A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – A lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of denying nearly all visa applicants from countries under President Donald Trump’s travel ban will move forward, a U.S. judge said Thursday.

Judge James Donato heard arguments on the administration’s request that he dismiss the lawsuit. The case was “not going away at this stage,” he said at the close of the hearing.

The plaintiffs say the administration is not honoring a waiver provision in the president’s ban on travelers from five mostly Muslim countries – Iran, Lybia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A congressional hearing on the Clinton Foundation turned into a fiasco on Thursday after Republicans clashed with their own witnesses — two private investigators who refused to turn over documents that they claimed showed evidence of criminal wrongdoing at the Clinton Foundation.

John Moynihan and Larry Doyle, financial analysts who say they have uncovered evidence of pay-to-play and financial crimes at the Clinton Foundation, were invited to testify on their findings by the House Oversight Committee’s Republican Chairman Mark Meadows.

But tensions erupted between Meadows and the two witnesses after Moynihan and Doyle refused to turn over 6,000 pages of documents that they say back up their claims — documents that the pair has already given to the FBI and the IRS. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is on course to become the oldest person in history to hold the speaker’s gavel now that she has secured a deal to give her at least two more years as the top House of Representatives leader.

Pelosi, now 78, will be almost 81 at the close of the 116th Congress, which ends on Jan. 3, 2021. That will make her nearly a year older than legendary Speaker Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, who died in office less than two months shy of his 80th birthday.

Pelosi will turn 80 on March 26, 2020, a little more than a year into her new speaker’s term. She will achieve the milestone of oldest ever speaker on Feb. 7, 2020 — beating Rayburn’s record. Pelosi will also be the first speaker since Rayburn to hold nonconsecutive terms. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A federal appeals court on Thursday narrowed an order that had blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing new rules that undermine an Obamacare requirement for employers to provide insurance that covers women’s birth control.

Last year two federal judges – one in Philadelphia and one in Oakland, California – had blocked the government from enforcing a new guideline allowing businesses or nonprofits to obtain exemptions from the contraception policy on moral or religious grounds. The Justice Department appealed both rulings.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Thursday the government likely violated administrative laws in promulgating the new rules. The appeals court said, however, the injunction issued in California should not apply nationwide, but only within the five states that sued over the policy. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Officials in Canberra have said they expect Australia to announce an anticipated but contentious move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, AFP reported Friday.

However the officials cautioned that events could yet alter those plans.

Australia on Friday warned citizens to take care while traveling in neighboring Muslim-majority Indonesia ahead of the expected announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison that his government will follow US President Donald Trump’s lead and recognize the contested city as Israel’s capital. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The IDF searched Thursday night for the Palestinian who killed two soldiers at a bus stop near Route 60 as a surge of unrest gripped the West Bank amid rising fears of a new wave of terror attacks against Israelis.

A diplomatic source said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a clear message to Hamas that Israel will take action against it if it deploys terror in the West Bank.

Referring to assessments that Hamas has decided to move the focus of its efforts to attack in and from the West Bank since a degree of quiet has now come to the Gaza border, “There will be no ceasefire in Gaza and the use of terror in Judea and Samaria,” the source said. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – European Council President Donald Tusk announced Thursday that EU leaders had agreed to extend comprehensive sanctions against Russia.

Decision: EU unanimously prolongs economic sanctions against Russia given zero progress in implementation of Minsk agreements.

— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) December 13, 2018

The Minsk agreement, which Russia signed with Ukraine, Germany and France, calls for an unconditional ceasefire and for both Russia and Ukraine to withdraw heavy artillery from the front line in eastern Ukraine. Both sides have repeatedly broken the terms of the ceasefire.

The EU sanctions were originally adopted in July 2014, in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions target Rusia’s financial, energy and defense sectors; blocking Russian banks’ access to EU markets and limiting EU imports to the country. [ Source: Deutche Welle (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The Senate approved a resolution Thursday to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, dealing a significant blow to President Trump amid heightened tensions over the death of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Senators voted 56-41 on the resolution, which would require the president to withdraw any troops in or “affecting” Yemen within 30 days unless they are fighting al Qaeda.

The resolution would still need to be passed by the House before it could be sent to Trump, who has threatened to veto it. The House on Wednesday narrowly approved a rule governing debate on the farm bill that included a provision that would prevent lawmakers from forcing a war powers vote this year. [ Source: The Hill (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – European Union leaders on Friday once again ruled out changes to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement. But they reassured British Prime Minister Theresa May that they would try to finalize a new UK-EU free trade deal before 2021.

In a joint statement, the leaders of 27 EU member states said it was their “firm determination” to finish the free trade deal as quickly as possible to avoid triggering a controversial “backstop” arrangement in the withdrawal agreement.

The backstop, which is legally binding, would maintain an open border between Northern Ireland, a British territory, and EU-member Ireland if London and Brussels fail to agree on a new free trade deal by December 2020. [ Source: Deutche Welle (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A bill to legalize abortion services in the Republic of Ireland has passed all stages of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament).

On Thursday evening the report and final stages of the bill passed in the Seanad (Irish Senate), reports Irish Broadcaster RTÉ.

The Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill will now be given to the President to be signed into law. [ Source: BBC (Read More…) ]

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