A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump is set to unveil his $1.7 trillion infrastructure plan during his State of the Union Address Tuesday night during a joint session of Congress.

During his televised speech to the nation, the commander-in-chief will outline how to fix the country’s roads, rivers, and railways.

“The president will be talking about his record-setting accomplishment and will be speaking from the heart,” a White House senior administrator said. “The speech will resonate with American values and unite us with patriotism.” [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a fresh challenge pushing her flagship Brexit law through parliament after lawmakers demanded changes only a day before parliament’s upper house begins to debate the legislation.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee said in a report published on Monday that the legislation to end Britain’s European Union membership has “fundamental flaws”, including ministerial powers it considers too sweeping.

“We acknowledge the scale, challenge and unprecedented nature of the task of converting existing EU law into UK law, but as it stands this bill is constitutionally unacceptable,” said committee chairwoman Ann Taylor. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is headed to Moscow on Monday for a whirlwind trip, during which he is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and visit an exhibition on the Holocaust.

On the agenda of his meeting with Putin will be Iran’s attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, since Moscow is one of the key allies of both Damascus and Tehran. Other issues likely to come up in their talks will be the future of the Iranian nuclear deal, of which Russia is one of the signatories, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Monday morning, Netanyahu will fly on a small plane to the Russian capital, and return to Israel several hours later. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis warned in a rare op-ed on a Lebanese opposition website that a war with Israel could break out if Iran develops precision missiles in the country.

“Lebanon has become – both by its own actions and omissions and by a blind eye from many members of the international community – one large missile factory,” Manelis wrote on the Ahewar website.

“It’s no longer a transfer of arms, funds or consultation. Iran has de-facto opened a new branch, the ‘Lebanon branch.’ Iran is here,” he said. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Iran is spending billions of dollars on its weapons programs and supporting terrorism around the globe while it ignores the basic needs of its people, a new report asserts.

The report, issued by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), states that this month’s uprising against the regime was due to what it states are the “grueling high prices and economic strains on an array of social sectors.”

It claims that this is a result of the regime putting its resources, “toward domestic suppression, warmongering and expansion of terrorism abroad,” which the report points out has led to poverty and deprivation among Iranians. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Christian charities supported by foreign donors, including Swiss ones, are finding it increasingly difficult to operate in India due to administrative hurdles. They allege selective implementation of regulations and blame this on the rise of Hindu fundamentalism.

“It is unfortunate, these days fundamentalism is growing in the country with our government itself supporting the ‘Hindutva’ agenda of the communal forces,” said Indian bishop Robert Miranda in his speech(PDF) in the Swiss city of Fribourg in October 2017.

He was invited by Missio Switzerland, the Swiss branch of the Pontifical Mission Societies that are under the jurisdiction of the Pope. Miranda leads a diocese of around 8,000 Catholics in the small town of Gulbarga in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. In 1982, when he was first sent to the region, there were only three Catholics families and a few Methodists. The congregation quickly grew when Dalits, who belong to the lowest caste among Hindus, began showing an interest in Christianity and converted to Catholicism. [ Source: Swiss Info (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Senate will vote Monday on legislation banning abortion at the 20-week mark, the point at which unborn children can feel pain.

Pro-life leaders in the upper chamber intend to emphasize that it is time for the United States to exit the club of seven countries that allow the practice, a group that includes nations like China and North Korea.

Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, is one of the lead sponsors of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which pro-life activists are calling Micah’s law. The bill is named after a 5-year-old boy from Newton, Iowa who in 2012 was born at 22 weeks. [ Source: Christian Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Islamic State issued a new video today calling on “brothers in Europe, America, Russia, Australia and elsewhere” to “kill them all” as “it is now time to rise.”

The English-language nasheed, inspirational songs frequently released by terror groups, shows scenes of Western terrorists’ handiwork — including the March 2017 Westminster Bridge attack and the ISIS pledge video recorded by Berlin Christmas market terrorist Anis Amri — mingled with ISIS battlefield scenes and beheadings in Syria.

The video from ISIS’ official Al-Hayat Media Center was distributed widely on YouTube and social media platforms Twitter and Facebook, along with being posted on file-sharing sites.

(Worthy News) – Russian internet trolls created over 100 events displayed to Facebook users during the 2016 U.S. presidential race, in turn reaching more than a quarter of a million unique accounts during the course of Moscow’s alleged election meddling, the social network revealed in congressional testimony released Thursday.

Facebook identified 129 event pages made by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company that engaged in “state-sponsored information operations” across its platform during the 2016 race, Facebook said in a written statement dated Jan. 8 and released by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Approximately 338,300 unique accounts viewed these events. About 25,800 accounts marked that they were interested in an event, and about 62,500 marked that they were going to an event,” Facebook said. [ Source: Washington Times(Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Almost five years ago, when Muslim rebels calling themselves Seleka — “Coalition” in a local language — overthrew Francois Bozize, the former president of the Central African Republic, Ms. Florence and other Christians fled to a camp for internally displaced people near Bangui M’Poko International Airport amid the fighting because she knew French peacekeepers could protect her there.

“What alerted me were detonations and rocket launchers,” she said. “Then I saw Muslim women slaughtering Christian women and their babies with sharp knives like animals. They even killed a pregnant woman in front of me.”

But the sense of security she enjoyed has evaporated since French peacekeepers left in late 2016, handing duties over to the 13,700-strong U.N. “stabilization” mission, known as MINUSCA. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]