WorthyNewsBot

(Worthy News) - Some 350 Europeans rallied together to protest a French court's decision to remove the cross from Pope John Paul II's statue. France's State Council, the country's highest court, said the cross violated a 1905 law calling for the strict separation of church and state. According to Express, the court says the statue can stay, but the cross must come down "within the next six months." Critics are calling the move a blatant example of "Christianophobia." [ Source: CBN News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - On Nov. 22, the British Houses of Parliament and more than 30 churches and schools, mostly in the U.K., bathed their buildings in red light to bring attention to the worsening problem of Christian persecution around the world. The initiative was part of Red Wednesday—the second annual centerpiece of Aid to the Church in Need’s efforts to remember the most persecuted religious group in the world. Special services and vigils also were held throughout the week. Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) urged people to wear red, the color of martyrdom, and post photos on social media using the hashtag #RedWednesday. Speakers of the House of Commons and House of Lords agreed to participate in Red Wednesday after constituent pressure, according to ACN. [ Source: Christian Headlines (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Palestinian terror movement Hamas again refused to disarm on Monday ahead of a key reconciliation deadline, instead threatening to carry out attacks against Israel in the West Bank. By Friday, the Islamists are due to hand over control of the Gaza Strip to the internationally recognized Palestinian government, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah. But the future of their armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, remains unclear. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The head of a large Iranian-backed Iraqi militia that has been fighting in Syria said his group was “fully prepared” to fight Israel if Damascus asked it to. Sheikh Akram al-Ka’abi, the leader of Iraq’s Hezbollah al-Nujaba, told the Lebanese news network Al Mayadeen Friday night his group would participate in a Damascus-led attack on Israel’s Golan Heights. “We are fully prepared to participate in any war with the Syrian Arab Army to liberate the Golan if the Syrian state agrees or requests so,” Ka’abi said. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Two attackers shot several civilians on Monday in the Nahrawan area southeast of Baghdad before one blew himself up and the other was killed by security forces, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said, without providing official casualty figures. Local media reported at least 17 people were killed and 28 wounded. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, described by an interior ministry spokesman as “a terrorist attack by two terrorist suicide attackers who fired indiscriminately on citizens in the Nahrawan area”. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Russia proposed a two-day ceasefire on Monday in the last major rebel stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus, where warplanes killed at least 41 people in two days of air strikes as Russian-backed government forces tried to capture the area. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring body, said 18 people were killed by bombing on Monday and 23 on Sunday. At least 147 have been killed by air strikes and shelling since the Syrian army, with Russian air power, began the offensive to take the besieged rebel-held Eastern Ghouta nearly two weeks ago. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Israel's military has for the first time deployed its Iron Dome rocket defense system aboard a ship. Head of the Weapons Department in the Israeli Navy Col. Ziv Barak said the system will defend Israel's ships and "strategic assets" at sea, like its offshore gas platforms, and is now operational. The announcement Monday came after the military said it had successfully tested the system in an exercise where "projectiles that simulated existing threats in the region" were intercepted. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - About 150,000 people will leave their homes on the slopes of Mount Agung, Bali's Governor says, as the volcano's eruptions grow more powerful, while the island's main airport will close for another 24 hours due to ashfall. Governor Made Pastika said the evacuation period for people living within 10 kilometres of the crater could easily last as long as a month. Indonesia's disaster management agency said the evacuation is so far orderly and without panic. [ Source: ABC News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Madagascar’s “unprecedented” outbreak of plague is slowing, but responders cannot afford to ease off the fight until the risk of transmission dies down in the spring, the World Health Organization said Monday. WHO officials said the number of reported cases of bubonic and pneumonic plague has steadily decreased in recent weeks, though new infections are expected until plague season ends in April. The island nation off the southeast coast of Africa recorded more than 2,300 cases of plague between Aug. 1 and Nov. 22, resulting in 202 deaths. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Rep. Raul M. Grijalva quietly arranged a “severance package” in 2015 for one of his top staffers who threatened a lawsuit claiming the Arizona Democrat was frequently drunk and created a hostile workplace environment, revealing yet another way that lawmakers can use taxpayer dollars to hide their misbehavior on Capitol Hill. While the Office of Compliance has been the focus of outrage on Capitol Hill for hush-money payouts in sexual harassment cases, the Grijalva payout points to another office that lawmakers can use to sweep accusations under the rug with taxpayer-funded settlements negotiated by the House Employment Counsel, which acts as the attorney for all House offices. The employment counsel negotiated a deal for taxpayers to give $48,395 — five additional months’ salary — to the female aide, who left her job after three months. She didn’t pursue the hostile workplace complaint further. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Supreme Court announced Monday it had declined to hear two Second Amendment cases, leaving intact gun control laws in Maryland that restrict the types of weapons that can be bought, and in Florida that largely prevent gun owners from carrying their weapons in the open. The justices denied both cases without comment, leaving in place lower-court rulings upholding the two laws. Eric Friday, who represented gun owners in the Florida case, said he thought the court’s Second Amendment supporters were making a strategic decision in refusing to hear the cases, keeping their powder dry for later, when they may have more support on the high court. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Egypt was reeling Sunday from the horrific militant attack on a mosque in northern Sinai that killed 305 people two days earlier — the deadliest assault by Islamic extremists in its modern history and a grim milestone in a long-running fight against the insurgency led by an Islamic State affiliate. Survivors and Egypt's top prosecutor have given accounts of the massacre that unfolded as more than two dozen assailants, carrying a black IS banner, unleashed gunfire and explosions during Friday prayers at the Al-Rawdah Mosque in a sleepy village by the same name near the small town of Bir al-Abd. The attackers arrived in five SUVs, took positions across from the mosque's door and windows, and just as the imam was about to deliver his sermon from the pulpit, they opened fire and tossed grenades at the estimated 500 people inside. [ Source: Chicago Tribune (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A volcano in Mexico has erupted, spewing smoke and ash more than two miles into the air. Mexico's Popocateptl volcano, also known as Popo, had three explosive eruptions, sending fragments into the sky. The first explosion occurred on Friday, with two more overnight, covering nearby villages in ash and smoke. [ Source: Sky News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Senate's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will reduce taxes for most households and will give the biggest cuts to those with moderate incomes and those with children, according to an analysis from the Tax Foundation. "To help provide a sense of how the Senate's amended version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would impact real taxpayers, we've run the taxes of nine example households," the foundation states. "Our results indicate a reduction in tax liability for every scenario we modeled, with some of the largest cuts accruing to moderate-income families with children." The foundation says that each type of family it scored had realistic characteristics so it could show how the bill's individual income tax provisions would impact various types of families with different incomes. [ Source: Washington Free Beacon (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the chief commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), issued new threats against Israel on Thursday, vowing that any future conflict will be the Jewish state's last. "It is a proven claim that today we say any new war will lead to the eradication of the Zionist regime," said Jafari at a Tehran press conference, according to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency. Jafari also told reporters that Lebanon is Israel's primary target today and that "resistance" experienced by Israel in previous conflicts with Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas was minor in comparison to their current capabilities. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - An Iranian convert to Christianity has had his 10-year prison sentence upheld after losing his appeal. Naser Navard Gol-Tapeh was sentenced in May alongside three Azerbaijanis. All four men were given 10-year sentences for “missionary activities” and “actions against national security” in Iran. However, the three Azerbaijanis – Eldar Gurbanov, Yusif Farhadov and Bahram Nasibov – were allowed to leave Iran in November 2016 and are unlikely to be forced to return, despite their representatives also failing to overturn their verdicts during the 12 November hearing, World Watch Monitor understands. [ Source: World Watch Monitor (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince vowed to "pursue terrorists until they are wiped from the face of the earth" as officials from 40 Muslim countries gathered Sunday in the first meeting of an Islamic counter-terrorism alliance. "In past years, terrorism has been functioning in all of our countries ... with no coordination" among national authorities, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also the Saudi defence minister, said in his keynote speech at the gathering in Riyadh. "This ends today, with this alliance." [ Source: Times of India (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Prosecutors say several acts of vandalism committed at five predominantly black churches in northern New Jersey are no longer being investigated as possible bias crimes. Officials announced Sunday that a 45-year-old Morristown man has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief for breaking windows and damaging signs at the Morris Township and Morristown churches The damage was discovered Saturday and Zuri C. Towns told officials he acted alone. Officials say he had previously attended services as a minor at one of the vandalized churches. He was arrested near his home that's close to some of the churches. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that allows the government to list any foreign media operating in the country as a foreign agent. The bill, in retaliation for Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT being told to register as a foreign agent in the US, was earlier approved by parliament. At least nine US-funded broadcasters, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty could be hit. [ Source : BBC (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned Europe that if it threatens Tehran, the Guards will increase the range of missiles to above 2,000 kilometers, the Fars news agency reported on Saturday. France has called for an “uncompromising” dialogue with Iran about its ballistic missile program and a possible negotiation over the issue separate from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “So far we have felt that Europe is not a threat, so we did not increase the range of our missiles. But if Europe wants to turn into a threat, we will increase the range of our missiles,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami said. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Church of Sweden is making a few changes when it comes to how clergy refer to God the Father. According to the Telegraph, the church’s 251 member board voted to switch out terms like “Lord” and “He” and incorporate the more gender neutral term “God.” According the board, those changes will go into effect in May of 2018. [ Source: CBN News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The FBI failed to notify scores of US officials that Russian hackers were trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin’s crosshairs, The Associated Press has found. Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up. Even senior policymakers discovered they were targets only when the AP told them, a situation some described as bizarre and dispiriting. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The UK has ten days to make progress in Brexit negotiations for the EU leaders to unlock the next phase of talks on trade and future relations. "Sufficient progress in Brexit talks at December's European Council is possible. But still a huge challenge. We need to see progress from UK within 10 days on all issues, including on Ireland," European Council president Donald Tusk tweeted on Friday (24 November). Tusk met with British prime minister Theresa May after the EU's Eastern Partnership summit. [ Source: EU Observer (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said on Monday it had raised the alert to the highest level four on Bali's Mount Agung volcano and warned residents in a 8-10 km (5-6 miles) radius around the volcano to evacuate immediately. "Grey ash and occasional weak blasts can be heard 12 km (seven miles) from the peak. Flames were visible at night which indicates a potential eruption could happen anytime," Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said in a statement. "In anticipation of the possibility and imminent risk of disaster, PVMBG (the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center) raised Mount Agung alert level from three to four starting from 6 a.m. local time," it said in a statement. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The FBI received more than 200,000 background check requests for gun purchases on Black Friday, the bureau reported. In total the FBI received 203,086 gun background check requests, required for purchases at federally licensed firearm dealers, on the major U.S. shopping day, USA Today reported. The requests broke previous single-day records of 185,713 and 185,345 on Black Friday in 2016 and 2015 respectively, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System database. [ Source:UPI (Read More...) ] View the full article