A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a legal challenge to a Pennsylvania school district’s policy that allows transgender students to use whichever restroom they identify with.

The conservative Alliance Defending Freedom group has argued the Boyertown District’s policy violates student privacy. The high court, however, said it wouldn’t take up the case, meaning the decision last year in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals will stand. The appellate court ruled in favor of restroom freedom.

The American Civil Liberties Union represented student Aidan DeStefano in the case. [ Source: UPI (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The United States continues to be alarmed by Syrian government and Russian airstrikes in northwest Syria and believes they are a “reckless escalation” of violence, the State Department said on Tuesday.

Government air strikes, backed by Russia, have focused on the south of Idlib province and nearby parts of Hama, uprooting nearly 250,000 people. The bombing has killed 229 civilians and injured 727 others, according to the UOSSM medical charity.

Hundreds of members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter to President Donald Trump last week arguing that the United States should remain engaged with the conflict in Syria, saying they were “deeply concerned” about extremist groups in the country. [ Source (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – The National Weather Service (NWS) said as many as 55 tornadoes may have touched down overnight across eight states stretching eastward from Idaho and Colorado. Storm reports posted online by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center said 14 suspected tornadoes touched down in Indiana, 12 in Colorado and nine in Ohio. Seven were reported in Iowa, five in Nebraska, four in Illinois, three in Minnesota, and one in Idaho.

Residents of the Midwestern U.S. states of Ohio and Indiana were sifting through the ravages of a series of powerful tornadoes that killed at least one person, injured more than 130 others, and destroyed homes, schools and businesses.

According to NWS, Tuesday was the 12th consecutive day where multiple tornadoes were reported in the United States. While the high number of twisters is not unusual, but they are typically not as widespread. [ Source: VOA News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – With only 24 hours to go before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a legal deadline to form a coalition, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman once again shot down a compromise aimed at securing Netanyahu a fifth term.

Coalition talks broke down between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman earlier in the week.

Lieberman says that he would not accept anything short of the full passage of a controversial bill that would set mandatory quotas, but the haredi coalition partners have refused to accept that, leading to a clash that put Netanyahu’s premiership at stake. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More…) ]

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by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, the last abortion clinic in Missouri, will shut down on Friday following revocation of its medical license, after staff refused to cooperate with State Health inspectors over the clinic’s abortion practices.

“They have said the interrogation could lead to criminal proceedings and board review of their licenses,” Helene Krasnoff, a legal expert at Planned Parenthood, told CBS News with reference to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services ultimatum sent to the clinic May 20th, which sought in vain to interview seven employees over “potential deficient practices.”

Last Friday Missouri Governor Mike Parson signed into law a “heartbeat” anti-abortion bill banning abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy, making Missouri the eighth state in recent months to ban abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detectable.

“[W]e are sending a strong signal to the nation that, in Missouri, we stand for life, protect women’s health, and advocate for the unborn,” Parson said in a tweet, adding that “all life has value and is worth protecting.”

Advocates of the recent bevy of anti-abortion laws hope the conservative majority in the US Supreme court made possible by the nominations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh will lead to the overturning of Roe V. Wade, which precedent established terminating a pregnancy as a constitutional right.

Barring any reversals in a circuit court hearing Wednesday, Missouri will become the first state since Roe in 1973 without an abortion clinic.

The post Missouri to Be Abortion-Free Following Heartbeat Bill and Closure of Last Planned Parenthood Clinic appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A disproportionate number of anti-Semitic hate crimes are occurring in New York compared with the rest of the country, according to a New York Police Department (NYPD) report and statistics published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The NYPD report found that between January 1st and May 19th of this year, an astronomical spike in hate crimes had occurred, with the 176 incidents reported during the first five months of 2019 representing an 83 percent increase over the same time period last year.

The ADL, moreover, found that of the 39 instances of violence against Jews in the US in 2018, 17 had occurred in the state of New York–a full 43% of all anti-Semitic violence.

“We have an anti-Semitism crisis in New York,” said City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, giving his own name to what City Councilman Chaim Deutsch in December called “a shocking number of unprovoked assaults on religious Jewish New Yorkers.”

Researches at Tel Aviv University found that anti-Semitic incidents had increased by 13% worldwide in 2018, with some countries, like France and Germany, experiencing as high as a 70% increase in recent years.

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(Worthy News) – The Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed an appeals court ruling striking down an Indiana abortion law governing the disposal of fetal remains, which was signed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was governor of the state.

The law, among other provisions, barred the incineration of fetal remains alongside surgical byproducts.

The announcement, which comes as conservative states across the country are passing laws in the hopes of prompting the top court to review its abortion precedents, noted that the Indiana law did not implicate the “undue burden” test that has formed the crux of many challenges to restrictive abortion laws. [ Source: CNBC (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is in the Middle East to drum up support for his as-yet unveiled Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

A White House official says Kushner, along with Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt and special Iran envoy Brian Hook, are in Morocco and will visit Jordan and Israel later this week. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Franklin Graham is encouraging American Christians to set aside a whole day on June 2nd to pray for President Trump.

The eldest son of world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham and president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse is joined in his call to arms by over 250 other major names in American Christianity, including Mike Bickle, Kenneth Copeland, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr., John Hagee, and Michael W. Smith, who have all lent their signatures to the endeavor.

“President Trump’s enemies continue to try everything to destroy him, his family, and the presidency. In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has,” Graham said in his full Facebook statement, which concludes with a quote from Ephesians 6:12.

Graham is currently making his way through seven states in the northeast as part of his Decision American Northeast Tour, a series of free “one-night prayer and evangelism events” birthed from his original Decision America tour during the Presidential election in 2016, and following on the heels of rallies since in the pacific Northwest, Tennesse, California, and Texas that have garnered crowds of over 70,000 people.

“The most critical thing you can do is pray, pray, pray. The intercession of God’s people is crucial if we are to see a return to the Biblical faith of our fathers, the faith that has guided and sustained our country for so long,” Graham said on the 700 Club in 2018.

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(Worthy News) – Austria’s chancellor has been ousted in a no-confidence vote just a day after his centre-right party enjoyed a triumphant night in the European elections, after opposition politicians lost faith in his handling of a corruption scandal that has engulfed his former far-right coalition partner.

Austria will be governed by a technocratic administration of experts and senior civil servants until fresh elections scheduled for early September.

During a debate in which the delegates of the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) resolutely refused to lend Sebastian Kurz the customary applause, rightwing populist politicians accused the centre-right chancellor of trying to use the so-called Ibiza scandal to consolidate his power at the top of government. [ Source: UK Guardian (Read More…) ]

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