Wednesday.

According to the Hadashot report, the move could take place as soon as Sunday and Trump is instructing officials to prepare for it.

The White House urged caution in response to the report later on Wednesday saying it was “premature” ahead of a decision deadline. [ Source: i24 News (Read More…) ]