A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – A congregation on Tanzania’s semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar has been without a place to worship this year after local authorities demolished their church building, the pastor said.

Local government officials gave no prior warning to church leaders before a bulldozer arrived on Jan. 7 and razed the building in Zanzibar Town to make way for a state university to use the land, pastor Charles Madama of Zanzibar Pentecostal Church of Jesus said.

“It came to us as a big surprise when the bulldozer pulled down the church building without prior notice, and we lost everything,” the pastor told Morning Star News. “This is a calculated move here in Zanzibar of total disregard and disrespect to Christianity. It has been extremely difficult for us as a church to assemble for worship.” [ Source: Morningstar News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Israeli military on Thursday began its final preparations for a major air defense exercise with the United States, which is set to kick off at the beginning of next month, the army said.

While the Juniper Cobra exercise, which was first held in 2001, is scheduled every two years, it comes at a time of growing tension between Israel and Iran and the Iranian proxy Hezbollah. This year’s exercise simulates a massive ballistic missile attack against Israel and is also meant to improve ties between the two armies.

The exercise will largely be performed through advanced computer simulations, though it will also include some real-world activities. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – “Radical groups,” among them Islamic Jihad, could wrest control of Gaza from Hamas, thereby opening the door for outside forces to control the Strip, UN Special Coordinator to the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov warned in Jerusalem on Thursday.

The reconciliation process between Hamas and Fatah is frozen at the moment, Mladenov said. Palestinian Authority President and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s punitive economic measures have brought life in Gaza to a standstill, he added.

“People are not getting salaries. There is no electricity and no water. That increases the likelihood of the radicals taking over [from Hamas] with an agenda that would be more militant.” [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Warplanes pounded the last rebel enclave near Syria’s capital for a fifth day running on Thursday as the U.N. Security Council considered demanding a 30-day ceasefire across the country to allow emergency aid deliveries and medical evacuations.

The U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, pleaded for a truce to halt one of the fiercest air assaults of the seven-year civil war and prevent a “massacre” in the besieged eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus.

At least 416 people have been killed in eastern Ghouta since Sunday night, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, with more than 2,100 wounded from the assault by Syria’s military and its allies. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – President Trump voiced frustration Thursday with California’s status as a statewide sanctuary for illegal immigrants, including gang members, and said he’s considering pulling federal immigration enforcement agents out of the state as a response.

“If we ever said, ‘Hey, let California alone let them figure it out for themselves,’ in two months they’d be begging for us to come back,” the president said during a White House meeting on law enforcement issues. “They would be begging. And you know what? I’m thinking about doing it.”

California last month became a “sanctuary state” where police are barred from asking people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement actions in most cases. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Rev. Billy Graham’s body will lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda next week, the first time a private citizen has been accorded such recognition since civil rights hero Rosa Parks in 2005.

The two-day viewing in Washington on Feb. 28 and March 1 will be part of nine days of mourning for postwar America’s most famous evangelist, who died Wednesday at his home in North Carolina’s mountains at age 99.

“America’s Pastor” will be laid to rest March 2 at the foot of a cross-shaped walkway at the worldwide headquarters of his evangelical empire in Charlotte, buried in a simple prison-made plywood coffin next to his wife, Ruth, who died in 2007. [ Source: ABC News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) and David B. McKinley (R-W.Va.) no doubt anticipated an eye-opening experience when they visited the Temple Mount on Thursday as part of their current trip to Israel. So imagine their surprise when they were detained by Israel police after an Islamic Waqf official, which administers the Temple Mount, lodged a complaint against them.

It appears that they violated some unknown rule when Tipton bent down to pick up a broken olive branch off the ground. His movement seems to have agitated the Waqf official who, apparently believing the congressman was bowing as if in prayer, set off the events that followed.

The congressmen, both in their 70s, were physically removed from the Temple Mount by police officers, and frisked and detained for more than a half-hour. They were released without incident. [ Source: JNS (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) and David B. McKinley (R-W.Va.) no doubt anticipated an eye-opening experience when they visited the Temple Mount on Thursday as part of their current trip to Israel. So imagine their surprise when they were detained by Israel police after an Islamic Waqf official, which administers the Temple Mount, lodged a complaint against them.

It appears that they violated some unknown rule when Tipton bent down to pick up a broken olive branch off the ground. His movement seems to have agitated the Waqf official who, apparently believing the congressman was bowing as if in prayer, set off the events that followed.

The congressmen, both in their 70s, were physically removed from the Temple Mount by police officers, and frisked and detained for more than a half-hour. They were released without incident. [ Source: JNS (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) and David B. McKinley (R-W.Va.) no doubt anticipated an eye-opening experience when they visited the Temple Mount on Thursday as part of their current trip to Israel. So imagine their surprise when they were detained by Israel police after an Islamic Waqf official, which administers the Temple Mount, lodged a complaint against them.

It appears that they violated some unknown rule when Tipton bent down to pick up a broken olive branch off the ground. His movement seems to have agitated the Waqf official who, apparently believing the congressman was bowing as if in prayer, set off the events that followed.

The congressmen, both in their 70s, were physically removed from the Temple Mount by police officers, and frisked and detained for more than a half-hour. They were released without incident. [ Source: JNS (Read More…) ]