Trump’s church politics idea has wide reach, beyond GOP base
Trump’s church politics idea has wide reach, beyond GOP base
ATLANTA (AP) — Republican President Donald Trump’s pledge to scrap limits on church political activity could have sweeping effects that extend beyond his conservative supporters to more liberal congregations, including the black evangelical church that has long been a key component of the Democratic Party’s electoral machinery.
Yet many prominent black religious leaders say they like the law the way it is. And across the spectrum there are questions about whether churches could be pulled into the campaign finance vortex and effectively become “dark money” committees that play partisan politics without disclosing donors.
“This opens up a can of worms that would undermine the church’s moral authority,” said the Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.
In South Carolina, the Rev. Darrell Jackson doubles as a state senator. He allows politicians to attend Bible Way Church services in Columbia, but says he doesn’t even ask his parishioners to vote for him. “That’s crossing a sacred line,” Jackson said.
Trump reignited the issue last week when he used the National Prayer Breakfast to repeat his campaign pledge to “totally destroy” a rarely enforced 1954 law that threatens religious and many other nonprofit entities with loss of their tax-exempt status if they engage in explicit electioneering, such as endorsing candidates or spending money advertising in a ballot initiative campaign.
Palestinians ask world to punish Israel for settlement law
JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian Cabinet minister on Tuesday called on the international community to punish Israel for a contentious new law, just hours after the Israeli parliament adopted the bill to retroactively legalize thousands of West Bank settlement homes built unlawfully on private Palestinian land.
The explosive law, approved by lawmakers late on Monday, is the latest in a series of pro-settler steps taken by Israel’s hard-line government since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. It is expected to trigger international outrage and a flurry of lawsuits against the measure.
“Nobody can legalize the theft of the Palestinian lands. Building settlements is a crime, building settlements is against all international laws,” said Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Rula Maayaa. “I think it is time now for the international community to act concretely to stop the Israelis from these crimes.”
Trump is seen as more sympathetic to Israel’s settlement policies than his fiercely critical predecessor Barack Obama, and the Israeli government has approved plans to build thousands of new homes on occupied territory since Trump took office. Using a biblical name for the West Bank, Israeli Cabinet minister Yariv Levin said the law was “a first step in a series of measures that we must take in order to make our presence in Judea and Samaria present for years, for decades, for ages.”
“I do believe that our right over our fatherland is something that cannot be denied,” he said.
Amnesty: As many as 13,000 hanged in Syria prison since 2011
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian authorities have killed as many as 13,000 people — possibly more — since the start of the 2011 uprising in mass hangings at a prison north of Damascus known to detainees as “the slaughterhouse,” Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
In a new report covering the period from 2011 to 2015, Amnesty said 20-50 people were hanged each week at Saydnaya Prison in killings authorized by senior Syrian officials, including deputies of President Bashar Assad, and carried out by military police.
The report referred to the killings as a “calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution.”
Amnesty has recorded at least 35 different methods of torture in Syria since the late 1980s, practices that only increased since 2011, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty’s regional office in Beirut.
Other rights groups have found evidence of massive torture leading to death in Syrian detention facilities. In a report last year, Amnesty found that more than 17,000 people have died of torture and ill-treatment in custody across Syria since 2011, an average rate of more than 300 deaths a month.
At $250M, Los Angeles home most expensive listed in US
LOS ANGELES (AP) — At $250 million, a new mega mansion in the exclusive Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles is the most expensive home listed in the United States.
The passion project of developer and handbag tycoon Bruce Makowsky, the four-level, 38,000-square-foot mansion built on spec includes 12 bedroom suites, 21 bathrooms, five bars, three gourmet kitchens, a spa and an 85-foot infinity swimming pool with stunning views of Los Angeles. There’s also a 40-seat movie theater, a bowling alley, and a fleet of exotic and vintage cars worth $30 million.
According to Makowksy, only 3,000 people in the world could afford to buy it.
Military services detail plans for $30 billion budget boost
WASHINGTON (AP) — Buoyed by President Donald Trump’s pledge to rebuild the U.S. armed forces, senior Pentagon officials have delivered to Congress plans for increasing the defense budget by more than $30 billion to acquire new jet fighters, armored vehicles, improved training and more.
The informal proposals, obtained by The Associated Press, represent the first attempt by Trump’s Defense Department to halt an erosion of the military’s readiness for combat. The shortfalls outlined in the documents may provide Trump and the Republican-led Congress with a powerful incentive to strike the strict limits on military spending mandated by a 2011 budget control law.
Portions of the plans will likely be included in the formal supplemental budget for 2017 that the Trump administration is sending to Capitol Hill soon.
Top defense officials are scheduled to testify Tuesday before the House Armed Services Committee on the state of the military. They’re expected to address how the fiscal caps — known as sequestration — have pushed the armed forces to a breaking point by locking them into budgets too small to address heavy demands.
Appearing before the committee will be Gen. Daniel Allyn, Army vice chief of staff; Gen. Stephen Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff; Adm. William Moran, vice chief of naval operations; and Gen. Glenn Walters, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps.