A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – The U.S. economy was expected to lose $3 billion from the partial federal government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s demand for border wall funding, congressional researchers said on Monday as 800,000 federal employees returned to work after 35 days without pay.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the cost of the shutdown would make the U.S. economy 0.02 percent smaller than expected in 2019. More significant effects will be felt by individual businesses and workers, particularly those who scrambled to make ends after not being paid.

Overall, the U.S. economy lost about $11 billion during the five-week period, the CBO said. It expects $8 billion to be recovered, however, as the government reopens and employees receive back pay. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Britain risks an accidental crash-out of the EU, warned the deputy to EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday. In some of her toughest remarks, Sabine Weyand slammed Prime Minister Theresa May’s handling of the divorce talks.

“There is a very real risk of crash out. Not by design but by accident,” Weyand told an audience invited by the European Policy Centre think tank.

Weyand said that May had kept members of her own government in the dark during 18 months of intense negotiations. [ Source: Deutche Welle (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – An American missionary in Brazil is under investigation and possibly faces charges of genocide for entering protected lands inhabited by an isolated tribe in the Amazon.

Unlike John Allen Chau—an American missionary who was killed last year during one of his initial encounters with a remote tribe halfway around the world—Steve Campbell and his family have lived among indigenous people in northwest Brazil for more than 50 years.

Campbell, a second-generation missionary with Baptist Bible Fellowship International, is accused of venturing outside of his longtime home among the Jamamadí people onto territory belonging to the Himarimã, the only isolated tribe among eight ethnic groups in the area, according to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo. [ Source: Christianity Today (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – After weeks of a shutdown-inspired filibuster, some Senate Democrats relented Monday and joined Republicans to advance a bill to give state and local governments a green light to penalize companies that boycott Israel.

The Senate voted 74-19 to head off an initial blockade and clear the path for the bill to reach the chamber floor later this week. The vote also signals that barring a major dust-up, the legislation likely has enough support to pass.

Democrats had been filibustering for weeks, with some objecting to the bill on policy grounds and others arguing they didn’t want to deal with any other issues as long as government was partially closed. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Two suspects are dead after a shooting on Monday that injured five Houston police officers, including four who were hit by gunfire as they attempted to serve a search warrant at a home where drug selling was suspected, the police chief said.

A group of about a dozen officers with the Houston police department’s narcotics unit were attempting to serve the warrant when they forced open the home’s front door and immediately faced gunfire from one or two individuals, said Police Chief Art Acevedo.

Police targeted the southeast Houston home following an investigation that began after officers got a tip from a neighbor that black tar heroin was being sold from the house, Acevedo said. [ Source: Fox (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The federal deficit will rise to $897 billion this year but isn’t expected to surpass $1 trillion for another three years, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report Monday.

Prior CBO projections indicated the deficit would surpass the $1 trillion threshold by 2020, but 2018 declines in emergency relief spending on hurricanes and other disasters altered the outlook. Interest costs on the debt were also lower than expected last year.

“The federal budget deficit is about $900 billion in 2019 and exceeds $1 trillion each year beginning in 2022,” the analysis said. “Over the coming decade, deficits (after adjustments to exclude shifts in the timing of certain payments) fluctuate between 4.1 percent and 4.7 percent of gross domestic product well above the average over the past 50 years.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Reuven Rivlin said Monday that he believes Iran will step up its attacks on the north of Israel in retaliation for IAF air strikes on Iranian facilities in Syria.

Speaking at a conference held by the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Rivlin said the Israel’s future strategic situation can be described in two words: “deterioration and complexity,” and gave the case of the Iranian presence in Syria as an example.

“It appeared as though Iran would be restrained by our understandings with Russia and its defeats on the northern front,” Rivlin said referring to recurring IDF airstrikes on Iranian facilities in Syria, “but in recent months the trend is changing.” [ Source: Ynet News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to shake up his government, Palestinian officials say.

Sources told Israel Hayom that incumbent Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah is unlikely to head the new government. Abbas is expected to meet with Hamdallah on Monday to inform him of his decision.

The move is the latest sign of failure in more than a decade of attempts to reconcile with the rival Hamas movement. The officials say Abbas appointed a four-member committee from his Fatah movement on Sunday to consult with political factions about forming a new government. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The United Nations and Qatar signed a memorandum of understanding Sunday night for a one-time grant of $20 million for humanitarian projects in Gaza, which the world body has in the past described as mired in a state of “constant humanitarian crisis.”

The money is in addition to the close to $10 million distributed in Gaza over the weekend to 94,000 poor families. Each family received $100 in cash.

This is an “important step for boosting the Palestinian economy,” tweeted Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories. He included a photograph of himself and Qatari envoy Mohammad Emadi, who heads Qatar’s Gaza Reconstruction Committee, signing the memorandum at UN headquarters in Jerusalem. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

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