A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – A federal appeals court tossed years of court rulings on Wednesday in a terrorism case being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba focused on the deadly terrorist bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.

A huge set back for a case that has already been plagued by major delays, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled orders made by Air Force Col. Vance Spath — the judge who for years oversaw the military commissions proceedings against suspected al Qaeda member Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — must be thrown out.

The three-judge panel cited Spath’s undisclosed conflicts of interest over the years, during which he pursued a job as an immigration judge with the Justice Department while concealing that fact from the defense. Therefore, every ruling of his since he applied for the job is now vacated. The appeals court judges said Spath’s actions gave the “disqualifying appearance of partiality.” [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Russia’s lower house of parliament approved on Tuesday the third reading of a draft law that aims to increase Moscow’s sovereignty over its internet segment and defend against foreign meddling, Interfax reported.

The bill must now be approved by parliament’s upper house and the presidency before passing into law.

The bill’s authors said earlier that the measures are needed to defend the country after the United States adopted what they described as aggressive new cyber security policies last year. [ Source: Moscow Times (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is prepared to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Russia hosts the gathering, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told Sputnik, a Russian state-run news site.

Palestinian officials have said that Abbas agreed to accept a Russian suggestion to meet Netanyahu in Moscow last year, but the prime minister turned it down.

The last known encounter between Abbas and Netanyahu was at the funeral of former prime minister Shimon Peres in September 2016, where the two briefly exchanged pleasantries. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A community of Syrians who converted to Christianity from Islam is growing in Kobani, a town besieged by Islamic State for months, and where the tide turned against the militants four years ago.

The converts say the experience of war and the onslaught of a group claiming to fight for Islam pushed them toward their new faith. After a number of families converted, the Syrian-Turkish border town’s first evangelical church opened last year.

Islamic State militants were beaten back by U.S. airstrikes and Kurdish fighters at Kobani in early 2015, in a reversal of fortune after taking over swaths of Iraq and Syria. After years of fighting, U.S.-backed forces fully ended the group’s control overpopulated territory last month. [ Source: Reuters (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The new Palestinian Authority prime minister on Tuesday accused the United States of declaring “financial war” on his people and said an American peace plan purported to be in the works will be “born dead.”

In his first interview with the international media since taking office over the weekend, Mohammad Shtayyeh laid out plans to get through the financial crisis he has inherited and predicted that the international community, including US allies in the Arab world, would join the Palestinians in rejecting President Donald Trump’s expected peace plan.

“There are no partners in Palestine for Trump. There are no Arab partners for Trump and there are no European partners for Trump,” Shtayyeh said during a wide-ranging hour-long interview. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Bible scholars from the Doubting Thomas Research Foundation (DTRF) believe they may have discovered the route Moses took when he led the Children of Israel out of slavery from Egypt and to the Promised Land.

The group told the Daily Star Online that they traveled to Saudi Arabia three times during their research and found evidence that the Israelites traveled through the modern-day kingdom to get to Israel.

DTRF researcher Ryan Mauro is still working on this theory but said the most “plausible” route is one where the Israelites left Egypt through Cairo and crossed into the Sinai Peninsula. He believes they crossed into ancient Midian and stopped at Mount Sinai, which he claims is the peak of Jabal al-Lawz in eastern Saudi Arabia. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Greek energy firm Energean has made a vast discovery of 28-42 billion cubic meters of natural gas at the North Karish field off Israel’s northwest coast, the company said on Monday.

The discovery is located not far from the company’s floating production storage and offloading unit, which aims for a total export capacity of 8 billion cubic meters per year.

Energean has already pre-sold some of the gas to independent Israeli power producer IPM Beer Tuvia in an agreement set to last 19 years and earn Energean $900 million. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The powerful gene-editing technique called CRISPR has been in the news a lot. And not all the news has been good: A Chinese scientist stunned the world last year when he announced he had used CRISPR to create genetically modified babies.

But scientists have long hoped CRISPR — a technology that allows scientists to make very precise modifications to DNA — could eventually help cure many diseases. And now scientists are taking tangible first steps to make that dream a reality.

For example, NPR has learned that a U.S. CRISPR study that had been approved for cancer at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has finally started. A university spokesman on Monday confirmed for the first time that two patients had been treated using CRISPR. [ Source: NPR (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday vetoed a bill passed by Congress to end US military assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.

In a break with the president, Congress voted for the first time earlier this month to invoke the War Powers Resolution to try to stop US involvement in a foreign conflict.

The veto — the second in Trump’s presidency — was expected. Congress lacks the votes to override him. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Anti-LGBT+ biases dropped significantly as same-sex marriage was being legalized across the United States, according to new research looking at the link between attitudes and policy change.

Biases declined both in states that legalized gay marriage and in states that did not, said research by McGill University, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers looked at attitudes among one million Americans over that 12-year stretch, using methods of measuring bias among volunteer participants.

The research, published on Monday, found rates of decreasing anti-gay bias nearly doubled in states where same-sex marriage was approved. [ Source: VOA News (Read More…) ]

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