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(Worthy News) - President Donald Trump will take his “America First” message to the United Nations next week and seek support for tough measures against North Korea despite his skepticism about the value of international groups like the 193-member body. Nearly eight months in office, Trump will stress his belief in the importance of national sovereignty and the limits of global organizations during his debut as U.S. president at the U.N. General Assembly, an administration official said. “Multilateral fora are useful, but they’re means, not ends,” the official said. The purpose of a multilateral forum is to be “subservient and subordinate. It is a facilitator.” [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - President Trump tweeted Thursday that he did not make a deal with Democrats for children brought to the U.S. illegally, but indicated he has no desire to deport them. “No deal was made last night on DACA. Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote,” Mr. Trumptweeted referring to the Obama-era immigration program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. Mr. Trump hosted Democratic leaders at the White House Wednesday night for a dinner on immigration reform. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi released a short statement after the dinner, saying the meeting had been “very productive” and that they had come to an agreement on DACA. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Weeks after saying there wasn’t enough public interest in Hillary Clinton’s email case, the FBI’s decision has been modified, and the bureau will publicly release more details of its obstruction of justice probe into the former secretary of state. The Justice Department confirmed the new position in a letter Thursday to Ty Clevenger, a lawyer who’d filed an open records request for the information. The FBI had initially told him there wasn’t enough public interest to outweigh Mrs. Clinton’s privacy concerns, but he appealed to the Justice Department, which said it was “modifying the FBI’s response.” [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Donald Trump on Thursday slammed Iran for violating “the spirit” of a deal curbing its nuclear program, weeks before the US president must decide whether to stick by the agreement. “The Iran deal is one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen, certainly at a minimum the spirit of the deal is atrociously kept,” Trump said aboard Air Force One. “The Iran deal is not a fair deal to this country. It’s a deal that should not have ever been made,” he added, tearing into the Obama-era accord. The United States on Thursday agreed to continue for now to exempt Iran from nuclear-related sanctions but slapped new measures against targets accused of cyber attacks or fomenting militancy. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A new report released by a prominent religious liberty advocacy organization claims that there has been a 133 percent increase in domestic "attacks on religious liberty" in the last five years and about a 15 percent increase in attacks on religious liberty in the last year. The First Liberty Institute, a conservative legal group dedicated to defending people and organizations whose First Amendment rights have been violated, released its annual report, "Undeniable: The Survey of Hostility to Religion in America," on Tuesday. The report highlights cases reported in the last few years in which Americans have had their religious liberty rights infringed or "attacked" in one way or another — either in the public arena, in the military, in schools or even within church walls. "In this edition, the total number of documented incidents in this report increased by over 15 percent over the past year and now includes more than 1,400 religious liberty incidents," the report states. Compared to 2011, when there were 600 reported cases, the number of religious liberty incidents has increased by 133 percent. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - North Korea displayed trademark defiance on Wednesday over new United Nations sanctions imposed after its sixth and largest-ever nuclear test, vowing to redouble efforts to fight off what it said was the threat of a US invasion. US President Donald Trump said the sanctions, unanimously agreed on Monday by the 15-member UN Security Council, were just a small step toward what is ultimately needed to rein in Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the resolutions were an infringement on its legitimate right to self-defense and aimed at "completely suffocating its state and people through full-scale economic blockade." [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Neutral Sweden has launched its biggest war games in two decades with support from NATO countries, drilling 19,000 troops after years of spending cuts that have left the country fearful of Russia’s growing military strength. On the eve of Russia’s biggest manoeuvres since 2013, which NATO says will be greater than the 13,000 troops Moscow says are involved, Sweden will simulate an attack from the east on the Baltic island of Gotland, near the Swedish mainland. “The security situation has taken a turn for the worse,” Micael Byden, the commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, said during a presentation of the three-week-long exercise. [ Source: Reuters (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Trump administration is poised to extend sanctions relief to Iran, avoiding imminent action that could implode the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. But the move expected Thursday comes as the White House seeks ways to find that Tehran is not complying with the agreement. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the deal, but has yet to pull out of it. Trump is working against a Thursday deadline to decide whether to extend the sanctions waivers, which were first issued by the Obama administration. Administration officials say Trump is ready to extend the waivers and that no serious alternatives have been presented. But they cautioned that Trump could still change his mind, and they said he remains determined to "decertify" Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal by a separate, mid-October deadline — a finding that would jeopardize further sanctions relief. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Japan's top government spokesman has called a North Korean threat to sink Japan with a nuclear bomb extremely provocative and outrageous. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (yo-SHEE'-hee-deh SOO'-gah) said Thursday that the statement distributed by North Korea's state news service "significantly escalates tensions in the region." The statement from a group called the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee attacked the United States for leading a push for stronger U.N. sanctions against North Korea, as well as Japan for joining the U.S. campaign. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A Maryland judge ordered the state bar to open an investigation Monday into the three lawyers who helped former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delete her private emails. Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Paul F. Harris Jr. said the complaints lodged against David E. Kendall, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were egregious and the state bar couldn’t dismiss them as frivolous. “There are allegations of destroying evidence,” Judge Harris said at a hearing Monday morning. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Russia has urged Syrian President Bashar Assad not to retaliate against Israel after an airstrike on the country's Scientific Studies and Research Center, which the Syrian regime attributes to Israel, a senior Russia official dealing with Middle East affairs told Yedioth Ahronoth in an conversation in Moscow over the weekend. The official said Moscow advised Syria and Hezbollah "not to respond and concentrate on the big picture." The official also noted Russia is aware of Israel's concerns of Iranian entrenchment in Syria, reassuring Moscow will make sure to prevent Tehran from establishing a foothold in the Golan Heights significant enough to pose a threat to Israel. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Two additional F-35 stealth fighter jets lifted off from the US on Wednesday morning on their way to Israel, the sixth and seventh planes to be delivered out of the 50 Israel has purchased from the US to upgrade the capabilities of its air force. The planes, called “Adir” in Hebrew, are expected to land in Israel on Thursday, a week and a half later than originally scheduled. Late last month, the IDF announced the planes’ arrival would be delayed after a technical issue was found in another version of the aircraft. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Nearly one in three Britons holds at least one anti-Semitic attitude and more than half endorse at least one hard-line anti-Israel statement, finds a major new study published today. It also establishes an “unambiguous” link between anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel – suggesting that the stronger the level of anti-Israel feeling, the more likely it is to be accompanied by anti-Semitic attitudes – and probes the attitudes of those who support the far-left and the far-right, as well as British Muslims. But the report – the largest and most detailed survey of attitudes towards Jews and Israel ever conducted in Britain – also concludes that the proportion of what it terms “hardcore anti-Semites” in the population is small, while most Britons hold a favorable opinion of Jews and the vast majority do not harbor any anti-Semitic views. Moreover, it found that only 6% of Britons believe Israel has no right to exist, and less than 10% back the BDS movement. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro is likely to escape unscathed from antifa protesters planning to wreak havoc during his speech Thursday at the University of California, Berkeley, but the left may not be so lucky. The black-clad activists have driven a wedge between Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who condemned antifa by name in the wake of a violent protest last month in Berkeley, and leftists who have rushed to the defense of the self-styled “anti-fascists.” Refuse Fascism denounced the “shameful, dangerous, wrong attacks on Antifa,” taking aim at Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, who said the activists should be classified as a “gang,” and left-wing icon Noam Chomsky, who described them as a “major gift to the right.” [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - President Trump's decision to hold White House meetings with Democrats on key agenda items has sent a clear message to the GOP that it needs to get moving or he'll make deals with the minority party. "I think the failure on repeal and replace of Obamacare in the Senate certainly wasn't a presidential failure, it was a congressional failure," Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. told the Washington Examiner. "Reminding Republicans that there is more than one party to negotiate with around here, in case you can't come to an agreement, is a good thing, not a bad thing." Trump sent a signal on how far he might be willing to go to bring Democrats in on tax reform, the next big agenda item on the GOP's list. He met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers, mostly Democrats, to begin discussing tax reform and seemed to agree with a demand made by Schumer in August that new tax cuts won't benefit the wealthy. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The federal government collected record total tax revenues through the first eleven months of fiscal 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016 through the end of August), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. Through August, the federal government collected approximately $2,966,172,000,000 in total tax revenues. That was $8,450,680,000 more (in constant 2017 dollars) than the previous record of $2,957,721,320,000 in total tax revenues (in 2017 dollars) that the federal government collected in the first eleven months of fiscal 2016. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State dropped 5,075 bombs during operations in August, the highest total of any month since the three-year campaign against the terrorist group began. U.S. Air Force Central Command released data detailing military action that the coalition took against ISIS last month, noting that it used a record number of weapons during close-air-support, escort, or interdiction operations, Business Insider reported Wednesday. The previous highest month was June, when the coalition dropped 4,848 bombs. Already in 2017, the coalition has "released" 32,801 weapons on ISIS, while in all of 2016, it only dropped 30,743 bombs. These numbers do not include the number of bombs dropped by aircraft not under Air Force Central Command's control in Iraq and Syria. The major uptick in strikes occurred after President Donald Trump took office. Trump had promised on the campaign trail to "bomb the hell out of ISIS," criticizing the Obama administration for not doing more to fight the jihadist group. Trump's secretary of defense, James Mattis, earlier this year requested $3.5 billion more for "preferred munitions" to bomb ISIS. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Democratic leaders emerged from a dinner meeting Wednesday night with President Trump to say they had worked out a deal to grant permanent protections to young illegal immigrants — without having to accept funding for the president’s proposed border wall. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Mr. Trump agreed to move quickly on a bill that would “enshrine” the protections of the Obama-era DACA program — a tentative deportation amnesty — into law. The White House, in its own statement, said the dinner covered DACA, but it did not mention a final deal. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took to Twitter after the Schumer-Pelosi statement to deny that the border wall, a key promise from Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, was sacrificed. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - A city council in Maryland has voted in favor of allowing resident non-citizens such as illegal immigrants to participate in local elections. The city council in College Park, home to the University of Maryland campus, has joined six other towns that allow green-card holders, illegal immigrants, and other non-citizens to vote in local elections. The decision was reached following a 4-3 council vote, which was initially scheduled last month but was postponed. [ Source: Fox News (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Satanists. Abortion. Planned Parenthood. Where in the world would those three things have anything to do with one another? In Missouri, apparently, where Planned Parenthood appears to have an unexpected ally in its quest to fight what it considers to be restrictive abortion laws. On Tuesday, Slate staff writer Christina Cauterucci connected the rise of abortion services in Missouri to recent court challenges to the state’s abortion laws by the Satanic Temple, a political activist organization and religion based in Massachusetts. Earlier this week the Temple began arguing — for a second time — in Missouri courts that the state’s abortion laws violate their members’ rights to free religious practice. [ Source: Kansas City Star (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has some 11,000 blank Syrian passports that could be used to provide fake identities for jihadists, German authorities believe. The threat of jihadists creating a fake identity and using it to travel is one that concerns European security services, who are already anxious about foreign fighters returning to their native countries. German authorities have created a list of the passport serial numbers that could be used by the group, German weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported on Sunday. It cited German federal police and interior ministry documents. "Developments in connection with the refugee situation have shown that terrorist organisations are using the opportunity to (smuggle) potential attackers or supporters into Europe and Germany undetected," a spokeswoman for the federal police told the newspaper. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Over 250 prominent scholars, pastors, and church leaders from around the world released on Tuesday a theological statement affirming the essentials of the Reformation. And its Protestant authors contend that in this 500th anniversary year, the document is a "catholic" statement in its best sense. The Reforming Catholic Confession is a document which outlines the main theological commitments held by a wide breadth of Protestant Christians, including evangelicals, since the Reformation. The purpose of such a statement is to demonstrate the remarkable togetherness that exists throughout the world among Protestants on the core elements of Christianity, said Jerry Walls, an author and professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University. Despite how some Roman Catholics fasten the divisions within Protestantism as a case against it, including the joking about there being 33,000 different denominations — as if the entire legacy of the Reformation is endless religious splintering — the Confession showcases the extensive agreement on the substance of the historic Christian faith, Walls told The Christian Post. [ Source: Christian Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - Over 250 prominent scholars, pastors, and church leaders from around the world released on Tuesday a theological statement affirming the essentials of the Reformation. And its Protestant authors contend that in this 500th anniversary year, the document is a "catholic" statement in its best sense. The Reforming Catholic Confession is a document which outlines the main theological commitments held by a wide breadth of Protestant Christians, including evangelicals, since the Reformation. The purpose of such a statement is to demonstrate the remarkable togetherness that exists throughout the world among Protestants on the core elements of Christianity, said Jerry Walls, an author and professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University. Despite how some Roman Catholics fasten the divisions within Protestantism as a case against it, including the joking about there being 33,000 different denominations — as if the entire legacy of the Reformation is endless religious splintering — the Confession showcases the extensive agreement on the substance of the historic Christian faith, Walls told The Christian Post. [ Source: Christian Post (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - South Korea says it has found a small amount of radioactive element from air samples it collected following North Korea’s latest nuclear test. The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said Wednesday the discovery of xenon-133 isotope is linked to the North’s bomb test conducted in its northeast on Sept. 3. The agency says it couldn’t verify exactly what kind of nuclear bomb the North detonated as it hasn’t found several other radioactive isotopes that typically accompany a nuclear explosion. It says the make-up of those radioactive isotopes in air samples could shows if a nuclear test was from a plutonium or uranium bomb. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More...) ] View the full article

(Worthy News) - The House of Representatives passed an amendment Tuesday which blocks funding of a controversial program reimplemented by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The amendment, co-sponsored by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wisc.), and John Conyers (D., Mich.), affects the federal government's involvement in the controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture. Attached to a larger appropriations bill, the amendment passed on a voice vote. Civil asset forfeiture is a legal procedure by which police can seize property without formally convicting or even charging its owner, based on the suspicion that the property has been involved in illegal activity. The tool was originally conceived of as a way for investigators to cripple criminal gangs, permitting them to seize drugs and cash without arresting their owners. [ Source (Read More...) ] View the full article