WorthyNewsBot

(Worthy News) - Hundreds of thousands of people are marching in Barcelona to demand Catalonia rejects independence and stays with Spain. March organisers Societat Civil Catalana claimed 930,000 people turned out, but Barcelona police put the total at around 350,000. The demonstration comes a week after the Catalan government held a referendum on secession that was condemned as illegal and unconstitutional by the Spanish government. [ Source: Sky News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued government-wide legal guidance Friday that urges sweeping protection for religious freedom and could impact a series of pending policy decisions involving health care, LGBT rights and even disaster relief. Sessions billed the 25-page memo directed to all federal agencies as a response to an executive order President Donald Trump signed in May, promoting efforts to promote "religious liberty." That order triggered a major showdown within the administration as religious and social conservatives pressed for treatment that could essentially allow them to ignore anti-discrimination requirements, particularly in the area of sexual orientation, while more moderate forces warned that upending existing protections would trigger an uproar that could derail other administration priorities. [ Source: Politico (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - US President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast on Saturday that he wanted to give a shot at achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians before moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In June, Trump signed a temporary order to keep the US embassy in Tel Aviv, despite a campaign promise he made to move it to Jerusalem. In an interview with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on the TBN program "Huckabee," Trump noted his administration was working on a plan for peace between the two sides. "I want to give that a shot before I even think about moving the embassy to Jerusalem," he said. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - As white supremacists prepared to descend on Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, the FBI warned about a new movement that was violent, growing, and racially motivated. Only it wasn’t white supremacists; it was 'black identity extremists.' Amid a rancorous debate over whether the Trump administration has downplayed the threat posed by white supremacist groups, the FBI’s counterterrorism division has declared that black identity extremists pose a growing threat of premeditated violence against law enforcement. “The FBI assesses it is very likely Black Identity Extremist (BIE) perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement and will very likely serve as justification for such violence,” reads the report, marked for official use only and obtained by Foreign Policy. [ Source: Foreign Policy (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - California’s outbreak of hepatitis A, already the nation’s second largest in the last 20 years, could continue for many months, even years, health officials said Thursday. At least 569 people have been infected and 17 have died of the virus since November in San Diego, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles counties, where local outbreaks have been declared. Dr. Monique Foster, a medical epidemiologist with the Division of Viral Hepatitis at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Thursday that California’s outbreak could linger even with the right prevention efforts. [ Source: LA Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Nate made landfall around 7 p.m. CDT Oct. 7 near the mouth of the Mississippi River as a Category 1 hurricane, then made its final landfall near Biloxi, Mississippi, just after midnight Oct. 8. Together with a trio of Category 4 hurricane landfalls in less than a month's time from late August through late September, this is now the first time since the record-smashing 2005 hurricane season there has been as many as four U.S. landfalls in one season, all occurring within 45 days from Aug. 25 through Oct. 8. That 2005 season featured five U.S. landfalling hurricanes: Cindy, Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. The landfall of Harvey and Irma at Category 4 strength was already a historic event, marking the first time two Atlantic hurricanes struck the U.S. in the same year. With Puerto Rico taking a direct hit from Maria, the U.S. has now endured landfalls from three Category 4 hurricanes. Category 4 or stronger Atlantic hurricane landfalls in the Lower 48 are a rare occurrence, with only 27 documented since 1851, including Harvey and Irma. Three of those 27 landfalls were Category 5 hurricanes. Puerto Rico has experienced four Category 4 or stronger landfalls, including Maria, which was the strongest landfall there since 1928. [ Source: Weather (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Israeli military said on Sunday it destroyed an outpost belonging to the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Sunday after Gaza militants fired a rocket toward Israel. The rocket set off air raid sirens in southern Israel but fell short, landing inside Palestinian territory, the Israeli military said in a statement. “In response, an (Israeli) tank targeted and destroyed a Hamas outpost in the southern Gaza Strip,” it said. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - With the ink on the reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas not yet dry, with the mutual declarations of "real reconciliation on behalf of Palestinian national strength" still reverberating in the background, the first signs of division over the implementation of understandings began to surface over the weekend. In response to reports that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is demanding Hamas relinquish its weapons as a condition for lifting the sanctions he imposed on the group, and reports in the Egyptian press that the head of Egyptian intelligence, Khaled Fawzy, relayed a message to Abbas that Hamas will not agree to discuss the demand, senior Hamas representatives said over the weekend that the terrorist group will not accept any dictates or conditions that include dismantling its military wing. Ismail Radwan, a senior Hamas member, said in an interview with the Lebanese-based Al-Mayadeen network that only armed struggle against Israel will lead to results. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The U.S. State Department has approved the possible sale of a THAAD anti-missile defense system to Saudi Arabia at an estimated cost of $15 billion, the Pentagon said on Friday, citing Iran among regional threats. The approval opens the way for Saudi Arabia to purchase 44 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) launchers and 360 missiles, as well as fire control stations and radars. “This sale furthers U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, and supports the long-term security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in the face of Iranian and other regional threats,” the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation agency said in a statement. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - As in-fighting consumes the British government, Europeans have stepped up quiet preparations for a possible collapse of Brexit talks that could see Britain crash out of the EU without a deal 18 months from now. Prime Minister Theresa May’s EU counterparts still see the “no-deal scenario” she threatened them with as most unlikely, as they think it would hurt Britain much more than the continent. But after her faltering party conference last week and ahead of important meetings in Brussels over the next fortnight, diplomats and officials there and in big member states said they have been putting renewed focus on contingency planning for a legal limbo in March 2019 and urging businesses to do the same. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Astonishingly, for three years U.S. government bureaucrats have refused to help endangered religious minority communities like Christians and Yazidis survive the genocide ISIS began in 2014. These communities stand on the brink of extinction. As a witness from Iraq testified at a congressional hearing I chaired Tuesday (Oct. 3) — the 10th hearing I have convened on the atrocities — “foreign aid decisions will determine whether Christianity and religious pluralism will survive in Iraq at all.” The U.S. Agency for International Development is reviewing a proposal from the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee to repair 6,800 religious minority homes damaged or destroyed by ISIS on the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq. [ Source: Christian Headlines (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Determined to finally solve illegal immigration, the White House submitted a 70-point enforcement plan to Congress Sunday proposing the stiffest reforms ever offered by an administration — including a massive rewrite of the law in order to eliminate loopholes illegal immigrants have exploited to gain a foothold in the U.S. The plans, seen by The Washington Times, include President Trump’s calls for a border wall, more deportation agents, a crackdown on sanctuary cities and stricter limits to chain migration — all issues the White House says need to be part of any bill Congress passes to legalize illegal immigrant “Dreamers” currently protected by the Obama-era deportation amnesty known as DACA. But the plans break serious new ground on the legal front, giving federal agents more leeway to deny illegal immigrants at the border, to arrest and hold them when they’re spotted in the interior, and to deport them more speedily. The goal, the White House said, is to ensure major changes to border security, interior enforcement and the legal immigration system. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Hurricanes Harvey and Irma may have wiped as many as 125,000 jobs from the September employment report, resulting in job growth below 100,000. With the historic double shocks of two Category 4 storms, the 8:30 a.m. ET Friday report is going to be fluky. The forecast for new payrolls falls in an unusually wide range — with expectations between 45,000 jobs lost to a gain of 150,000 or more. The divergence shows just how difficult it has been to measure the economic impact of the two back-to-back storms that hit the mainland U.S. in late August and early September. Economists say the Fed will look past this report when considering monetary policy, and the employment picture be much more clear by the time it is expected to consider raising interest rates in December. [ Source: CNBC (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed on Tuesday that Israel would not deal with a Palestinian government that included Hamas if it maintained its anti-Israel stance and remained committed to terrorism. Touring Maaleh Adumim, a Jerusalem suburb beyond the Green Line, Netanyahu said: "We expect everyone who talks about a peace process to recognize the State of Israel and, of course, to recognize a Jewish state. We are not prepared to accept bogus reconciliations in which the Palestinian factions apparently reconcile at the expense of our existence. "Whoever wants to make such a reconciliation must know our terms are clear: recognizing the State of Israel, disbanding Hamas' military arm, severing ties with Iran, which calls for our destruction, and so on and so forth. Even these very clear things must be clearly stated" by the Palestinians. [ Source: Israel Hayom (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A 16-year-old Coptic Christian girl kidnapped on 28 June to be “converted to Islam, then married off or sold”, was released and returned to her family on 30 September after police found her and arrested her kidnappers in a city just outside Cairo. Marilyn was recovered from a city named 10th of Ramadan, but she is from a village several hundred kilometres south, in the governorate of Minya. Her village priest, Father Boutros Khalaf, told World Watch Monitor: “Recently we found out that Marilyn was held in a place in 10th of Ramadan city…. We went to the local police station and they really did their best to reach her and managed to arrest her kidnapper, Taha, and his brother, Gaber, and release Marilyn. She returned back to her family on Saturday, 30 September, after 92 days”. [ Source: World Watch Monitor (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Provoked by the mission work of a local house church, officials detained a pastor and her daughter on Sept. 22, taking the daughter’s three-year-old son into custody as well. On the night of Sept. 22, police and religious affairs bureau personnel seized Pastor Xu Shizhen, her daughter, Xu Yuqing, and Xu Yuqing’s three-year-old son, Xu Shouwang, after the two women took part in Zion Church’s efforts to spread the Gospel in local public parks and squares. During these evangelistic efforts, the women sang, danced, performed with bamboo instruments, and preached, even though the local religious affairs, public security, and national security bureaus frequently interrupted them. When their family members went to the police station on Sept. 24, the police told them that they had separated the women from the child, keeping him at the station while transferring his grandmother and mother to other facilities. It is unknown whether they are under criminal or administrative detention. [ Source: Chinan Aid (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Abortion is widespread in China, due to the country’s One Child Policy, and now the updated, but hardly less restrictive, Two Child Policy. Reports have emerged of Chinese women being forced to undergo abortions or face harsh consequences, but to make matters worse, a study has now been released that shows a link between abortions and breast cancer in women, according to LifeNews.com. Dr. Joel Brind, professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College of the City University of New York and co-founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, notes that abortion has escalated in China and South Asia over the last few decades. Breast cancer in these regions of the world is also increasing. Brind also notes that breast cancer often takes 20 years to show up after an event that my trigger it: i.e. abortion. In 2008 a group of scientists wrote in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, “China is on the cusp of a breast cancer epidemic.” Brind posits that this increase in cancer is linked to the increased abortion rate. He cites a study conducted by Dr. Yubei Huang which documented a 44 percent increase in breast cancer risk among women who had one or more abortions. If a woman had three abortions, the risk for breast cancer was increased up to 89 percent. [ Source: Christian Headlines (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a 'sanctuary state' bill on Thursday that prevents law enforcement officers from 'asking about immigration status during routine interactions.' "It also bans unconstitutional detainer requests and prohibits the commandeering of local officials to do the work of immigration agents," Brown wrote in a statement about the California Values Act. But Brown, who reassumed office in 2011, said the legislation does not stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Homeland Security Department from complying with federal immigration law in the Golden State. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - President Donald Trump made a series of cryptic remarks during a pre-dinner photo session with his top military advisers and their spouses Thursday night in the State Dining Room of the White House. As photographers snapped pictures and recorded video, Trump asked reporters: "You guys know what this represents?" “Maybe it’s the calm before the storm,” he said, answering his own question. "What storm, Mr. President?" NBC News' Kristen Welker asked again. "You'll find out," Trump replied, before reporters were ushered out of the room. [ Source: NBC News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has called on Europe to defy US sanctions if the Trump administration torpedoes the international nuclear agreement with Tehran. Zarif warned that if Europe followed Washington’s lead, the deal would collapse and Iran would emerge with more advanced nuclear technology than before the agreement was reached in Vienna in 2015. However, he insisted that technology would not be used to make weapons, in line with Tehran’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Speaking to the Guardian and the Financial Times, Zarif said the only way Iran would be persuaded to continue to observe the limits on its civil nuclear programme would be if the other signatories – the UK, France Germany, Russia, China – all remained committed to its terms and defy any subsequent US sanctions. [ Source: UK Guardian (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - President Trump and the National Rifle Association got behind the push for outlawing 'bump stocks' Thursday, giving rare momentum to gun control legislation in response to the Las Vegas massacre. The NRA, which for decades has opposed any new restrictions on firearms even after mass shootings, made a sharp pivot minutes before the White House gave the green light to debating a ban on bump stocks. The Las Vegas shooter used the device to turn his semi-automatic rifles into rapid-fire weapons similar to machine guns, producing a hail of gunfire that in 10 minutes killed at least 58 people and wounded nearly 500. “Despite the fact that the Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions, the National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law,” the NRA and its lobbying arm, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, said in a joint statement. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Even before its feud over the national anthem with President Trump, the NFL Players Association wasn’t on the same political team as many of its fans, judging from its contributions to leftist advocacy groups. Tax documents released by 2ndVote show the NFLPA donated $5,000 in 2015 to the Center for Community Change Action, a group active in the anti-Trump resistance and bankrolled by a host of liberal foundations, including top Democratic donor George Soros’s Foundation for Open Society. A member of the AFL-CIO, the NFLPA also contributed in 2013 and 2015 to Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, which Open Secrets said spent $1 million in 2016 to defeat Trump. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - It’s an ordinary-looking, 1990s-era black plastic telephone, but it’s one that American military commanders here rely on daily to prevent the outbreak of World War III. At any given moment, American jet fighters could be carving up the skies within shooting range of Russian MiGs over nearby Syria. The “deconfliction line” exists to make sure things don’t turn ugly. It’s the most sensitive direct communication link U.S. and Russian officials have to ensure their many aircraft — flying conflicting missions across Syria’s increasingly crowded and chaotic skies — don’t clash in an unintended way. “We’re on the phone with [the Russians] 15 to 20 times a day just trying to make sure their operation and our operation stay separate,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. David S. Nahom, a top commander of the U.S.-led bombing campaign being run from this strategic base in the Persian Gulf. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The House of Representatives passed the Building A Better America 2018 budget in a 219 to 206 vote. Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said today that the budget will rein in our national debt, strengthen our national defense, help grow the economy, and pave the way for tax reform. "It paves the way for historic tax reform," Ryan said. "It unlocks the reconciliation process. We need to pass this budget so that we can deliver real relief for middle income families across this country." In 10 years, the budget produces a $9 billion surplus and increases GDP growth to 2.6 percent. It achieves this growth by reforming the tax code, reducing government regulations, using taxpayer dollars efficiently, and reforming government programs. [ Source: Washington Free Beacon (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Russian hackers stole data belonging to the National Security Agency about America's cyber defense from the home computer of a U.S. government contractor, according to people familiar with the matter. The material was highly classified and was identified by the hackers since the contractor was using Russian Kaspersky Lab antivirus software, the Wall Street Journal reports. The stolen material included details about how the NSA penetrates foreign computer networks, the computer code it uses for such spying and how it defends networks inside the U.S., these people said. [ Source: Washington Free Beacon (Read More...) ] View the full article