A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – House Republican leaders are grappling for a strategy to avert another government shutdown at midnight Thursday.

They scheduled a closed-door session Monday evening to brief House GOP lawmakers on a way to pass a stopgap funding bill that could last through March 23 to buy time for progress in implementing any follow-up budget pact and, perhaps, pass immigration legislation.

One option, GOP aides said, would be to pass the stopgap spending bill by marrying it with a full-year, $659 billion Pentagon spending bill. The aides required anonymity because lawmakers hadn’t been briefed. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 1,100 points Monday. It was the worst loss for the financial markets in six and a half years.

After two days of losses, the market’s gains from the start of 2018 have been erased.

Banks fared the worst as interest and bond rates fell. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Israeli Navy is charged with defending the country’s territorial waters, an area that is twice as large as the state itself and is becoming increasingly crowded with highly lucrative natural gas fields and shipping lanes, and it needs help.

For Israel’s enemies these naval sites are “preferred targets,” and both the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon and — to a lesser extent — Hamas in Gaza have the capabilities to threaten them, a senior Israeli Navy official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The senior officer said the navy operates under the assumption that Hezbollah has access to the Russian-made Yakhont shore-to-sea guided missiles, though he would not say explicitly if Israeli intelligence indicates that that is indeed the case. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Palestinians are prepared to return to the negotiating table with Israel, but only on the basis of an international multilateral mechanism, the Arab Peace Initiative and international resolutions pertaining to the Israeli-Arab conflict, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday.

Abbas’s comments, which appeared to fall in line with the PA demand that the US not play a leading role in brokering talks, were made during a phone conversation with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Palestinian officials, angry over what they see as US bias in Israel’s favor, have refused to work with Washington on a peace initiative and say the US can only play a role as part of a larger multilateral effort, a position Israel, the US and others oppose. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Four U.N. human rights experts have issued a joint statement, urging Iran to ensure “a fair and transparent final hearing” at the country’s Revolutionary Court for three Iranian Christians who have been sentenced for “conducting evangelism” and “illegal house church activities,” among other charges.

The U.N. special rapporteurs on the human rights situation in Iran, freedom of religion, minority issues and the right to health have expressed their concerns over last year’s sentencing of Pastor Victor Bet Tamraz, former Assyrian Pentecostal Church leader in Iran, and house church Christians Amin Afshar Naderi and Hadi Asgari, to between 10 and 15 years in prison for various charges.

The Revolutionary Court was due to hold a hearing in the case Sunday but it is not still known if the court ended the case, confirmed the sentences or referred it to the Supreme Court, according to Radio Free Europe. [ Source: Christian Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Risk parity funds. Volatility-targeting programs. Statistical arbitrage. Sometimes the U.S. stock market seems like a giant science project, one that can quickly turn hazardous for its human inhabitants.

You didn’t need an engineering degree to tell something was amiss Monday. While it’s impossible to say for sure what was at work when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 1,597 points, the worst part of the downdraft felt to many like the machines run amok. For 15 harrowing minutes just after 3 p.m. in New York a deluge of sell orders came so fast that it seemed like nothing breathing could’ve been responsible.

The result was a gut check of epic proportion for investors, who before last week had been riding one of the most peaceful market advances ever seen. The S&P 500, which last week capped a record streak of never falling more than 3 percent from any past point, ended the day down 4.1 percent, bringing its loss since last Monday to 7.8 percent. [ Source: Bloomberg (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The US said it was “gravely alarmed’ by reports of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian regime Monday, as it accused Russia of protecting Syrian President Bashar Assad from responsibility for the use of chlorine gas against civilians in recent weeks.

The State Department was responding to reports of a gas attack in the town of Saraqeb near Idlib, Sunday, where several civilians reported trouble breathing after a regime sortie.

“This attack is the sixth such reported instance in the past 30 days in Syria. We implore the international community to speak with one voice, taking every opportunity to publicly pressure the Assad regime, and its supporters, to cease its use of chemical weapons and hold those responsible accountable for these brutal attacks,” spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Germany’s Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control approved a license for a company to sell military applicable technology to Iranian companies that subsequently was used in Syrian regime chemical weapons attacks, reported the German publication Bild on Monday.

The German company Krempel, located near the southern city of Stuttgart, sold electronic press boards to Iranian companies that were used in the production of rockets.

The Jerusalem Post reported in 2017 that multiple German intelligence reports revealed that Iran sought chemical and biological weapon technology in the federal republic. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – “The memo” — which pitted the Justice Department against the White House and brought ugly partisan sniping into stark relief — is only the beginning. Republican sources close to Devin Nunes tell me he’s assured them there’s much more to come.

The House Intelligence chair and his team have told members and associates they’ve found other examples of politically motivated “wrongdoing” across various agencies, including the FBI, the broader Justice Department, and the State Department.

What we’re hearing: Republicans close to Nunes say there could be as many as five additional memos or reports of “wrongdoing.” But a source on the House Intelligence Committee tells me there’s no current plan to use the same extraordinary and highly controversial process they just went through, with a vote and ultimately a presidential approval to declassify sensitive information. [ Source: Axios (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The U.S. and Turkish militaries are on a collision course, and the point of impact for the two NATO allies is the Syrian town of Manbij.

Turkish forces say the northern Syrian city, which is ground zero for U.S. operations in support of local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting Islamic State, is a prime objective of their current campaign against Syrian Kurds. The Turks say they will not curtail a Manbij assault because American troops are there, while a top U.S. general said last month that a withdrawal “is not something we are looking into.”

U.S. special operations troops based in Manbij have stayed largely out of Ankara’s way while the Turkish offensive remains focused on the Kurdish stronghold of Afrin, just over 200 miles north of Damascus. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]