WorthyNewsBot

(Worthy News) - The House on Thursday passed a bill to repeal a panel created by Obamacare to cut Medicare if it spends too much. The House voted 307-111 to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a subject of ire from Republicans and some Democrats. Lawmakers say the board takes away congressional authority over entitlement spending. The bill that got hefty support from Democrats faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, but top sponsor Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., is optimistic. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - House Republicans’ long-awaited tax overhaul bill will keep the top individual rate at 39.6 percent for high-income earners and will immediately and permanently cut the corporate rate to 20 percent. The legislation seeks to revamp the tax code in a major way for the first time since 1986, incorporating long-sought goals of congressional Republicans to keep more money in the pockets of individuals and families and boost incentives for businesses by closing loopholes. The bill would collapse seven tax brackets for individuals to four brackets with rates of 12, 25, 35 and 39.6 percent. The bill would also increase the standard deduction so single filers earning up to $12,000 and joint filers earning up to $24,000 would pay no income tax. [ Source: Roll Call (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Before I called Bernie Sanders, I lit a candle in my living room and put on some gospel music. I wanted to center myself for what I knew would be an emotional phone call. I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie. So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations. [ Source: Politico (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Former surrogates of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from the 2016 campaign are fuming about the Democratic National Committee in response to Donna Brazile's disclosure of "proof" that the Hillary Clinton campaign took over the DNC's finances and operations in an effort to tip the scales in Clinton's favor for the party's presidential nomination in 2016. With many noting they have been crying foul since the primary, multiple liberal figures in the Democratic Party took the opportunity issue a fresh cadre of demands to change the DNC, which earlier this year picked an Establishment-favorite, Tom Perez, to lead over the liberals' preferred candidate, Rep. Keith Ellison. "Today we heard from Donna Brazile that what many suspected for a long time, is actually true: the DNC secretly chose their nominee over a year before the primary elections even occurred, turning over DNC control to the Clinton campaign," said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, a former DNC vice chairman. Gabbard, declared the 2016 primary "rigged," resigned from the DNC in February 2016 in order to endorse Sanders. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The new GOP tax overhaul would strip illegal immigrants of the ability to claim several major tax credits, saving the government $23.1 billion over the next decade, according to the bill’s authors. For years Republicans have complained that despite a general ban on taxpayer benefits flowing to illegal immigrants, the IRS has allowed them to collect the child tax credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Efforts to shut down those claims have been tried in the House but have never cleared Congress. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Two assistant pastors arrested by the Burma (Myanmar) army last December were sentenced to prison on Friday (Oct. 27) on false charges of unlawful association, defaming the military and spying, sources said. Pastor Dom Dawng Nawng Latt, 65, received a prison term of four years and three months, and fellow pastor La Jaw Gam Hseng, 35, received two years and three months, according to sources present in court in Lashio town, in Shan state. The two ethnic Kachin pastors, members of the Kachin Baptist Convention, were charged under the Unlawful Association Act for alleged connections with an ethnic armed group, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), and allegedly spying for it. Nawng Latt was prosecuted under a defamation statute. They deny the charges, which colleagues say are baseless. [ Source: Morningstar News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Officials and police in Tamil Nadu state, India, have ordered 10 churches to discontinue worship services, sources said. Hindu extremists compelled state officials and police to issue orders to the churches in Coimbatore District to stop worship unless they obtain permission from the collector’s office, and the extremists intend to target 20 others in the same way, church leaders said. “It is a well-planned conspiracy against the Christian community, as the Hindu extremists know that it is not easy to approach the collector’s office for such permissions,” pastor Johnson Sathyanathan, president of the Synod of Pentecostal Churches of Coimbatore, told Morning Star News. “The time to get such approvals can stretch from a year and a half to many more years.” [ Source: Morningstar News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Israel's air force attacked a weapons depot situated in rural areas around Hisya, south of the Syrian city of Homs, Arab media reported Wednesday night. Several reports claimed that the Syrian military launched a surface-to-air missile against Israeli jets from its 72nd Divison Base but did not hit them. A commander in a military alliance fighting in support of the Syrian government told Reuters that the IAF struck a copper factory south of Homs, and did not provide details regarding any casualties. Channel 10 reported that the aircraft were not hit and returned safely to base. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Israel Police will establish a special unit to secure the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan announced Tuesday at an event in honor of Jerusalem District Police officers. The unit's officers will "protect visitors to the Temple Mount and will have the most advanced intelligence and technological resources in existence available to them," Erdan said. "I envision Jerusalem becoming within two years not only the holiest city in the world but one of the safest cities in the world, with the most advanced technology that exists today. The city will become a role model for advanced cities throughout the world, both in terms of the skills of the police deployed in and in terms of the technologies that exist there," he said. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Russian accounts bought thousands of social media ads on hot-button U.S. issues ranging from Black Lives Matter to illegal immigration, according to a batch of the ads released Wednesday by members of the House intelligence panel. Here is a sampling of ads purchased by Russian-linked accounts and aimed at U.S. Facebook and Instagram users. [ Source: Politico (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Venezuela announced plans to begin issuing 100,000-bolivar notes on Wednesday as the government struggles to control skyrocketing inflation. One year ago, the largest bill was only 100 bolivars – an amount that is now practically worthless. President Nicolas Maduro unveiled the note at a cabinet meeting. It will be worth about €2 euros or $2.3 on black market exchanges. Caracas said the new bill is only a stop-gap measure amidst a more comprehensive financial overhaul, one facet of which is to eventually rid the country of paper money entirely. [ Source: Deutche Welle (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and pointed to solid U.S. economic growth and a strengthening labor market while playing down the impact of recent hurricanes, a sign it is on track to lift borrowing costs again in December. Investors had all but ruled out a rate hike at the central bank’s policy meeting this week and attention has largely been focused on who will be in charge of monetary policy at the end of Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s first term in February 2018. President Donald Trump is set to announce his nomination on Thursday afternoon with Fed Governor Jerome Powell, a soft-spoken centrist who has supported Yellen’s gradual approach to raising rates, seen as having a lock on the job. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Hundreds of thousands of persecuted Christians, Yazidis and other minorities driven from battered northern Iraq are still in a perilous limbo, as humanitarian groups struggle to make sense of a new Trump Administration initiative rolled out after Vice President Mike Pence’s October 25 promise to “stop funding ineffective relief efforts at the United Nations” and “provide support directly to persecuted communities through USAID.” Humanitarian groups have called the Administration declaration a big step forward in helping the sorely-neglected minority groups recover from genocidal waves of murder, rape, displacement and plunder inflicted by now-defeated ISIS forces. But there is still much uncertainty about how the initiative will work, what money will be involved, and how the effort will be coordinated—and above all, when it will get going.. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Iceland's biggest volcano has not erupted since February 2015, but after a series of earthquakes over the past week, there are fears it could erupt again. And this time, it might cause chaos for the airline industry. Bardarbunga, which is under the ice cap of the Vatnajökull glacier, is “clearly preparing for its next eruption” within the next few years, University of Iceland volcanology expert Páll Einarsson told The Express. It was hit by four separate earthquakes, measuring 3.9, 3.2, 4.7 and 4.7 on the Richter scale. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Iran’s top religious and political leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged all Muslims to engage in “different methods” of fighting against Israel. In a letter to the International Union of Resistance Scholars, a group that has convened anti-Israel gatherings in the past, Khamenei wrote that the “unforgettable responsibility” for removing Israel “rests upon the shoulders of the entire Muslim world.” The letter, which appears in English translation on Khamenei’s official website, is addressed to the union’s chairman, Lebanese Sunni cleric Sheikh Maher Hamoud. Hamoud, who hails from Sidon in southern Lebanon, advocates an end to the Sunni-Shiite rift and a refocusing of Muslim attention on the Palestinian cause. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday seized on the deadly New York City truck attack to step up demands for stricter U.S. immigration laws, asking Congress to end a visa program that let the Uzbek suspect into the country and saying he might send him to Guantanamo Bay. In a day of harsh recriminations over Tuesday’s attack that killed eight people in America’s largest city, Trump appeared to assign some blame for an incident that authorities have labeled as terrorism to top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, who accused Trump of politicizing a national tragedy. Trump said he would consider sending the suspect, identified by authorities as Sayfullo Saipov, to the military prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama tried but failed to shut. No detainee has been sent to the Guantanamo prison since 2008. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday seized on the deadly New York City truck attack to step up demands for stricter U.S. immigration laws, asking Congress to end a visa program that let the Uzbek suspect into the country and saying he might send him to Guantanamo Bay. In a day of harsh recriminations over Tuesday’s attack that killed eight people in America’s largest city, Trump appeared to assign some blame for an incident that authorities have labeled as terrorism to top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, who accused Trump of politicizing a national tragedy. Trump said he would consider sending the suspect, identified by authorities as Sayfullo Saipov, to the military prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama tried but failed to shut. No detainee has been sent to the Guantanamo prison since 2008. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The House approved legislation on Wednesday intended to reduce the risk of wildfires, as the government struggles to respond to the most expensive year ever for this type of natural disaster. “This is a bill based on a simple idea — that we must do more to expand active management in federal forests," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. "With this bill, we tackle not only the symptoms of the crisis but also its root causes. We provide the resources for our fire-fighters, but also tools for our land managers to improve conditions on the ground and proactively mitigate the threat of wildfire.” The Resilient Federal Forests Act, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark. -- a licensed forester -- passed by a vote of 232 to 188. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - House and Senate Republican committee leaders introduced an Obamacare stabilization package that is more conservative than a bipartisan package that has stalled in the Senate. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady introduced the Healthcare Market Certainty and Mandate Relief Act on Wednesday. It would delay enforcement of Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates in exchange for insurer payments that President Trump has halted and led to major increases in premiums. The lawmakers said their version has a better chance of passing the House and getting President Trump’s signature than bipartisan legislation introduced by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash. That legislation gave state flexibility from Obamacare regulations in exchange for funding the payments for two years. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Never-before-seen video of Osama bin Laden’s son and potential successor was released Wednesday by the CIA in a trove of material recovered during the May 2011 raid that killed the al-Qaida leader at his compound in Pakistan. The video offers the first public look at Hamza bin Laden as an adult. Until now, the public has only seen childhood pictures of him. In recent years, al-Qaida has released audio messages from Hamza bin Laden. And to mark a recent anniversary of 9/11, al-Qaida superimposed a childhood photo of him over a photo of the World Trade Center. He is expected to rise to prominence in the jihadist movement and is being closely watched as the rival Islamic State organization suffers setbacks in the Middle East. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Some U.S. national security officials are urging an investigation of the burgeoning Uranium One scandal to focus on whether the New START arms treaty with Russia was compromised by Moscow payoffs and not just by Obama administration policies that sought to curry favor with the Kremlin. The Obama team, through the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), approved the 2010 sale of 51 percent of Canada-based Uranium One to JSC Atomredmetzoloto, or ARMZ, the mining arm of Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy agency. The merger gave Russia control of some 20 percent of U.S. uranium extraction capability. In 2015, it was revealed that nine lobbyists for Uranium One paid the Clinton Foundation, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable organization, $145 million before, during and after the deal was approved. Bill Clinton also traveled to Moscow, where he was paid $500,000 by a Russian government-linked bank for a speech. Last month, the Uranium One case resurfaced when news reports revealed that the FBI apparently covered up information about illegal Russian attempts to lobby then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - America, you’ve been duped! For many months, Democrats, the mainstream media and even social-media networks have been insisting President Trump colluded with the Russians during the 2016 presidential election and Russia purchased political ads on Facebook and Twitter to stop Americans from voting for Hillary Clinton. But the whole truth is, Russia bought many ads after Election Day and plastered them all over Facebook and Twitter in a coordinated effort to undermine President Trump. That’s according to top lawyers from Facebook and Twitter who testified before a Senate Judiciary panel Tuesday. [ Source: WND (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The White House admonished Russia on Wednesday after it vetoed a United Nations plan to continue an ongoing investigation that recently found Syria killed dozens of people with chemical weapons and implored the international body to renew the probe. Russia cast a veto at the United Nations Security Council eight days ago, preventing the renewal of a mandate for a mission by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) - known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) - that investigates the use of chemical weapons in Syria. "Russia’s attempts to undermine and eliminate the JIM show a callous disregard for the suffering and loss of life caused by the use of chemical weapons and an utter lack of respect for international norms," the White House said in a statement. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - US Navy F/A-18 fighter jets were dispatched from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and escorted two Russian TU-95 bombers that were approaching the ship on Sunday, according to two US defense officials. The interaction -- which occurred as the Russian bombers flew about 80 miles from the US carrier -- was deemed safe and professional, the officials said, and the Russian aircraft proceeded without incident. The USS Ronald Reagan was operating in the Sea of Japan/ East Sea at the time of the interaction. Three US carriers -- USS Ronald Reagan, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz -- have been operating in the US Navy's 7th Fleet area of operations, which covers the eastern Indian and western Pacific oceans, in recent days. [ Source: CNN (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - It was billed as a re-enactment of the charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba but it ended up being a gentle walk. Thousands of Australians had gathered in stands at a dust bowl called Be’ersheva River Park, where the Australian mounted troops began the charge that stormed the town a century ago. A band played the Australian classics On The Road To Gundagai and Click Go The Shears along with a modern composition of bush poetry set to music which described the ride. Chants of “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!” filled their air at regular intervals. [ Source: News (Australia) (Read More...) ] View the full article