WorthyNewsBot

(Worthy News) - Militant group Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for an attack on a television station in Kabul, in which gunmen disguised as police killed a security guard and opened fire on staff, the latest assault on media workers in Afghanistan. Afghan special forces suppressed the attack on Shamshad TV, a private Pashto-language broadcaster based close to the national stadium, after about two hours, but police said at least two people had been killed and 20 wounded. “People dressed in police clothes came in and initially threw hand grenades, which killed one of our guards and wounded another,” Abed Ehsas, Shamshad’s news director told broadcaster Tolo News TV. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The British government on Monday announced the death of one Christian missionary who had been abducted in Nigeria last month and said three other missionaries had been freed. The British Foreign Office said Ian Squire, who had been working with a Christian medical charity in southern Nigeria, was killed, but did not specify how he died. The three other missionaries, Alanna Carson, David Donovan and Shirley Donovan have returned to their families. The four missionaries were abducted on October 13 in the Niger Delta region. It is still unclear how they were freed, as the Foreign Office said it could not comment on an active investigation. [ Source: VOA News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Newly reported memos to Congress released Monday showed that language was softened between an early draft and the final copy of former FBI Director James Comey’s statement closing out the Hillary Clinton email case. Originally Comey accused the former secretary of state of being “grossly negligent” in handling classified information in a draft dated May 2, 2016, but that was modified to claim that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in a draft dated June 10, 2016. Comey stuck to that modified language when he announced in July 2016 that there would be no charges against Clinton. Federal law states that gross negligence in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines, according to The Hill, which first reported on the memos. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A gunman opened fire in a shooting at a Texas church on Sunday. The incident took place in Sutherland Springs, which is 30 miles southeast of San Antonio. Below are other church shootings you should know about. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The number of cases of gonorrhoea in Australia has soared by 63% in the past five years, a new study has found. Australian researchers say the rise in gonorrhoea diagnoses was led by an increase in infection in young heterosexual city dwellers. However the reasons for the dramatic increase are unclear, researchers say. Changes in sexual behaviour or a particular strain of the infection could be behind the rise, researchers told AAP. [ Source: BBC (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - U.S. President Donald Trump asked Congress on Monday for $4 billion to support missile defense to counter the threat from North Korea, just ahead of his first visit to South Korea since taking office in January. “This request supports additional efforts to detect, defeat, and defend against any North Korean use of ballistic missiles against the United States, its deployed forces, allies, or partners,” Trump wrote in a letter to Congress. Trump repeated his request that Congress provide $1.6 billion to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Trump’s plan to construct the wall was a centerpiece of his successful presidential campaign, but it has been questioned by some of his fellow Republicans, as well as most Democrats, in Congress. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - US President Donald said on Tuesday that the United States is prepared to use the full range of military force to stop a North Korean attack, but said he was focused on using "all available tools short of military action" to prevent conflict. "North Korea is a worldwide threat that requires worldwide action," he told reporters at a joint press conference with South Korea President Moon Jae-in. The remarks came after the two leaders held formal talks at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, where Moon told Trump he hoped his visit would relieve some of South Koreans' anxiety over North Korea and serve as a "turning point in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue." [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Tuesday that Iran's supply of rockets to militias in Yemen is an act of "direct military aggression," Saudi state news agency SPA reported. The supply of rockets to the Iran-allied rebel Houthi movement could "constitute an act of war against the Kingdom," SPA quoted the crown prince as saying in a telephone call with the British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson. Saudi air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile they said was fired towards Riyadh on Saturday by the Houthi militia which controls large parts of neighboring Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, in the country's civil war. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The killing of America’s archenemy, Osama bin Laden, by a Navy SEAL team in 2011 was a campaign coup for Barack Obama, who hailed it during his reelection bid as proof that the U.S. had al-Qaida “on the run.” But the 470,000 files recovered from the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound – released only this month by the CIA – tell a much different story, documenting al-Qaida’s global strength as well as its relationship with Iran prior to the Obama administration’s nuclear pact with the mullah-led regime. The editors of the Weekly Standard, noting they don’t use the much-abused word “lie” lightly, declared “the administration of Barack Obama lied repeatedly and lied flagrantly.” The editors said Obama rightly hailed the mission as a success, not only because U.S. forces killed the man responsible the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, but also because of the acquisition of the “single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.” [ Source: WND (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The German army has war-gamed the break up of the European Union in study of security crises that could face the country by 2040. Military planners in Berlin played out a scenario in which a growing number of countries follow Britain in leaving the EU, resulting in an "increasingly disorderly" world, Der Spiegel reported. "The EU enlargement has been largely abandoned, more states have left the bloc," strategists wrote in a study cited by the magazine. [ Source: UK Telegraph (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A campaign of mass arrests of Saudi Arabian royals, ministers and businessmen expanded on Monday after a top entrepreneur was reportedly detained in the biggest anti-corruption purge of the kingdom’s affluent elite in its modern history. The reported arrest of Nasser bin Aqeel al-Tayyar followed the detention of dozens of top Saudis including billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in a crackdown that the attorney general described as “phase one”. The purge is the latest in a series of dramatic steps by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to assert Saudi influence internationally and amass more power for himself at home. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Saudi Arabia intercepted and destroyed a “ballistic missile” north-east of the capital, Riyadh, on Saturday after it was launched from Yemen, Saudi state media reported. “Saudi air defence intercepts ballistic missile northeast of Riyadh,” it said. State-run news channel Al-Ekhbariya said the missile “was of limited size (and) no injuries or damage” was reported. The missile was destroyed near Riyadh’s King Khaled international airport, which was functioning normally, it added. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed they had fired the missile, targeting the airport, the Houthi Al-Masirah television said. [ Source: UK Guardian (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The man who police say shot and killed 26 people in a Texas church was able to purchase firearms because the Air Force failed to enter his assault conviction into a federal database. Devin Patrick Kelley was given a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force after he was court-martialed in 2012 for assaulting his wife and fracturing his infant stepson's skull. Kelley's case was enough to prohibit him from possessing a firearm under federal law, but due to a bureaucratic error neither his arrest nor conviction were listed in the national background check database. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek confirmed the mistake in a statement. "Federal law prohibited him from buying or possessing firearms after this conviction," Stefanek said. "Initial information indicates that Kelley’s domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Criminal Information Center database by the Holloman Air Force Base Office of Special Investigations." [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The United Nations has earmarked some $1.3 billion to fund Palestinian legal campaigns against Israel and to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state, in what experts are calling an unprecedented act singling out the Jewish state at the world body. A document that was recently signed between the U.N. and the Palestinians outlines a “strategic programming framework” in the disputed territories from 2018-2022, and states that the U.N. will work to advise the Palestinian Authority on how to exploit “international accountability mechanisms” in order to hold Israel accountable for alleged violations of international law. The document is set to come into effect Jan. 1, 2018. The document makes no references to Palestinian violations of international law and human rights, nor does it specify that the $1.3 billion in funding should be applied to humanitarian assistance. Rather, the U.N. document states that the money should be used for developing programs that support “Palestine’s path to independence.” [ Source: JNS (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The United Nations has earmarked some $1.3 billion to fund Palestinian legal campaigns against Israel and to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state, in what experts are calling an unprecedented act singling out the Jewish state at the world body. A document that was recently signed between the U.N. and the Palestinians outlines a “strategic programming framework” in the disputed territories from 2018-2022, and states that the U.N. will work to advise the Palestinian Authority on how to exploit “international accountability mechanisms” in order to hold Israel accountable for alleged violations of international law. The document is set to come into effect Jan. 1, 2018. The document makes no references to Palestinian violations of international law and human rights, nor does it specify that the $1.3 billion in funding should be applied to humanitarian assistance. Rather, the U.N. document states that the money should be used for developing programs that support “Palestine’s path to independence.” [ Source: JNS (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The role of reporters is taking on added importance in federal court battles over the infamous Russia dossier that leveled unverified charges of collusion against the Donald Trump campaign. In U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Fusion GPS, the dossier’s financier via the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign money, is fighting a House committee chairman’s bid to find out if the opposition research firm paid journalists. In U.S. District Court in Florida, a self-described dossier victim wants a judge to order the news website BuzzFeed, which published the dossier in full, to disclose who gave it to them. The cases underscore how a Moscow-sourced memorandum created as opposition research against Donald Trump in the presidential campaign last year often dictates the debate about politics and reporters’ rights in Washington. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A senior Israeli minister on Thursday declined to comment on reports that Israeli aircraft had struck a target in Syria the night before but repeated a threat to hit arms shipments to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas. The air strike targeted a factory south of the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday night and the Syrian army responded by firing a surface-to-air missile at the aircraft, a commander in a military alliance fighting in support of Damascus said. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment, but Israel’s Channel 10 said the aircraft were not hit and returned safely to base. “I can‘t, of course, relate to reports about the Israel Defence Forces’ attack in Syria, but regardless, Israel’s position is clear: Smuggling arms to Hezbollah is a red line in our eyes,” Intelligence Minister Israel Katz told Army Radio. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Fifty years since the Six-Day War, 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, 150 years since Mark Twain first visited Palestine. This has been a year of big Israel-related anniversaries. To the Jewish state’s most diehard Christian supporters, the barrage of milestones is not mere coincidence but rather a harbinger of prophecies being fulfilled. Every half century, many Christian Zionists believe, history makes a concerted push toward its endpoint: the return of the Messiah to Jerusalem. According to this pattern, something momentous should happen to Israel before the end of 2017. “Reading Israel’s modern history, there seems to be something unusual in 50-year cycles,” said David Parsons, the vice president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. “It means we should expect something incredible to happen this year to further propel Jerusalem and Israel into its prophetic destiny.” [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The head of the Anti-Defamation League declared his organization was “astonished and horrified” by a recent steep rise in antisemitic incidents in the US, as the ADL released new data on Thursday that compared 2017 with the previous year. ADL’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents — which covers the period from January through September of this year — recorded almost 1,300 antisemitic outrages across the country, including physical assaults, vandalism and attacks on Jewish institutions. According to the ADL, that total “represents a 67 percent increase over the same period in 2016 and already exceeds the 1,266 incidents reported all of last year.” The organization emphasized what it said were a “disturbingly high number of antisemitic bullying and vandalism incidents in K-12 schools and college campuses across the US.” [ Source: Algemeiner (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser says North Korea could be returned to the list of countries the US believes sponsor terrorism, as part of Trump’s strategy to counter the North’s growing nuclear threat. “You’ll hear more about that soon, I think,” the adviser, H.R. McMaster, said at a briefing on the eve of Trump’s five-nation tour of Asia, which starts Friday. North Korea’s nuclear and missile weapons threat will be a key focus of Trump’s meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines during the 12-day trip, the president’s first official visit to the region. McMaster cited the killing in a Malaysian airport earlier this year of the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader as an act of terrorism that could lead to the North’s being added back to a list that currently includes only Iran, Sudan and Syria. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The United Nations has "failed miserably" when it comes to protecting Christians from genocide, a charity has said, noting that a mere 1.5 percent of Syrian refugees accepted by Western nations in 2016 were followers of Christ. "This is shocking behavior by the U.N. and U.K. officials," said Barnabas Fund's Martin Parsons in an interview with Express published Tuesday. "In 2005 the U.N. adopted the responsibility of states to protect citizens from genocide and crimes against humanity. These statistics show that it has failed miserably in this. Christians and other minorities have been treated shamefully by the U.N. And the U.K. has outsourced its own responsibilities in spite of repeated representations." [ Source: Christian Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile says President Obama decimated the party’s finances to win re-election in 2012 and that Hillary Clinton’s campaign took control of the DNC long before she defeated Sen. Bernard Sanders for the party’s presidential nomination last year. In revelations from her upcoming book that are roiling an increasingly divided Democratic Party, Ms. Brazile said she was shocked at the sorry condition of the DNC’s finances when she took over in July 2016 for embattled Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who she said was “not a good manager.” Ms. Brazile described a phone call she had with Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, on the morning after the Democratic National Convention ended in late July 2016. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - For the first time ever, a delegation of evangelical leaders from the United States met with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for nearly three hours at the presidential palace in Cairo on Wednesday to talk about a series of issues including the persecution of Egyptian Christians by Islamic extremists. "I appreciate the opportunity to meet with President el-Sisi to discuss the concerns we have, as American evangelicals, for the plight of religious minorities in Egypt, especially those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ," Family Research Council President and Baptist Pastor Tony Perkins said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. Perkins was joined by other prominent evangelical activists and authors such as religious freedom advocate and informal Trump administration advisor Johnnie Moore, evangelical writer Joel Rosenberg, Egyptian-born Christian pastor and author Michael Youssef, and former Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. [ Source: Christian Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - An evangelical coalition that lobbies for immigration reform has asked the Trump administration to extend the "Temporary Protected Status" program for four nations. Signatories for the EIT's letter included Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Shirley V. Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities; Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; and the Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. The TPS program allows for nationals from certain designated countries to remain in the United States due to temporary conditions that would make it dangerous to return them, such an armed conflict or a major natural disaster. [ Source: Christian Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - President Donald Trump on Thursday agreed to expand the use of disaster aid to rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid and other infrastructure wrecked by Hurricane Maria, a senior White House official told Reuters. Under the plan, the federal government will pick up 90 percent of the costs – up from the typical level of 75 percent – and allow for funds to be released in a faster, more flexible way, an approach that recognizes the massive devastation on the island and its dire financial problems, the official said. The plan, agreed with Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello, provides for third-party advisers to estimate how much money is required for projects and how it is spent – a provision aimed at protecting taxpayer dollars in what is expected to be a massive, long-term effort to rebuild the island. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article