A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller intensified legal pressure on ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, by filing a false-statements case against a lawyer who did Ukraine-related work with the two men.

Prosecutors accused the attorney, Alex van der Zwaan, of lying to the FBI and Mueller’s office about conversations related to a report supporting the legitimacy of a Ukrainian criminal prosecution of a former prime minister. That report has already come under the glare of Mueller’s team, which has previously accused Manafort and Gates of secretly funneling $4 million through offshore accounts to pay for it.

Van der Zwaan arrives at Federal Court on Feb. 20.Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg
The two pages of accusations against van der Zwaan, filed on Feb. 16 and unsealed Tuesday, came in the form of a criminal information, which prosecutors typically file before a guilty plea. Van der Zwaan, 33, is scheduled for what the government calls a “plea agreement hearing” on Tuesday afternoon before the same federal judge in Washington overseeing the indictment of Manafort and Gates. [ Source: Bloomberg (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Two American destroyers sailed into the Black Sea over the weekend, the first time since 2014 that more than one U.S. warship has operated in this tense region other than in an exercise.

“Our decision to have two ships simultaneously operate in the Black Sea is proactive, not reactive,” said Vice Adm. Christopher Grady, 6th Fleet commander, in a statement Sunday. “We operate at the tempo and timing of our choosing in this strategically important region.”

Russia has viewed U.S. ships transiting these international waters as provocative, ever since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The U.S. is sending a message that it will defend its allies, uphold maritime laws and protect its offshore interests in Europe and Asia, said Jim Holmes, Naval War College professor of strategy.

“We’re putting Russia on notice in the Black Sea and China on notice in the South China Sea that we will not be deterred from going into those waters, and doing so in force,” Holmes said. [ Source: Military.Com (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace team made an exceptional trip to UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday to attend an address by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, hoping to hear “fresh and constructive ideas” that might lead to new talks with Israel toward a peace settlement.

What they received instead was a scolding from the Palestinian leader, still furious over Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the US embassy there.

“This administration undertook an unlawful decision,” Abbas said of Trump’s Jerusalem move. He chastised the administration for cutting support to the UN Relief and Works Agency, which offers aid to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, warning that their abandonment might lead some to terror in far reaches of the West.

A White House spokesman, Josh Raffel, said that Kushner and Greenblatt are “finalizing” the administration’s peace plan– a detailed document that has produced hundreds of pages, and that offers specific proposals to some of the toughest sticking points in the conflict. But while Abbas claimed he had never turned down an offer to enter talks, he did not express any interest in the pending American plan. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called in an address to the United Nations Security Council Tuesday to convene an international conference by mid-2018 that would result in the recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

“We call for the convening of an international peace conference by mid-2018, based on international law and the relevant UN resolutions,” Abbas told the UN Security Council in New York.

The Palestinian president slammed the Trump administration, describing Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as an “unlawful decision which was rejected by the international community, to remove the issue of Jerusalem ‘off the table.'” [ Source: Ha’aretz (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Iran operates 10 military bases in Syria and is training militias loyal to President Bashar Assad’s regime for a possible battle with Israel, with two key facilities located near the border with Israel, an analyst for an American think tank said in an article published Monday.

Up to 20,000 fighters from various militias throughout the war-torn country have been trained by Iranian military personnel, giving Tehran its “true muscle” in Syria, according to the Monday report in The New York Times.

Israel has been warning for years that Iran is seeking to entrench itself militarily in Syria. According to Israeli political and military assessments, Tehran, which has shored up Assad in the Syrian civil war, has been working to create air and naval bases in Syria, from which it can arm the Lebanon-based terror organization Hezbollah and other Shiite groups, as well as carry out attacks of its own against the Jewish state. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Republican Party in the state of Kansas on Saturday moved to affirm “God’s design for gender as determined by biological sex,” not “self-perception.”

The Republican Party’s state committee in the Sunflower State passed a resolution on human sexuality at the state Republican convention over the weekend that states direct opposition of “all efforts to validate transgender identity.”

The resolution not only affirms “God’s design for gender” but also expresses opposition to hormone therapy and surgical methods to help transgender people alter their bodies to match their “perceived gender identity.” [ Source: Christian Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Scientists in California are working on a way to reduce organ transplants and rejections: Growing embryos in sheep and pigs containing human patients’ cells.

In a transplant breakthrough, scientists at the University of California said they have achieved sheep embryos in which around one in every 10,000 cells was human.

The researchers presented preliminary findings Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas. Last year, the same researchers introduced human stem cells into early pig embryos, producing embryos with about one in every 100,000 cells being human. [ Source: UPI (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – A Texas school district will no longer hold its graduation ceremonies at one of the largest megachurches in the nation after the church refused to remove a cross from the sanctuary.

For more than a decade the McKinney School District held graduation ceremonies for three of its high schools in the massive sanctuary of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

But that tradition ended abruptly after a group of atheists, agnostics and free-thinkers complained about a public school system using a building that belongs to a Christian church.

“It was our refusal to remove the cross from view that created this cowardly decision,” Pastor Jack Graham wrote on Twitter. “It appears religious freedom is under attack at the McKinney Public Schools.” [ Source: Townhall (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Some students are calling for tougher gun-control laws after escaping last week’s horrific massacre in Parkland, Florida, but another school-shooting survivor is going in a different direction.

Colorado House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, who attended Columbine High School at the time of the 1999 mass shooting, has again introduced legislation to remove limitations on concealed carry in K-12 schools.

Under state law, concealed-carry permit holders may bring firearms onto school property, but must keep them locked inside their vehicles. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Some students are calling for tougher gun-control laws after escaping last week’s horrific massacre in Parkland, Florida, but another school-shooting survivor is going in a different direction.

Colorado House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, who attended Columbine High School at the time of the 1999 mass shooting, has again introduced legislation to remove limitations on concealed carry in K-12 schools.

Under state law, concealed-carry permit holders may bring firearms onto school property, but must keep them locked inside their vehicles. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]